I performed recitals in front of strangers. I received accolades beside other dancers whose parents sat beaming.
It didn’t matter.
When I saw the barre, the mirrors and the polished wooden floor, my sadness melted away. Always. Even here at Allen House, which seemed to have soaked up so many years of sadness that the dingy walls themselves made me ache.
The studio was surprisingly well kept.
I remembered the maid I’d seen rushing into it earlier in the day and I wondered if my grandmother had had it cleaned just for me. She’d said they didn’t have many employees. But Owen had said she would be devastated if I ran away. While I guessed that he would have been glad if I’d never come.
As I put myself through the paces of arabesque, balançoire and battement again and again, I wondered which Allens had danced here before me. But then, just as I’d almost found peace with sweat stinging my eyes instead of tears, I saw her in the mirror. The same woman I’d seen in the hall. She was behind me near the doorway, not moving or speaking. Her hair fell loose and long over her shoulders in tangled waves that looked familiar. I’d seen that hair a million times in the bathroom mirror. I’d seen those gray eyes and that face. Still, the woman didn’t move or speak. She would never speak again. From my horrified vantage point, I could see in the mirror that her throat was crushed and two deep bruising handprints were visible on her pale neck.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t. I was afraid if I even blinked she’d come closer. I gripped the barre with both hands and tried to breathe without shrieking. Because the woman was obviously dead, and so like me that we could have been identical twins.
The room had grown cold. So cold. The woman hadn’t come closer but she filled the studio with a dank atmosphere of dread. Was this somehow a horrible premonition of future violence stalking me? Suddenly, I detected the damp, heavy smell of wet earth and I saw her sundress was streaked with dirt.
I didn’t own that dress. That simple, crazy fact was like a lifeline in a moment when I might have drowned in fear.
Because she had come closer.
She hadn’t stepped or floated or lurched. She just was several feet closer than before. I could see the dark gray circles under her eyes and the blue veins under her skin. My eyes? My skin? The earthy smell grew heavier and sickly sweet like a tilled garden…or a freshly turned grave. I’m not superstitious. But cold sweat trickled down my back as I wondered if I was smelling my future resting place. Here. Now.
I dreaded to hear her speak and I waited for it at the same time. Was she here to warn me? To stop this from happening to my future self? I wondered if her windpipe was too damaged to make sound. Then, before her lips opened and before I could beg her to go away, a sound drifted toward us from far down the hall where my bedroom door stood open.
The music box.
Closed. Broken. But it began to play. Several notes. Several more.
Was she closer still? My eyes burned from not blinking. The back of my neck had gone to ice. And then, when I knew I had to turn to face her even if it meant that in those seconds she would travel to me and I would turn to find her cold, pale face against my own, she moved back instead of forward. She didn’t float or step. Again she just was farther then farther until she was down the hall and away.
Several seconds later the impossible music ground to a halt, the chill faded and I was left to turn and look down at clumps of fresh dirt on the polished studio floor.
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