‘He’s in good shape – it’s all that wilderness walking,’ I muttered to Grace as Holly stepped forward to accept the offer of tea.
Fifty-five, with thick grey hair swept back from his square-jawed, lined face. His eyes were deep set and dark brown behind small, wire-rimmed glasses, his clothes western style today, but not flashy – jeans, tooled boots, white leather belt but no cowboy buckle, a plain grey shirt with white piping around the collar and across the chest, a gold band on his wedding finger. ‘Which of you three girls wants to help out?’ he asked as Grace and I stepped up into the porch.
‘That would be Holly,’ Grace told him. ‘But I guess we might be interested too.’
We were? Had she forgotten I was heading back to Europe as soon as the doctors gave Mom the all-clear?
‘The point is, you don’t need to know in advance the survival techniques we use here,’ Ziegler was explaining to Holly as we walked into the house. Ziegler with the black Stetson, columbine eyes and white T-shirt that emphasized his pecs – the man with the klaxon.
Self-conscious and hovering in the doorway, I focused on the bucking-horse statue, burnished and big as a lurcher, resting on a polished, dark-wood table with ornate carved legs. The artist had made the mane and tail fly, had sculpted to perfection the horse’s wild eyes and flaring nostrils, plus every muscle in its chest and neck. ‘You learn our methods while you’re out there in the wilderness with our Explorers,’ Ziegler said.
‘All you need is to be fit and healthy, period,’ Amos added.
‘I play tennis, I ski,’ Holly said eagerly.
Ziegler nodded and made a note. He asked Holly more questions in a quiet, relaxed voice, exploring her motivation for volunteering, how many hours per week she could give, how she saw herself relating to the Explorers in her team. She answered meekly and obediently, like a child at a magic show.
‘And what’s your interest?’ Jean-Luc asked Grace, leading her to the window and looking out over the lake.
‘That would be more the theory, the therapeutic approach.’ She plucked up courage and told him she was hoping to enrol in a course as a psychology major, starting next summer. ‘If I could get hands-on experience at a place like New Dawn, it would look great on my resume.’
‘And you?’ Amos turned to me as Jean-Luc concentrated on Grace. ‘What’s your focus?’
‘The kids here,’ I said without hesitation. Jarrold, Channing, the girl with the face studs – all of them.
‘Good answer. Tell me more.’
‘What brings them here to New Dawn? How do they deal with it?’
Amos listed criminal offences on his fingers. ‘They come here for larceny, violence, drug and alcohol dependency, the fall-out from family break-up – you name it. The conventional system processes them and spits them out. We pick up the damaged pieces. And each Explorer reacts differently. Most are pretty reluctant when they first get here.’
Like the scared girl in the denim jacket, looking like she wanted to run. I tried to picture where she’d come from and why she’d been sent to the community but found that I couldn’t guess.
‘But we ask them to turn their hearts, make a new beginning,’ Amos said.
I was growing used to the jargon, getting an inkling of what it might actually mean. So I tried not to take a cynical step back when he talked about turning hearts.
‘The wilderness helps them to learn respect.’ Amos paused, studied me then began again. ‘You don’t totally believe me, do you, Tania? But take Ziegler.’
The drop-dead-gorgeous coach sat with Holly at the central table. He heard his name mentioned, glanced up and smiled briefly.
‘Richard came to us aged seventeen.’
‘As an Explorer?’ I’d lost count of today’s surprises.
‘Juliet, my wife, spotted him on the set of one of my movies. He’d lied about his age and found work as a stuntman and body double. Then he got into trouble – street fights, petty larceny, that kind of thing.’
‘That’s hard to believe.’
‘Yes, when you look at him now. Originally we took him in for a ninety-day period.’
‘And he’s still here.’
‘On staff, as a team leader. How about that?’
‘Awesome,’ I said. From what little I’d seen of Richard Ziegler – at the lakeside on Saturday and again today, he seemed like one of those totally together people who can make decisions and take action in an emergency. It was hard to picture him as a punk kid in trouble with the cops.
