Dance of Shadows (Dance of Shadows - Trilogy)

by Black, Yelena

  The room was so still, Vanessa could hear him let out a breath.

  “Speaking of movement, I must mention that a quarter of the freshman class doesn’t make it through the first year. This may come as a surprise, as you have worked so hard to come here that you cannot even imagine the prospect of dropping out.” He paused, his eyes darting around the room. “I suggest you leave your preconceptions of ballet behind and come to rehearsal soft and malleable, ready to be molded.”

  Everyone glanced from side to side, eyeing the other students as if trying to figure out who would leave first.

  “But enough of that,” Josef said, suddenly upbeat. “Every winter, we put on a main stage ballet. I’m proud to announce that this year we will be performing Stravinsky’s The Firebird.”

  For the briefest moment, Josef’s gaze fell on Vanessa. She thought she saw a hint of recognition in his eyes before he looked away. Had he known her sister?

  “The ballet centers on Prince Ivan, who enters a magical realm called Kashchei, named after its ruler. There, the prince captures a Firebird, who offers to assist Ivan in exchange for its eventual freedom. When Ivan falls in love with one of the thirteen princesses, it is the Firebird who helps him defeat Kashchei and win his true love.”

  In the mirror on the wall, Vanessa thought she saw a flicker of something dark and foreign, but when she turned to look, everyone remained still.

  “The curtains will open on December 13. It is only September now, so this may sound far away, but I assure you it’s not. Casting will take place in one month. The main roles almost always go to the upperclassmen, so for our newcomers, don’t be disappointed if you aren’t chosen. Your time will come. In the meantime, I expect to see you here, on barre. Practice is everything.

  “There has only ever been one student who dazzled us enough to catch our attention from the very start. She was a freshman when we cast her in a lead role, and a magnificent dancer. Ethereal.” Josef closed his eyes, apparently conjuring her in his mind. “Unfortunately, she collapsed under the pressure and dropped out. Her dream was shattered.” He scanned the room. “Do not let this happen to you.”

  Margaret. Vanessa glanced around the studio, but no one seemed to know who Josef was referring to. No one, that is, except for Steffie, who watched Vanessa with a curious expression.

  Embarrassed, Vanessa hugged her knees, trying to will herself to react more discreetly, when once again she thought she caught Josef’s eyes flitting over her. But it could have been her imagination.

  “Hard work and patience pay off just as much as talent. Which reminds me—the role of Prince Ivan has already been cast.” Josef scanned the crowd. “Zeppelin Gray, could you please stand up?”

  Vanessa saw his reflection first, his eyes deep and smooth like dark metal. He was sitting with the girls in the corner of the room. As he stood, he seemed to unfold himself, his shoulders broadening, his spine lengthening, until he towered over the rest of the room. He was like no one Vanessa had ever seen. He was too tall to be a dancer, too rough, yet he moved with grace, his black hair lustrous beneath the warm lights.

  Zeppelin, she thought, her eyes traveling up the contours of his arms, when suddenly their eyes met.

  His gaze was startling, unnerving, and as he tilted his head his face seemed to change, his sharp edges melting. His sunburn gave off a brassy glow, making him look like a chiseled sculpture. Vanessa felt like she could stare at him for hours and still not see what lay beneath the surface. She faltered, her lips trembling, but she couldn’t look away.

  And then, without warning, he smiled.

  “Gorgeous, right?” Steffie said. “You should close your mouth. And stop staring.”

  Vanessa could feel herself blushing as she pried her eyes away from the senior playing Prince Ivan and turned back to her dinner. They were sitting around a thick wooden table in the building next to their dormitory. A giant brass chandelier dangled over the center of the room, which was loud with the din of conversation and clinking plates and silverware.

  Vanessa picked at her salad absentmindedly, wishing she had gotten croutons. The dining hall was the strangest she had ever seen, with a massive salad bar in the center and a few lonely carousels offering bread and pasta. The dessert bar featured fruit salad and a lumpy vat of chocolate pudding that Vanessa was certain the school made intentionally unappetizing.

