Collinsport. As events unfold in Collinsport this evening there are yet other events that have already transpired. Events that have happened in the past, events that Angelique needs to catch back up with. As even now she races against time in order to make her desperate attempt to obtain something, which may ever well help her return her husband, Barnabas Collins, from his imprisonment beyond this dimension. She hurries now to the West Wing of Collinwood and the rooms once occupied by Quentin Collins, who in yet another time built a Stairway into Time. But that Stairway has been destroyed its mystical wood used to create a grotesque bookcase, which seems to have inherited the stairways former powers
The internal mechanisms of the antique wall seemed unusually loud. Inside the timepiece there swings a small, shiny silver pendulum. The wood is finely carved with woodcuts of hunters and longhaired hunting dogs. Ducks or geese seem to be taking flight from tall grass.
Tick-tock.
Tony Peterson looks over at the clock and then checks his watch to be certain of the timeshes late. Perhaps the meeting with Nicole Collins did not go as well as they had hoped. Or not as planned, Maybe Cassandra Angelique let her temper get the better of her . . .
He reaches into his inner jacket pocket and removes a pack of Chesterfields and takes one of the smooth white tubes from the package.
From below he hears a door close.
He turns to look at the closed bedroom door.
There is the creak of a footstep on the old stairs.
The bedroom doors knob slowly turns.
He frowns knowing this house is filled with ghosts.
He holds the cigarette between his fingers, the Chesterfield pack in his other hand.
The door opens.
Victoria Wren steps through the threshold of Samantha Collins’s bedroom and looks over to Tony Peterson.
This houseit gets on my nerves. He tells her and slips the gold and white package of cigarettes back into his jacket pocket.
She removes her glasses, placing then on a round-topped table, and sighs as she walks into the room toward the grotesque bookcase.
Tony Peterson slips his lips around the filter of the cigarette, “So. She had it?”
“Yes,” Angelique says as she carefully removes the odd snow globe from her black leather bag. She stands for a moment inspecting it, her fingers lightly caressing the cold, glass dome.
Peterson, the cigarette in his mouth, unlit, looks at the odd trinket with some anxiety, “Sothat’s it? The Orb of Solace?”
“Oh, so, Mister Peterson, The voice is soft, almost a whisper, but it startles Peterson just the same. It is precisely the Orb of Solace,” Peter Cairo says as he enters the bedroom and closes the door behind him.
Peterson frowns as he watches the short man in the white suit offer a slight bow he still did not know just who the hell Peter Cairo was where he came from or for that matter who he worked for . . . he was just always there . . . nor did he have any idea how he figured into any of this hell, he didnt even know how he figured into all of this except that years ago he foolishly fell in loved with Cassandra Collins and now, from what she said, she didnt even remember having been Cassandra. She says she doesn’t even remember having been in Collinsport at the time or at least that’s the story she is telling, and Peterson has long since learned to suspect everything she said was some form of a lie.
Good God, what is he doing here?”
He is here because I asked him to be. She replies as she stands cradling the orb. Angelique turns her emerald eyes now upon the man in the white suit. Sodo you have everything Peter?
“Oh yes, everything is as you have requested.” he nods, and reaches into his inner suit jacket pocket and removes a thick white envelope.
“Cassandra! Really, I do not trust this man, at all.”
“It is quite alright Tony, Peter and I . . . we go way back.”
Cairo smiles oddly, almost mischievously, “Yes–back.” He steps over some scattered papers upon the floor; a map of Tibet; some other odd map with curious designs for the wind rose and a yellow circle drawn with a highlighter, marking an area designated as Leng. Theres a old journal lying open and he recognizes the handwriting as that of Quentin Collins.
Peterson looks at the dark lips he wonders if they are lip glossed black or if there is some other reason.
Cairo offers her the packet. Madam.
Angelique reaches over and takes it from him.
She carefully places the globe down on the bookcase.
Peterson watches now with some trepidation with these two there was no telling what would appear from the package . . . only as she opens it, he watches as she removes two passports, papers, and what looks like old money.
