by Yelena Black
Vanessa turned to Coppelia. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time,’ Coppelia said, picking up her rag again as Vanessa followed the others back through the door and into the night.
Svetya and Justin were already half a block ahead, walking so close together that she kept bumping him. Justin stepped away, but Svetya grabbed his arm to pull him closer, looking up at him with her smoky eyes and whispering in his ear. After a moment, he replied, then turned until his eyes found Vanessa.
Embarrassed that he’d caught her watching, Vanessa lowered her head.
Justin walked back to join the main group. ‘You OK?’ he whispered to Vanessa, matching his pace to hers.
Vanessa felt her shoulders relax just because he was by her side. ‘I think so.’
They dropped back from Svetya, Geo and the others, meandering along the pavement together. Vanessa wanted to tell him about Coppelia and how she’d remembered Margaret but called her Margot, but instead she and Justin walked in silence.
They took the long way around to the dormitory. Narrow brick townhouses lined the kerb above winding streets, their windows framed with quaint black shutters, the glass glowing with velvety yellow light. The city was beautiful in the snow. The fall of white covered up the gutters and grime, blanketing everything in clean, unblemished perfection.
Every so often their arms brushed each other. ‘Sorry,’ Vanessa said, as she pulled away from him for the third time.
‘You don’t have to apologise,’ Justin said, drawing closer. ‘I like it.’ And then, without warning, he slipped his fingers through hers.
‘Too cold not to hold hands,’ he whispered.
Vanessa was so startled by his touch that it took a moment for her hand to melt into his. Would he try to kiss her? She wanted him to stop walking, to pull her into the shadows and press her against the cold brick of a townhouse. To taste his lips, feel his breath mingle with hers, feel his arm inch up her waist, making her skin prickle with goosebumps.
And yet she knew that she shouldn’t – couldn’t – want any of those things.
In two days, he would be her partner in the pas de deux. Justin was the only one at the competition who knew what had happened in New York, who knew the demon was real. She wanted to tell him that she was even more certain now that it was here, in London, and it was in her head. She wanted to tell him it had promised to bring her to Margaret, and that it had helped her dance, but she was afraid how he’d react.
And really, she wanted Justin to kiss her. But did the demon want that too?
Vanessa was about to try to explain this to him when, to her surprise, Justin said, his voice gentle, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just a walk. A walk with a friend.’
They drifted down the cobblestones, the icy night pushing them closer together. Justin stepped from one stone to the next, letting them guide him like marks on a stage. Vanessa followed, her shoulder bumping his, their legs tangling until they were both laughing. When a car approached, its headlights bouncing through the night, Justin pulled her out of the way, the wind blowing her hair into her face. He brushed a stray lock away from her eyes.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, touching her cheek.
Before she realised what she was saying, she whispered, ‘Then warm me up.’
Justin leaned forward, his hand buried in her hair as he pulled her into a kiss. Only just before his lips touched hers, he moved his head just slightly so they landed on her cheek instead. His hands wrapped around her waist as he pulled her to him. ‘I know you’re afraid of kissing me,’ he said, ‘but when you’re ready . . . I’m here.’
They stood like that, pressed together like puzzle pieces, for a few minutes. When they finally parted, he whispered into her hair, ‘I like this dance.’
Vanessa smiled, allowing herself this one moment before she pulled away.
‘I thought it was just a walk,’ she whispered.
‘It is,’ Justin said, and stepped back, but didn’t let go of her hand.
Vanessa walked beside him, feeling the rhythm of his body next to hers, the comfort of knowing he understood. She wasn’t alone. And as they strolled beneath the lamp posts, their hands laced together, the snow catching in their hair, their eyelashes, Vanessa felt that, maybe, everything was going to be OK.
Two And A Half Years Earlier
From the Diary of Margaret Adler
May 17
Tragedy.
It’s so much worse than I could have imagined.
