CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The whole day had passed and Julia was afraid.

With the coming of morning came the return of her reason, and with her reason came her fears. She knew she was back in her father’s house, but just where in that house, she did not know.

Wherever the room, she was a prisoner in it, and she knew why she was a prisoner. They knew now that she was fighting against them. Dunston had put her wise to their devilish practices.

She tried not to think back on the scene at the Dunston cottage, yet it kept creeping back into her mind. She remembered her father standing in the doorway in his hideous mask—if it was a mask. He had beckoned to her. She remembered the terror that had gripped her when she first set her eyes on him.

But then something strange happened. The moment his eyes fixed on hers, she found herself accepting him as a father and as a friend and had gladly walked toward him, had willingly come back to this dreadful house.

The hypnotic spell, if that’s what it was, appeared to have worn off and her senses seemed back to normal. She knew the truth now and faced it squarely. Her father was indeed what Dunston had said he was. She would have to escape him or forever be damned.

Escape. But how? The door to her room was locked. She’d tried the knob at least a hundred times already. She tried it again now, rattling it so loudly the walls actually shook.

Where was Dunston? He knew she’d been taken and he could easily surmise where they’d taken her. Was he still in Peabody with Danny? No, she decided, that was yesterday. Surely he was back by this time.

Perhaps he decided to stay with his brother.

Julia felt unnerved. She wanted Dunston to worry about her, yet she knew she was being girlishly foolish in that desire. But there was something about Dunston that drew her to him. He was an intense, serious-minded, sometimes-angry young doctor, dedicated to seeking justice for his wife’s unfortunate and untimely death. If he thought of her in any way at all, Julia told herself, it was as someone destined possibly for the same fate as befell his beloved Nancy.

The turning of a key in the lock swept thoughts of Dunston away and brought thoughts of possible rescue. Julia held her breath. Slowly the door creaked open. Matilda was standing there looking sinister.

“He sent me to ask what you’d like for dinner.” The old cordiality was no longer in her voice. She spoke as if to a stranger, a stranger she disliked intensely.

“I’m not hungry,” Julia said.

“As you wish,” Matilda answered. She moved to leave. Before she could, Julia called out to her.

“Matilda. Wait.”

The old woman hesitated. She turned and crossed her arms across her sagging breasts. “Well?”

“You seem so angry with me. We used to be friends, I thought.”

“I’m not angry with you.” Her words were icy cold.

“But I feel that you are. Why?”

“It is not you, child, with whom I am angry. It is him.” She jerked her head toward the outside of the room.

“Him? My father?”

“Cagliostro is not really your father.” She spat it out with vehemence. “He never showed you the certificate changing his name from Bishop to Cagliostro because there is no such document. I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have lost interest in living any longer with things as they are now. Cagliostro is overreaching his bounds. He is defying the Most High One. For that we will all be punished.”

“Please,” Julia implored. “I don’t understand. You say Dr. Cagliostro is not my father?”

Matilda nodded. “That is true, but that is all I should tell you. Except that he intends making you his wife.”

Julia stared at her. “His wife?”

“Cagliostro wants you. He always gets what he wants. I have tried to warn him that he is going against the wishes and dictates of the Most High One, but he scoffs at me. He thinks he is more powerful than our Lord of Darkness who gave Cagliostro all his power. He thinks he can put his powers against those of the Most High Master Satan; but he’s a fool. He’ll wind up destroying himself as well as the rest of us, just for the sake of his stupid love for you.”

Julia knew that she had to get away from here at whatever the cost. She had to devise some plan. She could not just stand by and do nothing and expect Dunston to save her. She would have to act now, and on her own.

“You say your Master, the Most High One as you call him, had other plans for me? He does not approve of Cagliostro making me his wife?”

Matilda nodded. “Satan told us you would come in time to be sacrificed to him.”

Julia turned white with fear. She thought of Dunston’s young wife and the ceremonial knife. “My father, Cagliostro, is bent upon going against those instructions?”

“Yes. He plans to make you his and give you powers higher and more powerful than any of ours.”

“What kind of powers?”

