Chapter 6

For the next four days, the same thing happened:

Ophelia went to classes, ballet, and school; ignored her friends; and danced with Devon.

Mealtimes were the hardest, so she just started skipping them altogether, grabbing a granola bar here and there from snack machines, snagging the occasional muffin before the meal crowd came in.

Not that it mattered. Ophelia wasn’t even close to hungry.

All she could think about was Devon and their dances. They hadn’t even had one real conversation, but Ophelia didn’t mind. The dancing was enough for her.

Each day in ballet class, she danced as if she were alone with Devon, and her dancing had never been better. She even heard Madame describe it as “exquisite” over the phone when she passed by Madame’s office.

Even though the long nights were taking their toll, she felt energized like never before. She knew she had big bags under her eyes, that she’d lost weight, but she didn’t care.

The only thing that mattered was Devon and the way he made her feel.

After the last ballet class of the day on Friday and after Ophelia had sprinted out of the studio to avoid her friends and wait alone in her room for her time with Devon, she heard a knock on her door.

For a ridiculous second, she thought it might be him. She ran to the door and flung it open.

It was Kayley. And Kayley didn’t look happy. Her arms crossed, she said, “Can I come in?”

Ophelia didn’t even try to hide her disappointment. But now that Kayley was there, Ophelia didn’t know how she’d get rid of her, so she opened the door wider and gestured for Kayley to come in.

Her frown remained as Kayley strode over to the dressing table chair and sat down. Ophelia remained standing, crossing her arms and tapping her feet, her eyebrows up.

For a moment, the two of them just stared at each other.

“Well?” Ophelia said.

Kayley sighed and knit her hands together, looking down with an expression so forlorn, Ophelia actually felt bad for a second.

“What’s going on with you, Ophelia?” Kayley finally asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned around and pretended to shuffle things on her desk, though she hadn’t done her homework all week. A note from one of her teachers atop the pile of papers gave Ophelia two days to finish an assignment or she’d get a zero. But all of that seemed so trivial—what did any of it matter when there was dancing to be done?

Kayley shook her head and fiddled with a brush on the dressing table. When she finally looked up, there were tears in her eyes.

“You’ve been disappearing every day. You don’t talk to any of us or eat with any of us. You look like crap. I know something is up. Just like you knew something was up when I took those shoes. This house has a way of … isolating you. You know that.”

Ophelia waved her hand. “Oh, come on! That’s ridiculous. And anyway, I’m fine. I just feel like being alone right now.”

“I know you believe in this stuff,” Kayley said. “Remember the ghost hunt?”

“I didn’t actually believe a ghost was taking our stuff! I just wanted an adventure.”

Kayley took two steps toward her, her eyes earnest and concerned. “Whatever adventure you’re on right now, Ophelia, it is doing something strange to you. You look like your life force is draining or something. And you’re not talking to your friends. That means something is up.

“Whatever you believe about the house, know this: Don’t always believe what you see or hear. Question anything that seems a little strange. Because in this house, it probably is. And with the curse of Giselle … well, you especially have to watch your back. Until then, whether you want it or not, Madeleine, Sophie, Emma, and I are watching your back.”

Before Ophelia could respond, Kayley marched out of the room.

Ophelia stared at the door in disbelief. Was that some sort of threat? Had her friends been spying on her? Did they know about Devon?

Panic gripped her as she searched her mind, trying to find a time when someone might have spotted her. But it couldn’t be. Devon would have noticed, even if Ophelia hadn’t.

How dare the girls decide they knew what was best for her! They were jealous of her dancing. They were jealous that she’d found something (someone) else to take up her time, that she no longer involved herself in their petty lives and the school’s petty goings-on.

Jealous.

Rage raced through Ophelia. She needed some distraction before her midnight date with Devon. She tapped her mouth with her fingers, trying to think of what could work.

Riffling through her closet, she found the old box she kept full of yearbooks, show programs, and old notebooks. She dug through the box and came up with what she was looking for: a journal. Her mom had given her the journal when she came to Dario Quincy three years ago. But since Ophelia wasn’t much for feelings, she’d tossed the journal aside with a snort and hadn’t thought of it since.

Now, though, she felt this was the perfect time to put down her thoughts. She felt compelled to write about Devon. He was so ethereal that she was afraid he would disappear. She wanted to write down everything he said or did, everything he made her feel. And she wanted to write about her friends and how strange they were acting.

She opened up the diary and wrote the first words that came to mind:

My friends are acting strange, and I know it is because they are jealous. The only thing that gives me comfort right now is Devon. Dancing with him makes the whole world disappear. I find that I long for him every single night—I wait with bated breath to be reunited with him. He feeds my soul like nothing else can. I needn’t eat nor sleep, for Devon is my nourishment. Those around me only serve as distractions, and they will never understand this need I have for him, this yearning that consumes me.

After an hour and a cramped hand—who ever writes longhand anymore instead of using a computer?—she read over the first few lines. Crinkling her forehead, she reread them. The words were exactly how she felt, only somehow, they didn’t sound like her.

A trickle of nervousness ran through her. Kayley’s words about the strangeness of the house echoed around Ophelia’s head. Then she happened to glance at the clock. Eleven fifty.

She jumped up and got ready to sprint to the dance studio.

Devon would be there, and she couldn’t be late.