Giselle’s eyes flickered to her sister’s.
“Oh,” said Katya, blinking with understanding. “Oh.” She stared at Giselle, her eyes filling as she took in what it meant for her sister to give up dancing.
Katya reached for Giselle’s cropped hair again, this time with compassion. She shook her head as if by doing so, she could restore her sister’s hair, her sister’s dreams, her sister’s life.
“What will you do now?” whispered Katya.
Giselle looked away. She didn’t know. Who was she apart from dance? Her chest constricted and she knew she was in danger of crying. She would not cry. She refused. She walled herself off from the pain.
Katya placed gentle arms around her sister and they held one another in silence, Giselle resting her chin on top of Katya’s head. Downstairs, Sasha entered through the dog door and shook, her collar jangling.
Katya pulled away and sighed. “She needs a walk.”
Neither sister moved to walk the dog. It was too late, anyway. Rehearsal was beginning soon.
Katya, close to the window, flicked the burnt edge of her sister’s shoe ribbon. “Some days, I wish I could be done,” she said softly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Giselle. “You love dance.”
“It’s not what I want to do with my life.”
Therein lay the real difference between the sisters. It wasn’t to be found in their coloring, like Snow White and Rose Red in Babushka’s tales. Nor was it to be found in the six inch height difference. Rather it lay in the distinction between:
It’s not what I want to do with my life
and
Ballet is all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life.
Giselle turned away and straightened her comforter, fluffed her pillows.
“I can’t be the one to tell Mom,” murmured Katya, still tracing her finger back and forth along the burnt ribbon.
“Oh,” replied Giselle. “Oh.”
She’d told Katya she wasn’t going to rehearsal. Katya would have assumed she’d be stuck telling their mother Giselle wasn’t coming.
Giselle dropped her eyes to her pillow and slammed both sides with the flats of her palms. “I wasn’t planning for you to be the one. I just wasn’t … planning.”
Katya pointed to the braid on Giselle’s desk. “That sure looks like a plan to me.”
Giselle had to agree. But more and more, it was looking like a bad plan.
Giselle watched as Katya shed her outer layer of school clothing, revealing the dance-friendly garments which formed the basis for the sisters’ wardrobes. On school days, they just threw something school appropriate over the top. What would Giselle wear to school now?
“You know Mom’s going to have a Cuban missile crisis,” said Katya as she pulled her hair into the beginning of a ballet bun.
Giselle grabbed a few strays Katya had missed and swept them off her sister’s neck.
“I’ll go with you today,” said Giselle. “I’ll tell her. That should screen you from collateral damage.”
Katya’s raised eyebrows communicated exactly how likely she thought that was.
“We’ll show up only a few minutes early. Mom won’t have a meltdown in front of students arriving for rehearsal,” said Giselle. “Pass me your hair pins.”
Katya separated out her dark colored pins. The sisters had never been able to share because their hair color was too different. Giselle worked Katya’s hair quickly; she had done it thousands of times before Katya took over at age ten.
“Grab a sweater,” Giselle said. Katya looked so small. So fragile. She was examining Giselle’s braid as though she was considering petting it or offering it proper burial—Giselle wasn’t sure which.
“Sweater,” Giselle repeated, when Katya continued mournfully staring at the braid.
This time Katya responded, dutifully grabbing a sweater with a Norwegian pattern around the neckline. Together, the two tumbled out the front door and took the winding path that formed one length of the triangle of locations important to their lives: school-studio-home. Her heart pounding in her throat, Giselle wondered if her mother would insist she continue as an instructor, teaching without pay. She would refuse, she thought, even though good instructors didn’t come cheap. Especially because good instructors didn’t come cheap. Let Miss Ruslana deal with that.
“I don’t think I’m ready for the Peasant Pas-de-Deux,” said Katya, picking fuzz off her sweater and flicking it away.
“Of course you’re ready, Katya. You were ready last year.”
Katya’s left shoulder, the same one she forgot to drop when pirouetting, crept up ever so slightly toward her left ear, signaling to Giselle just how anxious her sister was.
