‘It’s so ironic.’ Verity leaned against him, her voice sad. ‘She lived in the van because she couldn’t afford a house. When Sylvia died last year, her granddaughter sold the van to a mysterious private collector for over a hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Why was it worth so much?’
‘No one knows. It’s a mystery. There’s a rumour that she used it as a canvas, somehow, to paint her memories of childhood.’
Danyl stumbled backwards, his knees sagged and he staggered to the couch. ‘Keep talking,’ he urged, noting Verity’s look of concern.
‘Sylvia lived in the valley until she was ninety, still painting every day. By that time she was famous. She could have lived in comfort, built a house in her clearing, or bought a place by the sea somewhere, but she told everyone she was happy to die in her van in the woods. And then one day without warning she left. She moved away from Aro Valley and never returned. It’s a great mystery.’
‘You mentioned her granddaughter. Did she live with Gold in the campervan?’
‘She did. Sylvia’s only child—a daughter—died young, and she left her little girl Anna in Sylvia’s care. Not a normal place for a child to grow up, and Anna became a strange, wild creature. But Sylvia loved her.’
‘What happened to this granddaughter?’
Verity shrugged. ‘She left the valley when Sylvia did. I don’t think she ever came back. I often wondered if she became an artist like her grandmother. She had an extraordinary imagination. Sylvia passed on her obsession with Russia to her. Anna told people she was the Tsar’s secret granddaughter, that she grew up in Siberia. But sweetheart, you are sick.’ She crossed the room to Danyl and stroked his face. ‘Before you were cold, now you’re feverish. I’ll get you a glass of water.’
Danyl nodded weakly and Verity disappeared into the tiny kitchen connected to the workroom, while he sat on the couch, his head tipped back, staring at the ceiling. Verity kept up a running commentary, talking about Sylvia Gold’s painting style, her influences, her critical and commercial success . . .
Danyl didn’t listen. Instead he blinked, stood and zipped up his overalls. He took a final look at Gold’s painting, leaning in close. ‘Wolfgang Bludkraft,’ he whispered, grinning at the bearded figure. ‘I know the secret of the Priest’s Soul.’
He crossed the room and opened the back door. Verity called to him from the kitchen, ‘There aren’t any clean glasses in here. Can you see one in the workshop?’
He paused. Some pieces of the puzzle remained unsolved, a few fragments needed to be pieced together—and he knew exactly where to find them. It would be dangerous. He would need to take risks; make sacrifices. Betray those who trusted him. ‘And Steve,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I need Steve.’
‘What’s that?’
Should he try and explain things to Verity? No, it was too complex, there wasn’t enough time. He’d make this up to her later.
He picked up her kimono, draped it over his shoulder and left the workshop.
35
Sexual Violence
‘This is truth?’
‘It’s truth.’
‘You have real discover location of Priest’s Soul?’
‘I have real.’
Stasia threw her arms around Danyl and kissed him. Her breasts crushed against his chest. She said, ‘You are great, great man. I knew you would find.’
It was midmorning. Danyl had spent the previous hour checking facts, making arrangements, setting certain plans into motion, and now he stood in the gloomy, abandoned foyer of the EZ Wellness Heal U Centre, Stasia squirming in his arms. ‘Take me to it,’ she urged. ‘Now. Is no time to lose.’
Danyl held her. She felt deliciously soft, deliciously warm. ‘We can’t go now,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’ll take you there after nightfall.’
‘Nightfall?’
‘It’s the only way,’ he insisted. ‘And while we’re waiting . . .’ He kissed her neck and slid his arm down to the small of her back, his fingertips brushing the bare skin beneath the waistband of her red silk trousers.
‘Yes, yes,’ Stasia sighed, her eyes fluttering, and then flicking open. ‘No. We go now.’
‘I told you, it’s not safe.’
‘The Campbell Walker and his SSS are no danger to me. I will scatter them like leaves in wind.’
‘The SSS are no more,’ Danyl replied. ‘They abandoned Campbell when he ordered them into a septic tank. True story. But there are powers protecting the Priest’s Soul more dangerous than the Campbell Walker. Trust me. We must wait for darkness.’
