Evie noticed some specific girls in the part where she was on her own, wandering aimlessly, for it seemed that no one in the world cared about her enough to notice that she wasn’t at home. The girls looked just like other hippies who were quite a common sight in the 70s, but there was something that differentiated them. Evie couldn’t tear her gaze away from a dark-haired girl whose unusual, rather unsettling beauty was so captivating that it got scary. The group were rummaging in trash bins near the restaurant, looking for food, laughing uncontrollably, acting as if nothing could bother them. As soon as they finished, the girls jumped in an old school bus painted black. She met the black-haired nymph sooner than Evie dared to dream. That was the day when she joined a group of people that lived on the farm and called themselves a family.
She was welcomed there and that was a great relief, for Evie missed attention and love that her mother and father failed to provide. She was introduced to a guy, Russell, who was their unquestionable leader. The man was a failure, a musician whose music was so uninteresting that even patronage of a famous artist, Mitch, couldn’t help him to get a contract with a record label. However, he was rather good at other things, for instance he could sense despair and loneliness, find angsty and insecure teenagers, not to mention rich and generous heirs of celebrities and businessmen. He knew how to charm people, trick them into believing that he was a bearer of secret lore that only he and his followers could understand. Evie noticed how mere presence of the man affected the girls.
They were dependent on him, his love and approval meant the world to them. Evie started spending more time on the farm than with her mother who seemed to be only interested in her new lover and nothing else. The girl even stole a large sum of money to impress Russell and, what was more important, please Suzanne, the black-haired girl. Unlike other dwellers of the farm, who were obsessed with their leader, Evie was in love with Suzanne. Those unhealthy, dependent feelings made her feel sick with jealousy every time when Suzanne was with others. Once Russell made the girls sleep with Mitch, hoping that it would help him to promote his career.
Soon enough it became rather clear that his plan had failed. Suzanne, two other girls, a teenage boy named Guy killed Mitch’s ex-wife, their son, a caretaker and his girlfriend. Evie wasn’t with them, for Suzanne abandoned her in the middle of the night on a deserted street, but the recollection of that fateful night, Suzanna’s heartlessness and her own uncertainty continued to haunt her even in an adult life. She couldn’t give herself an answer, whether she would have been able to kill if she had gone with them. A feeling of fear became her only one constant companion.
