Giant Days Page 21

  What now?

  When Daisy had first joined the Brethren, she’d seen Jasper as some kind of pied piper, leading the lost into a warm and welcoming cave. Forty-eight hours of living in his cave, and she was starting to think he was nothing more than a charismatic child. All the decisions, the planning, the preparation was Elise.

  Elise was the taskmaster, Jasper the spin doctor, and together they had wrung every ounce of energy from Daisy’s aura.

  “Sister Daisy!” Jasper banged on the window again. “A little help here. Can you unlock these? We’ve a delivery that’s too big to fit through the front.”

  Dragging herself down from a higher plane and across the room, tripping over casually placed limbs and heaps of robes, Daisy unlatched the doors and pulled them wide to admit two delivery men as they wrestled a huge wooden crate into the middle of the room. The two were mismatched in height and—judging by the tilt of the box—in strength. It couldn’t have been easy, negotiating their way in the dark with those Danube Delivery caps pulled down so low over their eyes.

  The same logo was stenciled in red across the crate, and Daisy wondered what was inside. There were a lot of deliveries sent to the house—groceries ordered by grateful acolytes and the occasional case of wine, Blu-rays, games, and other essentials. It seemed Elise only had to add something to the chalkboard in the kitchen and it would magically appear at the door.

  But Daisy couldn’t think of anything on there that would necessitate such a big crate. It looked as if it could house a washing machine.

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right house?” Jasper made as if to approach the box, but the taller of the two delivery men stepped in front of him, pulling an order form from the back pocket of his jeans.

  “Says here to deliver to Jasper Tooley, 21 Tuttlebury Avenue.”

  Jasper didn’t look convinced. “And it’s company policy to deliver exercise balls preinflated?”

  “Absolutely. It’s . . . special heavy air. Better for stretching.” That voice sounded dimly familiar, but with his cap pulled down, Daisy couldn’t see his face. “If you wouldn’t mind coming to sign for it. The paperwork’s back in the van . . .”

  Grumbling, Jasper retreated through the doors, pulling them shut behind him, and Daisy settled back into her meditation on the mat.

  Susan shouldered her bag of supplies—a family-size bag of pickled onion crisps and a sports bottle loaded with ice water—and counted to twenty. When she clicked the spring-loaded lock inside the crate, the side swung open like a giant door to reveal . . .

  A perfectly respectable basement. Recently renovated by the looks of it, with exposed brick walls and expensive spotlights. Squishy sofas and beanbag chairs skirted the edge of the room, and on top of them all, in varying stages of dozing to flat-out unconscious, slouched maybe ten or so acolytes of Zoise. Anyone conscious enough to notice the intruder in their midst clearly couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. Three of the Brethren were sitting facing the wall and sipping tea, giggling at patterns in the bricks, while a small cluster near the middle of the room appeared to be attempting actual yoga, albeit of the sitting variety.

  At the sound of feet on the stairs, Susan drew back inside the box, but it was only Esther.

  “Yogi Bear reporting for duty,” she said, an elated expression on her face. “Hostile two is down. Repeat, hostile two is down.”

  She was positively buzzing with pride, and Susan was feeling indulgent.

  “Full debrief, soldier.”

  “I sprayed a load of half-chewed cookie and herbal tea into her hair.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did. Pretended to sneeze.” Esther looked very pleased with herself. “She’ll be showering that out for a week.”

  Susan clamped a hand onto her shoulder and gave her a reassuring shake. “You are equal parts revolting and resourceful. I’m proud of you. Now, on to hostage extraction . . .”

  The two stepped over the Brethren on the mat—Esther stopping to poke one of them in the nose and marvel at the lack of response—and paused next to where Daisy was lying flat on her back, hands folded gently on her chest in a position Susan would have called the Cadaver.

  Esther crouched down, concerned. “You don’t think she’s sacrificed herself already, do you?”