Not my dancing. I don’t know if it was Erik’s kiss, or my anger at that pompous Palmer man, or the intense two days of rehearsals, but I danced well.
No, I danced magnificently.
The moment the music began for my solo, I stopped thinking. I stopped worrying about Josef finding me here in London, about what I was missing in my old life and if I’d made the wrong decision to come here. I even stopped thinking about how much I missed my parents and Vanessa. For the almost three minutes of my solo, I just danced. I was Giselle.
And I remembered why I love ballet so much in the first place.
I never feel more alive than when I am on the stage. There is something about being connected to an art form that is nearly as old as time itself, and dancing to music that hundreds – no, thousands – of ballerinas have danced to before me.
As soon as I heard the familiar opening notes, I fell into position, and the dance possessed me.
Every turn, every leap, was perfect, as though I barely touched the wooden stage.
When it was over, the judges actually stood up and applauded, which has to be against the rules. Aren’t judges supposed to appear impartial?
I wish my family could have seen me.
But enough about me. I’m just happy that I didn’t let Erik down. I want him to be proud of me. He says he is, but it’s hard to know how seriously he means it, because even though I made the first cut . . .
He did not.
Oh, he danced well. I thought he danced better than a lot of the boys who didn’t get cut. He performed an excerpt from Prince Siegfried’s solo in Act One of Swan Lake. I’ve always found this particular moment haunting – the prince arrives at his twenty-first birthday and is told by his parents that, because of his age, his marriage is going to be very quickly arranged. The prince is afraid of all his future responsibilities, so he flees the castle, heading to the wood.
Erik did wonderfully, I thought, and truly seemed to capture a sense of longing and discovery as the prince. He even looked like one, his muscles golden in the spotlight, his dark eyes glinting as he searched the room, finding me. But that Palmer man wasn’t impressed, and with his cold, bored voice he read the list of sixty-four dancers who did not need to return for the second audition. Erik was one of them.
Erik has been in a black mood ever since. He congratulated me and told me he’s proud, but I know inside he is hurting. I can almost feel his disappointment as though it’s mine. If only I could bear some of his burden. I know if it were me, he’d want to bear mine.
Erik has done so much for me already. The only way I can help him is to dance well enough for both of us. And to win.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Vanessa slid out of bed and wrapped the comforter around her like a shawl. She stood for a moment staring out the window at the frozen lawn beyond the White Lodge. The sun was above the trees, which cast long blue shadows across the snow. It was beautiful.
Svetya’s bed was already made – she was probably downstairs getting breakfast before the morning’s rehearsal. There’d be no fight for bananas today, not after the cafeteria had been cleared of over half the students.
The competition had got cut-throat, brutal. It was all too much. Vanessa shook her head, dropped the comforter on to her mattress and made her way to the bathroom.
No matter what, today was going to be a long, long day.
The others were already warming up.
Justin was splayed on the floor in a grey sweatshir
t and loose-fitting pants, stretching. Geo stood in front of the mirror a few feet away, wearing a white tank and a pair of navy blue tights, his hair combed back and still wet from the shower. From the barre by the door, Svetya watched his form as he practised their upcoming pas de deux, correcting the shape of his legs and the curve of his back as she slowly lowered herself into a grand plié.
Vanessa let out a sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t too late – Enzo hadn’t shown up yet. She sat down and unzipped her bag, taking out her pointe shoes.
Justin and Svetya came over from the other side of the room. ‘Everything OK?’ Justin asked.
‘I slept through breakfast,’ Vanessa said. To Svetya, she said, ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’
‘I’m not an alarm clock,’ her roommate pointed out. ‘I’m your competition.’
Vanessa didn’t get a chance to reply to that, because Enzo entered the room.
Justin and the others stopped talking and went back to their warm-ups, but Svetya remained at Vanessa’s side.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said, her voice low so only Vanessa could hear.
Vanessa sighed. ‘If I say no, will that stop you from asking anyway?’
