‘I’m sure Grace will call you,’ I tried to argue but even I wasn’t convinced. ‘Give her time.’
’You’ve been to Zoran Brancusi’s lodge, Tania,’ Grace’s mom went on. ‘Can you help us understand what has happened here?’
‘It’s difficult to describe. There are lots of things that might make you want to stay. It’s a fabulous house, for a start, with a recording studio and priceless art on the walls. And Zoran – he’s charismatic. Then there is this guy called Ezra.’
‘Tell us about him,’ Mrs Montrose pleaded.
‘I’m coming, Aimee. Don’t be scared!’ She runs into the flames, disappears inside the burning house.
I fought to keep my pulse rate steady, tried to block the images, the despair.
‘The first time Grace saw him he was in costume for the Heavenly Bodies party – his face was painted and he had dreamcatchers hanging from his belt.’
‘What type of costume is that?’ She frowned in prim non-comprehension.
‘Some kind of shaman – Native American. He was really romantic-looking. His eyes are kind of almond-shaped, with long, dark lashes, and his hair falls down over his forehead.’
‘Not like Jude then.’ It was the first time Mike Montrose had spoken and we turned our heads sharply towards him. ‘Jude is grounded, sensible. He wouldn’t mess with face paints and stuff.’
‘Ezra’s exact opposites with Jude,’ I agreed.
‘Why did he hit on Grace?’
I shrugged. ‘She’s gorgeous – you know.’ Botticelli angel, Venus rising from the waves. Lots of fathers refuse to acknowledge that their daughters are out of braces and braids and into training bras. Mike Montrose has always been one of these.
Grace’s mom spoke, right on target. ‘Do you think this Ezra guy cares for her? Will he make her happy?’
‘The last time I saw her she seemed … elated.’ I struggled to find the right word. ‘The relationship is new, so it’s pretty intense.’
‘And?’
‘In between the highs she seems to dip down a little. So no, I wouldn’t say Grace is happy exactly.’ Maybe I should have softened this, I thought later, remembering the stricken looks on both their faces. With this comment I’d confirmed the bipolar thing in their minds.
‘Last question, Tania,’ Alice said after the longest time. ‘We want your honest opinion. Should we drive up there to Black Eagle Lodge and try to speak with our daughter?’
‘Would it make things better or worse?’ Grace’s dad added quickly.
A second figure is silhouetted in the burning doorway. He doesn’t speak, just raises an arm to shield his face then runs into the flames to rescue his wife and daughter. I rise from the ashes. I am Aimee incarnate.
‘I think you should try,’ I said quietly.
‘The security team wouldn’t even let them through the gate,’ Jude told me two days later. ‘They gave the Montroses the message loud and clear – Grace doesn’t want to see them.’
We were sitting round the table – me, Jude and Dad. Jude hadn’t been in school for two days, his asthma was so bad again.
‘And she won’t answer phone?’ Dad checked.
‘She’s out of signal, or else she has it switched off.’ Jude knew this all too well. I think he’d given up trying even to text Grace.
‘So is it true she doesn’t want to see them?’ Dad insisted. ‘Or do they want you to believe this? I know Grace long time. She is not this sort of girl.’
‘You haven’t seen her lately,’ I reminded him. ‘She’s definitely changed.’
‘Her dad went crazy,’ Jude told us. ‘You know what a quiet, easy-going guy he is? Well, he tried to drive his car clean through the barrier until one of the security team fired a bullet into his tyre. They said to turn around or else they’d call the cops.’
‘They fired at the Montroses?’ I gasped. ‘Is it legal? Can they do that?’
‘Zoran owns thousands of acres up there. Apparently he can do whatever’s needed to keep out intruders.’
‘And Grace doesn’t want to talk for sure?’ Dad was still stuck on this.
‘I guess the only way we could find out is if we decided to drop in there like Bobby Mackey and his smokejumper guys.’ I was only half joking as I pictured white parachutes opening out and floating down from a clear blue sky. We’d be swaying in harnesses, gazing down at the tree canopy, seeking out the helipad for a smooth landing.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Dad warned. ‘And you, Jude – you don’t try driving up there alone. And, Tania – you too. Men with guns. Security cameras. All bad.’
