Chapter Fourteen
Contrary to the dire warning she had received on the night of her arrival on Maljardin, Kathleen spent the first three days in relative comfort. Long hours were consumed in pouring over plans and blueprints for the final construction and design of the newly-restored Desmond chateau, and Julia sat beside her, engaged and helpful, and though she was by turns both moody and gay, Kathleen chose to ignore this in favour of a peaceful working relationship. Still, she was dismayed to find that her cell phone could not get a signal when it had done during all her time here for the past six months, and whenever she tried to access the internet, she was annoyed that the money she had spent to set it up out here was apparently going to waste. However, whenever she brought it up to Julia, she was assured blithely that there was absolutely nothing wrong.
Thus, she came to know that Julia was compulsively lying to her and had absolutely no compunction about doing so. She began to wonder if Julia's sudden transformation on the night when she had attempted to give her the cross was true or feigned, and as the days progressed, she came to feel a deep sense of dread and terror, and she was grateful for the presence of the cross around her own neck. Still, despite Vangie's prediction that the link between them was growing stronger, she felt somehow the creeping certainty that something was trying to jam whatever kind of signals caused that link, and just like her cell phone and her laptop, that more ethereal line of communication was being cut off as well.
She had not, during the last three days, even mentioned the presence of the conjure dolls in her room, but she noticed with great relief that by the time her second night in that room came, they had been taken away to be, she secretly hoped, destroyed. However, this hope was not a very buoyant one, and it soon lay heavy in her heart, because as the sun of the third day since her arrival began to sink below the cliff-tops into the swirling sea, she knew that there was now no escape for her unless Julia wanted it that way.
"Julia," she began as they ate a dinner of cold chicken and salad, "I wanted to ask you something."
"Ask away, Kathleen!"
Julia was again dressed in the gay and gaudy finery she had worn to the French Leaf Cafe, and again she wore the infamous locket.
"Well, I wanted to know if I might be able to arrange a short trip to the main island. I need to research some more designs for you."
"Do you really have to go?"
"Well, since I cannot use the internet to get what I need," Kathleen said with special emphasis, "then I'll have to do this in person."
"Are you sure that's all you want to do?" Julia's eyes had taken on the cunning look which Kathleen associated with Jacques Eloi des Mondes, and she didn't like it.
"I am quite sure, yes. What do you think I might do?"
"That man you were with the other night," said Julia, seeming to change the subject. "He's a priest, is he not?"
"I don't know," said Kathleen, deliberately lying. "You seem to know more about him than I do. What gave you the idea that he's a priest?"
"I don't know. He just had a priestly look about him. I wonder why you felt compelled to ask him to our private meeting?"
Kathleen had the distinct impression that a figurative sword had been drawn by Julia and had been crossed with her own in challenge.
"I was wondering," Julia went on, "if you might feel the need to invite him here as well! I wouldn't want him ruining the work we're doing."
"And what exactly is that work?" Kathleen had been working very hard for the past few days, but she felt that this was just window-dressing.
"You will soon see, my dear. Good things come to those who wait, you know."
"The fact is," said Kathleen, "I am not satisfied with that answer. Now, may I go to the main island or not?"
"Really, darling," Julia drawled disgustingly, "you are quite indispensable to me. I know I've kept you at arm's length for a while, but now that I know that I can trust you--"
"Trust me? Trust me?" Kathleen was beyond angry. "You've felt that you could trust me for some years now!"
"Oh come now!" Julia went to the sideboard and poured a glass of wine. "You mustn't behave like that. Relax and have some wine!"
Kathleen took the offered glass from her friend and began to drink. As she drank and as Julia continued to offer meaningless banalities, she felt her head growing heavy and Julia's words beginning to lose their meaning and to be swallowed up in the sound of the blood pounding in her ears. Just as she felt herself falling into oblivion, she managed to take the gold cross in her hand and to whisper quietly:
"Help me, Miss Abbott! Conjure Woman! Help!"