“Mom wouldn’t have cast you if she’d had any reservations, kapusta-head.” Giselle said it with a smile. She didn’t mention her sister’s nervously creeping shoulder.
The sisters had never worked out the precise degree of fondness or insult implied by kapusta—the Russian word for cabbage—but Babushka seemed to use it affectionately, so the girls did as well. And, in any case, Giselle reasoned, Katya’s head was round and small like a cabbage.
“You’d do it better,” replied Katya. “And I wouldn’t mind taking the role of Berthe. Really. We could ask Mom.”
Giselle shook her head no. Quickly. Decisively.
“Do you really mean it, Giselle? Are you done?”
Giselle nodded.
The sister’s hands bumped together by accident. Automatically each reached to interlock fingers for a second. It meant I love you and I’m sorry all at once. And then, far too quickly, they arrived at the studio’s front door.
They entered to see their mother huddled by a collection of electronic equipment, muttering in Russian. The sound system, never reliable, was probably down again. Although the studio kept a pianist for classes, Miss Ruslana would be playing the fully orchestrated score of Giselle for today’s first ensemble call.
“Katya!” called their mother, rising. “The stereo. It’s doing … that thing.”
Ruslana was composed of cut edges and exposed nerves this afternoon. She swore in Russian as she accidentally pulled the power cord on the stereo. Hearing this, Giselle experienced a bitter satisfaction.
“On it,” replied Katya. She crouched, doubtless happy to be occupied with wires and buttons and flashing LED’s instead of Giselle-Ruslana pyrotechnics.
“You’re late,” said their mother, addressing them in the plural. As Ruslana crossed the wooden floor, her left hand clenched and unclenched. Everything about her was allegro, thought Giselle: quick, sharp movements. Her face might display calm, but her body betrayed her true feelings.
“I’m not staying,” said Giselle, waiting for her mother to look up and notice her hair.
Her mother ran one hand over a messy collection of papers littering the counter. “Where’s the new list with everybody’s cell phone numbers on it?” she murmured.
“I’m not dancing Berthe,” announced Giselle.
“The one we passed around yesterday? For updates?” continued her mother.
“I thought you should know,” said Giselle.
Her mother sighed in exasperation and picked up a new stack of papers. “I don’t have time for this right now. We don’t have time for this right now. Where are those phone numbers?” She rifled through the papers in her hands.
“I’m serious,” Giselle said. “You’ll need to cast another Berthe.”
Giselle’s mother stopped shuffling papers and looked at her daughter. Her lips pulled tight. Fire danced in her dark eyes. And then, finally, she noticed Giselle’s ragged haircut and her eyes grew momentarily wide with disbelief. Ruslana closed her eyes. When she spoke again, her mouth pinched tight as she formed words. “Students are coming. We’ll talk about this tonight.” She turned from Giselle. “Derrmo! Where did I put Marcus’s contact information?”
Inside Giselle’s stomach, a snarling beast thrashed its tail. Snatching the co
ntact sheet from a pile, she slammed it onto the counter in front of her mother.
Ruslana startled. “Thank God,” she murmured, grabbing the studio phone, an ancient corded thing. She began punching numbers.
“I know you’re disappointed,” said her mother, pausing before pushing the final digit of her intended call. “We’ll talk tonight.” She finished dialing.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Giselle. “I’m not dancing Berthe. I’m not dancing any role. I’m through.”
Her mother’s mouth had just opened to form a greeting on the phone. Changing her mind, she pressed the old fashioned switch hook, ending the call. Then, hands on her hips, she fixed her dark eyes on Giselle’s and lowered her voice to an angry whisper. “Why are you doing this right now? Students will be here in less than five minutes!”
“You cast me in a role I could have performed ten years ago,” said Giselle, her eyes flashing angry blue fire. “You said I’m too tall for a career in dance. Clearly, there’s no place for me here anymore.”
“You listen to me, young woman,” said her mother. “I understand you’re upset. I understand that you want to get back at me right now. But we don’t have time for your dramatics because in less than ten minutes, this studio is going to be full of dancers ready to begin rehearsing Giselle.”