  Across from her, TJ was gesticulating with her fork, her curly hair bouncing as she talked about how lame and boring the orientation had been.

  But Vanessa wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she stole glances at Zeppelin. Or Zep, as everyone seemed to call him. He was sitting at the corner table with the group of sunburned upperclassmen she’d seen at orientation. They were all frighteningly skinny.

  “Don’t get too attached,” Steffie warned. “I heard he’s dating Anna.”

  Vanessa tried not to look disappointed. “Which one is she?”

  Steffie said, “Hard to tell, right? All those girls are in a dieting club. Dress the same, eat the same things, probably barf the same. But the one on the end is the leader.” A pretty girl with long blond hair and delicate, doll-like features was sitting next to Zep, her fingers tickling his wrist. “Anna Franko. She’s the granddaughter of Mimi Franko.”

  “The ballerina from the fifties?” Vanessa asked. “Who did that unreal jeté in Romeo and Juliet?”

  Steffie nodded. “That’s Anna’s grandmother.”

  Vanessa felt something inside her crumple. She could still remember staying up with her sister, watching Mimi Franko’s performance over and over until they had memorized every movement. She was enchanting, magical, her leaps so high and her steps so smooth that she put Vanessa under a spell.

  “And apparently Anna is no different,” Steffie continued. “She’s by far the best ballerina here. Or at least she is now that her best friend Chloë Martin dropped out of school. Together, people say they were just amazing, and supposedly Chloë was even better than Anna. If she hadn’t dropped out, she would have been cast as the lead in The Firebird. Now that she’s gone, everyone’s sure that Anna will take her place.”

  As much as she didn’t want to, Vanessa had to admit Anna looked the part. She watched as Anna leaned over and said something in Zep’s ear. He smiled at her, and together they stood up, moving in rhythm, Anna’s white flats clicking against the floor tiles until they disappeared through the double doors.

  With a sigh, Vanessa leaned back in her chair and tried to pay attention to the conversation, but her mind kept drifting to Zep.

  “Where is he from?” she suddenly said, unintentionally speaking her thoughts aloud.

  “Paris, obviously,” Elly said. “He used to be a famous dancer. Haven’t you heard of him?”

  Vanessa blinked. Maybe that was why they had already chosen him for the role of Prince Ivan. “What do you mean? He’s so young.”

  Elly frowned, an unnatural look for her petite, feminine face. “He looks younger than he is.”

  “Oh,” Vanessa said, trying not to look surprised. “So why is he here then?”

  “I don’t know.” With dainty gestures, Elly speared three peas on her fork. “I guess whatever he did wasn’t that bad,” she said. “Or they wouldn’t have let him come here.”

  Vanessa stopped chewing. “What did he do?”

  Blaine gave Vanessa a confused look. “Weren’t you listening? We were just talking about how he was involved in some sort of scandal, and they kicked him out of the Paris Opera Ballet.”

  “A scandal?”

  “I don’t know,” Elly said with a shrug. “I think it had something to do with an accident with a girl.”

  “A ballet accident, or that kind of accident?” TJ asked, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

  Elly gave her a sour look. “A ballet accident. Though he has been known to have lots of affairs.”

  Vanessa nearly choked on a cherry tomato. “What?” she said, coughing.

  “I heard he has thr
ee kids, all with different women.” TJ wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Apparently they’re all living somewhere in Europe.”

  “Zep has three children?” Vanessa blurted out.

  TJ grinned and nibbled on a coil of pasta; she was the only one of them brave enough to touch carbs. “Oh, sweetie. Did you think we were talking about Zep?”

  Vanessa swallowed, realizing her mistake. “Josef,” she murmured. “That’s who you were talking about—”

  But the sharp sound of a whistle interrupted her. Hilda approached the front of the room, her stout figure draped in a dowdy black frock. “Curfew!” she said loudly.

  The room was filled with the clamor of chairs scraping the floor, dishes clattering, doors swinging open and shut with a swish.

