The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (172 page)

Could Jory really see through those nearly opaque lenses that made him look truly sightless? Why couldn’t Bart have been satisfied with only a blindfold? But Jory had claimed Bart was right. The lenses were much more effective.

High expectancy was in the air.

Bart turned his eyes on Melodie, as inch by inch Joel was making his way closer, as if he wanted to position himself so he could watch our faces.

Samson had difficulty walking with the chains that manacled his powerful ankles together, dragging behind him a great ball of fake iron. Running and jumping beside him were the dozen dwarfs who jabbed at his strong legs with small swords, tiny lances. (The dwarfs were really children, costumed to look grotesque.) Jory hefted his fake chains, making them seem very heavy, making himself seem weary enough to drop. His wrists also wore what seemed to be iron manacles.

As he stumbled around the arena, turning in blind circles, trying to feel his way along, the lilting, heartrending music played. Stage right, in her own small blue spotlight, the opera star began to sing that most famous aria of all from
Samson and Delilah:

“My heart at thy sweet voice . . .”

Blind and tormented from whip lashings weeping blood, Jory began a slow, mesmerizing dance of torment and loss of faith in love, his renewed credence in God restored, using the fake iron chains as part of his action. I’d never seen such a heartbreaking performance.

Blindly, agonizingly, Samson’s ordeal of searching for Delilah while she dodged just out of his reach tore at my heart, as if this entire thing was real and not just a performance, so real every person in the audience forgot to eat, to drink, to whisper to a partner.

Delilah wore an even more revealing costume of green. The jewels sparkled as if they were real diamonds and emeralds, and when I peered through opera glasses, I saw to my dismay that they were part of the Foxworth legacy, glittering and shining enough to lend Delilah the appearance of wearing more than she actually did. And just a few hours ago Bart had blasted Cindy with his anger for wearing more than she did now.

Flitting around the temple, Delilah hid herself behind a fake marble column. Samson’s outstretched hands pleaded for her help, even as the tenor screamed out his agony of betrayal. I quickly glanced at Bart. He was leaning forward, watching with such intensity it seemed nothing in the world interested him more than this play of agony he’d wanted between brother and sister.

Again I was filled with apprehension. The air seemed fraught with danger.

Higher and higher rose the pitch of the soprano. Samson began to shamble blindly toward his goal—the twin columns he meant to shove apart and bring down the heathen temple.

Overhead the giant obscene god grinned maliciously.

And that song of love made it a thousand times more painful.

As Samson was making his way up the shallow steps, on the temple floor Delilah writhed in apparent regret and agony to see her lover so cruelly treated. Several guards headed to capture her, and no doubt they would treat her as they had Samson. Even so, she began to crawl toward Samson, keeping her body low to the floor and just beneath the chains he lashed about so furiously. Now she grabbed his ankle, looking up at him pleadingly. It seemed he would beat her with his chains, but he hesitated, staring blindly downward before his manacled hand reached tenderly to stroke her long dark hair, to listen to words she mouthed but we couldn’t hear.

With calculated thought for drama, with renewed faith in his love and his God, Jory lifted his arms, bulging his biceps, and broke his chains!

The audience gasped at the passion Jory put into the act.

He spun around wildly, lashing the separated chains that dangled from his wrist manacles, trying blindly to strike, apparently, anyone. Delilah jumped up to dodge the brutal chains that felled two guards and one dwarf. She made her attempts to get away a dance of such excitement everyone at the party was held in thrall, totally quiet as bit by bit, Delilah cleverly led her blind lover to the exact position he needed, between the two huge columns that supported the temple’s god. Dodging, provoking Samson more and more with taunting, silent gestures even as the song declared her undying love for him. All meant to deceive the priests and the bloodthirsty crowd that wanted to see Samson dead.

All around the arena people were leaning forward, straining
to see the grace and beauty of one of the world’s most famous
premier danseurs.

Jory was performing astonishing
jetés,
lashing himself up into a terrible frenzy before he finally put one hand on a fake marble pillar; and then with more dramatic import, he had the other braced too.

On the floor, Delilah kissed his feet before she mocked him, tormented him with words she couldn’t speak. Tricking the heathen crowd, while he knew she truly loved him and had betrayed him out of jealous spite and greed. With heaving, impressive motions Samson began to labor to bring down the entire temple by pushing against the columns! The tenor’s voice called upon God to help him shove down the blasphemous god.

Again the soprano sang, tenderly seducing Samson into believing he couldn’t do the impossible.

The last beseeching note died as with a mighty heave, perspiration streaming down his face, dripping onto his oiled body already streaked with red, he glistened in a ghastly way. His blind white eyes shone.

Delilah screamed.

The cue.

With a mighty and terrifying effort, Jory raised his hands again and began with greater effort to shove against the “stone” columns. My heart was in my throat as I watched those papier-mâché columns begin to bulge. As God restored Samson’s strength, down would crash the temple, killing everyone!

Stagehands had cleverly arranged a large amount of cardboard backed by clanging junk to clatter down and make frightful noises. They faked thunder by rippling long rectangles of thin metal, as if God would wreak his vengeance in a personal way. Strangely enough, as the lights turned red, and the records of people screaming began to sound, Cindy was to tell me later, she thought she felt something hard brush her shoulder.

Just before the curtain lowered, I saw Jory fall from a huge false boulder that struck him on his back and head.

He sprawled face down on the floor, blood spurting from his cuts! Horrified to realize that sand didn’t pour harmlessly out of the broken and tumbled columns, I jumped to my feet and began to scream. Instantly Chris was up and running toward the stage.

My knees buckled beneath me. I sank to the grass, still seeing the terrible vision of Jory flat on his face with the column smashed down on his lower back.

A second column crashed down on his legs.

The curtain was down now.

