Dark Shadows: Angelique's Descent

by Lara Parker

  Moving noiselessly across her carpet, I slipped the ebony ring from my finger and intending to leave it on her dressing table among her jewels and perfumes, I looked up to her mirror expecting to see my own trespassing form. But nothing of me was there. The mirror revealed only the shadowed room, her sleeping body, and the moon shining through her window.

  Returning to her bedside, I tried to sear my brain with what would be the image I took to my death, of her breathing body wrapped in gauzy silk, her bare breast rising and falling beneath the gathers of chiffon, the blue of the moonlight on the pillow hollowed beneath her cheek and her tangled hair. Unable to stop myself, I gently lifted one of her curls and wrapped it around my finger. I touched the lace of her gown, the delicate trim of her collar. I pulled it aside, and she moaned and turned her face away as though offering herself to me. Her pulse throbbed softly.

  “Good-bye, my dear Josette.” Her mouth fell slightly open and her small teeth glistened. I remembered all the abandoned kisses she had given me, her charming flirtations, her downcast eyes. Her breast rose and fell as she slept and I marveled at her living body, warm and vital, and I ached as I imagined it pressed against mine. “Just one kiss—” and I leaned in to touch her lips with my own. Feelings of such desperate hunger surged through me that I nearly lost consciousness from the rush of desire. “How can I say good-bye? But I must! I must!” Lifting her white hand as gently as I could, I slipped my ring on her finger, and a silent marriage vow escaped my lips. “I take thee, Josette…” Her lashes fluttered and, so afraid that she would wake, I withdrew, flew to the window in a panic and out into the night.

  Rising up from her pillow, she cried out, “Barnabas? Is it you?” and clutching the quilt to her chest, she looked around in sleepy wonder. “I thought I heard your voice.”

  She rose quickly and pulled her robe about her, then went to the window. As she looked out at the moonlit grounds of Collinwood, I wondered whether she saw my fluttering form darting into the trees. But she only unlatched the casement and leaned into the night, her fingertips resting on the sill, her dark eyes flooded with tears. “Barnabas, I know it was you. I heard your voice. You promised to return to me, and I knew you would. Come back to me, my darling.” She scanned the lawn and the trees beyond. “Or, do you wish me to come to you?”

  I settled into my coffin, bitter and resigned, but somehow at peace. I thought only of Josette, and I was profoundly comforted by the thought that I had not harmed her. She was free of me at last, and she was young. Her life stretched out before her with the promise of happiness. A great weight seemed to be lifted off me and I felt as though I were floating on air. As I closed my eyes to the world, I saw her face hovering over me, and heard her soft voice calling my name.

  Oh, Mother, what are the images I cannot erase? Her gasp when she discovered my ring on her finger. Ben digging her grave. A violent argument with Natalie who locked her in her room. The sound of glass breaking. Her discovery of the secret passage. Her foot slipping at the edge of Widow’s Hill, and her scream as she fell into the night.

  I never knew that when Ben raised the mallet to drive the stake home, it was Josette who stayed his hand.

  I woke as a suicide must wake, after he had chosen his own irrevocable death; both relief and rage surged in my breast. How could I not be giddy to feel life still boiling in my blood? But my fury with Ben seemed to overwhelm any sense of reprieve, and I determined to find him and make him my next victim. A fitting punishment for his betrayal.

  I lurched from my coffin, and immediately, such spasms of hunger shuddered through me that I thought I would not be able to stand. I staggered into the mausoleum, and when I slid open the door, the sputtering flames of candles that had burned to dripping stubs wavered slightly in the air.

  The room was drenched in floating shadows, and Josette was there, standing by Sarah’s coffin. She was dressed in black for mourning, and a long piece of lace, like a Spanish mantilla, covered her hair. Her gown was perfection, as were all her dresses, tucked and trimmed to complement her supple waist and shoulders, and she had gathered up some of the white roses from Sarah’s casket and held them in her hands as though she had been savoring their fragrance. Her face beneath the dark veil was as pale as the flowers, but her eyes were bright with tears.

