TWYLA WATCHED DAWN, THE SO-CALLED BIRTHDAY GIRL, PUSH TO HER feet and step to the center of the circle. She tried to ignore the pain in her shoulders as the man squeezed her arms behind her back.
She’d known he was no good from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, this too-handsome young actor with lips as delicate as a seashell’s edge and catlike eyes that slid past you when you spoke to him. You couldn’t trust someone who looked that way.
Klondike had been the first to know, of course, that Mia Meadows and her boyfriend were no good. The big wolf dog had tried to warn Twyla. She should have listened better: Animals always saw the truth. They were incapable of seeing anything else.
If only humans could be so pure.
She thought of Nocturne and Diurn, the image of their empty stall and pen. The two gates wide open. Tears burned in her eyes, and she resisted the urge to scream.
And Arnold. Where was he?
She glanced at Sibyl, seated at Twyla’s feet, facing away. She tried to communicate a message to her. If Sibyl had taught Twyla anything, it was to believe in the power of the mind.
Twyla stared at the back of Sibyl’s head and told her friend, using only her mind, what she needed her to do.
Then Twyla took the deepest prana breath and asked the goddess to please, please help her.