  13

  TRUST EXERCISES

  There was a lot of talk about finding one’s center in yoga. Daisy imagined that hers was made of caramel. Golden and lazy, as if her whole body was melting from the inside out, as if she were a chocolate left too long in the sun. During Zoise yoga, that was certainly how she felt—meditating turned her warm and oozy. She was the human embodiment of not wanting to get out of bed on a cold morning. That was the name of one of the moves, actually, now that she came to think of it, where you were supposed to curl up underneath one of the blankets. A lot of the moves had oddly mundane names. There were no trees or mountains or warriors here; it was all much more relaxed than that. There was Pretending It’s Nighttime, when you lay on your back and folded your arms over your eyes, and Feigning Interest, where you sat cross-legged, resting an elbow on one leg and propping your chin in your hand.

  Daisy’s favorite was Staring at Dreams, where she lay on her back with her eyes closed.

  It was the easiest position in which to transcend meditative planes, and it just so happened to be the position from which someone was trying to rouse her.

  “Daisy . . .” Someone was patting her cheek gently. “You need to wake up.”

  I’m meditating, Daisy corrected the usurper. Only it didn’t work, because she wasn’t awake enough to form words.

  “Seriously. How many of those cookies have you had?”

  Before she could answer, freezing spray hit her skin, and Daisy’s mind was yanked back into her body. A sharp tang of chemicals wafted up her nose, and her eyes snapped open, but what she saw must have been a meditative vision. There, looming over her, like two warring airships, were Susan and Esther. Which made no sense whatsoever. Esther despised yoga almost as much as Susan despised exercise.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Daisy willed herself to consciousness, but when she opened them, her friends remained.

  “Hello,” Esther said, rustling an open bag of crisps. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

  “From what?”

  “The Brethren.” Susan frowned. “And also yourself. You know everyone here’s on drugs—including you, right?”

  “What?” This was too much. “But it’s just a yoga social . . .”

  Susan snapped her fingers in front of Daisy’s slightly wobbly vision. “Get with it, Wooton. Look: weird robes, passed-out students—all of whom are first-years. That’s not even a little bit suspicious?”

  Carefully, as if helping a foal stand for the first time, Esther pulled Daisy to her feet, muttering to Susan, “We need to open those doors, get some fresh air in here.”

  “What’s wrong with the air that’s already in here?” Daisy asked, breathing in the familiar waxy scent of the candles, the warm, toasty infusion of freshly baked cookies. The next moment, Esther was pulling on her arm, because Daisy had drifted back down onto her mat, halfway into assuming Pretending It’s Nighttime.

  “There are some things a home-based educational system doesn’t cater to, and one of them is learning what weed smells like,” Susan said. “Everyone in this room is totally baked.”

  “No, that’s just the cookies.”

  “Yes—it’s the cookies,” Esther hissed, shoving the open bag of crisps right under Daisy’s nose and muttering, “Let’s see how strong the munchies are . . .”

  Overwhelmed by need, Daisy let out a desperate groan and fell on the bag of crisps. Esther opened the back doors and pushed them wide. The fresh air and mouth-shriveling properties of a pickled onion crisp had an immediate impact on Daisy’s cognitive functions.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “Long story.” Esther wrestled with supporting Daisy, who was swaying
about and feverishly tearing through the packet of crisps. “Susan?”

  But Susan was standing very still, body tensed as if tuning in to a signal only she could receive.

  You don’t spend a summer working as a private investigator without honing your instincts, and Susan’s told her that there was more to Zoise than stoner yoga. The operation was too slick for that. Besides, drugs cost money, so why would you give them away for free?

  Unless you could make more money by doing so.

  “Tell me, Daisy. Exactly what sacrifices have you been making to the Brethren?”

  They’d gotten her as far as the bench outside the back of the house, the doors pushed wide in the hopes of rousing some of the others to consciousness.

  “You can bring a friend. I introduced Grace and Reggie to the group.” She looked over her shoulder to where Reggie was sprawled on a settee inside, robe open to expose a T-shirt with a T-rex holding a hacksaw and the word Dino-saw. He looked peaceful, but that peace had come as a direct result of avoiding thinking about his problems. Jasper and Elise preached about leaving the world behind, but now that the world had hurried to catch up with her, Daisy realized that “leaving it behind” was nothing more than running away—and since when was that a solution?

