Celeste stopped on her way down from the dome and looked over the fly tower onto the stage below. For a moment she rested her head on her arms. Somewhere between falling asleep in the costume basket and waking, something had happened that had changed everything and convinced all those about her that she was someone else, that she was a dancer.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder and heard a familiar voice. ‘Think – if this is a game, the Reckoning, then could it be that you are not the first player?’
She spun, staring into the shadows, refusing to be frightened.
‘Who’s there?’
No one answered. Her heart racing, she ran to the stairs and collided with a boy.
‘I heard you’re going to dance the solo tonight,’ he said to her. ‘I said you would be a star.’
‘You did?’ said Celeste.
She had no idea who he was but felt her answer should have been ‘Yes, you did,’ and not a question.
He was looking at her now as if he knew her well. She was looking at him as if he was a stranger. He had dark brown eyes and dark skin. He looked a little older than her. Who was he?
As if reading her mind, he said, ‘It’s Viggo, Maria. Are you feeling all right?’
‘Viggo,’ she repeated. ‘I’m not…’
She stopped. Could it be she had woken up and forgotten a part of her life? Had she left her other self in the costume basket? Both of them looked away, embarrassed.
‘There’s trouble with the scenery,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Celeste and quickly started down the stairs.
Viggo called after her, ‘I hope it goes well tonight. I’ll be watching.’
Celeste felt like weeping. What was going to happen when the music started and the little dancer didn’t dance?
The door to Madame Sabina Petrova’s dressing-room was wide open and Celeste slipped in unnoticed. There is an art to being invisible and at least, she thought, I think I have mastered that. Hildegard looked miserable. She was seated in the same chair as she had been earlier.
Madame Sabina glanced up from putting the finishing touches to her face. To Celeste it was a grotesque mask.
‘Do you know, Hildegard,’ said Madame Sabina, ‘there’s a potential star in this very room?’
‘No, Mama,’ said Hildegard. ‘Where?’
Madame Sabina beckoned Celeste. ‘This pretty little creature can dance, according to my idiot director,’ she said as Celeste nervously moved closer to her. ‘He says she’s enchanting. Oh dear mouse, I don’t think “enchanting” is a word that could ever be used to describe you. It makes me wonder if you have any talent – except for eating chocolates so fast that you nearly choked yourself on an emerald ring.’
‘She’s only a theatre rat,’ said Hildegard. ‘And it’s not fair to say that about me.’
Her mother ignored her and, putting a hand to Celeste’s face, said to her, ‘You see, a talentless child such as mine can be a terrible burden, one that I will have to carry with me to the end of my days.’
‘I can sing,’ Hildegard piped up.
‘Sing, little mouse? Oh no,’ and she started to laugh.
The stage manager was calling half an hour to curtain up.
‘What have I done wrong?’ said Hildegard, fighting back tears.
‘Quiet,’ said the great diva. ‘I need to prepare myself for my audience. I don’t want to listen to your nonsense.’
Hildegard looked crushed and Celeste tried not to catch her eye as a tear rolled down her cheek, a crystal drop that hung until it plopped to the floor. Hildegard sniffed.
‘Don’t sniff,’ said her mother. ‘What have I told you about sniffing? Stop it immediately.’
Celeste felt in her pocket and handed Hildegard a handkerchief she found there. Hildegard said nothing but blew her nose too loudly for Madame Sabina’s liking.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Out you go. Outside – now.’
The door shut behind the weeping Hildegard and the dressing-room was filled with a brittle silence, broken by the entrance of Mr Gautier. Celeste thought he looked like a man who had been rehearsing a speech, but before he could begin, Madame Sabina said in a voice that a Persian cat might use if a Persian cat could talk, ‘I promise to sing the opera that has been written for me and that the company has spent three months rehearsing. I will not sing arias from other productions. And I will do my best to remember the stage directions. There,’ she added with a smile, ‘you see there’s no need for you to tell me that you find actors unbearable, singers little better and divas… oh dear me, I forget how you ended that little ditty of yours. Miss Olsen did tell me – was it something about “monstrous”?’
Mr Gautier replied with a tremble in his voice, ‘They grow monstrous through flattery, but they don’t start out that way.’
‘That’s it,’ said Madame Sabina. ‘You are so witty.’
Neither of them was laughing. If anything the director looked genuinely alarmed at what Madame Sabina might do next.
She sighed. ‘Children, all of you,’ she said, and lay down on the day-bed closing her eyes.
‘I’m glad to hear you’ve been thinking about your performance,’ said Mr Gautier. ‘And the costume?’
‘I will wear the one designed for my role. And you will have the gauze in place?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Gautier. ‘We are working on it now. You won’t forget your gloves in the first act? You have your gloves?’
Madame Sabina opened one eye. ‘Girl,’ she said gesturing to Celeste, ‘are my gloves on the dressing-table?’
‘There’s only one glove,’ said Celeste. It was the one she had brought to her earlier.
‘How careless of me. I must have left the other on stage.’
‘Go and find Madame’s other glove,’ said Mr Gautier to Celeste as he left the dressing-room, ‘and bring it back here before the curtain goes up.’
