Not sure a detail like that would get past her, but I’ve got to try. Right?
Right.
Anyway, currently I’m just trying to survive… and I think that means I need to go along with what she says. I check the door just to be sure, but it rattles in place. Locked.
So I quickly shed my clothes and pull on the leotard. It fits like a glove, softer than any of mine. Better quality maybe? And twice as expensive. Then the pointe shoes… which appear to be mine. The ones I painstakingly prepared a week ago, that I’ve been rehearsing in for Sleeping Beauty. They’re almost at the end of their life, but still have another few days in them.
My best guess anyway.
I sit back on the bed with my pointe shoes in my lap. I don’t relish the thought of trying to escape while wearing these. If it came to it, though, it would be better than barefoot.
I shudder. Cutting up the bottom of my feet is low on the list of things I want to endure. Although, that opinion might change when I find out what Mia wants from me.
The footsteps over my head sound again, and then my door unlocks. It swings inward, and Mia looks at the shoes in my lap. She makes a face. “Put them on.”
We stare at each other. She seems… the same. Her face, her hair, her posture. She hasn’t suddenly transformed into the wicked witch or an obsessive stalker. She just holds her tension in her mouth and jaw. Her lips press together, the muscles tense. Tendons stand out in her neck.
“How long have you thought about this?”
She motions to the shoes.
I slip one on, adjusting the ribbons.
“I thought we had gotten over our hump,” she finally says. “So I wasn’t planning on doing this at all…”
I put on the other shoe.
“Come with me,” she says.
I rise and follow her into the small, narrow hallway. There’s a tight spiral staircase that she scales quickly. I go up more slowly, carefully. I don’t have it in me to be frightened. I’m just tired and wary and disappointed in myself.
Why didn’t I see this in her?
I have no problem seeing Greyson’s demons—so why not hers?
There’s a trap door in the kitchen floor that’s been flipped open. As soon as I’m out, Mia closes it and slides a rug back into place. If she wanted to hide me down there from someone, anyone, I don’t think they’d find me.
“I inherited this cabin from my great-uncle. He bragged that he was involved in the underground railroad. My father always thought his uncle was a crackpot and he really kept women down there.” Mia shrugs. “He drank a lot. Smoked even more. So who knows what the truth is?”
Chills skate down my back.
“I wanted to take this time to work on your technique,” she continues. She gestures to the living room; the center is now cleared of most of the furniture. The couch is shoved up against the wall, the side tables piled on top of it. The coffee table is knocked over, belly up, and the thick rug rolled on top of it.
“Fifth position.”
I raise my eyebrow. “You want me to… dance…？”
“Yes,” she says, impatient. “Go on. Take your position.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “And if I don’t want to dance?”
Her eyebrow tics, then smooths. “Then I’ll make sure you never dance for anyone. Ever again.” Her gaze goes to the corner, where a rubber mallet leans against the wall.
“You’d break my leg?”
She lifts her shoulder. “I don’t want to resort to that, Violet. But you either dance for CPB or you dance for no one.”
I shudder and inch forward.
She nods and pushes a button on a stereo on the floor, up against a wall. The music that comes out isn’t Sleeping Beauty—it’s Giselle.
I cringe.
“Oh, did you think you were going to get off easy? Dance a piece you know so well?” She glowers at me. “I know you snuck away to learn this with Shawn Meridian, Violet. I know you are transfixed by his work. That’s why I brought him to you.” She comes forward and grabs my hands, both of them, pulling me toward her.
It’s the last place I want to be.
Her grip is tight, though. “That was my gift. But you still want to leave me.”
“I already told you—that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Lies!” she shrieks, throwing my hands back at me.
I curl them into my stomach and stagger away.
She marches over to the wall and snatches the mallet, hefting it over her shoulder. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Violet.”
“I don’t remember what happened,” I snap at her, sick of this. “Okay? I don’t know what happened that day.”
She shakes her head and restarts the music. “Dance.”
Reluctantly, I take my place in the center of the room. I begin. It’s not as fresh in my head, even though Shawn showed me the video earlier. Even though muscle memory guided me through it so recently. My mind has warped some of his choreography. Muscle memory can get things wrong, especially since I only learned it once.
She slams the bottom of the mallet into the floor like a metronome. The wood is rough when I rise onto pointe. It grabs at my shoes, slows down my spins.
“Stop,” Mia says. “There. Your hip.”
She comes forward, and I repeat the move. She puts her hand on my thigh, adjusting it. I ignore the way my skin crawls, her palm on my bare leg.
Then she steps back. “Okay, good. Again.”
On and on. She dissects every little part, until sweat rolls down my back and I’m panting for breath. Hours, it feels like. I don’t know how long we actually go.
Inevitably, I stumble and fall. I hit the floor hard and stay there, trying to catch my breath. Mia has taken a seat on a kitchen chair she dragged in, and she doesn’t try to get me to stand or continue on. Although I fear she will.
“When were you going to tell me you were leaving CPB?”
“I’ve got questions, too, you know.” I twist to sit more comfortably, pulling my leg up to my chest and wrapping my arms around it.
“Ask.” She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I’ve never known her to smoke, but I don’t say anything as she plucks one out and sticks it between her lips. She lights it, then exhales smoke. “Go on, Violet, ask me.”
“Have you been following me?”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “After you decided to take me up on my offer to see the Vermont doctor, of course I followed you. I had to be sure you weren’t doing more harm than good.”
“And the break-ins?”
“No. Although I do suspect your ex, Jack. He’s an odd duck, is he not? Possessive, angry.” She laughs. “Funny, seeing as how you’re currently dating someone a step above.”
Two people. Her following me. Him trying to actively ruin my life.
“You didn’t have anything to do with those articles?”
“The first one, I did.” She lifts a shoulder. “Your mother called me in a panic at the hospital. It was when you were in surgery. She told me the whole fucking story. And then the senator’s boy just walked? After hurting you—and potentially ending your career? He’s lucky he didn’t do more lasting damage. He should’ve been arrested.”