Something has been hanging in the air at Collinwood that I've never felt before. Since I've been here I've seen this family, this house, wracked by just about every emotion possible. They have been in terrible danger again and again. They've known terror, despair, heartache; they've been prey to the intruding remnants of the past, the overlapping loves and hatreds of generations that went before them who continued to fight their battles on the territory of the present. And they've also known love and loyalty and strength that allowed them to stand together against danger and tragedy and be each other's support through it all. But now--what I sense now is very different, something that threatens to destroy their unity and set them against each other in suspicion and subterfuge. Something I can only describe in the language of psychiatry as paranoia. And it's creeping through this house like a snake in a garden.

At first I thought it was a projection of my own feelings--the ones I've had since Barnabas' return, because of the way he's been acting toward me, his unexplained coldness, his clear rejection of me and our friendship. I thought my own hurt and confusion were shading my attitude so that I imagined that everyone else was moving a little more gingerly, looking at each other a little more warily. But now I'm sure that it's something much more sinister.

Paul Stoddard is the clearest example of it. Since his return to this house his mental state has deteriorated radically and rapidly, and he is completely convinced that someone, some thing, is pursuing him and that we, all of us, myself included, are a part of the conspiracy. Under normal circumstances I would be certain that he is seriously mentally ill and consider committing him to Windcliff. But these circumstances are far from normal, and the congruence of many things--seemingly trivial, seemingly unrelated--is beginning to look to me like one huge tentacled spider in a web. And for some reason I have the feeling that Paul's presence here in this house might be crucial to flushing that spider out.

I've been so preoccupied with Chris's and Quentin's problems that I haven't had the time to think about what else has been going on; but today I felt it coming closer. I was alone in the drawing room earlier reading the paper, looking for anything about a brutal animal attack, when Elizabeth came in. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but there was something--different, something just a little strange, about her. She seemed distracted, closed, as though she were hiding something--not like herself at all. She told me about what had happened to Paul last night, how he'd run away and collapsed in the woods; how Eliot Stokes found him; how Paul begged to be taken to the police; how Stokes had obliged him, then called her to come for him; how he was confined to his room now, certain that he was being betrayed by everyone. It was a sad story, but the way she told it to me struck me more than the story itself--almost without feeling, as though she was trying to make her own voice sound concerned, as though the story itself was meant to be a distraction from what was really on her mind. I know about her and Paul's history, of course, but in spite of that, it isn't like Elizabeth to be so completely uncaring about someone who is in the kind of desperate state that he is--especially her daughter's father. Especially knowing how much he means to Carolyn. But when she told me she wished I could help him, I had the feeling she meant exactly the opposite.

I wish I could help him, but he is as afraid of me as he is of everyone else. He trusts no one except Carolyn. What he did last night isn't atypical behavior for someone with severe paranoid symptoms, but for some reason I can't help believing there is much more behind his fears and accusations than any of us know. His fear isn't focused on a particular target, but I believe it does have a source, and that that source lies in the antique shop. A hunch maybe, an instinct--but those strange children--three of them, coming and going in such sudden succession--and each one having the same birthmark.... 

It was Alexander, the second one, who was here when Paul thought he'd trapped a young girl in the study. The "girl" turned out to be Alexander. So either he'd been hallucinating or...could Alexander himself have "transformed" somehow as part of the "plot" to drive Paul insane? I have no evidence of any such thing, of course, but that boy--there was something frightening about him--the way he terrified Amy--something very cold and hard, not like a child at all, something almost inhuman.... And now he's gone, and there's another. Michael. Another name, a much older boy, but with that same cold hardness in his face, that same way of making you feel chilled just being near him...that same mark....

Three mysterious boys and the almost alien air they carry with them. That box Barnabas brought back from the past--he was so protective of it when I asked him about it, yet he gave it to the Todds--for what purpose? The way Barnabas has been acting--when he touched my face the other night, with that show of concern for me--it made my heart ache; I knew--could he really think I wouldn't know?--how insincere it was. He would never have touched me in such a way when--when we were still close; it was too intimate a gesture to have been anything but a pretense. Why? I've seen how charming and solicitous he's been to everyone else--Carolyn, Elizabeth, David and Amy. But it's that assumed, calculated, dishonest charm he used when I first knew him--when he was still cursed. I know the difference. Is that why he's been trying to push me away from him? Because I know him too well? Because he's afraid I'll find out what he's been hiding?

