Evil Unearthed: Chapter 1

Evil Unearthed
A Tale of Maljardin

By S. M. Hillis

Foreword

This novel is based on Strange Paradise, a gothic soap opera which aired in Canada and parts of the United States from 1969 to 1970. It was created by Jerry Layton and Ian Martin, and I, in writing this new tale of the secluded island of Maljardin, have only endeavoured to build upon its foundation. I owe a great debt to the writing of Ian Martin and hope that I have done him justice. I hope you will enjoy reading this novel as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

SMH

Chapter One

"Mr. Dawson? Sir?" The voice did not seem familiar, but when Stephen Dawson finally opened his eyes, he recognized the face which belonged to it as that of the cheery flight attendant who had served him dinner some hours before.

"Oh," he said sleepily. "Are we landing soon?"

"Yes sir," said Julie or Jinni or whatever her name was. "Please return your seat to its upright position and fasten your seatbelt." Dawson did so, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, and indeed as he looked out the window, he saw the lights of the runway coming closer. He was not looking forward to the next few hours which would involve a probably sleepless night in an airport lounge while waiting for a smaller plane to take him to his actual destination. Still, it would be worth it to see Dr. B. again.

As the plane descended and the landing-gear came down, Stephen thought about what had started him on this journey, and he reflected as he often did that it had all begun with a single word: Maljardin. That word had echoed in his mind and heart ever since he was a small boy, and for him it represented the mystery of mysteries, for it was that name which was forever associated with the strange disappearance of his favourite uncle Matt. In truth, he had never met this long-lost uncle, but his father had given him the middle name of Matthew when he was born, and later, at his request, a photograph of him, and all through his childhood, he had often looked at the young brown-haired man in the clergyman's collar with curiosity and even fear. The story of Uncle Matt's disappearance was not often told around the family dinner table, but it was the kind of thing which could not be kept secret.

According to all who had known him, Matt Dawson had been a devoted minister in the turbulent sixties, especially concerned with helping the younger generation to make it through the turmoil of growing up. He had been affiliated with a home for troubled young girls in New York called Westley House, and it was there that he had met a young heiress named Holly Marshall. Some believed that he had fallen in love with her, and this was all-but confirmed when, shortly after she ran away from Westley House, he suddenly left the church at which he was serving and took off to the Caribbean after her. He had ended up at an island called Port French Leave, and from there, so the story went, he had found his way to the mysterious island chateau of Maljardin, home of the reclusive and eccentric Desmond family. As the investigating detective later told his next-of-kin, the trail went cold after this, with nothing heard of young Miss Marshall or the good reverend after he left Port French Leave in the Desmond supply-boat. Everyone assumed that he was dead, but Stephen had always had a secret hope that one day he would find him, perhaps living some idyllic life with his beloved Holly in a sun-soaked paradise of swaying palms and crashing waves; and now, after years of not knowing, he would finally have the chance to find out what had happened for certain.

Once the plane had taxied to a stop and he had exited the cabin, Stephen walked stiffly through the crowded airport to find his luggage. Having done so with the usual annoyance, he went to the airline counters and found the one for Island Sky, the line with whom his ticket was registered, and the friendly woman standing behind it informed him that his plane for Port French Leave would be taking off, weather permitting of course, at six o'clock A.M. Looking at his watch, his face fell as he realized that it was now six o'clock P.M., and he had nothing to do now but wait.

"The bar's that way," said the woman, pointing a colourfully-nailed hand vaguely in the direction from which could be heard the rattle of dishes and cutlery.

"Thank you," he said, walking off in that direction and dragging his suitcase slowly after him.

The bar was crowded and noisy but Stephen managed to find a corner booth which was unoccupied, and placing his suitcase on the bench across from him, he sat down and opened his carry-on bag. Taking out his Blackberry, he scrolled through the emails waiting for him. Most of them were boring university memoranda, but it wasn't the new mail which interested him. Once his inbox had been cleared, he scrolled to the folder simply labeled 'Barrett,' and looked at the most recent message listed.

"My Dear Dawson," it stated. "It has been a long time, I know, and I do apologize for my procrastination in writing to you, but I felt that I should not disturb your quiet life of lecturing and research unless there was a very good reason for doing so. You told me long ago about the disappearance of your uncle, and it intrigued me so much that I decided to continue the private research I had begun some years ago into the region where he was last seen. I am now on an island in the vicinity of Maljardin, and I have met someone who knew your uncle. This person is a devotee of the unique form of Voodoo practiced in these islands, and I can only tell you that I promise that it will be worth your while to come here. The island is Port French Leave. I've had a foundation on whose board I serve wire you some money. Make up a story that will satisfy the university if you can, and get down here as soon as possible! Till we meet under the Caribbean sun, I remain: Dr. Robert Barrett."

This was the note that had started it all. This was the message that had awoken the obsession which had lain sleeping for so many years, and for three months, Stephen had worked in a fever of activity, booking flights and hotels and making sure that the powers that be at the university would not miss him and would be assured of the research money from Barrett's foundation. Once they had been satisfied, there had been only one other thing to take care of, for as well as being a scholar, Stephen Dawson was a serving Jesuit priest. True, his priestly duties had become less important to him over the years than his duties at the university, but he felt that he could not give them up since his conversion to Catholicism had been such a sore point with his family. He felt that if he were to leave the priesthood, he would not be worthy of all the struggles he had overcome to get there; so he stayed, day after day, serving a mass in which he only half-believed and absolving people of confessed sins which seemed pale in comparison to his own, until, of course, the message from Dr. B. had come to awaken him out of the half-dream which his life had become. Fortunately, it was this very state of ambivalence which allowed him to convince his Bishop that he needed to take some time off, and Bishop O'Hara, who was a genuinely sympathetic man, agreed that some time away from all the stresses of his current life would renew his spiritual vigour; therefore, he had willingly granted the requested personal leave without question or comment.

Now, Stephen thought, as he switched off his Blackberry and sipped his rapidly-cooling coffee, he was taking a journey into mysterious places, and not all of them were to be found on a map. No; for him this would not simply be a fishing expedition for news of his uncle. If Dr. B. was involved, it was sure to be something much deeper: a journey along the unknown paths of the mind and the spirit. When he had learned that his PH.D. dissertation advisor was going to be Dr. Robert Barrett, Stephen had been overjoyed. Barrett had a reputation as an adventurer. It was always said of him that he did not read books for his research but rather wrote them as a result of it. His field research was some of the most dangerous kind, for he had a knack of insinuating himself into any culture he came across and penetrating very deeply into the mysteries of their rituals and practices. When Stephen had first met him, he had expected him to be Indiana Jones complete with bullwhip and fedora, so when he had seen a balding man in his fifties dressed in a rather sedate brown suit, he had felt a strange kind of disappointment. However, as they had worked more closely together on his own research, Barrett had told stories and had shown him some of his field notes, and then once the dissertation was finished, he had taken Stephen to his house and shown him his private and secret files. It was then that Stephen realized that this man was no mere scholar, and that underneath his brown suits and horn-rimmed spectacles there beat the heart of a true spiritual athlete. He had been initiated into several shamanic and magical belief-systems, had taken drugs which had never been classified in any pharmacopoeia, and had learned more than any other of his colleagues about the religions he had studied. Yet, though his books were perhaps a little more interesting than those of his contemporaries, they were never disrespectful to the cultures portrayed in them. In fact, Stephen had been the first to see the private records of his sojourns among the populations he had written so sedately about in his public work. These private notes had taken the form of a spiritual journal of sorts, but even in those pages, Stephen had the suspicion that not all which could have been written had been. What they had told him was that Barrett was a man of honour and a true spiritual seeker, and though he was a priest and perhaps should have decried Barrett's spiritual choices as idolatrous and false, he respected him for going the distance, for refusing to let his academic mind deter him from penetrating to the heart of things.

In fact, it had been in Barrett's private notes that he had discovered a connection to Maljardin. If not for that, he would never have told the professor about the Dawson family mystery at all, but Barrett had intended to study the Voodoo on the islands in the vicinity of Maljardin, and though he had not yet done so firsthand, he had collected research on the region dating back several hundred years. After hearing Stephen's story, he had allowed him to photocopy the Maljardin notes, which was a thing unprecedented for him, and had sworn to him that he would share anything pertaining to his uncle's disappearance with him if ever he had the chance to visit the area. Now at last Barrett had been able to keep his vow, and after this interminable night, passed in inevitable discomfort on a chair in the Island Sky lounge, Stephen would be seeing his old friend again for the first time in fifteen years. More than this, however, he would finally be joining him on one of his amazing adventures, and it was this which had caused the fever to burn in him for the past three months, for somehow he knew that he was going to find truth on this journey, and nothing would stop him from doing as his mentor had always done and going the distance required of him.

Evil Unearthed: Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" If there was one thing that Kathleen O'Dell hated, it was an unreliable internet connection. Her livelihood depended on speedy interaction with that vast web of bits and bytes, and when it was spotty, she found herself dropping her cool business persona and becoming again the bad-tempered girl she had been all through childhood. What was worse, she found herself using expressions which did not become the power suits and the professional demeanour she usually wore, but which rather belonged in the kitchen of her grandmother as that mistress of many expletives burned her finger on the steam coming from the kettle on a misty Belfast morning.

Restarting her laptop for what seemed like the hundredth time, Kathleen looked around the wicker-infested and umbrella-dotted patio of The French Leaf cafe: the only eating and drinking establishment available in the single hotel which served the transient tourist population of the island of Port French Leave. It had never come under the auspices of any of the major resort corporations, and perhaps rightly so, for it seemed that Port French Leave was where tourists vacationed when they could not afford to travel to the more well-known havens of sun and fun in the tropics. Given its out-of-the-way nature therefore, Kathleen reflected that she should be grateful for small favours; the fact that this cafe even had wireless internet for its customers was something of a miracle.

