Taught in the twilight between sleep and waking, Barnabas was prey to torturous flashes of memory as he was transported back to the summer of his eighteenth year. They saw the fast moving frigate on the far horizon, her three masts swollen with sail. As she drew near they could view through the spyglass, the flag of the Spanish Main flying above her topsail and the dreaded skull and cross-bones furled beneath. There was bedlam on board his own vessel, sailors manning the cannon and firing the powder. But the guns were ill set, and the balls flew wild. She came at them steadily, and though they turned and fled before the wind, she caught them easily, and the pirates swarmed aboard, shouting oaths, flashing cutlasses, grinning like devils.

Had he fought gamely? He believed he had—but rashly, recklessly. He had a fierce memory of slashing the cheek of one of the beasts and hearing him howl in surprise. The melee was a blur of swords, bellows of pain, and, yes, he remembered thinking the buccaneers were no gentlemen because they would not stand and fight like soldiers, but engaged only to distract, so that one of their depraved comrades might sneak up behind and stab a good man in the back. He remembered blood on the slippery, treacherous deck, and a severed arm—and could it have been?—a head! sliced clean off by a prodigious blade. He had been determined to keep his back against the mainmast, the better to hold the ruffians at bay. He remembered beating the air with his sword in a futile attempt to ward them off.

But their numbers had been too many, and they overpowered him and lashed him to the mast, where he was forced to witness his shrewd, resourceful captain—that same courageous gentleman who had lost three fingers to buccaneers once before and still prevailed in that battle—cut down by the bloodthirsty bastards, like a bull slaughtered in sacrifice.

At first he had no explanation for why the pirates had seen fit to spare him. But, after the ship was lost and his comrades were all dead, he heard the outlaws arguing among themselves. One of his fellow officers had bargained for his own life—only to lose it in the end, for there was no honor among those thieves—with the information that there was the son of a wealthy merchant on board worth a magnificent ransom if spared and brought back alive. Some of them had believed it.

The pirates had thrown him into irons alongside his captured slaves. He was forced to lie with them in chains, down in the hold, wallowing in their offal, listening to their moans. He had then endured such humiliating shame, and such heartrending remorse, that he believed it had been enough to transform him once and for all into a man of integrity, with an irrevocable sense of justice.

But what use was that at the time? He had been convinced he was going to die in the full knowledge that his family’s corrupt enterprise, the trading of human lives, had brought this punishment upon them all.

How long had he been captive? The days had run together into one long night of hunger, thirst, and wretchedness of body and spirit. Until finally, he had felt the ship swing into calm water and had heard her anchor drop. They came with sniggering jests for the slaves, but left him there, he felt certain, to die.

Then the unexpected had occurred. He could still see the boy bending over him, telling him that he would protect him, that he had nothing to fear. And what had the boy done? He struggled to remember. Was his memory perverted? Had he really seen him stalk and capture . . . a rat? Did he actually crawl along the inside of the staves reaching into the putrid water of the bilge until he caught the swimming creature? He could still see the boy’s slender figure silhouetted in the opening of the hatch, with the limp brown body in his hand.

Later, when the boy returned with a companion, a young slave, he had the key, and he had unlocked the chains. Then his young rescuer had led him past the two guards, who lay retching on the deck, tankards of spilled rum beside them. While the slave watched, the boy had taken him down a ladder to a waiting dinghy, equipped with an oar.

Unbelievable! She had saved his life. Barnabas was wide-awake now, and he was burning with curiosity. The memories he had dredged his mind to discover provided too few details. How had she done it? The rum! That was it! She was already a witch at thirteen, and she had made a potion and poisoned the rum.

He had to know if he was right. He sat up, wincing from the pain in his shoulder, and felt around for the diary. It was not in the bedclothes or on the bedside table. Julia had said something about it before she had washed his wounds. She had asked him if he were reading it. Had she put it somewhere?

He fell to his knees and, nearly collapsing from weakness, searched beneath the bed, then back through the sheets and the quilt. It was gone!

He staggered across the room, the pain crying out against movement, and desperately explored the dresser, the table by the window, the chair, the desk. Nowhere! Furious that he could not find it, he ripped the sheets from the bed, piling them on the floor. How could it have disappeared? Julia. Of course. Julia had taken it! He made for the door and shouted into the hall.

“Julia!” He shouted again. “Julia!”

She came from her room, a worried expression on her face, but he knew her too well, and could easily perceive guilt flickering beneath the concern.

“What is it, Barnabas? Are you all right?”

“Julia, what happened to the diary? What did you do with it?”

“Pardon?”

“Angelique’s diary. Where is it?”

“I thought—but you said you didn’t care about it and I-I didn’t want it there in your room, so I—”

“You what?” he demanded.

“I removed it.”

“Where is it?”

She hesitated a moment, looking at him with a mixture of anxiety and censure. “So you were reading it,” she said.

“Yes, yes,” he responded irritably. “What if I was.”

