Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley

by Danyl McLauchlan

  Danyl gritted his teeth and turned away. He struck the couch with his palm and tugged on the door handle but it was stuck firm. And this was how Verity found him, grunting and flailing and kicking his legs in the air.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked again, looking at him over the bridge of her sunglasses. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking sexy and angry but mostly angry, her face lit by the pale morning sunlight.

  Danyl wriggled out from under the couch. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t begin to . . . Are those grass stains on my Sylvia Gold couch?’

  ‘I think those were there before.’

  ‘Danyl, why is my couch outside?’

  He sucked his teeth in irritation. ‘Obviously, I was robbed and the thieves threw your couch out the window. Now I’m shifting it back.’

  ‘You were robbed? What did they take?’

  ‘Just a box.’

  ‘What box?’

  Danyl hesitated. Should he explain about the stolen, re-stolen box? Sutcliffe Parsons? Bludkraft? The mysterious treasure? ‘Just a box,’ he said casually, ‘containing some items of sentimental value.’

  ‘You don’t own any items of sentimental value. Why did the thieves shift my couch?’

  ‘How should I know? Did you want something. Verity?’ He stood up. ‘Or are you just here to cross-examine me?’

  ‘Actually I came to take care of you.’ She gestured at the suitcase at her feet. ‘After you left the gallery yesterday I felt sorry for you so I decided to move back in while your ankle heals.’

  Danyl beamed. ‘That’s great!’

  ‘Yeah. How is your ankle, by the way?’

  He shifted his weight. His crutches were inside, leaning against the wall in the toilet. ‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘Obviously there’s a lot of pain—’

  ‘You look fine.’

  ‘I have good days and bad days. Also, I’m on a drug that mitigates—’

  ‘Totally fine. Like you were never even hurt.’

  Danyl began an outraged reply, and then stopped. It did look kind of like that, didn’t it. What should he do? Tell Verity the truth? No, don’t be an idiot. Distract her. So he said, ‘I can explain. Come inside. There’s something you need to see.’

  He led Verity down the hall, confident that the site of the kitchen ceiling ripped out would divert attention from his injury, or lack of it. But she entered the room, glanced at the carnage and said, ‘Oh. They got us too. What does this have to do with your ankle?’

  ‘Us too? What do you mean? Has this happened before? Who are they?’

  ‘Don’t you have any idea what’s going on in this valley?’ Verity leaned against the kitchen bench and gestured at the timber frame above their heads; the hollowed-out room above it. ‘Dozens of houses around Te Aro have been attacked like this. No one knows who’s behind it. People just come home and find a room in their house gone. It’s been happening for almost a year.’

  Danyl scratched his head. ‘Dozens of houses? This is the first I’ve heard about it.’

  ‘I told you about it last month, when Eleanor got back from holiday and found her baby’s room gutted.’

  ‘I have no memory of that conversation.’

  ‘That’s because you were in bed, trying to sleep at two in the afternoon.’ Verity turned away and spoke to the wall. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘About what? The kitchen? This just means we have more natural light.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do about us. I moved out because you were sick. I wasn’t helping. All my friends told me to leave you—’

  ‘They told you what?’

  ‘And I thought it would be good for you to be alone for a while. I thought it would force you to live in the real world.’ She sighed and said helplessly, ‘Maybe I’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘You have,’ replied Danyl gently. ‘But now you’re fixing that mistake and moving back. I’ll go get your suitcase.’ He headed for the front door and then added, fatally, ‘You’ll be sleeping with me, of course. Unless you’d feel more comfortable in the spare room?’

  ~

  Verity’s suitcase bounced and rolled on a crack in the footpath then tipped onto its side. Danyl cursed, picked it up and set it on its wheels again and continued to drag it up Aro Street towards Holloway Road. He hurried to catch up with Verity who was some distance ahead of him, reading the newspaper and sipping from a takeaway cup of coffee she’d made Danyl pay for, and which he could ill afford.

