3. Dancing on the Waves
Chapter three
Dancing on the Waves
Lorelle carried her shoes in her hand as she padded down the slick marble walkway to the theater. Another clap of thunder shook the earth. The hibiscus flowers that had once been lifted to the smiling sun now drooped, sagging beneath the warm rain.
If Lorelle had had any time, she might have paused and lifted her nose to the air, breathing in the familiar scent of salt and earth—and dug her toes into the soft grass.
Ahead of her, a few girls rushed down the walkway, shrieking as gusts of wind sent rain far too close to their snow-white costumes.
A few stagehands off rotation laughed when the rain came their way.
Jesus’s words flitted through her mind: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
She did her best to build her life on Him, and that was all she could do.
Walk each day, thankful for the morning and the sun and the air and the strength to dance, and weather the storms with as much grace as she could.
Even if her biggest storm would rage every day of her life, she would take it in stride, with joy, clinging to the peace that only God could give.
Even if His arms were the only ones that ever held her up when she fell.
And what was a little thunderstorm if she was used to life’s hurricanes?
The theater was abuzz with activity when she entered.
She smiled at a few familiar faces among the stagehands who carried a ladder to reach the highest ornaments on the giant tree, the backdrop of the toy kingdom.
On the stage, the principal roles, Maria and the wooden soldier, practiced the scene where the kingdom was under siege, whirling and kicking to keep the circle of mice and their vicious teeth at bay.
Though she’d have loved to sit and watch, Lorelle still had to put her shoes on, and her eyes scanned for a small room where she could hide. She would have done it earlier, but she had had trouble finding her costume, and by that point, it was worse to be late than to show up without her shoes on.
Before she made it farther down the aisle, a voice cried out, followed by a thump.
Lorelle winced. One of the ballerinas had taken a fall—maybe one of the newer corps girls as a mouse, unaccustomed to having a tail to account for.
But when she looked up, she saw the girl playing Maria, Isabel, cradling her knee to her chest, her ankle gripped in her hands.
La directora was distracted, arguing with the conductor, and didn’t notice until one of the mice tapped her shoulder.
She waved the girl away, gesturing to the stage.
“Again,” she snapped, not breaking her glare from the conductor.
“Without the music. Practice the timing. The music is only throwing you off.”
Lorelle didn’t hear the conductor’s furious answer, but she turned to the stage.
One of the mice made to offer a hand up, but Isabel flinched away. “You pushed me,” she snapped.
She tried to stand, testing her weight on her leg. It held, but when she went on pointe, her ankle wobbled and she went down again with a cry of frustration.
“?Qué está pasando?” La directora finally glanced over. “Get up. What’s going on?”
Lorelle could see the glistening tears threatening to escape Isabel’s eyes.
She was maybe five years Lorelle’s senior, and she’d been principal ballerina in their performances for all the time that Lorelle had been in the company.
She was a captivating performer, and her smiles onstage were as genuine as they were backstage, even if they seldom were aimed at Lorelle.
Isabel, like the other dancers, sensed some tension between Lorelle and la directora and no doubt didn’t wish to become a target herself.
Isabel stood, but Lorelle noticed the way she favored her left leg. Even from this distance, Lorelle could see Isabel’s ankle swelling by the minute.
La directora’s flippant attitude evaporated. “Stagehand,” she called. “Get some ice from the kitchens. And you, Isabel, get off the stage. You won’t be dancing. We need to be in our best shape, and you clearly aren’t.”
Isabel’s eyes widened, her nostrils flaring, but she swallowed her pride and nodded. The wooden soldier, Oliver, helped her hobble down the stage and stayed with her in the seats—no matter that la directora would summon him onstage again soon, more than likely with a scowl for making her wait.
The dancers on stage were frozen in anticipation, and even Lorelle had forgotten about needing to put on her shoes.
There was no understudy, given they had stretched their small company to take on more roles to fill a bigger stage, even having to rush order more costumes.
Someone would need to be elevated from soloist to principal, even if only for this week.
Vanesa’s red skirt flitted at the edge of the stage, all too much like a bird puffing its feathers for admiration. “Directora,” she called. “We don’t need three cardinals to deliver the message to the wooden soldier. You could spare me to take the role of Maria.”
La directora waved her away with a hand, but her brows drew together in thought. “Snowflakes,” she called. “Start at the beginning. Act 1.”
Snowflakes flew across the stage as ballerinas got into position around the wings, and Lorelle’s heart skipped a beat.
In a few minutes, she would be on, and she needed her shoes.
She started up the side steps to the stage, about to dart into the darkest corner of the wings, when an arm stopped her.
“Not you,” a voice said. La directora. “Vanesa, you’ll take Lorelle’s role.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Isabel, get up here. Give Lorelle your costume.”
Lorelle’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t look flattered,” said la directora. “You’re the soloist with the best memory. But don’t make me regret it.” She looked pointedly at Lorelle’s glove.
Lorelle collected herself, dipping her head, though she wanted nothing more than to smile and laugh and tell—tell who?
Who would be happy for her but friends and a family?
But she spotted a few grinning stagehands in the audience, one that even threw her a wink as Lorelle followed Isabel to a private room where they could switch costumes.
Lorelle had undone the front buttons of her cardinal costume by the time Isabel had pulled off her gloves and turned, showing her back to Lorelle.
She blinked for a moment, unsure of what to do, then her fingers set to work loosening the laces up the back of Isabel’s dress with one hand.
She had seen these interactions between girls from across the room but had never expected to be doing it herself, and Isabel tensed with every moment that Lorelle’s fingers got caught trying to loosen the strings.
But she loosened them enough for Isabel to get free, and they switched costumes.