"Alright," she said to the blinking cursor on her computer screen. "Let's try this again, shall we?"

"Computer troubles, Miss O'Dell?" Chris, the young waiter she had come to know during her stay here was beside her.

"Oh," she said, "just the usual."

"Well," he said, a mischievous smile playing across his tanned and well-honed features, "you'd better get ready. Her Ladyship's winged chariot is descending as we speak!"

"No! She told me she wouldn't be arriving for another week!"

"Well, you know Miss Desmond. She's nothing if not surprising!"

Kathleen knew this better than Chris, who, if truth be told, only saw Miss Desmond on her occasional visits here when she was transacting business to do with the land she owned across the channel on the Desmonds' ancestral island of Maljardin. Kathleen, on the other hand, was aware of Julia Desmond's oddities in a far more personal way, for she was both her old school friend and her executive assistant. Julia had taken her under her wing at university, introducing her to eligible young men and making sure that her bookish tendencies did not allow her to lead too solitary an existence. They had met in a Business Administration class at Cambridge, and though Kathleen had been a scholarship student and would typically not have been included in Julia's social circle of heirs and heiresses to vast fortunes, Julia had seen something in her that she liked and wished to cultivate, and soon they were fast friends, Julia taking refuge from the business world in Kathleen's book-filled study, and Kathleen learning all she could from Julia about how to be a successful woman in the corporate world while still maintaining one's sanity.

She recalled those years now as she sipped her drink and clicked her way through her work. She had arrived at Cambridge a studious and serious girl with eyes only for art and literature, and had only signed up for the Business Administration course to please her father. He had shown a grudging pride when she had won the scholarship to study English Literature, but he had made sure to impress upon her the vital importance of having knowledge of what he called "real life" as well.

"I know you love your books, Kat," he had said, "but most of those writers were starving paupers, and I'll not see my girl end up that way if any words of mine can stop it."

Thus, she had lived a strange sort of double life: Business student one minute, English student the next. By the time she had finished her undergraduate studies, she was looking forward to a blissfully business-free Master's program where she would do her thesis on Chaucer's dream-vision poetry. However, that was when opportunity had come knocking in the form of Julia Desmond. She had stated that she was in need of an assistant now that she was taking over the management of her family's considerable business holdings, and though the bells of Cambridge were ringing in her ears, her father's admonitory words drowned them out, for Kathleen knew that the sum of money that Julia was offering was something which she would be an utter fool to pass up. So here she was, ten years later, using her knowledge of art and literature to link images and words with the Desmond name around the world, and wearing her businesswoman's persona more often than that of the bookish young girl she once had been.

"I'll let you know when she's coming. Okay?" Chris had played lookout for her in the past, and Kathleen now exchanged a conspiratorial glance with him, letting him know that he was again on duty.

While she waited, she sat back and surveyed the latest plans that the architect had sent her. She knew something of architecture having once had a fiancé in the business, and she thought that these plans were the best she had seen yet. Of course, they wouldn't pass muster until Julia herself had looked at them, but Kathleen resolved to pitch them for all she was worth. The Chateau Xanadu was going to be the most modern, convenient and pleasurable hotel in the whole of the Caribbean if she had anything to say about it. It was to be built on the ruins of the Desmond ancestral home on Maljardin, that home having been made largely uninhabitable when a mysterious fire engulfed it sometime in 1970. When she had first glimpsed those picturesque walls with their mullioned windows and massive, vine-covered stones still standing, Kathleen had been loath to destroy their rugged grandeur; therefore, she had convinced Julia to retain at least something of the outer shell of the castellated structure while blending it with a sleek modern look.

However, the plans were the least of her worries. Ever since she had been here, she had worked as closely as she could with those in charge of excavating the inner portions of the chateau, and in the last few weeks, strange finds had been made. A month ago, they had rescued a beautifully-carved wooden box filled with nothing but sand for which no one could find a purpose. Then three weeks ago, they had found a blood-stained locket and some Tarot cards. For some unaccountable reason, Kathleen had asked to keep the cards. She had felt that they were lucky somehow. In fact, they now went everywhere with her, nestled protectively in her briefcase next to her cell phone. As for the locket, no one could make a decision as to what should be done with it, so it had remained with Bill Temple, the head foreman on the job. Kathleen had instructed him to keep it until Miss Desmond should inspect it herself.

Then, last week, had come the strangest find of all. In the depths of the charred and twisted rubble, some tubing and gauges blackened with smoke but still largely intact had been seen. Digging deeper, the men had found a coffin-like structure made of heavy metal and baring a small insignia on its side. It could hardly be seen for its size, but Kathleen had researched it with the Desmond lawyers and had learned that it was the logo for a long since bankrupted organization which specialized in cryonics: the technique of deep-freezing dead bodies in order to bring their owners back to life once cures for their causes of death had been found. It was these mysteries which had prompted her finally to request Julia's presence on a project which Julia had left, save for her power of final approval as the reigning queen of all things Desmond-related, entirely to her discretion.

"It'll require a lot of digging," she had said that day six months ago in her New York office, "and not only of the physical variety. You're going to have to comb through the history of that island and take out all the little dirty bits, leaving the Desmonds with an unsullied reputation. I myself know nothing about it, except of course that it was one of my forefathers who insisted on giving the island its current and most unfortunate name. I assume you know what it means?"

"Maljardin," Kathleen had replied. "Evil garden or garden of evil. Yes. I always wondered why it should have such a name."

"Well, by the time you're done with it, Kat my friend, I want you to turn the garden of evil into the garden of Eden. Understand?"

"Your wish is my command." She had said this with excitement in her voice, but as she had spent more and more time down here, she had come to realize that cleaning up the Desmond reputation was going to be more difficult than Julia had anticipated.

At first, it had been almost impossible to find out anything at all about the Desmond history in these parts, for by all accounts, and there were few enough of these, the Desmonds used Maljardin as a private paradise away from prying eyes, and it had been made clear long ago to all who had any dealings with the family that what happened on Maljardin stayed on Maljardin. Still, no Desmonds at all had been in continuous residence here since the fire, so it was possible with a little perseverance for her to glean a few scraps of history and legend from some of the last people around here to do business with them.

It was Jean Paul Desmond, Julia's father, who had last occupied the cliff-top chateau. He had spent much time there as a boy, for it had been a holding belonging to his own father Armand. Then, inevitably, he had gone away and traveled the world, living the life of a roving businessman and play-boy, and then suddenly it had all changed; suddenly, he had returned home, but this time, he was not alone. Almost poetic accounts were given by those who had known him then of the beautiful wife whom he had brought with him, parading her around Port French Leave as though she were a pirate-captured princess. She had been an up-and-coming stage actress with a grand career ahead of her, but when Erica Carr had met Jean Paul, she had fallen hard for him and they had begun a whirlwind courtship which had culminated in a lavish wedding and, when she became pregnant, their complete and total retirement from the world's fascinated gaze to Jean Paul's private island.

For six months, they had lived in romantic bliss, and then Erica had mysteriously disappeared from Port French Leave society. Then, other disappearances had occurred; Jean Paul's lawyer, Erica's younger sister, a young artist who had been commissioned to paint a portrait of Erica, a young runaway and her mother, a minister and a fortune-telling waitress at this very cafe were among those who had, or were presumed to have, crossed the channel in Jean Paul's supply-boat never to return.

Then the fire had broken out. Some said that they had seen it light up the sky as though it were some baleful star of ill omen, but the strangest thing about it was that with all the people then presumed to be residing in the house, no human remains were discovered, and Jean Paul was rumoured to have been seen some days later leaving in an ambulance-plane and flying north. Some said that a young girl had been with him, but Kathleen had not been able to determine her identity or the certainty of her existence. One thing that all who had seen the plane taking off were sure of was that Jean Paul's mysterious servants Raxl and Quito were with him. Kathleen was intrigued with these two and wanted to learn more about them, but all she had been able to learn was that Raxl had acted as Jean Paul's housekeeper and was a dour and hard-featured woman who dressed in black all the time, and that Quito drove the boat and was the only one with the exception of Jean Paul who could navigate the treacherous channel between here and Maljardin. He was described as a big man who was mute and used a kind of sign language to communicate, but he, along with Raxl, disappeared from the memories of everyone after the ambulance-plane had spirited them away.

Before Jean Paul's time there was little or no history to be found. Apart from the island's having been conquered sometime in the sixteen-hundreds by Jacques Eloi des Mondes, a cavalier and free-looter, there were only whispers and veiled hints of sinister import to be gotten from those who knew something of the history of the garden of evil. Tales of murder and magic, malice and mischief abounded, but no clear chronology of events could she peace together, no matter how deeply she probed.

"The crow flies at midnight!" Chris mouthed the words to her from across the patio, and it was all she could do to keep from laughing.

"The owl hoots at dawn," she mouthed back. "Message received! Thanks!"

Closing the lid of her laptop, she sat back and waited for the spectacle which always attended Julia's arrival in this place so rich with Desmond heritage. The waiters snapped to a special kind of attention, and a path was quickly cleared from the patio gate to the table where she sat. Every time Kathleen saw this, she half-expected rose petals to come raining down upon the flag-stones and envelop tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Julia in their cloying scent as though she were a goddess in a Shakespearian play. However, what greeted her instead was her smartly-dressed employer looking tired and plane-rumpled and trying very hard to maintain her composure in the face of the ingratiating attitudes of the cafe staff. This evening was no exception, and when Julia finally arrived at the table, Kathleen could see that she had no politeness left to spare.

"Well," she said brusquely, "this had better be worth the trip!"

Evil Unearthed: Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"Well, Mr. Dawson? Do you have any pages for me to look at?"

