‘Nothing. I brought your party costume.’
‘Show me.’ Putting down the book, he followed me out of the store.
‘I decided to go down the Navajo route,’ I explained, pulling a striped blue tunic and matching bandanna out of my trunk. ‘We still need a belt, beads, maybe suede boots.’
‘Your hands are shaking,’ Orlando noticed.
‘I figured we’d get beads from the art shop.’ I took a deep breath and walked on down the mall. ‘Fake coral and silver. That would look good with the blue.’
Catching up with me, he took my hand. ‘Chill,’ he told me. ‘I know you’re stressed about tonight, but I’m here. I’ll take care of you.’
‘Thanks.’ I stopped by the door of Artworks, breathed again then smiled. God, how good did that last sentence sound! ‘Tell me again.’
‘I’ll take care of you,’ he promised, whispering in my ear.
So good! ‘What do you say we buy the beads and head back to my place – yeah?’ I asked.
Orlando grinned and nodded.
I was almost over the shock of Jarrold’s recapture, browsing with Orlando through the bead section when we bumped into Aurelie.
‘Hey!’ she said across the stacked units of multi-coloured boxes. ‘Tania, what a pleasant surprise.’
‘Sur-preeze’ was how she said it, to rhyme with ‘breeze’. And she smiled at me with real pleasure, came round to our side of the units and began to chat.
‘I am so bad,’ she sighed, fluttering her dark eyelashes, using lots of delicate hand gestures. ‘My own costume for the party – I left it so late!’
‘Wow!’ In my head I heard Orlando saying this. Any red-blooded guy would, the first time they met Aurelie – so dainty and feminine, so stylish. Today she was dressed in black loafers, narrow black pants and a short red woollen jacket so beautifully cut and tailored that I knew it must have come from Paris and cost a fortune. She wore coordinating silver and red earrings and a cream scarf intricately twisted and wound around her neck.
‘I always do this,’ she confessed. ‘I arrange everything for Papa and Jean-Luc, and never have time for myself.’
‘Costumes – that’s why we’re here too,’ I mumbled. ‘Aurelie, you remember Orlando? Orlando – Aurelie.’
They shook hands but there was no European kissing. The eye contact was direct, the lips were smiling.
‘Orlando came back for the weekend,’ I explained. Is it OK if I bring him along to the party?’
‘Please – you don’t even have to ask!’ she protested with wrist-flicking gestures. ‘Orlando, Tania is a tough cookie – is that how you say it? She volunteered and went wild walking this week with the River Stone band. I expect you already know this. But did she tell you how she helped to rescue her friend Holly.’ Still the eye contact, the lip-gloss smile.
‘Yeah, we’re kind of worried about Holly,’ Orlando replied. I was glad that he hadn’t totally fallen under Aurelie’s spell – he seemed cagey, as if he was testing her out. ‘Hypothermia is bad. People can die.’
‘But of course at New Dawn we have a professional back-up team,’ she assured him. ‘Mountain rescue, paramedics – everything is in place. Holly is fine, believe me. In fact, she had such a good time with her band that she stayed on in one of the cabins. She’ll be at the party tonight.’
‘Cool. So will Aaron – he’ll be there,’ Orlando said extra slowly, waiting for a reaction from Aurelie but giving none himself.
‘Aaron?’ She repeated the name with a puzzled pout.
Orlando helped her out. ‘Holly’s boyfriend.’
‘Ah!’ Aurelie turned to me. ‘The ex. So he will need a costume.’
I nodded. ‘No problem – we already fixed that.’ At least, I hoped Grace had thought of it.
Aurelie’s brow creased into a small frown as she took me by the arm and led me a little way down the aisle. ‘Tania, do Holly a favour. Tell this boy – Aaron – that she met somebody on her wilderness walk, that maybe things are not the same between her and him.’
I stared back at her. ‘You want me to warn Aaron about Channing?’
She nodded then sighed. ‘It’s so important to avoid a scene at the party, don’t you think? For Papa’s sake. For Jean-Luc.’
‘Aaron will want to be there,’ I insisted quietly.
‘Jean-Luc,’ she repeated, switching back to a smile, but this time a sad one. ‘I will miss my brother so much, n’est ce pas?’
