Then Daniel came into view carrying head stalls for the mustangs. He beckoned to me, Jude and Grace and pointed to a wooden box containing brushes and metal combs before he hurried back into the barn. ‘Catch yourselves a horse and brush them down,’ he told us. ‘Zoran has called a staff meeting.’
Just that – nothing more. No mention of his visit to my room, no lingering romantic looks.
‘You heard what he said,’ I told Jude and Grace. Ignoring Grace’s latest outburst, I decided I had to catch their horses for them, and handed them their brushes. Then I went across to fetch Zoran’s sorrel as rays from the rising sun hit the red barn roof and a blue jay rose from the shadows. I heard voices inside the barn and froze.
‘What do you mean – she said no?’ Zoran snapped. He really wasn’t happy, as Cristal had said. ‘I thought you understood – no was not an option!’
‘She said she needed more time,’ Daniel explained.
‘Oh, really.’ Ezra’s sarcastic tone made it plain whose side he took. ‘So you accepted the rejection and backed off?’
Daniel tried to shrug off the criticism. ‘What was I supposed to do – force her?’
Ezra laughed. ‘Yeah, what’s wrong with that? Anyway, you’re supposed to be number-one lover boy and you’re seriously asking me for advice?’
There was a pause and I pictured Daniel physically squaring up to Ezra until Zoran interrupted with, ‘Enough, you two. Daniel, I gave Tania to you because I knew she was more of a challenge than the others. I saw that from the start and I thought you were up to it.’
He gave me to Daniel? Did I hear that right? And what was I – some kind of object to be handed around? I felt a spark of anger then a sickening thud of disgust in my belly.
‘I trusted you to get it right,’ Zoran insisted then waited for Daniel to defend himself, which he did.
‘OK, but you can’t rush Tania. And listen to me, Ezra – everyone here except you knows we only use force as a last resort. Tania should give herself of her own free will. We all know that’s how it works best.’
Still they were discussing me like a deal they hadn’t managed to broker and I felt sick to my stomach at how close I’d come to giving in.
‘So what did happen to your famous charm?’ Cristal came in with a needling voice.
‘Enough again!’ This time Zoran injected steely anger into his tone. ‘Tania is hard to read, we all know that, and it’s what makes her interesting. With the others – with Oliver especially – it was easy, like taking candy from a baby. Likewise and to a lesser extent, Jude. Grace was more difficult. A little force was necessary – we accept that, Ezra.’
The bruises! Now I understood how she’d got them – at certain points she’d obviously put up a fight against Ezra’s focused, cold-hearted seduction. No date-rape drugs had been involved, just pure brute force. Poor Grace. That’s all I could think as I stood there and pictured the whole thing – those two words: poor Grace.
‘But we need another victim, the sooner the better,’ Zoran reminded everyone.
‘How about the kids who were here last night?’ Ezra suggested. ‘There was the one called Holly.’
‘No time,’ Zoran decided. ‘Anyway, Tania is a difficult challenge, and that’s exactly the reason I want her.’
‘So, Daniel, what exactly are you going to do to make it happen?’ Cristal demanded, pushing him to a point when I was sure he would snap. ‘Whatever it is, try and make it a double celebration with Jude. Do it tonight.’
He didn’t answer and in the silence that followed I heard footsteps heading in my direction. Quickly I pulled myself together and buckled the collar around the mare’s head. By the time Daniel emerged from the barn, his face dark and angry, I was alongside Jude and Grace, brushing dust from the sorrel’s coat as if I’d been busy all along.
Crying inwardly for Grace, I had my back turned so I hoped no one could see that I was shaking from head to foot, that I felt battered and dirty and used, disgusted at the thought of letting Daniel lay his hands on me ever again.
14
In one completely new and unexpected way I was out of danger.
Never, Daniel! I thought. From now on, never in a million years!
The way they’d talked about me in the barn – like an object – the way Daniel had played me all this time with his soft words and lips made me burn with shame and fury. And to think, in spite of what I’d suspected and witnessed here at the lodge, I’d almost, almost fallen for it!