I don't know. I don't know where the connections are, if there are any at all. I have to find out, somehow--maybe all this will fit together if I just find one more piece.... It's like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle that has no pattern to follow.

Now I have to think about what I do know. I know that Quentin is no longer a werewolf. When Grant disappeared last night and didn't return to the hotel, I was sure that his curse had returned. I finally had to admit that to Chris. He left Windcliff and came here, demanding that we go to Tate's house right away, grabbing desperately at that slim thread from the past. I felt terrible, that I'd given him false hope by telling him about Tate. I had to tell him that I didn't think Tate was the answer, that I was as afraid as he was. 

But when I got to the hotel, I found Grant--Quentin--there; he was completely disheveled, his clothes torn, his face bruised, and I was sure my worst fears were confirmed. But I was wrong. He told me he'd been in a bar all night and had gotten in a fight with someone--an ordinary bar fight. And he remembered all of it. So the curse hasn't returned, and that means Tate's portrait must still exist--somewhere--and there may still be hope for Chris. I feel like he and I are so alone now in our quest for the truth and for his salvation. He desperately needs some hope--and so do I. Hope has become an increasingly rare commodity lately. Might we find it hiding in the shades of the past?

Much of that past was revealed today, and part of it was lost, and with that part may also have been lost the last hope for Chris. I have discovered that I was right about the identities of Olivia, Grant, and Harrison Monroe, but the truth has only destroyed the latter and may not be enough to save the first two.

I was with Olivia today, showing her the samples of Amanda Harris' handwriting, trying to get her to admit her identity, when Grant Douglas called to ask me to come to Harrison Monroe's house, saying that he'd been seriously injured--attacked by a strange beast. I had a terrible hunch about what really happened, and I was so distraught that I nearly forgot about Olivia; it was fortunate that she asked to come with me, because it was exactly what I needed her to do.

When we got to the house, I took Grant aside and told him I was going to call Olivia into the room and that he shouldn't try to stop her. Inside I found Charles Tate--the real Tate, the man in his nineties--horribly mauled; a condition that was tragically familiar to me. I knew he was dying and made a last attempt to get him to tell me where Quentin's portrait was, but he refused. Then I brought Olivia in, hoping the sight of her might shock him enough to reveal the truth. It did shock him, and her too--he called her "Amanda," and she turned away from him in horror, clearly too upset to convincingly claim any longer that he was a stranger to her. Tate died, and his secrets died with him, but his death has opened a door to more than his strange Gothic mansion.

At the hotel later I learned much more of the truth. I learned, to my sorrow, that Chris had tried to end his curse and failed. He had apparently forced Tate to paint his portrait, but it didn't work--he went through the transformation again. Grant didn't know that; he returned to the house to find the beast attacking Tate. He tried to fight him off, but only succeeded when he grabbed a silver candlestick. He knew instinctively what to do--Quentin's implicit memories still exist in his mind even if the explicit ones don't. That's often the case with amnesia patients, and those implicit memories can be used to spur the return of the explicit ones. That's what I'm hoping the portrait will do--if I can find it.

I was still in Olivia's suite--although in another room--when she returned; I couldn't help overhearing her speaking to herself out loud--speaking to Quentin out loud, wondering when he would know her. I confronted her and she could do nothing but admit that she is Amanda Harris, still as young looking and beautiful as she had been in 1897. Then she told me a story that would seem outrageous if I hadn't lived through what I have in the past few years. She and Quentin had met one last time in 1897, and Quentin had told her they could never be together. In despair, she had jumped off a bridge in an attempt to kill herself--but she awoke to find herself in a strange room with a man who offered her another chance at life. He told her that she would live, remaining young and beautiful, until the preordained day of her death, and that if in that time she could find Quentin and renew their love, they would be together forever. So that is what brought her here. She has been on the same quest I am, but for much longer--the quest to find Quentin Collins. She has bought so many Tate paintings in the hopes of finding the portrait of Quentin, and she has failed. If she couldn't find it in all that time, how can I hope to? But I have to keep believing that it does still exist and that I will find it--it may not be a magic amulet for Chris now but it could be one for Quentin and Amanda. If that portrait can bring Quentin's memory back, it could give them a second chance at happiness. Someone ought to have that.

