Dance of Shadows (9 page)

Steffie nodded in agreement, and though Vanessa had to admit she’d noticed some blunders too, she didn’t mind. It was still lovely. While they bickered, Vanessa overheard Anna arguing with Zep in a low, furious voice. She leaned on her armrest, trying to make out what they were saying, but before she could catch anything, Anna stood up. Shooting Vanessa a livid look, she stormed down the aisle and through the doors.

“Is it just me, or does it seem like all the upperclassmen already hate you?” Steffie asked.

“Not
all
of them,” Vanessa said, motioning to Zep.

Steffie’s eyes lit up. “You’re kidding,” she said, lowering her voice.

Before Vanessa could respond, Josef strode up the stairs and stood against the balcony railing. Unlike everyone else, who had dressed up for the occasion, he was wearing a pair of dark jeans, a black V-neck shirt, and a wool scarf, which Vanessa guessed was the extent of his formal attire. As he approached, he yanked off his scarf, his face drawn into a scowl.

“I trust you all enjoyed the show,” he said, sounding almost angry. “But not too much, for in just four years, many of you will be competing with those same dancers for their roles.” He gestured over the balcony. “I hope you were paying attention.”

The mood grew solemn as they stared at the theater—its marble columns and vaulted ceilings seeming all the more magnificent without an audience. The drawn curtains and abandoned music stands in the orchestra pit sent a chill down
Vanessa’s skin as she realized she could be looking into her future: The musicians would tune their instruments, the curtains would pull back, and the spotlight would find Vanessa alone on the stage. And as the music started, a male dancer would appear in the wings … That had always been Margaret’s dream, not hers, but perhaps all of this could belong to her too.

“
Bon
,” Josef said, interrupting her reverie. “Let’s head backstage.”

They followed Josef downstairs, through a narrow white corridor that led to the dressing rooms. The hallway was bustling with people—stagehands balancing tall stacks of costumes, assistants carrying food and water, and dancers, their faces thick with makeup.

They all seemed to know Josef. He whispered something in one girl’s ear, and she waved everyone to the back, where a group was gathered around the male lead and the principal ballerina.

“Dmitri,” Josef said to the male dancer with a little bow. “Beautiful work.”

Dmitri gave him a stiff nod. “The dancers were a beat off in the closing scene,” he said in a Russian accent. “But I think I pulled it together.”

“The prince of the show, as always,” Josef said. His smile faded when he turned to the ballerina. “And Helen.”

She gazed at him nervously, but instead of congratulating her, Josef turned his cheek. “You’ve shown us how important it is to keep learning,” he said, his voice cold.

Steffie nudged Vanessa. “Oh snap,” Blaine said under his
breath. TJ let out a muffled laugh, eyes gleaming at the drama.

Josef betrayed the slightest hint of irritation, but quickly smiled as if nothing had happened.
“Et voilà, Helen le magnifique,”
he said, with a bite of sarcasm. “And a graduate of the New York Ballet Academy, no less. How long ago was it, just two years?” Josef gave her a level gaze, as if challenging her, but her eyes were trained on the ground. “Well,” Josef said, clasping his hands together, “as was probably obvious to everyone in the audience, Helen had a rough night.”

Helen’s eyes met Vanessa’s by chance, and she seemed startled, as if Vanessa looked familiar. Suddenly she turned and stormed down the hall, slamming her dressing-room door behind her.

An uneasy silence ensued. Three girls started whispering near the back, and a few older boys chuckled. Even Zep looked uncomfortable as he stood near Josef, his face half-obscured by the shadows.

Josef turned to the group of students. “
Bon
, who has questions for Dmitri?”

Blaine raised his hand. “Who was your idol growing up?”

Dmitri scoffed. “I didn’t need one,” he said. “I was my own idol.”

A sophomore girl wearing a puffy feather dress raised her hand. “Who is your favorite dance partner?” she asked.

Dmitri rolled his eyes. “I prefer to dance alone. Less complications.”

“How do you keep that great shape?” Blaine blurted out.

Unable to control herself, TJ snorted, making half the room break up in laughter.

“I don’t know what you mean. I have always been this shape,” Dmitri said.

As the questioning went on, Vanessa noticed a few students leaving. Steffie nodded, shot a glance at TJ and Blaine, and together they ducked behind the crowd and snuck down the hall.

