Twisted Heart (26 page)

‘I sure hope this party is indoors,’ Orlando called back.

‘Maybe they’ll build a bonfire by the lake. That would be cool,’ Jude said as we set off on green.

‘Maybe we’ll even get fireworks?’ I suggested, winding up my window.

‘Not in this weather,’ Orlando decided.

It was as if we’d all made a pact not to show how nervous and how scared for Holly we were as we made it out of town on to the highway, where we pretty soon took an exit on to the narrow road leading to New Dawn, following the snaking track between trees and boulders with the headlights raking across the wild landscape. All the time the snow kept falling.

‘Slow down,’ I told Orlando, glancing behind to see Jude’s Jeep skid sideways into a ditch. His rear tyres spun and turned the freshly fallen snow to slush while his engine whined as he switched into four-wheel drive to get them out of the gully. ‘OK, go ahead,’ I said.

We plunged further out of civilization into wild country, catching glimpses of Turner Lake ahead.

‘Weird – I didn’t think New Dawn was so far out,’ Orlando grumbled. ‘I guess it’s the snow – it slows us down.’

‘We’re definitely on the right road,’ I told him, checking out tyre marks from the cars that had gone before. ‘There’s only one way into the camp and this is it. Yeah, look.’

Two hundred metres ahead of us, the track was lit at either side by a series of braziers with logs burning bright, showing the entrance to the parking lot. A speaker system blasted dance music through the forest and out across the lake. Orlando squeezed into a space looking out across the water. We stepped out of the truck.

‘It’s f-f-freez … !’ Grace shivered and groaned as Jude pulled up beside us. ‘Quit whining,’ I told her. ‘The social centre’s this way – let’s go!’

We ran, slipping, stumbling through the snow, catching up with other guests from town – a girl in tight jeans and a white tunic, with feathers dangling from two braids, three guys with their faces streaked with red and white paint – a pretty loose interpretation of the Native American theme.

‘Cool costumes!’ the girl told us as we hurried on by.

Soon we came out of the forest and hit the main party venue – the big log building by the water’s edge. External lighting played over the entrance – purple turning to green then red, flickering over the walls and catching snowflakes in their beams while the techno beat grew louder, drawing us in.

For a few seconds we hesitated.

‘You’re OK with these disco lights?’ Orlando checked with me.

‘Yeah, they’re way down on the list of things I’m worried about.’ We all stood and looked at each other, starting to get serious and silently remind ourselves why we were there.

‘Is everyone still cool with this?’ Grace asked.

We nodded. We were here for Holly. How would she be after all these days in Amos’s clutches? Would Channing still be in total control? Aaron took the lead, the rest of us followed.

Inside the social centre the music faded and the lights were dim. A giant screen, which filled one whole wall, played scenes from Amos’s blockbuster movie,
Dark Secret
.

There was an extreme close-up of a girl’s face, her dark pupils reflecting flames, her expression one of sheer terror. Cut to a forest fire eating up pine trees, leaping gullies, shooting firebrands into the night sky. The girl turned and ran. Burning branches crashed around her – she was lost in thick black smoke. I blinked and looked again. The girl was me.

No, of course not – this was an Antony Amos movie. The girl on screen was a twelve-year-old actress named Carey Hart who starred in this one movie but had never made it as an adult actress. They said she later did drugs and went in and out of rehab. I remember she died a couple of years back at the age of twenty-three.

Taking a deep breath, I turned from the screen to check out other guests.

‘Hey, Tania!’ A voice greeted me and it took me a while to recognize tall Marta beneath a soft cap decorated with feathers and beadwork. She’d chosen a unisex costume of dark-red trousers and sleeveless tunic and seemed genuinely glad to see me. ‘You made it safe to Spider Rock!’

‘I did,’ I said. ‘And Ziegler drove me home. How about you – you got Regan back to New Dawn without breaking any more arms or legs?’

‘Yeah, Regan!’ she laughed. ‘He’s so not cut out for the wilderness.’

‘Did I hear my name? Who’s saying negative stuff about me?’ Regan showed up at Marta’s shoulder and joined in the conversation.

‘Hey, how long did your costume take?’ I asked with a grin. Regan had streaked his cheeks with red paint and stuck a single crow’s feather in a headband – that was it. Otherwise he wore normal jeans and T, his usual glasses and short, unstyled hair.

