Dance of Shadows

by Yelana Black

  He had stopped dancing entirely and was standing across the room, gazing at her in awe. “You are beautiful,” he murmured. “So incredibly beautiful.”

  All she could see of him was his dark, wavy hair, his swirling eyes, the contours of his neck as he watched her. She felt something open within her.

  Something inside her started to boil, blossoming beneath her skin. Losing herself, she glided across the boards toward him. His hair was soft and thick beneath her fingers as she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled it toward her, pressing her mouth to his. Vanessa pulled him closer, her fingers tight around his body, until gently, he broke out of her grip.

  She took a step back. “Why can’t you love me?” Vanessa said, repeating his words, her voice low and not her own.

  Zep backed away, his eyes searching hers for understanding. He almost looked sad, as if he wanted to tell her something but couldn’t. “Love,” he said, just as he had when they were dancing. “You need me. You want me. You’ve always wanted me. But you can’t have me.” His shoulders collapsed, as if it pained him to say the words. “And I want you. But fate is against us.”

  Vanessa could do nothing but stand there, her breath growing thin, her vision swirled and possessed, as all the color seemed to fade from the room. Until suddenly, the spell broke, and the scuffs in the polished wood floor materialized as everything returned to normal. Vanessa let out a gasp as something left her and her muscles finally relaxed. She stumbled back like a marionette with its strings cut.

  “I—I don’t know what got into me.”

  Zep’s face softened. “Great dancing can open you up and invite in all sorts of things … hidden, forbidden, dangerous consequences.”

  “What do you mean?” Vanessa said.

  He stepped closer. “You know that feeling you get when you dance, like the world we exist in is thinning and disappearing?”

  It took a moment for Vanessa to process what Zep had said. “Do you feel it too?”

  “No,” Zep said. “I’m not that talented. But you are.”

  His gaze was so intent that she had to look away. “I don’t think that’s talent,” she said. “I always fall when that happens.”

  “Remember what I said? That’s because you haven’t mastered it yet.”

  “Mastered what?”

  “The dance. What you can do. It’s magic.” His voice was so steady that Vanessa couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  She let out a nervous laugh. “Magic. Right.”

  Zep didn’t say anything. He strode toward her, and with a force Vanessa had never felt before, Zep took her by the waist and pulled her into a wet, violent kiss.

  And even though it was exactly what she thought she’d wanted—for Zep to kiss her like this, to desire her, to choose her—he didn’t feel like the Zep who had stared at her over the velvety seats of the Lincoln Center ballet, the Zep who’d run through the night with her until they were breathless. This Zep felt different, like a stranger.

  “I try to resist you but I can’t.” He touched his forehead to hers.

  Vanessa closed her eyes, feeling his damp skin against hers and wishing she could believe he was hers. But our love is violent, his voice repeated in her mind. It cannot last. I cast you off. You don’t understand. You beg me. You ask me why I can’t love you.

  “Why can’t you love me?” she asked, her lips grazing his.

  She felt him stop breathing for a moment, and in his hesitation, she knew. She didn’t need to wait for him to speak, for his body had already betrayed him. She didn’t know why, but she knew she couldn’t have him.

  She backed away, searching his eyes for an answer.

  “Vanessa, wait,” he said, reaching for her, but she pulled back.

  “Why?” she said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Can’t we take it slowly?” he said gently. “This is new to me too.” He stepped toward her, but Vanessa turned away, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes. Without saying anything more, she grabbed her things and ran out the door, his voice lost as she burst into the hall and out into the comfort and anonymity of the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The light shone around Vanessa, casting her shadow across the room. Sweat trickled down her neck. Her leg trembled as she held it behind her for four, five, six counts. On the periphery, she could see Zep frozen in position, his eyes willing her to hold it longer, straighter. She forced herself to look away.

  She had been practicing the same sequence for a week, and every time she had fumbled. She told her friends about the problem when they were hanging out in her dorm room, but they didn’t understand. “All dance is rooted in some kind of emotion,” Steffie had said. “If you can’t feel it, it’s probably because you haven’t experienced that emotion yet. You know?”

