‘A labret,’ he told me. ‘Hold it. Feel how heavy it is.’
I saw what he meant – the ornament was solid, smooth and heavy, cold in my palm.
‘An Aztec ruler would wear it through his lower lip. This one belonged to Mochtezuma in the year 1519, the year of disaster when the Spanish came to Mexico.’
‘This is almost five centuries old!’ I whispered. The thing was ugly but held some kind of fascination – maybe in the fact that those people would voluntarily mutilate their faces to wear them. Face piercings go way back, it seems.
‘They believed in omens – a comet blazing across the sky at noon, a temple destroyed by lightning and flames.’ Zoran paused and studied my reaction. ‘What’s your take on omens, Tania? I know your opinion of miracles, but do you believe in supernatural warnings?’
‘I never thought about it,’ I murmured, wondering why Zoran’s attention was once more focused on deep subjects. The snake’s eyes were made of the same sparkling stones – probably emeralds. They seemed alive in the gold head, following you as you moved.
‘The year 1519 was the year Mochtezuma saw a huge tongue of flame burning in the night sky above Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. That’s when he knew that his empire was at an end. Look here.’ Opening another drawer, Zoran lifted out a rolled parchment. ‘Not the original, of course,’ he told me. ‘It’s a facsimile. Actually, this is a translation from the Spanish describing what the invaders found when they seized the city: “A land rich in gold, pearls and other things … There are in the city many large and beautiful houses … along one of the causeways run two aqueducts made of mortar … the citizens are dressed with elegance. Considering that these people are barbarous, lacking knowledge of God, it is remarkable to see all that they have.” What do you think of that?’
‘Amazing, totally. Is it OK if I take a picture of the snake?’
‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t,’ Zoran objected, seeing me slide my hand into my pocket for my camera.
And here was something else weird – suddenly I couldn’t move my fingers. They stiffened up and started to tingle, like a bad case of pins and needles.
Zoran took the parchment and the gold snake and put them back into their shallow drawers. ‘My insurers are pretty strict over how this stuff is stored,’ he explained, staring hard at the pocket where I kept my camera. ‘One of the clauses states absolutely no photographic imagery.’
‘Sure.’ I felt a shiver of fear then my hand stopped hurting and my normal movement returned. ‘Now I really have to leave.’
This time Zoran didn’t stop me. ‘Cristal will show you out,’ he said abruptly.
His beautiful sound recordist showed up right on cue. She arrived silently, smiled at me and beckoned for me to follow.
I left feeling that I’d just undergone some kind of test and wondering if I’d passed. I don’t know how I got that impression – maybe in the way Zoran seemed to have stage-managed everything; the meeting on Black Rock, the presence of Aaron at the house, the presentation of horse-whisperer Daniel in the best possible light. And now his sudden and total fading of interest in me as Cristal led me from the house.
‘I’ll find Aaron, check if he wants a ride back to town,’ I told her as we said goodbye.
‘Sure. Try the arena,’ she said, turning back through the sliding doors without showing the slightest reaction. Had she really been dating him, or had Aaron made the whole thing up just to make Holly jealous?
I made my way across to the round pen to find Daniel alone with the mustangs.
‘Aaron left,’ he said, flashing me a warm smile. ‘He had things to do.’
‘Me too.’ Straight away forgetting the topic of Aaron, I felt my heart rate speed out of control. The dust-covered horses milled around Daniel, who stood calm and confident amongst them.
‘Before you go,’ he said, stepping on to the lower fence rail then vaulting clean over, ‘I do really want to spend time with you, Tania. No strings; just getting to know you.’
Oh God, my heart bumped and raced along! ‘It’s difficult,’ I murmured.
‘Really – no strings.’ He looked at me long and hard then turned with me to walk up the mountain, hands in pockets, staring at the ground.
I felt the impact of that golden gaze, found that I couldn’t talk and didn’t have the power to tell Daniel no.
‘You’re special. You don’t know it but you are,’ he said. Then we walked a while in silence before he elaborated. ‘I think you’re exotic, like the bird of paradise – like you don’t belong round here.’