  “Anything else?” Susan prompted, dragging Daisy’s attention back to the matter at hand.

  “You’re supposed to share worldly possessions.”

  A dark look passed between her friends.

  “Like your Anglepoise and glitter lamps and your photo frames and your speakers?” Susan asked.

  Daisy nodded, remembering the way she’d snuck those items out of her room when she was sure neither of the others would see, knowing on some level that it wasn’t something she should be doing.

  “Jewelry, too.” Her hand drifted up to touch the hollow in her collarbone, where the gold pendant Granny had given her should have sat. “But I don’t have much of that—just a necklace and a watch. Everyone else seems to have so much more stuff than I do. When I couldn’t give any more, they asked if I’d give myself.”

  “What? Like a sex thing?!”

  “No!” Daisy flushed red from neck to hairline. “Just staying here for a few days to help around the house.”

  “You mean to do all the grunt work for them?” Esther looked outraged.

  Daisy shrugged and caught Susan looking at her, that razorlike perception slicing through the remaining fog of the space bakes and seeing right into her heart.

  “We missed you, Daisy. And not just because neither of us knows how to use the pizza setting on the microwave.” She laid a hand on Daisy’s arm. “You know that, don’t you?”

  The way Susan was looking at her, the penitent little gasp that escaped Esther’s lips, Daisy wondered how she’d ever doubted it.

  Susan rose, fists planted on her hips, head turned so that her purposeful profile was silhouetted against the glow of the studio’s dim lighting. “Now. Let’s reclaim your things and burn this place to the ground.”

  “Metaphorically!” Esther clarified.

  Back inside, Daisy transferred Baby Gordon from his temporary nest in one of the many Buddha bowls to the breast pocket of her robe. That done, she showed her friends the enormous storage closet in a corner of the studio.

  “There’s hardly anything in here,” Esther said blankly as the three of them stared at a few shelves of Blu-rays and odd little knickknacks—a blender, a funky little digital clock, and some books. No jewelry—nothing much at all, in fact.

  “Ooh, the new Dan Brown!” Esther reached in to pick it up and flipped through it. “Wonder if it’s any good . . .”

  “Almost certainly not,” Susan murmured.

  “It’s signed!” she squeaked.

  “And yet remains without value. Put it back.”

  Susan stood back to study the half-filled shelves. They should have been filled to bursting with sacrificial offerings, but if they weren’t here . . .

  “Daisy, are there any places Elise has warned you away from?”

  “Well, not exactly . . .” She glanced up at the ceiling. “But she did make a lot of jokes about how awful Jasper’s bedroom was—that I didn’t need to worry about cleaning it unless I had a hazmat suit handy.”

  “So, a room like Susan’s?” Esther put in.

  As the two of them shared a joke at Susan’s expense, Susan smiled, thinking how easily manipulated fastidious people were into steering clear of any kind of mess. These two would never look inside her secret pizza box.

  “If they’re hiding anything, that’s where we’ll find it. Let’s . . .”

  But as they turned purposefully toward the stairs, they were met with what appeared to be a wall of wavering zombies.

  “Hey . . .” One of them raised an arm and pointed at the open closet. “Are you trying to steal all our stuff?”

  “You handed all this stuff over to Zoise,” Esther pointed out. “So, technically, we’d be stealing from . . . them? It? Her? Him?”

  None of the Brethren looked like they knew the answer, either.

  “Esther!” Susan let out in exasperation. “We’re not stealing anything. Go back to gobbling your cookies . . .” She shooed them back, but with no Elise there to replenish the supply of tea and cookies, the acolytes were coming to their senses. And they weren’t happy about finding the intruders. Casting a desperate glance at her friends, Susan saw Daisy set her jaw resolutely.

  Raising her hands in the air, she touched thumb to fingers to make the Zign of Zoise.

  “Esther, get to the lectern, Susan—the stairs. We’ve got this.”

