AS SOON as she was out of sight of the Sanctuary, Vivian tried to call Troy to warn him. He wasn’t picking up. He’d mentioned his mother was on shift that night, so she went through Shelley’s texts to try and decipher where she might have started working, but this turned up no clues – they were mostly from Troy, asking what was for dinner, or where his bandana was, or if she’d seen his phone charger. Vivian went to their house on Vista Street and then the motel, but found them both dark and empty. She spent the next hour or so wandering around town, peering into shops and bars to see if she could find Shelley at work. It got dark.
In an alley that ran parallel to the main highway she saw a woman struggling with two large black garbage bags. She was wearing shapeless overalls and dragging the bags over the concrete and one of the bags had split, leaving a trail of something that looked like chicken carcasses behind it. Vivian crossed the road to pass her by. Only when the woman moved under a cone of orange street light did Vivian recognise her.
“Shelley?”
Shelley hefted one of the bags into a dumpster that was chained to the street light. She tried to lift the other one and its split widened and the entirety of its contents fell onto the pavement and her shoes.
“Ah shit…” she muttered.
“Shelley?” said Vivian again, and crossed back over the street. “It’s me. It’s Vivian.”
Shelley shook the chicken bones from her feet and trousers and looked at her.
“Hey,” she said. And then, very quietly, almost embarrassed, “Blessings.”
“Where are you working?” she asked. She looked along the alley and saw the dusty back entrances to the shops that lined the 55. Fire escapes and air conditioning units and piles of garbage.
“The Chinese place.”
“Wing’s?”
“Said I could start straight away. So here I am.”
“Listen, Shelley…”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” said Shelley.
“It’s about that. I need to tell you something.”
There was a yell from the back of the restaurant.
“I’m busy, Vivian.”
“It’s important.”
“Tell me while I work. I don’t want to start and lose a job in the same evening.”
Shelley looked despondently at the mess she’d made of the pavement, then clutched at a gemstone that was hanging around her neck, whispered something, and turned to go back up the alley. Vivian followed her.
In the kitchen of Wing’s, the owner was trying to monitor three different pans at once while the microwave’s alarm went on and on. Something was definitely burning. There was a wailing sound, too, almost the same timbre as the microwave. Vivian pursued Shelley to the pot-wash area and found Chason, the child, attached to the sink by a kind of leash. He’d pulled the rope tight and Vivian nearly tripped over it and swore.
“Sorry,” said Shelley. She began scrubbing at the dishes. “I couldn’t leave him at home by himself.”
Vivian looked down at the miserable creature. He blubbed at her under a thick fringe of black hair. She undid the harness on him and picked him up. She was surprised by how heavy he was.
“Where’s Troy? I couldn’t get through to him.”
“Smoking in his bedroom, I think.”
“Oh.” She let the child tug at her hood. “I have your phone by the way.”
“You do?” said Shelley, and she brightened slightly. “Oh, bless you. I thought I’d dropped it somewhere.”
Vivian fished for it with one hand and put it on the counter. “You know,” said Shelley, “you really shouldn’t have that. The radiation. It’s the wrong frequency. It disrupts the Violet Waves.”
“Uh-huh.”
Chason pulled on the hood so strongly it nearly choked her, and she had to prise his little hands from it.
“Wait, how come you have a phone?” said Vivian. “If, you know, the frequency is so bad for your energy?”
Shelley stared at her with her mouth half open. She was spared having to reply by the owner, who was now plating up the contents of the various pans with great dexterity.
“Take these out,” he said. “Couple at table four.”
“Me?” said Shelley.
“You work here, don’t you?”
“But look at me.”
She gestured down at her grubby overalls.
“Just take it. I’ve got to start cooking the next order. And who’s this?” He nodded at Vivian. “Weren’t you here the other day?” His face made a series of grotesque contortions. “Wait: do you want a table? Are you here to eat? I don’t… I don’t get it.”
“I’m just here to see Shelley.”
He frowned. The microwave beeped again, sounding like a fire alarm. He whirled around.
“I don’t need this,” he muttered.
Vivian spoke to Shelley quickly.
“I should go, but I thought you should know: some of the people from the Sanctuary are planning on doing something to your house. To pay you back for breaking the window.”
“Planning on doing what?”
The owner shouted again.
“Shelley, take that out.”
