540 - Cassandra, clutching her bandaged hand, comes downstairs. Nicholas tells her bandaging the hand was very sensible of her, and she does so few sensible things. She pleads with him to not do this to her, and he reminds her he could have done worse. You need me, she insists, and can't destroy me-you need me in order to stay at Collinwood. Nicholas points out that no matter what happens to her, Roger will still think him her brother, and if he decides to destroy her, he will let Roger think she has gone away and allow him to stay at Collinwood indefinitely, if he wants. She insists he can't do this, but he assures her he can-and will-if she doesn't learn what went wrong with Barnabas' curse. You only gave me a few hours, she whines, I need help. He refuses, telling her to stop pleading with him, she's made too many mistakes already. She tells him she doesn't know what to do, how to start. That's your problem, he says (he's tough!), and she remembers Willie. He told Maggie Barnabas was dead and must know what happened after her dream curse came to an end. Cassandra will summon him and force him to tell her whatever he knows. Nicholas tells her to go ahead-without his help. Fail again, and Cassandra Collins will cease to exist. He hold up a glass of brandy as a toast to what he is telling her.
At the Old House, Willie admits David, who asks for Julia. She's in town, says Willie. David says he wants to talk to Julia about the tape recorder, something he wants her to hear. Willie says Julia doesn't have time to discuss tape recorders and promises to tell Julia David was there. David asks Willie about Adam, unnerving the poor guy. Willie says he doesn't know anymore about Adam than David does, and the boy says Barnabas knows about Adam-there's some connection between Adam and Barnabas. Willie demands to know what connection, and David says he isn't sure. Willie says Barnabas knows nothing about Adam, but David protests, "It's on this tape!" Willie sends David on his way, almost kicking him out, and David wants to know why Willie is so nervous. Willie closes the door in the boy's face and leans back against it, shaking.
On the terrace, Cassandra summons Willie, who, doing some dusting at the Old House, is puzzled. "Come to me," chants Cassandra. Willie protests that he doesn't want to go there, but she orders him to hear her voice and obey her-he has no choice. She realizes he has gotten the message, and he appears before her as ordered. He's surprised to see who summoned him, and she tells him to look at her.
He refuses, but she is insistent, and he has no choice. Hypnotized, he listens raptly to her. "Tell me everything you know about Barnabas Collins," she demands. What happened after the dream? Willie tells her Julia and he found Barnabas after he'd been attacked by the bat, and there were two gashes in his neck and he was bleeding. Julia found no heartbeat. They buried him. Cassandra is shocked to hear this. Willie says Barnabas told Julia he wanted to be buried where nobody could find him, if it happened (this wasn't true; he wanted to be staked). Willie goes on-he dug the grave in the woods, put the coffin in the ground and covered it with dirt. Then he returned to the Old House with Julia, who was going to give him a job at Windcliff. Willie returned to the Old House and there he was, alive. How? asks Cassandra, but Willie has no idea. He escaped the curse was all he told Willie. Cassandra is terribly upset that Willie isn't more forthcoming. He says such things scare him, and he'd rather not know. He's telling the truth, he can't lie to her. She sends him back to Collinwood-he'll forget that she summoned him. He walks off, slowly, and she is in despair. She was so certain he knew something! She starts climbing up on the terrace and finds Nicholas sitting there. "Well, Cassandra," he says, sounding jubilant, "another failure!" He witnessed her fiasco and could almost pity her as each tick of the clock brings her closer to her own destruction. She learned a great deal from Willie, she says, Barnabas did revert to what he was, temporarily, and he was buried in the earth-so her conversations wasn't a complete failure. Nicholas wants to know why Barnabas didn't revert to being a vampire permanently, and how did he escape from his grave? Find out those things, he says, if she expects him to spare her. She doesn't know those answers, but there must have been an intervening factor. She will learn what it is and remove it, she swears, and Barnabas will become a vampire again. She needs a little more time, she pleads, and he tells her how much her pleading bores him. Be reasonable, she asks, how can I learn what I need to know before midnight?--I need a day, a week! He insists he's been lenient enough already. She begs and begs for more time, and he tells her to stop it. "All right, Cassandra!" he says, he's decided he won't destroy her at midnight if she can't come up with the info-her pitiful pleas have caused him to change his mind. She thanks him, and he advises her not to, so relieved, but then he drops the bomb-he's changing her deadline to 9 PM, one hour from now! He's quite annoyed with her failure and pleas for mercy. If she can't obtain the necessary info by then, he will destroy her. She says she can't find out in an hour, and he advises her to, instead, spend the next hour preparing for the moment of her destruction. (He is so good here, so wicked and unrelenting, you've gotta love this guy!)