End of conversation. We said our goodbyes, made our air kisses, went our separate ways.
‘What did you think?’ I asked Orlando when I was sure Aurelie was out of range. ‘Did you see how she smoothed over the whole Holly accident thing like it was nothing? And now she wants Aaron out of the picture to make it easier for Channing.’
‘Yeah,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘Don’t tell me – you fell for it,’ I groaned. The accent, the haircut, the gorgeous perfume.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t figured her out.’
‘But she makes a big impression, huh?’
‘Sssh!’ He nudged me and pointed to Aurelie catwalk-gliding back down the aisle, this time with Antony Amos in tow.
‘Tania, Papa wished to meet Orlando before the party tonight,’ she called, loud enough for heads to turn, for people to recognize the local celeb and be drawn towards us.
I felt myself shiver, waited for the vision of dark wings spreading over me, of the creature emerging from the lake.
Amos smiled at everyone in the store, shook hands, kept on coming. ‘Hey, Tania,’ he said, greeting me with a warm smile. ‘Why don’t you introduce me to your boyfriend and let me tell him more about our volunteer programme?’
Come on, wings! I thought. I never thought I would say this, but I actually wanted the monster to appear, to prove my dark angel theory. And if not the creature from the lake, at least wolf man lurking in the forest, bursting out from behind a tree, jaws snapping. Where are you, demons?
Nothing as Orlando shook hands with Antony Amos, even though my psychic sensors were on red alert.
I’ve said before, Amos has a way about him that you didn’t say no to – a lifetime as a movie director created that, I guess. And a natural confidence in the way he walks up to you and shakes you by the hand, an acceptance that people will stare and admire, be drawn in to his point of view.
For the first time I pictured him as a young guy without the wrinkles and the white hair, when he could have had any beautiful girl he wanted, with his intelligent brown eyes staring at you, somehow asking you to share a joke that you didn’t quite understand, but soon would if you got to know him.
Here in Artworks, amongst the tubes of paint, brushes and canvases I was still waiting for my dark angel to descend and for a warning from Zenaida. What happened? Really – where were they?
Orlando shook Amos by the hand, called him ‘sir’ and said how much he admired his movies.
The great man accepted the praise then turned to me, stooping slightly to confide something. ‘We have news. Aurelie received the autopsy report and it finally confirmed that Conner died of natural causes. He had an undeclared cardiac condition. No further investigation is necessary.’
I frowned at the word ‘undeclared’. If the kids in the camp had known about Conner’s heart problem, how could Ziegler, Amos and the rest claim that it was not on his medical record?
‘That’s good, Tania,’ Aurelie pointed out sweetly. ‘Jarrold was not to blame.’
Noticing Orlando’s knee-jerk react to the mention of Jarrold’s name, I cleared my throat and tried to think of a neutral comment.
‘Oh, speaking of Jarrold,’ Amos jumped in before me, twisting the knife in Orlando’s gut. ‘One hundred per cent good news as far as he goes.’
‘Why? What happened?’ Again Orlando was over-quick to react, shooting a glance at me as he stepped in between us.
‘We got him back!’ Amos exclaimed. ‘Richard found him hiding out and sleeping roug
h in a disused building. He and Channing took him home to New Dawn. Jarrold will re-sign his contract and stay with us a little longer than we originally planned.’
‘You already knew that!’ Orlando and I sat in his truck after Amos and Aurelie had left. He was back to being my judge and jury. ‘I can tell by the way you reacted – you knew they’d got the guy!’
‘So what if I did? I guessed how you’d be if you found out I was there.’ Exactly like this – suspicious and jealous again, ready to blame me for something I hadn’t done, as if we’d never had the talk at his house.
My last comment slowed Orlando down. ‘You were there?’ he echoed.
‘Freak coincidence,’ I shrugged. ‘On my way to your house. Ziegler and Channing – they were pretty rough with Jarrold.’
‘He’s a dangerous guy. They wouldn’t want to take any chances.’
‘No, for sure.’
‘And Amos and Aurelie – they said it all worked out.’
‘Meaning, they’re happy he’s signed up with them for more wild-walking.’
