CHAPTER 91

CHAPTER 91

CHARLES VARINEO WAS SITTING at the table and was writing when he felt a chill run down his spine. During forty years in activity he had never come across anything similar. He had become accustomed to exercising his trade in silence, anonymously and on an itinerant basis. And, with humility, accepting the distrust and even the misunderstanding of those responsible for the parishes in the places where his presence was requested.

Now, however, it was different. That case was different, and that's why he had settled in Padua, a beautiful and welcoming city, just to follow those events.

He remembered the first day he saw the boy. He was completely chained to the bed.

A living skeleton... he thought.

A pale image of what he was told had once been a strong, healthy young man.

Her mother, a woman disfigured by suffering, told her that it all happened four days after her daughter had participated in a spiritualism session where they had invoked the spirit of a friend who had just died.

Charles frowned as he thought of the millions of people who, like this young woman, were fooled into imagining they could make contact with the dead.

The meeting with the young woman came back to his mind. Doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists would come and shrug; his knowledge was useless in this case. No solution until the local vicar got in touch with the bishop and he decided to call him. The girl was tied with chains, ropes were of no use to her, she simply snapped them as if they were strings.

The girl, who until then had been struggling furiously, looked at him for a long time.

Charles Varineo began his prayer.

— In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...

— Stop it, stop it! — Shouted a guttural voice that came out of his throat.

— In the name of God, of his Son whose blood...

— Stop, stop! I order you!

—... was shed from the cross...

— Stop!!!

—...for the forgiveness of sinful mankind...

— Stop!... stop!... You don't understand... I can't go back there, you don't understand!

It was there that he, driven by curiosity, stopped to listen to him.

— I can't go back there, you don't understand!

— What I do not understand? You must go back, your place is hell!

— You don't understand — said the young woman, crying — I can't go back there.

— Tell me, what do I not understand?

— I, I can't go back, he punishes me!

— Who punishes you?

— Lucifer! cried the guttural voice.

— Lucifer punishes you?

— Yes... yes, Lucifer mistreats me!

— Why does he mistreat you?

— Because he hates me... and I hate him!

— Why does he hate you?

— He hates everyone!

— Is that you?

— I was before God, contemplating His face... He seduced me... I followed him. I abandoned God!

— You regret?

The young woman's face contorted in a monstrous way.

— Not!!! I hate God!

— What do you want then?

— I want to stay!

— You cannot stay in this body, it does not belong to you!

— I want to stay!

— You can not!

— I can't go back, you don't understand!

— You can't, you'll have to leave!

— No, I want to stay!... I... I'll tell you a secret!

— I don't want to hear your secrets!

The young woman's face took on a sinister expression.

— It's not mine... it's Lucifer's secret!