The clock ticks. It's 8:55. Cassandra stares at it. Four more minutes and she'll be destroyed by Nicholas, forever! There's nothing she can do about it, nothing at all! David comes over to her and notices her hand, which she says she burned. She says he should be in bed, something he isn't happy to hear, and she says she wants to be alone--he should go to bed. He asks her to listen to the tape recording Julia gave him, there's something funny on it, and he doesn't understand.
She says she isn't in the mood and again tries to send him up to bed. David dejectedly heads upstairs, then, on the first step, turns and asks her if she knows very much about Barnabas- does she know what his "affliction" is? This catches her attention, and suddenly, she's very anxious to hear this tape. She drags him into the drawing room, and he's surprised at her abrupt change of mind. She tells him to hurry, she wants to hear the tape. It's about two minutes to nine now. She hears the music, and listens impatiently, telling him to speed up the tape to get to the good stuff. She listens to Lang's voice, hears what he has to say about Adam and Barnabas, and realizes this is her get out of jail free card.
The music resumes and David turns off the recorder. He asks Cassandra if she knows what it means. "Adam. . .Barnabas, of course!" she murmurs, but when David asks her to explain, she hustles him out as fast as she hustled him in. She demands he get out, hysterical, and as the clock strikes her nine PM deadline, she screams, again and again, for Nicholas.
NOTES: Gotta love how nasty Nick is to Cassandra, like a stern professor chiding his pupil for failing her final. He leads her to believe he's giving her MORE time, when he's decided to get her much less. His idea of irony will come to fun fruition in a few weeks, too, when he visits upon her an even more twisted fate. . .
541 - Cassandra continues to call for Nicholas, who appears before her in the drawing room. It's time for them to say goodbye, he mocks her, and she says he can't destroy her-she's learned why her curse failed, and now she can make it succeed. She can make Barnabas what he was before! Nicholas purses his lips with interest.
Nicholas listens to Lang's tape. He finds it extremely interesting and congratulates her for being successful, for once. She can make her curse succeed by killing Adam, then Barnabas will revert to what he was. Nicholas is far more interested in Adam than her curse. He wonders if anyone actually was able to create a living human being, and he MUST find out how it was done. It would open up a world of possibilities. Cass doesn't know the voice on the tape, although it sounds familiar, and he orders her to keep listening until she remembers. They must find Adam, and he might need her help. He's going to let her live as long as she proves useful and doesn't make anymore mistakes. Who was the last person to see Adam, he asks her. Joe, after Adam attacked him, says Cass, and the cops are still looking for him. Nicholas figures someone is hiding him, perhaps Barnabas, but Cass says she overheard Barn asking Carolyn if he'd seen Adam. Now Joe. ..Nicholas remembers him as the man engaged to Maggie, and he smiles as he decides to pay her a call. Cass notices his interest and wonders if he has a plan in store for Miss Evans. He hurries away, but Cass stops him, asking him to restore her hand. He can't leave it the way it is--Roger will be home, wonder what happened. He tells her to prevent him from seeing it, and teases her that the hand of a skeleton would provide problems.
He suggests leaving it that way to teach her a lesson, punishment, but he orders her to remove the bandages. He takes them off for her, and she is relieved to see her hand back to its normal beauty. He decided to spare her, he says, one last chance-if she makes a single mistake or messes up his plans, he'll destroy her. He loops the bandage over her shoulder and departs. Cassandra listens intently to Lang's tape.
