When my great-aunt died, I inherited her red shoes. Red shoes in a box with tissue paper so worn and creased it resembled the skin on my greataunt's hands in the years before her death.

Red shoes in a box with a note:

Ruby red, pretty to view
On her feet a dancer grew
But should these shoes stray from her care
Naught but trouble will find her there.

At first I had not been able to look at the shoes. I had loved my great-aunt with all my heart and now that she was gone I couldn't bear to look upon what was once hers. The shoes remained in the box and the box stayed under my bed, collecting dust for what might have been years had I not lost my earring in that space that exists between my bed and the wall.

Now the box sat in my hands, furry with dust and yellowed with age. As I sat there, I looked at the photograph of my great-aunt in its oval brass frame on my dresser. She gazed back at me, not as a withered old woman with skin as creased as autumn leaves, but as a fifteen-year-old girl, a dancer, in a white embroidered dress and bright red shoes.

People say I look like my great-aunt when she was young, which is why I kept the photograph of her as a girl on display rather than her face as an old woman. She had often told me that age had crept up on her like a stalker. One day she looked in the mirror and the bright face of a young girl smiled back at her, the next day, an old woman. ‘But life is like that, my dear,’ she had cautioned. ‘You spend so much of your life looking to the future that before you know it your future has become your past.’

I had no idea what she could possibly mean. For me, life seemed impossibly slow. Plant a seed and you could be waiting weeks, even months before a green sprout unfurled its tiny head. A painting could take days to dry and a birthday was saturated with the sorrow of knowing that when the day was over, you would have to wait what could seem like a whole lifetime for another. I wanted to live a life that could be counted in minutes. Seconds even. A blink of an eye. I wanted tomorrow today and to be able to skip through all of the parts of my life which were simply a waste of time. I wanted to be able to fast forward my life; skip school, stamp out sleep, and dance, spinning, into the future. For the future was always there, beckoning me with brighter days to come.

As I looked down at the worn, red shoes of my dear great-aunt, a terrible restlessness overcame me. Worse than any I've ever had to bear. It crept up through me from the soles of my feet like mercury, quivering through my veins and seizing hold of my heart until it was almost an effort to breathe. With a jolt, I flung the red shoes into the far corner of the room and ran down the stairs two by two into the back garden. There I stood, trembling and gulping great gasps of the crisp autumn air.

Gradually my heart began to slow its frantic pace and I was able to calm my trembling hands. With great effort, I walked back into the house, controlling my every step to resemble that of a normal pace.

At dinnertime, my father threw down his cloth serviette in exasperation.

‘Would you please stop that jiggling, Emily! You're driving us all crazy!’

I glanced at my father, alarmed, because I hadn't been aware that I was jiggling at all. But, sure enough, when I looked down at my tightly crossed legs, my knee was twitching of its own accord. I pressed my hand down on it firmly and tried to eat with the other.

‘Emily, don't gulp your dinner, darling,’ my mother said. ‘You'll get indigestion.’

I looked down at my plate, and, to my horror, I saw that while my parents had only just begun to sever their steaks, my plate was already completely empty. I closed my eyes for what seemed like an eternity to fathom these strange experiences. When I opened them again my father was still chewing on the same mouthful of meat.

Terror clamped my heart as the evening stretched on, seemingly slower and slower. Even the clock in the hall seemed to drag its morbid tick-tocking until between each sound I could count a dozen of my own heartbeats. I tried to tune in to the conversation between my parents but it sounded as incoherent as a record on slow speed. Finally, I could stand it no longer and pushed back from the table to seek sanctuary in my own room. The shouts of my puzzled parents thudded into the back of my head.

Even before I turned my light on, I saw them there. The red shoes. They seemed to glow and pulse in the dark like severed organs. The spinning in my head became faster and faster as I approached them. Were they calling me? It was hard to tell.

Downstairs I could hear the faint voices of my parents, but their sounds were muffled by the vertigo. In one swift move, I grabbed the wretched shoes and flung them back into their box. It was only when the box was firmly shut that the terrible pounding in my head began to cease. Exhausted, I slid the box under my bed and crawled beneath my doona.

As I drifted into a dazed slumber, I felt my mother's cool palm on my forehead and her gentle murmurings. Occasionally I would open my eyes and it would be light, other times it would be dark, but every time I peered through my sticky lashes I would glimpse my mother's form, ever present; sewing, reading, dozing, staring. Then I would drift back into a fitful sleep.

