Evil Unearthed: Chapter 43

Chapter Forty-three

Kathleen was indignant. After all she and Stephen had just been through, now they were being stopped outside the corridor leading to Julia's room in the little hospital of Port French Leave by the same overly-officious and simperingly-obsequious doctor they had met during the business of Bill Temple's death and again during Stephen's mysterious illness in the hotel.

"Really, Miss," he was saying. "I can't just let you walk in there after visiting hours! I'm sorry, but you will both have to come back tomorrow."

"Now you listen, Doctor," she said. "I'm Julia Desmond's personal assistant, and she has asked to see this man. Surely you can make an exception."

"If I make an exception for you," he said with as false a placatory smile on his face as she had ever seen, "then I'll have to make one for everyone, now won't I? So please, if you would come back tomorrow, I would be much obliged to you."

"Much obliged?" Stephen laughed in his face. "I don't even think you know the meaning of the phrase! Now look! From the time I met you, you have hindered me in my duties. You made it very difficult for me to give the Last Rites to a dying man, and when I was ill, well, you hindered my recovery by being just as annoying as you are being now. So listen to me, Doctor! I am a priest, and I have been summoned by your patient. I'm going to her whether you like it or not, so please stand aside!"

Kathleen was stunned by the authority in Stephen's voice and bearing. It made her think fleetingly of a cross upraised in his hand and of a portrait on a wall, but she firmly put all that out of her mind and followed her friend down the corridor, the doctor standing, stricken and speechless, to one side as they passed.

"Finally," Stephen said as she came up beside him. "I finally got to tell him what an asshole I think he is. It did a lot of good. Thank you for the opportunity!" He smiled just then, and for an instant, it was like the smiles he would flash her as they shared a joke in the days when they had first met.

"Don't thank me," she said, taking his hand impulsively. "Thank Miss Desmond! She's the one who summoned you, as you so aptly termed it a moment ago. I am merely your escort and her lady-in-waiting."

"I think you're much more than that, Kathleen." Julia's voice came floating out of her room whose door the two had just reached and at hearing the sound of her full name, Kathleen's blood ran cold. Julia usually called her Kat when they were being informal. Only Erica's spirit had insisted on using her unshortened one.

"What's wrong?" Stephen's alarm recalled her. "You look ghastly!"

"She--she said my full name, Stephen. Only--only--" She was unable to finish the sentence, but Stephen caught her meaning without anything further needing to be said.

"What are you two whispering about?" Julia sounded enough like herself. There was no cloyingly-sweet drawl in her speech as there would be if Erica's spirit had inhabited her body again, but Kathleen was still distrustful.

"Come on now, Bridey Murphy! If you're waiting for an engraved invitation to enter, you'll have to wait a hell of a long time!"

That did it. Bridey Murphy was one of Julia's pet names for Kathleen which she had not used since their Cambridge days. It had come about when Julia had discovered that her middle name was Brigit. Now though, the name took on a queer kind of psychic resonance, for hadn't she just gone through a kind of past life regression back on Maljardin? It was funny, she reflected as she finally decided that Julia was indeed still herself, how many circles there were in life. She had grown up a Catholic and then had abandoned that belief for a general belief in nothing in particular when she met Julia, and now, because of Julia and the Desmond curse, she felt that she was beginning to find the faith she had left behind her in Belfast so long ago.

"Hello Miss Desmond," Stephen said as he preceded Kathleen into the room.

"Hello Father," she said, taking his offered hand. "At least you have some manners!"

"Kat's been through a lot, Miss Desmond," said Stephen by way of explanation.

"So have we all," was Julia's reply, and Kathleen could not help noticing how extremely tired she sounded and looked when she said it.

Julia was propped up in bed, the remains of her dinner still sitting in front of her on a wheeled metal table.

"So," said Stephen, "am I here in an official capacity?"

"No," said Julia. "I have a few things I want to talk to you about. That's all. Kat, if you want to leave, feel free to do so!" These words came out very politely, but Kathleen had spent enough time around Julia Desmond to know when her politeness veiled an imperative. What the blue eyes said as they regarded her directly was:

"I have no further need of you tonight. You are dismissed."

"I am rather tired," she said. "I'll meet you in the cafe later on, Stephen."

"Sounds good to me," he said, and she turned and left the two of them alone.