"Come, Kathleen," said Julia. "You've been angry because you're tired. That's all. It's time you lay down for a while," and gentle as a lover, she took her friend around the shoulders and supported her until she could lie down on the leather sofa directly across from the portrait of Jacques Eloi des Mondes. However, as soon as she was quiet, Julia took the cross roughly into her hands and turned the chain so she could undo the clasp. She made to throw it into the fire, but before she could do so, a voice which seemed somehow familiar stopped her. Kathleen saw and heard all this through an oncoming tide of drug-induced unconsciousness, but as soon as she heard that voice, it was as though she were being pulled above the waves into a state of absolute clarity.
"Stay your hand, Julia Desmond," said the voice of the Conjure Woman, and there, in the room, was Vangie herself, indistinct as a shadow, but there nonetheless.
"What?" Julia seemed genuinely shaken as the cross fell ringing to the floor.
"Destroy that cross," said Vangie, "and you destroy any chance of your salvation!"
Then Kathleen heard a strange thing; she heard laughter coming from the portrait on the wall, and then, to her utter astonishment, she heard the portrait speak.
"So it is you, Miss Abbott!" His voice was like a cat purring. "Have you not learned your lesson?"
"Have you not learned yours, demon?"
"And what lesson might that be?"
"That your time is long over!"
"But surely you know the saying in these parts," he said. "The devil is eternal!"
"I know it," said Vangie, "but you are not the true devil. He has given you power, but it is borrowed power. You will have to settle accounts with him someday, and I think that day is coming soon!"
"I have no account to settle, little girl! It is you who have an account to settle, and if you come here, the prophecy you made so long ago will be fulfilled. Never doubt it! It is true that I can do nothing to you now, but you should never set foot on this island in the body, for if you do, you will assuredly die!"
Vangie turned her attention to Julia once more and calmly spoke her name.
"Julia? Julia Susanne Desmond? Come back to us! Tell me what you gave to Kathleen!"
"Gave her? What? I don't--"
"You do know! At least tell me if you have tried to kill her!"
"Kill her? No! Never!"
Vangie moved to Kathleen's side, and though she could see through the spirit-form of her benefactor, Kathleen felt her presence as surely as if she were solidly there.
"Ah," Vangie said quietly, "you'll be alright I think. She only meant to make you sleep."
"Vangie, be--" but Kathleen's cry through numbed lips was too slow in coming. She had seen Julia raise her hand in a curious kind of gesture, and as she brought it down, a red light seemed to come from her spread fingers and strike Vangie's spirit in the back. For a moment she wavered on the edge of disappearing entirely, but then she seemed to rally and she turned to face Julia.
"So I am right then," she said. "You too are here, demon-bride of Jacques Eloi des Mondes! Did you think you could destroy me? I have learned much since we last faced each other," and with that, Vangie drew herself up to her full height and Kathleen saw a halo of blue fire around her head.
"Would you destroy Julia Desmond as well, Conjure Woman?"
"No," said Vangie, and with that, Julia was rocked by a powerful force, and she was soon lying on the floor, seeming to be unconscious.
"Kathleen," said Vangie, taking the cross from where it lay on the floor, "take this back again. While you intended to do rightly the other night by giving it to your friend, you inadvertently caused evil to enter this thing and allowed demonic powers to use the link between you and myself to influence my abilities."
"Vangie!" Kathleen was mortified. "I'm sorry!"
"It was not your fault," said Vangie. "I can see now that Julia is possessed by the demon who tormented her father, that demon who has taken the form of his first wife, Erica Desmond. When Julia wakes, she will be truly herself, for a while at least. You must try to get her to invite Barrett or Stephen to Maljardin somehow."
"What about me?"
"I think I can clear this for you," said Vangie, and Kathleen felt an electric tingle as her ghostly hand touched her forehead. "You will be alright now, and now I must--"
She was interrupted by the mocking laughter which came from the portrait, and she seemed to feel some kind of pain, because the words she was going to say died on her lips, and with a gasp and a small scream, she disappeared as suddenly as she had come.
"Vangie?" said Kathleen, sitting bolt upright on the sofa. "Vangie!"
"Now now, Miss O'Dell," she thought she heard the portrait say. "Don't worry! I wouldn't want to tempt fate. Vangie Abbott is not dead, but if you ever speak to her again, be sure you tell her to stay away from my island if she values her extraordinarily long life!"
Kathleen gritted her teeth against the relentless laughter and touched the cross reverently.
"Please let her be alright! Let them both be alright," she said, looking down at her friend who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. "God help us all!"
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