‘Our keys open the doors to all the apartments on this floor,’ Verity said, stumbling over her words. ‘I got disoriented and came into yours by mistake. You were out running, I saw your laptop on your desk, and I wondered what you were working on all this time. I knew it wasn’t Campbell’s nonsense. So I switched it on and started to read.’
Danyl was thinking about the sex scenes in his book. They involved Verity. And him. They were rather graphic.
‘Did you read the whole thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ Danyl cleared his throat. ‘So you probably think I wrote that. But—’
‘I know that you’re the author.’
‘But what is “the author”, if you follow me?’ He coughed. ‘Most scientists would agree that the text of a book is real, but the author is just a social construct.’
Verity fixed him with a level gaze. ‘The author of this text,’ she said, tapping the box, ‘is real. And he’s in this room.’ She paused, unblinking, then said, ‘And he’s a genius.’
Silence. Danyl thought about this. He said, ‘What?’
‘I think your book is a masterpiece,’ she replied. ‘Or it could be. I know it’s not finished yet, but what’s there is just so beautiful. And my character! I cried when I read those passages about me. They’re so terribly real. I feel like someone finally understands me!’ Verity’s eyes shone; her voice trembled with emotion. ‘And I cried harder with each page. It was just so emotionally devastating.’
‘But,’ Danyl protested, finding his voice. ‘But the book is supposed to be comic.’
‘Oh, the stuff with Campbell is, um, amusing. But the underlying themes are very serious. The way you deal with issues of sexuality. Emotional honesty.’ As she spoke she gestured with her hands and the neck of her kimono parted, revealing a white strap. Ah ha! So she did have something on underneath! A satin camisole? A nurse’s outfit?
‘I do think of myself as a feminist writer,’ he replied.
‘Really? I wonder if a male author . . .’ She brushed back her hair while she spoke, and the robe opened further revealing a see-through silk chemise. Danyl licked his lips. Her breasts were small but, he supposed, adequate, and he stared at them until she finished speaking and replied, ‘I agree. Now, moving on to my second present—’
She gave him a bemused smile. ‘I haven’t explained your first present yet.’ She tapped the box. ‘It’s an archive,’ she said, smiling proudly. ‘I thought: what if Campbell did what I did? Walked into your apartment, switched on your laptop and read your book? He’d throw you out into the street and dissolve that laptop in a vat of acid. So I printed out all your drafts and notes and put them in here. And tomorrow morning I’ll take it to the art gallery where I work and hide it in the storeroom. That way you have a backup copy of your book in case anything happens.’
Danyl said, ‘An archive. Wow. Thanks.’
Shy smile. ‘You’re welcome. The important thing is to make sure Campbell never finds out about the book. Ever. You have to be careful. We have to be careful.’ Her face was serious, but now she relaxed, and rested her hand on the tie of her kimono.
Danyl sat forward, his gaze fixed upon her, an expression of tense pleasure on his face. Outside the rain beat down and the wind screamed.
It was time for his second present.
He groaned. ‘How much longer?’
‘We’re here.’
They stopped outside a small cottage. Cream with green window frames, it nestled in the sunlight beneath a canopy of native beech trees. Jasmine and ivy crowded the path to the front porch. Verity’s new home.
‘Cute.’
‘Thanks.’ Verity led him up the path.
‘Nice house, too.’
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t pull away when Danyl rubbed the small of her back. They climbed the steps to her front porch. Verity unlocked her front door while his fingers drifted down below the hem of her T-shirt, towards her sacral vertebrae.
‘That feels good.’ She opened the front door, give him an arch, inviting look and leaned her head, inviting him inside. He rubbed his hands together with glee. As he stepped past, Verity glanced around her porch and said, ‘That’s weird.’
‘What?’
‘Your box is gone.’
He stood beside her and smelled her hair. ‘Hmmmmm. What?’
‘It was right here when I left.’ She walked to the end of the deck and looked over the side. ‘It’s vanished.’
‘Is this a joke?