Matilda’s eyes went wild. “Powers you never dreamed existed. Power to make yourself into anyone and anything you desire. There are no limits to the things you can do with such powers.” The light suddenly went out of her eyes and she glowered angrily at Julia. “I should have been given those powers, not you. He loved me once as a young girl.”

Julia looked at the old woman with surprise and disbelief. “You?”

“Oh, I am much, much younger than Cagliostro; centuries younger. He has the power to be what he chooses. I could be young and beautiful again if he would but give those powers to me, but he prefers to give them to you. You,” she repeated as though it were the most disgusting word in the English language. “You, who know nothing, are nothing, came from nothing.”

“But don’t blame me for the situation in which I find myself. I would gladly run away if I could. I didn’t ask to be brought here. I don’t want to become Cagliostro’s wife.” A sudden thought came to her. “Matilda,” she said in a low excited whisper. “Find Adrian and let him hide me somewhere until it becomes dark. Then I’ll slip away. I’ll never come back. You won’t have to worry about my being a threat ever again.”

To her surprise, Matilda laughed an evil, devilish laugh. “Adrian. Ha! There is no Adrian, only Cagliostro. I told you. He is whoever he wishes to be. He is Adrian, he is life, he is everything because the Lord of Darkness gave him that power. Because of it he thinks he is more powerful than Satan himself, as I told you. He believes he can defy the greater powers of Satan. He’ll wind up destroying everything, everything!” she shrieked and turned to leave.

“No, Matilda. Wait. Why can’t you help me escape? Let me run away from here before the ceremony is to take place. When is that?”

“Tomorrow night at one minute after midnight—the twenty-first anniversary of your birth.”

Julia was shaking all over. “Help me escape. Once I am gone, I will no longer be a threat to any of you. I’ll go far, far away....” She didn’t finish because Matilda was shaking her head from side to side.

“No, you can never go away.”

“But I must, for all our sakes.”

“There is only one way you can help us and yourself.”

“Tell me and I’ll do it,” Julia said anxiously.

The old woman gazed deeply into her eyes. She narrowed her lids until they were tiny slits. “Let us sacrifice you.”

Old Matilda laughed and started to leave again.

“Wait,” Julia called.

Again the old woman turned back and patiently waited for Julia to say what she intended saying.

“Can this sacrifice be done without Cagliostro’s knowledge?”

“There is that possibility. I do not have his unlimited powers, but I do have certain powers equal to his. It is possible that we might sacrifice you without his knowing of it.”

“How could this be accomplished?”

Matilda screwed up her face and began to plot. “Well,” she said slowly. “There is a sacrificial altar in the cellar of the inn which could be used for the rites. I’ll hide you someplace else in the house until the time comes for the sacrifice. I can tell Cagliostro that you’ve been spirited away by that Dunston man. Knowing Cagliostro, he’ll fly off in search of Dunston, and we will be free to do what the Lord of Darkness has decreed be done with you.”

Julia only half listened as the old woman spoke her mind aloud. She knew she must be looking deathly white and that she was noticeably shaking from head to foot. But all she could think about was finding some way out of this room, out of this house. It would be easier to escape from a feeble old woman than from Cagliostro, who was a tower of virility.

“Then do it,” she said evenly. “I would be willing to be sacrificed rather than live as the wife of that monster.”

Old Matilda gave her a suspicious eye. She saw the determined look on Julia’s face. She knew that Julia would try to trick her somehow, but Matilda told herself she could easily watch out for any of the young girl’s devious little tricks. She’d handle the silly young girl. She was powerful, almost as powerful as the great Cagliostro. She would sacrifice the girl, and Satan would reward her with powers far beyond any Cagliostro could conceive.

Keeping a wary eye on Julia, Matilda pushed the door outward, opening it all the way. She stepped aside. “Come with me then,” Matilda said. “We’ll hide you in another part of the house.”

Julia acted without thinking, without knowing exactly what she was doing. The minute she stepped into the corridor, she grabbed the edge of the door and flung it backward. It struck Matilda just as she had planned for it to do. Hastily she turned the key and dashed along the corridor, running blindly to whatever fate held in store for her.