Do you remember your mother at all? we used to whisper to each other in the dark, when the other orphans were snoring.
Do you remember what your house smelled like?
I steal a glance over her shoulder at Helene, at her mended coat that drapes like ink over the gown I made with magic. Helene’s cheeks are rouged and her lips are a deep red, and the faint scent of narcissus and musk blooms from her like a flower. I can tell by the rigid way she stands that she heard Eve say those words to me, one of her own servants, when they likely haven’t yet said it to each other. “And I you,” I whisper, giving Eve a quick, earnest hug back. Then I extract myself abruptly—perhaps too abruptly. A brief frown crosses Eve’s face just before she steps into the carriage.
On the road, there is a hushed quiet of anticipation as the country skies color with dusk. Eve can’t stop smiling, or shivering.
“Are you cold?” Helene asks. She dips down to move the coal box closer to Eve’s feet.
“No. I’m excited,” Eve says. She takes a breath as if the air tastes sweet.
“I’ve hired you a tutor for schooling,” Helene says. “But I plan to teach you to dance myself.” She straightens. “As soon as I saw you dance that day at the Mill, I saw a raw talent in you—the sort you can’t actually teach. It’s rare, and you have it, Eve, just like I do. You’ve never danced on pointe?”
“No,” Eve says.
“I will teach you that once you’ve learned proper technique. And,” Helene says, leaning forward, “if you are willing, so much beyond that.”
“What do you mean?” Eve asks. The city’s edges begin glittering into view. Gaslights dangle in the night like glowing fruit from tree branches. A distant church bell clangs over the clopping of horse hooves, and the cobblestones shine with melted snow.
“Pointework right now is merely up, down, up, down,” Helene says. She turns her wrists to demonstrate. “But I see it broadening to the newest things they are beginning to explore in Italy, in Russia. Leaps and turns, pirouettes, fouettés. Danish ballet is more interested in showcasing the male dancing, but there is so much more we can do. I’d like to push the boundaries.”
“I would like that,” Eve says slowly. “But . . . I’ll never dance on stage, of course.” A look flickers across her face, quick and then gone. “I don’t look enough like those ballerinas.”
My gut clenches as we ride through the widened lanes of Copenhagen toward King’s New Square. I remember how the butcher in Karlslunde would pass right over Eve when she spoke to him, pretending as though she weren’t there. Most of the prospective parents didn’t give her a second look, but a few would look at her a little too long. And there was one cold morning on the street two years ago when a man staggered toward Eve with his sour breath and asked to see her “freedom papers.” With how matter-of-factly that assertion just now slipped off her tongue, I wonder how many other moments there were that she never told me about. That I never saw, and that she bore alone.
“You’re West Indian, yes?” Helene asks.
Eve traces the embroidery on her coat. “My mother was. I don’t even know which of the islands she came from. She was a house servant for a family called the Ankers.” Her voice drops to a whisper, as though her next words are almost a confession: “I never knew who my father was.”
“As best I can tell, my father was some nameless, faceless Dane,” Helene says. She straightens her gloves. “But my mother was from St. Croix.”
Eve glances up at her in shock, her eyes large pools. I can tell by the way Liljan tries so hard to seem as though she isn’t listening that she didn’t know this either. I look at Helene more closely. Her tan skin, her dark eyes. I hadn’t ever heard that part of the story.
“I didn’t know,” Eve says, and there’s a look on her face that I’ve never seen before. But it dawns on me now that Ness must have known. I understand even more now why she invited Helene to come and watch Eve dance that day.
“Yes. Well. Not many people did know. I powdered my skin a little, and I played the game.” Helene’s face is carefully expressionless when she draws out a ballet shoe from her bag. Its satin is a supple pink, and the toe is shaped like a stiff box, reinforced with cloth darning. “I played the game long enough and rose high enough in its ranks that maybe now I might even be able to change it. Have you heard of a girl named Marie Taglioni?”
Eve nods. “Of course. She was the first to dance an entire ballet on pointe.”