Stephen smiled as he heard the familiar voice of his mentor asking the familiar question that had opened many a dissertation meeting for five years of both their lives, and he made his way across the small airport lobby to where Barrett stood wearing one of his trademark brown suits and leaning on what he at first took to be a support cane. However, as he got closer, he realized that the cane's top was carved in the shape of a serpent's head and that a serpent's body coiled its way down the length of the shaft.

"Well, Dr. B., I think you're the one who has something for me this time."

"Indeed so. Come. I'll drive you to the hotel so you can check in, and then you and I will talk."

Stephen followed Barrett to his beat-up old pickup truck and soon, they were weaving in and out of a curious assortment of morning traffic on their way into town. There were donkey-carts, mopeds, bicycles and other pickups, as well as the ubiquitous sight of kerchief-sporting women walking to market with baskets of fruits and vegetables on their heads. Soon, however, these colourful curiosities decreased and the town proper came into view with its post-office, court house and marina, and overlooking the frothing waves of the great channel stood the Port French Leave Hotel.

After checking in for an indefinite stay, Stephen stowed his suitcase in his room, had a quick shower, and joined Barrett on the patio of the cafe.

"You look tired, Dawson. I've ordered you some coffee."

"Thanks, and thanks for the lift."

"The cabs in this town are death-machines and their drivers pride themselves on the stunts they perform." Barrett smiled broadly and it was then that Stephen noticed how thin his face had become. He had always had very angular features, but there was now a hollowing of the cheeks and a brightness in the black eyes that he didn't like.

"Still, it was good of you to make the trip, but what's with the cane? It's no mere drug-store purchase, that's for sure!"

"You'll learn about it in time I have no doubt," Barrett said, "but for now, all you need to know is that it's a prop for me. I'm getting old, Stephen, and all my years of sleeping in tents and strenuous hiking are catching up to me. But cheer up and stop staring! I'm not dead yet!"

"Alright then. You went to a lot of trouble to get me here, so now you need to tell me why!"

"I can't say much here, and indeed, there's not much for me to tell you anyway. In fact, I don't know anything specific at all."

Stephen wanted to get up and walk away right then, but he decided to give Barrett a piece of his mind before he left.

"I don't believe you! I spent several hours on planes and in uncomfortable airports, not to mention leaving my classes and my research on your insistence, and now you tell me that you have nothing to tell me? What kind of game are you playing?"

"Wait a minute," said Barrett calmly. "You were always too quick to jump to conclusions. I thought I had cured you of that habit. What I mean is that the person I want you to meet feels very strongly that the information you need to hear is for your ears only."

"Well, when do I meet this person?"

"I can't give you a specific time, but it'll be at night. I'll come to your hotel room and take you where we need to go."

"It's all a little bit cloak-and-daggerish, isn't it? Why all the secrecy?"

"Because that's the way this person wishes it. When you know more, you'll understand why."

"Well, what do I do in the meantime?"

"Enjoy yourself! Look around! Get some colour into that pale face of yours!"

"You're one to talk! You were always so tanned and sun-beaten. Now, well--"

"Well nothing. I just spend too much time at my desk pouring over notes for the new book I'm writing."

"You're still writing books? What's the topic?"

"Maljardin." Stephen dropped the fork he had been using to eat his eggs.

"What? You're really going to write about the garden of evil?"

"Well, it's a curious place. Did you know that up until three-hundred years ago there was a thriving native population on that island?"

"So? What of it? Wasn't it conquered three-hundred years ago by Europeans?"

"Yes, but so were other islands and the natives never left them. No, this island's different. It was conquered by an ancestor of the Desmonds as you know, and for some time the natives continued plying their trades and crafts. Then, all at once, they stopped fishing and weaving and began to die of mysterious illnesses, and soon there were none left, and none have ever lived there since. Now, strange plants grow where the huts once stood and strange legends have come down through the centuries. I intend to find out what happened."

"I think you intend to do more than that," said Stephen. "Why else did you ask me to bring my priest stuff with me?"

"You never know when it might be needed. You would have brought it anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Well, I'm not so sure about that. Sometimes I think that it's all useless. I could be married by now if I weren't a priest, you know."

"Well, marriage isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I should know. I tried it three times and failed each time."

"The call of the jungle was just too strong?"

"Something like that, I suppose. At any rate, you should be privileged to hold the rank you do."

"It seems to mean less and less over time, but I know what you mean."

"Well, perhaps you'll find refreshment in this land of golden sunsets and moonlit nights."

"Right now, it seems to be a land of suddenly-occurring storms!"

"Yes. The trade winds do bring the storms upon us." As Barrett spoke, the clouds that had rolled in during their conversation spawned a loud clap of thunder, and the two of them managed to move to an indoor table just as the rain began to fall.

"Well, Dr. Barrett! Fancy meeting you here!" Stephen watched as a smartly-dressed woman with long red hair neatly-combed came purposefully across the room toward their table.

"Miss O'Dell! Are you here to ask me more about our mutual obsession?"

"No, I think you made it clear the last time we met that you weren't going to tell me anything more."

"Ah, so he's secretive with you too?" Stephen hadn't meant to interrupt, but the woman's lilting Ulster accent and piercing green eyes had captivated him.

"And you would be?"

"Ah. Where are my manners? Miss Kathleen O'Dell, allow me to present Stephen Dawson, a former student of mine and a good friend."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss O'Dell."

"Please! Only Dr. Barrett calls me that. I'm Kathleen, or just plain Kat if you prefer."

"So you're interested in Maljardin then?"

"I don't know if interested is the right word," said Kathleen, "but I'm researching it for my boss."

"What could anyone in the business world want with that island?"

"It depends who you're talking about," said Barrett, exchanging a conspiratorial smile with Kathleen. "Her boss is--"

"looking for her prodigal assistant." Stephen turned to see who had just spoken, and for a moment, it was as though he were looking at the cover of one of those who's-who magazines at the supermarket checkout counter, for there, in all her glory, was none other than Miss Julia Desmond, wealthy business-woman and land-owner.

"We really should be leaving if we want to catch that plane!"

"Of course, Miss Desmond. I'm sorry."

"You're leaving us then, Miss O'Dell?" Barrett looked genuinely saddened by the idea.

"No no," said Miss Desmond. "We're catching a sea-plane which Kathleen says will get us to Maljardin. In this storm, I don't know if it will take off."

"Oh, it'll blow itself out in ten minutes," said Barrett. "Never fear."

As it turned out, Barrett was absolutely right about the storm, and Stephen soon watched the two women as they fairly sprinted for the marina and their waiting sea-plane.

"How do you know Miss O'Dell?" Stephen gave Barrett a sly smile. "Don't tell me that you've found an Irish lassie to love away down here in the land of rum and romance!"

"Don't be absurd! She was directed to me by some of the locals as a source of information on her employer's family and their relationship to Maljardin. That, my friend, is all. She's very intelligent and has a slightly poetic turn of mind which intrigues me. Still, I don't envy her the task in which she's currently engaged."

"And what is that?"

"She is playing, if truth be told, garbage collector. La Julia is going to build a hotel on Maljardin, and it's Miss O'Dell's job to make sure that no skeletons which may be lurking secretly in the Desmond family closet come to light and ruin the hotel's reputation."

"Are there such skeletons? I mean, I know that the conquering ancestor was a pirate, but nowadays a fact like that would only add to the romance of the place."

"Well, leaving aside the mysterious fire which took place shortly after your uncle and others ended up at the Desmond chateau, there are other stories."

"So Miss O'Dell is supposed to find these unsanitary little tidbits and then conveniently cover them up?"

"That is her job as I understand it. Still, some legends just refuse to die." Barrett's voice suddenly trailed off and Stephen watched in fascination as he stared fixedly out the window to where a cliff-crowned island could be seen in the thinning shreds of cloud which were rapidly blowing away in a fresh south wind.

"Is that the island there?"

"Yes indeed," said Barrett, coming back to himself as though waking from an impromptu doze, "and after years of being completely uninhabited, a Desmond has again come back to reside upon it. One can only wonder what will come from all the digging both literal and figurative going on there. Perhaps something that was better left to rest will be disturbed."

"Are you alright?" Stephen was alarmed by Barrett's strange talk and the way that his black eyes were becoming unfocused.

"I'm sorry, Stephen. Don't mind my talk. I find myself going off on strange tangents lately."

Still, Stephen felt that Barrett was being evasive. He had traveled on spiritual paths that few others in the world had trod, pushing himself to the very limits of his mental and bodily strength, and Stephen found himself wondering if he had finally reached the end of his journey.

"Well," he said finally, "I suppose I shouldn't keep you any longer from your painstaking work."

"Nonsense," said Barrett, now fully in possession of himself again. "I think you can help me! I have a lot of notes which need cataloguing. Could you come round to my bungalow and help me out?"

"Not today! I haven't slept since I left the university!"

"Of course! I should have thought. In that case, it is I who should not keep you longer. I'll give you a few days to rest, and perhaps the next time I see you will be when we take the road to find the answers you seek."

The two men parted with the usual pleasantries, and Stephen watched Barrett pay the bill and make his way to his truck. Once the truck was out of sight around a corner, he exited the cafe and climbed the stairs to his room. There, he attempted to unpack but suddenly felt the energy draining from him, and before long, he had no choice but to collapse gratefully on the bed and fall deeply into a dreamless sleep.

Evil Unearthed: Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Kathleen," said Julia Desmond as she climbed what felt like the millionth flight of steps, "I believe that you are either a glutton for punishment or else one who enjoys dealing it out. Tell me again why you made your office all the way up this tower?"

"For the simple reason that the tower was one of the only structurally-safe parts of the building. Just a few more steps and you'll be able to sit down."

