Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  His travels and studies had stretched his mental horizons; rewarded him in ways he could not have imagined. Sometimes he was able to look at the world around him with such clarity it made him weep. But there were other times when he felt as though he walked without a skin. The years of searching would scratch dry in his throat, like dust. And always, always the hungry shadow waxing and waning within him.

  Frankie had accepted his restlessness; had coped with his despair on the days when the shadow took over. Not uncomplainingly—she was no saint, after all—but steadfastly.

  Theirs had not been a grand passion—no delirium, no fevered brows—but rather a thing of quiet beauty. As the years passed he discovered that trust, gratitude and a love more serene spin their own kind of magic. Most people feel alone, even when together. He and Frankie never did. They had known each other in full.

  Not a grand passion. But a love story?

  He pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and started walking. The light was beginning to fail now, and on the horizon he could see the evening star.

  Oh yes; most certainly a love story.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I was inspired to bless my characters with the gift of remote viewing after reading about a top-secret programme run by the United States government called Project STARGATE. Before being closed down in the 1990s, STARGATE received federal funding and its director, Dale Graff, trained and used remote viewers to gather intelligence information and to search for high-profile objects and people. Notable successes included tracking down a missing Soviet plane and assisting the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). These adventures are chronicled in Mr Graff’s books River Dreams and Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness. I have to confess that the remote viewers in Season of the Witch are especially gifted—even more so than the talented viewers who belonged to STARGATE—and that the phrase ‘slamming the ride’ is completely my own.

  The Art of Memory is the other big theme in my book. It is a highly esoteric subject and I had to simplify many of the issues involved in order to meet the demands of a work of fiction. For those readers who would like to acquaint themselves in greater depth with the fascinating but rigorous world of Giordano Bruno, Ramon Lull and Giulio Camillo, I strongly recommend Dame Frances Yates’s definitive work on the topic.

  I used Benjamin Woolley’s book The Queen’s Conjurer as the source of my information on John Dee and am indebted to Erik Davis for his writings on Gnosticism and information culture. Over the years I have read more books on enlightenment than I can recall but Mark Hedsel’s The Zelator remains one of the best.

  In her spell, Minnaloushe makes use of fragments from the Mandaean Gnostic text called The World of Darkness; Psalms 14 and 25, Thanksgiving Psalms from the Dead Sea Scrolls; the Gnostic tract titled The Thunder, Perfect Mind; and a Manichaean text written in old Turkish called Salvation of the Soul. However, as this is her own, unique spell, she had adapted these fragments according to an idiosyncratic interpretation, and knowledgeable readers will therefore notice significant changes from the original texts in word and concept. The numerology she uses is Pythagorean.

  The name Eldaah means ‘Knowledge of God’. In Genesis 25:4 there is mention of Mídian’s son Eldaah, grandson of Abraham and Ketúrah.

  Any readers who are interested in a behind-the-scenes peek at how I came to write Season of the Witch, please visit my website: www.natashamostert.com

  And if you would like to test your own memory skills, please play my Season of the Witch Memory Game: http://www.natashamostert.com/games/

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Season of the Witch was a joy to write—and an adventure. Many thanks to everyone who was there, slamming the ride with me.

  I am hugely indebted to the teams at Transworld / Bantam / Penguin, and to Deborah Schneider and Jonny Geller.

  To my wonderful friends and first readers—Catherine Gull, Dianne Hofmeyr, Sonja Lewis and Niki Muller—thank you all. Your feedback is treasured. A special thank you goes to Gaynor Rupert, whose meticulous eye was invaluable, as always, and who saved me from embarrassment more than once. Fellow scribe Ian Watson is a Jedi and I am grateful for his support and advice.

  Thank you to kickboxing champ Carlos Andrade for keeping this deskbound author healthy and not allowing me to take myself too seriously.

  Thanks to my brother Frans, for reading through the manuscript in one sitting and for catching a fatal flaw in the book, which might have escaped us all. Thanks to my brother Stefan, who always reminds me to think visually. He and my mother are the architects of my magnificent Memory Game.

  Hantie Prins, my mother, is an imaginer and a constant source of inspiration. She walked this journey with me.

  Frederick, my brilliant, compassionate husband, is my lifeline. If not for him, I would never have the courage to turn dreams into words.

  NOVELS BY NATASHA MOSTERT

  THE MIDNIGHT SIDE

  THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

  WINDWALKER

  SEASON OF THE WITCH

  THE KEEPER

  A Martial Arts Thriller

  (published in the US as Keeper of Light and Dust by Penguin Dutton)

  DARK PRAYER

  Turn to the next page to read the first two chapters

  DARK PRAYER

  by

  NATASHA MOSTERT

  PROLOGUE

  The little girl was not a sound sleeper. In the early morning hours, she would often open her eyes calmly and unafraid into the near darkness. After a moment of staring at the far ceiling above her, she’d dangle her feet out of bed, tuck Mr Cuddles under her arm and pad down the passage towards her mother’s room.

  She never stepped inside. For a few heartbeats she would wait at the door, watching the soft shape asleep inside the big princess-and-the-pea bed. If she listened carefully, she would hear her mother breathing. This would be enough to satisfy her and she’d yawn once, twice—and return to her own bed.

