Mehitable C.

Collinsport. As dusk settles once more upon Collinsport, Samantha Brook has found an unusual shelter in her flight from the Collinsport Police. Having sought solace within the dark shadows of her usual haunt, the Eagle Hill Cemetery, the night before, she awakens now to find the comforting refuge of some ancient manor house. But as she will discover, there are others would have found secret sanctuary in the old mansion.

The ticking of the clock seems to grow louder. Incessant. Why will it not go way? Stop? She puts a hand to her ear, but it just continues. Tick. Tock. It’s seems loud. A mechanical sound and she tries to curl further up into the chair to find a spot where it does not disturb her sleep. But the ticking will not go away. Damn! Samantha Brook opens her eye and looks around to see the large, antique grandfather clock; the heavy pendulum swinging, as it is this mechanism, which keeps the pendulum in motion that is the tick. The tock.

She sits in a fetal curl in the comfortable, high-backed chair glancing now at the hand of the clock moving from one minute to the next wondering whether it is night or day. The room’s heavy drapes are closed and so there is this marvelous sense of lost time. What she is aware of most is just how comfortable the chair is, how warm she is inside her coat, curled up – and so she slightly adjusts the collar of the overcoat so as to gather it up against her throat as she tires to determine where exactly this snug chair resides.

The parlor – and it was most definitely a parlor, for if ever there was a room that fit the word it was this room in which she now awoke – was filled with the dark wood of antiques. A floor to ceiling bookcase filled one wall. A grand piano was set strategically as one entered into the room. Beyond it something behind an Victorian room divider. Behind her she heard the crackle of a fire, and turning slightly she saw the huge fireplace and the glowing embers of a log, exhausted, tumbling over into ash.

“Good evening, Miss Brook, I do hope you have made yourself comfortable, while I was away,” The voice was melodic, hinting of a European accent – one that she could not readily place as it bespoke of various locations the woman may have lived. Samantha Brook peered up from the confines of her great overcoat and saw the tall, dark-haired woman, dressed in a almost Victorian formal, black gown, entering the room, the long, slender fingers of her left sliding idly across the fine wood of the piano.

Samantha remembered now – escaping from the Collinsport Police and that cranky Lieutenant Mills, the head long flight in the rain, thinking to slip into her rooms at Collins Investigations and then thinking better of it – knowing it would be the first place Mills would coming looking – and instead headed out of town and through the woods (which was a frightening prospect seeing as how it had been what she had seen peering out of the woods at her as she stood on Old Jerusalem Lot Road that had caused her to instinctively draw the officer’s gun, subsequently leading to her knee-jerk arrest, as apparently no one other than her saw what was in the woods, except maybe that crazy policeman who had helped her escape, O’Shaw or O’Mallory or something like that, she couldn’t remember, as it was all a jumble) to find shelter once again back in Eagle Hill Cemetery, where she had been sleeping, curled up like she was now in the chair, only then in the dampness of the crypt, where she had first heard that melodic voice, as she awoke to find the dark-haired woman looking down at her. “I have a far warmer place for you.” She had told her.

Samantha Brook curls deeper into the chair, “Is it evening yet?”

“Yes my dear. The sun has just gone down,” She glides across the room to check on the fire. The long flowing gown accentuates her sensuousness. Her long fingers grip an iron poker almost as a weapon as she begins to stoke the flames, the logs, sending sparks flying up the flue. “When did you last dine?”

Dine? Who says dine? Samantha watches the woman putting the stoker back to hang with the other fireplace tools, “I don’t remember.”

Satisfied that the fire is well lain, she turns to look at Miss Brook. “I shall have someone prepare something for you.”

“That would be nice.” Samantha says, “Where is this?”

“This?” She asks with a flourish of her hand, “This is the Franklin Pierce Estate. Pierce you see was a very wealthy but extremely eccentric New York book publisher of the early 1900’s.” She explains as she walks over to the sofa and has a seat. “On a trip he undertook to Great Britain he visited the Scottish coast and found an old manor house on the cliffs that he fell in love with, and so he bought it and had it dismantled and shipped over and rebuilt here on the Maine Coast. I purchased it recently for a little next to nothing, actually.”

