Dance of Shadows

by Yelana Black

  “Her home phone.”

  Steffie furrowed her eyebrows. “What home phone?”

  “I had to talk to her, so I broke into Kate’s room and found the number.”

  “You what?” Steffie said with more force than Vanessa had expected. “Why? You could have gotten caught, kicked out of school—”

  “Her mom answered,” Vanessa said, interrupting. “Elly isn’t there either.”

  That silenced Steffie.

  “I asked for her, and her mom said she was at ballet school in New York. That she had just sent them an e-mail a couple of days ago.”

  Steffie shook her head, her eyes wandering to the other side of the room, where Elly’s bed had been bare since she’d left school almost two months ago. “I don’t understand. She wasn’t there? And they didn’t even know she had left? Don’t they ever talk on the phone?”

  Vanessa shook her head.

  “Are you sure you had the right number?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause as Steffie lowered herself onto her bed. “So what does that mean?” she asked. “She e-mailed her parents, telling them she was at school, and e-mailed us in September, telling us she was home. Did she just run away somewhere and lie to all of us?”

  “Maybe …,” Vanessa said, thinking of her sister. If Elly had run away, she wouldn’t have been the first. Though something about Elly’s disappearance sent shivers down her spine. Why had Elly left Vanessa that note with the block of rosin wrapped inside? The note had made it sound like Elly had wanted to talk to Vanessa. So why would she have run away without telling her friends?

  “Unless,” Vanessa said carefully, “she didn’t run away.”

  Steffie narrowed her eyes. “And what? Something happened to her?”

  Vanessa thought of her sister and the secret diary, the one they’d never found. Both her sister and Elly had vanished without any warning. Why? What was the connection?

  The screams of the white figures from the practice room rang in her ears, together with Helen’s words: The right steps with the right dancer can wreak havoc. Get out while you still can.

  “There’s one more thing that I haven’t told you,” Vanessa said.

  Steffie’s eyes were open, waiting. “Okay.”

  Vanessa told Steffie everything, about the basement practice room, the way the luminous figures peeled themselves from the walls and surrounded her, chanting, then screaming: You are we, we are you, you are we, we are you. And the names. Elizabeth. Katerina. Joy. Rebecca. Hannah. Josephine. Chloë … Margaret. She didn’t stop, until her throat was dry from speaking and her hands were trembling from everything she had just said.

  When she finished, Steffie was clutching the bedpost, her warm brown face pale. “Figures?”

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” Vanessa said. “If I hadn’t seen them, heard them, I wouldn’t have believed it either. But they were there. It wasn’t just in my head.”

  “Those names,” Steffie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Those were the exact names they said to you? You didn’t make them up?”

  “No,” Vanessa replied, thinking of the way they hissed her sister’s name. “Why?”

  “Those are the names of the missing girls in the articles I showed you,” Steffie said. She pulled her iPad out of her bag and turned it on. “The girls who disappeared. And not just some of them,” she said. “All of them.”

  Together, they scrolled down the articles. Even though she had already seen them, Vanessa’s stomach still contracted at the sight of the photographs. Steffie was right; nearly all of the missing girls, the ones who had been cast in a lead role, had been named by the white, luminous figures.

  “I don’t get it,” Vanessa said. “Why would they whisper those names?”

  “Maybe they’re trying to warn you about something,” Steffie said. “You are the lead dancer. Just like those girls were.”

  “But warn me about what?”

  Steffie let out a nervous chuckle. “I can’t believe we’re talking about figures on a wall,” she said.

  “I know,” Vanessa said. “But they were real. I saw them.”

  “I believe you,” Steffie said quietly.

  Vanessa met her gaze. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m just losing my mind. If the pressure is getting to me.”

  “Maybe it isn’t just the pressure,” Steffie said, lingering on the last article frozen on the iPad’s screen. “All of these girls were cast in lead roles, and all of them disappeared. They couldn’t all have cracked and run away.”

  “So … what?”