  Tonight is no different. There is the door to her mother’s room. There, hazy in the gloom, the first glimpse of the dressing table with her mother’s red scarf trailing from a post, its gypsy fire muted by the dark. The air is scented with the familiar fragrances leaking from the perfume bottles reflected in the mirror’s shadowed face. The little girl pauses at the threshold and turns her head in the direction of the snowy bed.

  The bed is empty.

  The little girl looks at the undisturbed sheets and the plumped up pillows. Her head droops to one shoulder as it does when she is puzzled or feeling shy.

  Hesitantly, she steps back into the passage.

  ‘Mama?’

  The word stops in the air; the thick carpet and velvet curtains keeping the sound from carrying.

  She starts walking towards the staircase, Mr Cuddles dragging at one hand. Her other hand clutches at her pyjama bottom, which is slipping.

  Down the staircase and past the fan-shaped window framing the glossy blackness outside. Through the living room, with its tall bookcases and its many books, which seem to glow even in the dark. Past the piano with its exposed keys and sheet music trailing on the floor.

  Against the wall the old-fashioned clock tings softly. The big numerals and filigreed arms glow coolly phosphorescent. The little girl is only five but she can tell the time. She stares at the clock face and holds up her left forefinger and thumb in a wobbly L.

  ‘Mama?’

  The kitchen door is closed but there is a yellow slit of light at the bottom. As she turns the handle and pushes the door open, she smells lemons.

  Black and white tiled floor, bright in the electric light. Water drip, dripping into the sink. The woman lying on her back, her right leg forming a startling triangle, her mouth smiling and her eyes hidden in a sticky nest of hair and blood. There is blood on the floor, and on the cricket bat clutched in the hand of the man who turns to stare at her.

  He holds out his other hand. ‘Come with me, little girl. I will make you forget.’

  ‘Only
the hand that erases can write the true thing.’

  —Meister Eckhart

  CHAPTER ONE

  Memory was a funny old thing.

  Jack watched his father lean towards the interviewer, his face taking on a nicely self-deprecating expression. Jack could tell his father was about to launch into an anecdote about his past: an anecdote that would tell of bravery under fire and a young man’s courage tested. Each time his father told this story, the battle became a little fiercer, the danger a little greater, the bullets a little closer. His father sounded sincere; because he was sincere. He wasn’t consciously embellishing: each time he wheeled out this chestnut of a story he truly believed he was accurately recounting what had happened.

  His father modestly inclined his head as the interviewer gushed her admiration. Jack smiled. You had to hand it to the old guy; he knew how to milk the moment.

  As he flicked off the TV remote, he wondered idly at what point unreliable memories started affecting one’s sense of self. If you remembered the earlier you as braver, stronger, more concerned for your fellow man than you actually were, would this souped-up recollection determine how you acted in the present? If you were born a lowly Ford Focus but started remembering yourself as a Shelby Mustang, would you become one? Maybe, after all these years of building a legend in his own mind, his father had indeed turned himself into the kind of man who would selflessly storm to the rescue: rushing into fiery buildings, swimming fast-flowing rivers, dragging limp survivors out of burning cars.

  ‘Finished?’

  Chloe Quindlen, his father’s personal assistant, stepped into the office. Chloe was attractive, smart and hopelessly in love with her boss. Smart and foolish were not mutually incompatible.

  ‘Yes. Thanks for showing it to me.’

  Chloe pressed her finger on the player’s eject button and removed the CD, her expression reverent. ‘Great interview, wasn’t it? Mr Simonetti is a wonderful man.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  His tone of voice was not to her satisfaction. She frowned. ‘I hear you’ve been naughty.’

  Naughty. He tried desperately to think of a response to this accusation, which would be even remotely appropriate.

  ‘Your father is rather disappointed, Jack.’

  ‘I know. Very sad.’

  ‘How can you laugh about it!’ She glared at him.

  Contrition was clearly called for. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m behaving badly. Will you forgive me?’

  She sniffed, slightly mollified. ‘He shouldn’t be long. Can I get you anything while you wait?’

  ‘No, I’m good. Thanks.’

  She walked out of the door trailing L’Air du Temps and left him to his own company and his father’s collection of contemporary art. Leon Simonetti had recently begun to see himself as New York City’s answer to Charles Saatchi and the vast walls of his office were covered with canvasses vibrating spiky angst.

  His father’s desk was exceptionally neat. Apart from a leather blotter and a telephone, the only other object on the slab of polished mahogany was a tripod-shaped piece of steel engraved with the words, aut vincere aut mori. ‘Either to conquer or to die.’ Very macho. The Latin wasn’t an affectation, though. His father had a genuine love for the classics and had insisted on his reluctant son acquiring a nodding acquaintance with both Latin and Greek. As a teenager, the value of studying a dead language had never made sense to Jack although he found it paying off in unexpected ways later on. Girls, he discovered, were surprisingly impressed with a guy who could drop a casual quote or two from the Ars Amatoria.