“Yes, and that wasn’t even fifty years ago. You see, ballet seems so fixed, but really, it’s in constant evolution. In the 1600s, female dancers were barely allowed. A century ago, ballet shoes had heels. Ballerinas danced in heavy gowns with layers that made it nearly impossible to leap. But then Marie Taglioni’s father created a costume style that had never been seen before—light and airy, romantic.” She shoots a look at me, and finally, I realize why she offered me the job that day in Karlslunde. The whole picture she was seeing, when she looked at me and Eve together. “The costume didn’t reach Marie’s ankles; it didn’t even have sleeves. But her father trained her, designing choreography and costumes that emphasized her strengths. And they took risks.”
Helene hands Eve the shoe, and Eve takes it without looking up. Deep in thought, she traces the curves of it with her finger.
“He had foresight, and she had talent, and together, they revolutionized ballet,” Helene continues. “I want to do that too. Evolve what ballet looks like. And what ballerinas look like.” She gives Eve a small smile. “By the time Marie Taglioni was offered a contract in Russia, she was so popular that her pointe shoes were sold for two hundred rubles to be cooked in sauce and eaten by the ballerinas in training.”
Eve is silent. After a moment she asks quietly, “But what if I don’t want people to eat my shoes?”
I fight the strongest urge to take her hand.
Helene reaches out for it instead.
“That is more than all right,” Helene says softly. “Eve, listen to me. You don’t ever have to dance, if you don’t wish to. I just want you to have the choice.”
When she finally looks up, Eve says: “Well. I’d wager that if anyone could make my shoes taste delicious, it’s Dorit.”
Helene actually laughs, and it feels as though the thread of something substantial is knitting between them, something unseen and yet happening right in front of my eyes. I feel a pull of sadness, of jealousy, as if I just stepped off a train that they will continue on, together, to somewhere I have always dreamed to go and have never been before.
And then our carriage pulls to a stop in front of the columns of the Royal Danish Theatre. When the door swings open, the air outside smells of sea salt and sweet cedar smoke, the lights of the theater blaze, and Helene is mobbed by the crowd as soon as she steps onto the street.
* * *
Helene whisks Eve to the entrance of the theater, and Eve steals a look every few paces to make sure I haven’t gotten lost. We are surrounded by a crush of people dressed in finery, the overwhelming smells of perfumed velvet and cigar smoke and pomade, and so many voices, and I notice, this time, the lingering looks at Eve and subtle whispers as Helene leads her through the crowd. We’re enveloped in a sudden whoosh of warmth as we pass through the foyer. “The theater is too small for Copenhagen,” someone sniffs, “and they’re making plans for another,” yet I’ve never been inside a building this vast, like a cathedral to marble, gold, and velvet. Liljan and I make our way toward the pit level with the other servants and laypeople, finding a stroke of luck and a place to sit on one of the few benches.
Eve and Helene move through the gilded rows above me. The fabrics become finer, the jewels larger, the higher my eyes rise up the tiers, and then the crowd stands in unison as the royal family is announced.
“His Royal Highness King Christian IX and Queen Louise.”
My heart jumps into my throat as the king and queen of Denmark enter, flanked by guards. Beside me, Liljan cranes her neck for a better look. The light cat
ches the crest around Eve’s throat. She stands directly beside Philip Vestergaard and ten paces away from the reigning king and queen of Denmark.
The gap between us widens further.
I’m afraid of bats nesting in my hair, she once whispered to me in the dark after she woke shrieking and thrashing from a nightmare at the Mill. I’m afraid of drowning, I told her, lacing my fingers through hers. We never spoke of the fear we shared but wouldn’t name:
I’m afraid no one will pick me.
I’m afraid I will end up alone.
Helene’s face remains a tight mask as Philip leans over Eve to whisper something in Helene’s ear, and it does nothing to ease my nerves as the doors shut heavily and the lights flicker and die.