  Relieved that everyone’s attention had been diverted, Vanessa gathered her things and followed her friends outside. But while the rest of them filed back to the dorms, Vanessa turned to Steffie. “Manhattan awaits.”

  “In all its noisy splendor,” Steffie said. “Just one look.”

  Together they snuck off to steal a glance at the city.

  “Josef was involved in a scandal?” Vanessa whispered as they darted across the street and into Lincoln Plaza.

  “I guess so,” Steffie said. “I’d never heard about it, either.”

  They found a space on the ledge of the fountain. People lounged about, chatting and sipping coffee under the glassy facades of the buildings. Night had fallen over New York, and the city pulsed with activity—cars speeding up Broadway, their headlights streaking through the dark; traffic signals changing in waves visible as far as the girls could see; lights flickering on in the windows of apartment buildings.

  Vanessa and Steffie leaned back and looked at the rich dark sky above the plaza.

  “There isn’t a single star,” Vanessa said. “It’s like we’ve left the real world and entered this weird alternate universe.”

  “You’re right,” Steffie said, gazing at the sky. “But, baby, in this world, we’re supposed to be the stars. Come on.”

  She got up and pulled Vanessa by the hand from the plaza to the street, then turned uptown. Strangers passed them on the sidewalk, rushing along so fast they didn’t seem to look at anything around them.

  “I kind of think New York is a lonely place,” Steffie said.

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Vanessa murmured. “We’re surrounded by noise, but when you listen you can’t actually hear anything. It just blends together.”

  Steffie nodded. “I didn’t want to come here at first. I mean, I’ve always wanted to come to the New York Ballet Academy, but when I got my acceptance letter, it felt like I didn’t have a choice. Because who could turn down an offer like this?”

  “I know what you mean,” Vanessa said. “Everyone in my family has come here. My grandmother, my mother, my sister … like the choice was made for me a long time before the letter came in the mail.” Vanessa averted her eyes as she spoke, knowing that wasn’t exactly true. The choice had been made for her a long time ago, just not by her mother, who didn’t want Vanessa there at all. No, it had been Margaret and her strange disappearance that made Vanessa feel like she had no choice.

  They meandered back to the dormitory, tucked just behind the plaza next to the dining hall. It was an exquisite old building, with marble stairs worn down in the middle and varnished wooden floors. They flashed their IDs and went inside.

  “I hope no one notices we’re late,” Vanessa said as they got off the elevator on their floor.

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Steffie said. “Do you think TJ and Elly are asleep yet?”

  “I doubt it,” Vanessa said.

  As they stepped into the hallway, Vanessa was surprised at how dim the lighting was, giving the space an eerie, vacant feeling. The RAs were supposed to be patrolling for curfew, but strangely, no one was around. Every single door was closed. There were no sounds of any kids unpacking or chatting on the phone. It almost seemed like a prison. She touched her fingers to the walls, the cold plaster guiding her.

  “Is this how it always is?”

  “Maybe it’s because of curfew,” Steffie whispered back, but her voice was uneasy.

  “Finally,” Vanessa said, pushing open her door.

  But when she stepped inside, she froze. The floor beneath her was squishy and wet.

  Quickly, she reached for the light switch.

  Steffie gasped, then covered her mouth. They were standing in a puddle of something thick and red. A long, terrible drip seemed to echo through the room.

  Vanessa felt the color drain from her face as she turned to Steffie.

  Slowly, they looked up to see two pairs of ballet shoes dangling from the light, dripping blood.

  Before Vanessa could scream, a hand closed over her mouth.

  Chapter Three

  The hand was large and smelled of aftershave. Vanessa squirmed, trying to free herself, but his grip was strong.

  “Vanessa!” Steffie cried, kicking as a hand closed over her own mouth.

  That was the last thing Vanessa saw: Steffie’s eyes, wild and fierce above the hand, as the two girls were ripped from each other. Screams echoed up and down the hallway outside as a blindfold came down over Vanessa’s eyes.

  Thrust into darkness, Vanessa writhed until she ran out of energy.