Unsure whether Josef would follow them, they ran down a stairwell to the practice room that Josef said they would eventually use to rehearse for
The Firebird
. To their relief, the metal door was unlocked, and Steffie pushed it open and flipped on the lights, illuminating the room in a wan yellow.

It was larger than any practice room they’d ever seen, with a circle of blackened varnish on the center of the floor. Vanessa traced the edge with her shoe, pulling back when she realized it was leaving an ashy residue.

“Look,” Steffie said, her voice echoing.

Vanessa spotted her by the far wall. It was entirely black, save for a series of odd white silhouettes.

“They painted shapes of people on the wall,” Steffie said.

Vanessa approached, skimming her fingers across the surface. She raised her hand to her face. Her fingers were covered in black ash.

“They didn’t paint them on,” she said, gazing up at the white silhouettes. “Those shapes are the only places where the paint didn’t scorch. The rest of the wall was burned black.”

Suddenly TJ and Blaine were beside her, touching the silhouettes.

“You’re right,” Steffie said, sniffing the ash on her fingertip, and recoiling at the smell. “It’s totally scorched.” She looked to Vanessa. “But how? A fire this big would have burned the entire building down.”

Vanessa wandered to the center of the room and knelt by the black smudge on the floor. It was ash, the same as that on the wall. But if the fire had started in the center of the room, why were the rest of the floor and the other walls clean?

Standing, she pressed her fingers together, feeling the grit on her skin. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

But before she could say more, a loud pop echoed and the lights shut off, engulfing the room in darkness.

The darkness seemed to shift around her. Or was it her imagination? She couldn’t see the silhouettes on the walls anymore, yet she could feel them around her as if they were real people, holding their breath. Vanessa backed away, one step, then another, until a hand brushed against her lips. Unable to help herself, she screamed.

To her surprise, the shadows screamed back.

“Get off me!” Blaine shrieked, swatting her away.

Relieved to hear his voice, Vanessa said, “It’s just me.” She heard TJ chuckle uneasily behind him.

“What happened?” Vanessa murmured, almost to herself.

“The light switch doesn’t work,” Steffie said from somewhere off to the right. “Maybe it blew a fuse.”

“Maybe it’s fate, telling us we’re never going to be in the spotlight,” TJ said.

“Or maybe someone was watching us,” Vanessa whispered.

“Let’s get out of here,” Blaine said, still shaken.

Across the room, Steffie opened a door, and a thin seam of light widened into a broad pane across the floor. The shadows around it seemed unnaturally still, as if the walls were holding their secrets.

“Come on!” Blaine said. TJ and Steffie emptied out into the hall, glancing up the stairs to make sure no one had caught them sneaking around.

As Vanessa hurried toward them, the door swung shut behind her with a click.

“The fuses didn’t blow,” Vanessa said, gazing up at the dim lights that lined the stairwell.

“You’re right,” Steffie replied. “That is kind of weird.”

“Do you think anyone followed us?” Blaine said.

“I don’t know, but they definitely
heard
you,” TJ said with a smirk, but Blaine didn’t laugh.

“Oh, come on,” TJ prodded. “So what—now you’re scared of a dark room and a few creepy stage sets?”

“But there isn’t supposed to be a set down there,” Steffie said. “It’s just a rehearsal room. The real dance is performed on the stage. And anyway, who turned out the lights?”

“So what do you think made those burns on the wall?” Vanessa asked quietly.

Steffie fingered one of her earrings absentmindedly. “I don’t know. An accidental fire?”

“How could it even have started? It’s a big, empty rehearsal room,” TJ said, adjusting the strap of her high-heeled sandal as
she climbed the stairs. “And besides, say a fire did somehow start there and was miraculously contained in that room. Don’t you think we would have heard about it?”

“Maybe they’re trying to cover it up,” Steffie said, stopping in front of the door leading to the main theater.

“Maybe it was only a stage set,” Blaine said as Vanessa gripped the railing, remembering how the shadows had seemed to shift around her.

“Yeah,” she said, and followed Steffie through the door.

They were in the back of the darkened theater. The main stage stood before them, shrouded by the heavy red curtain. A dim beam of light shone out from the projection-booth window in the back, frosting the crimson velvet of the seats in the orchestra section.