Amos had said there would be an extension to Jarrold’s stay at New Dawn, but he didn’t say by how much. ‘Jarrold will be ecstatic,’ I added with a frown.
‘Yeah well, don’t sound so sarcastic,’ Orlando told me. ‘Actually I was surprised back there. He wasn’t how I expected.’
‘Who – Amos?’ No way as surprised as I was, I thought. I still couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t getting my visions when my vengeful dark angel was around. No shape-shifting, no levitating, no animation of objects – none of the things I’d grown to expect. ‘He’s clever,’ I conceded. Probably skilful enough to block the visions once he realized that I’d pinned him down as my dark angel.
‘Yeah. He was impressive, actually.’
‘On the surface,’ I muttered.
‘I’m still not saying I approve the methods they use at New Dawn. You hear too many bad things about boot camps.’
‘This isn’t a boot camp.’
‘Did you hear about the place in Florida – Bay County? They were doing some kind of military drill and a fourteen-year-old kid died.’
‘New Dawn is not a boot camp,’ I repeated.
‘No, but look what happened to Connor Steben. I don’t care about exact types of camp – a kid dying is a kid dying.’
‘Even so, you were impressed by Amos?’
‘Hmm.’ Orlando shrugged. ‘Interesting, huh?’
We sat without talking, each thinking our own thoughts. Personally, I was still troubled by the lack of monsters, trying to work out exactly how Amos had thrown me off track, getting more and more scared by the power of his mind-control games.
‘They predicted more snow,’ Orlando said at last, ‘coming in from the north west. Winds of 70mph.’
‘Well, thanks, Mister Weatherman.’
‘I’m only saying. Let’s use my truck later.’
‘Not my car?’
‘In case we get stuck in snow. And I’ll tell Jude to drive his Jeep.’
‘Cool.’ I nodded, kissed his cheek and climbed out of the truck. ‘6.30, my place,’ I said.
It turned out the costumes were fun.
‘Check this out!’ Grace cried in the living room at her place. She twirled around in a long red skirt gathered in tiny pleats at the waist and a red flower-patterned shirt. Her long strings of beads and her sash belt were cream, her blonde hair braided down her back with red ribbon running through. ‘Apache – based on a picture taken of one of Geronimo’s wives.’
She’d stuck with the Apache theme for Jude and Aaron. Aaron wore a loose white shirt open almost to the waist and a black vest. Silver beads hung down his chest, his unruly brown hair was covered with a zig-zag-patterned bandanna in red and black. Jude meanwhile was looking mean and moody in a tan leather vest over his bare torso, worn with tight-fitting fringed pants and nothing on his head.
‘Jude, are you sure you won’t catch a cold?’ Grace’s mom looked concerned as we all paraded in their living room.
This mom-speak broke the tension and cracked us up. We laughed and fooled around, tossed Jude a throw from the back of the couch to wear as a poncho and fell out through the Montroses’ front door, still laughing even though the predicted snow had already begun to fall.
We drove out to New Dawn with our windows open, yelling from car to car.
‘Jeez, Mom was right – it’s c-c-cold!’ Grace called when we stopped side by side at the lights on Main Street. Dusk had fallen and the street lights were on, neon signs shone over entrances to restaurants and bars.
‘I sure hope this party is indoors,’ Orlando called back.
‘Maybe they’ll build a bonfire by the lake. That would be cool,’ Jude said as we set off on green.
‘Maybe we’ll even get fireworks?’ I suggested, winding up my window.
‘Not in this weather,’ Orlando decided.
It was as if we’d all made a pact not to show how nervous and how scared for Holly we were as we made it out of town on to the highway, where we pretty soon took an exit on to the narrow road leading to New Dawn, following the snaking track between trees and boulders with the headlights raking across the wild landscape. All the time the snow kept falling.
‘Slow down,’ I told Orlando, glancing behind to see Jude’s Jeep skid sideways into a ditch. His rear tyres spun and turned the freshly fallen snow to slush while his engine whined as he switched into four-wheel drive to get them out of the gully. ‘OK, go ahead,’ I said.
