Wolf Moon Rising (44 page)

“David. It’s Jamison Collins. It’s your grandfather!”

“What? Are you sure?”

“I met him. To night at the party!”

“Why do we gather?” the leader shouted, but the roar of the

fi re was drowning out his words, and David could hear only

snatches of his tirade.

“Our task is . . . keep clean the sparkling stream of

America . . . dam the polluting undercurrents . . . clear the

backwash fl owing into our waters . . . banish all races other

than the white race . . . the Nordic strain.” He pointed an impe-

rious fi nger at the prisoners. “Th

ese condemned men have been

keeping a still in the woods . . .

brewing illegal alcohol . . .

breaking the law of our great nation. Th

e Dev il is in moon-

shine! We are as one— victorious, white, Protestant patriots!”

Th

e wind rose from off the sea and David was struck by the

heat of a hundred torches as the marchers leaned over and

touched them to the base of the great cross. It fl ared with a

whoop of fl ame, and the fi re snaked up and exploded across the

arms, etching the sky with a furious apparition, the Christian

symbol of martyrdom.

As David pulled back, clinging to Jackie, he was numb with

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disbelief and shame for his family. Now he remembered Blair’s

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words the fi rst morning he had visited the family.
I would like to
journey to the year 1929, where I might make contact with a certain
Jamison Collins. Something occurred during the Depression that could
clarify everything, something that may explain the curse that lies on
your family.
Was he witnessing that now, David wondered, the source of the curse, the strain of greed and hatred disguised as

virtue was that to be his heritage?

At that moment, Jamison Collins raised a tommy gun out of

his robe and fi red it into the air, the shots crackling in the sky.

Immediately, the fi ve men on the rope pulled back and hoisted

the two prisoners off their feet and up to where they hung dan-

gling, kicking and jack- knifi ng their bodies in a frantic eff ort to escape. Th

e stronger one of the two was able to lift himself by

the noose, loosen it slightly, and thrust his head through it just as the other man’s neck broke and he shuddered in the throes of

death.

Th

e escaped man fell to the ground in a heap— while his

companion swung limp— and scrambled to his feet, then took

off through the crowd, weaving in and out of the ghostly fi gures

who tried to block his way or grab for him while Jamison Col-

lins fi red his gun over their heads.

But the man found a way through the herd, and once outside

the circle, he ran, his legs plowing the ground, running toward

the trees and coming right for David and Jackie as if drawn by a

magnet of hope, until the bullets reached him, and arching and

grabbing for his stomach, he fell at their feet, howled, and rolled over on his back. As he took his fi nal breaths, his eyes glistened, then froze in death, but not before they had locked into David’s

in one last plea for help.

“Who’s that?” one of the Klansmen at the back of the crowd

cried out, his black eye holes staring at David and Jackie. “Who’s

there?” Th

ere was murmuring as several others looked back as

well, waving their arms in their direction. Th

en the crowd be-

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gan to move toward them. One raised his cross and yelled,

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“Th

is is a private gathering! Intruders!” In response, other voices

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

shouted, “Spies! Infi dels!” and the cone- headed fi gures tottered closer and thrust their torches into the forest.

David’s body convulsed with fear. “Run!” he screamed, and

grabbed Jackie’s hand; the two of them tore off back through

the woods, with white- sheeted bodies lurching after them and

gunshots fi ring behind them, bullets ricocheting off trunks and

David screaming at Jackie, “Run! Don’t let them go by us!” But

the ghostly fi gures overtook them, fl itted past them, surrounded

them, and cut off any path through.

“Which way?” cried Jackie as they saw they were being

hemmed in and forced to run in the direction of the huge cross,

which was still burning furiously, fl inging out bonfi re heat, and then they were beneath it, hearing its roar, and behind it was the cliff that thrust out over the sea and the rocks below: Widow’s

Hill.

Pressed from behind, they ran until they could go no far-

ther and stopped at the cliff ’s edge, and in a crazed fl ash David thought of the Fool in the tarot cards standing on the precipice,

and he looked down where the white foam tumbled against the

boulders, then turned to see the whole mass of Klansmen bear-

ing down on them, waving torches and fi ring shots that David

could hear whizz past his ears. He felt Jackie’s hand in his when

she whispered, “Jump!”

“What? We can’t. It’s too high.”

And she leapt into the air.

Falling was an odd sensation, a mixture of freedom and

doom, plummeting faster every moment while he fl oundered in

space, trying to swim against gravity, praying his thrashing would

bring him close enough to snatch at a tree limb or an outthrust

branch, but the ground was exploding toward him and the

white foam of the sea was reaching up to embrace him. His

shirt and pants fi lled with air and created a feeble parachute as

he gasped for his last breath, his chest in a vise, and wondered

vaguely where Jackie was and whether he would feel the impact,

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or if there would be a sudden and total jolt of blackness, the

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Lara Parker

obliteration of all that he was. Th

en he felt a tiny itch in his

palm, fi ngers fumbled for his, a hand grabbed his hand and held

on, jerked and tugged, and a wave of warm air rose up under

him. She was beside him, clutching his hand and they weren’t

falling, but hovering, and a strong blast of wind thrust them out

and away from the cliff as though they had been caught by an

updraft that lifted them like kites. He wondered if the end had

come and he had never felt it since this new sensation was like

an afterlife of paradise, fl oating on the waves of the wind. He

stretched out his body and saw the dim horizon where the night

sky met the glistening sea, and he took his fi rst breath since his leap into space.