The theater is cast in darkness as thick as velvet. I can’t see Eve anymore, and it makes my pulse jump a notch. The music suddenly swells from the orchestra, with a deafening cymbal crash. The curtain rises, and on a simple, ominous violin melody, a ballerina appears on the stage. The spotlight catches every stone studded into her canary-yellow corset, structured with whalebone and rigid against a full, lush skirt. The servants are in rapt attention around me. They watch the dancing, but I gaze at costumes. To me the dancer’s body is like a breath, bringing life into a costume as soon as she puts it on.
Liljan and I watch the performance in silence until the air itself begins to move. Little bits of paper fall from the rafters, creating a white blizzard of tiny snowflakes. The snow gathers in piles on the stage, and a row of dancers move in perfect symphony amid the flurries in their silvery satin shoes. The crowd gasps with delight and applauds. It is just little pieces of paper and cloth and ordinary humans, but as I’m watching, a chain mail of goose bumps rises along my arms and neck. I shiver with pleasure at the pure, transcendent beauty in front of me.
“Do you feel it?” Liljan whispers, and I recognize that the tingling frost of pleasure feels like those first moments I call to my magic. Liljan glances around her at the audience, their captivated faces turned toward the stage like flowers to the sun. “Even people who don’t have magic can feel it. When something is so terribly beautiful,” she whispers in my ear, “when someone hits their perfect pitch or dances so exquisitely or plays that combination of notes that sends that tingle shooting up your spine—”
“Yes,” I murmur, “you can feel the magic. On your skin.”
I turn and watch Eve’s face, her dark eyes reflecting the lights, but the next time I glance up, Philip is staring at me. I’ve drawn his attention by looking at them too many times. I turn around as quickly as I can and slink down, trying to disappear. I don’t dare look up again for the rest of the night. But I caught Helene’s face, and Eve’s a mirror to it, in that final stolen glance. Both of them were watching the stage with yearning. Helene, because she was looking at her past—and Eve, because she was looking at the future.
* * *
After the curtain falls, the sound of clapping flutters like birds rising around us to the rafters, and the open doors let in a slice of chill. “Come,” Liljan says, and I dare to sneak another glance toward the upper boxes. Philip isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s in conversation with a man seated next to them, who is clutching a top hat in his long, thin fingers. He has hollowed cheeks, a high forehead, a prominent nose, and hair that curls around his ears.
Jakob’s warning echoes in my thoughts. Be careful. I swallow and follow Liljan, suddenly so glad she’s here with me.
“Who is that man speaking with Philip Vestergaard?” I ask as we make our way against the people who stream down the stairs around us, caught within the flow of their laughter and excited voices.
“It’s Hans Christian Andersen,” Liljan replies. “The author of fairy tales?”
I can still hear my father’s voice reading to us from New Fairy Tales. Papa, I think, heart squeezing. The man whose words you read, from your mouth to my ears, and now you are gone and he is here.
The foot guards in bearskin hats and blue uniforms show interest in Liljan and me the closer we move to the royal family. My heartbeat slows in my ears as I take them all in: Philip and Helene Vestergaard. Hans Christian Andersen. The royal family of Denmark. Helene rose from the ashes of the Mill to pluck Eve from the orphanage and place her here, speaking with the queen. Helene is the impossible needle that is bringing Eve straight through a fabric she could never get through on her own—and me, too. Helene is sewing us right into the middle of it.
“We wait here,” Liljan whispers, and pulls me into the shadows.
“In Paris they have more distinguished dancers than we, more decorations and extraordinary arrangements intermingled with the dancing, but such richness in truly poetic ballet composition as Bournonville has given, only Copenhagen possesses,” Mr. Andersen is saying. He gestures to the man next to him, whom I take to be August Bournonville, the ballet master and choreographer. He has a long nose and dark hair parted to the side.
“It is the mission of art to intensify thought, to elevate the mind, and to refresh the senses,” Mr. Bournonville says.
They both turn instinctively toward Queen Louise when she says, “You must return again to read the children your Wonder Stories, Mr. Andersen.” She wears a glittering crown, lustrous satin in layers the color of iridescent shells, and glowing pearls that fall in strands over her décolletage. Despite the luxury of their appearance, the royals didn’t go to St. Petersburg for the princess’s wedding. This morning, I overheard Nina tell Dorit of rumors that they couldn’t afford it.