“I’ll be back in a sec,” said Shelley. “Watch Chason, would you?” She ruffled the boy’s hair. “Mommy will only be gone a little while, angel.”
Shelley dried her hands on her filthy apron and picked up a tray of meat and vegetables so red and glossy they looked like they had been lacquered. She disappeared around the corner of the kitchen while the owner continued to count on his fingers and mutter to himself. Chason looked at Vivian with his huge, wet eyes. Vivian felt suddenly awkward to be holding a baby and have nothing to say to it.
Shelley came back into the kitchen almost immediately, still holding the tray of dishes.
“What is it?” said the owner. “I told you, table four. Two of them. Man and a woman.”
“I can’t,” said Shelley. She put the tray down on the side.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I can’t go out there.”
“Why?”
Shelley looked at Vivian, as though she should already know the answer.
“It’s Shiv,” she said.
“Shiv?” said Vivian.
“And his wife.”
“Who the hell is Shiv?” said the owner.
“He runs the whole show!” said Shelley, as though both of them should know what that meant. “He’s the one who cast me from the Violet Path!”
“Hey,” said the owner, suddenly very serious. He stabbed a finger at her. “You told me you weren’t into all that. This isn’t one of your Telos places, you hear me? Never has been.”
“Is he from up the mountain?” asked Vivian.
Shelley nodded. “He’s the one who looks after all the schools. Glenn reported me to him. Oh, it’s too much, I don’t want to see him again, not like this…”
“Can someone just take him his goddamn food?”
“I’ll take it,” said Vivian.
“You?” said Shelley.
“I want to talk to him.”
She handed Chason to his mother and picked up the tray and went out into the red and gold décor of the restaurant.
Shiv and Judy were sitting in the exact spot where Vivian had met with Jerome and his wife. They weren’t talking. Shiv had his head down and was typing on a laptop. Judy had her back to Vivian, and was looking around the restaurant as though her eyes were following the path of a fly. Her globe of bronze-coloured hair quivered. She had changed out of her fuchsia trouser suit and was in a cardigan of the same colour.
Vivian watched them both for a moment, wondering whether it was a good idea to confront them or not. But her blood was up, after the talk with her mother, and her talk with Forrest, and her suspicions about Glenn.
Judy started speaking.
“I don’t like this place,” she said. “You know I don’t like it. My chakras are all over the place, Shiv, and you don’t care one bit.”
He didn’t reply.
“Why couldn’t we have gone to the teahouse? With everything that’s happened we could at least have gone somewhere to calm you down. Look at you. You’re on that thing twenty-four hours a day.”
“Another three sightings last night,” said Shiv, not looking up. “We’re going to have to go back up there. Charter a helicopter or something.”
“Again? Oh Shiv, please, can’t you just let him be.”
“Let him be?” said Shiv.
He looked up at his wife, then noticed Vivian. He stared at her.
“Shiv?” said Judy. “Honey?”
She turned in her seat.
“Oh my stars!” she said, and placed her fingers over her heart.
Vivian came forward with the tray and unloaded the dishes onto the table one by one. Husband and wife looked at her, and each other, in astonishment. Both of their mouths were slightly open.
“Hi,” said Vivian.
Neither said a word.
“Was that everything you ordered?”
Still nothing. A slight frown was creeping over Shiv’s forehead.
“I want to talk to you about Telos.”
“Excuse me?” said Shiv. He looked like he’d been confronted with a ghost.
“You’re a high-ranking Telurian. Right?”
Shiv looked at his wife again, then back at Vivian. Judy was playing nervously with her necklace, a string of pearls as big as cocktail onions.
“Who are you?” Shiv said.
“I’m Vivian Owens.”
“What are you doing here? In Mount Hookey, I mean?”
“I’m looking for my brother. Jesse. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
A tiny pause.
“I don’t know any Jesse,” he said.
“That’s what your wife said.” Vivian turned to Judy. “Why didn’t you tell me he’d stayed in the motel?”
Judy tugged on her necklace so hard that it broke, and the pearls flew onto the floor, and into the rice and the sticky red sauce.
“You two have met?” said Shiv, and he gave his wife a look that was unequivocally murderous.
Judy disappeared under the table to retrieve her lost pearls.
