1968:

Willie was glad to be home.

Then he realized what he'd just thought, and it made him smile ruefully. He wasn't blind to the irony of thinking of the Old House as "home," even after his forced vacation at Windcliff Sanitarium.

Things certainly had changed while he'd been away: himself, the situation up at Collinwood. Barnabas.

Barnabas most of all.

A knock at the front door interrupted his reverie. He set aside the heavy silver candlestick he'd been polishing, and went to answer the summons.

Hand poised to rap the doorknocker again, a woman stood on the front step. Automatically, Willie took in the golden hair, the big blue eyes, the trim figure sheathed in a mod paisley print dress and short lime jacket. After a moment, he noticed the most astonishing feature about this unexpected visitor...the matched set of luggage piled at her feet.

"Uh, can I help you, Miss?"

"Mrs.," she snapped, correcting him impatiently. An imperious gesture indicated the Mt. Everest of luggage. "Take these upstairs."

"Uhm." Willie hesitated. Barnabas hadn't said anything about a houseguest. And even though he was no longer what he had been, (Willie couldn't even think the "v-word"), Willie doubted that the habits of old had changed quite *this* much.

He ventured a suggestion. "Uh, maybe you got the wrong house. Don't you want the other Collinses, over at Collinwood?"

Her lips curled. Somehow, Willie didn't think it was a smile. "No," she said, her blue eyes as warm as glacial ice. "This is where I belong."

"Okay." There was something almost mesmeric about her gaze. Willie shook himself, then stepped aside. She brushed past him as if he weren't even there.

She strolled into the drawing room like she owned the joint, and stood, hands on hips, surveying the broken-down furniture with disdainful eyes.

"This will never do..."

Willie trailed behind her like the tail of a nervous kite. "Miss? I mean Mrs.!" he corrected himself hastily under her venomous glare. "Is there something you want?"

She ignored him, her fingers trailing along the dusty brocade back of a wingchair. "This house is simply screaming for a woman's touch."

Though he didn't know it yet, the house wasn't going to be the only thing screaming once Barnabas returned and discovered this particular viper in his lair.

She turned and seemed to take real notice of him for the first time. "Well, why are you standing there gaping like a trout? Fetch my luggage, at once!"

Something in her ice-blue eyes warned him it would be a bad idea -- possibly a *fatal* idea -- to argue. He went to get the luggage.

****

He could hear her moving around upstairs, no doubt curling her lip and sneering at the "shameful" state of the house. If he'd been a little less confused, he might have been insulted. After all, he *was* responsible for the housekeeping. As it was, he only felt a vague sense of relief that he was down here and not up there with her. He couldn't shake the feeling it was far safer that way.

It might have something to do with the way she'd reacted to his innocent suggestion that he put her bags in Josette's room...

Willie shuddered. That had been a mistake! And since that left his own and Barnabas' rooms as the only inhabitable rooms in the house, he'd given in to Fate and taken her things up to his master's bedroom with the distinct relief of one who knew he wouldn't be the one to evict her.

As if summoned by the thought, Barnabas came in from the foyer, Julia Hoffman at his heels. Neither looked like the poster child for happiness.

Willie recognized the signs. Arguing, again. It seemed to be a full-time occupation lately. Probably fighting about the mysterious experiment that Barnabas was sure would be his cure and that Julia was equally certain would be his doom. Frankly, Willie was on her side; something about Dr. Lang's plans didn't seem quite...right.

He looked at their tense faces, then glanced at the staircase, just visible through the open entryway. The strange blond was there, gazing down on them like a hungry cougar eyeing its prey.

Suddenly Windcliff began to look pretty attractive...

"What's the matter with you, Willie?" Barnabas demanded irritably, always willing to share the stress. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Hardly a ghost, darling," purred the blond, sparing Willie the need to respond. She sashayed across the room, ignoring everything but Barnabas. Her quarry froze like a deer caught in the headlights; she threw her arms around him, kissing him soundly.

When she finally let him up for air, she wore a kitten-in-the-cream expression, but Barnabas looked like he'd just been embraced by an enthusiastic viper.

"Angelique!" He made it a curse. "What are you doing -- ?"

She pretended to pout. "Aren't you happy to see me, darling?"

Watching this disgusting scene, Julia drew herself up to her full height and gave her tweed jacket a tug fierce enough to strain the seams. From her expression, it was clear she couldn't make up her mind which accusation to hurl first. The look she shot Barnabas could've peeled the paint from the walls; had he still been a vampire, he'd have incinerated on the spot. "Well...," she said through clenched teeth. "Aren't you going to introduce your...little...friend?"

"Oh!" said Angelique, with a coy smirk. "How terribly impolite of me." She offered Julia her hand. "I'm Mrs. Barnabas Collins."

Willie nearly choked on his own tongue. Julia looked equally stunned, as if the news had hit some vital organ. Then the color began to return to her face -- and kept rising, like a thermometer in a heatwave. Willie decided to make his escape before somebody got burned.

He was well on his way to the kitchen when he heard the first ripple of angry voices behind him. Luckily, it was nothing to do with him: he had his work to do, after all, and lots of it. There were those candlesticks to clean, the floors to be swept...and it looked like he'd be setting an extra place at the dinner table, tonight.

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