‘No,’ Svetya said. ‘So my question is: are you with him or not?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Justin,’ Svetya said.
Vanessa frowned, not sure what to say. She watched Justin’s reflection in the mirror as he ran through his warm-up. She studied his hands, remembering how warm they had felt when he had slipped his fingers through hers last night. She thought about how much she wanted him, and how much better off he would be without her.
Vanessa turned to Svetya. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not with him.’
‘Good.’ Svetya wagged a finger in Vanessa’s face. ‘I do not want to hear you crying in our room when I take away the only handsome straight boy still in the competition.’ Then she went back to the barre, her hips swaying seductively.
‘May I have your attention?’ Enzo said, his long hair in a ponytail, his thighs flexing beneath his tight black pants. ‘Congratulations. You should all be very proud of yourselves. It is not easy to get past the first round of the Royal Court Competition . . . Most talented young dancers never do.’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Tomorrow is day two.’
‘The pas de deux,’ Geo said.
‘Yes,’ Enzo said. ‘The duet. You four are lucky. Some dancers, their partners have been cut. They still dance with their eliminated teammates, though for such a dancer to win the competition is extremely rare.
‘The pas de deux is much more difficult than it appears from the audience,’ Enzo went on. ‘Two dancers means twice the number of possible errors, twice the likelihood that one performer will outshine the other and throw the dance off-kilter. It is the true test of a dancer’s esprit de corps. It’s about teamwork.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Everyone, pair off!’
Vanessa and Justin walked over to an empty corner of the studio. She took a sip of water and then offered the bottle to Justin.
Before they’d left New York they had chosen a pas de deux from Onegin and had each practised on their own. This would be the first time they’d danced it together.
They took their positions, and Vanessa began by bowing her head in sorrow, gazing away from Justin as if he were her estranged lover.
It was difficult to practise without music, but Vanessa practically knew the accompaniment by heart. Apparently, so did Justin. On his cue, he crept towards her, begging for her forgiveness. She swept away, avoiding his gaze. They danced around each other, inching forward, recoiling, unable to start their conversation.
Slowly they came together, Justin’s arms careful as they grazed her body. His breath was a whisper against her neck, his fingers a tickle of heat along her spine. She felt herself get lost in their movements as their legs tangled, her body stirred awake by a fervor she hadn’t felt since the raspy warmth of the demon had filled her lungs.
Vanessa had danced with Justin at NYBA, when he’d been cast as Zep’s understudy for The Firebird, but the way he’d danced then had been nothing like this. She could feel his anger in his motions – his sissonne quicker, his ballonné kicks higher, his tours chaînés déboulés so perfect he could have been floating.
Vanessa met him halfway, her heart pounding as she moved beside him, then thrust him away like a scorned lover. She felt his hand slide up her thigh, making her body tremble.
‘Your duets have to be perfect!’ Enzo shouted. ‘Complement each other! Do not let yourself be the weaker of your pair! Dance through the pain.’
Vanessa kept waiting to feel the familiar blur of the room, the dizzying sensation of the ground shifting beneath her feet, followed by the demon’s heat fluttering inside her. It frightened her that she wanted him, that she felt she needed him, but she couldn’t help herself. It was exciting to feel that invincible.
But the sensation never came.
Justin lifted her by the waist, her legs extended wide as she floated through the air, weightless. He set her down and she stepped away, letting all her emotions spill out, twirling, spreading her arms wide over her head like a flower blossoming at the first sign of sun.
And with one last gasp, it was over.
Vanessa held her final position a moment longer, breathless but beaming, her leotard damp with sweat. She had never danced this well, not without feeling the room warp and collapse in on itself or the dry heat of the demon pressing against her skin. Smiling, she turned to Justin, expecting him to be as satisfied with their performance as she was, but instead he walked away, his face hard and unreadable.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her smile fading. ‘We were great!’