  While he walked, he thought. Other houses in the valley were attacked. What did that mean? That Parsons wasn’t responsible? But then why was the box taken? Was it a coincidence that the room was destroyed just after Stasia left? Maybe she didn’t drug him after all. But why did he sleep through the destruction of the spare room? What did she do to his ankle? When would it wear off?

  He resolved to march into the Wellness Centre and confront Stasia with these questions. Verity was forcing him to carry her suitcase back to her new home, and then, she had explained in withering tones, he could pick up his box—which was still sitting on her porch—and get it out of her sight. After he finished these errands, he promised himself, he’d storm the Wellness Centre and demand answers.

  And then—his mind drifted—there were more mysteries to solve. Parsons. Bludkraft. The treasure. The Order and the temple. The well. He looked at Verity, striding ahead of him. Maybe she knew something useful?

  ‘Verity?’

  She stopped and turned. Danyl drew even with her and asked, ‘Do you know of a temple somewhere in the Aro Valley?’

  ‘A temple?’

  ‘Yeah. Or any building that might have been called a temple, say, ninety years ago.’

  She thought for a while. ‘There’s the synagogue on Webb Street. And the Theosophical building on Marion Street opened sometime back in the 1890s. They aren’t really in the valley, though. I can’t think of a temple.’

  ‘How about a well?’

  She thought some more. ‘There’s an old well at the top of Epuni Street. There’s a trail at the top of the road, and you walk along it until you get to a clearing. The well’s around there somewhere. You’d have to search for it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ They walked together in a not-uncomfortable silence, the morning sun prolonging their shadows before them. Presently Verity said, ‘When I was young I spent months searching for a well.’

  ‘What well?’

  ‘Didn’t I ever tell you that story? The farm near my mother’s house? The secret well?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  So she told him.

  ‘The house I grew up in was right on the edge of our suburb, and next to it was a large farm. When I was ten the farmer went bankrupt, and the bank auctioned the place off. The new owner wasn’t a farmer—no one knew who he was or what he did. He moved in and abandoned the place to the wilderness.

  ‘That summer I spent most of my holiday exploring the farm. There were streams to paddle in, old barns with collapsed roofs, dirt roads blocked by fallen trees. I’d just been given my first camera, and I took hundreds of pictures each day and developed them in a darkroom I built in our garden shed at home.

  ‘The first few times I went to the farm I was afraid the new owner would see me and yell at me, or even chase me. So I kept close to the edge of the property, always ready to run. But the whole place seemed abandoned, except for the crumbling old house hidden within the trees at the south end of the property, where I sometimes heard the drone of a car engine, or saw lights shining in the distant windows.

  ‘So I forgot about the reclusive new owner and roamed about his land at will, until one day at the height of summer he caught me. I was building a dam. I’d taken off my shoes and waded into the middle of the stream, where I built a barrier of stones—then I saw him reflected in the bri
mming pool: a tall man with ginger hair and sunken, haunted eyes, watching me. My shoes were upstream, so I couldn’t run away. But he didn’t yell, or chase me. Instead he waved.

  ‘I waved back and started to explain myself, apologise, I begged him not to complain to my mother—but he just sat down on the far bank and asked me what I was looking for.

  ‘I told him I wasn’t looking for anything. He smiled. “You come to my farm everyday,” he replied. “Alone. You must be looking for something.” As he talked he unlaced his boots and rolled his trousers up to his knees.

  ‘I didn’t answer. Instead I backed away, wondering if I could reach the bank, get my shoes on and make it to the trees before he caught me. But he didn’t enter the stream. He just slipped off his boots and paddled his broad, hairy feet in the water, and, still not looking directly at me, said, “Well, I’m here because I’m searching for something. And sometimes when we search long enough, we find something we weren’t expecting, and sometimes that thing is better than the thing we sought.”