Samantha Brook settles back into her coat as she peers out from the high up-turned collar. “Maine Coast – so we’re not in Collinsport any more?” She remembers walking out of the crypt with the woman and through the cemetery to an awaiting car – not at all certain how the woman knew she was there. Or why she had come to get her.

The woman smiles, “Oh, yes, we are still in Collinsport. Although, I am not at all certain whether or not you wish to be. From what I understand you and the local police have rather a serious difference of opinion, as to your freedom.”

Samantha arches a brow looking at the woman who seems to know way too much, “”No real difference.”

“Oh, really,” The woman smiles, “They seem to think you should be in their facility, while, you on the other hand do not.”

“I didn’t break any laws. I was only trying to protect myself and so I am not going to any prison.” Samantha tells her with a pout – not sure if maybe coming here might not have been a mistake,, “So, this Franklin Pierce,” she says looking around the rich antiques of the parlor, “I take it he was eccentric enough to maybe have cut everyone out of his will, seeing as how, for some reason I don’t think you are a Pierce.”

“Precisely. Only he had the misfortune of deciding to announce the change to his will at a very large dinner party. His last in fact, as it was the one in which he was murdered. “ She reaches over and lifts a small china bell and rings it: “Now – as to this matter of defending yourself. I wish to know more.”

“As would I, Miss. Like who you are to begin with and it would also be nice to know just how you seem to know so much . . . ”

“Oh, but my dear, it is you who may be just the encyclopedia I have been looking for.”

“Encyclopedia? Me?” Samantha uncurls and sits up in the chair, “Just what is it you’re looking for lady?”

“Information.” The raven-haired woman says, her blue, blue eyes almost a sparkle, “You are a member of Collins Investigations are you not?”

“Member . . . pet . . . something like that . . .” Samantha mutters, “But its Nikki that runs the place.”

“Yes. Nikki.”

Samantha looks up now as a tall, slender woman with short-cropped, snow white hair enters into the room through a narrow side door – apparently she’s there in response to the ringing of the bell, as she says with a very seductive and smoky voice, “You rang Ma’am?”

There is something about the woman, Samantha thinks, she is way too familiar. And those eyes – they have a yellow cast to them . . . oh s**t!

“This is yet another I found wandering about and in need of shall I say protection. Miss Brook, this is Miss Snow. I am not sure if the two of you were ever properly introduced.”

Samantha Brook remembers the woman from the small café in Innsmouth – from an island in the middle of the Miskatonic River – she was a certified homicidal sociopath. Although, it does seems as if she’s been cleaned up a bit from when she last saw her – still Samantha sits back and slightly hisses.

“We’ve met.” Narcissa Snow replies evenly. “She works the for woman who—“

“Killed you? Yes, I know.” The dark-haired woman on the sofa replies, “But—there are greater issues at the moment than anything that may remain between you – and so, for as along as you remain under the sanctuary I provide, I expect that to all be put aside.”

Samantha looks at the woman with yellow eyes who had tried to kill Nik. The woman who hears voices and kills – well just about anything that got in front of her, including her brother. A glance to the rather serene woman on the sofa and Samantha thought that at the moment it was perhaps more important for her to find out what was going on – how Narcissa Snow was back from the dead – and why. And even more importantly, just who the h**l this woman was.

“Do you agree?” She glances over her shoulder back to Narcissa standing at the door.

The white-haired woman nods ascent.

She now turns her blue eyes back upon Samantha Brook.

“Only if she gets her family to shut up,” Samantha replies.

“Yes—well, I have silenced those voices—for now.”

“Ok then,” She nods, needing to find out more about this whole crazy set-up at the Franklin Pierce Mansion.

“Was that all you wanted, ma’am?” Narcissa asks impatiently at the door.

“Please bring Miss Brook something to eat.”

“A sandwich alright for you?” Narcissa asks coldly.

“Corned beef?”

Narcissa Snow turns to leave.

“No nasty surprises in the sandwich, my dear.” The woman on the sofa says without looking at her.

Narcissa looks back at her and then steps through the door into the corridor beyond.

“Now, Miss Brook” The woman smiles and folds her hands and places them in her lap, “You and I need to have a little conversation.”

