The Madonnas
Rest high above
The Lion's Head watches the Dove
In the Womb Beneath the Hill
A Secret Flame glows Bright and Still
Willie sat on a patch of errant grass that overlooked the
rough and jagged rocks. His hair was being constantly blown
by the violent and frigid winds that whipped through the area.
As he gazed out past the tumultuous and frigid water below him,
he contemplated the time he had spent at Collinsport, and in particular,
the Old House that Barnabas had resided in. He chucked another
rock over the edge and listened to it descending down, smacking
the sides of the cliff until it hit the craggy rocks far below.
He breathed out a tired and weary sigh, as he looked back over
his shoulder towards the Old House.
He saw the sun was becoming lower in the sky, casting a
red tint to the cold eeriness to the land below it. The call of
a lonely owl in the distance signalled the oncoming night.
Putting his head down, his shoulders slumped as he resigned
himself to the fact that it was time to go back.
Getting up, he felt so damn old before his time.
Old, worn out and nothing to prove of his thirty-plus years
of life except of the knife scars and a broken nose or two from
the bar room brawls... and one solitary supernatural being that
he alone, had been responsible for unleashing back into this world.
Maybe that's why he had stayed. Because, at least with
Barnabas he felt he was needed. And Barnabas had depended on him
for his existence. Maybe not wanted, but surely needed.
Or, perhaps it was because the both of them were oddly
similar, as Barnabas didn't belong to this time, and Willie
didn't belong anywhere at all. They were both misfits. And,
yet each in a strange way, in need of the other.
As he walked up the well-worn path that had become so familiar
to him, the bone-chilling winds picked up again and threatened
to tear through his thin windbreaker.
Beginning to shiver, he stopped, placing his cigarette to the
corner of his lips. He squinted his eyes shut as the smoke
drifted towards him, stinging his eyes. Grabbing the zipper,
he pulled it up quickly. He tucked his chin into his chest.
Then taking the cigarette out once more, he resumed his
walking.
Stepping up to the front door, he pulled one last drag,
and flicked it to the porch, stepping on it to crunch out its
life. Looking at it, the thought of how easy it was to do that
to Barnabas. It took just one swift strike through his non-beating
heart to end all the nightmarish years of hell they both had lived.
Yes, their pain had ended this afternoon.
Willie knew Barnabas would have been cursed forever as
a creature of the undead. His cruel punishment had already extended
for over two hundred years.
Years of torment of watching as his loved ones were birthed,
raised and grew old then finally, they as in the natural order
of life withered away and died.
It had been a constant lonely and disparaging pain, to
live eternity, always knowing he was doomed to be alone.
The thought alone to him would leave him feeling sometimes
on the brink of madness. Knowing this, watching and listening
to it had constantly torn at Willie.
Finally, that afternoon, he had delivered the salvation that Barnabas
had begged to be given.
They both now were finally free.
* * * *
Willie entered
and looking one last time at what had been his home and prison
for so long, he turned finally and picked up his duffle bag. Heaving
it over his shoulder, he turned and momentarily hesitated almost
looking back over his shoulder.
He still seemed to sense the great power of the once powerful
vampire. "No!" he thought to himself, and shouting
aloud to the empty and lonely once great mansion...
A satisfied smile came to Willie knowing he was finally
safe and free. He'd finally chased away all of the demons
and the ghosts that had haunted Collinwood and its history.
"Yeah, yeah," he quietly mumbled, nodding his
head. "The only good thing outta this whole mess".
As he walked away, back down the trail, the winds blew
the scattering of the fallen leaves around him.
He never again looked back.
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