Chapter Five #2
With a low laugh, she jabs one floury finger in my direction. “I knew you were meant for it. I’m proud of you.”
Would you be proud if you knew I was a thief? The thought flashes through me. I blink it away and say quickly, “I’ll still be with you in the shop during the day. Shows are in the evenings. I hate to leave you alone so much at night though.”
“It’s fine. I need to do things on my own too.” She scrunches up her face. “For goodness’ sake, Corliss. I’m grown now.”
“I know.” I nod, for she’s clearly not a little girl anymore, despite how youthful she looks. But all the same, she’s younger than I was at her age, more na?ve, innocent. I change the subject. “With the money I bring in, that will help us. We could even send you to art school.”
Sélie’s mouth tightens. “We’ve been through this, Corliss. I would never leave you, or The Pins.”
I squeeze her hand hard. “I wouldn’t want to leave you either. But you should think about it. You’re very talented, love. You could do so many great things with your art.”
“I can be an artist without school. And I don’t want to leave the shop.
” She waves me away, a hint of irritation at the topic she’s clearly sick of revisiting.
I don’t push it. She’s sweet as pie most of the time, but pushed hard enough, her temper has a bite.
She goes on, adding, “Besides, can we just focus on you right now? We should celebrate, somehow. I should make a nicer dinner.”
I wrinkle my nose at the burnt smell in the air. “What are you making—or burning?”
With a shriek, Sélie runs to the kitchen, then she yells, “I ruined the bread. Damn it.”
Laughing, I rise, then I walk toward the bedroom. “That’s okay. I’m not very hungry.”
In the quiet room, I take off my dress and peel down my grimy stockings.
I contemplate a bath, which I desperately need, but I’ll have to manage it in the morning instead.
I maneuver myself out of my corset and chemise, dab at my skin with a wet, soapy rag at the basin, then slide on my nightgown, tugging my old silk dressing gown atop that.
Sélie’s voice is far away, in the other room, but the words feel too close. “Oh, where’d you get the red slippers?”
Here is where I lie, though I hate to do it. I gaze admiringly at the shoes. Find myself calling back, “Julian gave them to me.”
I set them aside until tomorrow—when I’ll return to The Red Clover—and I join Sélie in the next room.
After dinner—passable, but nowhere near as good as Aven’s cooking, a fact which we both politely ignore—I watch Sélie draw, her work coming to life.
Pride glows from within me, and still, deep down, the enduring worry I’ve always held for her.
She’s taller than me now, but I can’t help remembering her as a small, sickly-looking child.
“What a fearful, skittery thing!” one crotchety old guardian had exclaimed as little Sélie stood in between me and Aven, Sélie’s face white, eyes wide, hands shaking in ours.
She was always like that with other people, until the year we came to The Pins to live with Mavis.
When we moved into Mavis’s tiny cottage, Sélie began to flourish, running up and down the rocky path to the ocean, swimming, gathering wildflowers in the woods.
She grew freckled under the sun, and strong, learning to speak her opinions—and she had surprisingly many—out loud.
And her art flourished here too. Our father, John, had been an artist, like her.
I wish I could remember him, would give anything to recall our mother, Mercedes. I wish…for so much.
Forcing away the sorrow, I will myself to celebrate my blessings. This moment. This sister. This good.
Since Sélie cooked, I offer to clear the table and clean up the kitchen.
She draws on as I tidy the cottage, my mind busy elsewhere.
I’m glad she doesn’t seem to notice my restlessness, so enraptured with her work as she is.
I can hardly think of anything but dancing—but the shoes.
I would like to turn back the day, to go back to the moment before I stepped onstage.
I’d like to do it all over again. Tomorrow, I will.
When we go to bed, my sister’s soft snores fill the room in no time, while I lie awake, thinking, dreaming until the breeze cools, until the crickets’ sounds float in through the window. What will I dance tomorrow? The next night? The next? What will I do in the shoes?
They don’t belong to you, a voice in my head says.
I disregard it. They’re my shoes now. I was meant to find them, to have them.
To distract myself, I open my favorite novel once again, to read while the ocean waves crash gently through our open windows, but I can’t lose myself as I usually do.
I can’t fall asleep, no matter how tired I grow.
Tossing restlessly, turning, sweating in my twisted sheets.
It’s not until I get up, bring the shoes down to the length of sand and begin to dance that the restlessness stops, that I find peace.
But it’s more than peace—it’s a consumption.
An unraveling. A euphoria that borders on pain.
I might dance myself to death, if given the chance, but, what a sweet death it would be… .
The water stretches before me as I leap along the shore, moonlight reflecting off the soft ripples of waves, shining like diamonds. I dance until my mind and heart are full, my body tired, my eyes heavy, and then I return to my bed. Yet even in my dreams, I dance, feverish, lost. Found.
With a cry, I sit upright, awake as fear alights my senses.
Dreaming. I was dreaming. I swallow the scared feeling down and go in search of a drink of water.
Yet as I tiptoe through the cottage, the shadows creeping on the floor send me rushing back to the bedroom to take cover under my blanket, an eerie sense, as if I’m not alone, as if someone is watching me, something whispery and dark which feels like it’s creeping up to nuzzle my neck. A sickening fear clinging to me.
I’m not afraid of the dark, I tell myself sternly. It was only a dream.
“What’s wrong?” Sélie mutters sleepily.
“Nothing. A nightmare.” I lie down, try to think of what it was, of what has me shaken. All I recall is a lion, mane painted red. Paws dripping blood. And a voice—deep, cold.
I’m coming for you.
I’m coming for you.