Everything Is Lies

by Helen Callaghan

  ‘Drive,’ I said again. ‘Take me to Morningstar.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The sulky sky did not change on my journey to meet Aaron Kessler – dark grey clouds billowed over the horizon, but some sunlight fingered in through the gaps, making fields of rape and corn glow a dull gold, as though a thin band of summer was trapped between heaven and earth.

  I held my phone, pretending to be busy answering texts and carefully looking connected to the outside world – like somebody that would be missed if something happened to me.

  Mostly, however, I was trying to guess that password still.

  creativespark1?

  No. Dammit.

  Now that my fury and indignation were receding, I started to wonder if I’d overreacted. Max was a treacherous shit, true, but in retrospect I’d still rather have had him sat there beside me.

  My fear was ratcheting up in slow degrees. I no longer wanted to meet Aaron Kessler – I wanted to go home and lie under the covers of my bed, or perhaps quietly prepare something to put in the oven for my dad that night.

  Stop it, Sophia. Don’t be a coward. Face this man. You owe it to your mum. You owe it to Tess.

  My phone chimed. I’d received an email.

  Sophia,

  We have to talk about Scottish Heritage. I will see you tomorrow at noon.

  James

  I sighed. Amity. They were the last thing on my mind right now. I was sick of being worried and defensive with them, constantly on the back foot. They either liked the Scottish Heritage design or they didn’t. They either let me cope with these extraordinary events or they didn’t. But I wouldn’t be handing any more of my power over to them. Not to them, and certainly not to Benjamin.

  Let them fire me if they wanted to. It was just a bloody job, at the end of the day.

  I glanced up at the driver.

  ‘Excuse me, how much longer will it be?’

  He pretended not to hear me.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said more loudly. ‘How much—’

  ‘Forty minutes,’ he replied. But his head twitched, as though he was nervous, and amongst the tattoos creeping above his collar, I spotted it – a cross within a circle.

  ‘You’re one of them.’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re one of the order – an Ascendant. I recognize the tattoo.’

  His attention remained focused on the view out of the windscreen.

  ‘How long have you been at Morningstar?’ I asked.

  Still no reply.

  ‘They told you not to talk to me, right?’

  After a few seconds more of silence I sighed and turned back to my phone, feigning an indifference I didn’t feel. I wondered if he could see my fingers shake as they touched the screen.

  Ascend4nt … No. You tried that last night.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ I muttered at him.

  * * *

  After half an hour of winding through the Weald on narrow green roads, the arrival itself was a surprise – suddenly we turned into a wooden and iron gate set into a high wall, and the driver leaned out of the window and tapped a code into an electronic box mounted on a pole.

  I stirred in the back seat, swallowed hard and put the phone away.

  We were rumbling along a drive, the one described in the notebooks. The well-kept gravel swept away towards the house, which was lined with neatly pruned hedges and solar-powered lighting.

  The house was exactly the same, and yet also completely different from how I had imagined it. It was a kind of fortified Tudor manor, surrounded by a moat and dotted with leaded windows. I understood how it must have seemed like a castle to my mum, but in actual fact it wasn’t very large, and the drawbridge looked like a Victorian reconstruction – it was a folly, more than anything, the germ of an ancient building painted and propped into something it wasn’t.

  What did strike me immediately was the complex at the back of the property. Clean new accommodation blocks had been built, about three storeys high, none of which would have existed when my mum had last visited. There were four of them, surrounding a low, flat-roofed building which was either a cafeteria or meeting place.

  Business must be booming.

  I was driven past apple trees and beehives, a neatly trimmed labyrinth of hedging which must be the Yew Maze I had read about, and three very glossy, well-maintained Range Rovers with ‘The Society for Spiritual Enrichment’ and the cross–circle logo painted on the side.

  It was the spookiest thing, to see this place that had struck my mum as a kind of paradise, and to find it pretty and prosperous, but still very corporate. Soulless, in fact.