  The sound of voices in the outside office, and the next moment his father strode into the room, his shoulders belligerent and his eyes snapping behind the steel rims of his spectacles. He waved impatiently at Jack who was getting to his feet and slapped a newspaper onto the desk.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  Jack looked at the grainy black and white picture and winced. The photographer had certainly captured the moment. It showed him with an unholy grin on his face holding a chair above his head, which he was clearly about to crash down on the head of the wild-eyed individual facing him. The caption read: ‘Tycoon’s son in brawl.’

  ‘I was helping a lady in distress.’

  ‘You were looking for a bar fight and you found it. The woman was just an excuse.’

  Jack sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  His father jabbed a vicious finger at the photograph. ‘And this is out there for everyone to see!’

  It probably wasn’t the time to tell his father that he had become quite the celebrity on YouTube as well. 2,300 hits since the previous night and counting.

  ‘I don’t understand you. You have a brain but you waste it. I’ve given you an education. I’ve given you all the tools you need to make something of yourself but you take nothing seriously. You are not a child any more. Is there anything you care about, Jack? Anything you truly want?’

  ‘A long cool woman in a black dress …’

  His father’s nostrils flared.

  ‘No, sorry. Of course not. World peace. That’s it, world peace.’

  A long silence.

  ‘Well, I’ve had enough.’ His father’s face was set.

  Jack looked at him warily. He had heard these words before but this time they sounded different. Something told him he wasn’t going to like what came next.

  His father opened the drawer of his desk and removed an envelope.

  ‘Here. An e-ticket to London. You have a seat booked on the late flight to Heathrow.’

  London. Well, that wasn’t so bad. If his father wanted to banish him from home and hearth, he could think of worse places to hang than London. Jack pushed his hand inside the envelope and removed the ticket. Economy class. Still …

  ‘An English friend of mine has a problem. He thinks you might be able to help. His name is Daniel Barone.’

  The name stirred a recollection. In his father’s study at home were dozens of tastefully framed photographs showing his father glad-handing the rich and famous. Pushed into the back row was a picture of three men and two women. They were a striking group: young, beautiful, confident. On the photograph his father still had a shock of black hair and a jaw as planed as Clark Kent’s. Next to him, a handsome man with dark blond hair was looking into the camera with hooded eyes. ‘Barone,’ his mother had told him years ago when he had asked her about the photograph. ‘He was a friend of your father’s when they were both at Oxford. He was a famous scientist. I met him once. Charming man.’

  ‘And the girls?’

  His mother frowned. ‘I don’t know. When your father moved to the States he said he lost touch with all of them except Daniel.’ His mother had frowned again, touching her hand thoughtfully to the glass pane, her fingers hovering over the young faces.

  Jack replaced the ticket in the envelope. ‘What kind of problem are we talking about?’

  ‘Daniel’s ward disappeared.’

  Ward. To Jack the word tasted old-fashioned. Like something from Jane Eyre.

  ‘Surely this is a matter for the police?’

  ‘You don’t understand. His ward disappeared but she has been found again. But there are … complications.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can help.’

  ‘This is not open for discussion, Jack. You will get on the plane tonight and when you arrive at the other side, you will place yourself at Daniel’s complete disposal. If you refuse —or if you make a mess of things over there—I will cut you off. No allowance. No apartment. No trendy little art gallery for your friend, Nicola. No more funding for your mountaineering expeditions or that ridiculous stock car racing. And this time, I mean it. You will come back to New York to nothing. And don’t go crying to your grandmother—I’ve discussed this with her and she finally agrees with me that the time has come for you to get on track.’

  Things were looking grim.

  ‘How long will I have to stay?’

>   ‘You will stay until Daniel no longer has any need of you.’

  Leon Simonetti reached for the phone. Jack knew he was being dismissed but for a few moments he simply stared at his parent. People always remarked on the strong resemblance between father and son and he supposed it was true. He had inherited his father’s Roman profile and they had the same colouring: black hair, blue eyes. They shared the same long-limbed build as well, although his father’s body had a softness to it, which his own had yet to acquire. Maybe, thirty years from now, he too would have a fleshy roll around the middle and a crumpled jaw like a Caesar gone to seed. And who knows—maybe he had inherited other traits as well. Perhaps, with the passage of time, he too would become a destroyer of worlds.

  His father looked up and lifted his eyebrows—an impatient, ‘is-there-anything-else’ expression on his face. Jack shook his head and stood up from his chair. But as he reached the door, his father spoke again.

  ‘Life is what you make of it, Jack.’

  He turned to look at his father across the wide expanse of the Aubusson rug separating them. Ordinarily, he would have shrugged off these words as just another platitude. But his father’s voice sounded strange: small, cold.

  ‘The choices you make, determine the life you lead. Remember that.’ Still that small, far-away voice. ‘You live with those choices … and die by them.’

  PRAISE FOR THE MIDNIGHT SIDE

  ‘In THE MIDNIGHT SIDE Mostert eschews the usual murder-mystery clichés in favour of murky, gloomily-lit suspense, painting a Dickensian picture of foggy London that is as compelling as the unfolding drama. Bedtime reading for the brave.’