  “A feisty one,” her captor said to someone behind them. His voice was gruff. Vanessa tried to speak, but her words were muffled by the hand over her mouth. She could taste the sweat on his palm. Holding her tight, he leaned over, his breath hot against her ear. “Stop fighting and no one will hurt you.”

  She grew still. The screams outside had stopped, and the dormitory was again unnaturally quiet. Vanessa could feel the boy’s heartbeat at her back, the hair on his arms tickling her neck.

  He loosened his grip. “Don’t say a word.”

  Vanessa nodded, and to her surprise he uncovered her mouth. Gently, he uncurled her fingers and placed another slender hand in hers. It was soft yet firm, with long fingernails.

  Steffie, Vanessa mouthed. As if in answer, Steffie squeezed her hand.

  “Don’t let go,” the boy said.

  Vanessa nodded again.

  “Now walk.”

  They were marched out of the room, the door swinging shut behind them. More trembling hands joined theirs as they stumbled through the hallway and down a staircase, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath them. Vanessa heard an occasional nervous giggle or a whisper cut short. They groped around in the dark for what seemed like an hour, turning left, then right, tripping up the stairs until the boy finally told them to stop.

  “Take off your blindfolds.”

  Vanessa slipped the cloth off her head and dropped it onto the waxed floor of the ballet studio they had been in just hours before for orientation.

  Candles lined the perimeter of the room, the flames flickering endlessly in the mirrors. Just a few feet away, a pair of ballet shoes lay, splattered with blood.

  Vanessa cringed at the sight of the tangled ribbons, now drenched in red. All she could think of was Margaret. Staring at the bloody slippers, her mind traveled to the darkest recesses of her imagination. What had really happened to her sister?

  She forced herself to look away, seeing Steffie to her right, Elly to her left, followed by Blaine and a few other freshmen. At the far end of the studio, Vanessa could see TJ’s wild hair, her blindfold pushed over it like a headband. They waited in silence, their shadows dancing across the wooden floor, until the door opened.

  A train of people proceeded inside, their faces hidden behind beak-nosed Venetian masks, their expressions vacant, ghoulish. Vanessa tried to pick out her assailant, but the mirrors seemed to multiply them into oblivion.

  One final person slipped into the room, and the door clicked shut. As she took her place in the line of upperclassmen, Vanessa caught a glimpse of a pair of white flats. Anna Franko.

  Before she could tell Steffie, a boy stepp
ed forward from the line. He was wearing a white mask with a twisted face, its features drooping as if they had melted. The flames of the candles around him stuttered with each footfall.

  “You may have thought orientation was over,” he said. It was the same boy who had restrained Vanessa. “But you were wrong.”

  He scanned the line of freshmen, lingering on Vanessa for a moment before looking away. Is it Zep? Vanessa wondered.

  “Welcome to the real New York Ballet Academy,” he continued. “As you’ll soon discover, the dirty work gets done after hours. Starting tonight.”

  He looked shorter in the dark, his shoulders more hunched. And his hair—was it longer than she had realized? Vanessa stared at the black sockets of his mask and tried to see the metallic glimmer of his eyes, but they were vacant.

  “Take off your shoes. All of you.”

  Everyone around Vanessa began slipping off their shoes, but Vanessa gave Steffie a dubious look.

  Steffie shrugged. “Don’t worry,” she said, sniffing the red fluid caked on the sides of her shoes. “It’s not blood. Smells like … ketchup.”

  One of the upperclassmen must have heard her, because a voice bellowed across the room, “You. Step forward.”

  Another boy emerged from the line of upperclassmen, wearing a charred-looking gray mask. He pointed at Steffie. “You will be the first to make your mark.”

  A hush fell over the room. The boy in the gray mask removed a thin scalpel from his pocket, the blade glinting in the candlelight. “Come forth.”

  Everyone turned to Steffie, but if she was scared, she didn’t show it.

  “Don’t do it,” Vanessa said under her breath, but Steffie had already kicked off her shoes.

  Her chin raised in the air, Steffie strode forward. “What do you want me to do?”