CHAPTER 5
“Well, that worked out well.”
Lexi didn’t believe “worked out well” adequately rose to the occasion. But she recognized the voice. It belonged to Marge, her former therapist, former best friend and surrogate mother figure. And her biggest betrayer.
Lexi was lying on the ground. She wasn’t able to move and she didn’t know why, other than her arms and legs refused to push her upright. It was a little humiliating when she thought about it. A little bizarre. But Marge seemed to take everything in stride, looking sophisticated and motherly at the same time. The older woman fit the wilderness environment as comfortably as she did the cozy therapy office in Rock Cove. She was tall and blue-eyed and there was a man walking at her side. A tall man, well-built with mink-colored hair, wearing jeans and a black sweater that caressed his shoulders.
Lexi wanted to think about that for a moment, think about why her friend would have lied about having a man in her life.
Lexi thought Marge lived alone; it was one of the reasons they’d bonded, but it was definitely not the reality. The man leaned in, pressed his lips to Marge’s temple, whispered something that made the woman laugh. It was an intimate laugh, the kind of laugh a woman only gave to one man. The sun shifted behind a swift moving little cloud and came out again. Lexi glanced around the empty landscape before looking back at Marge.
The couple approached, the men doing the forearm grab men do when they’re part of the tribe. It took a few moments. Marge was standing to the side wearing a plaid shirt in shades of green with khaki slacks and boots. The sunlight caught in her honey-blond hair, making it shimmer around her shoulders.
“What did you do, Christan?” Marge was looking in Lexi’s direction, while everyone else seemed to be waiting, tense.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t keep putting her on the ground every time you lose an argument.”
“I wasn’t losing.”
“Well, you still can’t do it, it’s considered abusive now. Go on, let her up.”
The predator tipped his head arrogantly, widened his stance and crossed his arms against his chest. His expression hardened. The breeze skittered and gritty bits of sand drifted in the air before Arsen moved his hand. The pressure holding Lexi eased. Christan waited until she was on her hands and knees and then flicked his hand again. She went down. Hard. Marge looked at Christan and her eyebrow flicked up.
“What are you, three years old? Let her up, Christan.”
He did nothing. Marge’s expression could have brought a grown man to his knees, if that man had been so inclined. Christan obviously wasn’t inclined. Marge blew out an irritated breath.
“Please,” she said after a moment. “Robbie needs to set up the canopy and I want it overlooking the river.” Then, as if a bribe would work when intimidation hadn’t, she added, “He has cold beer.”
Marge turned, waving a hand toward the black vehicle, and the conversation ended unless they were doing the silent communication again. Lexi watched with growing indignation as the group moved away. Christan could damn well come back and let her up because she wanted the sand out of her mouth. And the ants. They were beginning to concern her. She wondered if they knew she’d murdered one of their own.
But more than that, she wanted to know what the hell was going on, especially with the hand flicky thing Christan used to put her on the ground. She squeezed her eyes closed and then opened them. Men began carrying a small table and chairs to the hill Marge had chosen for her last stand. A white canopy went up, stakes pounded into the ground with rhythmic thuds—a medieval pavilion where the lords and ladies came to enjoy the carnage. All that was missing were the bright streamers and men on stomping horses.
Christan had moved back into her range of vision but there was no sense of relief. The man was arrogant. When he walked past without even acknowledging her, the wave of remembered loneliness was crushing.
You’re old enough to understand, Galaxy, her mother had said as she’d walked away. Their last conversation, probably the only truthful conversation they’d ever had. Her mother wanted a life and there’d been no room for a child. It was better that way, the way it ended, with a child and a stuffed bear and a mother disappearing in the mist.
It taught Lexi an insight she appreciated to this day. Life was limited in what the heart could absorb. Most hearts overflowed with the crap people drug around, so there wasn’t any point trying to get in if there wasn’t any room.
Nor was there any point in asking this man for anything. He would have nothing to give.