Giselle couldn’t help it; she flinched when her mother spoke the name of the ballet—her name. The betrayal felt fresh and hot.
“That is no longer my concern,” replied Giselle. The snarl in her voice felt unfamiliar but she liked the way it tasted in her mouth, bitter as lemon.
Miss Ruslana’s placid features twisted. Her fist landed on the counter, and Katya, still hunched over the stereo, made a small squeaking noise.
“How dare you? You of all people know what it means that fifty-two students are depending on you. You will dance Berthe! Go! Change! NOW!”
The fury in her mother’s eyes froze Giselle in place. She wanted to turn and walk calmly out the door, her head held high, but years of practice, years of obedience warred with her desire and she found she could not move.
“Now!” whispered Ruslana.
Katya peeked around the stereo cupboard door, her pale complexion white as one of the willis.
In the end, it was the sight of Katya’s face, watching to see if her sister meant it—if she would really defy their mother—that gave Giselle the power to move again. Outside, the first students were pulling into the parking lot. Giselle turned for the door, certain if she didn’t leave this minute, she would never leave.
“GISELLE!” Miss Ruslana’s voice rose to a decibel level she had spent years avoiding.
But Giselle had made her decision. Once she’d crossed the threshold, she turned and gazed icily at her mother, willing her to drop her eyes first.
Her mother brought one hand to her mouth, eyes widening with shock. “You look just like your father,” she whispered.
Giselle looked nothing like her diminutive, dark featured father, as her mother knew perfectly well, but it didn’t matter. The alarm in her mother’s eyes had shifted the balance of power, and Giselle was the victor.
She felt her triumph, but only for a moment. It was slippery as soap and gone from her grasp almost at once. In its place, Giselle felt a prickle of remorse for leaving Katya behind. But Giselle knew her mother well. She knew that in thirty seconds when the first students pushed inside, Miss Ruslana would rearrange her features, masking her anger with calm, pretending nothing was amiss.
As the first handful of her former pupils greeted Giselle, she adopted her own mask, a grim, battle-hardened smile. Sliding to one side to let the dancers pass, she caught the eye of the ikon beside the door. The Holy Mother of I Cannot Believe You Just Did That eyed her in utter amazement.
6
COMBS, BRUSHES, MIRRORS
Giselle took a meandering path home to avoid crossing paths with her grandmother. Babushka no longer visited the studio every day, but she would almost certainly rise from her nap to attend the ensemble call. Giselle wasn’t certain what she would do when she arrived home. Her school binder held a collection of syllabi and grading policies but no homework. She kicked a small cone, sequoia, and watched it spin along the sidewalk. Today would have been a nice day to have lots of homework.
When she reached her empty house, her white dog greeted her at the front door, tail thumping. Sasha’s large mournful eyes regarded Giselle for a long moment, attentive to Giselle’s somber mood. The dog shifted her canine gaze to the leash hanging from the coat rack, making a noise that was part sneeze, part harrumph.
“A walk,” said Giselle, nodding. She leaned down to throw her arms around Sasha’s thick coat. “Thank you,” she whispered. “A walk is just what I need.”
On auto-pilot, Giselle led Sasha toward the dog park, but the dog park was very close to the river, and Giselle hesitated. Sasha, noting the hesitation, pulled away from the park at the river.
Giselle frowned. She wasn’t going to let the tragedy of a (probably drunk) teenage boy keep her from the river. Also, Giselle felt certain that if her mother had been home, she would have forbidden her from visiting the channel for the next few days. Giselle scowled and giving Sasha’s leash a sharp tug, she turned for the river.
Babushka and even Katya would probably have told Giselle to stay far from the sirens’ habitation, just in case. It didn’t feel nearly as satisfying to think of disappointing them as to imagine disobeying her mother. She wouldn’t mention it to either of them—especially Babushka who’d awoken in the night from another bad dream. No, Giselle would have to satisfy herself with the knowledge her mother would have forbid her visiting the river if she’d known about it.
