by Eden Maguire
‘Good, Tania! ’ Maia breathes, sweet as honey. My skin tingles and I am bathed in her light.
‘What?’ he said, smiling and unsuspecting. ‘Come on, Tania, share!’
I shook my head, looked away.
Zoran waited a while then spoke again, tempting me and drawing me in like before. ‘So if you don’t go to Dallas for your gap year, maybe you can spend time here with us?’
I drew a sharp breath and closed my eyes for a moment. ‘I plan to go to Europe,’ I mumbled.
‘Oh, but Daniel would love for you to join us on Black Rock.’ He came right out with it, no frills. ‘It’s no secret, Tania – he adores you, has done from the moment he set eyes on you at my party.’
‘Don’t,’ I sighed. My protest was weak – it wouldn’t even put a dent in Zoran’s ongoing pitch.
‘And how much do you really mean to Orlando, deep down? Is he the kind of guy who would give up everything for you?’
I should have objected – back off, mind your own business – but instead I made a case for my boyfriend, gave the reasonable response. ‘Well, obviously I wouldn’t expect him to not have a career. He has to go to college.’
‘Even if it involves leaving you behind?’
‘It’s cool. We’re strong enough to take it.’ I spoke the words but into my mind crept the old seeds of doubt. Would Orlando still find time for me in his life once he got to college, or would it be out of sight out of mind? Zoran’s questions watered my insecurities and made them shoot, twist their tendrils around my heart. Which was exactly his plan, I realized.
‘Daniel would never abandon you that way,’ he insisted. ‘He believes in soul mates, in sharing everything. It’s part of our philosophy here at the lodge. By the way, Daniel hasn’t asked me to sit here and talk to you about this. He respects your right to make your own choices.’
‘Sure. Thanks – I know that.’
‘But I’m older than he is. I know the way the world works. Daniel loves you but he won’t put any pressure on you, whereas I tell him, don’t hold back – seize the day!’
That was true, I thought, as the tendrils of doubt gripped me. Daniel hadn’t crowded me. He’d told me he understood about Orlando.
‘And at your age, everything is so fluid.’ Zoran sat beside me dropping pearls of what masqueraded as wisdom. Except that he wasn’t who he said he was. He was a dead man walking, and his motive couldn’t be anything but evil.
I felt Maia’s presence – an opposing force here in the antique-stuffed room with the dogs snarling from the tapestry on the wall, alongside horse riders in fur-trimmed robes, against tall trees in the background, with white daisies in a green meadow at their feet.
‘The heart shifts, nothing is stable – you in Europe, Orlando in college.’ Zoran again.
‘And you want me to come here and join Grace and Jude?’ I asked.
‘Sure. The door is open. What’s not to like?’
A millionaire spread on a mountain with pool and helipad, with art and culture, and my own old buddies to keep me company. And godlike Daniel. Look at the package, the place, the guy. Who in their right mind would say no?
‘Let me explain.’ Zoran lowered his voice and hesitated as if he was digging deep to help me understand the offer. ‘Listen, Tania, I know you’ve heard and read a lot about me, and not all of it good. It’s the nature of the world I live in – people are jealous, they envy my success. So you get wild rumours, things are written.’
I looked directly at him for the first time in a while and found myself paying close attention. In the here and now, without taking anything else into consideration, the guy did come across as totally genuine.
‘They say I’ve set up some kind of cult, that I must have weird motives for luring kids up here on to Black Rock. I know – it’s a stupid rumour because you’ve seen the way it works, Tania, and you can tell everyone in Bitterroot, hand on heart, that we don’t use any kind of force to make people stay. Grace is here purely because she wants to be, the same with Jude.’
He looked earnestly at me, waiting for my slow nod of agreement.
‘And we do have a philosophy, it’s true – one that particularly appeals to young people, based on discovering what’s important to you as an individual and following that through with study and guidance from the guys who’ve been here a while.
‘Take you, for example. We know how passionate you are about art and we can provide you with materials that will allow you to develop as a painter and an art historian. No, wait,’ he said, seeing that I was about to speak and raising a finger to stop me in my tracks. ‘It’s more than practical help that’s on offer. It’s the whole atmosphere here, out of the mainstream, which lets you develop at your own pace, which opens doors and expands your mind. You know what I’m saying?’