When the pavilion was finished, Lexi waited while Arsen approached. He looked guilty in his flowered Hawaiian shirt, but forgiveness was not an option. When he flicked his hand, she stumbled to her feet and took two rapid steps backward. Knocked his fingers away when he tugged a twig from her hair. The white tee shirt she wore had a red smudge near the waist and Lexi decided it was time to reset the ground rules.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away right now.”
Arsen rocked back on his heels. He glanced at the ground, where the hollow in the sand matched the shape of her hip, then back to her face as she stood with her back to the rocks. A blond eyebrow arched.
It was all the reason she was going to get.
Lexi scrubbed both palms against her jeans, knocking away some of the sandy grit still clinging to her thighs. Arsen’s arms were crossed against his chest and he was doing something suspicious with his mouth. Lexi realized he was trying not to laugh. She wasn’t ready to see the humor in the situation.
“I hold grudges, Bucko, and I won’t forget this,” she said, ignoring his growing smirk.
“Get in line, Slick, and you won’t be alone.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“Not my story to tell.”
A table had been set up beneath the shade. Beside it sat a white picnic cooler. Marge held a bag of ice and Lexi wondered whose story she was going to hear. Wondered why her best friend, her therapist and mother figure needed a wilderness to tell her a truth. Defeat was conceded when Lexi pushed the hair from her eyes.
“Does Marge have anything to drink?”
“Water, beer or wine?”
“Which one will I need?”
“I’d go with the wine. You want red or white?”
“Red if Marge has it. It matches the smudge on my shirt.”
Arsen laughed, a friendly sound as they walked up the hill to where the canopy burned white in the summer heat. The distant Snake River twisted like a silver thread beneath rocky cliffs woven in shades of red and gold. Heated juniper, rich and sappy like pine, scented the air in an empty landscape filled with wrinkled hills and rugged ravines. The blue smudge in the distance was probably the Seven Devils, mountain peaks edging canyons deeper than those of the Grand Canyon.
A hawk screeched, high in the sky. The sun was beginning to tip toward the west and Lexi hoped Marge would wrap up her little meeting before late afternoon; evening would descend rapidly and she had no intention of spending the night in this wilderness. Lexi could camp just fine, didn’t mind the dirt—being on her own was what she loved about her location research. But she did it alone and that was the point. No friends. No forced conversations. Nothing but the earth memories, whispering.
They reached the pavilion where a table sat in the shade, covered with a white cloth. There were chairs enough for four. Since there were five of them, Lexi was wondering about the seating when Marge gave her a little hug.
“Have some wine,” the woman said. Her voice was husky and rich, and she added, “I brought those sandwiches you like. Arsen, please move her chair over, the sun is still in her eyes.”
The woman was ordering the men about; they obeyed like young boys. Arsen arranged the chair to Marge’s satisfaction. Lexi sat down. Someone placed a glass in her hand. In the silence that followed, Lexi took a hesitant sip. Marge was making an effort. It was a very nice wine.
When Marge was happy with her arrangements, she settled in a chair across from Lexi. The man with her was introduced as Robbie, although once he’d been called Raziel, Marge added as if sharing a conspiratorial secret. Arsen joined them while Christan kept his distance.
“Why are we here, Marge?”
The woman sighed and began the explanations, telling Lexi in a calm voice about the man who had been ransacking the cedar-shingled cottage. How Lexi had come home and found him there. He’d chased her down to the beach where she’d tripped on an exposed rock and hit her head. Lexi had been unconscious—well, sleeping heavily, was the way Marge phrased it despite the skepticism in Lexi’s eyes. Fortunately, Arsen and Christan had been nearby, to which Lexi made a rude noise before Marge continued.
“The man was retrieving several cameras. Small, micro—you wouldn’t have noticed. That’s how they got the photos you found.”
“So, the file wasn’t yours?”
“No.” And Marge added that a recording device had also been retrieved, an idea Lexi found both alarming and suspicious, since she rarely had conversations so there would be nothing to record.