  “What, exactly, am I doing?” Esther made for the lectern on which rested an inconceivably huge volume with ZOISE lettered on the front in gold leaf.

  “Read from the book!” Daisy said, edging close, the Brethren focusing on them now that Susan had escaped up the stairs. “Jasper starts our meditating sessions that way. It should calm them down.”

  “Right . . .” Esther hauled open the front cover, confused at the title page inside.

  “Esther . . .” Daisy sounded unnerved. “They’re getting very close.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Anything! Look—some of the pages have tabs on them!”

  “Yeah . . .” Esther flipped through to those pages. “That’s not much help. This is . . . Daisy. This is just three of Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks glued together with a bit of leather stuck around the outside. Look.” She hefted the book into her arms and held it up for Daisy—and the rest of the Brethren—to see. “Did any of you actually listen to what Jasper was saying?”

  There was a pause then, the crowd’s mood shifting from accusatory to curious as they pressed in to have a closer look at a recipe for chocolate pear pudding.

  The shower was still on. The adrenaline rush of freeing Daisy had altered the space-time continuum—Susan had emerged from the crate at 20:20 hours, and it was only 20:36. Still . . . for all Esther’s predictions of Elise needing to shower for a week, Susan needed to pick up the pace.

  There were four doors leading off the landing, all shut. A second staircase led up to the next floor, but there was a sign across the stairs that said Fintan’s Lair. There had been no mention of a “Fintan” in any of the Brethren’s e-mails—she’d try up there only if she struck out down here. Dismissing the door behind which the sound of the shower was loudest, Susan tried one that opened into a room clearly belonging to Elise. There was a rainbow row of nail polish along the mantelpiece, files and folders marked A–Z by subject on the shelves, and a desk by the window that looked as if it had been tidied with a set square. The only hint of disorder was the heap of clothes left in the middle of the floor. The next room barely looked lived in—although Susan recognized Daisy’s pajamas on the bed and quickly shoved them into an empty backpack, found hanging on the back of the door, which she was at least 63 percent sure belonged to Daisy, too. Susan turned to the room at the front, feeling the steady build of tri
umph that came with knowing she was on to something. No lock. Jasper and Elise had relied on rumor alone as deterrent.

  Paper chaos reigned inside—splayed books in French and Spanish lay facedown on almost every surface, sheaves of notes and magazines strewn across the floor. Clothes hung over the back of the desk chair, the end of the bed, and the corner of the wardrobe, from which a dinosaur onesie loomed into view. The place lived up to its reputation . . . apart from one area. There was a single tidy zone on the far wall. Someone had positioned an Anglepoise lamp (Daisy’s!) to light a stack of wooden crates, upon which stood one of those obscenely expensive candles that wealthy, frivolous students used as a way of demonstrating a personality.

  On the floor next to that, an assortment of oddities laid in a heap. Travel sets of branded toiletries, expensive stationery, a leather jacket, some pricey scarves, a stack of games and Blu-rays and hardback books . . . some barely worn shoes still in their boxes. And there, dangling off a student-issue mug tree, was a selection of necklaces and bracelets and bangles and rings.

  Hurriedly, Susan pulled her phone from her bra and snapped photos of the things the Brethren had so willingly handed over, priced and ready to sell over the Internet. Then she crouched down and hunted for Daisy’s missing necklace.

  It was only when Susan knocked the pile of Blu-rays over and they clattered to the floor that she realized she could no longer hear the hiss of the water pipes.

  When Esther’s phone buzzed, her immediate reaction was to check it.

  “Now’s really not the best time . . .” Daisy said.

  “It’s the perfect time. Guys, look!” Esther held her phone out to show the gathered Brethren the series of pictures Susan had just sent of the treasure trove of goods up in Jasper’s room. Esther swiped through the pictures. “We didn’t take your stuff! It’s all here in Jasper’s room, ready to be sold for a profit.”

  “OK.” Reggie shrugged, and the others exchanged somewhat resigned glances, mumbling apologies to Daisy and Esther before peering a little more closely at the bag in Esther’s hand and asking if she had any more packets of crisps with her.