In the village of Port French Leave, no place was out of walking distance from any other, but zippy little mopeds and brightly-coloured cabs still zoomed through the narrow streets as tourists went about the business of being tourists. Kathleen, however, did not avail herself of one of these conveyances as she made her way back to the hotel. Indeed, she felt that it would not be her place to use them. After all, how could she consider herself to be a tourist: she who had trafficked with old powers and evil forces and whose soul had once inhabited a body native to its shores? Besides, she wanted to think, and walking always improved the productivity of her mental faculties. So, through the narrow winding lanes she went, across the market square, its stalls now deserted of sellers but its centre brimming with tourists consulting maps and enjoying the balmy island atmosphere. There was even a steel drum band there to keep everyone in high spirits.

She stood and listened to the music for a while, but after scarcely a minute, she continued on her way. The music sounded insipid to her, like something imported, an island cliché. She fell to thinking of the drums she had heard in the visions of herself as the native servant-girl Sophie and longed to hear them in real life. All at once, she knew what she was going to do. She would go back to the hotel and unpack, and then she would take the path to the cabin of the Conjure Woman. She did not know if anyone would stop her, but she had to try. She had to see the cabin again, either to determine if Vangie was still alive, or if she was not, just to see the place one last time if she would be allowed to do so of course.

Back at the hotel, she picked up her bags from the front desk where she had left them and found her way to her room. The staff had kept it for her, and as she unlocked the door with the key-card she had never removed from her pocket-book during all the events of the past few weeks, she had a hunch that they had done this out of kindness as a sort of rudimentary sympathetic magic, keeping it undisturbed and ready for her to occupy it again as an assurance that she would return from Maljardin. She had no way of knowing whether or not this was true, but she liked to think of it. After all, it was likely that they thought that if an outsider like her were to return from the cursed island of the Desmonds, then so would their beloved Conjure Woman, and the prophecy about Vangie's death on Maljardin, which they all surely knew, she supposed, would be thwarted once again.

Digging out a pair of sandals and changing into some walking clothes, she strove vainly to make sense of her hastily-packed belongings and in the end, leaving them in an untidy heap on her bed and hearing her grandmother's chiding voice in her head saying: "Once nasty, never neat," she was about to leave when something caught her eye. In looking up from the mess of belongings on the bed, she happened to glance into the mirror and saw that the cross which had belonged to Matthew Dawson and which had been her link to Vangie was still around her neck. She had forgotten about it in all the excitement of the last few days and now she touched it sadly, knowing that even if the link still worked, she no longer possessed the power to use it. As soon as Vangie had disappeared from the headland behind the Desmond house on the night of Julia's deliverance, she had felt that a part of her mind was now inaccessible. All her memories of the visions she had experienced and the powers she had invoked stood now as dim phantoms before her mind's eye.

Well, she thought, perhaps it's better this way, and turning from the tired and drawn reflection she had also seen in the mirror, she went out of the room and headed to the fire door at the back of the hotel. She decided to tell anyone she might happen to meet that she was going for a walk to enjoy the warm evening, but her way was unhindered by anyone. The halls of the hotel were completely deserted. This she found a little odd, but she decided not to spend time pondering it. Instead, she welcomed the silence and was glad not to have to explain anything or to have to engage in small-talk with someone like Chris from the cafe. Indeed, she thought that if anyone asked her anything right now, she would simply burst into tears right in front of them. The thought of possibly finding that Vangie was dead weighed more heavily upon her with each step she took closer to the cabin.

At last, she was out of the hotel and through the mass of vines which signaled the entrance to the sacred path. However, she had not gone more than ten feet on its well-worn surface when a large hand grabbed her by the shoulder.

"You've come," said the voice of Michel. "I was told that you might. Come with me! You can't go there alone tonight."

"I wasn't planning to," she said, realizing that he was being kind to her in his gruff way. "But what's so special about tonight?"

"You'll see," he said, and allowing her to take his hand, he led her to the place where she had to remove her shoes. As she stooped down to undo the buckles of her sandals, she suddenly heard what she had longed to hear in the market square. People were drumming somewhere ahead of them in the darkness and for an instant, she thought that Michel would lead her further than she had ever been along this path and into their midst. However, he stopped where she had hoped he would and told her to put on her sandals again. Then he left her to find the cabin by herself. This she had learned to do during the beginning of her acquaintance with the Conjure Woman, but she was not sure if she could do it now. She had forgotten to bring a flashlight, something she had never been without on Maljardin due to the frequent power interruptions in the house, but it was clear that Michel needed to be about his business. So, standing still as he disappeared into the darkness, she wondered what she would do. There was a way to get to the cabin, but it was not completely cleared or nearly so wide as the processional path to the ritual ground was. Still, she had to keep going, so turning to the left, she walked slowly off the path and into the knotted greenery. Rich scents came to her as she moved and apart from the drumming which she could still hear echoing across the forest, the sounds of many insects and animals told her of the life teeming in this place. There was a rhythm here, she thought, and that rhythm began to lull her into a strange kind of half-dream, a half-dream from which she awoke only when she tripped over a protruding root and went sprawling face-down in the brush of the forest floor.