‘No joke. Did someone else pick it up for you?’
‘Like who?’
‘Your idiot friend Steve?’
‘He’s not an— No one picked it up for me. Are you saying it was here?’ His voice shook. ‘And now it’s gone?’
‘I can’t believe someone took it. Who would do a thing like that?’
Danyl was on the verge of hysteria. ‘And I can’t believe you just left it out here. My book was in that box! Do you have any idea what this means?’
Verity raised her voice to match his. ‘I gave you that box. If it wasn’t for me your book wouldn’t even exist any more.’
‘It doesn’t exist any more! It’s gone!’
‘I told you to pick it up three days ago. You promised me—’
‘You gave me the wrong address!’ Danyl was screaming now, spraying flecks of spit that caught the sunlight. ‘We took a Satanist’s box instead, and an old man attacked us and we had to run from the police. Then I sprained my ankle.’
Verity frowned, trying to follow this. ‘But your ankle’s fine!’
‘That’s because a faith healer drugged me!’
Verity took a deep breath and steadied herself on the porch rail, and said, ‘OK. That’s enough. We’re done.’
‘Done? What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about us. It’s over. I want you out of the house. You’ve got two weeks to find a new place. Then I’m moving back in.’
‘You’re throwing me out of my own home?’
‘That’s my house. I own it.’ Her voice was ice-cold. ‘I left and let you stay because you were sick. Depressed. I thought it was the right thing to do. But it’s just made things worse. You’re retreating into a fantasy world.’
Danyl could not comprehend the scale of this new development, so he said in a small voice, ‘But what about my box?’
‘Oh, Danyl, I don’t know. It’ll turn up. Print out some posters, stick them up on the community noticeboards and offer a reward.’
‘Offer a reward for stealing my box? That doesn’t make any sense.’
Verity said, ‘Goodbye, Danyl.’ She closed the door.
12
Action Plan!
1. Confront Stasia about (a) healing of ankle and (b) destruction of spare room and relationship to (c) theft of Satanist’s box. Demand answers! Brook no refusal! Be forceful but not frightening. Firm. Strong.
2. Having obtained satisfactory answers to (a) and/or (b) and/or (c), ask Stasia out on date.
3. Find stolen box containing secret archive, and find out who stole other box accidentally stolen from Satanist.
4. Go on date with Stasia. Prioritise! Vital this happens before Verity dates someone.
5. Inform Verity of date with Stasia. Discreetly.
6. Solve mysteries of (d) Wolfgang Bludkraft and/or (e) Sutcliffe Parsons.
7. Find the treasure mentioned on the back of the old photograph hidden in the biography of Wolfgang Bludkraft. Clues: Order. Temple. Investigate Epuni Street well.
8. Have sex with Stasia.
9. Or, at least, see her naked. Inform Verity. Also discreetly. Leverage this into winning back Verity.
10. So I can convince Verity not to throw me out of her/our house, but to move back in with me instead.
11. Wr
ite another book.
Danyl folded the paper up, slipped it into his jacket pocket and took a deep breath.
Step one.
He pushed open the front door and entered the EZ Wellness Heal U Centre.
The reception area was empty. The building was silent. Did this place ever have any patients other than him?
He stood in the centre of the room and looked around. The couches in the waiting area had shifted position. Pamphlets lay scattered across the carpet, interspersed with dark red blotches. The door to the hall leading to the Wellness Chamber was closed. Next to it was a large discoloured patch on the floor.
He walked over to it and knelt down. The carpet was soaked with water and in the centre of the stain lay a thin, steel chain, broken in half. It was surrounded by hundreds of tiny, transparent plastic shards.
Danyl picked up a shard, examined it and looked around the room. On the far side, by the couches, was the stand for the Celestial Water water-filter. The plastic container was gone. He looked behind him. There was a water-filter-sized dent in the wall, at about head height.
Someone had thrown the water-filter clear across the room. But if it was full it must have weighed at least twenty kilograms—difficult to lift, let alone throw such a distance. Who could posses such strength? Were they still here, somewhere?