‘My stepson says you were living in Paris.’ Amos cut across my thoughts. ‘Don’t look so surprised. We talked on the walk up to the cabin. I hear you want to study film.’
‘Yeah, it was fine art originally – painting. But then in Europe I saw a lot of video art, starting with Warhol. I got interested in instant playback and different ways of editing, especially when things went digital.’ Wow, I was loosening up at last, talking about film to Antony Amos, who was only one of the most successful directors of all time. ‘I like the underground Italian film makers.’
‘Stefano Cagol?’ he asked. ‘How about the home-grown guys – Matthew Barney, Gary Hill? And David Lynch – everyone knows Twin Peaks, huh?’
‘Yeah, cool.’
‘You know that Explorers here take footage of their wilderness experience?’ Taking off his glasses, Amos slipped them into his shirt pocket, accepting iced tea from Aurelie, who had reappeared from the kitchen.
‘No, I didn’t know that.’ This sounded really fascinating – I imagined some kind of fly-on-the-wall documentary, except here there were no walls, only forests, lakes and mountains.
Amos was still staring at me intently, weighing up what I’d said, the way I sounded. ‘So, Tania, why don’t you join us?’ he asked. ‘We could use some of your recently acquired editing skills.’
I was shocked. Truly. And I was on the spot, squirming. ‘I can’t,’ I told him in a rush. ‘I’m only home in Bitterroot for a couple of weeks at the most. Then I get on a plane and fly back to Europe.’
I left the cabin ahead of Grace and Holly, needing to walk and put distance between myself and the decision that had fallen out of my mouth under pressure from Antony Amos.
I was going back to Paris, end of story. Because I loved film as much as Orlando loved fashion, because I felt further from dark angel danger over there. And because I’d promised Mom. Sorry, Orlando. So sorry, my love. I strode away from Trail’s End along the track, my heart pumping hard. Tonight, when I got home, I would Skype him, check he was safe then explain my plan. It would be one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I would tell him and hurt pride would make him do his cut-off thing again. He would act like it was no big deal, start talking about his new room mate or his Firebird assignment. But we would both know that he’d practically begged me to go to Dallas to be with him and in the end I’d said no.
Why, for Christ’s sake, was I going to wound him so badly?
Walk, get a distance. Remember how much you love him and he loves you.
Look up at the branches of the redwoods, breathe in their sharp, resin scent.
Breathe.
The grounds of the New Dawn Community were beautifully laid out, I realized. A row of small log cabins was hidden amongst stands of aspens, connected by a trail just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. Surrounded by silver trunks and rustling branches, each one was secluded and simple, totally the opposite to Amos’s showy spread. Behind them, the hill rose steeply to a granite cliff and a jagged horizon which stood in deep evening shade. Below was an almost sheer drop to the lake shore, meaning the trail through the aspens was the only way in and out.
I carried on walking, ready to double back whenever Grace called me to say she and Holly were all set to leave. It didn’t happen so I left the cabins behind and followed the trail through thicker aspens until I came to a creek tumbling over rocks on its way down to the lake. Should I cross it? Did the path continue on the far side? I st
ood a while, the palm of one hand flat against the rough bark of a nearby tree, looking down at the clear, gushing water. Then I glanced up across the creek and came face to face with Jarrold. He must have been there all along, hidden in the trees, only stepping out when I stopped to consider my options and still blending into the background in khaki sweatshirt and black jeans.
‘Sorry, I didn’t …’ I began. I turned around, ready to quit bothering him and walk away.
‘You were at the ceremony,’ he said in a deep, slow drawl.
So I turned back, spoke above the splashing, gurgling stream. ‘I saw you there too.’
‘We all were. Channing, Regan, Kaylee, Blake, Marta, Ava – everyone.’ Jarrold stepped across to my side, totally sure-footed on the sloping, wet rocks.
‘You were a triathlete. You dived down to rescue Conner.’ And you either did or did not deliberately kick your fellow competitor in the head before he drowned, I thought. Depending on which of Holly’s versions I choose to believe.
