Dark Angel

  ‘I don’t know exactly. Something happens when you’re there at Black Eagle Lodge; you get sucked in.’

  ‘What is it, some kind of sect? Are we talking weird religion, brainwashing techniques?’ Though I’d run through the possibility with Holly, this idea was new to Jude and he grabbed it with both hands. ‘Zoran is leading a cult. They all have to follow him and do exactly what he tells them. Jeez, Tania, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Anyway, that or drugs is what Holly suspects. Either way, it’s a type of mind control.’

  ‘God, why didn’t I think of that? It’s obvious Grace would never have acted the way she is!’ Jude was striding around the room, ready to explode into action. ‘I hate myself. I’ve been totally stupid not to see it before now.’

  ‘Wait,’ I pleaded. I could see him shaking and growing short of breath and recognized the signs of a major asthma attack. ‘We need to stay calm, think this through—’

  ‘She needs me, Tanya, and I couldn’t see it. We’re running out of time. I have to go up Black Rock and find her, get her out of there!’ Each word came short and jerked out through harsh, shallow breaths as he dug in his jeans pocket for his inhaler. Fumbling, he let it drop to the floor.

  Quickly I stooped and picked it up, put it in his palm and wrapped his fingers around it, guided it to his mouth, helped him hold it there. ‘Breathe in,’ I told him.

  He swayed then sucked hard. When he tried to speak, I shook my head and ordered him to breathe again.

  I heard Dad come in from the garden and straight away he assessed the situation. ‘Shall I call 911?’ he asked.

  Jude signalled no, he was good. A couple more breaths through the inhaler and he would be able to speak again.

  But by this time Mom had opened her study door. ‘I’ll tell your folks,’ she decided. And she made the call before Jude could stop her. ‘Your dad is on his way,’ she reported back.

  I led Jude to the nearest chair and sat him down. ‘Don’t do anything about Black Eagle Lodge,’ I warned as we all fussed and fretted. ‘I know how you’re feeling, but don’t act right away.’

  ‘What have you two been discussing?’ Mom asked in wary, tiger-mom mode. ‘Tanya, I asked you to stay home today. I especially don’t want you to go back up the mountain, you hear me?’

  I turned to her, palms up, with a look of injured innocence. ‘Which is why I’m telling Jude, stay away! If he wants to make contact with Grace, he should try texting, or send an email, set up a meeting …’

  ‘How is it, Jude?’ Dad asked. ‘You can breathe?’

  He nodded. He looked like he’d collided with a truck, but he was insisting he was good.

  ‘Here’s your dad,’ Mom said, going out on to the porch to meet Dr Medina. Doctor, as in astral physics professor, not medical. Jude’s dad is an expert in black holes. His wife works in federal taxation, which I guess goes some way to explaining their suspicion of their son’s ‘superficial’ relationship with glamorous Grace, which also, I guess, betrays my own prejudices about seriously brainy geeks.

  My dad, on the other hand, has a brain but is not a geek. He came to this country as an outsider and he made good. He learned the language, loved the free life and when he found jobs in construction he got made supervisor in every company he joined. Now he works for one of the biggest in America.

  Every day he gets out of bed and wants to do something new, to learn something from books, from the landscape, from people.

  ‘It says here that Zoran Brancusi owns biggest private collection of religious art in America,’ he told me after lunch. He was logged on to Zoran’s website, looking for anything that would help us understand what was happening to Grace on Black Rock. ‘From Mexico, from Europe, from India.’

  ‘I believe it. He showed me his Aztec stuff. It was stunning.’

  Dad read on. ‘Look here – last month interview in Time magazine. With pictures.’

  I looked at the screen. The photographer, who must have worked his way around the no-pictures clauses in Zoran’s insurance policies, had taken interior shots of the house, with captions that listed gold-inlaid Greek icons and Renaissance pietas among the treasures on show at his ‘isolated mountain hideaway’. The owner was there too, standing next to a fifteenth century painting of the Archangel Gabriel. Our art collector was dark and stern beside the angel with the gold halo and he was staring straight at camera. ‘And this one – this is Angel of Death,’ Dad said, stabbing a finger at the final image, a nightmarish painting of a black-winged figure crouching astride the jaws of a burning hell.

