Dark Shadows - A New Beginning

Chapter Fifteen

Character Portrait included: Barnabas as Adam Collins

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"You!"

Lucifera turned away from Quentin and thought fast. What should she say?

"Do we know one another?" she asked, making herself sound confused. 

"I don't know," Quentin said strangely. "I feel like we might have met in some place. You look very familiar to me."

"Quentin!" David cut in with mild surprise. "You're back?"

"Sorry about not writing cousin. I took a nasty fall in the Alps, and it has taken me this long to recover, but it could be worse. It looks like the Quentin Collins luck holds..."

David rolled his eyes, but good-naturedly. It was accompanied with a smile.

"Are you hungry? I could get our new cook to fix you something."

"We have a cook?" Quentin asked curiously. "Who are they?"

"His name is Stanley Polinsky. I hired him only a few days ago, actually. You know that we've been needing a cook around here."

"Certainly cousin," Quentin agreed with a playful grin. "We can't all live on a diet of hard liquor, as I'm frequently given to doing."

Quentin and David shared a laugh over that.  

Lucifera decided it was time to start the first phase of her plan.

"Please excuse me," she said.

She went up to her room and dug through her belongings, looking for her hand mirror. She kept one somewhere. Ah...

Lucifera carefully removed the mirror from her suitcase, taking especial care not to glance into it. This mirror was intended only to reflect the image of Adam Collins.

She headed back downstairs and found that David and Quentin had taken up their conversation in the drawing room.

"Think I'll go for a walk," she announced, poking her head in. "I could use some fresh air."

"Alright, be safe," David told her. 

She nodded and made her way out of Collinwood, directing her way toward the Old House. She was still carrying the mirror, which she'd carefully wrapped in linen to keep it from reflecting her in any way. 

When she'd arrived at the Old House, she knocked and heard the expected footsteps. 

"Miss Faris," Adam acknowledged her, managing a small smile. "Please come in!"

"Thank you."

She followed him into the parlor and had a seat in on the couch. It was then that Adam noticed the linen-wrapped parcel she was carrying.

"I brought this over to show you," Lucifera explained. "I get the impression that you like antiques."

"Sometimes," Adam agreed, and carefully unfolded the linen. "My, what a pretty looking hand mirror! This must be old. May I?"

"Please do," she said.

Adam carefully lifted the mirror and admired it. He expectedly looked at his reflection in it for a long moment.

"The glass is very well-preserved," he noted. "I don't see a scratch or an imperfection on it."

"Now I'm curious Mr. Collins," Lucy said with a slight smirk. "Why would someone of your young age be interested in antiques?"

"Oh, I... I grew up looking at family volumes with drawings and photographs of historic Collins family antiques.

"Most young men your age wouldn't have the slightest interest in antiques," Lucifera pointed out.

"What are you implying?" Adam questioned, but in a playful way, as though he were merely inviting conversation.

"I just find you most interesting," she said with a wide smile. "That's all..."

Adam rewrapped the mirror and handed it back to her.

"Well, thank you for showing it to me. It is a fine thing."

"I'm glad you admire it, Mr. Collins. I just wanted to show it to you. It belonged to my great-grandmother. Well, I think I'll be heading back to Collinwood."

"Good night, Miss Faris,"

Lucifera had a devious smile on her face the entire way back through the woods. 

She was glad to find David and Quentin still occupied. She didn't want to focus on anything but what she had purposed...

She locked herself in her bedroom and brought out the mirror, which she placed on her dresser without removing the protective linen. First, she must set up the space for her work.

First, she brought out a candlestick and fitted a black candle into it. Muttering several words under her breath, she brought out a silver pentagram necklace, and lit the candle. 

After passing the pentagram in front of the candle flame several times, she pulled back the linen, and made sure to raise the mirror with the glass facing away from her. 

She passed the mirror in front of the pentagram necklace several times, and only after that did she finally look into the glass.

Her lips settled into a triumphant smile when she saw Adam looking back at her from within the mirror. 

"Now Adam Collins," Lucifera began, "your doppelganger is in my power. An exact double of your soul. A reflection of you, which will reside in this mirror during your waking hours. However, whenever you sleep, the doppelganger will depart from this mirror and seek out that body which your soul knows so well. The body of Barnabas Collins. The body of Barnabas will rise and walk, but with no reason or direction. That body's sole impulse will be to do what comes naturally to it, for the doppelganger is directionless without you to direct it, and you don't know that I've created it. Barnabas will walk and feed upon any unfortunate victim he happens upon. In sleep, you will experience through that body, but you will be powerless to stop what it does. For it is your doppelganger through which you will experience, and that is in MY power. Every night you will experience every injury and death your old body inflicts, almost as though you'd done them yourself - and that will be an agony to you! Every morning you will wake tormented. Your nightly experiences may seem to you only bad dreams at first, but when you begin to hear the reports, a horrifying realization will begin to dawn on you. Then you will know you are utterly powerless, and sleep will become a thing you fear and loathe. For to sleep will be to submit to this torment. To sleep will be to stalk and terrorize and kill - night after night after night! Yet that will be only the beginning of your punishment. The next horrifying phase will come at the right time, but until then - all that I have said is what is to be."

Lucifera smiled and blew out the candle, sealing the spell.