by Laura Powell
‘I know who you are, ducky.’ He kissed my hand with a nod and a wink. ‘Welcome to me humble abode, Honoured Lady.’
The rock star was wearing the same sort of clothes as his daughter: tight ripped jeans, a studded T-shirt. His hair was black and shaggy too. But there the resemblance ended. Rick Moodie was tiny and wizened, with a yellowish face and a goblin grin.
‘This is just a temporary arrangement,’ he explained, waving his wrinkly hands. ‘The plan is to build a proper temple, like the one in London but bigger ’n’ better. Artemis will like it here. You’ll like it here. You’ll give more oracles – buckets of ’em. It’s the country air, you see. It’s holy. Purified.’
I nodded politely, and he lowered his voice to a confiding whisper. ‘I’ve talked with the goddess meself, you know. I had an overdose once, and she came to me in a vision. Queen of the freakin’ Beasts. She saved me for me music – that’s what people don’t understand. Like that High Bitch from your old cult. But you understand. You’ve been chosen by her, just like me.’
‘There you are, Dad,’ said Scarlet from the door. ‘Crystal’s been asking for you.’ Then, when he didn’t move, ‘She’s knocking back vodka for breakfast again.’
Rick Moodie reluctantly left the room, though not without blowing me a goodbye kiss. Scarlet lounged on one of the velvet seats and lit up a cigarette. ‘I thought an intervention was in order.’
I cast around for something polite to say. ‘Your father is very . . . enthusiastic.’
‘Nah, he’s just nuts.’ Her tone was indulgent, a parent humouring a wayward child. ‘At least his goddess fetish keeps him out of trouble.’
‘That might change if I’m here.’
She eyed me through the smoke. ‘You don’t think the army’s going to storm the place just to drag you home?’
‘No.’ I said it with more confidence than I felt. ‘I’ve always been free to leave the cult. Its leaders would like to shut me up, that’s all.’
‘Well, Dad can help with that. He’s got the contacts and the cash to make you mainstream. Or a lot harder to shut up anyway.’
‘That’s what Aiden says.’
‘You like him, don’t you?’
She was watching me closely. That was because she liked him, I realised. I could – should – have put her mind at rest. But somehow I didn’t feel the need.
‘I’m very grateful to Aiden,’ I said blandly. ‘We seem to have a natural connection.’
‘That’s because he’s always been the bleeding-heart, save-the-world type. So congrats on becoming his latest project.’ She took another drag of her cigarette. ‘You know, I’m totally in awe of you priestess types. A hundred per cent pure in thought, word and deed! It must take superhuman levels of self-control.’
I had a flashback to a midnight awakening: Aiden’s sleeping murmurs, his naked back in the moonlight. ‘Not really.’
The screen behind the statue kept changing. We’d moved from mountains to a ruined temple to a sunlit wood. The bright leaves and dark shadows reminded me of Titian’s painting of Actaeon, and not in a good way.
Scarlet must have seen my expression change. ‘Seriously,’ she said, ‘if it was me, I’d go mad.’
Chapter 14
The Cult of Artemis has been favoured with a second oracle, predicting a new age of peace and prosperity. Witnesses described the priestess responsible as ‘serene and radiant’. The leader of the Emergency Committee, Malcolm Greeve, will receive a private oracle from her later this week.
The cult plans to honour his visit by sponsoring a chain of inner-city food banks. Food prices rose to a record high last month but, says a cult spokesperson, ‘Artemis will provide.’
BBC News
I was given an enormous room decorated with metallic paint and studded leather. The bed was not much smaller than the swimming pool and I fell upon it with a little sob of relief.
I slept deeply and undisturbed for the first time since leaving the cult. Perhaps this was why I dreamed of the initiation night. The nightmare seemed to go on for hours, a labyrinth of dark passageways and flickering braziers, in which shadowy figures pursued me through smoke. I woke up in a sweat to find it was two in the afternoon.