  ‘Creepy,’ I shuddered. ‘What is he thinking when he buys these things?’

  ‘Says here, he studies myths, says everybody in history needs to believe in higher power. Angels are messengers from God.’

  ‘I reckon it went to his head,’ I muttered. ‘What’s it called when you identify with creatures in mythology and you start believing you’re actually part of it?’

  ‘Does it have name?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Delusional psychosis,’ Mom suggested, appearing suddenly with a jug of freshly squeezed, iced orange juice.

  ‘Don’t take Tania anywhere near the crazy guy on the mountain.’ Mom had laid down the law to Orlando when he came to visit.

  I’d called him and said I wanted to drive, to listen to music, eat ice cream – be normal.

  ‘How about I take her to the hot springs?’ he’d laughed.

  ‘Perfect,’ she’d agreed.

  If there’s one thing about Bitterroot that I totally love it’s the natural springs that rise from deep in the earth’s crust and bubble to the surface in clear, swirling jets in the valley between town and Turner Lake. They’re incredibly pure and warm, and I ask myself, how can anything so pleasant actually be healthy too?

  You sit in a specially constructed pool up to your neck in bubbles. You chat with your friends, you gaze up at the Bitterroot range. It sure beats mountain biking, which is the other health reason for tourists to visit.

  ‘You and Jude went cycling by Prayer River?’ I asked Orlando as we relaxed in the late afternoon sun.

  He nodded. ‘But he couldn’t do the hills. We had to turn around.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that.’ And I described Jude’s morning visit, including the roses, and Orlando faked jealousy for about ten seconds, while I thought guiltily and silently about Daniel’s kiss and all the reasons Orlando might have to be truly hurt.

  ‘Jude’s a fast worker,’ he joked. ‘How many days is it since Grace dumped him? Now he makes a move on you!’

  ‘No, really – you know Jude’s like a brother to me.’ I moved on quickly to the asthma attack. ‘He wants to go up the mountain and rescue Grace,’ I explained.

  ‘Did you warn him about the two guard dogs and the security guys?’

  A high white cloud drifted across the sun, casting the lightest of shadows across the surface of the pool. ‘Actually, I didn’t tell him much. But now he’s convinced Grace has been brainwashed and he wants to get her out of there.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Orlando began in a strained voice. ‘I reckon we should forget the cult and the brainwashing theory. Maybe there’s a different angle.’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ I sighed. The sun was back out and beautifully warm on my face. Jets of hot water soothed and caressed my whole body. And I’d had enough theories and angles to consider for one day, thank you.

  Orlando kissed my cheek.

  ‘I get it. You want me to “hear you out”?’ I lowered my voice two octaves to imitate his.

  He grinned and kissed me again.

  ‘OK, I’m listening.’ I leaned my head back against the arm he had wrapped around my shoulder.

  ‘All this flashing light and loud music stuff you describe at Zoran’s parties, and the fancy dress heavenly bodies, et cetera – it fits in with what he’s always been good at, which is performance.’

  ‘He’s a rock star, yeah.’ I was listening. In the sun
light, far away from Black Eagle Lodge, I was even willing to believe.

  ‘So, once a performer, always a performer. OK, so he’s retired from the music business – he says.’

  ‘Yeah, Mom doesn’t believe him either. She reckons he’s planning a comeback.’

  ‘And he still has the money to stage a big event, even if it’s for private guests instead of thousands of fans in a giant stadium.’ Orlando was in full flow, totally into his own theory. ‘He plans the whole thing – the costumes, the light show, even the hydraulic lifts to raise him up. You know how these stars are into illusions – you just have to download their videos.’

  ‘I can see that,’ I sighed. I’d closed my eyes and could make out tiny orange hexagons floating on the backs of my eyelids. I loved the weight of Orlando’s wet arm along my shoulder. ‘You’re saying the whole thing is pure theatre.’

