Chapter 1

The building looked like it smelled. Old. Like a grandfather’s closet. Or a mortuary.

Madeleine shouldered her bag, straightened her shirt, and touched her necklace. She started up the first step of the massive, ancient-looking building in front of her. For reasons she couldn’t understand, looking at the windows along the building, shrouded in darkness, made her shiver. It was morning, after all. Did the sun not shine on this place?

“Hey, what about a hug goodbye, at least?”

Madeleine whirled around and smiled at her mom sheepishly. “Sorry. Of course.”

She touched her necklace again—the necklace that had belonged to her grandmother; then her mother; and now, as a going-away present, to Madeleine—and bounded down the stairs to wrap her mom in a hug. The idling station wagon next to them let out a bang and a puff of smoke. Madeleine and her mom jumped and then shared a laugh. When they separated, Madeleine saw tears in her mom’s eyes.

Her mom sighed and held Madeleine by the shoulders. “It’s just until Christmas, and then you come back. Three months. This is your chance, Madeleine. You’re so good—you got in two weeks after the semester started, which I was told several times they never do. Don’t mess it up.” She winked, then said softly, “My talented, beautiful daughter. I will miss you.”

Madeleine laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. Her mother had sacrificed a lot to send Madeleine away, even with the scholarship. “I won’t let you down, Mom. I’m going to blow them away!”

Her mom nodded and walked to the driver’s-side door. “You better. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” As she got inside, she called out, “Maybe you should bourrée them away!”

Madeleine giggled and shook her head. That was her mom. Cheesy to the bone. Madeleine’s heart hurt as she thought about leaving her for two whole months.

Her mom shifted into drive, and Madeleine watched her pull away, waving like a crazy woman and swerving so much she almost hit the brass statue of the dancer in the roundabout driveway. Madeleine waved back, and then the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She had a strange feeling of being watched. She flipped around and searched the windows in the building again. Nothing. She shook it off—it had to be nerves.

When she flipped back around to give one last wave to her mom, the old, awful station wagon was gone, leaving only a puff of smoke to remind Madeleine of her old life.

She turned again to the school, her new home for the next year. Or for as long as she could hold on to the scholarship.

The Dario Quincy Academy of Dance was etched over massive, medieval-looking wooden doors.

She shook her head again to clear away the creepy feeling that was crawling over her. Nerves—nothing more. This was it. She had won a scholarship to the most prestigious ballet school in the country. If the building got up and tried to eat her alive, she would still go in.

Madeleine squared her shoulders and walked up the long, creepy stairs toward her new life.