"Christ and all his angels!" she shouted, picking herself up and feeling a deep throbbing in her ankle. "Damn me for a clumsy fool!"

"Clumsy?" The voice seemed to come out of the darkness but she could not tell from which direction. However, in a few seconds, she saw a light coming toward her, and for a moment, she thought it was the unearthly glow which she had last seen enveloping the Conjure Woman as they had embraced for the last time, but as it came closer, she realized that it was nothing more than the beam of a flashlight.

"Clumsy?" the voice now repeated. "Perhaps so, Kat O'Dell, but fool? Never! You are the Queen of Swords. Remember?" And suddenly, there was Vangie herself, solidly real and smiling in the flashlight's glow.

"Come," she continued. "Let's get you in out of the night. Can you walk on that ankle?"

"I--I--yes," said Kathleen now, testing her foot and finding it sound if a little painful when she put weight on it.

"Alright then. Take my hand and we'll set you to rights." Kathleen did as Vangie asked and soon, with no further injuries or expletives on her part, they arrived at the cabin where a bright fire was burning and a steaming pot of fragrant tea was awaiting them.

"I thought you might come, Kat," said the Conjure Woman as she took her familiar low stool before the fire and spread her hands out to it to warm them. Kathleen would have wondered at this on such a truly tropical evening as this was, but she had remarked when she had allowed Vangie to guide her just now the fact that the other woman's hand felt very cold indeed.

"Are you--well--alright?" she finally asked as the silence stretched longer and longer between them.

"I am still recovering," said Vangie with a smile. "It seems that it is not my time as yet to pass beyond the veil."

"I'm glad of that," said Kat, the tears now coming whether she wanted them to or not.

"Come now," said Vangie, moving quickly to her and pulling her into an embrace. "No more tears! What's done is done. All debts have been settled."

"But what did it cost you? How did you--well--save me?"

"That would be too hard to explain to you now, but it was the least I could do for you, Kat. It was you who saved me, after all."

"What? What do you mean?" They had moved apart again and Kathleen stared incredulously at Vangie as she spoke.

"Your former self sacrificed her life to outwit the prophecy I had made, and when you drank the poison, you prevented the evil of Maljardin from overcoming me at my weakest moment."

"I was just interested in Julia."

"I know, and that fierce loyalty to your friend was what saved us all in the end. Did I not tell you that it would?"

"Still," said Kathleen, looking directly into Vangie's dark eyes, "something's different. Something's changed."

"And what do you see, my insightful Friend?"

"I think that you're both stronger and weaker than you were when this business began," was Kathleen's answer after a long moment.

"Your powers of perception are indeed formidable, Kat. I am stronger in that I have come into a closer union with the powers I serve than anyone before me, save perhaps my father. However, I am also made weaker because of that union. I will recover, yes, but while my spiritual abilities increase, my bodily strength will ultimately decrease. As a consequence of this, I will now begin to age and will, in a relatively usual span of time and barring illness or injury, eventually die."

"And what about the prophecy?"

"If it comes true, it comes true. I will no longer try to escape it, but neither will I run toward it unnecessarily. And what of you, my Kathleen?"

"I don't know exactly. I feel more or less as I did before--before we met, but I don't know why. I mean that I don't feel as--as open as I have recently."

"I am glad of this. You must not access the sensitive part of your mind again, Kat. It's too dangerous. Still, I do hold the key to unlocking it if you would rather I did, and you and I will still be linked in some way. We will take the best parts of each other with us on life's journey."

"Do you think we'll meet again, Vangie?"

"We may, Kat. Anything is possible, after all."

"Should I tell Stephen you're alright?"

"No," said Vangie sadly. "He has to do what he has to do. I feel that he needs to find himself. You might return the cross to him, however."

"I meant to do that before we left Maljardin. It is his after all. He's with Julia now."

"And she is alright?"

"She's in the hospital for now and I really don't know what she wanted to talk to Stephen about, but we'll know more in a few days what her condition is as the tests they're running come back. Do you think she might--well--do you think you might have--" She dropped her eyes as her voice trailed off. Hope burned inside of her and was not quenched by her usual Ulster common sense.

"If you're asking me if I might have healed her in my transfigured state," said Vangie, true sadness in her voice and compassion on her face, "I have to tell you the truth. I do not think she will have been healed. However, I also believe that anything the demon may have done to her over and above the Leukemia has been reversed."

"And what about--well--her and Stephen?"