‘So what do we do?’ Jude wanted to know.
‘We wait. Grace will come out when ready.’ It was the best Dad could do as he went outside to answer a phone call from Mom, though obviously not good enough for Jude, and not good enough for me either.
Jude was gone when Dad came back after his phone call. ‘How you feeling?’ he asked me, clearing a space on the coffee table for him to sit down on the couch, take off his boots and put his feet up.
I was in for one of his long talks, the type we’d had ever since I can remember. We don’t have the usual parent–kid dynamic, not buddy–buddy either, but definitely equal in a thoughtful, considerate way. ‘Not good,’ I confessed with a sigh.
Dad patted the couch and I sat down next to him. ‘You find gold cross?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘Honestly, Dad, I guess I lost it up at Black Eagle Lodge that last time.’
‘Then is lost for good,’ he decided, then switched topics. ‘You and Orlando – you OK?’
‘Yeah, cool.’ We were – I wasn’t lying, just so long as I kept Daniel out of the equation.
‘So it’s Black Rock – this is why you don’t smile?’
‘Grace, yeah.’ Dad is tall and broad-shouldered. He wears thick, knitted socks and Cat boots. I totally love that he’s my dad.
‘So tell me.’
Where should I start? Afternoon sun slanted in through the low windows; the aspens that Dad had planted after the forest fire were now taller than the house and cast a dappled shade. ‘Sometimes I think like Orlando – that this is down to Grace and nobody else. She made up her own mind, end of story.’
‘And other times?’
‘I’m scared she doesn’t have a mind to make up any more, that she’s kind of bewitched. Does that sound stupid?’
Dad shook his head, waited for more.
‘What if she’s not actually choosing to stay? Can you think of anything – I mean, other than actual witchcraft, which we don’t believe in, obviously, in the twenty-first century – which would make someone do things against their will?’
‘Hypnosis. Power of suggestion,’ he offered.
‘Do we believe in that either?’ To me, hypnosis means men in capes lined with red silk twirling their vaudeville moustaches and swinging a pocket watch to and fro.
‘Don’t know. Can’t be sure.’ Laying his head back against a cushion and staring up at the ceiling, Dad ran through other alternatives. ‘Brainwashing. I read about this. Famous experiment where ordinary, everyday guys use electricity to hurt others.’
‘Because they’re told their victims are dangerous spies who are a threat to national security. Yeah, we learned about it in psychology.’
‘Maybe they tell Grace that world is bad place; only safe if she stays with Zoran.’
‘But she’d already have to be seriously paranoid to believe that. And Grace was the least paranoid person …’
‘Drugs,’ Dad went on to suggest. ‘Drugs that twist brain – LSD, acid, E, heroin, cocaine, marijuana.’ The list went on.
‘That’s actually Holly’s theory. She thinks those guys spike people’s drinks.’
‘And you?’
‘Maybe.’ I paused before I took another plunge into unknown territory. ‘You can tell me something and I won’t tell anyone else, I promise.’
Dad gave me a sideways look and a puzzled grin.
r /> ‘When you were young, did you mess around with stuff like that?’
His face cleared and his answer was open and matter of fact. ‘Everybody did; we smoke dope, drop acid. You want to compare notes?’
I nodded.
‘Acid – LSD – was worst. Marijuana not so much. LSD messes with brain – world goes weird.’
‘Do objects move around without anyone touching them? Do people change shape?’ I wanted to know. Masks falling apart and fixing themselves, murals on chapel walls coming alive.
‘It can happen. Bad trip brings monster faces, trees turn into snakes, ground opens up like ocean and swallows you.’
‘You lose your inhibitions?’ I was seeing Grace’s face with its look of wild elation, remembering how she threw herself at Ezra, danced with everyone, let Zoran lift her and carry her on to the sacrificial altar. And of course I was living again the nightmare of the golden, green-eyed serpent, the minotaur men and those Aztec gods who spread their wings and rose in the air.
