Josette DuPres (2012)

Josette DuPres is a pretty, upper-class woman romantically involved with Barnabas Collins. She is portrayed by Bella Heathcote.
== Biography ==
At some point in Josette's life, she meets Barnabas Collins. The two soon fall in love and plan to spend their lives together, tenderly exchanging kisses and words of affection on one of Collinwood's balconies. Unfortunately, she and Barnabas are seen by Angelique Bouchard, a servant in the Collins manor and a would-be rival for Barnabas's affections. Angelique is furious that her beloved Barnabas loves another woman, and it's just sheer bad luck for Josette that Angelique is skilled in witchcraft. 
The broken-hearted servant places Josette under a trance, compelling her to jump off of Widows' Hill to her death. Josette manages to resist just long enough to plead with Barnabas to help her before she's forced to step off the precipice and slam onto the wave-beaten rocks below.
Almost two centuries later, Josette's spirit binds to a young girl named Maggie Evans. Maggie looks strikingly similar to Josette and may be her possible doppelganger, partial reincarnation, or distant descendant. Unfortunately, Maggie's parents are very concerned for her mental health because of her "imaginary friend" and send her to Windcliff Sanitarium, a mental hospital. Maggie miserably spends many years in solitary confinement, with no one but Josette's spirit for company.
Eventually, Maggie manages to escape and looks for a job, far away from her old home. Josette points out a help-wanted ad for a governess position at the Collinwood mansion in Maine and Maggie applies, changing her name to Victoria Winters and looking forward to her new life.
At Collinwood, Josette senses that her beloved Barnabas, whom Angelique cursed to become a vampire, will soon escape from the metal coffin she buried him in and grows restless. She leads a confused Victoria to the front hall where she floats around the chandelier before stating that "he's coming" and falling backwards off the chandelier, exactly the way she fell off Widow's Hill. Some weeks after Barnabas's return to Collinwood, Josette repeats the process with one difference: she states "help me" instead of "he's coming". Even so, she doesn't explain to Victoria what she wants help with.
Later, "Angie" Bouchard puts Victoria under the very same trance Josette suffered from. Luckily, Barnabas manages to save his love this time by plunging after her and turning her into a vampire in midair. Interestingly, when Barnabas embraces her on the rocks below and calls her Victoria, she replies "Josette". This may suggest that Josette's spirit somehow merged with Victoria's physical body, that Victoria's soul was displaced, or that Josette and Victoria were two separate parts of the same person, now reunited.
== Trivia ==
* Although Josette presumably died before she could officially join the Collins family, the Collinwood foyer displays a large portrait of Josette nonetheless, even two hundred years after her death.DuPres, Josette
DuPres, Josette
Category:Deceased