Julia sometimes felt that Miss Kathleen O'Dell did her utmost to inject a bit of Ulster common sense into her world of luxury and high living as a kind of revenge for being lured away from the life she would have led as a lecturer at Cambridge. Though she knew that Kathleen's reasons for picking this tower room as an office were sound, she also caught a secret smile crossing the other woman's ruddy features as she did her best to toil up the spiraling stone stairs which seemed never to end. First, there had been the steep path from the dock to the house, and Julia had slipped more than once climbing it, and now there was this tower which looked like something out of one of those luridly-illustrated Victorian fairytale books.

"You know," she said as they finally reached the last step, "so far, this place is not worthy to be called Xanadu! I think it should be called Xana-don't!"

"Well," said Kathleen in her matter-of-fact way, "at least you can laugh! Now, welcome to my home away from home!"

Julia now found herself in a large round room with a makeshift desk under a high and mullioned window and three folding chairs placed randomly throughout. The walls were of undressed stone and would have imparted a cheerless aspect to the place if not for the presence of some very authentic-looking tapestries. One particularly arresting hanging sported the figure of a running hound in full cry after a fleeing deer.

"You like them? I found them as we were clearing things out. They were protected from the fire in one of these rooms. They had been carefully stored in cedar, and I thought they would make good decorations for the guest rooms."

"Yes, but aren't they a little bit old-fashioned? This is supposed to be a modern hotel, after all."

"I've found that a little historic atmosphere can go a long way. Of course it'll be a modern hotel, but we can't forget that it's being built on layers of the past."

"I suppose you're right. Now, where's this Mr. Temple we're supposed to meet?"

"He's down at the diggings. I'll call him." Kathleen went to her desk and found a small walky-talky. "Mr. Temple? Miss Desmond is here. Would you come up to the office and show her some of what you've found?"

"Right away, Miss O'Dell," came the disembodied voice, "but we've just found something new this morning. It'll be difficult to bring it up those narrow stairs. I'll try though."

"With all you've told me, Kat, I'm afraid of what new thing he's bringing!" Julia pictured the as yet unknown Mr. Temple lumbering up the stairs with nothing less than a complete skeleton draped piggyback-style over his shoulders. "This place gives me the creeps. I can't wait till there's life here again."

"It isn't really that bad once you get used to it," said Bill Temple's voice from the doorway. He did seem to be dragging something heavy with him, but to Julia's relief, the rattle of bones was not apparent in his approach. "I've brought some more art for you, Miss O'Dell," was all he said, and soon, a large framed portrait stood propped against the wall and Bill himself came in and sat down.

He was a barrel-chested man with powerful arms which looked as though they could wrestle a bear, but his face was round and kindly-looking.

"It's the strangest thing, Miss Desmond!" he said after shaking Julia's hand in greeting. "That portrait was found in the middle of the rubble of the great hall where the fire is said to have started but there's not a mark on it. Bits of other portraits were found there as well, but somehow this dashing dog seems to have survived."

"Dashing dog eh?" Julia went closer and inspected the exquisitely-framed canvas, and her heart missed a beat. "Kathleen! Except for his old-fashioned clothing, this man could be my own father!"

The man was tall and elegantly-dressed in seventeenth-century clothing and his eyes seemed strangely alive as Julia looked at them. In ornate lettering along the bottom edge of the frame was written a name, presumably the name of the man in the portrait: Jacques Eloi des Mondes.

"He is fascinating," said Kathleen. "This is an example of vintage portraiture! It should hang in the lobby!"

"I don't like it," said Julia suddenly. Her palms were beginning to sweat and she felt herself trembling all over. "I won't have it hanging in my hotel!"

"But surely it would be another touch of history!"

"Put it in a museum or something, but get it out of my sight! This is a modern hotel. I don't like the look in his eyes!"

"I'll take it away then, Miss," said Bill Temple, evidently alarmed by her sudden fright.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Temple. You don't need to remove it just yet. It's been a long couple of days. Now, can you show me this treasure which might be an heirloom of my family?"

"Here it is," he said, withdrawing from a back pocket a gold chain on which hung a beautiful locket. Julia looked at it and found that there were what seemed at first to be flecks of rust on it. Then she remembered that gold is not prone to rust or tarnish and she looked more closely at the brownish discolourations on the surface of the metal.

"Is that blood?"

"That's what we think it is, Miss. Look inside!"

Julia did so and found underneath a thin layer of glass a picture of a very beautiful woman, and in the other half of the locket was a picture of her own father, Jean Paul Desmond. Again, her glance involuntarily strayed to the portrait but she shook her head violently and returned to examining the contents of the small keepsake.

"That must be Erica, his first wife!" she breathed. "He never spoke of her to me, but of course I've seen old newspaper clippings. She really was beautiful!"

"Miss O'Dell didn't know what we should do with it. We wondered if it should be taken to the police or somewhere--you know--because of the blood, Miss."

"Are you saying that you think this is evidence of some sort of crime?" Julia could not believe that she was having this conversation. All she wanted to do with this place was knock it down and build a new fancy hotel. She certainly did not want to spend her time playing detective.

"We don't know anything for sure," said Kathleen hastily. "No one's trying to insinuate anything. We just thought we shouldn't proceed without your direction."

"Well, it is a beautiful little thing, but apart from the fact that it contains my father's picture, it really means nothing to me."

"There are the other things too, Miss Desmond," said Bill, shifting in his chair. "If you'd follow me downstairs again, I could show them to you."

"Well, I've already been shown the tarot cards. I have no idea why they were here. As far as I know, my father never seemed to hold with spiritualism and all that other mumbo-jumbo. Still, they were interesting."

"I think there's a lot about your father that none of us knows," said Kathleen. "As I told you before, there are the remains of a cryonics capsule lying downstairs, and it could only have come here during the time your father was in residence. What are we to make of that?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps he bought into crazy fads like that when he was a younger man. Anyway, I do not need to see it! You know that anything to do with death depresses me. I won't have it talked about in my presence! As for the capsule, you can burn it completely if you want to, or bury it or drown it. I really don't care. Just get this hotel built!"

Julia was beyond exasperated. This hotel was costing her much more than she had initially figured, and now people were throwing strange and complicated mysteries at her every five seconds. Why had the portrait survived the fire when the others among which it had hung had not? Why was a locket presumably belonging to the late Erica Desmond found with blood stains on it? Why had her father invested in equipment necessary to freeze a body in cryonic suspension? All these questions were burning in her brain and the last thing she wanted to do was to think about them. Besides, there were other things on her mind which seemed far more important to her than all these oddities. She had resolved not to confide in anyone until it was absolutely necessary, but she felt now that she must speak.

"Mr. Temple," she said after an awkward silence, "I'm sorry I yelled. I'll inspect the capsule later. For now, Miss O'Dell and I have things to do. Please go and resume your work."

"Shall I take the locket and the portrait away again?"

"No, leave them here," was Julia's listless reply. "And just because I'm here, Bill, don't change the way you do things. Please report to Miss O'Dell as usual."

"Thanks, Miss Desmond," said Bill as he stood up. "Sorry to have troubled you," and he walked briskly out of the room and disappeared down the stairs.

Julia leaned back in her chair and regarded Kathleen for a moment. What she liked about Kat O'Dell above anything else was the composure she always maintained no matter what new situation confronted her. She hoped desperately to rely on that calm exterior when she told her the news she now had no choice but to reveal.

"Kathleen," she said as the other was examining the portrait, "I have something to tell you."

"What is it?" Kathleen straightened up and resumed her seat. "I knew that something was bothering you but I didn't want to mention anything."

"The reason I left this hotel project in your hands was not only because I knew you were quite capable of handling it, but it was because of something else. For the past few months I've been away in Switzerland. I have been consulting with every specialist I could find, and they've all told me the same thing; the Cancer's back and no procedure I have tried has worked to slow it down."

"But it's been over five years! I thought you were deemed cured!"

"It's Leukemia, Kat. It doesn't work with timelines."

"Are you alright now?"

"I walked up all those stairs, didn't I? Yes. The doctors say that for now my levels are alright, but unless I can find some new procedure to try, all they can do is give me blood transfusions and such to keep me going a little longer, and of course there's the chemo. You remember the chemo, don't you?" Julia saw a sickly expression pass across Kathleen's face and she nodded gravely in response.

"So, have they--have they given you a prognosis?"

"They don't know for sure, but they think I have about a year to live without the chemo, and the projections don't look much better with it. My body hadn't fully recovered from the last course of treatments and you know I've never been one to take things easy."

"Well," said Kathleen, "I guess we'd better get this place built then, hadn't we?"

"It's a good thing you know how to meet deadlines, Kat, my friend," said Julia, and they both laughed with bitter amusement. "I'm the last of the Maljardin line of the Desmond dynasty, and I want to be sure I go out with a bang. You're going to make that happen. Do you understand?"

"Your wish is my command, Mistress," and they both laughed again. Then in the silence which followed, Julia thought she heard the echo of another kind of laughter. This was mocking and evil, as though the laugher was totally indifferent to simple human suffering, and she felt a deep chill go through her entire being.

"What is it?" Kathleen moved quickly to her side.

"Nothing," said Julia. "I just had a little chill."

"You turned completely white for a minute. I think you need rest. You can go into the room above this one. I have a futon in there. I know it's not what you're used to, but at least it's something."

"Thanks, Kat. I think you're right," said Julia, and Kathleen went behind her desk and opened a door which Julia had not yet seen. Beyond it was a narrow set of stairs which led to a smaller room above this one, identical in shape but with a lower ceiling and a trap-door in the roof which Kathleen informed her led to a widow's walk around the very top of the tower. The futon was against the wall opposite the door and Julia further saw that Kathleen's suitcase was standing at its head.

"I'll be working down here," Kathleen called up the stairs.