My investigation into the whereabouts of Tate's portrait of Quentin led me to her--after a disturbing meeting with Carolyn and Sabrina Stuart at Tate's house. Sabrina is obviously trying to warn Carolyn about Chris, but she isn't yet completely back to herself; she doesn't seem to be able to tell her terrible story outright. But somehow she knows that I know. I think I was able to convince Carolyn that Sabrina isn't rational; but how long will it be before she tells everything about Chris?

"A View of South Wales." The picture Tate apparently painted over Quentin's portrait. Purchased by Mr. Schuyler Rumson of Little Windward Island, only 50 miles from here. As a gift for his wife. 

He is a rather abrupt man, not quite rude but possessing the impatience and blunt-spokenness of a typical Type A businessman, with one exception: when he talked about his wife. Angelique. And he became nearly poetic on the subject when he showed me her portrait--the very same portrait that Vicky once bought, in her 1795 dress. Another painting that has survived the damages of time, that carries so much more meaning than any simple representation of a subject.

So we were destined to meet again. After I came back from the past, I knew nothing about what had happened later. I had left Barnabas' treatments in her hands, and apparently she carried them through as she promised; but he has told me so little about anything that I really have no idea of the fates of most of the people I'd met there. I never thought about what had become of her; I suppose I assumed--hoped--she had stayed there, in that time; I should have known better. Somehow she must have returned to an earlier time than I did, to have established a career of sorts for herself and met and married this man. Time doesn't leave her standing in its wake. 

But to believe what she told me--that she's given up her powers and wants to live as a normal married woman--is almost too difficult, yet she seemed genuinely distressed to see me, and the way she pleaded with me not to tell anyone-- "anyone" meaning Barnabas, of course--that she was here...it wasn't like her. The thought crossed my mind when I realized she was here that she might be behind everything that's been happening, behind what's happened to Barnabas, but I don't think that she's the answer I've been looking for. She was too genuinely shocked to see me, too--I hate to say "sincere," but that was how she struck me tonight.

I have to admit I'm bewildered by this new persona of hers. Could she really have changed so much? Can she really have given up her insane, vengeful pursuit of Barnabas? I wish I could believe it. She appealed to the "friendship" we established in the past. Does she honestly think that we were ever, ever could be, really friends? I accepted working with her because I had no choice; but I didn't trust her then and I'm not sure I do now. To believe that she has settled into such a normal life and is happy--if it's true then I can only be grateful for it. She still seems to have a warped view of reality--she still blames the Collinses for all the evil she did--but if that belief keeps her away from them, I won't challenge her on it. I only hope she meant what she said. It's ironic that she has become the one person who can help me the most now. If that painting is what I believe it is, and if it accomplishes the purpose I hope it can, then Angelique will have saved Quentin in a way she never anticipated.

If it was the latter, the Todds certainly made it convincing. Megan called me last night in hysterics, as any mother would be if her child had blacked out as she said Michael did. I found him lying in the bedroom, looking desperately--and genuinely--ill; his vital signs were poor; yet there seemed to be no explicable reason for his illness. Or his death. Just as there seems to be no explicable reason for the sudden appearances and disappearances of the first two boys. But Megan and Philip had a more detailed--and credible--story this time; this boy had a past, and a woman with a name--Mrs. Hutchins, in a town called Coleyville--who supposedly cared for him after his parents' accident. The story was almost too detailed after the sketchy backgrounds the first two children seemed to have. 

Nevertheless, none of this really began to come together for me until this afternoon, after the funeral--everything had happened so quickly. I felt I should at least attend the funeral, and it affected me more than I'd imagined it would. The suddenness of the death, Megan's hysteria, Philip's insistence on having the boy buried right away, the quick arrangements and spare, rather pathetic funeral service. It all made me feel cold, lonely, sad. I saw Megan's obvious grief, Philip holding her, his face grim and stony. I saw the coffin being lowered into the ground and suddenly all I saw was the body of that child, an unhappy child whose lonely life had come to such an abrupt and premature end, and I felt ashamed of my suspicions and aversion to him. I know that children who are deeply disturbed tend to act out in angry and destructive behavior; why should I have believed this boy was any different? I felt tears come to my eyes. I thought of Chris and how alone he is--and of how alone I am now.