  I felt strangely cheated on her behalf.

  A woman was waiting at the door – she was in her thirties, perhaps, and good-looking, in a smart grey suit; her hair that exquisite variegated blonde that denotes a good colourist. She regarded me unsmilingly as the car pulled up, and it was obvious, from the way she was dressed to the way she watched me, that she was someone who could mimic being a normal person, but who had little or no truck with the real world.

  In the upper windows, I glimpsed movement. A face had appeared, then another, but they vanished quickly once they saw me look up.

  I realized that I hadn’t been afraid – not really afraid – until this moment.

  The door was opened for me, and I emerged into the pre-storm stillness. It was as though, our suits notwithstanding, I was visiting an isolated tribe member from the Amazon, who might react in unpredictable ways at any moment, in line with diktats and agendas I could only guess at.

  Her amulet swung from her neck on a thin gold chain. If she saw my eyes drop to it, she gave no sign.

  ‘Sophia Mackenzie? I am Emily. Please follow me.’

  She didn’t offer to shake my hand and didn’t inquire about my journey. Instead, she turned on her heel and I trailed in her wake, clutching my handbag under my arm, across the little drawbridge and through the big door.

  Several things were becoming very clear.

  In my line of work, I know a building like this needs a good deal of expensive upkeep. Even a small fortified manor with generous but not extensive grounds like this one would cost between fifty and seventy thousand pounds a year to maintain. The blocks built at the back with their cladding and landscaping looked a cool million pounds taken as a job lot.

  Aaron Kessler obviously wasn’t having problems sourcing that kind of money. Even without his followers, finances like that would make him a difficult, intractable enemy.

  My guide was silent. She seemed almost to glide ahead of me.

  Passing by a large mural, I realized it was the order’s symbol, wrought in iron and gilt, with a colourful silk backdrop. In front of it was an altar with fresh flowers. The whole thing was brightly polished and vibrant.

  As she passed it, Emily made a little gesture of obeisance.

  I was struck by the complete contrast between appearances and belief, and full of questions. What was it exactly that they worshipped here? How did a little gang of believers clustering around a spoiled and petulant man-child become this … this … whatever the hell this was?

  I realized I was being led up to the long gallery, and that at the end of it was Aaron’s study, where my mother had been sent to open the safe and ended up nearly freezing to death in the barn.

  I clutched my bag more tightly.

  There was no sign of any other people, but I knew they were there. What might have been voices stilled as our footsteps passed by closed doors, beams creaked above. From somewhere below, I could hear a faint banging of pots.

  And then the door was suddenly in front of me and Emily was knocking on it, with the kind of head-bent deference you might expect of someone rousing the Pope.

  ‘Yeah?’ came a low male voice. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sophia is come.’

  What a strange word choice.

  Silence. Then: ‘Send her in.’

  She opened the door, and since it was wh
at I’d come for, though my knees shook, in I went.

  * * *

  The room was smaller than I’d thought it would be. It put me in mind, with its finicky untidiness, of my dad’s shed – except that my dad’s shed didn’t have a fur rug and an open fireplace, which was dark and empty now, since it was summer.

  A clock on the mantelpiece tocked sonorously.

  Aaron Kessler himself occupied an ornate wooden desk chair. The rugs were thick and springy, the furniture spotlessly dusted, though crowded with small pictures, ornaments and objets d’art; fresh flowers bloomed from a vase on the mantelpiece. My mum had mentioned gold discs and photos of the band, back in her day, but there was no sign of these now. His identity as Aaron Kessler of the Boarhounds had been shed, like a snake’s skin.

  Now he was his own creation.

  And unlike the house, he was almost exactly as I had imagined him. Long dark hair framed his face, and it still had its lustrous colour. I wondered if he dyed it. His eyes were brown – that jet-black colour that looks pupil-less in certain lights.

