“No?”
“You don’t have a choice. Come with me, Schuyler, please.” Jack held out his hand. His flashing glass-green eyes were suddenly gentle, pleading. The foreboding look on his face had all but disappeared. He looked vulnerable and lost. It was the same way he had looked at her that night. When he had asked her to stay.
She gave him the same answer she had back then.
“No.”
Before she could take a breath she was already running sideways and up, so fast that she was a pink blur against the gold wall, and then she had thrown herself upward so that she broke through the ceiling, sending a rain of crystal shards crashing down on the marble floor. It was all over in an instant.
He was wrong. She knew the spell that held it in place, and she knew the counterspell that had destroyed it. Contineo and Frango. Lawrence had been thorough in his tutorials. In this at least, she would not fail her grandfather.
I’m sorry, Jack. But I can’t go back there.
Never.
Then she disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER 13
Bliss
“Listen! I am not going away until I see Bliss! I insist! You will have to call the police if you want me to leave?”
The voice was so strong, so aggressive and braying, so full of itself, brimming with the complete and total assumption that it was one hundred percent in the right, filled with the kind of New York arrogance that only a jaded city dweller could muster. It was the kind of voice that yelled at bike messengers and barked orders at scurrying underlings for half-caf no-foam ventis, so loud and insistent that it pierced through the muffled gauze that kept Bliss from seeing and hearing the outside world.
The Visitor stirred. It was like watching a coiled snake get ready to spring. Bliss held her breath.
The voice continued its tirade. “Can you at least tell her who’s here?” What is the meaning of this nonsense?
Bliss jumped. It was the first time the Visitor had spoken directly to her in a year.
With a start, the lights came on, and she found she could see and was looking out the window. There was a short bald man standing at the front door, looking furious and harassing the maid.
“It’s Henri”, she said.
“Who is he?”
“My modeling agent.”
“Explain.”
Bliss sent images and memories to the Visitor: waiting outside the office at the Farnsworth Agency, her portfolio balanced on her knees, breakfast meetings with Henri over cappuccinos at Balthazar before school, walking the runway during New York fashion week, the photo shoots in the Starret-Lehigh lofts, her ad campaigns for Stitched for Civilization, jetting off for shoots in the Caribbean, her photographs on billboards, magazine spreads, plastered on the sides of buses and on top of taxis.
“Um, I’m a model?” she reminded him.
The cobra relaxed, coils unfurling, forked tongue withdrawn. But a tense wariness remained. The Visitor was not amused.
A model. A living mannequin.
Quickly he reached a decision. “Get rid of him. I have been remiss to let this happen. We shall keep up appearances. No one must suspect you are not you. Do not fail me.”
“What do you mean?, what do you want me to do?”, Bliss asked, but before she could finish, she was SMACK, back in her body, completely in control. This was nothing like last week’s pathetic attempt to brush her bangs away from her forehead. She had realized how much of herself he was keeping from her, a thought she tried to shelter from him.
It was like coming back to life after being trapped in a coffin. She wobbled like a newborn colt. It was as if the world was coming into focus after years of watching a grainy, fuzzy movie version. She could smell the hollyhocks outside her window, she could taste the salt in the sea air.
Her hands, her hands were her own. They felt light and strong, not weighed down and heavy. Her legs were moving; she was walking! She tripped over the rug. Ouch! She pushed herself up and walked more carefully. But her freedom came at a price, for she sensed him, a presence, in the space just behind (that rear passenger seat), waiting, watching. This is a test, she thought. He wants to see what I’m going to do. I need to pass. . . . Get rid of Henri. But Henri must not suspect anything odd has happened to me.
She opened her bedroom door, savoring the feel of the cold bronze doorknob in her hand, and ran down the stairs.
“Wait! Manuela! Let him in?” she called, running to the foyer. It was a joy to hear her voice out in the world again, her wonderful throaty voice carrying in the air. It sounded different inside her head. She felt like singing.
“Bliss! Bliss?” the bald man cried. Henri looked exactly the same: the same rimless eyeglasses, the same monochromatic wardrobe. He was dressed all in white, in his summer uniform: a linen shirt and matching pants.
“Henri?”
Henri engulfed her in a flutter of air-kisses. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for months! Everyone feels terrible about what happened! Oh My God! I still can’t believe it! I’m so glad to see you’re okay! Can I come in?”
“Of course.” She led him into the sun-drenched sitting room where the family received guests. Bobi Anne had gone a little overboard with the nautical theme. Scull oars were hung on the walls, the blue-and-white pillows were trimmed with rope, and there were miniature lighthouses everywhere.
Bliss asked the maid to bring refreshments, and settled into the cushions. Playing the grand hostess came easily; it helped that she had been raised to do this all her life. It stopped her from rubbing her bare feet against the throw rug and from bouncing up and down on the cushions.
She was alive! In her own body! Talking to a friend! But she composed her face as carefully as her thoughts. It would not do to look delirious and ecstatic when half her family was dead or missing. That would certainly arouse suspicion.
“First of all, I’m so sorry about Bobi Anne,” Henri said, taking off his fancy eyeglasses and cleaning the lenses with the edge of his shirt. “You did get our flowers, right? Not that we were expecting a thank-you card or anything. Don’t even worry about it.”
Flowers? What flowers? Henri looked concerned when Bliss didn’t answer, and she immediately covered up for her confusion, reaching for his hand.
“Of course! Of course? they were beautiful and so thoughtful.”
Of course the agency had sent flowers for Bobi Anne’s memorial. Through their conversation, Bliss gathered that the papers had explained the deaths of the Conclave by way of a fire at the Almeida villa. Arson was suspected, but with the slow-moving ways of the Policia, there was little hope that justice would ever be served.
The maid returned bearing a pitcher of Bobi Anne’s favorite: Arnold Palmers half iced tea, half lemonade (made from lemons picked fresh from their orchard).
“I can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve seen you?” Henri said, accepting a frosty glass filled with the amber drink.
A year!
That was a shock. Bliss almost dropped her glass, her hands were shaking so badly. She had had no idea so much time had passed since she was last in control of her body, of her life. No wonder she had so much trouble trying to remember things.
That meant she had missed her last birthday. The year she turned fifteen, her family had celebrated at the Rainbow Room. But there had been no one around to mark her Sweet Sixteen. Not even herself, she thought dryly. I wasn’t even there for my own birthday. A whole year had gone by while she fought to hold on to a semblance of consciousness. She would never get it back, and time was more and more precious now.
A burning anger rose within her, she had been robbed of an entire year, but again, she suppressed it. She couldn’t allow the passenger in the backseat to know how she felt. It was too dangerous. She would have to remain serene.