‘Thirty seconds. You like?’

On screen the mountain fire still raged. It had reached the bank of a wide, fast-flowing river. The girl plunged into the water and swam desperately towards the far side.

Soon Blake and Kaylee joined us, then Ava looking fabulous in beads and braids and bold zig-zag-patterned tunic.

On screen we saw another close-up of the girl, head above water, being swept downstream. More fear in her eyes.

‘So where’s Holly?’ Grace asked.

‘She’s around here somewhere.’ Blake glanced vaguely around the dimly lit room. ‘Why not ask Channing?’

A figure threaded his way through the crowd towards us, head and shoulders above most of the others. He looked even taller than usual in a soft, hooded mask topped with a fan-shaped, painted crown.

‘He’s a Mountain Spirit.’ Blake explained the mask which covered his face completely. ‘He decided to go with a mystical theme, connected with the Great Creator.’

Channing stepped clear of the crowd into a pool of light. My mind did that hideous slamming-and-splitting-in-two thing and for a second I saw what no one else could see.

Moonlight glows on ice-capped peaks. Men in masks perform a frenzied dance. They raise their arms above their heads, they stamp and howl to the moon.

Finally making it to our group, Channing kept the mask over his face as first Grace confronted him.

‘Channing – we came to see Holly. Do you know where she is?’

‘Still getting ready, I guess.’ Channing’s voice was muffled. You could see only his dark eyes through the slits in the mask – cold and cruel enough for me to be reminded of the last time I’d seen him, leaping out of Ziegler’s car to grab Jarrold. And I remembered him before that, leaning over a semi-conscious, half-naked Holly in the blizzard shelter by the lake, kissing her on the lips.

As my head stopped spinning and I recovered from my vision, I took another look around and ended up with my attention drawn back to the screen. I saw the dark head of the girl desperately swimming through white-water rapids. The head bobbed up and down then suddenly disappeared beneath the rushing water, as if a strong hand had gripped her from below. A submerged camera filmed her sinking, twisted and towed by currents, her hands stretched out, face turned towards the light.

‘If Holly is the reason you’re all here, let me go check where she is,’ Channing offered, pushing his way towards the exit without waiting for a response.

‘She’ll show up soon, no problem,’ I reassured Aaron, who looked as if he wanted to follow Channing out of the building and punch him senseless. Still I kept sneaking glances at the giant screen to see if the drowning girl was saved.

‘Come and get a drink?’ Kaylee offered, taking Jude and Grace towards a bar set up in the area with the couches, the bear rug and open log fire.

This left Aaron, Orlando and me with Marta and Ava. Blake and Regan had already drifted off to talk to other people.

‘I guess Aurelie and Jean-Luc will show up soon?’ I asked.

‘With Antony,’ Marta confirmed. ‘I love your costumes. Aurelie chose the party theme. She’s good at this stuff, huh?’

Chit-chat, chit-chat. I realize I’m in danger of making this party sound everyday and unexciting. It was, until you recalled what went before, where we were and the fact that my dark angel was lurking. Plus, I reminded myself, we were still at the very start – guests arriving, Explorers showing up in fancy dress, music playing, a movie showing.

And I want to go back to the cross between a mask and a hood that Channing had been wearing. It looked antique – the genuine thing, and was made of some type of soft fabric – maybe even a dark-stained buckskin – that completely covered his head like a Ku Klux Klan hood without the point. Or like an executioner’s hood. And the crown on top was shaped like a fan with spokes around ten centimetres tall. It was painted with a pattern of diamonds, triangles and circles in blue, red and white. Marta said he was a Mountain Spirit – obviously something to be afraid of and bow down to, not a Weyekin or anything you would want as a spirit ally.

It turned out Channing wasn’t the only one who had gone down the spiritual route. I soon spotted half a dozen figures dressed in long fringed shirts embroidered with stars and black eagles. They were gathered in a small circle in the centre of the room.

‘Ghost Dancers,’ my interpreter, Marta, explained. ‘It was after the white men took over. They danced all night and day to bring back their lost world, to see the buffalo again, to meet their ancestors. They thought that dancing until they fell exhausted on to the earth was what it took.’

‘Did it work out?’ Orlando asked.

Marta shrugged. ‘What do you think? Eventually they got wiped out by soldiers at Wounded Knee.’