  “Are you saying I lack life experience?”

  Steffie shrugged. “I’m just saying that it’s hard to dance about love or grief if you haven’t gone through those things.”

  “It’s more than that, though,” Vanessa had said. “It’s like an emotion that isn’t from this world.”

  Steffie had raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Vanessa turned to Blaine and TJ, who were sitting on the bed doing algebra.

  “Don’t ask me,” TJ said, looking up from her notebook. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I can barely keep up with barre work.”

  Blaine told her she should take a break and get a long massage. Maybe indulge in some retail therapy.

  “Why don’t you talk to Zep?” TJ said finally. “He’s your dance partner, right?”

  Vanessa nodded. “I do. If it weren’t for his help, I probably wouldn’t have made it this far.” Though they never spoke of that tense night in the studio, the words remained between them, like a magnetic force pulling them together, pushing them apart.

  Every day in rehearsal, their bodies spoke the words neither of them could bring themselves to say aloud. Strangely, it was helping; Vanessa started to feel each step deep within her body until they were as natural as falling in love, teetering with yearning, jumping back in anger. The dance felt so intimate that she went warm with shame every time she caught the eye of one of the princesses, reminding her that the entire cast was watching her conversation with Zep. Did they all know what had happened? Could they read it from his body like she could?

  Every day Vanessa expected to hear Anna and the other princesses gossiping about the tension between Zep and Vanessa, but to her surprise, they didn’t seem to notice. In fact, no one did, with the exception of two people.

  The first, to Vanessa’s dismay, was Justin. In the morning full-cast rehearsals, when Justin wasn’t working on the steps of the prince, he sat in the corner with his arms crossed, watching Vanessa and Zep.

  The second was Josef. He watched their first afternoon rehearsal of the week in complete silence, his eyes following them across the floor. He looked almost nervous as Zep backed away, leaving Vanessa alone for the finale. And, miraculously, she swept into her last pose without stumbling or confusing her steps. It wasn’t perfect, but it was getting there. When it was over, she stood, frozen in place, her chest heaving.

  The only sound was the clicking of Josef’s shoes against the waxed wood. He squinted at Vanessa, trying to figure out what had changed. His gaze shifted to Zep, giving him the same close scrutiny, and he rubbed his chin. “C’est incroyable,” he murmured, barely audible, then looked up at Vanessa. “Better,” he said. “Much better.”

  He clapped, signaling the end of rehearsal, and Vanessa quickly threw her shoes into her bag and slung it over her shoulder, only to see Josef with his hand on Zep’s back, speaking in low, impatient tones, ushering him into the hallway. Zep glanced over his shoulder just before the doors closed, his eyes meeting Vanessa’s. I’m sorry, they seemed to be saying, please trust me.

  But sorry for what, exactly, Vanessa didn’t know, and never got the chance to ask. Every day now it was the same—Josef whisking Zep away before she could
even say good-bye. If anything, as Vanessa improved, Josef seemed more impatient with Zep. But why? Zep danced his role perfectly every time. She wanted to ask him what Josef was making him work on after hours, but she barely caught sight of him outside of rehearsal until Halloween.

  The floor was strewn with white powder. It dotted Steffie’s dresser, her armchair, her desk; it was streaked across the wood boards at the foot of Elly’s naked bed, and dusted over the rug. Vanessa wove around the furniture to join Steffie, who stood in front of the mirror, dabbing her cheeks with a makeup brush. Her long legs were swathed in white tights, and her face was unrecognizably pale.

  Beside her, TJ and Blaine were slowly erasing themselves, covering their necks and arms and shoulders with white paint. TJ’s brown curls were dusted like a baroque wig, and Blaine was applying black lipstick. They moved over when they saw Vanessa approaching, her skin as white as her leotard, as if she were nothing but bones. Even her red hair was dusted white.