  It’s extraordinary how the human brain operates. Or my brain. I can swing from one point of view to the extreme opposite in seconds. One moment I’m believing Zoran is the devil incarnate, next thing he’s a showman staging a theatrical event. All I could think was – yeah, what a relief!

  Then Orlando has to go and spoil things.

  ‘And with someone like you, Tania – someone with a vivid imagination, plus a sensitivity to flashing lights – that’s all it takes to throw you into major meltdown, end of story.’

  9

  Someone like me! This was the phrase that did it – the reason why Orlando and I had our biggest fight ever.

  Skip the details. They were spectacularly immature and vicious, and neither of us came out in an even halfway decent light. It blasted at full volume from the changing rooms at the hot springs through the drive back into town, all the way to his house, which was empty at the time.

  Then we made love. Either that or split for ever.

  The making love threw us back together like we were both whirling inside a giant metal drum, emotionally bruised and battered by what had been said, yelled and spat out until a centrifugal force flung us into the centre and we clung to each other in desperation then in lust.

  There were no words, only gestures, an intertwining of our bodies, hot limbs locked, eyes closed, my head thrown back against the pillow, Orlando’s weight on top of me.

  And nothing was said for a long time after, as we lay on our backs staring up at the ceiling, waiting for our fragmented thoughts to piece themselves back together.

  ‘I don’t ever want to lose you,’ he sighed at last.

  I turned into him, rested my arm across his chest, kissed him gently.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I kissed him again.

  ‘When I go to Dallas, when you’re in Europe, what are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll still love you.’

  ‘Yeah, but will you?’

  I could tell he was thinking about all the slick Italian slimeballs, intense French painters and angst-ridden British poets I would meet. In my mind I had a picture of the stick-thin fashion models and boho fabric designers he would be getting creative with in Texas. ‘Yes, I will,’ I promised. For what could possibly beat lying in his arms staring up at his white ceiling dappled with evening sunlight and shadows?

  The real world drags you back. Monday was school, with Holly and Aaron, Leo and Tarsha and a whole group of classmates cornering me, Jude and Orlando for gory details about Grace.

  ‘Where exactly is she?’ ‘Why does she want to stay?’ ‘Is she out of her mind?’ ‘What do her parents plan to do about it?’ These were the sort of questions fired at us.

  Orlando was our spokesperson. ‘Back off, guys. Grace has done what she’s done. She’s old enough to make up her own mind.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we get her out of there, find her some counselling?’ Tarsha wanted to know. Dig beneath her alternative styling – strands of shocking-pink hair falling over one eye, lip piercings, regulation black skinny jeans and tops with goth emblems – and you find a practical, grounded core. ‘Grace needs help, she really does.’

  ‘That’s my plan,’ Jude said quietly. Today he looked more tired and ill than ever, as if the least physical effort would be too much.

  ‘I think it should be Mr and Mrs Montrose taking that action,’ Leo said.

  Holly and Aaron agreed. They said they both knew something about the pull of Black Eagle Lodge and the power that Zoran Brancusi seemed to hold over the members of his commune. They’d experienced it first hand.

  ‘How do we know the Montroses haven’t tried it already?’ Tarsha asked. ‘Listen, if it was me deciding to quit school early to join a sect that nobody knew anything about, my parents would be the first people hammering on their door.’

  ‘But it might take more than that to change Grace’s mind. There’s a history of stuff like this,’ Aaron said. ‘Remember Waco and the cult leader guy?’

  ‘David Koresh,’ Tarsha reminded him. ‘He took child brides and brainwashed entire families. They held out against a government siege until everyone was dead. Is that what this is? Are we really talking Scientologists, Moonies – a dangerous cult right here on our doorstep?’

  ‘I don’t think we should assume anything.’ Orlando spoke up with his latest theory about Zoran using Black Eagle Lodge as a spectacular stage set to rehearse and promote a world comeback tour. ‘Grace has fallen for the whole rock-star lifestyle, and unfortunately she also met a guy named Ezra up there.’

  ‘That’s news to me.’ Leo hadn’t been in the loop and he sounded pissed. ‘So this is all about a guy?’