Stasia pulled back and scrutinised his face. Behind her usual calm detachment he glimpsed agitation and a shrewd, calculating intelligence. ‘You will take me to Priest’s Soul tonight. Swear this to me.’
‘I swear,’ Danyl swore. ‘I will take you there when the time is right.’
She hesitated and then smiled. ‘It shall be as you say.’ She kissed him again. His fingers advanced on her sacral region; his other hand drifted downwards from her shoulder. She broke their kiss and pulled away. ‘Not here. We go to bedroom.’
Yes! Danyl followed her down the hall, past the closed door to her Wellness Chamber and into her bedroom in which he’d woken, crippled, only twenty-four hours earlier. She closed the door behind him. They stood in the centre of the room, the narrow bed between them. Stasia nodded at his overalls and ordered, ‘Remove.’ She began to unbutton her red silk shirt.
‘Let me do that.’ Danyl rounded the bed, but she waved him away.
‘Undress self. Quicker. More efficient.’
‘But less fun.’
‘Undress! Now!’
Danyl flinched and obeyed. He unzipped his overalls and tugged his arms free. And then, triggered by the movement, images of Verity sprang unbidden to his mind: Verity helping him out of her kimono; Verity kissing his forehead; Verity handing him a danish. How could he betray her like this? But, he reminded himself, he had to seduce Stasia. It was the only way. But was it worth it?
Then Stasia opened her shirt and Danyl’s mind blanked. It was as if he’d spent a winter at the uttermost end of the earth, where the night lasted for weeks, and now he stood on the edge of the thawing ocean watching the sun rise. He blinked back tears, and said, ‘Unh.’
‘You like my body, yes?’
‘Unh.’ He stumbled towards her, his hands outstretched. Stasia took them and pressed his palms to her naked breasts. They were warm, firm but yielding, her nipples small and hard. He closed his eyes to fully savour the sensation, so he was unprepared when Stasia pulled his hands away and pinned him up against the wall, lifting his entire body off the floor.
His feet kicked in the air. Stasia pressed her face against his bare chest. Danyl moaned at the touch of her lips against his bare skin. She flicked her tongue across his nipple then sank her teeth into his pectoral muscle. He howled at the unexpected pain.
Stasia looked up at him, her eyes shining. ‘You like?’ She licked her lips.
‘Not—’ Danyl screamed again as she bit him a second time, then she tossed him across the room onto the bed. He landed on his back, his legs flailing in the air, the wind knocked out of him. He struggled to sit, but within a second she was upon him.
His overalls were unzipped to the navel but she ripped them open in a single, savage motion, exposing his crotch which she greeted with a deep growl.
Danyl was not erect. She gripped his penis and tugged at it impatiently, snarling at him. His eyes locked on her breasts, swaying above him like colliding suns, and his penis stirred and hardened. Stasia hissed in triumph and, squatting on her haunches, tugged off her red silk trousers.
Danyl said, ‘Do you have protection? I didn’t bring any—’
She put her hand over his mouth while lowering herself onto him and then uttered a deep, guttural groan. Things were happen
ing very quickly, Danyl felt. She rose and fell on him again, her breath catching in her throat, while Danyl felt obliged to raise his hips to meet her thrusts. She moaned and stroked his chest.
Well, this was more like it. Things started badly, but Danyl began to enjoy himself. He put the throbbing pain in his chest out of his mind and slid his hands along Stasia’s thighs, over her hips, her buttocks . . . He said, ‘You are so beaut—’
She struck him on the side of the head, a blow so hard a red mist clouded his vision. ‘Don’t speak,’ she barked. He was so astonished he stopped thrusting his hips and Stasia hit him again. ‘Faster!’ she commanded. ‘Harder!’
He obeyed, but his enthusiasm waned. He felt himself deflating inside her. Stasia, moaning loudly now, her eyes closed, did not seem to notice. She fell towards him and grabbed a fistful of his hair. Her eyes opened: they were clouded with pleasure, and then they focused on his face. She whispered, ‘Maggot,’ and punched him again, then moaned louder and rose and fell upon him with greater force. Her cries rose to a crescendo and Danyl gritted his teeth and thought through the pain, ‘Oh please, let this end.’ Then, in mid-thrust, mid-gasp, came a crashing sound from a nearby room.