I listened, looked up at the peak of Black Rock shimmering in the midday heat, glanced at Daniel’s amazing face. ‘Same here,’ I breathed. ‘You guys are totally different.’
‘A breath of fresh air?’ he grinned. He stopped suddenly in the shade of a gnarled pinon pine, bowed his head and looked up at me from under half-closed lids. ‘Don’t let Zoran intimidate you.’
‘He doesn’t,’ I lied.
‘He’s in control around here and that’s the way he likes it. But we don’t have to meet at Black Eagle Ranch. It could be someplace else.’
‘I don’t know,’ I pleaded. ‘I need to think.’ Shaded pale-blue eyes were staring at me, heavy lashes casting deeper shadows.
‘I’ll call you,’ Daniel promised, quickly turning and walking away.
6
My shallow, shallow heart.
I was so caught up in my latest meeting with Daniel, endlessly replaying our short conversation and the precious glances that passed between us that I wiped the morning’s images from my digital camera – maybe when my hands cramped and I got pins and needles. I guess I pressed ‘delete’ by mistake.
‘Play!’ Holly commanded that same afternoon. She’d thrust a tennis racket into my hand, shoved me on court to partner Orlando then gone to join Aaron on the other side of the net. Let me add right here that Orlando and I had not yet talked through his latest high-drama, door-slamming exit from my place, and hostile rays were currently zapping me from his side of the court.
The game began and I struck the ball without giving it my full attention. It landed in the net.
‘Fifteen love,’ Holly announced, crouching low at the net for Aaron to deliver his next serve.
I’d accidentally deleted my photographs but not the memories of Daniel working with the mustangs – long and lean, surrounded by dusty, sweating horse flesh. Whack! – I hit a forehand straight at Holly. She volleyed back, found the gap between me and Orlando.
‘Thirty love!’
Daniel had told me I was special and exotic. I returned the third serve down the line; Aaron hit it into the net. Thirty fifteen. ‘Did you get home OK?’ I muttered as he stooped to pick up the ball.
He nodded uncomfortably. ‘Don’t tell Holl I was at the lodge, OK?’
‘Are you two still on a break?’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘OK, I won’t say a word.’
He served again – a double fault. Holly looked disgusted with her partner’s poor performance.
Daniel had promised a no-strings, getting-to-know-me deal. How would that work? Ouch! A ball from Holly hit me in the gut. Forty fifteen.
‘You played like an idiot,’ she told me after the game had ended.
Later, in the clubhouse, Jude showed up without Grace. If you knew how joined at the hip those two used to be, you’d realize how odd that was.
He came in looking lost and worried.
‘No Grace?’ Holly asked, making space for him on the sofa.
Jude shook his head and accepted a Coke from Orlando.
‘How are things?’ I muttered. ‘Are you two getting along any better?’
‘Worse,’ he sighed. ‘I just came from her house. She won’t even see me.’
Holly soon muscled in, leaning across and tackling the topic head on. ‘You want my advice? Things between you two have gotten too intense; you should take some time out.’
‘Like you and Aa
ron?’ Jude shrugged. ‘The problem with that is – I care about Grace.’
‘So?’ she bristled. ‘Aaron knows I care about him, don’t you, Aaron? It doesn’t mean we can’t give each other some space.’
Aaron gave me a meaningful stare.
OK, OK! I stared back.
‘But I’m worried about her.’ Jude’s not normally a guy who shares his feelings, but right now he obviously needed to vent. ‘She’s changed so much I hardly know her.’
‘In what way?’ Holly pressed.
‘She’s different. I haven’t seen her smile in a week.’
‘Yeah, that’s not normal,’ Orlando agreed. ‘Grace is always so chilled about things.’
‘Now she stresses all the time. It’s making her sick. Plus, she won’t eat.’
‘You guys didn’t make up properly after the party?’ I checked. I was thinking a million things that I wasn’t free to mention, not only about Aaron and Cristal but about Grace and Ezra at the party, and I felt certain that Jude and Grace’s current problem would link straight back to Black Eagle Lodge.