  Orlando shrugged. ‘Sorry you have to hear this, Jude, but I’d say that plays a major part in what’s happening with Grace right now.’

  ‘Then, hey, what can we do?’ Losing interest, Leo and Tarsha drifted on into their science class and we followed.

  Today’s hot topic for discussion: is it possible for a Creationist to use scientific method to disprove Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?

  I was getting through the week, recovering from Black Rock, blocking the voices and dropping the psychic speculation. In other words, I was siding with Orlando about my Friday night experience. We were good together, sharing special times, trying hard not to think about the future.

  There was only one small crash on the hard drive: the time when we were biking out one evening along the cycle track by the river and Orlando said out of nowhere, ‘I feel bad for Jude.’

  ‘Me too.’ Through sudden lack of concentration I hit a snaking tree root, took off and landed hard on my front wheel with a thud that jarred my wrists and elbows.

  ‘He looks like he lost ten pounds.’

  ‘I know. What can we do?’

  ‘I guess I’m lucky.’ Slowing down to my pace, Orlando narrowed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on the shimmering water in the middle distance.

  ‘In what way, lucky?’ I couldn’t escape asking the question even though I didn’t like the way this conversation might be going. Twigs snapped and gravel crunched under our wheels.

  ‘That you didn’t reply to that text.’

  ‘Which text?’ I almost yelped.

  ‘From that Daniel guy. I’m lucky he’s not turned into another Ezra.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I gasped. My sun god seemed to hover above my head. He cast a deep, dark shadow, making me veer to the left, hit another root then steady myself before I hit a tree.

  Orlando didn’t say another word. But he’d mentioned Daniel’s name and he’d been probing for sure. And I hadn’t come up with the necessary reassurances, the heartfelt protests and protestations. No, I’d almost crashed my bike then come up with a lame ‘Yeah’, for God’s sake.

  I’ve come to a definite conclusion – no way am I good at deceit.

  Thursday night I was home alone. Dad had flown out to Wyoming for two days to cost out a new construction project and Mom was visiting her mom in Miami. Orlando was pleading work, always a red rag to a bull with me – ‘Tania, I have to read Mimi Rossi’s biography of C
oco Chanel. How will it look if they invite me for interview and I haven’t read her book?’

  So the knock on the door just before eight brought me running downstairs in the hope that he’d abandoned Coco for me; I was disappointed at first to find a forlorn Mike and Alice Montrose standing on my doorstep instead.

  ‘We’re sorry to disturb you, Tania,’ Mrs Montrose began.

  They looked awful, both of them. Sure, they were putting on a dignified pretence in their smart casuals, with fixed social smiles, but inside they were broken.

  ‘Come in,’ I said. I led them into the sitting room, moved a couple of Dad’s doorstop histories from the sofa and plumped up the cushions. ‘Sit down. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Grace’s mom was the one doing the talking. Her husband sat silent and staring throughout, like a small animal fixed in your headlights the second before he becomes road kill. ‘We thought long and hard about coming here,’ Alice sighed. She placed her hands neatly in her lap, one on top of the other. Her ankles were crossed. ‘It didn’t seem fair to put you under pressure, Tania.’

  ‘It’s no pressure. Are you sure you don’t want a drink – beer, wine, coffee?’

  She shook her head. ‘We understand from Jude that you had a traumatic experience yourself last week on Black Rock. We sure don’t want to make that worse.’

  It breaks your heart when decent people continue to be decent when all they want to do is cry and tear out their hair, fight somebody tooth and claw to get their daughter back. ‘How can I help?’ I said.

  ‘Grace didn’t even say goodbye,’ Alice sighed. ‘If there was a note – some kind of explanation – maybe we would understand. But she just took off; she didn’t say who she was going to meet, where she was going. And she never came back.’

  ‘Aimee!’ The woman’s voice is wailing her daughter’s name, knowing that she’s gone for ever. Trees around the log cabin crackle and burn.

  This was weird and getting weirder. I wanted to reply to my ghostly voice, to tell her I was OK. But instead I blocked my ears and made myself focus on the here and now.