Applause thundered. I tried to rise and reach Jory, but my leg wouldn’t hold me. Someone caught my elbow and half lifted me. I glanced and saw that it was Bart. Soon I was on the stage, staring down at the broken body of my first son.

I couldn’t believe what I saw. Not my Jory, my dancing Jory. Not the little boy who’d asked when he was three,
“Am I dancing, Momma?”

“Yes, Jory, you are dancing.”

“Am I good, Momma?”

“No, Jory . . . you are wonderful!”

Not my Jory, who’d excelled at everything physical, beautiful and heartfelt. Not my Jory . . . my Julian’s son.

“Jory, Jory,” I cried, falling upon my knees by his side, seeing Cindy through my tears, crying, too. He should be rising by this time. He lay sprawled . . . and bloody. The “fake” blood I felt was sticky, warm. It smelled like real blood. “Jory . . . you’re not really hurt . . . Jory. . . ?”

Nothing. Not a sound, not a movement.

In my peripheral vision I saw Melodie as through the wrong end of a telescope, hurrying our way, her face so pale she and her black gown seemed darker than the night. “He’s hurt. Really hurt.” Somebody said that. Me?

“No! Don’t move him. Call for an ambulance.”

“Someone already has—his father, I think.”

“Jory, Jory . . . you can’t be hurt.” Melodie’s cry as she ran forward. Bart tried to hold her back. She began to scream when she saw the blood. “Jory, don’t die, please don’t die!” she sobbed over and over again.

I knew how she felt. As soon as the curtain was down, every dancer after “dying” on stage jumped up immediately . . . and Jory wasn’t doing that.

Cries came from everywhere. The scent of blood was all around us. And I was staring at Bart, who had wanted this particular opera to be made into a ballet. Why this role for Jory? Why, Bart, why? Had he planned for the accident weeks ago?

How had Bart staged it? I picked up a handful of sand and found it wet. I glared at Bart, who stared down at Jory’s sprawled body, wet from sweat, sticky from blood, gritty from sand. Bart had eyes only for Jory as two attendants from the ambulance lifted him carefully upon a stretcher and placed him in the back of the white ambulance.

Running forward, I shoved my way to where I could look inside the ambulance. “Will he live?” I asked the young doctor who was feeling Jory’s pulse. Chris was nowhere in sight.

The doctor smiled. “Yes, he’ll live. He’s young and he’s strong, but it’s my calculated guess it will be a long time before he dances again.”

And Jory had said ten million times that he couldn’t live without dancing.

I
crowded into the ambulance beside Jory, and soon Chris was at my side, both of us crouching over Jory’s still form strapped to the stretcher. He was unconscious, one side of his face very badly bruised and battered, and blood ran from many small wounds. I couldn’t bear to look at his injuries, which overwhelmed me, much less concentrate on those horrible marks I’d seen on his back . . .

Closing my eyes, I turned my head to see the bright lights of Foxworth Hall like fireflies on the mountain. Later I was to hear from Cindy that at first all the guests had been appalled, not knowing what to do or how to act, but Bart had rushed in to tell them Jory was only slightly injured and would be fully recovered in a few days.

Up front, seated with the driver and an attendant, was Melodie in her black formal, glancing back from time to time and asking if Jory had come around yet. “Chris, will he live?” she asked in a voice thin with anxiety.

“Of course he’ll live,” said Chris, feverishly working over Jory, ruining his new tux with the blood. “He’s not bleeding
now, I’ve stopped that.” He turned to the intern and asked for more dressings.

The screaming of the siren rattled my nerves, made me afraid soon all of us would be dead. How could I have deceived myself into believing Foxworth Hall would ever offer us anything but grief? I began to pray, closing my eyes and saying the same words over and over again.
Don’t let Jory die, God, please don’t take him. He’s too young, he hasn’t lived long enough. His unborn child needs him.
Only after I’d kept this up for several miles did I remember that I’d said almost the same prayers for Julian—and Julian had died.

By this time Melodie was hysterical. The intern started to inject her with some drug, but quickly I stopped him. “No! She’s pregnant and that would harm her child.” I leaned forward and hissed at Melodie, “Stop screaming! You’re not helping Jory, or your baby.” She screamed louder, turning to beat at me with small but strong fists.

“I wish we’d never come . . . I told him it was a mistake, coming to that house, the worst mistake of our lives, and now he’s paying, paying, paying . . .” On and on saying that until finally her voice went, and Jory was opening his eyes and grinning at us.

“Hi,” he said weakly. “Seems Samson didn’t die after all.”

I sobbed in relief. Chris smiled and bathed Jory’s head cuts with some solution. “You’re going to be fine, son, just fine. Just hold on to that.”

Jory closed his eyes before he murmured in a weak way, “Was the performance good?”

“Cathy, you tell him what you think,” Chris suggested in the calmest voice.

“You were incredible, darling,” I said, leaning to kiss his pale face smeared with makeup.

“Tell Mel not to worry,” he whispered as if he heard her crying; then he drifted into sleep from the sedative Chris injected into his arm.

*  *  *

We paced the hospital waiting room outside of the operating theater. Melodie was by this time a limp rag, sagging from fear, her eyes wide and staring. “Same as his father . . . same as his father,” repeating the same words over so much I thought she was drilling that notion into her head—and into mine. I, too, could have screamed from the agony of believing Jory might die. More to keep her quiet than anything else, I took her into my arms and smothered her face against my breasts, soothing her with motherly words of assurance when I didn’t feel confident about anything. We were, again, caught in the merciless clutches of Foxworths. How could I have been so happy earlier in the day? Where had my intuition fled? Bart had come into his own, and in so doing he had taken from Jory what belonged to him, the most valuable possession he had—his good health and his strong, agile body.