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Taryn
I KNOW YOU’RE A MURDERER.
I can’t get the words out of my head. No matter what I do, how I try and distract myself, I can’t stop thinking about the message. Someone here knows.
I try to concentrate on ballet—I mean, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last twenty-four hours, since someone wrote that on the mirror. For what has to be the thousandth time, I tell myself the message is nothing. It’s just a joke.
Just a joke.
I mouth the words over and over again and try not to think about the threat. Because no matter how much I try and persuade myself it’s a joke, I know it isn’t. It’s a threat. Someone here knows what happened with Helena, and this is a warning. And it has to be linked to me getting this extra chance to get into the company. I know people clearly don’t want me here, and this threat tells me that one of these people—or more—knows my secret and is prepared to use it against me. Expose me? Tell everyone if I don’t back out. Is that what they’re trying to get me to do?
Frustration pulls through me. I’m in one of the school’s practice rooms, where I feel more comfortable than in the company’s studios, at the barre. I need to work on my core strength, and I’ve been here for nearly an hour now.
My heart pounds. Who can possibly know this?
None of the company dancers were outright nasty in the practice earlier. A couple were even sort of nice to me, especially Li Hua. But Marion and Victoria are both two who were mean before, and while they were civil in the practice to me, I was wary. They’d be the obvious choice in trying to frighten me away—but how would they know about my sister?
I mull over it all, going through dancer after dancer, trying to work out who could know, but nothing solid comes to mind. Just because dancers might think it’s unfair I’m getting this chance, it doesn’t mean they’re behind the threatening message. That could be anyone.
And the number done on my photo board? That could be the same person as the lipstick threat—or someone else. I didn’t even see anyone in the company grounds yesterday right before the message was written, when Jaidev and I and Evangeline were there and just going out for a break.
Jaidev or Evangeline?
My mouth dries, and I grip the barre harder. No, it wouldn’t make sense for Jaidev to be behind the message. He wants to succeed with me. He wouldn’t want me being distracted. So that leaves Evangeline. I mean, I don’t know her but that wouldn’t be professional at all. And I can’t imagine her doing it. Something tells me it’s a dancer. And probably someone who knows more about me than I suspect, because I don’t talk about Helena. That brings me back to my roommates. I know I apparently whispered Helena’s name one night, so I guess it could’ve happened more than once. But only my roommates would’ve heard that—and I still can’t imagine Sibylle or Ivelisse writing that message. And it wasn’t their handwriting. I frown. I can’t remember exactly what the lipstick writing was like, but I’d recognize Ivelisse’s loopy scrawl and Sibylle’s uniform hand anywhere. I’d have known instantly if it was either of their handwriting, wouldn’t I?
The door to the studio creaks open, and I turn to see several petit rats from the lower school enter. They stop when they see me.
“Sorry, we thought we’d booked this room?” one of them says, her voice faltering.
“I’m just going.” I grab my duffel bag and gather my things, suddenly desperate to get away from dancers who could be threatening me. I mean, logically I know it’s very unlikely to be these girls as I don’t even know them.
But I just want to be on my own.
It doesn’t take me long to get to my room, and I throw my duffel bag at the foot of my bed, then head to my wardrobe. In the bottom left corner, there’s a box, and I pull it out carefully. Put it on my bed and open the lid. I just want to look at them. Because they’re Helena’s shoes. The last pair she wore. Repetto. She’d been dancing in them for maybe a couple of weeks before she died, and she’d dyed them a burnt-orange color. Very distinguishable.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
But the moment I open the box, I realize it’s too much. The fabric of the pointe shoes is breaking down, the left more worn than the right. And they look like they’ve just been taken off, or they’re about to be put on again, waiting to be danced in once more.
I can’t look at them, not now. It’s too soon, still too soon. Always too soon.
I close the box quickly, feeling sick and shaky as I tuck it back into the wardrobe.
I need to get out of here.
###
“HEY, MUM?” MY VOICE is soft, tentative, as I hold the phone to my ear, as if I’m afraid my own mother’s voice will somehow leap out of my phone, flicking into my ear canals like a serpent’s tongue, and hurt me.
“Taryn. Uh, hi.” She sounds as uncertain as I am.
I rarely phone her. It’s been this way for years. Whenever we have spoken on the phone, it’s always been her phoning me after an important event. I let out a long breath and lean against the tree trunk. I’m back at the graveyard, and I’m not sure why. Normally, I come here to dance for Helena, not to phone my mum.
“How are you?” I whisper.
There’s a crackling on the line. I imagine how wide my mum’s eyes will be now. The uncertain look on her face.
“I’m good... We’re all good.” She hums a little under her breath—something she always does when she’s nervous. “Congratulations again, darling, on getting the place with the company. I know how much you wanted that.”
My heart squeezes, as if the lie is wrapped around it. I want to tell her everything. Tell her about Teddy’s injury and his diagnosis, about dancing with Jaidev, how the company dancers hate me, the threatening lipstick message, and how I lied. How everything could come tumbling down if I don’t make the tour. How I’ll need to find tuition for another year.
“The girls are very excited about it,” Mum says. “They’ve been telling all their friends about their amazing big sister. They really are proud, you know. I am, too.”
A fuzzy feeling wriggles through my nose, and my eyes smart. I take several deep breaths and try not to cry as I stare at the gravestones ahead, the shapes of them. It’s the first time Mum’s said that. Since Helena, we haven’t really talked properly. I even avoid going home as much as I can, because when I’m there, I’m a ghost wandering the empty rooms, staring at my mother from afar. There’s been this distance, and I know I remind her too much of Helena. I mean, there’s no way I can’t.
But there should be two of us dancing at Roseheart—and that’s why Mum never comes to shows here. Says she finds it too difficult. Once, I tried to make it easier, saying maybe Helena would’ve chosen a different ballet school, but we both knew she wouldn’t have. We were inseparable.
I press my free hand into the dry earth and wonder how things would’ve gone if Helena was still alive. If we’d have been competing against each other with our partners to get Roseheart Romantic Dance Company. If I’d have beaten her or if she’d have beaten me.
I wonder how different things could’ve been. If her presence could have had wide-rippling effects. Maybe Teddy wouldn’t even have been a dancer here at all. Maybe the whole cohort for the diploma would’ve been different. So many things could’ve been so, so different.
“Thanks.” My voice is choked, and I have to swallow several times. I pull at the dry grass, at the few stubby blades that are poking out of the earth by the tree roots.
“I’m glad you’re doing what you want,” she says. “That’s important. And we miss you.” It’s added like an afterthought and her tone is different, harder. Her walls have gone back up.
“I miss you, too,” I say. It’s been a good year or so since I saw her. A fleeting visit back home to the house I grew up in. “Hopefully, I’ll see you again soon.”
“Yes.” Her voice hitches. “The girls would like that. Moo’s always talking about her famous sister now.”
Moo. I don’t even know which of my little sisters that nickname applies to.
“Well, I must go,” I say, still staring at the gravestones. Their shapes are moving, blurring under my unfallen tears. “Mr. Vikas wants to get another practice in this evening. For the tour.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.” She sounds relieved that our conversation is ending.
I am too.
After the phone call, I stay in the graveyard though. Just sitting here, feeling the cold seep into my bones. I’ve never felt so alone, and my instinct is to text Teddy, but I know I can’t. Things are different between us now.
“I’ve got no one,” I whisper into the darkness.