"Good," said Julia. "I'm sure I won't sleep for too long, and thanks, Kat. Thanks for everything."

The dream began almost without her knowing it. She lay on the futon just as she had when she had drifted off to sleep, but as soon as she stood up, she knew she must be dreaming, for she found herself floating through the outer wall of the tower and across the grounds of the mansion. As she gazed down from the impossible height, she realized that the mansion was as it must have been in its golden age, with high walls of indomitable stone and decorative gardens reaching all the way to the edge of the Maljardin cliffs. There was a line of elegantly-dressed people climbing the steep cliff path from the shore, and bringing up the rear was the man from the portrait. He was dressed in vintage Louis Quatorze splendour and he carried a gold-topped walking-stick. He was tall and lithe, young and intense, looking as she had seen her father look in photos taken in his prime, and he supported a mahogany-skinned woman with finely-molded features and long, black hair. When everyone had reached the top of the path, this man and woman moved to the front of the line and the man turned to his guests.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said with a dramatic flourish of his hand to indicate all who were assembled in his presence, "Mesdames and messieurs! Welcome to our humble home! Madame des Mondes and myself are pleased to host this special feast on the occasion of the birth of our first-born son! Enter now and take your ease!"

He fairly danced up the steps and threw open the huge, ornately-carven doors and stood back to allow his guests to enter. Julia too found herself entering, and as she passed through the doorway, she suddenly felt herself standing on her feet and mingling with the guests. For an instant she found herself standing next to a brown-haired woman with soulful, brown eyes who seemed to be the only person to notice her.

"You don't belong here," she said in Julia's ear.

"I know," was all that Julia could think to say. "Do you?" She said this as it seemed that none of the guests had noticed this mysterious addition to their number even as they had not noticed her own presence.

"I came here of my own free will," said the woman. "You appear to have been drawn here against yours."

By this time the guests had made their way into the great hall where a small orchestra was making ready for the dancing which was evidently soon to commence, and the woman now took Julia's hand and led her into a small room off the hall where they were alone. Julia wondered why this was, since it seemed that no one could see or hear either of them, but the woman's first words explained her actions.

"He will be looking for you, you know, the man with the gold-topped cane. He has brought you here for a reason, and that reason cannot be good. I know that events must take their course and it is not my task to prevent them, but I want you to know that if you should meet me again, you can trust me. Now, I have to leave you. Remember what I said about the man with the cane!"

"Tell me who you are first!"

"I am your friend and his enemy. That's all you need to know for now." With that word, she faded from Julia's sight, and in her place was the man himself, Jacques Eloi des Mondes.

"My beloved descendant," he said as he came toward her, "I am happy to see you here!"

"I'm just dreaming, that's all."

"Are you certain? Dream can be a doorway for the soul, you know. I've brought you here to show you the grandeur of this mansion in its glory. You can't properly dispose of something if you've never truly seen it. This is your home. This is the glory of the ancient and noble line of the family you call the Desmonds. You could reign here as Miranda to my Prospero, queen of all you survey, and instead, you want to destroy the history of your family."

"Miranda to your Prospero? You know nothing of me. I too am a magician."

"A magician in the world of finance, perhaps, but you know nothing of true mastery. You could become a mistress even of life and death, you know. I see the sorrow weighing on your heart, and I can free you from it. What is the body and its little pains and ills when compared to the power of the spirit? Let me show you what you can gain! All you have to do is to rebuild Maljardin as it was and agree to live here for the rest of your life."

"This is my island now," said Julia fiercely. "I can do with it as I choose, and I choose not to listen to you."

"Never mind," said Jacques. "You will listen in time. aurevoir, my descendant!"

Julia suddenly found herself outside again, floating higher and higher above the island and almost seeming to become one with the star-filled night around her. Then she found her gaze being drawn to one star which burned brighter than all the rest. It lay like a precious jewel deep in the heavens, pulsing strangely as though it were the ancient heart of some vast and eldritch creature. Julia felt herself suspended almost on a level with this astronomical oddity, and then from nowhere in particular, the musical voice of the mysterious brown-haired woman came to her.

"Open your eyes, Miss Desmond! That star should not be yours! Open your eyes!"

"Julia! Julia!" Kathleen was shaking her. "Come on, please! Wake up!"

"Kat, come on! I'm awake! You don't have to shake me skin from bone!"

"Sorry, but you were sleeping really strangely. I mean, your breathing was really slow and shallow and I thought something was wrong."

"Something was wrong! I had the strangest dream I've ever had in my life!"

"Is that all? You frightened me!"

"Sorry, Kat, but I'm awake now. What time is it?"

"Look for yourself."

Julia went to the window and gasped. Confronting her was the same deep and star-filled night she had witnessed in her dream.

"I wanted to have a nap," she said to cover her shock, "not sleep the whole day away!"

"Well, your body must have needed I guess. I've made some dinner for us if you want."

"Dinner? Here?"

"I have a toaster oven and a hot-plate, and, if you haven't forgotten, I'm a genius."

Julia laughed as she and Kathleen went down into the office which was now laid with paper plates and plastic cutlery, and they dined sumptuously on canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches until all Julia's uncanny fears were utterly swallowed up in laughter and homey comfort. Then she made the mistake of looking at the portrait which still reclined against the wall, and when Kathleen had left for a moment to dispose of their fine china, she thought she heard Jacques' voice coming from it.

"I told you that we'd meet again, my female descendant! You'll never be rid of me now!"

Julia shook her head fiercely as though to rid herself of an annoying mosquito, but no matter how much she ignored him, she heard Jacques laughing and laughing, sounding like an evil mockery of her father in one of his rare lighthearted moods.

"Get rid of this portrait, Kat," she said when her assistant had returned. "It can't stay here. Throw it in the sea or something. I don't care, but just get rid of it!"

"I'll do something with it right now, Julia. I will. In the meantime, I suppose you should return to the main island."

"And do what, sleep? I may never sleep again, Kat!"

"You have to tell me what has spooked you!"

"I don't have to tell you anything, Kat. Just take that thing and hide it, and as for going back to the main island, you should go and take my room for the night. I'll stay here. I can't sleep now anyway."

"Alright," said Kathleen. "If you're sure."

Julia watched her heft the heavy canvas in its gilt frame and somehow maneuver it down the stairs, and soon she saw the sea-plane come in for a landing and then take off again with Kathleen aboard.

"I hate this place," she said to the empty room. "I really hate this place, but I know that I can make it my own, and I'm going to, even if I die trying."

"And that you may, my descendant. That you may!" Jacques' voice seemed to echo on the soft night wind which blew gently through the open casement. It was then that Julia knew that whether the portrait existed or not, she would be hearing that voice for the rest of her life if she didn't accede to his wishes.

"Alright," she said now. "Alright! I'll rebuild your precious mansion," and as suddenly as it had begun, the laughter ceased, and she was left alone at last with her thoughts and the splendour of the stars to keep her company.

Evil Unearthed: Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Stephen paced angrily back and forth from door to window in his small hotel room and cursed his decision to come down here. Why had Barrett summoned him so urgently and then just left him to languish without so much as a word? Never mind that the past seven days in this so-called tropical paradise had poured with rain, but to top everything, Barrett's promised journey into the unknown had been delayed and delayed for reasons known only to himself.

Though it was true that life here had not been altogether solitary, for he had during this last week become further acquainted with Miss Kathleen O'Dell. She it seemed had been banished for a time from Maljardin to work here, and in payment for his occasional companionship she had shown him the various repositories of historical information on the island and had even spent many hours combing through newspapers yellowed with age and microfilms of birth and death registries at his side.

"Why are you helping me, Kathleen?" he had asked her one day.

"Because strange changes have begun to take place on Maljardin, and if I can't confront them myself, I can help you to confront what might be their cause."

"But I'm not trying to confront anything. I just want to solve the mystery of my uncle's disappearance."

"And I want to solve the mystery of Julia Desmond's sudden demand that I stay away from a project that she herself committed to me six months ago. All I know is that she sent me here on the evening of the day you and I met, and by the next morning, I had received a singularly cryptic email stating in so many words that I was free to stay here and work but that Julia herself would be taking over the project from now on."

"Are you saying that my uncle's disappearance and Julia's odd change of attitude are somehow connected?"

"I don't know," Kathleen had said, "but there was something about being in that place that affected her deeply. There was a portrait that we found of an ancient ancestor of the Desmonds and it was somehow unhurt by the fire. She hated it and wanted it removed, but I could see nothing wrong with it. She actually wanted it destroyed, a peace of vintage art like that, but I just couldn't do it, so I hid it in an unused and undamaged room. She's been under a lot of stress lately. I'm afraid she might be going mad or something! I think I'll go mad too if I think about all this, so I decided to put my considerable mental acuity to use by helping you." She had laughed as she had said this, but he had seen true concern in her eyes which had touched him deeply.

"Kathleen," he had found himself saying almost without thinking, "if I can help you in any way, please let me know," and the two had clasped hands in token of their mutual promise.

Thus had the last few days passed, but the nights had been something else again. Never, since he had come to this place, had he truly had a good night's sleep. Dreams had disturbed him: dreams of bonfires and leaping worshippers, of drums and dancing, and over all these images had loomed the shadow of the curse-haunted garden of evil. He supposed that his days of culling scraps of Maljardin lore and legend from the recesses of the local library had been the source of these visions of the night, but he wished that they would stop. He wished that he could find the answers he had come here for, but apart from eye-strain and a persistent kink in his neck, he had gained nothing substantial, until this afternoon, that is, when an email from Barrett, and as cryptic as the one that Kathleen had described receiving some days ago, had flashed across the screen of his Blackberry.

"Stephen," it had read, "tonight is the night. Be ready when I come for you. R. B."