He met my gaze but his grey eyes were troubled. ‘Conner was my buddy.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Instantly sorry for even thinking that Holly’s homicide theory might be true. Honestly, I felt guilty as I looked him in the eye.
‘We shared a cabin – him, me and Channing.’
‘Really, it sucks.’
‘Me, Conner, Kaylee, Ava – we were a team. Just last week we walked the wilderness.’
I ran out of apologies, shook my head and stared at my feet, shaking off the guilt and starting to feel actively angry that Holly had planted the seed of suspicion against Jarrold, who looked and sounded to me like he was genuinely suffering. And I was knocked off balance for a different reason. This guy’s presence was strong and physical and I sensed that I could easily find him way too attractive. So I refused to look up again and take that risk.
‘You were there on Saturday to watch your buddy?’
‘Holly Randle.’
‘She has guts,’ Jarrold said. ‘The currents were strong down there. They dragged us all to hell.’
The double-headed serpent hisses. A corpse drifts and turns amongst the weeds and silt. Coffin lids lift – skulls, ribs, thigh bones float free.
‘Yeah, Holly – she always gives one hundred and ten per cent.’
‘So she’s OK?’
For some reason Jarrold’s question bothered me and I made myself look up again. ‘Why shouldn’t she be?’
‘No reason. An experience like that could be traumatic, I guess.’
‘For her but not for you?’
‘Not when you believe.’ He gazed steadily back, half in the setting sun, half in shade.
‘Believe in what exactly?’
‘That we all belong to the earth, the sky, the water. We belong to fire. Like Amos and Channing said, Conner’s spirit surrounds us.’
‘Sorry, I honestly don’t get that.’
‘Neither did I, at first. You have to be in the wilderness a couple of times. Then you know.’
I spread my hands, palms upwards. ‘What can I say?’
Jarrold began to smile in sympathy at my confusion but the expression froze before it was fully formed. He’d obviously spotted someone coming along the trail towards us. I glanced over my shoulder to see Aurelie, skirt blowing in the breeze, her pale top standing out amongst the shadows.
And before I knew it, without saying another word, Jarrold had jumped back across the creek and started to scramble quickly down the steep scree slope towards the beach.
‘What was that about?’ I asked Aurelie, gesturing down the cliff towards Jarrold.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed, waiting until he’d made it safely down. ‘Jarrold just broke one of our guiding principles, and he knows it.’
‘Why? What was he doing that was so wrong?’ I was still watching and secretly admiring him from a safe distance as he strode along the very edge of the lake, heading towards the inlet where the two rescue boats had waited on Saturday.
‘He spoke to you,’ Aurelie explained, slowly and simply like a kindergarten teacher.
‘And?’ Did they have a vow of silence here at New Dawn? If they did, it was news to me.
‘Right now Jarrold holds the status of Outsider. He’s forbidden to speak.’
He was walking away, growing smaller, turning the corner into the inlet and disappearing from view.
‘He did something bad?’ I asked.
‘Not really.’ Aurelie slipped her arm through mine and started to lead me towards the cabins. ‘Here at New Dawn we don’t make judgements about bad and good. No, Jarrold is simply excluded from all group activities. He needs to be alone with his pain.’
5
My laptop screen showed Orlando surrounded by cases and cardboard boxes in the room in Dallas which he was about to vacate.
‘I move out tomorrow,’ he told me on Skype. ‘Ryan already gave me the key to the new place.’
‘It’s exciting,’ I told him.
‘How’s your mom?’
‘She’s doing good. Dad just came back from the hospital. They told him that getting through the first forty-eight hours is the tough part. Now they start doing tests to find out if there’s any permanent damage.’
‘Oh, babe.’ He commiserated on screen, so near yet so far away. It made me ache to be there in the room with him, to be able to touch him and kiss him, feel his warm breath on my cheek. ‘There’s nothing major, is there?’
‘Dad says they don’t know yet, it’s too early to say.’ And besides, I wasn’t certain if Dad was telling me everything, or if he was holding some things back. ‘I’ll visit her tomorrow morning.’
‘So don’t stress, OK? Not until after the doctors come up with a verdict. Who knows – maybe she escaped any bad effects.’