He noticed the camera mounted on the wall above the reception desk. It was trained on him. He stepped away from the stain and the camera followed.
Danyl felt a growing sense of disquiet. Maybe he didn’t need to talk to Stasia right now. Maybe Step One on his action list wasn’t that important. He could come back some other time. Perhaps. If he still needed questions answered.
Maybe he should leave.
Yes. He hurried towards the exit. He was halfway across the room when he heard a sound behind him. He turned.
The door leading to the Wellness Chamber was open. Stasia stood in the doorway. She looked surprised to see him, and also incredibly hot. So much hotter than Verity—she was wearing her bra-less red silk outfit which Verity would look ridiculous in. Danyl waved to her and said, ‘Oh, hi! Hey. I was wondering if you were free—’
The lights went out.
Danyl stumbled through the darkness, groping, blindly, in the direction of the doorway. He hit his arm against the frame and yelped, grasped it and leaned against the wall, peering out into the void. He whispered, ‘Stasia?’
A hand closed over his mouth. Someone seized him from behind. His instinct to feign death kicked in, and he went limp. A powerful grip on his arm held him upright and dragged him through the doorway, deeper into the darkness.
Should he struggle? The only mobile part of his body was his mouth. He tried to mumble through the hand covering it, and a voice whispered in his ear, ‘Don’t speak.’
It was Stasia! She was touching him! But how did she get behind him so quickly? They stopped moving. She propped Danyl against a wall and took her hand from his mouth. ‘Danger,’ she whispered, her breath warm on his ear. ‘They can hear us. This way.’ She took his hand in hers. More physical contact. He let her lead him through the void. How could it be so dark in here? How could Stasia see where they were going?
He opened his mouth to speak and she hissed, ‘Silence,’ then, ‘Listen.’
He listened. He heard nothing. He held his breath. He felt the warmth of Stasia’s tiny hand in his and heard, distinctly, his own heart. After a few dozen beats she tugged him on and they continued down the hall.
They walked until Danyl felt they had gone beyond the dimensions of the building. Eventually he saw a pale light ahead. They walked towards it and the light coalesced into the outline of a door. Stasia opened it and sunlight dazzled him.
As his eyes adjusted, the glare resolved into a small room, bare and cell-like, with a mattress on the floor and a wooden chest in the far corner. ‘My bedroom,’ Stasia said in a low voice. ‘Is safe here to talk I think. No cameras.’
‘Your bedroom? Cameras? Safe from whom?’
Stasia did not answer. She led him to the centre of the room, and he looked around. Pinned to the wall was a piece of paper with a list of numbers and letters: many entries on the list were crossed out. Aside from these items and the mattress, the room contained only a yoga mat rolled up in a corner, and a full-length mirror. Did Stasia undress in front of the mirror? Did she do yoga before it? Naked? Danyl felt sure that she did, although she would have to wear a sports bra, given her proportions. Perhaps not though, perhaps not. They looked very firm. Danyl had this theory that women with strong pectoral muscles— No! He shook his head. No more day-dreaming or distractions. It was time for some answers.
He lifted his gaze up to meet Stasia’s and demanded, ‘How did you heal my ankle? Who are you? What did you do to me? What happened to my spare room? Did you drug me? Answer the first question first.’
Her hypnotic, sea-green eyes went wide with surprise. ‘But I explain all of this. Why have you come here? You know there is danger.’
‘You’ve explained nothing. What danger?’
‘I tell everything,’ she replied. ‘I leave for you note.’
‘What note?’
‘Note! Note!’
‘I didn’t find any note.’
Stasia said, ‘After I give you healing, you fall into deep sleep. I have seen this happen many time. From this after healing sleep very dangerous to wake. But I leave note for you beside bed. I say in this note everything. I say how I heal you. I say how I feel for you.’ She put her hand on her breast. ‘In my heart! I say for you to meet me in park this morning, and I wait for you there long time. I wonder why you do not come. Then I see you walk by on street, pulling suitcase and holding hands with pretty older woman, and I understand why you do not come to meet me.’