So here he was, long after any sane person would have been in bed, pacing his room in impatient anger. He knew the absurdity of this annoyance, since finally he was going to do what he had come here to do, but he felt it nonetheless, and resolved to give Barrett a piece of his mind when he saw him. Finally he heard a slow step coming along the hallway outside his room, and turning the handle of his door so as not to disturb the other hotel guests, he watched Barrett's approach, and the expression on his face as he came closer put all thoughts of angry remonstrance from his mind. Barrett looked as though even more years had fallen upon his already venerable head, and all Stephen could do was reach out a hand and usher him carefully into the room and sit him on a chair.

"You look like you could use something," he said, going to the mini-bar and finding a small bottle of scotch.

"Thank you," said Barrett, taking the offered whisky. "It's not as easy for me to go without sleep as it was in the past. This will help me a great deal. We have a rather long journey to take."

"Can you not tell me anything about this person even now?"

"I'm sorry, old man, but I just can't. But why don't you tell me how you've spent these past few rain-sodden days."

"I've been keeping myself busy with futile research," Stephen said shortly. "Still, I had Miss O'Dell for company, so I suppose it wasn't all a waste of my time."

"I'm sorry, Stephen," said Barrett. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting. I just--just couldn't come till now."

"Well, I suppose what's done is done," said Stephen, upending the remainder of the tiny bottle of scotch and swallowing the contents. "Drink up, and we'll get going whenever you're ready."

Barrett finished his drink and got to his feet, leaning on his strangely-carven staff for support, and the two of them made their way quietly out of the hotel and into the darkened streets of the little island town. The sky was clear and absent of cloud for once, and the stars shone brightly, adorning a perfectly round and full moon which sat among them like a silver jewel among sparkling chips of diamond. Stephen saw Barrett's old truck parked in front of the hotel, but to his surprise, Barrett did not make for it. Instead, he walked around the back of the hotel and searched for some time until he found an overgrown dirt track leading away from the town and into the dense jungle of vines and creepers which festooned the less populated areas of the island.

"Did you bring a machete?" Stephen was being quite serious, but Barrett turned to him and smiled.

"There's no need of such things here. This may look like a disused path through the forest primeval, but I promise you that it is quite navigable."

As Stephen set foot on the track, he understood what Barrett had meant. Though the vines seemed to engulf the whole area, there was a path picked out among them where they had been carefully kept at bay by practiced hands. As he walked on behind his mentor, he suddenly felt the need for silence, and though he had many questions, he instinctively bit them back and locked them behind a wall of awe and reverence. This, he thought, must be an ancient and processional way for the worshippers of the god that in these islands was known as The Great Serpent. He wondered how many feet had trodden it and had gone to dust centuries ago, and he was further amazed to see that it had recently been used. Vague footprints were still visible in the dewy earth, and he knew that some of the people he had passed in the street during the past week as they went about their mundane and workaday affairs had traversed this ancient road at night and had come to some sacred and holy place to dance the dances of a people who had lived here for years beyond the count of written history.

These thoughts were interrupted by the rapid beating of a drum. He thought it to be a signal or a warning, for Barrett stopped dead at the sound and listened. Suddenly a tall shape loomed before them on the path and a deep voice said menacingly:

"Who comes here?"

"It is I, Robert Barrett, and I bring Stephen Dawson. We are expected."

"Very well," said the tall man. Stephen noticed that he was ornately tattooed on arms and chest and that he carried a long knife which looked to be made of the bone of an animal.

"You may pass," he finally said after a pause which seemed interminable, and he faded into the surrounding undergrowth as though he had never been there.

Barrett didn't move, however, until the drums had passed the guard's message on ahead. When the echoes of the drums had ceased, Stephen watched as Barrett reverently bowed three times and touched some of the earth to his forehead and then removed his shoes and socks. Stephen followed suit and they both moved on, Barrett still leaning on his staff and Stephen leaning metaphorically on him, for as they went forward, the sense of ancient holiness began almost to overpower him. He found that he now feared to meet the person they sought, though there was in fact nothing ominous in his surroundings to warrant that emotion. Still, the tall man had unnerved him. Why did this person need to be guarded? What if this ancient faith that Barrett seemed to revere so highly was something dark and evil? He knew that most faiths of this kind were not concerned with spreading harm and destruction throughout the world, and despite the fact that he was a Catholic priest, he didn't hold with the prejudices which had dogged his calling throughout history; he was too much of an anthropologist to do that, but he couldn't help being human, and it was human nature to fear the unknown until it was known. Still, as he moved along the path which was considerably wider at this point than it had been, he reproached himself for his childish doubts and resolved to trust Barrett as he had always trusted him, even if that trust led him into a circle of challenging spears.

"Now we must go off the path," said Barrett. "You can put your shoes on again here. It's not safe for you to go barefoot where the path isn't tended."

"This isn't holy ground off the path?"

"No, but it should be treated with reverence. We are nearing the place we seek now," and without another word he dawned his shoes and so did Stephen, and they walked off the left-hand edge of the path into the tangle of interlaced undergrowth. Yet here too was a track for one who knew how to find it, and by the light of the moon Barrett went deftly on, threading his way purposefully between the stems and trunks of tropical plants and taking Stephen with him.

They soon came to a cleared plot of ground in which little or nothing grew, and in the centre of this space stood a stone cabin. It was well-built of massive and irregularly shaped blocks and was strongly thatched with closely-woven palm-leaves, and it looked to Stephen like the perfect representation of the gingerbread house that belonged to the witch in the tale of Hansel and Gretel.

"What's the matter?" Barrett must have noticed his suspicious glance.

"Nothing," he said, trying to laugh but failing. "Nothing's the matter at all."

"This may look like a strange little house," said Barrett, "but I promise you that no evil is here. You'll feel better when you're inside. Come on now," and he knocked quietly on the wooden door.

"Come in, Robert," said a musical female voice. "Come in!"

Stephen stood back to let Barrett open the door, and when he did so, he revealed a low-ceilinged room with a fireplace and various pieces of wicker furniture placed here and there. On a low stool near to the fire sat a woman who looked to be in her early thirties with rich, brown hair and deep, brown eyes that seemed to sparkle with something unnamable when their gaze fell on Stephen. For an instant he thought that the sparkle was due to tears, and this suspicion was confirmed when he saw her blink furiously before rising and coming toward them.

"Come in and be welcome, both of you," she said now as she held out her hand to them. Stephen let Barrett go in first so he could watch how he approached her, for he saw that she was dressed in a ceremonial robe and he figured that she held a very high position in the island faith. Barrett came forward and bowed his head. At the same moment, the woman raised her hand and made a gesture over him.

"May you be blessed, Robert Barrett," she said quietly, and Stephen felt tears in his own eyes as he watched her sure and strong command of the rituals of her faith.

When Barrett had moved to a chair in the corner, Stephen felt instinctively that he should follow his movements in approaching this woman, so he too bowed his head as he came before her.

"I will bless you, Fr. Stephen Dawson," she said softly to him, "if you will bless me."

"Alright," he said, standing still and waiting for her to speak the words she had spoken to Barrett.

"May you be blessed, Stephen Dawson," she said, and with her own hand raised his head and then, to his utter surprise, knelt in front of him as meekly as any nun. In fact, the monastic image was so strong that he found himself speaking Latin words of blessing which he had never spoken in his life while signing the bowed head with the sign of the cross.

"Benedicite," he said, and offered her his hand. She took it firmly in both of hers and stood, and immediately pulled him into an embrace as they exchanged the kiss of peace. Again he felt the Latin words rise to his lips and he said:

"Pax vobiscum," and without much surprise he heard her respond:

"Et come spiritu tuam, Pater."

Then the two moved apart and he saw her eyes lingering on his face again, and after avoiding another flood of tears, she conducted him to a seat across from her own at the fire.

"Make yourself comfortable," she said now. "I'll be back in a moment with some things to make us some energizing tea. It's going to be a long night for all of us," and she disappeared into an inner room from which came the sounds of clinking bottles and the pounding of a pestle in a mortar.

"What was that at the door?" Stephen asked Barrett when she had gone, "some kind of test?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you must have told her I was a priest, right? Perhaps seeing me out of uniform made her suspicious."

"I didn't tell her you were a priest," said Barrett. "I swear to you that I didn't. However, I suppose that it was a test of sorts."

"Yes," said the woman as she came in with some fragrant herbs in a small bowl, "and I hope I passed it."

"What?" Stephen was confused.

"I wanted you to know that I am what I seem to be," she said, "even though my looks may belie my station. I bear the mantle of power in our faith. I am called the Conjure Woman. I also wanted you to know that though you pretend not to be what you in fact are, I can sense your nature in spite of yourself."

"And you think my nature is that of a priest?"

"You are as much a man of God as your uncle was," she said, and again the tears stood in her eyes for a moment so that to hide them she soon busied herself putting a kettle to heat and brewing the tea.

"So," said Stephen when she had set the tea to steep and had taken her stool again, "you knew my uncle? That seems highly unlikely somehow."

"Nevertheless," she said gravely, "it is the truth, whether you believe it or not."

"I came here because a man I respect told me that here I would find the answers which have eluded me. It's his word I trust."

"That is wise," said the Conjure Woman as she poured the tea. "I do not ask you to trust me now, but only to listen. Will you grant me that courtesy?"

"Yes," said Stephen after a pause.

"Robert," said the Conjure Woman as she saw his hand shaking with the effort of holding the earthenware mug she had just handed him, "tonight's journey was taxing for you, wasn't it? I think you should lie down in the bedroom." Stephen saw a look pass between them that had an unmistakably conspiratorial quality, so he was not surprised to see Barrett place his untasted tea on the small table near his chair and go, after a few words of courteous leave-taking, through another door and into a neatly-kept bedroom.