“Do you know Glenn?” Vivian asked. Shiv turned back to her but didn’t reply. “He told me that Jesse had gone up the mountain. He said he’d gone to Telos. But no one wants to tell me what or where Telos is. I’m not here to cause any trouble. I just want answers, and I don’t want to have to do your bullshit wellness course. Not anymore. You nearly got me. Nearly. But I think I’ll pass. Tell me where to find my brother.”
Shiv looked at her a while longer, seeming to weigh up what to say. He ran a hand through his silver hair. His wife still hadn’t emerged from under the table.
“You’re at the Sanctuary, are you?” said Shiv. “With Glenn?”
“That’s right.”
“And he knows you’re Jesse’s sister?”
“Of course he does.”
“And you haven’t heard from your brother at all?” His eyes were very steady all of a sudden.
“No. Nothing.”
“He hasn’t tried to contact you?”
“No.”
“And you haven’t seen him anywhere?”
She shook her head. It troubled her, when he said that.
Shiv sat back in his seat and studied her a while longer. He looked at his phone, typed something quickly, then closed the laptop and grabbed his sports jacket from the seat next to him.
“We need to go, darling,” he said. He threw a handful of dollar bills onto the table and grabbed his wife’s arm and hauled her upright. She was muttering something about the purifying effects of pearls.
“Wait, where are you going?”
Shiv shrugged on his jacket and left the booth. The owner of the restaurant suddenly appeared at Vivian’s shoulder.
“What happened?” he said, looking at the table of untouched food. “What did you do?”
Just as Shiv reached the door he turned and said in a loud voice, “You.”
The owner pointed at himself. “Me?”
“Send your tips to Telos or I’m closing this place down.”
Then he pushed through the door and into the street, watched by two other diners. Vivian went after them, but by the time she was out of the restaurant Shiv and Judy had got into the back of their black car and been driven away. They had a chauffeur. That didn’t seem very Mount Hookey at all.
“Oh Christ,” said the owner. “Shelley.” She appeared in the double doors. “Did you bring him here? Did you tell him?”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
“Seems like an inside job,” he muttered. “Did you tell him?” he said to Vivian.
“Not me,” she said, still staring after the car as it disappeared down the highway and took a right at the intersection.
“Well,” the owner said. “That’s that, then.”
He slumped into the booth and began to eat the couple’s leftovers with his fingers.
* * *
Vivian didn’t particularly want to go back to the Sanctuary but she needed to pick up the Carters’ envelope. She didn’t know what she’d tell Jerome, because the plan to complete the course undercover was plainly doomed, but she wasn’t going to just abandon the best part of three thousand dollars in cash.
When she got back the main room was half empty and the tarp that covered the window had come undone and was flapping over the floor like an injured bird. Forrest wasn’t there. Those who hadn’t gone with her watched Vivian uncertainly. She went through the bamboo door behind the kitchen and reached her bedroom, but stopped when she heard Glenn’s voice. He was in his office at the far end of the corridor. It was the only room that had a proper door, with a handle and a lock. He was talking to someone on the phone.
“I think you’re overreacting,” he said.
A pause. Vivian could hear the voice coming out of the phone was apoplectic about something. Glenn was bouncing a ball while he paced around his office.
“I understand that. But if you’d told me about the situation in the first place then perhaps I would have done things differently… Anyway, I think threat is rather an overstatement. If anything, she could actually help us out.”
More bouncing. Something getting knocked off a desk.
“I don’t know. They are twins… Oh come on, I don’t sound like one of them. It’s not hippy-dippy to suggest twins might have some kind of a connection. That’s science… And she said just this morning that she saw him…”
They were talking about Vivian, then.
“Yes really… No, I don’t think so, she’s not like that… Alright, alright. I’ll ask. But I don’t think we really have to…”
The voice on the other end got quieter.
“Because I like her,” said Glenn.
Another couple of quiet words.
“I don’t know, Shiv. I just like her. She’s cute.”
Vivian wanted to disappear into the hood of her coat and never come out again. Shiv – for it was he – raised his voice to such a volume that he sounded like a bird squawking.
“Okay, I’ll do it!” said Glenn. “Jeez Louise! Listen, while I have you, you know Shelley from House of Telos nearly killed me this—Hello?”
Glenn sighed heavily. There was a lot of shuffling around behind the door and Vivian retreated to her bedroom. He opened his door at the same time as she closed hers. She rolled onto her futon and lay in the dark, pretending to sleep as he wandered past. His footsteps were muffled. He must have been wearing slippers. The sound of her father, padding up and down the landing on his way to bed.