We plunged further out of civilization into wild country, catching glimpses of Turner Lake ahead.
‘Weird – I didn’t think New Dawn was so far out,’ Orlando grumbled. ‘I guess it’s the snow – it slows us down.’
‘We’re definitely on the right road,’ I told him, checking out tyre marks from the cars that had gone before. ‘There’s only one way into the camp and this is it. Yeah, look.’
Two hundred metres ahead of us, the track was lit at either side by a series of braziers with logs burning bright, showing the entrance to the parking lot. A speaker system blasted dance music through the forest and out across the lake. Orlando squeezed into a space looking out across the water. We stepped out of the truck.
‘It’s f-f-freez … !’ Grace shivered and groaned as Jude pulled up beside us. ‘Quit whining,’ I told her. ‘The social centre’s this way – let’s go!’
We ran, slipping, stumbling through the snow, catching up with other guests from town – a girl in tight jeans and a white tunic, with feathers dangling from two braids, three guys with their faces streaked with red and white paint – a pretty loose interpretation of the Native American theme.
‘Cool costumes!’ the girl told us as we hurried on by.
Soon we came out of the forest and hit the main party venue – the big log building by the water’s edge. External lighting played over the entrance – purple turning to green then red, flickering over the walls and catching snowflakes in their beams while the techno beat grew louder, drawing us in.
For a few seconds we hesitated.
‘You’re OK with these disco lights?’ Orlando checked with me.
‘Yeah, they’re way down on the list of things I’m worried about.’ We all stood and looked at each other, starting to get serious and silently remind ourselves why we were there.
‘Is everyone still cool with this?’ Grace asked.
We nodded. We were here for Holly. How would she be after all these days in Amos’s clutches? Would Channing still be in total control? Aaron took the lead, the rest of us followed.
Inside the social centre the music faded and the lights were dim. A giant screen, which filled one whole wall, played scenes from Amos’s blockbuster movie, Dark Secret.
There was an extreme close-up of a girl’s face, her dark pupils reflecting flames, her expression one of sheer terror. Cut to a forest fire eating up pine trees, leaping gullies, shooting firebrands into the night sky. The girl turned and ran. Burning bran
ches crashed around her – she was lost in thick black smoke. I blinked and looked again. The girl was me.
No, of course not – this was an Antony Amos movie. The girl on screen was a twelve-year-old actress named Carey Hart who starred in this one movie but had never made it as an adult actress. They said she later did drugs and went in and out of rehab. I remember she died a couple of years back at the age of twenty-three.
Taking a deep breath, I turned from the screen to check out other guests.
‘Hey, Tania!’ A voice greeted me and it took me a while to recognize tall Marta beneath a soft cap decorated with feathers and beadwork. She’d chosen a unisex costume of dark-red trousers and sleeveless tunic and seemed genuinely glad to see me. ‘You made it safe to Spider Rock!’
‘I did,’ I said. ‘And Ziegler drove me home. How about you – you got Regan back to New Dawn without breaking any more arms or legs?’
‘Yeah, Regan!’ she laughed. ‘He’s so not cut out for the wilderness.’
‘Did I hear my name? Who’s saying negative stuff about me?’ Regan showed up at Marta’s shoulder and joined in the conversation.
‘Hey, how long did your costume take?’ I asked with a grin. Regan had streaked his cheeks with red paint and stuck a single crow’s feather in a headband – that was it. Otherwise he wore normal jeans and T, his usual glasses and short, unstyled hair.
‘Thirty seconds. You like?’
On screen the mountain fire still raged. It had reached the bank of a wide, fast-flowing river. The girl plunged into the water and swam desperately towards the far side.
Soon Blake and Kaylee joined us, then Ava looking fabulous in beads and braids and bold zig-zag-patterned tunic.
On screen we saw another close-up of the girl, head above water, being swept downstream. More fear in her eyes.
‘So where’s Holly?’ Grace asked.
‘She’s around here somewhere.’ Blake glanced vaguely around the dimly lit room. ‘Why not ask Channing?’
A figure threaded his way through the crowd towards us, head and shoulders above most of the others. He looked even taller than usual in a soft, hooded mask topped with a fan-shaped, painted crown.