  “We have to find out more. It’s not like every girl who was ever cast as a lead here has disappeared. What was it about these particular girls?”

  “I don’t know,” Vanessa said. She was trying to help, but all she could think of was Margaret.

  “We have to figure out what they have in common,” Steffie said.

  Vanessa gazed at the article on the screen, which dated back almost a decade. She didn’t know whom to trust. Something strange was going on, and in a small school where gossip traveled quickly, she didn’t want word getting out that she was researching a line of missing girls. How long had Josef and Hilda been at NYBA? A while, she thought, though she couldn’t ask either of them. Unless …

  Vanessa sat up and turned to Steffie. “I have an idea. But you’ll have to skip your next class.”

  Black leotard. Black leggings. Black cardigan. Vanessa pulled her hair back into a low bun, hoping that would make its red color less noticeable. “Ready?” she said to Steffie as she slipped on a pair of black flats. Also clad in black, her friend nodded. They had thirty minutes until classes let out.

  Light streamed into the lobby of the building next door, where all of their classes were held. It was empty, silent, save for the water fountain humming by the stairway. Vanessa and Steffie moved soundlessly across the marble floor, knowing that everyone else was at class or rehearsal.

  Josef’s office was nestled into an alcove at the end of the hall. During her last trip to his office, the top drawer of his file cabinet had been slightly ajar, revealing files marked with students’ names. Vanessa led Steffie toward the door, remembering that experience, when she’d overheard Josef and Hilda.

  “Are you sure he’s gone?” Steffie whispered as they crouched outside the door.

  “Yes,” Vanessa said. “Well, ninety-nine percent sure.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He’s supposed to be in afternoon rehearsal today, but Hilda was the only one there when I left.”

  Steffie opened her mouth to respond, but Vanessa cut her off.

  “He probably got there late. Besides, we’re here now, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but if he’s here and we get caught, we could be expelled,” Steffie hissed.

  “So you’d rather wait around until someone else disappears?” Vanessa said.

  Steffie hesitated, then shook her head. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  Gently, Vanessa gave the doorknob a slight turn. It was unlocked. She pushed it open, peering into the darkness. She glanced over her shoulder at Steffie, and like a pair of black cats, they snuck inside.

  Josef’s office was just as she remembered. The desk was scattered with papers, books, and a few blocks of the strange, sticky rosin. Glass-fronted shelves lined the walls, filled with trophies and medals. Just past them were the gates that led to Josef’s private library. Steffie ran her hands down them, rattling them slightly to see if they were unlocked. No such luck.

  “Over here,” Vanessa whispered, and led her to the file cabinet behind Josef’s desk. She flipped on the desk lamp, illuminating the room in a dim orange light, and opened the top drawer. They looked for every name that the white figures mentioned.

  At first they couldn’t find any, until Steffie thought to check the bottom drawer, which held all of the documents for former NYBA students. Some of the files were faded, the older ones so bent out of shape that it seemed a miracle t
hey were still intact. But after searching, Vanessa and Steffie slowly picked out each of the missing girls named by the luminous figures. They were all here.

  While Steffie flipped through the files, Vanessa pulled out a single manila folder, labeled MARGARET ADLER. She was surprised at how thin it was. Somehow, she had expected it to be thicker, filled with information about her disappearance. Instead, it held only a few measly papers.

  “There’s nothing here,” Vanessa murmured, half to Steffie, half to herself. She flipped to the next sheet, and the next, but it was all things she already knew or didn’t care about. Margaret’s school schedule, her grades, her dormitory assignment, some notes Hilda had jotted down about her form.

  Vanessa squinted at the handwritten scrawl on the last sheet of paper. It was a record of Margaret’s dancing, what her strengths and her weaknesses were. All normal, Vanessa thought, until she reached the bottom.

  “It says here that right before she disappeared, my sister was cast as the lead in La Danse du Feu.” Vanessa looked up. “That’s what Josef calls the extra dance from The Firebird.”