"I cannot see what will result from that union," said Vangie, and Kathleen thought she heard a trace of bitterness in the calm voice. "Still, only time will tell, I suppose. Whatever happens, if the evil rises again, we'll be here. Others will take up the fight when I at last go to my rest. Until then, we will preserve our traditions and will never forget the fact that the Devil is eternal."

"I don't think I can forget that either. I think I'm done playing at being a businesswoman," Kathleen said, getting to her feet. "I think it's time for me to find another path."

"For your sake," said Vangie, "I hope that path does not lead you back here. However, I can honestly say that I will miss you. You have been a true friend to me, Kathleen, and those have been rare in my life."

"Knowing you, Vangie, was worth all the pain and struggle. I'll never forget you, no matter where I go or what I do. However," she said, her Ulster pragmatism temporarily rescuing her from another emotional scene, "I suppose I should go back to the hotel and meet Stephen for a nightcap. Are you sure you don't want me to tell him about you?"

"It's better this way, Kat. Believe me! Now, let me guide you back to the main path!"

Kathleen drained the last of the tea which Vangie had given her and followed the priestess out into the fragrant night. The drumming still continued and now she could hear the pounding of many feet and the chanting of many voices. This, she surmised, explained the deserted hallways of the hotel, and then she suddenly had a thought and turned to the woman walking silently at her side.

"Vangie, shouldn't you be there--at the ritual?" she asked.

"No, I am still too weak to take up my duties. Another is officiating in my place. However, I will be glad to get back into the circle and to resume my office when this earthly vessel allows it." And just then, as though to illustrate her bodily weakness, she stopped and leaned for a while against a tree, her breathing somewhat laboured and her face shining with perspiration in the glow of her flashlight.

"Vangie!" Kathleen was alarmed.

"Don't worry, Kat. I'll be alright in a moment. Can you find your way from here?" She thought that she could, but she found herself unwilling to leave her friend like that, leaning against the tree and breathing hard.

"Kathleen Brigit O'Dell," said the Conjure Woman, straightening up and regarding her, "you have helped me a great deal over the past few weeks, but it is time for you to help yourself. The path is in front of you. Remove your sandals and walk back to the hotel, and remember," she said as Kathleen obeyed her, "not to tell Stephen about me. Don't even tell him that you've been here!"

"I'll remember," she said, looking as Vangie and her flashlight retreated toward the cabin. Only when the light had faded completely out of sight did she continue on her way. This time, she walked lightly and joyfully, and by the time she got back to her room, she found herself merrily humming a tune. She also found that the long-ingrained habit of fastidious cleanliness which she had learned long ago from her grandmother had returned, and in no time at all, she had managed to disentangle her balled up clothes and to change into something more appropriate for her meeting with Stephen. Splashing some water on her face and combing her hair, she was soon ready, and as she went down the hall to the cafe, she found that it at least was not deserted. Chris was on duty tonight, and she was never so happy to see anyone in her life. At least he had not changed. At least he was something consistent in her world, and for this she blessed him, only just restraining an impulse to walk right up to him and kiss him on the lips.

"Well hello there!" he said as he caught sight of her. "I heard you'd come back. You're expected, I think, on the patio."

"Thanks, Chris," she said. "Thanks a lot!"

"Will it be Chardonnay tonight then?"

"No," she said. "I think it'll be Scotch."

"It seems that great minds think alike. I'll bring you what your friend is having."

"Chris, you're an angel!" she said, flashing him what she hoped was a bright smile and blowing him a kiss as she walked out to where Stephen was waiting, sipping a single malt and staring out to sea where the blurred shape of Maljardin could just be seen on the star-filled horizon. On hearing her approach, however, he shook off his reverie, got up and pulled out her chair for her.

"Why thank you," she said, seating herself and motioning for him to do the same.

"I'm sorry I was so far away just then," he replied. "I suppose I have a lot on my mind."

"Don't we all?" she asked with a rueful smile, and immediately was sorry for it. "I didn't mean that."

"Oh yes you did," he said. "You wouldn't be Kathleen O'Dell if you didn't have some sardonic crack to make at every turn."

"But I sounded rather priggish just then," she said, "and for that I apologize. May I ask what Julia wanted to see you about?"

"Well," he said, "even though she did not formally confess to me, I still consider what she said to be sacrosanct. However, she did want to make sure that I would attend her funeral. She's pretty convinced, along with her doctors I might add, that she hasn't got more than a year to live."

"You saw her doctors?"

"Well, I saw one of them. She was very compassionate and kind, and she told Julia in her compassionate and kind way that there was very little that could be done."

"Well then," said Kathleen, fighting back tears, "I suppose there's no use crying over spilled milk. I'll stay with her until--until the end, I guess. I owe her that much."

