@Carolyn637 It sounds more like a scatterbrained and amateurish host than a con artist. But at any rate, like @Colleen253 said, the first thing you should do (really, right this minute) is check to see if your booking still falls within the grace period for free guest cancellations. This may be the case if it was confirmed in the last 48 hours.
If the host were to cancel the booking from her end, one of the penalties would be that the whole month would be blocked and unbookable on Airbnb. So what she told you wasn't a lie so much as an omission: she can't cancel your booking taking a massive financial loss.
Fortunately, back-end cancellations are one of the easier things for a customer service operator to do without having to transfer your ticket to another department. If your grace period has expired, get Airbnb on the phone. Grab a book; you might be on hold for a long time.