“First why don’t you tell me who the h**l you are?”

“Have you seen it, Miss Brook?” The woman asks.

“Lady, I’ve seen a lot of things.”

“Yes,” the melodic voice for the first time taking on a significantly icy edge, “I am sure you have, but I think you know precisely what I am asking. And so, tell me, have YOU seen it.”

Samantha looks at her – wanting to talk about that she has seen but finding it hard to articulate, as if something’s holding her back. And as she sits there she watches now as the woman on the sofa begins to move her fingers about oddly – as if to fold paper – origami –and, she has seen THAT before, Blair and that Count in the graveyard and she knew that the woman was doing—

“Tell me precisely my dear – have you seen IT?”

Samantha Brook’s eyes flash yellow, sending a mild shock back at the raven-haired woman, “Yes, yes I have,” even as she answers.

The fingers now making what looks like a mountain fold as the woman quickly sets a ward.

“For how long ago?”

“I am not sure. But—it’s pretty much daily now.”

“Then he IS here?” The woman says leaning forward slightly, “Have you seen HIM?”

Samantha nods wanting to talking about this, having wanted to talk about this for so long and yet unable to – “I saw him in the graveyard . . . I . . . I-I stopped him. But—but . . . he is here now.”

“Is it HIM or one of his avatars?”

“I do not know” Her face blanches to an unhealthy shade or a brief moment.

The woman leaning forward rises and eyebrow, “Castaigne—does that name mean anything to you?”

“Mildly—his name was in the newspaper.”

“Do you hear his voice at night, or so you merely see the Yellow Sign?”

Samantha Brook smiles, “I hear voices . . . been hearing’m for years.”

“Of course you do, as did Narcissa. I can take those voices away my dear. All away.”

“No.” Samantha sits back.

The woman rises from the sofa and steps over to sit beside Samantha in the high-backed chair.

“No, my voices are—different.” Samantha looks at her, “Please—don’t take them away.”

The woman she places a fingertip to her forehead, “Then tell me Samantha Brook among the voices do you hear HIS voice or is it his herald the Phantom of Truth?”

Samantha Brook pulls back slightly, “The voices . . . are me . . . but not me trying to tell me something – please.”

“Then tell me what I need to know.”

“There is a whisper—it is deep sinister, it speaks of twin suns and the Lake of Hali. HE shows them to me.

“Hastur,” The woman all but hisses the name and it’s articulation causes Samantha Brook to tremble.

The beautiful raven-haired woman reaches over and takes Samantha by the shoulders and turns her so that she faces her, “Look into my eyes, Miss Brook. Look deep into my eyes.”

Samantha looks at her, her eye flickering again, the blues so blue, like artic waters.

“You will remember everything he says to you, and you will tell me, do you understand.”

Samantha nods.

With a lazy hand the dark-haired woman, sitting beside her, waves her fingers slightly before Samantha’s eye. “Now rest, Miss Brook. Relax, till Narcissa returns with your meal.” And Samantha falls back in the chair instantly slipping into unconsciousness.

The woman turns her attention to watch as the flames licking up a log for a long moment, and then rises with a rustle of her gown as she moves back over to the far end of the sofa. She reaches out and lifts the receiver of the phone, which she dials – being that it is an old rotatory.

“Yes, I need to speak to him.” She says into the mouthpiece when there is an answer on the other end of the line, “It’s Mehitable Collins.”

She stands for a moment waiting.

“Yes.” It is the melodic and mesmerizing voice of Stephen Alizis.

“Stephen—as suspected, Alriss as failed you once again, HE is here.”

“Yes, I am quite aware.” He replies above the sounds of the music from the band on the stage of the Club Apocalypse. His voice sounds almost unimpressed by the information.

“I have the Brooks woman, she is in contact with him.”

“Good. I shall be coming to Collinsport shortly. Oh and do be a dear and keep her away from Nicole.”

The line goes dead.

Mehitable Collins places the receiver back on the cradle. She turns now to see Naricssa entering once more through the narrow door.

“What about the sandwich?” Narcissa says looking over to see Miss Brook unconscious in the chair.

“Leave it, you have something I need you to do.”

Cue Music End of Episode