  Steffie put down her eyeliner and blinked, letting powder sprinkle off her eyelashes. “You look like—”

  “Margaret,” Vanessa whispered. With her own vivid coloring erased, her reflection in the mirror looked thin and delicate, just like her sister’s. The result was a cruel coincidence, since, like her three friends, Vanessa was dressing up as a dead dancer from the Danse Macabre. She quickly pushed the thought out of her mind. It was Halloween, after all.

  “Hurry up!” Blaine said. “We’re going to be late!” After finishing the last touches of black-and-white makeup, they hurried out the door.

  It was a Halloween tradition for the students at NYBA to dress up as a famous character in dance history and run through Central Park, using the winding paths as their stage. It was a chance to perform a more primitive dance, the kind that existed before auditoriums and overhead lights, before velvet seats and playbills, when dance was nothing more than people moving to the sounds of nature.

  The October air was a blustery mix of warm breeze and frigid chill. November was around the corner, and with it snow, winter, and the December performance of The Firebird. The moon hung large and yellow, like a gaping eye. Around it, the sky was dark, empty, starless.

  “Is it just me, or does it feel darker tonight?” Steffie said to Vanessa as they walked to join the rest of their classmates, all in costume, waiting by the fountain.

  “I know what you mean,” Vanessa said, gazing up at the sky. “It’s like the universe knows that it’s Halloween.”

  Their classmates were dressed in ethereal tutus and green nymph costumes, nutcrackers and swans and sword-wielding rats, their faces shrouded with hoods and face paint. They talked in whispers, as if the voices weren’t their own but had drifted in from some distant, past land.

  As Vanessa approached, she noticed a tall figure in a long black cloak and a mask. He was standing toward the front of the group, holding a scythe. Death, she thought.

  When he saw her, he stepped forward and bowed, his long robes gathering on the ground. Vanessa leaned closer, standing on her toes to try to peer behind the dark slits of his mask. But it was no use. “My Firebird,” Death said in a deep, guttural tone. Zep? she wondered.

  Before she could speak, he reached into his robes and produced a rose, the color of bone. Vanessa took it with fingers so white they seemed to mimic its delicate petals.

  “Thank you,” she said, sure the figure behind the mask was Zep. Who else would call her his Firebird and bring her a flower? But instead of staying with her, Death only bowed again and then swept away to the front of the pack, leading them all down Broadway and into Central Park.

  Streetlamps lined the winding path, their flickering lights illuminating the wet leaves matted to the ground like a rustcolored carpet, soft beneath Vanessa’s feet. Suddenly they were running soundlessly through the park, contorting their bodies in imitation of the trees. They wove in and out of the underbrush, surprising passersby. Vanessa’s long white hair trailed behind her as she ran, holding Steffie’s hand. She arched her neck, trying to find Death, but all she could see was the tip of his hood. If it was Zep, why wasn’t he with her?

  “Hey.” She tugged Steffie’s arm. “Let’s go up to the front.”

  “Okay,” Steffie said, laughing, and together they squeezed through the crowd.

  Vanessa followed the bobbing head of Death until there were only a handful of people between them, so close she could almost reach out and touch his billowing robes. When Steffie leaned over to talk to a swan on their right, Vanessa let go of her hand and inched toward Death.

  Then she froze, tripping up the people behind her.

  “Hey,” someone said. “What’s the deal?”

  But Vanessa didn’t move.

  On either side of Death’s billowing robes were a handful of princesses, dressed in pale tutus, their slender waists looking as if they might snap. They giggled and leaned into him, their unspoken language screaming: take me! Vanessa’s eyes rested on the princess directly to his left, a coil of blond hair pinned artfully to her head like a yellow rose. Anna. She strode next to him with the ease of an old lover, sauntering while his hand rested on the small of her back.