Glenn went past her room and out into the kitchen. Vivian pulled the covers up to her chin and felt her whole body shuddering in time with her heart. She had no idea whether she should stay or go. A minute passed. Then another.
Glenn pulled back the door. She yelped.
“Vivian?” he said. “Everything alright, dear heart?”
He was carrying a cup and saucer.
“I’ve been worrying about you all day,” he said. “After everything that happened this morning.”
She didn’t reply.
He sat on the futon next to her again. He placed the cup and saucer on the floor and took the sleeve of her anorak in his thumb and forefinger.
“You never take this thing off.” He leaned forwards so his face loomed in front of hers. “When I look at it, it makes me think of a chrysalis. You know what I mean? This is the old Vivian, isn’t it? You’re a beautiful butterfly under this.”
He jostled her playfully with his shoulder. She didn’t say anything.
“Listen to me!” he said. “Getting schmaltzy in my old age. Say, have you seen Forrest? I wanted to talk to you together, really. About what you said this morning. About this business up the mountain.”
Vivian sat perfectly still, unsure of the direction this was heading in. He looked at her over the top of his spectacles.
“You know, I should be angry with you. You’re not supposed to be up the mountain at all, given you’re only an initiate. It’s for your own safety, really. One glimpse of an Ascended Master will turn your mind and spirit to scrambled eggs. At least, it should. But then, here you are. That’s why I’m curious. Tell me, Vivian: what did you see?”
A few moments passed.
“I overheard you just now,” said Vivian.
“Excuse me?”
“Overheard you. On the phone.”
He furrowed his brow in disappointment and Vivian couldn’t help feeling that involuntary squirm of shame again.
“You were eavesdropping?”
“You were talking about me and Jesse.”
“Well, yes, if you must know, I was talking about you. I was talking to one of my superiors. We were discussing the possibility of accelerating your progress along the Violet Path, in light of everything that has happened.”
“You were talking to Shiv.”
“Talking to who?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Maybe you misheard. Sieve? Was I talking about a sieve? Or maybe the sheriff? I think I said something about a sheriff.”
“No, it wasn’t that.”
He smiled sympathetically. “Don’t worry, Vivian. I know the first few days of the Path can be disorientating. There’s a lot to take in, a lot of readjusting to do.” He paused. “That’s why I really want to get to the bottom of this John of Telos story that you and Forrest were telling. It may well be that you were yearning for ascension so much that you imagined something.”
“I didn’t imagine the phone call. I thought you weren’t allowed phones in the Sanctuary?”
“Didn’t stop you, did it, dear heart?”
Glenn kept smiling. How did he know? He tried to brush a strand of hair from out of her eyes and she slapped his hand away. He recoiled.
“I understand, Vivian. I do, really. You poor thing. You’ve had a heavy few days. That’s the only reason I’m here, really.” He nodded to the cup and saucer. “Drink your tea and get a good night’s sleep and we can discuss it in the morning.” He put the backs of his fingers against the cup. “Quickly,” he said, “it’s getting cold!” Then he squeezed Vivian’s shoulder, stood up, and left the room.
Vivian sat and didn’t move and didn’t drink the tea. She could feel things closing in around her. Where to next? Back to the motel? Up the mountain? The plan was ruined. To escape Glenn she’d have to leave town, maybe the country.
She waited for an hour until the Sanctuary was completely silent, then got changed and tucked the Carters’ envelope inside her coat and opened the door.
“Oh,” said Glenn.
He was still waiting outside the bedroom. He looked different somehow, in the way he was holding himself. She took a step back and squinted. For the first time since she’d arrived, he wasn’t in his robes. He was wearing dark slacks and a leather motorcyclist’s jacket, zipped to the top. Someone else was standing next to him in the darkness. Carl, she suspected.
Glenn looked at Vivian, then at the teacup still on the floor. He sighed.
“Still awake?”
“You’re not making this easy, dear heart.”
They stepped into the room and Glenn slid the door closed behind him. Carl produced something that looked like a tea towel, took a couple of paces forward. Before Vivian could do or say anything it was over her head and she smelled lavender, like the Sanctuary’s washing detergent, only much stronger and with a sweetness that was almost rotten, and the darkness of the hood was quickly replaced with a deeper darkness, which blossomed inside her head and rendered her numb and blissfully thoughtless.