Stupid, dumb-ass birdbrain! Superficial, gullible schmuck, almost sweet-talked into my own destruction!
But at least, I reminded myself, I’d pulled back at the moment the wave broke. I’d said no and now I was safe. From Daniel, I mean. In every other way, I was in so much trouble I couldn’t even begin to measure it.
‘You like working with horses, Tania?’ Zoran asked me as he strolled out of the barn after Daniel. He was back to his old jovial, mein host manner, playing the game.
He spreads his wings like the blue jay, his black beak stabbing the air. He rises in a cloud of mist above the rooftop. Dark destroyer, evil incarnate. I will never look at you again without seeing the beast beneath the skin.
‘I haven’t had the chance to find out,’ I answered. ‘This is the first time I’ve been this close.’
‘Then you’re a natural,’ he told me before he ordered Grace and Jude to come into the house with him, Cristal and Ezra, which left Daniel alone with me and the mustangs.
‘This is another reason why you should hang out here a while.’ Daniel picked up where Zoran had left off. ‘You could help me tame these wild horses. I could teach you some techniques.’
I left off brushing but didn’t ease away from the mare. Somehow her warmth and strength made me feel a little safer, and the way she kept her ears flicked back towards me, paying attention to every move.
‘Tania, I’m sorry about last night,’ Daniel muttered, dropping into the role of overeager guy who goofed up, coming out with formulaic phrases. ‘I guess I misread the situation.’
‘Me too – I’m sorry if I gave off the wrong signals.’
‘No, you have nothing to be sorry for. All I can say is, and I hope you realize this is true – it happened because I’m totally in love with you and it won’t happen again because I really do respect your feelings.’
‘Thank you.’ I managed to look him in the eye, hoping that my own expression didn’t give him any clue to my real state of mind. And I saw Daniel in the clear light of a new day – textbook-handsome, chiselled, totally gorgeous. Blink and what did I see? Corruption, darkness and ugliness oozing through every pore.
‘Tania,’ he murmured, reaching out to take my hand.
It was as if a creature covered in slime had crawled on to me and I had to use all my willpower not to pull away, to keep on looking steadily into his eyes.
‘I’ll wait until you’re ready,’ he promised in his softest, lowest, most seductive voice. He pulled me close, his lips brushed against my hair, my cheek.
I raised my hand and placed my fingertips against his chest. ‘I won’t make you wait for long,’ I promised.
‘How long? Have you any idea?’
I shook my head and sighed.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to pressurize …’
‘No, it’s cool.’ I realized it would be good to throw him some decoy bait, to fix his attention on a specific point. I sighed again and gently pushed him away. ‘After tonight’s ceremony – maybe then.’
I stayed for hours with the horses in the arena, using them to keep a distance from Daniel and from what might be going on in the house, giving myself time to think. I tried to plan out how I could next get to see Grace and Jude without Ezra or Cristal being nearby, and if I could achieve that, what exactly I would say that I hadn’t tried to say before.
In my feverish brain I even rehearsed a couple of variations on the kidnap-Grace scenario. I mean, by now she was so skinny and feath
er-light that even I could knock her off her feet and physically carry her out of the lodge, out through the gate on to Black Rock.
But then what? What about the security guys and the fact that the place was bristling with cameras? And what transport did I have to drive Grace down from the mountain? No, forget that.
OK, so I could make my own escape – find a back way out of here, deep into the canyon, scale a few rocks, disappear into the forest. It would take me maybe half a day to walk down the mountain into town, go to the cops, persuade them to come up and arrest everyone in sight. ‘Mr Brancusi, you’re under arrest for being a reclusive ex-rock star with a crazy dream of creating an alternative community.’ OK then, no – not the cops.
So do the runner and find Holly, convince her to drive back up here and snatch Grace and Jude from Zoran’s clutches. ‘He’s a what?’ (I could hear the scathing incredulity in Holly’s voice without even trying.) ‘You’re telling me that Zoran Brancusi is a spirit from beyond the grave, a dark angel who steals souls and deals in death and destruction? Tania, for God’s sake, what kind of magic mushrooms do they grow up there on Black Rock?’