“More of a playback machine,” Marge clarified, shifting uncomfortably. “There was a meditation program with a subliminal message, timed to play between three and four in the morning when your night terrors would strike. The cameras recorded your reactions.”
Memories of a pounding heart and being unable to move. Lexi said, “Those were dreams, Marge, traces of psychic energy, damned anxiety over traffic in town or too much caffeine. What could be so interesting someone would try to trigger them?”
The edge of the white pavilion fluttered in the breeze, reflecting bright crescents of yellow light. Lexi studied the expression on Marge’s face. There were secrets in the woman’s eyes—the kind of secrets that never turned out to be good, or they wouldn’t have been secrets in the first place.
“Don’t you find it a little odd,” the therapist asked, “that someone wants to force you to dream?”
“What I find a little odd,” the patient replied, “are cameras in my cottage and a therapist who brings me into the wilderness instead of going to the police.”
“It’s better to keep this low profile. In house.” Marge stared at the tufts of grass growing near the edge of the pavilion. “Letting Arsen deal with it.”
“Arsen,” Lexi repeated. Someone settled in a chair. Marge found the grass too interesting to ignore. Then she tipped her head to one side as if she was thinking.
“Do you remember your fascination with ancient myth?”
The conversations late into the night, the philosophical ramblings which Marge enjoyed. Lexi indulged her friend but was honest enough to admit her own curiosity. She found the stories about magical beings and immortal wars more fascinating than real life, especially the Wandjina stories, the origin myths from Australia about warriors who were both animals and men, created eons ago.
“What did you like best about the Wandjina stories?” Marge asked.
Lexi shrugged. “I liked the idea of men shifting into animals I guess, I don’t really know why.”
“What if the Wandjina stories were true?”
Silence all around. Eyes, watching every movement, waiting for a reaction while male bodies remained ready and relaxed. Lexi realized her migraine was back, pinging behind her right eye and making it difficult to focus.
“I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Marge.”
“I’m telling you a simple truth. Myth can be based upon fact, and fact exists.”
“Those myths are thousands of years old.”
“That doesn't make the underlying source less real.”
“You’re telling me you think the ability to shift into different shapes actually exists?”
“For some, yes,” Marge said evenly. “I’ve watched men do it, shift into another creature and then shift back again.”
Lexi set down her glass and stood, walked away from the table until she was in the sun. Blond hair spilled around her shoulders, the pale ends littered with grass from when she’d been hard on the ground. The impressions of her hip, her shoulder, were still visible in the sand. That had to tell her something if she wanted to think about it.
Behind her, the rustle of cloth as Marge moved. The chink of china as a glass brushed against a plate.
“Come back and sit down,” Marge said. “It’s hot in the sun.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“I understand this must feel strange to you.”
“It’s not in the normal realm of experience,” agreed Lexi.
“Unless you consider your own paranormal talent. Some would argue your ability to see residual earth memories couldn’t possibly exist—because such things are beyond their experience. But you know it’s real and post-cognition seems quite normal from your perspective.”
“I know, Marge.” This was her friend, who hadn’t doubted when she learned of Lexi’s sensitivities. “I’m sure you’re trying to make a point and I’m being rude about it.” But she didn’t sit down.
“I want to tell you a story,” Marge said. “And I want you to reserve judgment until I’m finished. Will you promise?”
“No.”
“Relax. It’s a love story. You like those.”
“Not particularly.”
“You’ll want to hear this one, though. It’s one of my favorites.”
Of course it was. And it probably involved Robbie.
There was stubborn, and there was foolish. Lexi was without allies, in the middle of a wilderness, and the keys to the only vehicle in sight were not in her possession.
She crossed her arms and walked with jerky movements to rejoin the group around the table. It wasn’t until she sat down that Lexi realized her action for what it was: a defensive gesture that would not protect her once the secrets were revealed.