  Vanessa shrank back, suddenly light-headed. Above her, the branches tangled together like skeletons, bending and twisting in the breeze. She heard someone calling her name, and in the distance she saw Steffie, but Vanessa didn’t answer. She had already disappeared, or at least it felt like it. People flowed around her, barely noticing her shivering in the middle of the path. They laughed and shouted and filled in the space between her and Death until all that was left was his black hood melting into the starless sky.

  Steffie found her standing in the same place, her arms crossed over her chest as the wind swept her hair about her face.

  “Vanessa?” Steffie asked, breathless. “What happened?”

  Vanessa hung her head. “Zep,” was all she could manage.

  Gently, Steffie touched Vanessa’s elbow. “Hey,” she said. “You’re in luck.”

  “Is that what this is?” Vanessa said miserably. “Because it doesn’t feel like it.”

  Steffie let out a laugh. “No, I mean you’re lucky it’s Halloween.”

  Vanessa watched the crowd of students drifting down the path. “Why’s that?”

  “Because tonight you get to stop being yourself. For the next three hours, you don’t have to be Vanessa. You can be anyone you want.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me. Come on,” Steffie coaxed, grabbing her arm. “Let’s shed ourselves for one night, pretend our problems don’t exist.” She lowered her voice. “Let’s disappear.”

  Once again, Vanessa found herself running down the path with Steffie, following the mass of dancers until they arrived back on campus, where Blaine and TJ greeted them with a scream. Linking arms, they merged into the crowd, inside and up the stairs to one of the larger practice studios.

  A pulsing red light reflected off the mirrored walls. Cobwebs and streamers dangled from the ceiling, transforming the room into an eerie otherworld. Drinks and tubs of ice were lined up on tables by the barre, and music blared from a speaker on the far side of the room, mingling with the sound of feet thumping against the floor. Dancing.

  Vanessa and her friends meandered through the tangle of arms and legs and faces, none of whom she recognized. They were all disguised in thick, bright makeup, masking their expressions. The sweet smell of peach schnapps and bourbon floated through the room.

  “Where are we going?” TJ shouted from behind her. Blaine had already broken off and was grinding with a boy dressed as the devil. Vanessa peered over the crowd, still looking for Death despite herself. In the center of the room, a scythe cut through the air, but before she could follow, he had disappeared onto the dance floor, hidden from her among the flashing lights and undulating limbs.

  “What happened to TJ?” Vanessa asked, suddenly realizing she’d lost her roommate too.

  “She’s over there,” Steffie sai
d, nodding to the far side of the room where TJ’s nest of hair curled above the crowd. “Talking to a minotaur.”

  “I wonder who it is,” Vanessa said.

  Steffie took a sip from her drink. “Who cares?” she said with a grin. “It’s better sometimes when you don’t know.”

  Vanessa was about to laugh when she heard TJ shout.

  Beside the minotaur stood a fairy. She wore a pink costume and a wig of pale blond hair, just like Elly’s. “How dare you dress up as her,” TJ cried. “Do you know what happened to her? Are you the one who did it?”

  The fairy backed away, frightened, and her date, the minotaur, stepped forward. “Hey, why don’t we all just calm down.”

  “Calm down?” TJ shouted. “Your girlfriend is dressed up as a missing person.” A hush fell over the crowd around them.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about—” the minotaur began to say, but TJ cut him off.

  “Tell her to take off that stupid wig,” she yelled, throwing her cup aside. Red spiked punch splattered across the floor, staining the outfits of the girls around her, who started to yell back at her.

  “I’m tired of this! Why doesn’t anyone care about Elly? Why isn’t anyone listening?”

  Vanessa and Steffie ran and grabbed TJ from the crowd. “Come on,” they said. “We’re listening. Let’s just go outside.”

  Across the room, Vanessa spotted Hilda, her beady eyes set on TJ with an intensity Vanessa had never seen before.

  “I’m fine,” TJ said once they were away from the crowd, her breath sour. “Really.” She stepped back and gazed at Vanessa. “You know, all white like that, you remind me of those shapes on the walls in that basement practice studio.”