  There appeared to be no chair in the room other than the one he occupied. I realized that people who came in here were expected to stand while they talked to him.

  ‘Are you going to ask me to sit down?’ I asked.

  He regarded me intensely for a long moment, then moved to his feet, silently offering me his chair with a languid wave.

  With surprising agility, considering his age, he launched himself upwards, taking a seat on the desk facing the chair.

  ‘Thank you.’ I settled into the chair, uncomfortable with the way it remembered the warmth of his body.

  I was being wrong-footed. He was being neither portentous and mystical, which I would have found absurd, nor cheerful and friendly, which would have appeared insincere, nor even aloof, which would have been alienating.

  But you were told this. He’s always who you need him to be.

  He was dressed in a white shirt, thankfully buttoned up today, and a pair of dark grey trousers – not for him Emily’s business suit. He wore no amulet, nor jewellery of any kind.

  ‘So, at last it’s Sophia.’ He half-smiled to himself and cocked his head to one side. ‘You’ve made me wait.’

  ‘I’m right on time.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, perhaps you are.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why have you come?’

  ‘You invited me.’

  ‘Yes, I know I did. My real question was, why did you accept?’

  ‘I’m here because of my mother. I don’t know if you remember her—’

  ‘Of course I remember Nina.’ He folded his arms at me. Through the shirt, his muscles were still surprisingly defined. He was very good-looking, and it was distracting me.

  ‘Right. Good. Because I think there were probably a few girls coming through here, and you can’t remember them all.’ I folded my arms right back at him. Was that the right thing to do? Was I mirroring him? I unfolded them.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘Considering that I’ve read my mother’s notebooks, I think I can safely answer “no”.’

  His laughter was as unforced and sunny as if I’d made a little joke about the weather, rather than about drugs and his ghastly ritual. He had white teeth. Like the car, he at least was well maintained.

  ‘That was a long time ago. And you can’t be that afraid of me, Sophia, or you wouldn’t have come here alone. Having spoken to Max Clarke, I know that it was you that blew him out on this trip, and not the other way around.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so instead I just shrugged. ‘This is family business.’

  ‘It most certainly is.’

  He had instantly become serious, and those dark eyes fell on me. ‘You have questions for me.’ He held his hands wide, as though about to start conducting an orchestra. ‘And you’ve come a long way. Ask.’

  ‘Did you kill my mum?’

  ‘I was told that Nina killed herself.’

  ‘She was driven to it – the burglaries, the harassment. My dad says she couldn’t stick it any more. Was that down to you? I’ll ask again. Did you kill my mum?’

  He cocked his head at me again with a little shake, as if I had disappointed him.

  ‘No. But you know that already.’

  ‘Why would I know that?’

  ‘Because you know everything, Sophia, if you’d only look inside. You are the World Soul. You are the avatar of divine wisdom.’

  A beat.

  ‘I’m really not,’ I said. ‘And I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that we keep this conversation confined to the real world. I don’t share your beliefs.’

  ‘You have no idea what they are, so how would you know?’

  ‘Mr Kessler …’

  That laughter again, dark and rich. ‘ “Mr Kessler”! So formal. You’ve already let me call you Sophia.’

  I had the strangest feeling then – as though this predator was grading me for my predation skills, and finding them wanting, and that this was personally disappointing in some way.

  I just stared at him. Don’t back down.

  ‘All right, if you like.’ He smiled and shook his head, as though indulging a child. ‘Let’s do this the boring, inefficient way, then. You know I didn’t kill Nina because I didn’t have opportunity, means, or motive.’ He smiled again. ‘Did I leave anything out?’

  ‘I think you had all three.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You sent people to harass my mother. Once Paracelsus told you she wanted to publish her notebooks, you tracked her down, and your Ascendants made my parents’ life a misery until she—’

  ‘You’ve no idea why you’re here, have you?’ He offered me a half-smile, and there was a wisp of pity in it. ‘Why I invited you to come? It makes me wonder if you’ve even read all those notebooks of Nina’s.’