She opens the passports to inspect their workmanship. They are dated 1933. There are also several other pieces of paper inside, including some large colorful French francs.
“It is most unfortunate, but I must report that I was unable to obtain the two tickets you desired, but you should be able to purchase them once you are on board. You will find I have included a substantial amount of currency. His fingers reach up to adjust his thick-lensed glasses.
Peterson takes note of the fact she has two passports. He reaches into his pocket for his lighter and then remembers he is in Samantha Collinss bedroom and she doesnt smoke
“Yes, thank you Peter.” She slips them back into the package he had handed her and she then places it into her black bag.
“So, you are really going to do this?” Tony Peterson asks.
“As are you Tony.”
“Whatwait, not I am . . . ”
“And miss a trip to 1933?”
“Look, I am more like that doctor in Star Trek, you know, he one not wanting to scatter his atoms all around the universe. I am not so certain I want to be well whatever the h**l happens to you when youre f**king around in timewhere as, well for you, well, you’re already f**ked up in time.”
“Tony!” She says with a smile, “I am sorry, this is not a request. I may have need you.”
“Oh, God . . . d**ned.” He takes the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and looks around for some place to toss it in frustration he can ever seem to tell this woman no.
Oh I can assure you Mister Peterson, God doesnt have anything to do with this, Peter Cairo said with a truly wicked smile.
Peterson looks over at the horrid painting of the young woman whose head has been severed from a raw and bloody neck “Tell me she did not use this damned thing?”
“Sheshe is something else entirely.” Angelique said most off-handedly.
Tick-tock.
“Entirely.” Cairo smiles — wickedly?
The minute hand of the clock clicks off another moment.
Angeliques brow rises as she watched the minute hand: “Peter. You know what to do, right?”
“Yes.” The soft-spoken man in the white linen says as he looks over the bookcase, inspecting it, as if to assure himself that everything that has a place is in its place. “Yesnow are you ready?”
On the bookcases narrow bench, where she has taken up a seat, Angelique pats her hand on the worn, ancient wood, “Here Tony beside me.”
“I can not believe I am letting you talk me into this.” He says as he steps over toward her.
“No one said I was talking you into itnow did they.” The smile is the one of old, the one he knew meant she was in control and it was best that one not cross her.
Tony sits beside her.
“Okay Peter.” She says looking back over to Cairo, We have to hurry before the Evans girl returns.”
Cairo nods and hurries over to the bookcase. He steps up on the bench opposite to the one Angelique and Tony Peterson are sitting upon and he reaches now to the upper shelf.
“Now, my dear, you much look into the globeand concentrate.”
Angelique peers down into the snowy depths of the odd snow globe and watches as the tiny replica of Collinsport within begins to fade. She can see the snow within whirl and there now appears a forest. There is a long, train track running toward a city. She knows the train to the Orient Express.
The time is 1933.
The depot is one just outside of Pairs.
“Do not forget the Sands of Time, Peter!” She tells him as she continues to look into the globe. “And do not disturb them until the apointed time, now do itI can see the train.”
Peter Cairo looks down at them seated together as he reaches for the warm lever and pulls it. Suddenly there is an audible hum in the room. Low frequency. Various odd items on shelves begin to tremble. Some begin to levitate and begin to spin.
The globe in Angeliques hands begins to glow, a white light issuing from it.
The light envelopes Angelique and Peterson.
Cairo jumps back from the bookcase
“What the He–” Peterson can see nothing but the light as its glow increases.
Angelique stares in to the globe and feels the light wash over her as she suddenly begins to feel herself falling through the dome of the globe.
The light is blinding and Cairo lifts a hand to shield his face.
And just as suddenly it disappears.
Tick.
Tock.
The minute hand on the antique clock clicks forward.
Angelique and Tony Peterson are no longer in the room.
Nor is the globe.
Cairo smiles and adjusts his glasses. Ohso!
He takes several quick steps over to the bookcase and reaches out for the hourglass — The Sands of Time.
He slowly turns the hourglass over on its side, and the sand stops falling.
“Good luck.” he says with a smile.
Cue Music End of Episode