He sighed then picked at his fingernails. ‘Grace went ahead and met the Ezra guy. You saw him at the party, right?’
I nodded, still said nothing.
‘I spoke to her on the phone. She denied it, but Leo saw them together by Turner Lake. He was out there fishing until he was rained off by a freak storm. They didn’t see him. He said there was something going on between them for sure.’
‘That’s bad,’ I acknowledged.
‘It’s not just that she’s lying to me,’ Jude went on. ‘She’s started to totally make things up – weird things.’
‘Such as?’ I asked queasily, casting a worried glance in Holly’s direction.
‘She told me more about the party, admitted it was pretty wild. She said there were shooting stars in the sky, brighter than you’ve ever seen, and some of the guys dressed as gods and angels – they actually flew into the air.’
I kept on looking at Holly to see if she’d taken this in and saw her suddenly catch her breath, though she soon covered up her surprise. ‘Weird shit happened,’ she muttered. ‘We all drank way too much.’
We agreed we didn’t, I thought. My old anxieties flared up. I still really believed this wasn’t just alcohol we were talking about. ‘What else?’ I asked Jude.
‘I’m not making this up – Grace was convinced she could fly too. She recalls looking down on you guys dancing, like, levitating high above your heads.’
Now everyone was giving Jude their full attention and even Holly was silent for once. He let out a long sigh. ‘That’s how come she bruised her ankle. She says she didn’t know how to end it so she kind of crash-landed.’
‘She needs to see a doctor,’ was Orlando’s snap judgement before Jude had even finished. ‘You know what I’m saying – a shrink.’
Jude shrugged. ‘Her mom made an appointment with a counsellor. Grace refused to go.’
‘I’ll go see her, try to talk her into it,’ I promised, getting up straight away. This latest news had hit me hard.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Orlando offered, apparently wanting to make up at last.
‘No, thanks. It’s better if I go alone.’ Eager to get to Grace, I half ran from the clubhouse.
‘Whoa!’ Radiant Cristal was walking across the car park with a young, fair-haired guy and Daniel. Dressed in five-inch heels and a floaty emerald-green dress with a plunging neckline, she stepped across my path. ‘Where’s the fire?’
‘Hi. Sorry, I have to go.’ I glanced at Daniel, smiled my apology and hurried on.
‘Daniel, since when did you have such a God-awful effect on a girl?’ Cristal wisecracked, making sure she drew the new guy into the joke. ‘All he did was invite her for coffee and see how she reacts!’
The besotted blond boy giggled more than the joke deserved.
‘It’s not that,’ I stammered then blundered on. ‘By the way, Cristal, Aaron’s in there with Holly and a group of buddies. I have to hurry – sorry!’ I reached my car, jumped in and turned the ignition. When I looked in my rearview mirror I saw the three of them laughing and joking in the clubhouse porch. What was so funny? Was it dumb-ass me they were laughing at? And wow, the glorious Cristal moved fast, dropping Aaron and moving on to her new guy in the space of a single day.
I stopped at the car park exit to wait for a gap in the traffic, looked in my mirror again and saw that Daniel had stepped down from the porch and was heading in my direction.
An unexpected tsunami of indecision crashed over me and I stalled the engine. Should I wait for Daniel? What did he plan to say to me? Would he ask me out on a date and would I drown in those blue eyes?
He drew closer. Hurriedly I turned the ignition, stepped on the gas and sped away.
Keeping my promise to Jude, I drove straight to Grace’s house and found the front door open and music drifting out. I recognized Zoran’s soaring voice, and his song ‘Come with Me’. There was only one car in the drive – Grace’s white Toyota.
I knocked and said hi, ventured inside, waited a full minute without a reply.
‘Grace?’ I called, crossing the hallway.
She appeared at last at the head of the stairs, gave a delighted gasp and ran down to greet me with a warm hug. ‘Cool, Tania, I’m so glad you’re here! Come upstairs. I’m in my room listening to music.’ She half sang, half hummed the words as I followed her – ‘Fly with me/ You’re stardust, you’re heavenly.’
