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.