I took a deep breath then nodded again. As he’d said – what’s not to like?
‘Why do I do this?’ he went on, plausible as ever. Zoran Brancusi could have been a politician. ‘Because I believe in you kids. I want you to have the best possible chance in life. My aim is to take you a step beyond what you can achieve elsewhere.’
‘If we dare to believe?’ I murmured, at this point almost ready to forget my fears and just do it. But mouthing the mantra jerked me back on to a different level. I connected it with Grace and her dark, empty gaze and I shivered.
‘Exactly,’ Zoran said, sensing my change of mood and abruptly ditching his ad-man pitch. Instead he stood up and obviously expected me to follow him out of the room. ‘Are you cold, Tania? Would you like an extra jacket?’
‘No, I’m good, thanks.’
He led the way, out from under the snarling dog tapestry, along the corridor past the carved masks, up in the elevator to the big hallway and the exit into the fresh air. ‘It’s almost evening. The temperature has dropped and I didn’t install heating in the chapel.’
The chapel? The main doors opened and cold air hit me. I almost had to run to keep up with Zoran as he crossed the yard.
‘It’s time,’ he told me. ‘Jude has agreed to become one of us. Come and see.’
13
Zoran’s chapel was the place for ceremony, for welcoming people to the dark side. It was where I’d lost Grace for good, where she’d travelled beyond my reach in her black sacrificial robe.
Before her it must have been Oliver, and now it was Jude’s turn.
What exactly had happened with Oliver, I had time to wonder as I entered the chapel. Why had he left the lodge and wandered on to the mountain? Is that the way it worked once Zoran and his crew had snatched a soul and dragged it on to the dark side? Once Cristal’s mission had been effortlessly accomplished, did they cast away what was left like junk?
Yes – it was only the hollow shell of Oliver that had walked away, found a blackened sink hole, a scorched underground chamber where he could curl into the foetal position and die.
This was how they did it – the honeyed web of entrapment, the snatching of his soul, the triumph for the dark side, all sparked by the welcoming ceremony I was about to witness.
A ceremony, a victory parade, with Cristal at its head.
I went into the high chapel with its cave-drawing murals and immediately started to tremble.
‘Here, take my coat.’ Now Daniel was with me, offering me warmth, wrapping his jacket round my shoulders.
I shook, I shuddered. The half-men, half-beast paintings seemed to shift in the shadows. Catch the devil by the throat …
‘People are only afraid of the unfamiliar, the unknown.’ Daniel was calm. He led me by the hand through a small crowd of people gathered expectantly. In the dim lighting and the deep shadows, I picked out Callum, who gave me a reassuring smile. Next to him was Lewis, beyond them Grace and Ezra.
‘Cool – you stayed to watch.’ Grace came over to me without Ezra for a change. ‘Tania, this is going to be amazing! Zoran will open up a whole new world for Jude. I can’t describe it. But just you watch!’
&
nbsp; She spoke as the music began – a Zoran track – and I soon recognized the tune as the early number ‘Stardust’ even before the familiar voice came in surround-sound from powerful speakers high on the walls.
‘Come with me/ Fly with me/You’re stardust, you’re heavenly!’
The familiar song exploded around us, the drumbeat rapid, guitars thrusting on behind the soaring vocals.
‘Wait – watch!’ Grace breathed.
The lights dimmed. We stood in darkness and held our breaths.
‘You’re forever in my arms/You’re heavenly.’ Zoran’s voice filled the chapel. A single white spotlight lit the raised area at the far end of the chapel, then with one of those illusions that Zoran loved, we saw him rise through the floor.
And even I, who was prepared, who had seen it all before and had learned how this dark angel could shape-shift and mesmerize and overwhelm his victims, still I wasn’t prepared for this latest manifestation.
‘You’re stardust/You’re heavenly!’ he sang, head thrown back, arms outstretched as he rose.