  “Barnabas … my love.” The roses fell from her hands as she moved toward me.

  “No,” I cried out, backing away. “You must not come near me!”

  “But—but why? I woke from a sound sleep and I thought I heard your voice. Something drew me here, where I last saw you when you—” She stopped herself before speaking the obvious. “But you are alive! You have come back to me.”

  “I didn’t come back to you. I didn’t summon you.”

  “But you did. You were in my chamber. You left me this.” She lifted her hand to show me the ring, and reached out to touch my face. Her fingertips burned my skin.

  “Please, Josette, you must stay away from me. You must leave this place, leave Collinwood. For your own sake you must go far, far away.”

  “But why? When our love has brought us together again.”

  “I beg you, if you love me, forget you saw me. Remember all this as a terrible dream.”

  “But it isn’t a dream.” She brimmed with life and youthful eagerness, her face a glowing mixture of happiness and disbelief.

  Desperately, I looked for explanations that would convince her. Finally, I said helplessly, “There are forces at work beyond our control.”

  She smiled, a smile of secret sharing. “Yes, and I know what those forces are.”

  “You do?”

  She moved closer and looked up into my face, her mouth lifted to mine. “It is my love for you, and yours for me.”

  Again I pushed her away and forced myself to stand with Sarah’s casket between us. “You must not come near me. Go away and forget me. What you don’t see is that this is the beginning of a new life for me, one you could never understand.”

  She frowned and lifted her hand to her throat. Her face darkened and I knew that I had hurt her. “No!” she said. “I can’t forget you.” There was petulance and exasperation in her tone.

  “Josette, please go before it is too late.”

  “No, and there is nothing you can say or do, Barnabas. Now that this miracle has happened, I will never leave you again.”

  I wanted with all my being to believe her.

  “Can’t you see that I am different?” I said.

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Something has happened to you. A change…” The black lace fell across her eyes, and she seemed almost ghoulish with the splotches of shadows on her cheeks. I had a premonition of her death shroud, and my throat clenched as I spoke.

  “Don’t you remember when I was dying in my room? Don’t you remember when I lay in my casket?”

  “Yes, yes, I remember, but you promised me that you would come back, and I never believed that you had died. Now you are here, and that is all that matters to me.”

  The idea that began to bloom in my unconscious mind, I swear to you, Mother, I pushed aside. But it came again and as she persisted, all eagerness and conviction, I gave it shameful consideration. Then again, I rejected it. No! It would be wrong to cheat her of her life in order to take her into mine. I knew what could be my only choice, if I loved her. I must set her free. Believe me, Mother, I meant with all my being to convince her to leave.

  “Josette, listen to me. Most men would barter their souls and all of their possessions to do what I have done. To come back, as you say, from the grave. To live again. But it was not by choice. It came in the form of a curse! And it is that curse that makes it impossible for us to ever be together.”

  The flames sputtered and long shadows painted the walls of the mausoleum, like hovering ghosts. Josette was a specter, moving in her black dress. She seemed to understand and even to sense my reasoning, for she looked up at me, her face white beneath the black lace, and her voice calm
and certain.

  “Our love can overcome a curse. What is some silly superstition compared to our love? Because you came back for another reason. You had to come back, Barnabas, because you could not stay away. Our destinies are one, and I will die before I will leave you. Don’t you see that it is beyond our powers to resist?”

  I could feel myself faltering, giving way to her conviction, which seemed almost bewitched. She did not seem naive, but deeply aware of all that she said and what it could mean in her life. I imagined us in some foreign land, living secretly, but together. I had only to make her mine. As though she were reading my thoughts she said, “Wherever you go, take me with you. Nothing can keep us apart. I only want to be with you. I don’t care about a curse, or these things I don’t understand. The new way of life you spoke of? That will be ours. You are my life and I am yours!”

  She came to me and I could not push her away. She melted in my arms, her trembling body against mine, her fragrance filling my breath. She was like a child clinging to its mother, and I had not the heart or the will to pull her from me. She shuddered, her whole body vibrating with desire, and I tried to take her gently, without her feeling the bite, sweetly, so that she would not be afraid. “Hold me,” she whispered, “and nothing will ever harm me.” I tasted her and I gathered her to me, as a tree embraces the earth with its roots, and she let out a long sobbing sigh. “Now I have nothing to fear. At long last I am safe.”