"Owe her? It seems to me that she owes you!" Kathleen was surprised at the anger in his voice. "She literally put you through hell, Kat! To me, she's just another in a long line of arrogant and megalomaniacal Desmonds!"

"I'm sorry she has upset you, Stephen. Can't you talk about it? Get it off your chest?"

"Not here," he said, "and--well--not with you, I'm afraid."

"Well," said Kathleen as her Scotch finally arrived, "I'll not press you further. I did want to give you something though. I forgot about it until tonight," and undoing the chain from around her neck, she handed the little gold cross to Stephen. "After all," she said as he took it, "it belonged to your uncle. It should be yours."

"I suppose so," he said, "but I realize now that as much as he was my father's brother, he was really never my uncle. I dreamed him up as a kind of hero and I think, you know, that I've been living for him for a very long time."

"Oh Stephen," she said, saddened herself by the sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry? Why should you be sorry?"

"I'm sorry," she said, taking a deep breath, "because I know exactly how you feel. I've been living for Julia. You know, at the end of my undergraduate studies, all I wanted to do was to write and teach about Chaucer, but Julia's offer of a job and the money she wanted to pay me were both irresistible."

"So what will you do then, when--when all's said and done?" She saw him shift uncomfortably in his seat as he said this and it made her smile.

"Surely a priest and an anthropologist can talk about death without beating around the bush!"

"I don't think I can just now, actually," he said, and all at once, she remembered that he did not know about Vangie being alive. She wished with all her heart that she could dispel his agony, but the Conjure Woman had been adamant that he not be told, or at least, not told by her.

Another mystery, she thought. Another secret to which she could not be privy. However, did she really want to know any more than she had already learned? No, she decided. It was time for her to be done with these islands and their lore. She would leave here when Julia left, would travel with her and set her corporate empire in order, and then, after the funeral, she would begin the long and slow business of doing the same with her own modest fortune and holdings.

"Do you know something Stephen?"

"No. What?"

"I know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life."

"Oh yes? Do share this novel epiphany with the rest of the class, then!"

"I intend," she said, raising her glass to him, "to be happy."

"I wish you every success, Miss O'Dell," he said, and clinking their glasses together, they simultaneously downed the remainder of their drinks and stood up.

"Great minds, I guess," he said.

"Yes," she said. "I really am tired and need my bed."

"As do I," he said, taking her hand. "If I don't see you before either of us leaves, I want to say that it has been an honour and a privilege to know you, Kat."

"The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards," she said softly. "You saved us, Stephen. You saved Julia and you saved me in more ways than you'll ever know."

"Go with God, Kat, and may the road rise to meet you!"

"Will you be happy, Stephen?" She had to ask this, because the depths of despair she saw beneath his kindly smile unnerved her.

"I'll try, Kat," he answered. "I promise you, I'll try."

"Alright then," she said, "and don't worry about the tab. My credit's still good here."

"Thanks," he said, giving her hand a final squeeze, and then he was rushing away without a backward glance.

"Leaving, Miss O'Dell?" Chris had come over to remove the glasses and to present the bill.

"Yes," she said slowly, looking keenly at him. "I'm finished here, Chris. Just charge the drinks to my room, alright?"

You're the boss," he said, and as she signed her name to the bar-tab, she found that her hand was shaking.

"Are you alright?" Chris looked genuinely concerned.

"Oh, don't mind me," she said, shrugging and trying to look nonchalant. "I just need a really good night's sleep. Goodbye, Chris!" And taking a fifty-dollar bill out of her pocket-book, she handed it to him.

"What's this for?"

"It's just a little thank-you," she said.

"For what? I can't take this!"

"You can and you will, Chris. It's a little token of thanks for--well--everything--for just being you! Now, Goodnight!"

"Goodnight, Miss O'Dell," he said and pocketed the money without further protest.

Back in her room, she lay down on her bed without undressing. The emotions of the evening had now finally caught up with her. She felt thoroughly sodden with both shed and unshed tears, but also strangely cleansed. She knew at last what she would do with her life, and that was to do what made her happy. She had lost romantic relationships and friendships due to the all-consuming and never-ending job of being Julia Desmond's assistant, and she had put up with all that because she felt a duty to her friend who had given her so much. Now, however, she realized that Julia, perhaps even without entirely meaning to, had taken as much or more than she had ever given, and if that was only to end with Julia's death, then so be it. As her eyes drifted slowly closed, she repeated to herself her new mantra:

"I, Kathleen O'Dell, am going to live a long and happy life," and in thought, she added with her usual Ulster fatalism: even if it kills me.