Evans cottage - Nicholas looks through the window and sees Maggie sitting and sewing. He raps at the door and she admits him, pleased to see him. She happily invites him in, takes his hat. He asks about Joe, and she says he's going to be OK, but hospitalized a long time. She's relieved about that. Nicholas says he knew of Sam's tragic death and wouldn't want to wish a double tragedy on her, had Joe died. He offers his condolences about her father, and asks about Sam's paintings. She tells him to look around, and he admires Sam's work, walking around to check out several paintings. "Excellent," he says. He especially likes one painting and offers her two thousand dollars for it. Maggie is shocked, and he asks if it's enough. She says honestly, Sam never got that kind of money for his work. He praises her for being beautiful and exceptionally honest, too. He feels the painting IS worth that much and wants to pay it to her. She admits to needing the money, and he says he'll buy it, but leave it with her, on a permanent loan--he wants to hang it when he has a place of his own. She demurs, saying he's kind, but she doesn't want to take his money yet keep the painting. He asks her to consider it, and she says she will. He looks at the painting of Betty Hanscomb (which I thought Sam gave Vicki ages ago), then questions her about Adam. She says she wants him punished for what he did to Joe and her father. Maggie says Stokes was hiding them, or so they suspected, and did find Adam, but there was no sign of him when Stokes' house was searched. Stokes claims Adam was a beggar, but they believe he was hiding him. Someone else must be hiding him now, suggests Nicholas, but Maggie has no idea who. Nicholas says he hopes the man is found, then takes his leave. She tells him to feel free to stop by anytime, ("and call me Maggie"), and he tells her he is Nicholas and he just might take her up on that.
They gaze at each other, the attraction quite mutual, and she is still smiling when she closes the door. Nicholas grins, too, outside.
Cass admires her restored hand. David comes in--he wants his tape recorder, then he'll go to bed. She says he can't take it, but he insists it's his. She doesn't want him listening to it half the night, she's his mother and he can have the recorder back in the morning. He says she's acting strangely--she screamed at him and scared him by the way she looked at him earlier.
She apologizes for scaring him and asks his forgiveness. He accuses her of understanding what's on the tape, but she denies it. He said she got excited after listening to the tape, but she claims she was puzzled. She believes it doesn't mean a thing, and touches David on the shoulder. He notices the missing bandage, and she says her burn wasn't as serious as she thought. He heads upstairs, giving her a weird look, and she closes the doors. David sneaks back downstairs and out the front door. Cassandra listens to the tape again.
Old House - Julia answers David's knock. He says he must speak to her, he had to sneak away from Collinwood. It's about the tape recorder-there's something funny on it. Music, then a man's voice. Julia is attentive. The man speaks to you, says David, and says things I don't understand. Julia puts it together-Eric left her a message. David explains something about Barnabas and Adam, if Adam lives, something would happen to Barn, but if Adam died, something else would happen to Barnabas. David doesn't remember specifics, but Julia urgently says he must try to remember. David can't-it makes no sense. Julia puts her arm around David and they head back to Collinwood. Nicholas is furious at Cassandra for letting Stokes find out about her. How did he, demands Nicholas, and she explains about how Stokes learned of the dream curse, forced himself to have the dream, forced her, as Angelique, to come to him. He knows Cassandra, and while she tried to deny It, Stokes, didn't believe her. Nicholas spits out that she's a fool. She reminds him Stokes couldn't stop the curse. Nicholas wonders how much power he has, and she doesn't know how much Stokes knows about Adam. Nicholas is angry at how little she does know. The front door opens and Julia and David troop in. Nicholas and Cassandra hear them and meet them in the foyer. Cassandra is annoyed David isn't in bed, but he says he isn't a baby, and doesn't care that she wants to speak to Roger. She and Nicholas excuse themselves to get some air, and David and Julia go into the drawing room. David plays the recorder, but the music isn't the same (it's the same creepy music used in THE SHINING). They wonder who took the tape, and David says Cassandra heard it and got all excited. Julia shakes him slightly and tells him he must remember what's on the tape, but he can't. David doesn't understand the tape's importance, or why someone would want to take it, and suggests Cassandra took the tape and left it in his bedroom.
He runs upstairs, but Julia is sure Cassandra kept the tape, knows about the experiment, Adam, and how to destroy Barnabas-and there's no way she can stop her, no way at all! Julia's face is filled with frustration, and we see the tape recorder, now filled with the a completely different tape.
NOTES: There was no time to change it from when Julia and David came in until Nicholas and Cassandra left, so it must have been witchcraft.
Love, Robin
