A new day at Collinwood and another strange occurrence… I knocked on the door of the Old House and when Barnabas answered, I told him that what I had just seen: a man with long sideburns wearing old-fashioned clothes. When I yelled out to him, he disappeared.
Barnabas told me that the family was staying at the Old House and Collinwood was for the ghosts now. It was an incredible story, but he said now I knew as much as he did. I asked him about the woman that tried to help me. She shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Why would she want to get everybody out?
Barnabas agreed with me. He said he’d been going through all the records looking for clues about who she was and why she was living here. If we could learn that much, he thought we could establish a connection between me and her. I told him it was no use; I’m trapped here. I don’t know why I ever thought I could get through this.
All I do is keeping thinking about it every day, not knowing what’s going to happen to me that night. I should keep moving. I shouldn’t stay in one place trying to pretend that I’m like other people. I can’t get close to anyone. I shouldn’t even try to know them. I should keep moving… running, until I’m caught.
Barnabas told me I can’t, and I told him he knows that about me. Sometimes I wonder how and why he knows so much about me. Then he spotted something outside the window and said it was David. He left me and went to the front door.
When he returned, he was with Maggie, telling her about the strange figure I saw standing staring at the house. She asked, “Quentin?” Barnabas seemed surprised and asked where she heard that name. She said from David. She had found him lying on the floor in his bedroom. He’d told her he’d fallen, but she didn’t believe him. He kept murmuring the name, “Quentin.”
Barnabas told her there was a Quentin Collins; he read about him last night. There must be a connection. Maybe there’s a picture of him. He opened a photo album and asked, since Maggie and I both saw him, did he look like anyone in it. He stepped away and told us to look through it.
While we were doing that, he read from another book. Quentin Collins, born 1870, date of death unknown. Then I saw his picture! Maggie agreed with me and told Barnabas to look. He asked if we were sure. Maggie said she couldn’t forget him. Barnabas read the caption, “Quentin, just before he left for Paris.”
He then asked me if he looked any older than his picture. Maggie and I both said, “No,” and Barnabas concluded that he must have died just after he got to Europe. Why didn’t they know this? Why is his spirit haunting Collinwood now? Why has he decided to possess the children? Why… why?
I got home to find Carolyn standing in the cottage, as happy to see me as I was unhappy to see her. She said when she arrived, she expected it to be empty, but when she saw the picture of me and Amy, she knew I hadn’t gone, that I’d never leave it behind. She called me, “the mysterious Mr. Jennings,” who announces that he’s leaving for no reason at all, then decides to stay for no discernible reason, either. She said she thinks she has trouble reading me.
I told her not to try. When she said she didn’t think she heard me, I was more adamant… don’t try! She appeared a little shaken and told me it was funny, for a couple days she thought we had a romance going. I shook my head and told her she was wrong. She replied that she wasn’t and that I was being wrong now.
All right, we had something going. Past tense. Had. She told me I wasn’t very subtle today. I raised my voice and asked why she kept on making me do this? She said she didn’t intend to. I asked her if she could understand that part of the reason I was going to leave was because of her. “But why?” she cried. She told me I’m the man who never offers an explanation for anything and she was beginning to think there was a mystery about my past.
She said there must be something I didn’t think she could help me with, something she can’t know, and that makes it terribly difficult to understand me. I know that. She asked if I knew that, why didn’t I do something about it, settle whatever it is within myself? I told her that maybe, just maybe, I was trying to do just that, and just maybe I had to do it completely alone. Maybe I couldn’t have her do it even if I wanted her to.
She asked me if I wanted her to. I told her I was going to stay, but as far as she and I were concerned, we just couldn’t see each other. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it’s got to be. She turned her head so I wouldn’t see her crying. I told her all I knew to say was that for both our sakes, we just couldn’t see each other anymore. I told her to please not cry and she replied not to worry, she wasn’t going to.
She walked toward the door, then turned to say she hoped someday I could find someone I could talk to about whatever was bothering me. For a moment or so, she really thought she might be the one. Now I was the one with tears in my eyes.
When Carolyn opened the door to leave, Amy stepped in. She wasn’t supposed to be out by herself. She told me Maggie watched her until she got to the door. She asked me what was wrong with Carolyn, and I told her I didn’t know. She said she was crying and asked if I made her unhappy. I quietly replied, yeah, I guess I did…
…but I made myself even more unhappy.
Leave a Reply