Blood Vivicanti (9780989878586) by Becket Page A

relaxed. Sometimes I’d be walking alone down one of the
numerous hallways and she’d suddenly appear out of nowhere, like a
ghost, staring at me as though I’d done something wrong. She’d tell
me that it was time for lunch or dinner, or she’d tell me that this
hallway was being cleaned, and I wasn’t allowed down there right
then, even though I couldn’t hear any cleaning going on. That woman
could scare the Dickens out of me.
    Of course, I later found
out that she wasn’t a woman at all. Or a man.
     
     
     
     
    Wyn and Theo ate their
breakfast happily. They were already brimming with delicious Blood
Memories.
    So was I, with Theo’s in
me.
    Blood Memories rejuvenated
us surprisingly. We all seemed reborn. We were like inquisitive
children seeing the world in a whole new way.
    The tissue paper of my
personal identity was beginning to galvanize.
     
     
     
     
    Ms. Crystobal gave me a
plate of strawberries dipped in peanut butter. I’d never had it
before. She seemed to know I’d love it. She was right. They were
scrumptious!
    Wyn talked about
electromagnetism.
    Theo finished stringing the
violin. He stood before us. He positioned the instrument at his
neck. His fingers pressed on the strings. He held the bow above the
strings for a second.
    Wyn and I watched. We were
curious to know what he would play.
    Ms. Crystobal sipped a cup
of tea. Her eyebrow raised in doubt.
    Theo slammed the bow down
on the strings.
    The violin music resounded
beautifully. The kitchen had excellent acoustics.
    The music was Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin .
Some say that Bach wrote that music as a tombeau at the death of
his first wife.
    When I consider that a
tombeau is like a requiem, only less religious, it is no surprise
that it was my china doll’s favorite piece. Mourning felt normal to
her. It feels normal for many people. She was more normal than she
knew.
     
     
     
     
    We watched Theo working the
bow across the violin. His fingers moved swiftly over the strings.
He had such newfound power and speed and authority.
    A tear came to Wyn’s eye.
It was like seeing a Vulcan cry.
    I couldn’t tell if Wyn was
happy or sad.
    He might have been happy.
The Blood Vivicanti had proven to be his most successful science
project.
    Then again: He might have
been mourning – the way Bach mourned his wife through
music.
     
     
     
     
    Theo played the violin for
us for days. It was wonderful to have live music in the mansion.
Yet his playing and his music were associative: They reminded me of
how my china doll used to make me feel.
    But the richness of my
fantasy life turned my thoughts and hopes and dreams away from her
and toward Theo. The network of my mind was making new
associations.
     
     
     
     
    He was a phenomenal dancer.
And now that I had his Blood Memories in me, so was I.
    Theo would play the violin
and I would dance with his music. The memory of dancing was not in
my muscles. It took me a day to get used to being graceful. I’d
never been graceful before. My body had never moved so fluidly or
so beautifully before. I could plié and brisé and
pirouette.
    I still can. His Blood
Memories are still strong in me. If I wanted to, I could dance a
very lovely Lobster Quadrille.
     
     
     
     
    At the end of the week,
Theo and I performed a dance recital in the ballroom.
    Wyn came to
watch.
    Ms. Crystobal came too, but
only because Wyn threatened her with immanent unemployment if she
didn’t.
    He was joking of
course.
    I’m not sure if Ms.
Crystobal gets jokes. They might be a little too human for
her.
     
     
     
     
    Theo and I danced to the
music of Danny Elfman’s Topiary Garden
Waltz .
    We would twist our bodies
beyond the limits of the human frame. We would leap high into the
air. We’d spin around and around, far from the ground. We moved
like two currents of clear water.
    Ms. Crystobal sat with her
arms folded the whole time. She looked annoyed and
unimpressed.
    Theo and I finished. We’d
hardly broken a