Dark Shadows - A New Beginning

Chapter Sixteen

Character portrait included: Stanley Polinsky

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Lucifera had just finished casting her spell.

At the Old House, Adam was jarred awake momentarily by an unexplainable rush of anxiety. He opened his eyes just long enough to scan the room and make sure all was well. 

Then his tiredness overtook him again. 

His head fell back against the parlor chair, but instead of falling back into that nothingness of a dreamless sleep, it was as though he were awake again. 

He was lying back against something hard and flat. He raised his hand and felt a cold, flat surface above him too. 

He pushed and heard the sound of wood creaking in his ears. Something seemed to fall away above him, and he stood. 

Then his hand went for a certain brick in the wall of the room where he was. When he pushed in the brick, the wall began to swing open. 

He was in a parlor, but he felt nothing toward that fact. He barely registered the young man with blonde hair who was asleep in a chair.

It was not this young man that he must have, and not in this house.

He proceeded to two double doors and made his way out into the night air. He walked without knowing where he was now, or where he was going. It was simply as though he must walk.

After walking for a long time, he noticed buildings out of the corner of his eye, but they meant nothing to him. It was as though he had to keep walking. 

Then a new sensation overtook him when he spotted a young woman just ahead. This sensation compelled him to do something different.

"Stay away from me!" the woman screeched. "No!"

His hands gently embraced her. 

"Please," she sobbed. "Please...no..."

He brushed her hair aside and dove for her neck, feeling his teeth tear into the flesh there. He drank greedily as she whimpered like a frightened child. 

With a burst of agony Adam cried out and jerked awake with wide, horrified eyes. The sun was shining into the room through the large parlor windows. 

"It can't be," Adam whispered out loud to himself, trembling all over. "No..."

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"It is nice to have a day off," Stanley allowed himself to admit. "I like Collinwood, but sometimes the scenery does get a little redundant."

By Stanley's calculations, they'd left Rockport about an hour ago. His friend the other Adam - as he'd come to think of him - had said that the sanitarium was just over an hour away.

"How much further is it?" he asked.

"We're not far now," Adam replied, his expression and tone thoughtful. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Stanley assured him. "If I'm going to keep hearing about Carolyn at home, I'd at least like to know who she is."

"That reminds me," Adam said. "I should give you a little heads-up about Carolyn's moods. Sometimes, she knows she's Carolyn. At those times, she talks mostly alright. You could believe that she was sane. She asks about Collinwood and her son Jeb. However, at other times she thinks that she's someone from the past named Leticia Faye. She might be Carolyn today, or she might be Leticia. If she is Leticia, we must humor her. She gets dreadfully upset if anyone argues with her about being Leticia."