Dad turned his head towards me and studied me deeply. ‘Is this truth? This is happening to Grace?’
‘Maybe,’ I said again.
‘You tell me everything?’ he quizzed.
‘Everything,’ I swore.
Everything except Daniel and Callum’s suspicion that I was suffering from episodes of epileptic seizure. Worse, as far as Dad was concerned, that I was a medium for dead spirits, maybe even a dead person reborn. It’s called a sin of omission when you tell part of the truth but not all of it and what you miss out makes you the worst kind of deceiver because you break the trust of people who love you. I never fully understood this until now.
Anyway, I papered over these particular cracks, promised Dad I wasn’t into drugs even if Grace was (true) and agreed with him that I would let Grace’s parents make the decision about what to do next (untrue). Because actually I already knew I was going to go ahead and meet up with Jude early on Saturday morning.
‘We need to get past those guys on the gate.’ Jude may have been totally messed up and confused but he was clear about this one thing.
We were determined to go together up on to Black Rock and make contact with Grace. I didn’t tell my parents or even Orlando, because how would I handle the situation if we ran into Daniel while we were up there? Yeah, I know this is short-term reasoning and extremely flawed, but I was acting under duress.
When I say ‘make contact’, what I really wanted to do was to lock back into the lost, crushed expression I’d seen on Grace’s face when I’d mentioned Jude’s name the last time I saw her. Perhaps if we went up there and she met him face to face she would all of a sudden see what she was losing by turning her back on her old life and then maybe reconsider.
Failing that, Jude and I would have to kidnap her and bring her safely home. Ambitious and a touch unrealistic, huh? But Jude was by this time desperate and I had it on my conscience that the last time I’d seen Grace, she was being offered up to high priest Brancusi like a sacrifice and, coward that I was, I’d wimped out and left her.
‘There are guard dogs too,’ I warned Jude. ‘And I reckon Zoran has security cameras covering every metre of his boundary.’
Over the last week Jude had developed a crazy-stubborn, jaw-set expression that I’d never seen before. It made him look years older, despite his skinny-kid frame. ‘If they catch us on camera, what’s the worst they can do?’ he muttered.
‘Charge us with unlawful entry, set the dogs on us, shoot us,’ I suggested, checking off items on my fingers.
‘Do you want to do this or not?’ he grunted.
I nodded. ‘I’m only telling you it won’t be easy.’
Then again, it was early enough in the day to hope that we could beat Zoran’s security surveillance system, especially if there had been partying on the Friday night and there were the usual hangovers and morning-after memory lapses. The best scenario was that Jude and I could drive high on to Black Rock and make our way down to the lodge without being spotted. ‘And are you certain you can do this?’ I checked. ‘There’s walking involved, maybe even climbing.’
Even the nod that he gave me brought on a short fit of coughing. He patted his jacket pocket. ‘I’m carrying my inhaler.’
The magic medicine, the legal chemical kick. ‘Then we should go.’
Of course, the driving part was easy. We used Jude’s Jeep Cherokee and got up the dirt road to Black Rock, no problem. But by the time we reached the end of the track and were ready to park the car, we’d already hit a snag.
‘Is that mist high in the canyon, or smoke?’ I asked, pointing north towards the craggy summit.
Jude shielded his eyes and tried to identify the source of a white cloud lingering between two peaks. ‘Smoke,’ he decided. ‘I guess the fire crews are up there building their fireline.’
This was bad news because, though the artificial fuel break might safeguard against the spread of future wildfires, the clearing and burning out of vegetation would be likely to send smoke down the mountain in our direction. ‘You want to turn back?’ I suggested to Jude. ‘Come again when the smoke has cleared?’
‘No, I’m good,’ he said through gritted teeth. Maybe he was hoping that the wind would change direction before the smoke reached us, or maybe he was just fixated on our task and wouldn’t consider any change of plan. Anyway, it was a risk he insisted on taking. ‘Let’s go.’