I wasn't in the mood to keep my appointment with Stokes, but it's lucky that I did, because as soon as I got there my feelings began to change. Maybe it was the temporary distraction of the painting--our other mystery--but something shifted in my mind. I remembered the name of that town--Coleyville--and I asked Stokes about it. Then when he left the room my mind began to work again. My memory returned to the funeral, and I saw Philip's face as I would have if I'd been more attentive, if the haze of emotion hadn't blurred it. It wasn't a stoic acceptance of grief I saw in that closed, hard look--it was an active animosity directed toward that boy. And the way he held Megan--not close or tender or comforting but stiffly, from the side, almost a controlling grasp, protective not of her but of himself--as though he weren't sure what she might do next.

I was rude in leaving without even speaking to the professor, but I knew if I stayed there, trying to fend off the questions I knew he would ask me, I might lose hold of the slim thread that was beginning to spin itself in my mind. A thread that led me to Coleyville.

Mrs. George Hutchins. The kind of sweet, old-fashioned widow who still keeps herself listed under her husband's name in the phone book. Fortunately, Coleyville is a small enough town to have only one Hutchins listed--if she and George had any sons, they probably left long ago. A dreary place, Stokes called it, and he was right, an old New England mill town with its cardboard box factory that was the center of its life and activity in the early part of the century, that spawned the rows of low-rent semidetached mill houses that now only create a shabby air in the town. I was surprised to find Mrs. Hutchins' neat, charming little cape with its well-kept garden on a small street far enough away from the factory to have avoided the blight of its environment. And surprised to find Mrs. Hutchins--pleasant, gracious, sincere, and almost completely convincing. I have to admit I felt sympathy for her and her story about Michael and his parents. She hardly seems the type to be mixed up in--whatever this whole strange, frightening thing is. But Philip Todd was there in the house all the while I was with her. If he'd only been paying her a consolation visit, why would he have hidden when I came? And why would Mrs. Hutchins have kept his presence there a secret from me? Apparently she was and is a part of their deception, and I have to wonder how the Todds--or whoever--found her and enlisted her help. Were they just taking advantage of a poor widow who undoubtedly needed money, or is her connection to them much deeper? It's becoming nearly impossible to know who to trust anymore.

Stokes was angry when I returned to his house, justifiably so; at that point I knew I had to tell him everything, not just by way of apology but because I needed to tell him. I needed another point of view to reassure myself that I'm not just imagining demons in the closets. And he did believe me. I felt more relieved than I have in weeks at finally being able to share the burden of my knowledge and my suspicions. The professor even paid me a pleasing compliment: he said he believed I could win Paul Stoddard's trust. I hope that that's true, but I was happy to hear it because I take it to mean that I've finally won the trust of Eliot Stokes. That means a lot to me now; I desperately need an ally, but more than that, I need a friend. I've felt so bitterly lonely since Barnabas has--cast aside our friendship. I can't do anything about that--yet--and until that changes, if it does, I need someone to confide in, someone I can trust. It's good to know that Eliot could be that person.

At least it's certain now that Paul isn't just a man suffering a nervous collapse; he's the victim of a horribly cruel, powerful evil force. Nothing else could explain the condition Paul is in now, the way he was when he came out of the antique shop, frantic, desperately trying to escape from something, but too insensible and weak even to stand on his own. His clothes nearly disintegrated, and that strange, unidentifiable smell--that couldn't have come from the shop, and yet the shop is where he was, where he must have been all evening while Carolyn and I were looking for him. And the shop is where Barnabas was, too. Why?

I finally saw the first crack in Barnabas' cold demeanor since this all began, the sign I've been waiting and praying for that the man I know is still inside him. He is still trying to push me away, to keep me from getting close to him again, from learning the truth, but I was determined not to give in to that any longer. I had to persist, to plead with him to let me be his friend again, and somehow it did get through to him; he still refuses to tell me anything, but he showed himself to me, and that's nearly as important. He asked me to trust him. He doesn't know how agonizing it was for me to not trust him all those weeks. I do trust him, but I fear he's in terrible danger and that Carolyn is too, and I don't know what to do--I know so little, but I know far too much to believe that he will be able to control things now, by himself. 

I think Eliot was a little annoyed with me when I pleaded with him not to call the police about Paul. He sensed it was because of Barnabas. I know he's never really trusted Barnabas and does so even less now; he accused me of being "unrealistic" about him. If he only knew...if there's one thing I've never been about Barnabas, it's unrealistic. But I convinced him to go along with me for the present, until we know more, until Paul comes out of his traumatic state--if he ever does. Poor Carolyn. It seems as if no innocent person is going to be left unharmed in this dangerous game.