Stasia paused, mid-squat. Her chest heaved; dots of sweat beaded her forehead. ‘What was that?’
‘Nothing. Keep going.’ Danyl began thrusting again. ‘It’s just a bird on the roof.’
Stasia cuffed him indifferently and put her hand back over his mouth. ‘Hssst.’ Her eyes were black and bright. Silence, broken by the distant sound of a door creaking and the faint patter of footsteps in the hall.
‘The SSS.’ She smiled grimly. ‘They are back for more pain.’ She climbed off Danyl who curled up, whimpering. ‘Stay here.’ She slipped on a red silk robe.
Danyl gritted his teeth and sat up. ‘Wait.’
‘No, you wait. I give them more pain, then come back to finish you.’
‘Stasia, stop. I need to tell you something.’ She ignored him and opened the door. ‘Stop,’ Danyl called to her again, then added quietly, ‘Stop, Anna.’
She turned and stepped back into the room, an intent, deadly light in her eyes. ‘What do you call me?’
‘I call you by your real name, Anna Gold.’
She took another step towards him, and then they both flinched as a loud smash—something heavy and glass breaking—came from the hall. She said in a voice of bitter cold, ‘Stay here. Do not leave room.’ Then she vanished.
This was his chance. Danyl put the pain from his bite wounds and head injuries out of his mind. He rolled over and slipped his hands behind the side of the bed and felt around until he found the fragment of glass from the campervan. Careful not to cut his fingers, he fished it out from the space between the mattress and the wall and held it up to the light, inspecting it closely.
There were the letters, ‘UARA’, and the painting. The fragment was only a few centimetres wide, but depicted on the inside of the window glass, in vivid colours and bold lines, were four figures sleeping beneath a house in flames. Sylvia Gold’s self-indulgent style was unmistakable. How had he not seen it before?
A cry of pain rang out, emanating from the direction of the Wellness Chamber, followed by rapid footsteps. Danyl tucked the glass fragment into the pocket of his tattered overalls and hurried out of the room and down the hall towards the origin of the noise.
He passed the door to the Wellness Chamber and glanced inside. It was empty, and the drawer to the secret drug safe in the desk yawned open. Then came the sound of another crash followed by another scream. Danyl ran to the door at the end of the hall and burst into the reception area, where Stasia stood over a prone figure lying sprawled amid the splintered debris of the coffee table.
It was Steve.
He wore a backpack slung over his shoulder, and he lay on his back with his legs pedalling in the air. Stasia stood above him. She grabbed the scruff of his T-shirt and dragged him to his knees. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you violate sanctity of Wellness Centre? Did the Campbell Walker send you?’
Steve coughed and spluttered. His eyes rolled in divergent directions. Stasia slapped his face. ‘Speak!’ He coughed again and shook his head.
She picked up a leg of the broken coffee table and raised it above her head. ‘Pain will loosen tongue of thief.’ Steve’s gaze focused on the makeshift weapon.
‘No,’ he pleaded, clutching the hem of her robe. ‘I’ll speak. I’ll tell you everything.’
‘Who are you? Who sent you?’
‘I’m Steve,’ said Steve, his eyes wide with fear.
‘Are you SSS?’
‘No. Well, sort of. But he sent me.’ Steve looked beyond Stasia and pointed at Danyl. ‘I’m his neighbour and intellectual mentor. He sent me here to steal your letter while he distracted you. It’s in here.’ He fumbled with his backpack, tugging at the zip. ‘You can have it back. I’m just a psychologist, an impartial observer. I’m not involved.’
Stasia turned and faced Danyl. Steve dangled, forgotten, from her grasp. A poisonous light glowed in her eyes. ‘I see all now. You make love to me while accomplice steals letter. You trick me. You know nothing of Priest’s Soul. You are nothing,’ she spat. ‘You are filled with lies.’
‘What about your own lies?’ said Danyl, defiant. ‘I know who you really are, Anna. I know you were named after your great-grandmother who was Deputy High Hierophant of the Order of Thrice-Wise Hermes, and that your grandmother was the overrated artist Sylvia Gold. I know you’ve never set foot in Siberia. You spent your childhood here in the Aro Valley, where she raised you in her campervan, near the old well and the ruined temple on the southern slopes of the valley.’
