The Van Alen Legacy

Open the blinds. Open your eyes. Open them! Open! But where were they? Disembodied. She truly understood the meaning of the word. It was like floating without an anchor. She had to get grounded again, to feel her way around until—yes—there it is, a crack of light—maybe she just imagined it—but if she could just force it open—there— just a little more . . .

Bliss opened her eyes slowly. She’d done it! She looked around. It was amazing to be able to see the world on her terms, and not how the Visitor saw it, through his hate-colored glasses. She was in the library. A small cozy nook surrounded by walls of books. Her stepmother’s decorator had insisted that all the “good homes” had one. BobiAnne read magazines. Forsyth liked to stay in his den with his large-screen television. The library had become the sisters’ territory. Bliss remembered how she and Jordan would sit at the window seat, looking out at the pool and the ocean while they read. Bliss saw an old summer reading stack on a shelf next to the Victorian rolltop desk. The Brothers Karamazov. The Grapes of Wrath. Persuasion.

She thought she heard a noise. Whether it was from inside or out, she did not know. Close the blinds. Close your eyes, she thought frantically. Close them before he comes back.

She closed them.

Nothing. She was still alone.

She waited for a long time. Then she opened her eyes again. Nothing. She really was alone. She had to take advantage of this. Bliss had had a plan ever since she’d noticed his prolonged absences.

She had to do something more than just look around. Dare she? Her body felt sluggish and heavy. So heavy. This was going to be impossible. What if he came back? What then? She had to try, she told herself. She had to do something. She couldn’t just live like an invalid, in limbo, in paralysis.

If I can open my eyes, I can do something else. I’m still Bliss Llewellyn, aren’t I? I’ve won tennis tournaments and run marathons. I can do this.

Move your hand. Move your hand.

Can’t. Too heavy. Where is my hand? I have a hand? What is a hand? There. I can feel my five fingers, but they feel so far away, as if behind glass, or submerged underwater. She remembered seeing a magician on the Today show who had attempted to live underwater for several days. How immobilized and swollen he had looked. She was no magician, but there was no reason to remain trapped underneath her own fear either. Move it. Move. Your. Hand. Oh God. It weighs three thousand pounds. I can’t do it. I can’t, I can’t. But I have to.

Do it!

She remembered how hard it had been to learn the four-base pyramid scorpion, one of the most difficult moves in cheerleading. It required acute coordination and the skill of a trapeze artist. Bliss was the only cheerleader on the team who could do it. She remembered how scared she had been the first time. If she didn’t connect with the base’s hands on the way up, she would fall; if she missed the back spotter on the extension, she would fall; if she didn’t balance correctly on her left foot, she would fall.

But she would connect with the base, hit her mark, stand with her right leg bent back above her head, and hold the pose until she was thrown upward in a triple-somersault pop-flick to land on her feet.

Too bad Duchesne didn’t have a squad. Bliss had tried to start one, but no one was interested. Snobs! They didn’t know what they were missing. The feeling of the night of a big game. The anticipation of the crowd. The thrill of running out on the field, pom-poms bouncing, the roar from the stands, the jealousy and the admiration. On Fridays, cheerleaders were allowed to wear their uniforms to class. It was akin to wearing a crown.

The scorpion.

She’d nailed it.

If I could do that, I can do this, she told herself.

Move. Your. Hand!

She could feel her bangs in her face. The Visitor had not bothered with haircuts, or manicures either. Bliss was annoyed. All that work to look cute gone down the drain. Her hair was wild and untamed, rough to the touch. She had to do something about it.

There. Urrrgh! Her hand jerked away, moving like a marionette, like a puppet on strings. But she’d done it. Her hand awkwardly brushed her hair, moved it away from her eyes.

So.

I can do it.

I can take control of my body. It’s going to be difficult and painful and slow, but I can do it. I’m not out of the game yet.

Now all she had to do was learn how to walk again.





The Conduit


For almost seventy years, Christopher Anderson had served as faithful human Conduit to Lawrence Van Alen. He was the one who had brought Schuyler to the hospital to have her arm properly looked at after they’d returned from Corcovado with the news of his master’s passing. The spry, gracious gentleman had never struck Schuyler as being particularly elderly, but since Lawrence’s death it looked as if age had finally caught up with him. He was frail now and walked with a cane.