“Barnabas . . . the diary is evil—”

“Nonsense—”

“Angelique’s hatred, and her jealousy, motivated the curse almost two hundred years ago. You yourself have admitted that to me. Tonight you were attacked—by a vampire. I cannot imagine that you would want any force of evil near you, influencing you—”

“How dare you—”

“Barnabas, listen—”

“How dare you intrude where you are not wanted—take it upon yourself to choose what I read and don’t read. Can’t you see that it’s a violation of my privacy!”

“But you said—”

“Don’t you think I am capable of determining whether a child’s journal has power over me? Don’t you think I know, by now, what evil is?”

“I only think you are vulnerable in your present condition. Remember, I am your doctor, and I decide—”

“You decide nothing! You are my doctor, yes, but you are not my mother!” He saw her flinch at his words.

“Did you burn it?”

“No. I was afraid to burn it.”

“Where is it?” He was barely able to keep himself in check. Incredibly, she stood her ground.

“I do not intend to tell you—”

“Don’t you understand? I must know!” His frustration, all out of proportion to the situation, overcame him. He was suddenly so enraged he found himself standing over her with his fingers dug into her shoulders, shaking her, squeezing hard. “Where is it!”

“Barnabas, stop! Please . . .”

Abruptly he let go and backed away, astounded at himself. What was happening to him? He stared at his hands in bewilderment.

“Julia,” he said in a quivering voice, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me—why I became so angry.” He walked to the bed and sat down, lowering his face into his hands. When he looked at her again his expression was drawn and miserable. “It’s just that I— please understand—I must have it back. Please . . . forgive me.”

Julia sighed. “All right,” she said. “If you must know, I’ll tell you. I buried it—in the graveyard—under her tombstone.”

His mind blurred by pain, Barnabas staggered across the lawn. The rain had been falling for hours, a steady downpour. He had left without an umbrella and was soon drenched. He walked, hunched over, the spark of determination the only bright fire within him.

He was desperate to read Angelique’s account of the battle. She would describe him, reveal his actions and how he had been valiant, generous of heart. Her words would restore him, bring back his vigor and courage. He would be able to see himself again, through her eyes, youthful, optimistic, “merry” she had called him, and “courtly,” the young man he had been so long ago before his decades of depravity. His heart ached. Damn Julia!

His clothes were now wet to the skin, but there was a certain comfort in no longer resisting the rain and letting it have its way with him. The exertion had eased the stiffness of his wounds, and the deluge of falling drops had grown pleasurable. He thought of Angelique.

Their first passion had been in the rain, the warm tropical rain that fell like silk in Martinique. He remembered her face as he kissed it, soft and wet, her lips full of sweet water. He had held her against him, feeling her bones beneath her dripping garment, and she was all liquid flesh enveloping him. He remembered lying with her in the falling water, a stream flowing beneath them and the sky opening above. Her breasts were slick, the nipples taut as swelling seeds, and his hands swam in her warm wetness, as their bodies floated into a river of currents, their limbs slipping together. He could still feel the rain pounding against his back, as a whirlpool sucked him in and their bodies and the rain and the river were all one.

He reached the gate to the cemetery. At that instant the sky was rent by a great bolt of lightning, and a rumbling clap of thunder shook the ground at his feet. The statue of the angel was illuminated in that split second, hovering over her tomb on the other side of the graveyard. A heartbeat later Barnabas stood beneath her supplicating figure, and in the drenched earth, he could make out the spot where the sod had been disturbed.

He fell to his knees and dug with his fingers, pulling back a loose mound of grass and some easily dislodged debris. Then he felt it; the diary was there. He wanted to weep when he saw it lying in the mud, a pool of water collecting around it as the rain fell upon it, the pages soaked through, and the leather cover blackened and ruined.

A flicker of hope offered the chance that some of the pages could still be saved, and he reached for the book. But at that instant, he saw what he had become. His resolution and fortitude, his devotion to his new life, had given way as easily as the mud beneath his knees, and he was staggered to realize he had fallen prey to his detestable obsession. Once more, she had him! He was caught in the spell of an irresistible liaison, and once again he was willing to sacrifice all virtue, even the generous heart of a woman who loved him, for his contemptible desires.

Julia had freed him of all that. What in God’s name was he doing? At the very instant he had the opportunity to live as a man of integrity, he was willing to throw it all away? Had he not been tortured enough? What could he possibly gain from the diary other than one more fantasy of illicit pleasure? Julia had been trying to tell him that, and he had been unwilling to listen.

Angelique’s childhood had been tragic, but she was evil, there was no denying that, and he had always fought against her. He had always struggled, in utter self-loathing, against what she had made him. How could he have considered any other path? Resisting her had been the only source of goodness within him, and it was goodness he now craved with all his being—the peace that only a guilt-free heart could bestow.

Leave it there! Suddenly a feeling of great relief rushed over him, and a swelling of pure happiness flooded his breast. Trembling from his decision, grimacing from the feel of the cold, slimy sod, he placed the dirt and muddy grasses back on top of the book. Then he stood, pressed the earth down with his boot, turned, and, with an unsteady but determined step, walked away from the graveyard.