And still another dangerous game continues in counterpoint; sometimes I feel as though I'm playing simultaneous chess matches, with the lives and fates of people I care about as the stakes. Barnabas, Carolyn, Chris, Quentin...their names, their desperate needs, swirl around me as though I were suspended in the center of a maelstrom. Barnabas and Carolyn caught up in some amorphous evil; Chris perhaps coming to the end of any possible hope; Quentin still unable to recover his past and about to lose forever the woman he doesn't remember he loves. Amanda's time is running out quickly; I've promised her that she and Grant will see the portrait before it's too late. But will it be enough? Or are they doomed to the same tragic destiny that seems to find everyone at Collinwood sooner or later? 

But now all he cares about is Amanda. He remembers her now--yet she ran away in horror when she saw the portrait. He ran after her but she was gone...where? Did Mr. Best finally take her away, just at the moment they would have been reunited? I left Quentin in despair; he thinks he's lost her forever, and he may well have. After more than seventy years of searching, it may be only a matter of a few seconds that made the difference between reunion and eternal separation. How quickly and easily things slip away...is there any way to stop this tide of loss? How much more will there have to be--and for how many of us?

The sheriff of course is baffled; he had Paul's coat sent out for analysis, but even the experts are at a loss to identify the strange substance. Monster, Paul was able to utter. I'm sure the sheriff believes he was insane. But he wasn't. Paul Stoddard knew what killed him, and he told us--at the very end he trusted us. Room upstairs. Breathing. Basement.

I went to the antique shop with the sheriff. Philip was nervous but cooperative--to a point. He tried to steer us past the room at the top of the stairs, but the sheriff insisted on checking the room. I have to admit to being a little nervous myself; I was almost imagining the sound of breathing, and I couldn't help but flinch a little inwardly when the sheriff opened the door. 

And now there is another--another "guest" of the Todds, a grown man in his twenties, blond--like the boys.... He said his name is Jeb Hawkes and that he'd just rented the room from Megan. And Philip looked as surprised as I was. He moved in while Philip was out, Jeb said. Just like that. Just as quickly as Joseph and Alexander and Michael had appeared. And he seems to have the same kind of disposition--arrogant and rude. I persuaded him to shake hands with me--long enough to see that he has the same birthmark that the three boys had. And I felt the same chill from him as I had from Alexander and--Michael. Michael, the boy who died just a few days ago. I wonder--did Michael "die" because he had to, so that Jeb could appear....? It seems clear now that there is a pattern in this succession of baby to child to man. But what is its purpose? And what--I can't help but come back to him--does Barnabas have to do with it all?

I have to find a way to get through to him, to make him confide in me. I need him, and I know he needs me--even though he'll deny it. I think Quentin can help me, he may be the only one who can, but he is deep in his own grief now. I believe he could help himself by helping Barnabas, but this particular patient isn't yet ready for the therapy of altruism. I have to leave him to himself for a while, hoping he'll work his way out of it, that the friendship and alliance he and Barnabas forged in the past will call to his conscience and bring him out of his despair.

In the meantime, circumstance gave me a chance and I had to grab it. I met Barnabas in the foyer and pleaded with him again to tell me the truth. I let him know that I still trusted him and believed he would do the right thing. And when I impulsively told him that he was one of the people I loved, I saw an honest, uncontrolled reaction from him for the first time in weeks. It was fleeting, momentary, a quick drawing back of his head, a look of surprise that passed over his eyes. If I'd been trying to use a shock tactic as I did with Quentin, I might be disappointed that he didn't show more; but I had no intention of doing that. I just wanted him to know how serious I am in my concern for him and everyone and that I'm determined to learn the truth. It was no time to try to conceal anything from him when I needed desperately for him to reveal himself to me. He tried again to brush me off, but it was different now, reluctant--I know him well enough to read in that that he does want and need to confide in someone--that he does still value our friendship. All I could do was reiterate my faith in him. I left him with the suggestion that he go to the sheriff and tell him everything, and I believe I left him seriously considering it. Now it only remains to see if my trust in the man I know and love is justified. I pray that it is--for all our sakes.