  I can still see the dusty shed where Ben was working. There were rough boards, saws, and other tools; wooden barrels, ropes, and fishing nets. Two wooden caskets sat side by side in the sawdust, and the smell of newly cut lumber filled the air. Ben was gloomy and stubborn, sawing with ugly jerks and kicking aside the scraps. He set each nail with more strength than necessary, shaking the shed with his blows.

  “Why do you need two?”

  “I am leaving Collinwood tonight, and I am not leaving alone. One is for Josette. I will have her with me.”

  Ben, carpenter, caretaker, servant in life, unwilling slave in death, stared at me with contempt, as he had already guessed my plans. Even now the memory of that recriminating look pains me. Ben was instinctively good. Always he resisted evil, and always he tried to protect those he loved. Oh, my sweet mother, if only I had his blameless nature.

  “She doesn’t know what’s in store for her. What you are! If you love her, you won’t do this.”

  The truth of what he was saying stung my conscience. “She came to me. Her pleading tore my heart, and she won me over with her protestations. Can’t you understand? It’s what she wants. After she is dead, she’ll come back. We’ll go to sea, away together, to another land, to England and live a new life. The coffins must be ready.”

  “Mr. Barnabas, I won’t build a coffin for her. You can’t make me do it.”

  I was growing exasperated. “Don’t you see, Ben, she will make it bearable, happy even.”

  Ben threw down the saw and pulled his gloves from his hands. He leaned over to reach for his coat. “No, Mr. Barnabas. I won’t help you. Miss Josette is good. She doesn’t deserve this. You mustn’t do it.”

  “I have already done it! I couldn’t resist. I have made her what I am.”

  He turned to me, his face aghast.

  “You promised you wouldn’t go near her. I thought you loved her!”

  Mother, it may have been my lowest point, to turn on my only friend. But I was desperate to see my plan through. I had lost all reason. Infuriated beyond restraint, I grabbed Ben with both hands around the throat. “Ben,” I growled, “I can kill you. Do you want to die?”

  He struggled beneath my grip, his feet barely touching the floor. Gasping for air, he shook his head.

  “Then make ready the coach. Finish the caskets and take them to the ship!”

  I found I could watch my beloved in my mind’s eye, and it calmed me to read her thoughts. Mother, listen to me, and I will tell you what I saw.

  Josette is neither frightened nor despondent, but she has sunk into a dream. The moon rises at her window and casts its day-bright beams across the floor. She lies on her quilts staring into space, enraptured, caught in a blissful daze. She touches the small wounds at her neck and sighs as a wave of pleasure washes through her. Languid with happiness she stretches and sighs, then rises and goes to the window. The moonlight is a magnetic force, tugging at her thoughts, and she speaks as if in a trance.

  “My darling, I feel the protection of a power greater than love itself. I went to the mausoleum. Such tragic memories. Who could have forced me to go there?”

  But then my vision was altered by her confusion.

  She has somehow lost her ring. “The ring! He will expect me to have it!”

  Searching frantically, she knocks over a lamp. The sound of glass shattering is followed by faraway laughter, mirthless and hollow. She returns to the comfort of the moonlight but the fickle orb has ducked behind clouds. A storm approaches. Thunder. Trailing skeins sail over the moon and blot out its light. Breathing. A door slams. Natalie is locked out.

  Wings beating. A music box plays a scratchy, tinkling melody. Josette lifts the delicate cylinder and gazes at the spinning dancer behind the glass. She is the dancer, a sleepwalker unaware, trapped in a nightmare. And then, the inconceivable.

  A whisper, a voice disguised as mine, sounding odd and metallic, calls her. “Are you ready to leave, Josette?”

  “Yes, my darling.” She looks around in a stupor. “Where are you? Why can’t I see you?”

  “I found the ring.”

  “I feel so guilty.”