‘We were too great,’ he said, a hint of apprehension in his voice. ‘If you keep dancing like that, you’re going to get hurt. You’ll be a target for girls like Ingrid.’
Vanessa let out a startled laugh. ‘If the worst I have to fear is a bitter ballerina,’ she snapped, ‘then the dark dancers will be a cakewalk. So back off. You’re not my father, and you’re not my boyfriend. Got it?’
After a moment, Justin’s hurt expression turned to bitterness. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ he said. ‘You and your last boyfriend were a perfect match.’
And with a blindingly quick step, he disappeared, his body blurring as he whipped through the room and out the door, the only remaining trace of him a quick brush of air.
Chapter Eleven
‘What happens if we really capture it?’ the woman asked.
She stood in a group of five, all young except the one in the centre. He was craggy and white-haired and wore a tattered purple blazer. An orange crest on the breast pocket read: Chatswyrth.
The older man hefted a fat leather book and said, ‘This tome also tells how to banish it.’ Then he began to read. The words were strange and unnerving, a series of scratchy noises that sounded as if they were clawing their way out of his throat. As he spoke, his face trembled, his jaw parting as if he were being gagged. He clenched the book, his knuckles white, his eyes straining.
The young people froze in place.
Through his spectacles, the white-haired man’s eyes glimmered as if something inside him were trying to elbow its way out. You think you can control me, call me to do your bidding? said the demon, speaking through the man, his voice a gasp of hot air. The man’s lips began to crack, his face contorting as though something behind his skin had collapsed.
He went to the young man nearest him and reached inside the boy’s open mouth. There was a terrible sound and then the man withdrew his arm as the boy fell to the ground. In the man’s hand he clutched something red and pulpy.
As the white-haired man’s skin brightened and burned away in a blinding light, he looked up.
Vanessa, he said, I offer you my heart.
Vanessa sat bolt upright in her bed.
The sounds of the dream faded, until all she heard was the night
wind sighing through the window. Her heart was pounding; her hair was matted to the back of her neck. As the horror of the dream – vision? – faded, one sentence kept echoing through her head.
‘This tome also tells how to banish it.’
The heavy volume in that man’s hands was the book Enzo had told her about. The Ars Demonica.
Across the room, Svetya shifted in her sleep. The clock on her nightstand blinked 4.00 a.m. The sun wouldn’t rise for another few hours.
Vanessa rubbed her eyes – the rest of the day had gone by so quickly after her fight with Justin: a quick lunch with Svetya and Geo, more rehearsal, with Justin stiff and unhappy by her side, and then a long, tedious dinner with her mother, who talked so much that Vanessa didn’t have to do anything but sit there and play the dutiful daughter.
‘Of course you can’t get cut. Your father will be devastated if he arrives here on Saturday and you haven’t won the scholarship,’ her mother mused at one point.
Vanessa guessed that was supposed to be encouragement. ‘I’ll try not to be eliminated,’ she said. Privately she thought her father would be proud of her no matter how she performed.
‘But in the meantime, I’m enjoying the single life! I just saw a show in the West End with Rebecca, even though her poor Emilie got cut.’ And then, in a loud whisper, her mother couldn’t help adding, ‘Deservedly, I thought! Did you see her shoddy form?’
‘Do you ever run out of opinions?’ Vanessa muttered.
Her mother narrowed her eyes. ‘Excuse me? There’s no need for attitude like that. Not when the stakes are this high.’
Vanessa let out a chuckle. If only her mother knew how high the stakes really were.
‘What, exactly, is so funny?’ her mother asked.
Vanessa didn’t have the energy to battle it out with her tonight. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem. It’s all getting so serious.’
Her mother’s irritation faded into concern. She pursed her lips. ‘You’re just tired, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s my nerves! These competitions really take it out of me.’ She dabbed her lips with her napkin, then added, ‘Finish your salad. You look like you need iron.’