  ‘When he said this I stopped backing away; my feet settled into the warm mud at the shallow edge of the stream, and I listened as he told me a story. “Somewhere in the wilds of this farm,” he said, “is an old abandoned stone well. If you find this well and climb inside it all the way to the bottom you can ask any question—any question at all—and you will instantly know the correct answer.”

  ‘So you could ask the well if there was a God, or how long you’d live, or what the next winning lottery numbers would be, and the well would tell you. The catch was that once you left the well, your entire memory of the experience was erased, including the answers to your questions and the location of the well. He told me that the well was to the north somewhere, between the farmhouse and the sea, and not south between the house and the road, and that I was free to search for it for as long as I liked, on two conditions. I had to keep an eye out for any other strangers on his farm, and warn him if I saw anyone. Just come to my house, he said, and shout out. But don’t come too close. Second, I had to leave my camera at home. I wasn’t allowed to take any photos of his farm.

  ‘I agreed, and I spent the rest of the summer scouring this large and very wild area. I never took any pictures or saw any strangers, and at the end of a long sunlit day searching for the well I often emerged from the trees onto the rocky, desolate coastline at the distant end of the farm, wondering whether I’d failed to find the well, or if I’d found it and learned the answers to many secret questions and then forgotten everything. I took a pen and paper with me so that if I found the well I could write down the answers, but at the end of each day the paper was always blank.

  ‘As I searched I grew more sceptical. I wondered how the man knew of the well’s existence. If you forgot if you found it, how did he know about it? Eventually I realised he’d tricked me—there was no well, and I was the butt of a malicious joke. I felt ashamed and stopped visiting the farm.

  ‘But I later found out that it wasn’t just a joke. The man was a fugitive from justice. At the end of the summer the police raided his farm. He was manufacturing drugs in a makeshift laboratory hidden among the trees at the south end of the property. When I heard this I realised that the well was just a distraction to keep me away from his lab, and have me act as his lookout.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ asked Danyl.

  ‘He fled before the police arrived. They never caught him.’

  ‘Is the farm still there?’

  ‘No. It’s all subdivided. Turned into suburban sprawl.’ She gave Danyl a sad smile.

  ‘I guess he didn’t find whatever it was he was looking for.’

  Verity’s smile died. ‘He found it,’ she said, turning away. They walked side by side now, and she nudged against him, absently. He brushed his hand against hers, their fingers entwined for a second and his mood soared. How nice it was to walk along the street with a pretty girl, even if the pretty girl was only Verity. He knew she would come back to him. Not today—she was still too angry. But soon, and then his life would return to normal. Verity made his days so much more comfortable and convenient; she was worth the countless minor irritations. He smiled at her, she smiled back; their hands brushed again.

  Yes. Back to normal. Better than normal. He was at peace with Campbell now. He thought about his box waiting for him on Verity’s front porch. He thought about what was inside it, and a sense of joy, of limitless possibility, bubbled up and he burst into a childlike smile. His luck was changing.

  They reached the bottom of Holloway Road. Although the day was sunny, the road lay steeped in shadows cast by the trees crowding the hills of the valley.

  Now a pall fell over his good mood as he thought about the old house at the end of the street, where he’d accidentally stolen the Satanist’s box. He remembered the open door leading into darkness, the mad old man attacking him with a shovel, the faceless figure watching him from the window. A gust of wind sent dead leaves scattering along the road; its chill fingers picked at his cheer. He felt a sudden, irrational aversion to Holloway Road. It was a sinister, evil street. It was—he remembered from nowhere—the oldest street in the valley.

  ‘How far up are you?’ he asked, slowing his pace. Verity wrapped her tiny, warm hand around his arm.

  ‘Right at the beginning.’

  ~

  Danyl lay on the bed, naked and pink. A storm raged outside, casting sheets of sleet against the window of his apartment. The wind screamed like a creature in pain.

  A champagne bottle stood on the stand at the end of the bed. Next to it was a large cardboard box tied with a red ribbon.