  Steffie looked up from her files, her face flushed in the lamplight. “It says the same thing on this one.” She held up Chloë’s folder.

  They went through the rest of the files for the girls who’d been named by the luminous figures on the wall. Rebecca Harding. Hannah Gary. Josephine Front. Each one had the same handwritten notation. “Lead in La Danse du Feu.” And each ended with the same signature. Josef.

  “If it’s just the final dance scene, then why would Josef have noted it as a separate performance?” Vanessa said. “If she were the lead in The Firebird, then obviously she’d be the lead in La Danse du Feu, right? So why bother putting it in the file?”

  “I don’t know,” Steffie murmured. “But it looks like the La Danse du Feu was performed thirteen times in various productions, the first time being twenty years ago. He must add it to different ballets. It’s not just performed in The Firebird. It’s something … extra.”

  “Do you think—” Vanessa said, but stopped herself, her mind racing. “Do you think it’s a coincidence?”

  “There is one way to find out,” Steffie said, closing the file. “We start looking deeper.”

  They searched through everything: his drawers; the books and papers on his desk, most of which were in French or Russian; current student files. Steffie’s said nothing out of the ordinary; neither did Blaine’s or TJ’s. And to their surprise, neither did Elly’s. It didn’t mention anything about her dropping out. The notes just stopped in September, as if after that she had ceased to exist. Justin’s folder said nothing in particular, either, though the Fratelli twins had a peculiar notation at the bottom. Lyric Elite? someone had scrawled.

  Zep’s folder was missing, and so was Vanessa’s.

  “Look at this.” Steffie held up the oldest file for one of the missing girls. She pointed to the last page, where it said the girl had been cast as the lead in La Danse du Feu. Next to the notation, there was a tiny string of numbers.

  “What is it?” Vanessa said.

  “A Dewey Decimal number,” Steffie said. “From the library.”

  They turned to the locked gate that led to Josef’s private library. Inside, they could see dozens of dusty, ancient, leather-bound books. Without speaking, they stood up and began to search—rifling through Josef’s shelves and drawers, beneath papers and sticky blocks of rosin. But they couldn’t find the key to the gate anywhere.

  “Maybe he keeps it with him,” Vanessa said.

  But Steffie wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Why would he do that,” she said, “if the only place he uses it is here?”

  To keep out people like us, Vanessa thought, just as Steffie walked toward Josef’s wall of trophies. In the center, on an open shelf, stood the largest trophy, in the shape of a bronzed pointe shoe. Steffie reached out and tipped it over, and a key fell onto the desktop.

  The library gate unlocked soundlessly. There were candles in sconces mounted on the wall, but they didn’t dare light them, lest the smell float outside and alert someone to their presence, so instead, they used the glow from their cell phones. Feeling their way through the dark, they wandered along the shelves, which were stacked with hundreds of old books on dance and choreography, on the history of drama and the anatomy of movement. Steffie stopped every so often, examining the numbers on the spines.

  “This way,” she whispered, and led Vanessa deeper inside.

  Steffie crouched low, her body blending into the darkness. When she stood up, she was holding a heavy book bound with dark-red leather. She brushed off the cover, but there was no title.

  Inside, its pages were brittle and yellowed, the edges smudged with oily fingerprints, as if they had been read dozens of times. “There’s nothing here.” Steffie flipped from page to page. Each one was blank: not a single word, picture, or drop of ink.

  Just as they flipped to the last page, which was still infuriatingly blank, a noise sounded from the other room. Vanessa held up her hand to silence Steffie, and together, they pocketed their cell phones and listened to the sound of the office door opening. Vanessa felt her heart pounding in her chest.

  Josef? Steffie mouthed to her.

  Vanessa didn’t wait to find out. She grabbed the book and slipped it back into place. This way, she mouthed to Steffie, pulling her behind a low shelf in the back of the library.

  Footsteps sounded in the other room. They were slow, soft, and heading directly toward the library.

  She heard the gate open.