So not Holly either. And not my parents, and not Orlando, for obvious reasons. Anyway, let’s face it – I would never get three steps beyond the ranch boundary before they unleashed those grey dogs.
So I had no plan and the sun was rising high in the sky.
‘I brought you guys some coffee,’ Cristal announced around eleven a.m. By ‘you guys’ she meant me and Daniel.
Daniel left off showing me how to gain the trust of Zoran’s sorrel mare. It was all down to patience, apparently, and learning to think the way a horse thinks. ‘Animals divide into two categories, Tania – fight or flight. Horses are flight animals. They flee to survive. You present them with something new – a wooden fence, a rope around their necks – and they’re convinced you’re planning to drag them down and destroy them. All you have to do is convince them you’re not.’
Thanks for the horse-whispering crap, Daniel. But isn’t that exactly your plan for me – a metaphorical rope around my neck, a lonely death on Black Rock?
Boy, did I identify with those mustangs. Anyway, Cristal brought coffee, asked us how we were doing then gave Daniel a significant look and left.
At midday it was Ezra’s turn to check up on Daniel’s progress. He came out to the arena with Grace, who was deep in one of her ‘absences’ and didn’t even seem to notice that she was outdoors among a bunch of basically wild horses.
‘Don’t sneak up behind them,’ I warned her nervously. ‘Especially the sorrel – she kicks.’
Grace didn’t seem to hear, just stood among the mustangs, constantly checking to see where Ezra was and if she was acting the way he wanted her to.
‘Grace has something for you,’ Ezra told me. ‘Go ahead, Grace – show Tania her costume.’
‘For tonight’s ceremony,’ Daniel explained.
‘Why do I need a costume?’ I frowned. ‘Can’t I go dressed the way I am?’
Ezra tutted and gave Grace a shove towards me. ‘It’s a celebration. You have to enter into the spirit,’ he insisted. He tried to sound calm and casual but there was a scary intensity in his pale face and dark, staring eyes.
‘Yeah, it’s themed the way the Heavenly Bodies party was,’ Grace said as she handed over a soft robe made of dark red velvet with an expensive black fur trim. ‘The same theme as last night – we’re all medieval hunters in the forest. It’s going to be magical.’
Still frowning, I glanced at Daniel.
‘Just do it,’ he murmured, flashing me what he thought was his winning smile. ‘For Jude – it’s his big night.’
So I agreed, though my heart was heavy as lead, and drew a faint smile from Grace’s pale face, as if she was relieved that she’d achieved what Ezra had instructed her to do and was off the hook for now.
‘See you later,’ she told me. ‘It’ll be fun.’
‘Yeah, see you later,’ I murmured back.
I watched Ezra take my ex-friend by the hand and lead her out of the arena. I was on edge again as they paused in the yard, and she said something to him and he turned back to throw a sharp glance in my direction. What was that about? Ezra looked for a moment as if he was about to retrace his steps to accuse me and I felt my stomach churn. I got ready to defend myself against anything he might be about to throw at me.
‘Are you OK?’ Daniel asked, resting his arm on my shoulder.
‘I’m cool,’ I sighed, relieved as Ezra listened again to Grace and decided not to come back into the arena. It felt like a reprieve, a small breathing space. ‘I need a little time to myself – do you mind?’
A look of suspicion flitted across Daniel’s amazing movie-star features but he controlled it and let his arm drop to his side. ‘Sure, go ahead. Take a walk, clear your head.’
‘Thanks. Is it OK if I walk up the mountain?’
He smiled. ‘Walk where you like. I’ll see you at lunch.’
‘Thanks,’ I said again, and before he could add anything, I was out of there, heading up the hill into the forest, resisting the urge to run.
The noon sun burned my skin, the heat bounced from the rock beneath my feet. All that grows under the tall pines is spiky yucca and thin yellow grass. A brown lizard sat on a pink boulder without moving.
‘What do I do?’ I said out loud. The iron band of doubt tightened around my chest.