So we left the Jeep and walked on up a steep incline between worn and weathered fingers of granite that stood like giant chess men on guard at the entrance to a narrow draw. Twenty metres into the cleft in the rock face, we found that it was a dead end, so we retraced our steps, skirted wide around the chess men and began to scramble up a slope of loose scree. Stones dislodged under our boots and peppered down the mountain, scaring three mule deer, a momma and two babies, hidden in a thorn thicket. We saw them leap from the bushes and bound down the slope into some aspens, out of sight.
‘Where now?’ Jude asked as we reached a ridge and he had to pause for breath.
‘I reckon Black Eagle Canyon is east of here. We won’t see the lodge until we get to within a couple of hundred metres – it’s built right into the mountain.’ Of course, I was worried about him – the way he was panting and finding it difficult to draw breath. We were up at eight thousand feet, remember, and by now we could actually smell smoke in the air. I could also hear the Forest Service chainsaws and a mechanical digger churning the thin soil to make their ditch.
‘Just our luck that they decided to work on that fireline today of all days,’ I muttered.
Jude coughed and collected phlegm.
‘Go ahead, spit,’ I told him.
He bent forward and cleared his mouth. ‘Sorry – not pretty. But I’m cool, let’s keep going.’ He set off along the ridge until we met another barrier of rock and we were forced to descend a hundred feet or so.
‘Stop again,’ I told him. The white smoke hadn’t changed direction – in fact it was heading our way. Already our vision was limited and the smell of burning filled our nostrils. Normally this would have been enough to freak me out and for the dead voices and visions to begin, but today all my concern was fixed on Jude, so I managed to keep them at bay. ‘We should get out of here. Let’s come back tomorrow. Those guys won’t work Sundays.’
‘No, I see something – look!’ Coughing again, he pointed through the billowing clouds to a white fence and a long, low structure that I recognized as Zoran’s new arena and barn. ‘The smoke gives us some cover. We can sneak in without being picked up by the security cameras.’
As I watched him set off towards the barn, I felt more and more scared. This seemed too easy. Where were the cameras, where were the dogs? ‘Wait!’ I warned.
Jude shook his head, plunged into some thorn bushes and struggled on. By now, the thickening smoke almost hid him from view.
I ran after him, right through the thorns – what else could I do? The bushes caught at my legs, pierced through my
jeans to my bare flesh. When I came out the other side, I stumbled right into Jude. ‘That hurt!’ I complained, picking a thorn out of my forearm. ‘Why did you stop?’
‘Horses in the arena,’ he whispered.
I heard them before I saw them – Zoran’s wild mustangs exploding out of the barn and thundering into the round pen, neighing shrilly through the smoke. Horses hate fire more than any other phenomenon. They’d rather be in hurricane-force winds or face lashing rain and rising rivers; anything rather than run the risk of being burned alive. I expected them any second to break right through the new fence and stampede across the brush.
There they were, emerging from a cloud of white smoke, bunched together and galloping crazily and out of control inside the arena. An alpha male led the group – a brown and white Appaloosa with a ragged dark mane and tail. His ears were flattened, eyes rolling and nostrils flared. Once more around the arena, past the dark entrance to the barn, where a solitary man stood, they turned again towards Jude and me, charging straight at the fence without stopping, crashing through the wood, splintering it and stamping it underfoot.
Then they were galloping towards us – about twenty horses running for their lives, acting as one terrified unit, chest muscles straining as they sucked in air, hooves striking rock and sending up yellow, orange, red sparks. I threw myself behind a rock, dragging Jude with me. But I couldn’t hold on to him as the mustangs passed to either side, felt him twist from my grasp and lost him as the horses’ hooves raised dust and gravel. I felt the ground shake under my feet, smelled their sweat and their fear.
‘Jude!’ I cried after they’d thundered by. I had grit in my eyes, the smoke was thicker and he was nowhere to be seen.
‘Who’s there?’ another voice cried. It came from the patch of thorn and brush that we’d just crossed. Instinctively I hid again behind my rock.
‘Did you hear that?’ a second voice yelled above the receding hooves.
The first man’s voice, deep and rough: ‘Yeah, it was a girl. Where is she?’