  The footsteps stopped, and Vanessa closed her eyes, suddenly realizing that they hadn’t locked it. Josef would know that someone had been there. But there was nothing they could do but wait. Vanessa could feel Steffie’s skin against hers, warm and moist with sweat, and smelling faintly of vanilla.

  The footsteps continued into the library, sounding gritty against the dusty stone floor.

  Vanessa held her breath as the person walked toward her, and then suddenly changed direction. In the faint lights, her eyes traveled up his leg, his waist, his collared shirt. They didn’t look like they belonged to Josef. They were too young, too preppy, and the footsteps were too quiet, as if whoever it was knew he shouldn’t be here either.

  He scanned the shelves, moving quickly, until, to Vanessa’s surprise, he turned down the row where she and Steffie had just been. There, he bent down, reading the spines.

  She swallowed a gasp and grabbed Steffie’s wrist. She looked at the ground, hoping he hadn’t seen her. To her relief, Justin inched to the left, absorbed in studying the books in front of him.

  Finally, he found what he was looking for. He pulled out the same crimson-bound volume Vanessa and Steffie had just put back. Vanessa arched her neck, trying to see what he was doing.

  Justin didn’t seem put off by the blank cover or spine. He opened it to the first pages, turning them delicately, as if they were dried leaves. Leaving the book open, he set it on a shelf. He reached into his pocket and took out a book of matches and a block of sticky rosin, wrapped in paper.

  Slipping the amber rosin out of its casing, he rubbed it over his left hand, coating it in a thick, greasy layer.

  And then, to Vanessa’s horror, he struck a match and lit his entire hand on fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Justin held up his burning hand, and for a moment Vanessa thought he was going to set the book on fire too.

  She was about to stop him from setting the whole place ablaze, when Steffie grabbed her arm and put a finger to her lips.

  Justin must have heard something, because he turned to them, his face lit a fiery red from the flame. They both froze. He extended his burning hand forward, shining the light in their direction, before passing over them. Vanessa’s shoulders slumped in relief as he turned back to the book.

  They watched, barely breathing, while he took a voice recorder out of his pocket and turned it on. Illuminating the blank pages with the burning
rosin, he began to read aloud. He spoke quickly, his voice too low for them to make out much.

  “Must be thirteen dancers,” he murmured, turning the page. “Plus one more. With the conjunction of the planets.

  “The series of calendars.” He squinted at the text. “Converging on the thirteenth of December, in the second decade of the second millennium.”

  He paused, then read the date again. “The thirteenth of December.” He frowned.

  Vanessa exchanged a baffled look with Steffie. That date—it wasn’t just any day in December. It was one that everyone at NYBA knew, including Justin. The opening night of The Firebird performance. But why was it in an ancient book?

  Justin glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost five o’clock, which meant that Josef would be back any minute from rehearsal. Justin turned off the recorder. Slipping the book back onto the shelf, he waved his hand through the air in one brisk swish, extinguishing the flame. And just like that he was gone, leaving the girls in darkness.

  When they heard his footsteps disappear through the office door, Vanessa and Steffie snuck out from behind the bookshelf and ran to the aisle with the blank book. A bitter smell hung in the air from the smoky rosin. Steffie grabbed the book and stuffed it in her bag, and they tiptoed out of the library, locking the gate behind them.

  Vanessa did a quick sweep, making sure everything was in its right place—the key inside the brass trophy, the files tucked safely into the cabinet, the papers on Josef’s desk artfully messy. She picked up a sticky block of rosin. It felt warm in her hand, like a piece of melting caramel.

  Taking a stray piece of paper from under Josef’s desk, she wrapped it up like a bar of soap and followed Steffie to the door. Making sure the lobby was clear, they slipped outside.

  A class had just emerged from one of the studios. Vanessa and Steffie let the crowd swallow them up until they looked like any other students, sweaty from a long workout. “I have matches in my room,” Steffie muttered. The chatter around them drowned out her voice.