‘How come Antony Amos is into all this old stuff?’ Aaron kept talking to disguise the fact that he was growing more on edge by the minute. His nerves were strung out, waiting for his first chance to see Holly and talk to her, while my own stomach was in knots wondering if, after all, Jarrold would appear. I stared hard at the Ghost Dancers, thinking that he might be amongst them, then at the group gathered with Kaylee, Jude and Grace by the bar.

I had no luck spotting him so I turned back to the onscreen action. By this time the drowning girl had sunk into an underwater cave. Her eyes were open but she looked dead. Eerie music – mainly drums and steel guitar – played on the soundtrack.

Then suddenly the images faded as the lights in the room brightened and the guests of honour walked in through the main door.

Aurelie led the way looking spectacular in a long white skirt and fringed tunic embroidered in blue. Her short black hair was tucked behind her ears and she wore hooped silver earrings. Jean-Luc was next, also dressed in white, with a sky-blue neckerchief and a broad blue belt – following the party theme but looking ill at ease. I decided straight away that he was only here because his sister had put pressure on him. Third came Richard Ziegler, looking as if he’d reverted to his young days as a stuntman and body double, stripped to the waist, with his torso and face streaked with red and black paint, looking stunning and sinister.

He came ahead of the guest of honour, Antony himself, who wore a simple, black collarless shirt and black trousers. He smiled and walked, attracting every gaze in the room, basking in the attention.

I glanced at the screen and took in some last, fading images of the drowned girl.

She glides between black rocks, her pale face glows amongst skulls and bones. She is me again. She has my face, my long dark hair.

Water fills her lungs, air bubbles from the corner of her mouth. She prays in the church with ghosts, with Conner. The waterlogged walls shake, the praying skeletons disintegrate and float away. The walls cave inwards, the steeple comes crashing down.

My visions were back with a vengeance and I realized how hard I had grasped Orlando’s hand as Antony Amos came into the room.

Aurelie’s party plan was in full swing. On screen the movie was over and there was now a video compilation of various musicians and singers – all favourites of her stepfather’s from the seventies and eighties. They turned up the volume, cleared a central space and we watched people start to dance, only a few at first, until Aurelie came round and drew people on to the floor. She had Jean-Luc in tow, and when she came to where I was standing with Aaron and Orlando, she smiled her charming smile and said she was sure Orlando wouldn’t mind if I danced with her brother, because after all he was leaving for Paris in two days’ time. Before I knew it I was in a clinch, slow-dancing with Jean-Luc and she was in a dark corner with Orlando, hand-gesturing, explaining something, always smiling.

‘So, Tania,’ Jean-Luc began as we turned on the spot in the middle of the crowded floor. His white shirt stood out in the dim, multi-coloured light, his cheeks were smoothly shaved and he smelled good. ‘How did the wild walking turn out for you?’

‘Interesting,’ I replied cagily. ‘After a day or two I kind of got it.’

He smiled. ‘You connected with the spirit of the place?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You bonded with your band?’

‘Again, maybe.’

‘Some members more than others?’ Jean-Luc asked with his knowing smile. ‘So tell me – how was Jarrold?’

If I was cagey before, this question made me totally clam up. ‘Jarrold was Jarrold,’ I muttered. No way would I tell Jean-Luc that The Outsider had got too close and declared his feelings for me.

‘He’s unique, for sure.’ Steering me to the edge of the dance floor, Jean-Luc took my hand and led me outside. ‘Walking in the sight of the Great Creator with Jarrold is quite an experience. Did you know that practically every girl who walks in the wilderness with him comes back head over heels in love, despite the fact that our guiding principles forbid it?’

‘No!’ I gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘Does he come with a health warning?’

‘But apparently not you, Tania. You escaped with your heart in one piece?’ Jean-Luc’s tone was light but his gaze was pretty intense out there under a moonlit sky.

‘The snow clouds cleared,’ I murmured, looking up at the stars. There was a pause and then I said, ‘I’m sorry you’re leaving.’

‘You know how it is. I don’t do well here. I prefer the city.’

‘Aurelie says she will miss you like crazy.’

‘She’s my twin. We’ve always been close,’ he admitted. ‘But I live my own life. I knew I wouldn’t stay here at New Dawn, even before my mother died.’