One morning I awoke to see my mother's hopeful face above me. In her hand was a cup of steaming tea. My stomach lurched with hunger and I sat up groggily in bed.

‘Oh, I'm starving,’ I mumbled. ‘Have I been asleep long?’

‘Three days, my sweet. You've had quite a fever.’

‘Three days? I've been in bed for three days?’

My mother nodded. ‘I've been at my wit's end. Your friends called past too, but I told them to come back later. They've left a card for you, see? Get well soon – it says – We miss you. They asked me if you would be away from school for much longer and I told them you can't rush an illness. It takes the time it takes.’

‘So you've been sitting here for three days?’ I asked, incredulously.

My mother shrugged.

‘Weren't you bored?’

‘I have plenty of thoughts to keep me occupied.’ My mother smiled. ‘Now you just rest there, dear, and I'll fetch you something to eat. There's no sense in pushing things.’

I ate a hearty breakfast then lay back to try to sleep again, but it seemed I'd slept enough for a lifetime already and my body wouldn't succumb. I tried reading a little, but the words danced across the page.

My mother brought the radio up, but the songs were boring and the chatter tedious. I tried a crossword puzzle, but I couldn't keep my attention focused on the page. Outside the sun shone, beckoningly.

‘Can I get up now?’ I groaned, when my mother appeared with yet another cup of tea.

‘I don't think so,’ she said. ‘You've been quite ill. I think it would be best if you took it easy for today. Just try to relax, dear. Enjoy your time off.’

But I couldn't enjoy it. In fact the day stretched past excruciatingly. My legs stung with pins and needles and my skin itched with boredom. When my mother called upstairs to say that she was popping out for fresh bread, I threw off my doona and swung my legs irritably to the floor. To try to rid them of their inertia, I jogged up and down a little on the spot.

In the mirror, I pulled faces and scraped my hair back off my scalp. Then, flopping down on my carpet, I rolled around a little to stretch out my back. That was when I saw it.

Without thinking, I pulled the old shoe box out from under my bed. I would just take a peep, I thought. Check that I had wrapped them up properly after the other night.

The shoes lay in their crumpled paper, scuffed and demure. There was no shine coming from them the way I had imagined seeing the other night. I held one up. It was solid but worn. The faded red leather felt soft in my hands. Size five-and-a-half. I looked inside. My great-aunt must have had very small feet too. How strange. I traced my finger inside the leather sole where I could see the grey smudges of her toe-prints.

I looked up at her photo and she gazed back down at me. We were alike. I could see that now. My father had always complained that I was as restless as my Great-auntie Bo had been.

But she had travelled the world, I thought. She had seen things and been to places that my parents had probably never even dreamt about. I would be like her, I swore. Perhaps even a great dancer, too.

Dreamily, I slipped one of the red shoes onto my bare foot. It fit perfectly. I pulled on the other shoe and stood up and stretched and pointed my toes. The shoes seemed to glow at the end of my feet. They were beautiful.

I looked into my dressing-table mirror and saw that I was beautiful too. I saw an adoring audience throwing flowers at me and cheering with tears in their eyes. I bowed low, and then, ever so slowly I began to dance.

Slowly, slowly, I spun, catching a glimpse of my shining face at each turn. Then my feet began to speed up. Tippity-tapping, spinning and pointing. Tip, tap, spin, point. The crowd in the mirror roared. I smiled at them and spun faster. Faster and faster, my room becoming a blur, until it seemed the crowd was all around me.

In the crowd, I saw the faces changing. They flicked from man to woman, child to adult and back again, but always they were smiling. Cheering me as I spun faster. I had never felt so alive. I turned back to my mirror to see if my face reflected how I felt, but I could no longer find my image there. Curiously, I glimpsed the face in front of me as I spun. It was the face of a woman, an older version of myself. She had the same green eyes as me, the same long sharp nose and wide, full mouth.

But as I watched, fine lines began to etch around her eyes and out towards her temples. They then furrowed down to her chin. The lines deepened and the woman's hair began to grey. First at her temples, then the grey spread over all of her hair, fading to white.

The older she became the more familiar she began to look. I spun and I spun but every time I turned to face the image in the mirror the woman had grown older still. Who was this woman ageing before my very eyes? Great-auntie Bo? But no. Her eyes had been blue. Curious. Yet she looked so much like great-auntie Bo.

But then, I was the only one in my family with green eyes.