  This observation was so prescient, I started.

  ‘Now, why would you come all this way without knowing why? Hmm. Now I feel bad. Like I have you at a disadvantage.’

  ‘I would have thought that would please you,’ I said evenly.

  ‘Not at all!’ He swung his heels against the desk. ‘I can see that you think I’m your enemy; that I was Nina’s enemy, but I only want the best for you, Sophia. I wanted only the best for Nina, but in the end, she was like they all were …’ His gaze flicked away to the ceiling, then back to me. ‘They had too much negative energy.’

  His self-absorption was breathtaking.

  ‘What about Tess?’ I asked. ‘Is that why she’s dead? She wasn’t positive enough?’

  He threw up his hands, as though rejecting this utterly. ‘That was an accident. Karen had been sick on and off for years. What were we supposed to do? Throw her out? The regimen here now is so much more demanding than in your mother’s time – we dropped the drugs and decadent living years ago.’ He sighed. ‘It was a tragedy, and a lesson to us all.’

  ‘A lesson to Tess, certainly.’ I held up my bandaged hands. ‘And to me.’

  ‘There was never any need for Tess to die. It did not serve anyone’s purpose. We’d fenced together on and off for years when she swapped the Creative Spark for her Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,’ he said this last in a mock-American accent. ‘All her death achieved was to bring unwelcome media attention here.’ He snorted. ‘It was something she never managed in life.’

  He narrowed his eyes at me again. ‘And as for you, Karen would never have harmed a hair on your head. She knew who you were.’ He waved a hand, as though taking in the whole building. ‘They all know who you are.’

  Me?

  ‘And who am I, exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, Sophia. You’re the World Soul. You’re divine wisdom, crushed into a mortal dream state, a sort of Sleeping Beauty. In the end your prince will come to kiss you, you will wake and the world as we know it will end.’

  His expression didn’t change throughout this speech.

  ‘Really?’ I sig
hed. ‘I asked for that, didn’t I? You do seem to know a lot about me.’

  ‘Of course I do.’ He raised his eyebrow, cocked his head at me. ‘I created you.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  He pursed his lips, as though thinking. ‘Well, Nina helped.’

  I took his meaning instantly, though I tried not to. I opened my mouth and closed it again.

  ‘W-what are you trying to imply?’ I said, my throat bone dry.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Sophia. It’s not a good look on you. I’m asserting, not implying. They’re different. You’re mine. We all performed the ritual to call down the Creative Spark and it worked. Nina drank the Sacred Draught. I went into her and she bore fruit. You are it.’

  Profound silence followed this statement, broken only by the slow tock-tock of the mantelpiece clock.

  This was why I’d been invited here, I realized. This was what he had expected me to confront him with when I arrived.

  It was how he suspected I hadn’t read all the notebooks.

  Good God, what else was in there?

  ‘You’re not my father. I have a father. Jared Boothroyd.’ My voice was tiny to my own ears, like a little girl’s.

  ‘Jared?’ His eyes widened and his mouth screwed up, as though he tasted something bitter. ‘Jared, is it? What, you think that guy is your father? Not even he believes it, I guarantee it. Why should you?’

  And as he said it, I knew it was true. It made perfect sense.

  Why had it never occurred to me, even while I was reading about my mum and her intense sexual attachment – no, obsession – with Aaron in the months leading up to my conception?

  But to own this possibility was to lose both of my parents all over again. Certainly to lose my dad again, or at least my biological connection to him, after only just getting him back.

  And despite these insidious doubts, right now my dad was the person I most wanted to see in the world.

  ‘I want to go home!’ I was going to start weeping soon, and I’d be damned if I’d let him see it.

  ‘I don’t think you should. We should talk, Sophia. This changes things—’

  ‘I want to go home!’ I shouted. ‘I want to go home RIGHT NOW!’