He was fl ying now, as if in a dream; the roaring in his ears

grew fainter, more like celestial humming, and he looked over

to see Jackie fl oating beside him, her face calm and almost wist-

ful, the wind caressing them both, threading fi ngers through

their hair and billowing their clothes, and as so many times he

had watched the sea birds ride invisible currents, he understood

their ease because the air fl owed beneath him as well.

Th

ey fl ew a long way from the cliff , leaving fi re and gun-

shots far behind, until they fi nally settled in a dark cove and saw the snow on the sand and knew they had come home.

Th

ey hid beside the rocks while he held her in his arms and

they both choked on hot tears, and he pulled her face against

his chest while she wept, and in all the love he felt there was

despair since he knew now she was more than strange, that she

was not really human after all but some enchanted creature who

lived in another realm.

He would never be worthy of her, could never imagine her

as something so ordinary as a girlfriend, much less a companion

for life. He knew she would always be just out of reach, beyond

his understanding, profoundly bewitched. Th

at’s what she was,

yes, a witch, not a witch from TV shows and comic books, but a

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true sorceress with powers she herself did not understand. He

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was not on the cliff ’s rim anymore; still, with her next to him,

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he teetered at the edge of the world. Th

e void reached for him

and he fell with her into a deep sleep.

David’s body was one long and silver fl ute of longing as he

held her in a dream before she turned to smoke in his arms,

the fragrance of her hair still on his lips. Half imagined, half

fl esh, she melted against him and his fi ngers dipped into her skin and she was solid and moving against him, then she was swirling

smoke, a shadow, and he looked up to see her laughing on a

branch above his head.

After sleeping for hours, they woke and found a path up the

cliff and climbed it silently hand in hand to the road, and there

was the car, parked in the snow where they might have left

it had they never driven it to Collinwood, and even the torn

painting was still inside, wrapped in blue satin.

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S e v e n t e e n

Jacqueline, get up, honey. We’re leaving.”

Jackie woke to feel her mother shaking her and speaking

in a hoarse voice. “Pack some things, what ever you need for the

next few days.”

When the light attacked her eyes with a searing pain, Jackie

moaned and turned her face away, pulling the pillow over her

head. Th

e pillowcase smelled of vomit. Th

en she remembered

that David was asleep beside her, hidden under the blankets.

“God, you’re such a mess! Wait a minute . . . who’s that? Oh,

God, Jackie. Oh, shit.”

“It’s David, Mom . . .” Jackie realized she could barely

speak, that her lips were glued together and her head throbbing

with such a dull ache she felt as if she were about to throw up

again. It was the debilitating migraine that always attacked her

after a spell. “We just fell asleep.”

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“No, Jackie, I can’t stand it. Not this—”

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“Mom, please. Stop.”

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David was awake now, sitting up in the bed and blinking,

just as surprised as Antoinette to fi nd himself there. He looked

around the room, his gaze lingering on Jackie’s many paintings

tacked to the walls, landscapes and still lifes, pencil drawings of people she barely knew, and again he was surprised to see several sketches of himself, all amazing likenesses. He had forgot-

ten that she was so skilled.

“Uh, hello, Mrs. Harpignies. I . . . listen, don’t freak out,

nothing happened, Jackie was just sick and I thought maybe I

should stay with her.”

“Well you can go now. Get out! She’s fi fteen, for God’s sake.”

“I know, and I would never do anything to hurt her.”

“We just—” Jackie tried to clear the cobwebs in her head.

“David, get up, and get out of my daughter’s room.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I’m just leaving. But if you don’t mind my say-

ing so, you don’t look so good.”

“Leave.”

David reached for his jacket and backed toward the door,

but lingered a moment. “You sure you don’t need some help?”

Antoinette ignored him.

Trying to move slowly so as not to jar her brain, Jackie

rolled over and looked at her mother. It was as though she was

seeing her for the fi rst time in weeks. Antoinette was so pale,

her face haggard and drawn into her skull, and, Jackie realized,

incredibly thin, the fl esh sagging on her arms. With no make-

up, her cheeks were gray and her mouth was a bloodless white.

Antoinette closed her eyes and turned back to her daughter, and

spoke to her again in a voice that quivered in pain.

“Listen, honey, it’s all over with the Collinses. We’re going.

We’re going today while there’s still time.” Th

en she seemed to

crumple inside and sat down on the bed and took Jackie’s hands.

“We’re getting out of here, out of Collinsport. Oh, God . . .

while I still have the strength.” She waved two train tickets in

her fi st. “We’re taking the twelve o’clock train to Boston and

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then going on to New York.”

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“Why . . . how can we do that?” Jackie looked over at

David.

“Easy. We just go.”

“Mother, what’s happened? You look so . . . so pale.”

“I have to leave before he wakes up.”

“Who?”

“Who? Where have you been?”

Th

e journey to the past fl ashed into Jackie’s mind with

alarming terror. All that she had witnessed fl ew across her con-

sciousness in a jumble of images, some heartbreaking and some

horrifi c. As her head was being hammered by pain, one memory

jarred her more than the others, and guilt lodged in her throat