I felt better after a shower. The cupboard was full of clothes that Scarlet said had been left by a groupie, and I helped myself to an ankle-length black kaftan. I tied my hair back with a purple fringed scarf as a compromise veil. From the window, I looked over the front drive and surrounding wood. It was hard to believe we were only an hour’s drive outside London. The house felt entirely shut off from the world. This should have reassured me, but I’d lost my faith in so-called sanctuaries.
I found Aiden and Scarlet by the pool. The bad weather of the past weeks had given way to a fine June afternoon, and Scarlet was resplendent in a microscopic lime bikini. The two of them were leaning intently over a laptop. It was all very cosy.
‘Good nap?’ asked Scarlet, not looking entirely pleased by the interruption.
Aiden gave me a quick smile. ‘You’re an internet hit again. There’s mobile-phone footage of you giving the warning about the police raid on the squat. Spidey got out in time and has been spreading the word. And people are demonstrating outside the Houses of Parliament, calling for elections. A protest camp has been set up in the square.’
He and Scarlet were determined to make the most of my new-found celebrity and had set up a meeting that evening with Rick Moodie’s agent and an American journalist called Lindy Ryan.
I supposed it was my fault for sleeping so long, but I wished I’d been consulted. While I felt indebted to Scarlet and her father, who were taking a big risk on my behalf, the house’s other inmates didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Crystal (Rick’s girlfriend – Scarlet’s mother lived in LA) floated about in various states of undress, face blank and eyes glazed. She had a friend called Seraphina, who went in for tie-die drapes and a great deal of bangles. Whenever she saw me, Seraphina would press her hands together with the greeting ‘Namaste, Guru’ and a beatific smile.
I still preferred this to Rick Moodie’s pestering. ‘Can you feel her yet?’ he kept asking. ‘Is she coming?’
It was what everyone was waiting for, including myself. I was aware of the goddess’s closeness at all times, as a kind of shadow and shine in the corner of my eyes. In the meantime, I wandered restlessly around the house. In the midst of its sharp angles and blank walls, the lights glaring through glass, I felt like a fly buzzing against a window.
The house, though, was the reason for Lindy Ryan’s visit. It had been going to feature on a US life-and-style TV show that she presented, as part of a series showcasing the homes of celebrities. She had been ready to cancel after the coup, until Rick Moodie persuaded her to interview me instead.
Most of the household staff had been sent away, so catering for the dinner party fell to Crystal. We helped ourselves from bowls of goji berries, platters of smoked salmon and tins of caviar. And drink. Lots of it. The dining room was the only source of colour in the house, its walls covered in glossy purple tiles, with a black mirrored table in the centre. It was the kind of place you could imagine a serial killer eating his dinner.
Lindy dominated the conversation. She was a woman of uncertain age, with a pillowy pink pout and waves of frosted blonde hair. Swapping a celebrity lifestyle feature for an exclusive with Britain’s runaway oracle was quite a scoop, and she had arranged for our interview to be broadcast on her network’s lunchtime chat show. Thanks to Spidey, it would also be live-streamed on the internet channel that had been set up by Alias hacktivists for anti-Emergency Committee broadcasts.
‘Of course,’ said Lindy, ‘we have a ton of cults and doomsday prophets back home. But there’s just something so darn classy about the ancient Greeks. And you Brits, of course . . . Hey, you know what would be great? If Aura could give an oracle during the broadcast. The viewers would go nuts.’
‘Too right. In fact, if things don’t work out ove
r here, you should consider a move across the pond,’ Rick’s agent, Noah Evans, told me. He was a thin streak of a man with slicked-back hair and too many teeth. ‘With good representation, you might go far.’
‘Aura’s not a novelty act,’ said Aiden.
Noah grinned at him humourlessly. ‘Don’t worry, kid. You’ll still get your cut.’
‘The oracle’s staying here,’ Rick insisted, thumping the table so hard the plates clattered. ‘This is her sanctuary. This is her destiny.’
‘Whatever her destiny, she needs a change of image,’ said Scarlet, examining her own reflection in the back of a spoon. ‘Pagan doesn’t have to mean frumpy.’