“Please allow us this opportunity to present a small gift, as a token of appreciation and service to your family,” Philip says, nodding at a guard who is clutching a rectangular velvet case. This guard doesn’t wear the blue of the royal foot guard, but the black uniform with the Vestergaard hammer and pick embroidered on it in gold thread. “For Princess Dagmar,” Philip says to Queen Louise. “With best wishes for a long and happy marriage.”
I catch a glimpse of red stones as Queen Louise peeks inside the velvet case. Her eyebrows rise, her crown glittering like dew in her hair as she says, “How generous. We give our thanks to the Vestergaards.”
The roar of the theater has simmered to a low hum, of pealing giggles hidden behind gloved hands, of glances up to the balcony box as if it has become the new stage.
“We are in your service,” Philip says, bowing. “Pledging to help Denmark in any way we can.” Philip wears a heavy red stone on his first finger. Next to him, Helene dips into the most graceful curtsy. A golden circlet is threaded into her hair, understated and delicate.
It hits me even more than before how impossible it would be for me, an orphaned servant with no social standing at all, to uncover a conspiracy involving one of the most powerful families in Denmark.
“How extraordinarily lovely,” Hans Christian Andersen comments, “that such beauty can grow deep within the darkness and the ground.”
And such ugliness, I think, that someone I loved died there, too.
I found things, Jakob’s voice echoes to me from the other night. Things that made him question whether it was really an accident at all.
I think there’s something in those mines they were trying to hide, he said.
I picture the letter my father wrote, the one they found on his body, and I shiver. The letter that somehow he must have realized he was never going to send.
Be a Gerda, he had written in it.
And seeing Hans Christian Andersen standing there in the flesh, right next to Philip Vestergaard, I am hit by something I never considered before. It burned at me all these years, that my father didn’t include me in that final letter. But maybe the fact that the letter was addressed only to Ingrid wasn’t a slight.
It was a clue.
Because she could have read it in a different way than I ever could have.
I closed the accounts, he wrote.
But what if he didn’t? Ingrid would have been able to decipher if any parts of his letter were a lie. What if h
e was trying to tell us something?
Be a Gerda.
What if Jakob is right and the mining deaths weren’t an accident? What if those miners—and my father—stumbled on something that someone wanted to make sure stayed buried?
What if those accounts my father opened still exist after all?
Mr. Andersen catches me staring at him from the shadows and gives me the slightest nod, and I want to run to him and throw my arms around him. For the stories he gave me that I shared with my father—and for the fact that simply by coming to the ballet tonight, he might have given me a clue to a ten-year-old mystery I didn’t even know existed.
Chapter Thirteen
I have to visit that bank in Copenhagen.
It’s hard to persuade Nina to give me a day off, when I’ve only just started and have already taken a night off to go to the ballet. So I mete out my magic in mere drips and do as much as I can by hand, carefully watching for my chance. It takes six days for an opportunity to materialize.
And poetically, the person who hands it to me is Brock.
I’m still waking up on a cold morning, drinking coffee and scheming while fixing tablecloths burned with splattered wax, when Nina suddenly begins shrieking my name.
“Marit! Marit? Where are you?” she yells, her voice taking on a faint note of hysteria. I hurry toward her and my stomach drops—if I’m in trouble, I’ll have to wait at least another week or even more to learn if there’s something waiting for me in that bank.
I find her in the kitchen, clutching her apron.
“The drapes in the sitting room are shredded,” she moans. “They’re in absolute tatters, as if a small animal got hold of them and went mad trying to get out.”
“A small animal?” I ask slowly.
“A pygmy shrew?” Jakob ventures with a straight face.
“Rabid muskrat?” Liljan asks.
“Marit, go! Fix them immediately. Before Mrs. Vestergaard takes notice,” Nina says. She raises her voice to address the rest of the kitchen: “And the next person I catch with food anywhere outside the dining rooms will be rewarded with extra chamber pot duty.” She pulls my arm to hurry me toward the corridor and mutters, “I’m setting traps. For rats.”
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