‘So you’re OK?’ I checked, following her into her room, which was its usual mess – CD cases scattered across her pillow, school psychology books and laundry booby-trapping my progress across the floor.
‘Totally,’ she breezed. She fixed her hair in front of the vanity mirror in her bathroom. ‘Don’t you love this song?’
‘You missed school,’ I reminded her. Though she seemed more like her old self, I didn’t quite trust it.
‘Only a couple of days, no big deal. And before you say anything, I know what this is about – you’ve been talking with Jude.’
I paused. Grace was cheery and bright, like a little bird puffing out its chest and warbling its song, which should have been reassuring but somehow wasn’t.
‘You have!’ she trilled. ‘He’s so down about life in general, isn’t he?’
‘Who can blame him? He’s worried about you, says you won’t see him.’
She danced a couple of steps across the carpet then flopped down on the bed. ‘Jude makes everything such a big deal. You know how he is.’
I sat beside Grace and chose my words carefully. ‘I don’t actually see it that way. What I do know is that Jude is a really sweet, laid-back and positive guy and right now he’s hurting because of you.’
Up she sprang, dancing away. ‘He’ll be OK. He’ll move on.’
‘Does he know this?’ I asked sharply. ‘I just saw him at the tennis club and my impression was that he’s not OK and he’s desperately holding his breath, waiting for you to be normal with him again.’
‘OK, so I’ll spell it out next time I see him,’ she assured me, back to fixing her hair in the mirror. ‘I’ll tell him we’re through.’
‘So that’s it – no explanations, no thinking it over – you two are history?’ This was unreal. Grace humming and preening while she talked about the end of a two-year relationship.
‘Stuff happens,’ she shrugged. ‘Look at Holly and Aaron. No one turns a hair when they split.’
‘Because it happens all the time,’ I pointed out. ‘They fight, they split, they get back together. They fight again. Whereas you and Jude were so close. You’re even applying to the same college so you can be together next year.’
For a moment the reality of what I was saying got through to her and she fumbled with the hairbrush on her dressing table. Then she gave a final tap and put it down. ‘Plans change. I may not even go to college – who knows?’
‘OK … OK!’ I stood up and flexed the fingers of
both hands then curled them into two fists. ‘So change the subject, talk to me about Zoran’s party. You told Jude you saw shooting stars.’
She smiled and turned towards me. ‘Really bright. They glowed green like the Northern Lights. It was beautiful.’
‘Which I didn’t see, and I was there,’ I contradicted coolly. ‘And what about the levitating thing? You’re not saying in the cold light of day that really happened?’
Grace took my hands and her eyes shone with excitement. There were spots of high colour in her pale cheeks. ‘Tania, you know it did and it was so cool! Ezra showed me and told me I could do it too and he was right.’
‘Ezra.’ I repeated the name softly. ‘Grace, this is scaring me. I already know there was something weird about the party – Holly and I talked about it a lot. For starters, there’s an eight-hour gap in my memory of that night, the same with Holly. And I think we all went a little crazy—’
‘I’m not crazy!’ She pushed me away so hard that I staggered backwards and overbalanced on to the bed. ‘Yes, the party was a big deal for me. It opened the door to choices I never dreamed of. I know now the human mind is capable of amazing things if only you open up to the possibilities.’
I shook my head. ‘Stop. Think what you’re saying.’
‘Whereas you and Holly, Jude, Aaron – you don’t even want to look at the fantastic opportunities. Well, that’s your choice; it’s down to you. But it’s no reason to stop others from moving on up to another level.’
‘That’s not what I’m doing. Stop, please.’ Grace’s manic energy took her to the open window. For a moment I thought she was going to step right out into thin air. ‘Come back. I’ll listen to what you’re saying.’
She turned away from the window, eyes still shining. ‘You should hear Ezra talk. He tells me stuff about the planets, how you can move them around with the power of sheer thought. And this brings about changes in the weather. If your head is clear of all its old negativities, you can control the wind, the rain, everything!’