There was no answer, only a breeze through the pine needles and dirt crunching under my feet. ‘This is too hard – I’m going to lose the battle,’ I said with tears in my eyes.
It was a dreadful fact – Grace and Jude had travelled too far on to the dark side; Zoran’s hold was too strong. And I was afraid.
My skin tingles and Maia materializes in a clearing, an oasis of green. She seems to shine golden like the sun. ‘Come here,’ she murmurs, and she offers me her hand. For a while I hold it and absorb the silence. Then she begins to reassure me. ‘Remember – we are bound together by love, not separate, you and I.’
‘I know. At least, I think I understand.’
‘Whenever you look for me, I’m here.’
‘Without you I would never have got this far.’ Without a mother’s voice calling through the smoke and flames, without the certain knowledge that the human spirit is stronger than any suffering that the body must endure.
‘There will be no more wildfire,’ she promises. ‘Now that you know me and how I come to you, there will be no more bad dreams.’
‘Thank you,’ I whisper. I am grateful beyond belief to be relieved finally of the memory of the Becker Hill burnout.
‘You are everything that I dreamed Aimee would be,’ Maia tells me softly. ‘She lives through you and I could not have hoped for more.’
‘But what can I do?’ I cry now and cling more desperately to her hands. ‘Every way I turn there’s a wall ahead of me. I don’t see how I can save Grace and Jude.’
She waits for me to calm down. ‘Accept that there is no plan,’ she insists. ‘Know that your heart is big enough, your spirit bold enough to deal with whatever is to come.’
I’m gazing at her. Her face is radiant in the sunlight. ‘Daniel can’t claim me,’ I tell her. ‘I know him now.’
‘Good, Tania. Knowledge makes you strong.’ She squeezes my fingers and waits again.
‘He’s dark, like Zoran. He’s evil.’
‘He lives in Zoran’s shadow,’ Maia tells me.
‘And Ezra – I think he raped Grace. Maybe more than once.’
Maia’s eyes are filled with compassion. She doesn’t contradict me.
‘Tell me more about them,’ I beg. ‘Show me a way to defeat them.’
‘I’ll tell you all I can. There is a universal battle, remember – bigger than the cosmos – contained in every blade of grass, every grain of sand you see around you. Good fights against evil for each human soul, darkness against light. To gain this knowledge is to gain power.’
‘I believe you,’ I tell her. Two universal forces at war.
‘Zoran is at the centre of this. Evil for its own sake is what drives him and to thrive, he must destroy.’
‘But what’s his weakness? How can I break him?’ Give me a key, I beg her. Show me what to do! Despite what Maia says, I must have a plan of action.
‘Listen,’ she insists patiently. ‘With Zoran, everything is false. There is no truth in him or his followers, only malice and lies. Knowing this will protect you. It will make you strong.’
I nod, grasp her hands and absorb every breath of her wisdom. It will be my armour, my shield.
‘Also, you have to recognize his suffering.’
I stare at her in disbelief. ‘His suffering? How does he suffer?’
‘He burns in torment; he can’t escape.’
For a moment the image takes hold in my mind and suddenly the mountain is aflame. Fire rampages through the trees, black smoke rises. It is the old nightmare. Then I look into Maia’s calm, clear eyes and the fire fades.
‘He is an angel who has fallen from grace, from light into darkness. He exists in pain – every breath he takes, every step is agony and he is driven to inflict this same suffering on others. It’s pain that makes him cruel.’
‘He’s in hell.’ I see this – for Zoran the whole universe is a vast, dark prison from which there is no escape. Right now I’m grasping huge concepts, my mind is wandering through the heavens, seeing planets explode into cosmic dust, watching a million wicked souls surrender to the forces of evil.
‘Infinite darkness,’ Maia confirms. ‘The darkness of the soul.’
‘So he looks for those who live in the light and finds a way to poison their happiness, to drag them down with him.’ Like Oliver. Zoran recruited him into his army of dark, tormented souls, snatched his spirit and let his poor, discarded body wander off to its lovely death. I’m understanding now – really getting it. ‘And who are the happiest, most innocent and joyful people around?’