With him came wreaths of white smoke, flickers of orange flame licking at his heels. And he looked magnificent – there’s no other word – with a heavy gold chain at his neck, dressed in a medieval hunter’s cloak of black fur and carrying a longbow, with a quiver of arrows strapped to his shoulder.
‘Like the tapestry!’ I murmured.
Somehow Zoran had rolled aside the centuries, defying history and the two-dimensional prison of the tapestry weaver’s art. He let the cloak slide to the ground, where it killed the flames and settled the smoke. At his side crouched his two grey dogs, lips curled, fangs bared.
And as flaming torches are lit on the walls of the chapel I gasp to see other transformations. Pillars supporting the roof have become tall, straight trees whose bark is smooth and silver-grey, the marble floor has turned into a carpet of green grass scattered with meadow flowers. By my side, Grace is a girl in a rose-pink gown with a sash of golden thread, her hair waving softly to her waist. Callum wears his own cloak of dark-blue velvet and ermine with a matching cap and Daniel is standing in the moonlight in an embroidered tunic of silver and black, a tiny pearl stud in one ear.
He looks closely at me for my reaction. ‘What do you think – will Jude approve?’ he asks quietly, gesturing at the scene around us.
‘Just like the tapestry,’ I say again. I’m lulled by the stylish elegance of the scene, able to pick out the exact same figures I saw woven in ancient wool; Zoran is the aristocratic huntsman in chief, Callum and Daniel his noble second and third in command. And in the shadows, between the tree trunks, I make out shy, fugitive animals such as deer, rabbits and foxes. For a few moments the stately pageant enchants me.
‘You’re for ever in my arms,’ Zoran sings jubilantly.
Then Cristal glides into the chapel, leading Jude. Cristal as I’ve never seen her before in a long, flowing dress of Virgin Mary blue – a smooth-faced Raphael Madonna with a white linen smock gathered at her neck and long, wide, satin sleeves to her delicate fingertips. Her flame hair is covered by a fine white veil, her head is bowed.
Jude follows, eyes downcast, framed in the dark doorway. He could be a pilgrim or a monk in his long, plain black robe open at the neck, hands clasped in front, averting his gaze. Or he could be a prisoner being led to his execution.
Zoran is also in black; a woodcutter’s axe leans against a tree. The dogs bare their teeth and snarl.
An executioner, and Jude is the sacrifice!
Zoran’s face is bloodless and cruel, his jaw sharp as an axe blade.
Jude walks after Cristal, who raises her veil and as she passes by, close enough for me to touch, allows herself a glance of triumph.
The dogs strain at the leash. Zoran releases them and they bound forward. They part the elegant crowd, leap and sink their fangs into the flank of a roe deer. An arrow out of nowhere pierces the deer’s neck; blood gushes forth. The scarlet river runs down and the whole forest starts to rustle and roar. A snake, the old enemy, slithers through the long grass, green and slippery. A great creature roars from a cave deep in the woods. It emerges on its hind legs, twice the height of a man, with curved, flashing claws and a bucket-sized jaw. Arrows rain against its hairy hide and fail to penetrate.
And the whole orderly pageant disintegrates into chaos. The bear mauls its victim – a terrified female bystander who falls to the ground; the vicious dogs worry and drag down their deer. Then Zoran approaches Jude and throws his arms wide in a terrifying greeting. His face morphs into that of the bear. Man is beast again – this is not heaven after all, but hell. The chapel door flies open. Outside I see flames rage and smoke begins to suffocate – the old nightmare is back.
Breathe, Jude, breathe. Do not take his hand.
Breathe, Tania. Ask Maia for help before it’s too late.
‘I need you!’ I cry.
Then there are figures in the doorway – three people who shouldn’t be here, guests who have not been invited.
The bear sees them, its roar dies in its throat and it drops and crawls on all fours back into its cave.
‘A rehearsal,’ Zoran explained coolly to Orlando, Holly and Aaron. ‘We’re making a promotional video for my greatest hits album.’
‘Sorry. We sure didn’t mean to interrupt.’ Aaron was embarrassed more than shocked. He fell for Zoran’s excuses, and why shouldn’t he?
I stood with them out by the helipad, still too stunned to speak.