‘Be silent,’ commanded Stasia. She released Steve, who fell to the floor gasping for air, then she stepped towards Danyl and raised her club, but he continued.
‘I know that Sutcliffe Parsons seduced you when you were a teenager, and together you began to unravel the mystery of the temple of Thrice-Wise Hermes. I know that your grandmother caught you there with Parsons, performing depraved rituals. She had him arrested and then took you away from the Aro Valley. And now she’s dead, and you’re back to find and retrieve the Priest’s Soul, disguised as a Russian faith healer, for reasons I’m still kind of unclear about. You tricked Campbell and manipulated him into searching for the Soul, and when he failed you tried to trick me.’
Stasia’s face was a mask of cold, animal cruelty. ‘You think you know so much? You think you are clever? We will see how clever you are with compound fracture in all four limbs.’ She took another step towards him.
‘If you harm me you’ll never learn the location of the Priest’s Soul.’
‘You know nothing of Priest’s Soul. You only come here to steal letter so you can learn what the Campbell and I already know.’
‘That’s not true. I know more than you think, Anna. And I came here today because I want to be with you. I sense your pain, and your loneliness. And now I know who you really are I understand the cause of that pain. I want to heal you, Anna, just as you healed me, and then together we could get the letter out of here run for it Steve run!’
Stasia blinked, confused; understanding a second too late. She whirled to see the front door to the EZ Wellness Heal U Centre swing shut as Steve fled the building. She gave Danyl a final, murderous look—a down-payment on a promise of unimaginable savagery to come—then turned and gave chase.
Danyl adjusted his torn, ragged overalls and walked back down the hall to Stasia’s office. The drug safe was open and empty. A large glass jar lay broken on the floor. Danyl crossed the room, avoiding the puddle of homeopathic water, and drew back the heavy black curtains to reveal the courtyard behind the Wellness Centre. Stasia’s silver jewellery box sat on the windowsill where Steve hid it a moment earlier just as they’d planned. Danyl smiled and picked it up.
Then t
hrough the window he saw Steve burst into the courtyard with Stasia in close pursuit. Steve leaped onto the stone table in the centre, ran its length and then jumped towards the high brick wall at the far end of the garden. He gave a bellow of triumph as his fingers grasped the top of the wall, and then a scream of terror when Stasia flew through the air and collided with him and dragged him back down into the courtyard. Their bodies disappeared behind the stone table. Stasia’s arm, still clutching the broken table leg, rose and fell and almost instantly Steve howled, ‘I don’t have the box. I hid it in your office. Danyl has it.’
Stasia rose from behind the table, her red robe blood-coloured in the midday sun. She unzipped Steve’s backpack and looked inside it, then looked to the window, saw Danyl, saw him holding her jewellery box, and their eyes locked. Carefully, deliberately, she tore the canvas bag in half as if it were made of wet paper.
Time to go, thought Danyl. He stuffed the box into the pocket of his overalls then ran down the hall and out the front door of the EZ Wellness Heal U Centre. He made it to the end of the driveway and onto Aro Street before he heard Stasia behind him, her bare feet slapping on the footpath. He glanced back. She was moving with tremendous speed, gaining quickly. Her face was impassive but deadly, a goddess of death bearing down on a reluctant but doomed soul.
He was out of breath and panting hard. He veered left into the park, towards the Old Devon Path, heading for home; he ducked and weaved through the trees, and the start of the path came into view. But he was close to collapse: his lungs burned, his vision blurred.
He stumbled and fell. The box slipped from his pocket, and he rolled and lay in the dirt. He gasped for air and struggled to his hands and knees.
Stasia stopped short beneath the shade of a tree. The silver box lay midway between them.
‘Take it,’ Danyl gestured at it. ‘You win.’
‘I take it then break your weak bones.’
‘Stasia, wait. I’m sorry I lied to you. But you lied too.’ He crawled towards the box. ‘We don’t have to be enemies. We can start again and be honest with each other. We can share information and find the Priest’s Soul together.’
Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley Page 36