  “I will wait for you on Widow’s Hill. Sweet and gentle Josette. Go through the secret panel. Come to me.”

  She finds the latch, and the wall opens slowly. As Josette disappears down the dark corridor, Angelique laughs, an evil cackle. Then she appears! Her face is in the room like the moon released from the dark sky, white and ghostly, contorted with tears. The four-poster twists as though alive, the canopy lies tangled. The clock stops.

  At last I returned to the shed shaking the vision from my mind. Angelique was dead; I had nothing to fear from her.

  Two coffins were finished and sat close together in the coach. The horses pranced and gnawed at their bits, restless and jittery from the thunder; their hooves rang out on the cobblestones and the coach rocked. Far away lightning blinked and the wind whined. Where could she be? Why did she not come?

  “Barnabas, can you hear me?” It was a voice, one I recognized, but not her voice. “Come to me.” Who was calling to me? Was it the aberrant wind, spiraling down the alley to the sea? It spoke again in her tones, but not her inflection. “I am waiting at Widow’s Hill.”

  “Why? Why have you gone there?” This was not her voice! The truth struck me. No! “Josette! Don’t let her trick you!”

  I didn’t think anyone would ever be able to kill her.

  Josette, her nightdress covered by a long velvet cape the color of midnight with a hood lined in rose-colored satin, wanders helplessly toward the cliff. Thunder growls at the moon-streaked sky and the wind tears through the trees, their skeleton arms clawing at the sky. Mist from the sea rises, swirls around her feet, and she stops to listen to the far-off sound of the waves crashing on the rocks. She looks down. Shudders. So many have died here. Again she hears the sad, desperate laughter.

  “Who is that?”

  “Don’t worry, Josette. Your precious Barnabas will be here soon.”

  “Angelique! Why are you here?”

  “I have always been your loyal servant, Mademoiselle. I came to warn you. To show you what lies ahead. You must not go with him, Josette. He is evil. Don’t you know he plans to kill you?”

  She searched the trees for a face to go with the voice. “No. He loves me!”

  “If he loved you, he would have told you he plans to change you into what he has become. First he is planning to murder you—a death both shameful and brutal. And then, after you have bled to death, he will bring you back
to life. But you will no longer be the lovely girl you are now. You will be a grotesque, bloodthirsty animal. Look. Look over the cliff. Look into the future. See how you will change. See yourself as you will be when you have become his bride.”

  Josette, hypnotized by the voice, obeyed and walked to the edge of the cliff. At first she saw only the sea stretching out to the faint horizon, and white froth tumbling on the jagged edges of the rocks. Then, as she stared into the abyss she could see the vision Angelique had conjured for her, an image that floated in the mist and taunted her, even in her stupor, and aroused her vanity.

  Mother, I ask you now, as a woman, surely you will understand, how could she not have been brought to her senses by this fiendish apparition? For how could a maiden who possessed such beauty not be vain? She loved me, it was true, but she also loved her chestnut hair, her alabaster skin, and her luminous gaze. The mirror always gave back to her a breathing portrait of flawlessness. Often, when imagining that she was kissing me, she would kiss her own reflection, and draw back and marvel at how her love would shine in her own lash-shadowed eyes.

  And now, when she looked into the abyss, what did she see floating there? An emaciated harlot clothed in rags. The grasping wind clawed at the hem of a tattered dress, and tendrils of torn muslin swirled around her. Her shining hair was a matted tangle, her flawless complexion dull, and her high-boned cheeks were bruised hollows in her skull. Her soft eyes were sunken and bloodshot, rimmed with crimson. Blood dripped from her lips and, most hideous of all, sharp eyeteeth like daggers gleamed in a cavernous mouth.

  “No, take it away!”

  She covered her eyes and shuddered. She had never dreamed that she would be ugly. What had she to give but her beauty? Her rapturous passion sprang from her gift of ivory thighs, supple hips, a full and eager mouth. It was the complete expression of her love. I had forgotten how young she was, barely out of her teens, achingly submissive and eager to bestow upon her lover all her perfection, like a vessel of rare wine.