  He slapped his hands on the sheets. He was bored now. He’d been waiting a while. From behind the door to the bathroom came the sounds of clothes rustling, taps running. The zipping and unzipping of zips.

  This was a weird situation. He barely knew this girl. Verity was cute, sure, but he wasn’t sure he even liked her. He’d tried to be friendly when they met, and she ignored him. Then, out of nowhere, she invited him to a party, asked him about his life and then kissed him. And now, here they were. His bedroom. His birthday.

  They had the building to themselves. Campbell’s DoorWay Project had achieved ‘a breakthrough’ a few days ago—Danyl had no idea what that meant, or even what Campbell was trying to do—but he’d taken his disciples off on a weekend camping trip to celebrate, leaving Danyl and Verity alone in the tower.

  A camping trip. Danyl looked at the torrents of icy rain outside and smiled.

  He had planned to spend the weekend writing. His book was going well; he wrote every day, every spare moment he could snatch from Campbell’s foul presence, and he had plenty of ideas to get down. But that morning Verity knocked on his door. She’d found out it was his birthday, somehow, and suggested they spend the weekend together.

  So here they were: Danyl naked on the bed, waiting. Verity in his bathroom, doing . . . what?

  He looked at the box sitting at the end of the bed. His birthday present. Whatever it was, it was big—about the size of a microwave. There was a red ribbon taped to the top. The writing on the side of the box read: ‘Saltwater Sponge Gametes. Please keep refrigerated’. It was a cast-off from one of the DoorWay Project shipments.

  What did Campbell need sponge eggs for? Danyl didn’t know, and didn’t really want to know. But speaking of gametes . . . He frowned and glared at the bathroom door. There was silence from the room beyond. How much longer did his own gametes have to wait?

  Maybe she’d fled? Perhaps she’d glimpsed him naked through the keyhole and realised her mistake, and climbed through the bathroom window and into the storm: around to the fire escape, up onto the roof and back to her apartment to laugh at him.

  But no, more rustling sounds emerged from the bathroom. He sighed and slapped the sheets again.

  Then the door opened. Verity appeared.

  She wore, d
isappointingly, a green kimono, with a towel wrapped around her head. Danyl had assumed she’d emerge in lingerie, maybe some kind of bondage gear. What was she doing in the bathroom all that time?

  She said, ‘Hello, birthday boy.’

  ‘Hey there.’ Maybe she had something sexy on under the kimono? Danyl sat up, trying to get a glimpse of her legs. If she wore stockings or high heels then that was a good sign. But she crossed the room and stood at the end of the bed, her lower front quadrant out of sight.

  ‘You get two presents today,’ she said, sounding playful, but unable to hide an undercurrent of nervousness. ‘Present one. This box.’ She placed her left hand on it. ‘And present two . . .’ She smiled and twirled the tassel of her silk robe. ‘Which do you want first?’

  ‘The box!’ Verity looked surprised and hurt by this response, so he added, ‘Let’s save the best for last.’

  She smiled thinly, now openly anxious. ‘What’s inside this box . . .’ She hesitated. ‘You remember the other night, walking home from the party, I told you I had a secret.’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Well, when you see what’s in here, it might surprise you.’

  ‘I like surprises. A little. Well, sometimes.’

  She turned away and faced the window. He craned forward to see her calves, sitting back as she faced him again. Now she looked downright miserable. ‘Go ahead,’ she urged. ‘Open it.’

  He crossed the bed on his hands and knees, untied the ribbon atop the box and opened the lid. It was mostly empty. At the bottom of the box was a thick, textbook-sized stack of paper. Danyl peered inside. The title on the top page read ‘The Book of Danyl’.

  It was his novel.

  He said, ‘Oh.’

  He sat back on the bed and crossed his legs. He felt naked. Well, he was naked, but now he felt vulnerable. He covered himself with a pillow.