Zoran was tense but civil. ‘No problem. It was only a run-through.’
‘Tania, I called at your house like I said,’ Holly informed me. ‘You weren’t in.’
‘Sorry, I forgot.’ The words of the Stardust song still played inside my head; the forest images of curved claws, blood and gore wouldn’t go away. But here we were in broad daylight – Holly, Aaron, Orlando, me and Zoran.
‘You sounded like you were really sick on the phone this morning.’ She hammered her point home. ‘Then when I got there the place was empty, so I stressed for a while then I called Orlando.’
‘Thanks,’ I muttered. ‘But there was no need, honest.’
‘Everyone’s acting so weird lately,’ she complained, giving Zoran a significant look. ‘Orlando and I talked it through and decided we should come up here to look for you.’
Zoran stood patiently within the yellow circle of the helipad. He seemed normal, although maybe more reserved than usual and perhaps giving Holly and Aaron more attention now that they were evidently back together. As I noted this and realized why, I felt my flesh begin to creep.
‘I understand your concern,’ he told them. ‘We know that Tania has a few health issues that need attention. In fact it was Callum who first suggested a visit to a neurologist. But meanwhile, she knows she’s welcome here any time she wants. The same goes for you too, Orlando.’
I didn’t even dare risk looking at Orlando. It was still daytime but only just. The sun had already gone down behind Carlsbad and the shadows had disappeared, leaving a flat, dull grey light. And I knew word for word and without even looking at Orlando’s expression what he would be thinking: You came here without telling me again, Tania. You came behind my back to visit Daniel. You betrayed me.
‘So are you coming back with us or what?’ Aaron asked me. He seemed totally fazed by the situation, didn’t get any of it – only knew that for some reason it was gut-grindingly uncomfortable.
‘No, wait.’ Holly stepped in. She was her nosy, bossy self, God bless her, looking around and spotting the mustangs milling about in the arena waiting for their evening feed. Then she turned her attention back to what they’d glimpsed inside the chapel. ‘That was some elaborate setting for your video,’ she told Zoran. ‘Really wild.’
‘One of our guys studied film under a big-name professor in California. He showed a movie at the Sundance Festival last year, so he’s talented.’ The lies came so fast, full and easy that they sounded true. And unfortunately for me, the glib
account slotted in neatly with Orlando’s latest theory about the great rock star’s addiction to theatre and performance. ‘Problem is, we pulled in every guy we have working here to perform as extras. That’s how come we had no one on the gate.’
‘No security,’ Aaron said. ‘Yeah, we parked the car and walked right in.’
‘And, Tania, you just happened to be passing?’ Holly prompted sarcastically. She was focused on how this looked to Orlando. She obviously blamed me and was set on giving me a hard time.
‘Well, actually she ran into Jude and Cristal in Bitterroot,’ Zoran interrupted. ‘They all drove up here together.’
‘Jude’s here?’ For the first time Orlando spoke. ‘Somebody tell me – how does that work?’
‘He and Cristal are an item.’ It was my turn to jump in, though I knew that if I gave away what I really felt about this – my fears, my terror – my whole cover was blown. ‘She’s the one who drove him to the hospital when he fell sick the last time we were here.’
Orlando shook his head in pure, speechless exasperation.
‘Cristal and Jude – since when?’ Aaron’s muddled expression said it all.
‘Since Grace got together with Ezra.’ I kept my voice steady, didn’t allow myself to raise even an eyebrow but I stared directly at Holly, hoping like hell she would read between the lines. ‘Cristal came to Jude’s rescue; patched him up in more ways than one.’
Aaron stumbled on. ‘Cristal? The one that I—’
This time Holly dug her elbow in his ribs. ‘Yeah, Aaron – that one! Grace and Ezra, Jude and Cristal. Wow, that’s hunky-dory!’ Even here, in this crazy situation, Holly’s choice of words could force a grim smile out of me. ‘So what next? Don’t tell me – now Jude’s saying he wants to hang out here for a while?’
‘Actually, yes. And he even has a lead role in the video.’ My eyebrows rose a fraction of a centimetre. Tune into what I’m saying, realize we have a huge problem, someone – please!