‘Stasia, no!’ Danyl shook his head. ‘The old woman you saw me with was just an, um, acquaintance. And I never found any note. The thieves must have stolen it.’
‘Thieves?’
‘My house was robbed.’
‘Robbed?’ Emotions flickered across Stasia’s face: anger; sexiness; fear. She turned away and said, ‘This is sad for you. I am hoping nothing was taken.’
‘They took my spare room. They tore out the floor and all the walls. Stasia—’ He put his hand on her shoulder, only inches away from the curve of her breast. ‘You can trust me. You can tell me anything. Do you know who robbed me?’
She met his gaze then cast her eyes down and whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘Tell me.’
She crossed the room and stared out the window. ‘If they took the note I left for you then you are in great danger. You must leave. But first I will answer your first question. I will tell you how I heal you.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I tell you other day of my childhood in old country—how I live with my grandmother, how she teaches me the gift of healing. How she will say nothing of how she learned this gift, or where our family has gone, or of the tragedy that befell the village teacher when I gave her my healing. Now I will speak of these things, and of the sinister origins of my gift and the fate of my ancestors.
‘So. One day when I am fifteen years old a man comes to my village. A traveller. A wise man. In my country we call these men starets. They are greatly respected, and they roam from place to place sharing their knowledge. One morning when I rise early to collect wood for fire I find the starets waiting for me in the trees. He tells me I am reason he has come to village. He has heard rumours of girl who can heal wounds that the doctors cannot. He knows I am she, and he offers to teach me so that I can use my gift to do great things.
‘But before he will teach me, he warns, he must know from where my gift came. Who taught it to me, and who taught it to them? There are many fragments of ancient wisdom adrift in the world, he says. Some are safe, but many have a—how you say?—malign provenance: they seem virtuous but can
bring great evil. He must know if my gift is one of them.
‘So I return home to question my aunt. She is old now. She does not leave her caravan in the clearing. She sleeps. She paints. She sits and stares into fire. This is how I find her that morning. I sit beside her and ask her questions. From where comes the gift? What happen to our family? She does not respond, but I know she can hear. So I sit beside her and listen to fire hiss and whisper, and at last my grandmother speaks and she tell me her story.
‘Many years ago, long before I was born, when my grandmother was small girl, she lived with her parents—my great-grandparents—in a small house in the same clearing I was raised in. My great-grandparents were also artists. They sculpt wood and stone. They were poor but very happy.
‘One day a foreigner appeared at their doorstep. He was old and tall; he spoke Russian with a strange accent. Under his arm he carried a box wrapped in oilskins. He needed a bed for the night, he told my great-grandfather. Perhaps longer. And food—he was very hungry. He would pay, of course, and pay well, so long as my great-grandparents kept his presence in their house a secret. No one must know of him.
‘My great-grandparents accept, and take the foreigner into their house. They feed him and put him to sleep in their guest room, where he stays for many weeks.
‘My young grandmother does not like this stranger. He keeps to his room and will not let anyone else inside it, and she hears him at night speaking to someone even though he is alone; speaking sometimes in English or German, other times in languages she does not know.
‘One day she is alone, playing in woods near house and she sees this foreigner. He is walking towards her. He carries his box wrapped in oilskins under his arm, and he is looking for something. My grandmother is suddenly afraid of him. She try to hide, and runs from path into trees—but then she cries out in pain. Her foot is caught in steel trap. Like this.’ Stasia cupped her hands and snapped the fingers shut. ‘Trap for wolf and bear. Very dangerous. When foreigner hear scream he run to her, and sees leg of little girl is hurt with fracture of proximal tibia and haemorrhage from anterior tibial artery. He frees her from trap, but she knows she will die. She will bleed to death, or wound will become infected. At this time of year it is warm, wet. Many insects breeding in marshes. And family is too poor to buy medicine. You understand?’
Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley Page 12