"Surely he could have slept in his chair," Stephen said now.

"Yes, but what I have to say is not for his ears. You, of course, may tell it to him, but since it concerns your family, it is to you that I must speak. I have been the custodian of secrets which were not rightfully mine to keep, and now it is my duty to give them up at last."

With that, she stood up and went to a chest which stood against the wall near the door, and taking a key from around her neck, unlocked it and lifted the heavy-looking lid and rummaged inside for a moment. When she was finished, she returned to the fire and handed Stephen a Bible, a small, blue notebook and a gold chain from which hung a simple cross.

"These belonged to your uncle," she said simply.

"And how did you come to possess them?"

"They were given to me after he died."

At these words, Stephen felt a shock for which he was totally unprepared. In his logical mind, he had quite accepted the probability that his uncle was in fact dead, but to hear it said aloud in such a stark and final way made him feel a sense of utter failure, and as a result, he became defensive.

"How do you know he's dead? Did you see his body? Tell me everything!"

"I saw him fall from one of the towers of the mansion at Maljardin," said the woman, evidently sensing his distress and trying to soothe it. "I never saw him buried, but there is a crypt under that mansion, so it may be that his body rests well despite the unnatural and untimely manner of his death."

"Are you saying that he was murdered?"

"I'm afraid so," she said, looking for a moment into the heart of the fire as though to summon a sight of what she was about to describe.

"When I first met your uncle," she began slowly, "I felt instinctively his goodness and his strength."

"But he had run away from his pulpit to follow some girl!" Stephen didn't like to disparage his uncle's memory, but this point had always troubled him greatly.

"If you had med Holly Marshall as I did, you would have understood why. It is true that he did love her as a man loves a woman, but he knew that she didn't love him and he never pressed his suit further than friendship would permit. Now, as I was saying, I knew him as a strong person, but he was also in a state of doubt about his calling and even about his faith. His love for Holly had shaken him to the very soul, but his sojourn on Maljardin was full of strange portents and terrors about which you will read if you peruse the book I gave you. It is a journal he kept."

"So how did you get these things? You didn't murder him, did you?" He hated himself for asking the question, but he knew it had to be asked no matter how odious it seemed to him to think of this simple and lovely woman as a murderess.

"I most certainly had no hand in his death," she said now, "except perhaps by an act of omission."

"Then who did it? Can we tell the police?"

"The woman who murdered Reverend Matthew Dawson is far beyond the long arm of the law, I'm afraid. Again, the journal will tell you what you need to know about his interactions with her."

"Have you read it then? My uncle's private thoughts?"

"For informational purposes only," she said. "I had to piece some things together about the events that occurred on Maljardin when I was not present. It was necessary that I do so in order for me to fulfill my destiny. Please read this journal, and please don't leave here until you've read it."

"As to leaving," he said, "I am on an indefinite sabbatical from both my priestly and my professorial duties, so I needn't leave any time soon, but now that I have these things of my uncle's, tell me why I should stay!"

"There's Robert for one thing. I trust you've seen a change in him."

"I have indeed, but he is some years older than he was since I last saw him, and most of us do not have your gift of seemingly perpetual youth."

"Well, leaving me aside for the moment," she said sadly, "you must admit that he looks weak."

"Are you saying that he's dying?"

"I'm only saying that you should make the most of your time with him while you have it. Besides, I think that after reading your uncle's words, you will have more questions for me."

"Then," said Stephen, rising to his feet, "I suppose we have nothing more to say to each other at this time."

"I have one thing to say before you leave. I want you to know that your uncle died in a noble cause, fighting evil that he had never even imagined existing before he came to Maljardin."

"I'm glad to hear that," he said, "though like most things I've heard concerning this business, your saying is annoyingly cryptic."

"I'm sorry that it must be so now," she said, and she seemed genuinely apologetic, "but I promise that you will understand more after you've read the journal. Now, let us go. I'll guide you to your hotel."

"What about Barrett?"

"He should sleep," she said. "Don't worry. He knows this house well. You saw him follow the sacred path. Could you have done it on your own?"

"No. I understand that he has learned many secrets of your faith."

"More than many know nowadays. Now, come with me."

A thick blanket of cloud had fallen over the sky by the time the two of them exited the Conjure Woman's abode, so Stephen was grateful, if a little surprised, when his guide took his hand. As they walked along the cabin path, he heard the sound of neither snapping twig or falling stone, and it was only when she paused to allow him to remove his shoes in order that he should tread the processional way with due reverence that he realized that she herself was already unshod. He felt her beside him in the pitch darkness and he knew her to be flesh and blood, but there was something otherworldly about the lightness of her step and the utter silence in which she seemed to cocoon herself. Yet for all her silence, her presence seemed to be well known to the unseen sentinels who seemed to guard this most sacred of roads, for no guards assailed their progress and no drums rang out in the still air.

"Your hotel isn't far from here," she said as they reached the narrower end of the dirt track. "Can you find it yourself?"

"Yes," he said, peering through the vines that screened the entrance of the path from the hotel grounds. "I hope Robert will be alright."

"Don't worry," she said, giving him a radiant smile. "I'll see to it that he is. Now, I'll say goodbye for the moment. If you want me, call me."

"Call you? How?" But before he had finished his question, she had moved silently away, melting into the night like smoke into smoke.

Evil Unearthed: Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"Chris, give that man his money back! It's no good here." Kathleen O'Dell walked quickly over to the table where Bill Temple was sitting and ordered a white wine for herself and paid for his rum and coke.

"I know I'm currently unemployed, Miss O'Dell," said Bill, "but I can afford a drink or two."

"Hey," said Kathleen. "I arranged this meeting, so the least I can do is stand you to some refreshment."

"Well, thanks. Now, what is it that I can help you with? Should you even be talking to me? I'm now in your boss's bad books, remember?"

"I remember," said Kathleen, "and I remember something else. I remember Miss Desmond telling you to keep reporting to me about the progress of the hotel even though she was here. The fact that she later changed this state of affairs doesn't matter to me. I want to know what's been going on there for the past week or so, and God knows Julia Desmond isn't going to tell me."

"Well," said Bill, "I've worked on Desmond building projects before this, and they've all been very straightforward. I've had a pretty free hand once the main plans were finished, and I've always been well paid, and I've always had good workers to direct."

"Alright, so what happened with this project? You and I hired your workers together. We both thought they were the best in the business and we were even able to keep costs down by hiring locally."

"I remember. You treated me to dinner then in celebration." Bill laughed, but Kathleen noticed that his smile did not reach his eyes.

"Come on, Bill," she said. "Something has spooked you. I can see that. Now just tell me!"

"Alright." Bill took a long swig from his glass and leaned back in his chair.

They were seated in an out-of-the-way corner of the French Leaf Cafe, and while tourists came and went, mingling in impromptu groups or breaking up into romantic pairings, Kathleen listened as Bill told his tale.

"When I got to work on the day after we found that portrait," he began, "I was surprised to learn that you had left. Miss Desmond was holding court in your office and I was surprised to see the portrait hanging where that tapestry of the deer-hunt had been. I could tell that she hadn't slept, and when she finally deigned to look up from her work and speak to me, she informed me in no uncertain terms that the plans for the hotel were being scrapped. She suddenly wanted to restore the mansion to its original state, and when I tried to explain that building codes for hotels were different from those for houses, she interrupted me and said that it was alright. We weren't going to build a hotel anymore. She played the grand lady with me, telling me of her family's ancient roots on this island and her need to be in touch with them again.

"As it was, I didn't care. I was more than willing to dig up the old plans for the mansion and work with them, but when I informed my crew of what we were going to be doing once excavations were complete, more than half of them gave their notice immediately, and the remainder left when I finally quit."

"Well, apart from the departure of your workers, what made you quit? You said you didn't mind the change in plans, so what was it?"

"I asked one of the workers why they were leaving," Bill Continued, "and all that he would say was that this sudden change of plans was proof of the return of some mysterious evil out of the past. As you know, I'm not scared easily, so I managed to find more workers. Of course, I had to hire them from The States and get them down here which blew our budget completely out of the water, but Miss Desmond didn't mind a bit. All she wanted was for the building to happen as quickly as it could, and once we determined that the outer walls of the house were relatively intact, she wanted us to do our best to start the building as soon as we could.

"She actually made me hire another shift of workers and set up huge lights so that they could work at night. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the work is done in as little as a month. She doesn't sleep anymore, and she's prepared to spend whatever money she has to spend in order to get the job done."

"But there's still something you're not telling me."

"Well," said Bill, "it happened the day before yesterday. Miss Desmond had called me up to her office, and as I got to the top of the stairs, I heard her talking to someone. She was asking this person for more time and she wanted a promise kept. As I opened the door, I found no one in the room except Miss Desmond, and from the way she was standing, it looked as though she was speaking to that portrait. She turned when she heard me coming and let loose such a flood of accusations and insults that I could think of nothing to do but to quit. Something's really wrong over there, Miss O'Dell, and I think you're the only one who might be able to stop it!"

"At this point," said Kathleen, trying hard to take in what he had just said, "I don't know how I can. If she talks to me, it's only to give me orders or to ask me to report to her."

"Can I ask what she's having you do over here?"

"I seem to have become the Desmond family historian," said Kathleen. "All she wants from me is research."

"Does it have to do with that man in the portrait, Jacques Eloi des Mondes?"

"Not as such," said Kathleen. "but it's about his time. She told me that my plans for the hotel were all wrong and that she wanted to create an authentic seventeenth-century atmosphere for her guests. You see? She didn't even tell me the truth of what she's doing over there! Miss Desmond has never lied to me before, and I think she never meant for you to tell me anything either."

"So you think she's deliberately keeping you busy for some reason?"