‘Body glitter!’ exclaimed Crystal, briefly roused from her stupor. Seraphina clapped her hands in glee.
Voices got louder, faces redder, gestures more expansive. Cigarette smoke lay over the table in an eye-watering cloud. I had to slip into the study next door before I was tempted to scream or throw something. A minute or so later I heard voices in the corridor.
‘Giving Aura a makeover is hardly a priority,’ said Aiden’s voice.
Scarlet gave her throaty laugh. ‘Don’t tell me you find her nun-on-the-run look a turn-on.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with –’
‘I suppose it’s only to be expected. You never could resist a lost soul.’
‘And you never used to be so catty.’
‘Are you sure? It’s been a while, darling. Maybe you’ve just remembered me wrong.’
‘Scarlet . . .’
There was silence. Had he moved towards her, or away? I felt light-headed, imagining the scene. I couldn’t bear to listen any more. There were doors at the end of the study, and I went into the atrium. It was especially disorientating at night. The lights inside and the darkness outside were both reflected in the marble floor and mirrored steps, the huge glass panes.
I saw Aiden reflected in one of them and turned round. His eyes were narrow and green, his expression shadowed, and he rubbed his hands through his hair. The gesture was familiar; so was his exasperation. My chest ached.
‘How can these people help us?’ I cried. ‘Body glitter! Chat shows! Nothing’s serious to them. Nothing’s real.’
‘You’ll make it real when you talk tomorrow.’
‘Are you in love with her?’
He stared. ‘What?’
‘You and Scarlet. Are you getting back together? Is that why she’s helping you?’
‘She’s helping me – us – because she believes in our cause. Yes, we were together for a while, I told you that, but it didn’t work out and we stayed friends. Hey . . . what’s this?’ My eyes were glistening. Angrily, I struck the tears away, and he touched my cheek. My whole body hummed.
‘Forget I said anything. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘You have the right.’ He took a step closer to me. His voice was very soft. ‘You have the right to ask me anything.’
‘No, I don’t. You and Scarlet . . . I shouldn’t care. I’m not allowed to. I’m a priestess. I . . . I’ve made vows.’
It was the first time I’d spoken of my vows. Since Aiden was well aware of what they involved, I knew that making even the slightest reference to them was an admission. I’d as good as confessed to being tempted. By him.
Aiden frowned. He’d lost weight over the last week, and the angles of his face looked sharper. He looked impossibly adult. And, suddenly, impossibly distant. ‘Your vows were made to a corrupt authority. You can’t be held to them.’
‘I made them to the goddess,’ I whispered. ‘I have to be pure for her.’
‘Even if it will make you unhappy? Even though it will keep you alone?’
‘Why should we think the gods are any better than us? I told you they made us in their own image. Jealous, fickle, cruel.’
‘Aura.’ He reached for my hand. ‘Listen to me –’
I wrenched myself free. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more.’ The violence of my words startled us both. ‘Please, just leave me alone.’
I went out and stood by the swimming pool, breathing in the night air.
The moon’s cold eye was veiled by cloud, but I felt her gaze just the same. I could hear the wind in the trees, a dog barking. The pool was covered in a clear sheet. I imagined stepping out on to it, the cover cracking like ice as I sank slowly into depths of warm blue.
Chapter 15
It has been confirmed that a special tribunal will conduct the trial of the prime minister, Nicholas Riley, for the assassination of Sir Alan Greendale. Riley denies all charges and has denounced the tribunal as a ‘show-trial and farce’.
BBC News
Filming started the next evening at eight. First, though, I had my makeover. It emerged that Crystal had been a make-up artist in another life; surrounded by the tools of her trade she became a different woman, capable and quick.
The body glitter she’d talked about at dinner was actually a discreet silver shimmer. My eyes were outlined in black kohl, my hair styled in soft waves. I wore a clinging indigo silk dress. When I looked in the mirror, I had undergone a metamorphosis. I saw a stranger: elegant, chilly, glittering. But this costuming was different from the lipsticks and party frocks I’d bought with the credit marks from my allowance in the cult. I wasn’t a little girl playing dressing-up any more. This had to be real.