Rains had swollen the banks of the channel so that the tips of tall summer grass could be seen waving in the current, drowning where they had flourished on dry ground a week earlier. Giselle let Sasha off-leash, but instead of dashing off to investigate the dog park, the dog kept close, pacing back and forth between Giselle and the river, tail flagging but ears pricked forward. Alert. Watching. Waiting.
Staring at the grasses rippling in the river, Giselle recalled her dark dreams. Two nights in a row, now. Well, and who wouldn’t have bad dreams after such a betrayal by their own mother? Of course, thought Giselle, biting her lip, she hadn’t known the extent of the betrayal until this morning. She didn’t want to think of what she might dream tonight. She would ask Babushka for a special tea, to ward off bad dreams.
Suddenly the swollen, undulant river seemed dark and threatening. Giselle took a step back. Sasha was at her side in a moment, cold wet nose nuzzling the leash in Giselle’s hand.
“Let’s go,” murmured Giselle, clipping the leash back on.
Sasha’s gait slowed on their return, and Giselle felt a pinch of guilt. The dog was older than Babushka, comparatively speaking, and rather more arthritic.
“I’m sorry, girl,” murmured Giselle. “We’ll go home and find you a nice treat.”
The dog’s ears pricked forward. “Treat” was an important word in Sasha’s limited vocabulary.
“Would you like a treat?” asked Giselle.
Sasha uttered a yowling sound Katya always insisted was an attempt at speech, and Giselle, who had earlier believed she might never laugh again, laughed heartily in response, informing Sasha that she was a good dog, a very good dog, the best dog in the world. Sasha accepted the praise as a matter of course.
After they’d returned home and Giselle had conferred the promised treat, she settled in front of the family television. It wasn’t a real television, like normal people had in normal houses. It was a computer monitor that Katya had coaxed into behaving like a television. Giselle flipped to a station that played local news at five, curious (though she would have denied it) to see if Foulweather had really made the news.
She discovered Foulweather didn’t just make the news, it was the news. Or rather, the Foulweather sirens were the news. On one channel, there was a retr
ospective on the creatures, describing early sightings by Russians in both the Puget Sound and the yawning mouth of the Columbia. A second station featured an interview of an Astoria boy who claimed the white-clad creatures had drowned his friend. Another of the interviewees was the girlfriend of the drowned boy. She held up a ring he’d given her and then, sobbing, turned from the camera.
Giselle flipped to another channel where an anchorwoman told her that although the recovered body showed signs of a struggle, in the interest of privacy, the remains of the latest victim would not be shown on air. Then she turned to ask her co-anchor, a Native American, if his family might have insights on the rumored creatures’ habits prior to the nineteenth century. He smiled politely and said the stories he’d heard did not belong to him, so he could not share them. The anchorwoman, abashed, apologized and they cut to live coverage outside Astoria.
This reporter also stood with a girl identified as the drowned boy’s girlfriend.
Giselle blinked. It wasn’t the girlfriend. This girl had short hair. And fair skin. It wasn’t the same girl at all. Either one of the girls was lying or the drowned boy had dated two different girls. The new girlfriend held up a set of keys to the drowned boy’s car, saying the last thing he said to her was to put some gas in the tank, baby.
Giselle frowned at the TV, trying to make the car-key girlfriend look the same as the promise-ring girlfriend. But she couldn’t. They were absolutely two different people. Maybe one of the girls was lying: a pitiful grasp for fifteen minutes of fame.
Shrugging, Giselle flipped back to the first station. She watched as a segment showed footage shot only three blocks from her house, along the Multnomah Channel, actually a branch of the Willamette River separating Foulweather from Sauvie Island. Giselle sat up a little straighter, a chill running along her spine. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea, visiting the river today. If anything had happened to Sasha ...
According to the news, historically there had been recorded sightings as far south as Wilsonville, as well as sightings in downtown Portland, and one attack in the late nineteenth century in Lake Oswego, but in spite of these other sightings, Foulweather, Oregon held the record for the highest number of sightings in a single area.
Siren Spell Page 5