‘Let’s hope. How was the flight?’ I asked, ready to switch topics. I still had to give him my decision about Paris and it was weighing heavy. There he was, pixillating and breaking up on the small screen, lips out of sync with the sound of his voice, surrounded by boxes, moving on.
‘Good flight, no problems. Hey, and I spoke with Aaron.’
‘Holly’s Aaron?’ I asked with an air of distraction.
‘Yeah, Holly’s Aaron. What other Aaron do we know? So now he tells me his girlfriend has another crazy plan that he’s not happy about.’
‘You mean the New Dawn volunteer thing?’
‘The last I heard she hated the juvies – one of them especially. The one she blamed for the kid’s drowning.’
‘Oh, Jarrold.’ Jarrold the Outsider, forbidden to speak so that he could be alone with his pain. ‘But you know Holly – she comes out with this high-octane junk without stopping to think. It was just the first thing that came into her head.’
‘So she didn’t actually see this Jarrold character kick the guy?’
‘Who knows? She hasn’t mentioned it lately, not since Conner’s leaving ceremony where she became a convert.’ I gave a wry smile and moved the conversation forward. ‘Anyway, what did Aaron say?’
Orlando tidied his desk as we spoke, stacking books into piles and sliding papers into folders. ‘Only that she volunteered to walk the wilderness with a bunch of screwed-up juvies. The New Dawn people have decided they like volunteers – it’s part of the rehab, reintegration programme.’
‘Yeah, they do. And yeah, she did. And Aaron’s not happy?’
‘No, and I totally get that. We don’t know this organization, or any of the guys who run the place. Holly’s getting herself into something she might regret.’
‘Why, what could happen?’
Orlando stopped tidying and frowned into the camera. ‘What about Amos, the big movie mogul?’ he challenged. ‘What kind of guy is he?’
‘OK, I guess. He made a cool speech at Conner’s service.’
‘You were there?’
I picked up the surprise and disapproval combined into three small words.
‘Yeah, and I was there when Holly volunteered. Grace
is thinking of doing the same. Amos was kind of cool. Actually, he reminds me of Sitting Bull or Red Cloud – one of those old chiefs we read about. And he believes in the ethos at New Dawn, no question.’
‘Believing in something doesn’t make it good,’ Orlando pointed out. ‘Remember Zoran Brancusi.’
Other times, other places. A million other willing souls. The dark angel name sweeps like a shadow across my life, threatening my whole being.
‘This is different,’ I protested. ‘I’m talking about a talented guy who has everything going for him – brilliant career, high profile, multi-millionaire. And instead of cruising his yacht in the Bahamas, Amos chooses to set up an organization to help kids who are disadvantaged, damaged, whatever. And he’s hands-on. He doesn’t just pull in a team of people to work it out for him.’
‘Run that back,’ Orlando suggested. ‘Rewind. Substitute the name Brancusi for Amos, Black Eagle Lodge for New Dawn. See what I mean?’
Wings beat. My dark angel and love thief, black eyes glittering, circles silently overhead, ready to drop on to his prey.
His mission? To destroy young lovers and drag their souls on to the dark side. And to revenge himself against me, Tania Ionescu. To punish me for knowing him, for speaking his name. ‘Malach!’ I said, and his power crumbled. Spirit of death, dark angel.
His method? To lurk, to lie low or circle the earth, never to go away. To shape-shift and rise again.
‘No, really.’ I spoke louder than I intended. Orlando was wrong about Antony Amos. It didn’t feel the same. I had psychic powers and would know in my heart it if it did.
‘Tania, listen to me.’ Leaning across the desk closer to the camera so that I was staring straight into his eyes, Orlando grew intense. ‘Holly can do what she likes and we know no one’s going to stop her. But I’m serious, Tania – I’ve seen what getting involved in bad spiritual stuff does to you.’
‘To all of us,’ I pointed out. ‘Remember Grace.’ How the dark angel targeted her because she was innocent and in love with Jude. In his twisted view of the world, she was his ideal victim, and he almost drew her on to the dark side and claimed her.