"Exactly. I suppose that all I can do is wait for an invitation to Maljardin. Since she hasn't sent me home yet, I'm sure she's got some plan in mind for my eventual return."

"Well, I'm staying here for another two days. If you want to talk again, let me know, and if there's anything I can do to help you, I will."

"Thanks, Bill. Thanks a lot."

"Thank you for the drink, Miss O'Dell! Now, I think I'm off to the beach to look at the sunset. I might as well enjoy my last few days here and take the vacation I've never given myself."

"Have fun!"

Kathleen watched him walk away and pondered what he had just told her. She had to find a way to get to Maljardin, even if it meant losing her job, or worse, her friend. She had not told anyone about Julia's Cancer returning, but she feared that it was this which had pushed her over the edge. Perhaps, she thought, it was time for her to enlist some outside help, but the only other person she really knew on the island was Dr. Robert Barrett, and he didn't strike her as being much of a people-person. Of course, there was also Stephen Dawson. He had told her that he was a priest as well as a professor, and these two professions combined gave him an air of trustworthiness and authority in her mind that only an intellectual who had attended an Irish parochial school during childhood and adolescence like herself could understand. She was unsure of him though, since he had problems of his own, but she could think of no one else to talk to about this, and besides, here he was now, walking sleepily into the cafe and heading straight for her table.

"I was just thinking about you," she said as he sat down and ordered a coffee.

"I honestly cannot say the same thing," he said with a deep sigh, "but I'm glad not to be sitting here alone."

"I'm about to order dinner," said Kathleen. "Are you hungry?"

"Ravenous! I'll have the fish and rice curry," he said to the waitress who came to take their order.

"I'll have what he's having," said Kathleen absently.

"I see you haven't had to endure solitude," said Stephen, noticing Bill's empty glass. "Did the elusive Miss Desmond grace you with her presence?"

"No, but she was the subject of conversation. I was having a meeting with the now former construction foreman for the soon-to-be-former Chateau Xanadu."

"Run that by me again?"

"The foreman with whom I had been working very successfully till Julia took over last week has now quit. What's more, many of the crew that he and I originally hired from around these parts have quit as well. Why do you think that was?"

"I couldn't possibly guess!"

"Oh come on. Just try!"

"They weren't making enough money?"

"No. Try again."

"Poor working conditions?"

"Sorry! Also not correct."

"I really don't know!"

"Oh come, Fr. Stephen! It's right up your street!"

"It's against their religion to build a hotel?"

"Close enough," said Kathleen. "The fact is that they believe that it's bad mojo for Julia to change the hotel plans and to restore the original mansion to the way it was before the fire."

"Is that what she's doing? Spooky!"

"Oh! Not you too!"

"Well, my uncle was last seen in that mansion, and as I now know almost definitively, that mansion was where he died. So all this talk of restoring it is rather spooky to me."

"True," said Kathleen as their dinners were placed in front of them. "I wasn't thinking."

"Well, I can see you're spooked as well," said Stephen. "Why don't you tell me what's eating you? Maybe we can help each other out."

Kathleen told Stephen what Bill had told her, and she was surprised at how seriously he was taking it. She had supposed that he would listen politely to her problems, but she was not prepared for the intense way he looked at her as she described Julia's changes of mood.

"Stephen," she said when she had finished, "are you alright? You look like a ghost just walked up and tapped you on the shoulder."

"In a strange way," he replied, "that's exactly what has happened. I had a meeting of my own recently, last night in fact, and I was given a journal which my uncle kept during his visit here."

"Yes?"

"Well, though I've only begun reading it, I've found the name Jacques Eloi des Mondes mentioned several times, and he describes Jean Paul Desmond as a man of many moods. His obsession was restoring his dead wife to life by means of cryonics, but Uncle Matt mentions the portrait as oddly transfixing Jean Paul at times. I think you and I do need to help each other. I fear that history may be repeating itself in more ways than one over there on Maljardin!".

"But who gave you that journal? Was it Dr. Barrett?"

"It was someone he knows and who seems to have known my uncle."

"How very mysterious! Ah well, I'm not one to pry into what isn't mine to know. Still, would you mind if I looked at the journal sometime?"

"I think it's a task very suited to your abilities. I've been reading it all day between naps, but I haven't been able to sleep very well and I absolutely need to get my eight hours tonight."

"Well, with what Bill told me, I don't think I could sleep if I tried, so if you're alright with me taking it, I think it could shed a lot of light on my own mystery as well as on yours."

"Well, here it is," said Stephen. "Knock yourself out."

Kathleen took the blue notebook reverently and watched as Stephen raised his water glass.

"I know I'm not drinking," he said, "but this will have to do. I'd like to propose a toast."

"Alright," said Kathleen, raising her glass of Chardonnay. "Go ahead!"

"To partnership!"

"No," said Kathleen impulsively. "To friendship!"

"Fair enough," said Stephen. "To friendship!"

They clinked their glasses solemnly and drank at exactly the same time.

"Shall we meet tomorrow for lunch?"

"Why not make it breakfast? I don't want to lose any time with Julia the way she is."

"Very well then. Breakfast it is. Perhaps I can get Dr. Barrett to join us. I have the distinct impression that he knows more about Maljardin than he's told either of us."

"True enough," said Kathleen with a small smile. "He has given me that impression as well. Alright then. I'll see you here tomorrow at about 9:00 A.M."

"Till then, then. Goodnight!"

"Sleep well!"

As Stephen exited the cafe, Kathleen watched him with a longing look. She realized that she was beginning to act with him the way she acted with men she was attracted to, and she hoped he hadn't noticed. Still, she thought, why did he have to be a priest? He was witty, good-looking, gentlemanly and kind. He was a man that she could see herself marrying one day, and it was all in vain because of a choice he made several years ago. Yet, she thought, perhaps crumbs are almost as good as a loaf. He had returned her declaration of friendship, hadn't he? She'd have to live on that for a while as best as she could. For now, she could help him by reading and making notes on his uncle's journal. This at least would keep her busy, and it had the bonus of possibly helping Julia as well. She resolved therefore to put all her energy into it, and she thought that there was no time like the present to get started.

Finishing her wine, she went to pay her bill and was surprised to find that Stephen had already done so. After debating whether to disturb him in his room and pay him back or to insist that she pick up the tab for breakfast, she decided upon the latter course and made her way back to her own room, blue notebook in hand.

Sitting down at the desk, she opened the book and then hesitated. Here in front of her was the last written record of a man who had now been dead for forty years or more. She wondered why this should frighten her, since she was accustomed to reading books written by people who had long ago gone to dust, but, she supposed, those books were not the private and personal thoughts of those writers, and this journal was. It was only now that she realized what she had in her possession, and all of a sudden, she felt like an interloper.

"But Stephen could use a fresh eye on this," she said out loud to the empty room. "I'm not being nosy on my own behalf, but I'm looking at this book with his permission. Alright then. Here goes nothing!"

As she began thumbing the pages, Kathleen was struck by the insightfulness of this man. He truly was called to his pastoral duties, she thought, but she did wonder just who this Holly Marshall was and exactly what he saw in her. As far as she could tell, the girl was truculent and angry, very immature and without very many redeeming qualities. However, he did appear to genuinely care for her welfare, and not only on an objective level. It was quite clear from his writings that he loved her as a man loves a woman, and by the time she had reached the journal entries which took place on Maljardin, Kathleen found herself feeling sympathy for this deeply-compassionate man who had left everything familiar to him to pursue a dream which likely had no hope of coming true.

From the beginning, Matthew Dawson's pursuance of Holly Marshall seemed portentous. He had met "a very mysterious and special woman named Evangeline (or Vangie as everyone calls her) Abbott who reads fortunes and waits tables" in the very cafe where Kathleen had just had dinner with his nephew, and she had spoken of Holly being surrounded by unknown dangers. She had further warned Matthew that he was needed on Maljardin as a minister in order to defeat the evil that seemed to be walking there.

"Well, Miss Abbott," she said aloud as she leaned back in her chair to rest her eyes, "I wish I had your gift at fortune-telling. I wonder now if these Tarot cards I rescued from Maljardin were yours?"

She idly shuffled the pack as she pondered what Matthew Dawson's words might be leading to, and as she did so, a card fell to the desktop in front of her. She looked at it, trying to remember the very small amount of Tarot lore she had learned from some occult enthusiasts she had known in university. This was the King of Wands, she knew, and then she looked at the journal again. Most of Matt's reflections dwelt on The Fool, as Vangie had seemed to think that this card represented himself, but he had written her thoughts on the King of Wands as well, and in its reversed position as this card was now, she had said that it was a card of ill omen betokening the presence of no one less than Jacques Eloi des Mondes himself.

"Well," she said, "if these Tarot cards are trying to tell me something, I'm listening. I just don't know what to do about it! Still, all this seems so surreal! I mean, Jean Paul Desmond lost his wife. Julia Desmond has Cancer. They're both really traumatic events and both these people are masters of the grand gesture. Julia has just as much eccentricity potential as her father did. It doesn't mean there's an actual devil involved. I think I have to stop now. I'm driving myself crazy. Goodnight, Matthew Dawson, and Miss Abbott, I'll take care of these cards for you."

She closed the book and straightened the cards into a pile, being sure to hide the King of Wands well, and then looking at the clock, she noticed that it was three A.M.

Hmmm... That's strange, she thought. Vangie Abbott told Matt to tell Raxl that the third hour was best for her if they were both to read the cards together. I wonder if it still is? Could she be watching over all this from some other plane of existence?

But these ponderings were too deep for her at this time of night, and despite her earlier professions of insomnia, she suddenly felt very tired indeed. So, resolving to leave all these strange and supernatural things out of the Readers' Digest version of the journal that she was going to give Stephen at breakfast, she undressed and lay down on her bed, falling deeply asleep almost instantly.