She could hardly believe she was standing in as Maria, the princess of the toy kingdom. The skirt was longer than the wide feathers of the cardinal tutu, and instead of stiff tulle, soft waves of cream silk fell to her knees. Red ribbons decorated the hem.
A voice cut through the closed door: “Hurry up! La directora is waiting.”
Lorelle tensed. She eyed the door and then Isabel, then her untied shoes around her feet. She still needed to tie them and she couldn’t do it in front of Isabel. She would ask questions.
Suddenly, Isabel crouched, and her hands gripped the pink ribbons pooling around Lorelle’s feet.
“Ay, ?qué haces?” Lorelle squawked. Had she been found out? “You don’t need to—”
“It’s faster,” she said. “La directora is waiting.” And through the pain in Isabel’s eyes as she balanced on her good ankle, Lorelle thought she could see a sparkle of friendliness. Isabel straightened. “Go.”
“Gracias,” Lorelle said, offering a trembling smile. “I—”
“Anda,” she repeated. “Go.” Isabel gently shoved her out the dressing room ahead of her. “And watch your back.”
Isabel hobbled to the front row while Lorelle stepped forward, crossing the edge of the stage to meet la directora.
The next few hours passed in a surreal blur as la directora walked her through the choreography. Isabel offered a few silent tips from her position in the audience, though her features stiffened when Lorelle reached the same scene in which she had fallen.
The wooden soldier came out, breaking through the mice circling at the edges of the stage.
The trombones blared in warning as the circle of mice pressed around the soldier.
A painted mask covered his face, and he danced with stiff, wooden movements, like a puppet with creaky joints not oiled for some time.
In his hands he held a wooden musket, which he aimed at the first mouse that came forward.
He jerked just as the cymbals clashed, and the first mouse went down.
Mice squeaked with the cry of the flutes, and figures danced down the aisles as more mice came forward.
This was a new addition from la directora, making the dancers come from the aisles as well as both sides of the stage, heightening the tension as Maria and the wooden soldier defended the toy kingdom.
The soldier aimed at a mouse in the audience and fired with another clash of cymbals. Maria was separated from the wooden soldier as mice surrounded them, but she spun free and joined her protector in the middle of the circle of mice, all claws and fur and turns.
Suddenly, Lorelle was thrown off-balance by a shove to her shoulder. Though she wobbled, she held her form, wincing at la directora’s disapproving glance. Another shove came to her side, but this time Lorelle spun, deflecting the movement, and the mouse stumbled.
The music came to a halt.
“Again,” la directora barked. “And you can blame your fellow mouse this time. If it wasn’t so close to the performance, I would replace you.”
The mouse that had tried to shove Lorelle ducked her head in shame, but Lorelle could make out nothing of her features through the mask. The guilty mouse disappeared into the throng of mice as everyone went to reset from the start of Act 2.
This time, when they reached that scene, the mouse didn’t try to push her again. But though she finished the dance, with the wooden soldier defeating the mouse king with a shot from the gun, Lorelle’s mind still whirred with suspicion.
In the audience, Isabel had disappeared, and by the time rehearsal ended and the musicians were closing up their instruments, Lorelle heard the church bells toll once.
It was after midnight. La directora dismissed them all with a wave of her hand, though she seemed somewhat less frustrated than before.
Lorelle thought about telling her about the mouse, but what could she say?
It would only give la directora the excuse to switch her out with another dancer, and maybe even remove her from the company altogether.
She already caused enough “problems” as it was.
She nodded to a few stagehands as she walked up the aisle to the back of the theater.
A couple of ballerinas still chatted, some of the snowflakes reviewing the newest changes to their choreography, but Lorelle didn’t spot any red of the cardinals, and for that she was glad.
She could escape Vanesa’s and Sara’s withering glares, at least for a few more moments.
When she reached the threshold looking out into the courtyard, heavy sheets of rain still fell from the sky. She breathed in the scent of moist earth and, now that she was out of costume, she stepped freely onto the wet grass.
Her toes sank into the soil, but she smiled up to the sky as warm rain soaked her through. Glancing over her shoulder, she stepped farther into the courtyard, into the darkness of the night. Silvery moonlight filtered by the clouds illuminated very little.
She found comfort in the darkness. The world was slumbering, vulnerable and quiet. Maybe someone else like her, someone who was hiding, would find relief in the darkness of the night. And she knew that her God could see her, bright as day, even if the rest of the world was blind.
She crossed the courtyard’s winding paths and walked to the top of the courtyard wall, turning to look over the kingdom.
A dark river flowed from north to south, its waters murmuring far below her, and beyond that, as she gazed westward, she could see the glittering lights of the largest port on the island.
The capital, Mar Verde, the city she had once called home.
With careful fingers, she peeled off her gloves—the only accessory she could never be rid of in front of prying eyes—and held out her tin arm. The rain pinged lightly against the tin, soothing, almost like a lullaby, and she smiled.
She glanced across the rolling hills to the port, where she knew the ocean lay just beyond.
What would it be like to stand on the waves as Peter had with Jesus?
She imagined it might be something like her dancing, the ground always moving beneath her but standing firm with the One who would keep her afloat.
Maybe one day, instead of walking on the water, she would dance on the tumultuous waves and laugh for sheer joy.
“Dios,” she breathed, but no more words came. What could she say that He didn’t already know? The words stuck in her throat, and hot tears pricked her eyes, making the rain suddenly cold.
She turned back, ready to walk toward the shared chamber with the other dancers and face the looks of pity, disdain, and now jealousy, but strong hands gripped her shoulders, shoving her.
A scream tore from her throat. The last thing she saw was red wings stretched out in flight as she tumbled over the wall’s edge to the waters below.