‘Told you, didn’t I?’ said Scarlet with lazy satisfaction. ‘Now you’re a force to be reckoned with.’
Aiden didn’t say anything when he saw me, though I felt the brush of his gaze on my skin. I kept upright and still, imagining myself made of marble. Right through to the heart.
The interview was set up in the entertainment suite. A local independent TV production company had been hired for the original project and kept on for the new one. There was a broadcast lorry with satellite parked outside, with cables running into the basement where the cameraman and sound engineer strode around talking about angles and feeds. It was just another job for them. Lindy and I sat face to face on the stage (the statue of Artemis having been moved into the wings) with the rest of the household forming a studio audience. Even when the countdown to transmission began, I felt entirely detached from it all.
Lindy launched into her introduction. ‘. . . An ancient cult, dragged into the cut and thrust of modern politics. Two rival priestesses, each claiming to foretell the future. A nation in crisis, a people in need . . .’
Her voice was cosy and confiding, going over the lines we’d rehearsed so well.
‘When did you first . . .?’
‘How did it feel . . .?’
‘What do you think . . .?’
I related the story of my upbringing in the cult, my experience of the oracle and the initiation. I couldn’t dazzle or charm like Cally. It didn’t matter. I would be calm and certain. True.
At last we approached the end of the interview. Lindy arranged her face in suitably serious expression. ‘You’ve made some very serious accusations. Fraud, abuse, treason.’
‘They are serious, yes. I stand by them all.’
‘But you’re not the first to make such allegations public.’
This hadn’t been in the script. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘There was an incident during the Festival of the Goddess. I’m sure you remember it.’
She turned in her chair to face the screen behind us. Static fizzed then settled into a clip from the news coverage of our procession. The shouting man with the staring dark eyes and wild brown curls filled the screen.
‘For shame!’ he cried. ‘Liars and frauds!’
The jostling crowd, the flickering torchlight. Opis, upright and dignified. Me and Cally, side by side among the huddled handmaidens. Seb, glaring from under King Brutus’s gold wreath.
‘The Holy One sees your crimes! You have silenced her voice! Stolen the oracle!’
The snakes spilled on to the ground, writhed and hissed.
Cries . . . shrieks . . . Opis’s
eyes, so steady and cold . . .
Finally the screen returned to blank.
‘You witnessed this disturbance?’ Lindy asked.
‘Yes. At the time, everyone thought he was a lunatic.’
‘And now?’
I shrugged. I felt uneasy. I was newly conscious of the invisible audience watching on their TV and computer screens. At least the studio lights meant I couldn’t see Aiden and Scarlet and the rest properly. ‘I don’t know who that man was, or his connection to the cult. But, in light of recent events, I’d say his accusations were justified.’
Lindy nodded. ‘I’ve been informed that the man’s name is Harry Soames and that he was once a senior Trinovantum Councillor.’
There was a long pause, although she kept smiling. Sweat prickled on the back of my neck. Something was wrong. I didn’t want to hear her next words. Behind the cosiness, her eyes were greedy, sharp.
‘I have also been told that he is your father.’
Marble, I told myself. You are made of marble. A vessel for the goddess, that is all. You can’t feel any of this.
‘How did you come by that information?’ By some miracle, my voice was steady.
‘The same source who told me that your mother was a priestess of the Cult of Artemis, who received an oracle before her untimely death.’
Lindy put a plump hand on my knee, with an expression of simpering concern. ‘I understand this must be a shock.’
I tried to reply. I was going to say something cutting yet dignified. Or maybe I was going to walk out. But the screen was a blizzard of static, and Lindy’s face was crackling and blurring too. My breaths came fast and shallow.
‘Aura? Aura, honey? Are you unwell?’
Her words came from very far away. The room and all the people in it were dissolving into pixels and points of light.
My head seethed, as if a nest of vipers was squirming in my skull. And through the hissing I heard a whisper: sensual, lingering.
The whisper brushed against my ear, along my skin and round my throat. Now it was a hiss, and the hiss had scales.