Vanessa stared up at the billowing curtain, trying to imagine what it would feel like to stand behind it, when she saw something that made her stop. She reached out and touched Steffie’s shoulder.

“Look.” She nodded toward the stage. “There’s someone there.”

Blaine bumped into an empty seat. “Ow!” he cried, but cut it short when Steffie put a finger to her lips.

By the grainy light from the projection window, they could see a girl, standing in the center of the stage in front of the curtain. Her back was turned to them, and all they could see was the outline of her hair, which was wrapped in a tight bun.

Blaine motioned that they should leave, but Vanessa shook her head and approached the stage. She could see the girl’s airy
tutu, the same one she had worn as she leaped across the stage just an hour earlier. In the dim light, she could just make out the pale skin of her back, punctuated by the thin straps of her leotard, and her shoulders, hunched and trembling. As the girl turned around, Vanessa realized it was Helen, the principal ballerina.

Her eyes were red, and her face was streaked with makeup. Vanessa froze, waiting for Helen to say something. But she didn’t seem to see her.

“Hello?” Vanessa said, her voice cutting through the silence.

The ballerina said nothing.

Vanessa took a step closer, Steffie following on her heels. “Excuse me? Are you okay?” She waited until she heard Helen whisper something.

“What?” Vanessa said gently and inched forward. “Is everything all right?”

But as she got closer, Vanessa realized the girl wasn’t speaking to her all. Her eyes were sad and glassy, and her lips were quivering as she let out an unintelligible mutter.

“What’s she saying?” Steffie whispered, her voice unsteady.

“I don’t know,” Vanessa murmured. “I don’t think she even sees us.”

Vanessa glanced back at Blaine and TJ, who gave her urgent looks and mouthed that they wanted to leave. She took another step forward as a voice boomed through the theater.

“What are you doing?”

The ballerina turned, and Vanessa and Steffie followed her gaze to stage left, where Dmitri, the male dancer they’d met
earlier, emerged from behind the curtain, the shadows accentuating the contours of his muscles.

“She is not to be disturbed,” he said to Vanessa and Steffie. “She is awaiting her punishment for misstepping in tonight’s performance. It is not the first time she has had to be punished. There are those who are losing patience with her …”

“Punishment?” Vanessa said, but Dmitri cut her off.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, his eyes dark as he came closer. Vanessa watched as Helen’s back went rigid. “The theater isn’t open to the public after hours.”

“We’re students at NYBA,” Steffie said. “We came with Josef to see the show and got lost.”

Dmitri frowned. “You know where the exit is, so why don’t you run along?” He moved across the stage and touched the ballerina’s wrist. She flinched and looked away, still weeping.

Steffie grabbed Vanessa’s elbow. “Let’s go,” she said, and pulled her up the aisle toward the exit. Just before they made it out the door, Vanessa glanced over her shoulder, only to see another silhouette emerge from the wings—a man. He walked across the stage like a dancer, and he had a lean physique that reminded her of … Josef? But there was no time to tell.

Following Blaine and TJ, they burst through the lobby and out into the thick night air of Lincoln Center. People turned as they ran across the plaza and past the fountain, which was illuminated by lights, the water falling like broken glass.

“What was that about?” Blaine said as they reached the dormitory.

“I have no idea,” Steffie said. “Something about punishing the principal ballerina.”

“What kind of punishment?” TJ said, trying to catch her breath as they tore upstairs. Her curly hair fell out of its clips and bounced around her face.

Vanessa stopped and smoothed out her dress when they reached their floor, the warmly lit hallway humming with music and chatter. Composing themselves, they headed down the hall to TJ and Vanessa’s room, past open doors with girls brushing their hair and filing their nails while they laughed and gossiped. Elly was nowhere to be seen, though Vanessa didn’t blame her, considering everyone was talking about the ballet. She meant to knock and see how she was doing, but when they passed her and Steffie’s room, the door was shut and the crack beneath it dark. Maybe she was already asleep.

“Helen was really upset,” Vanessa said quietly.

“Everyone says she’s pretty delicate. Emotionally,” Blaine added. “She did miss that beat in the second act. If that had been me, I would have been crying too.”