A prima ballerina is gradually usurped by a youth with preternatural ability.
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“Ballet, like opera, is wonderful because it is monstrous, the hyper development of skills nobody needs, a twisting of human bodies and souls into impossible positions, the purchase of light with blood.”
– Irina Dumitrescu, Swan, Late: The Unexpected Joys of Adult Beginner Ballet.
The lights bowed in a soft indigo upon the stage. The house seats waited, empty, in the gloom, but as she took those pointed, shuffling steps, Alice still felt it – the heavy, crushing presence of expectation.
There was no music. Alice knew the steps by heart. She had taken on the name of Giselle many times. In fact, it was her favorite role to play. Like most girls, she had dreamed of being draped in veils of white, but when Alice put on the dress, she commanded eyes forward, not back. She dodged through the shadows on the stage. Twirling, jumping, twisting. Passé, Jeté, Sauté. Her skirts fanned out like a mist around her. The blue light transformed her from girl, to woman, to ghost. Like Giselle, Alice died and was reborn, possessed by the dance.
To Alice, it was never a wonder why so many productions seemed to feature spirits and magic, usually spurred on by the passionate crimes of mortals. In the history of ballet, death was more neighbor than stranger. For the very best dancers, the curtains of the stage were their funeral shrouds. Pain and blood their brushes and paint. The dance was a hungry thing, and it devoured all.
Her toes flitted her body upstage. She ignored the twinge of pain in her toes as they supported her full weight, though it chipped at her more than it used to. She looked down at the ring of lights warning her away from the mouth of the orchestra pit below.
Her knee bent, curving her right leg into a perfect shape against her left one. Her toes gave her perfect balance, despite the pain. She looked out at the empty house, pride swelling in her breast.
Then, she saw it. Third row from the top of the house, an inky black shape against the red velvet seat.
The lights came up. Full white and yellow light blinded her. Her cries of protest echoed off the glazed Buddha statues of the Nederlander Theatre. Her eyes struggled to recover, but she was sure that no one – and nothing – remained in the audience now.
“Sorry about that, Ms. Harker,” said a familiar, shaded voice. “I forget how bright house lights can be at full.”
“John-Michael!” Alice blinked the stars away. “You’re always scaring the living shit out of me.”
She marched over to her discarded coat, but fumbled with it for longer than she really needed to. Her costume was fairly modest, but her legs always caught attention. She chanced a look over her shoulder, but John-Michael’s concentration was pulled directly down towards his flip phone.
As usual.
Alice scrunched her nose in a sweet smile. “Still busy, huh?”
“Work always keeps me going, and I never get off.”
Never? Alice wanted to know.
She liked John-Michael. Always had since that first, strictly professional, dinner seven years ago at Nobu Fifty-Seven. Alice wasn’t normally a sushi girl, but for a handsome young agent with ties to the American Ballet Theatre company, she’d become one. The night had started off with the usual questions about her repertoire and the dancers he represented, but something in the way the light had glinted off his wine glass and lit the hazel seated in the blue of his eyes, emboldened her to ask more personal questions.
“So.” She clapped her hands together, but with no noise. She was a poised ballerina, after all. “John-Michael. Is there a story behind the name?”
He took his drink without interruption. The dim yellow light of the restaurant made his cheeks glow, though Alice had noticed no flush against his white skin, even after three glasses.
“There is.” He said simply. “And you’ll never guess it.”
“Are you inviting me to try?”
“If you wish, Ms. Harker.”
A thrill tittered down the back of her neck at the name. It made her sound like some kind of Jane Austen heroine. She had loved it – back then. Now she knew that was how he kept his distance.
“Hmm. You come from old money, and it’s a traditional family name?”
The right corner of his lips spread in a smile, revealing a dazzling set of veneers.
“You’re right about old money. But nothing about my name is traditional.”
He lifted a knowing eyebrow at her. Alice felt pinned down by his stare.
“I used to be a twin.” He continued. “Or rather, I was meant to be. My brother never made it out of the womb, but my parents had already picked out two names by that point. Rather than enshrine one or the other on a plaque, my parents gave me both. So that both of their sons would live on.”
“Oh.” Alice looked down at her barely touched plate of fish. The greens were the only thing she had eaten. At first, she thought the story was rather beautiful, but something about it knotted her stomach.
“But… does that mean your parents saw you as both of their sons? Two people in one body?”
John-Michael took another sip, completely unbothered again.
“We’re all multiple people. Who we are, at any given time, is determined by who we are with. The most frightening being -” He swished the empty glass, that half-formed smile tugging at his lips again, “- when we are alone.”
John-Michael snapped his phone shut, knocking Alice out of the past.
“Should I ask how you got in outside of operating hours? Auditions don’t even start until tomorrow night.”
Alice fiddled with the top button of her coat, lifting her chin with a coy smile. “Fame opens doors for you.”
John-Michael returned her smile, easily. “We still have to make auditions. And they’d probably go over better if the venue’s proprietors didn’t catch you breaking in.”
“How long have we been at this, Mr. Fischer?”
Alice dragged her foot in an arch over the stage. She didn’t use John-Michael’s last name very much, but annoyance bit at her.
“Seven years.” Alice continued, “and I’ve been a principal dancer for all of them. Auditions are a formality at this point. I’ll take on the role of Giselle once again, and this production will go over like all the rest.”
“Actually. We need to talk about that.”
Alice’s eyes snapped to him. The playful banter had completely left her face, replaced by hanging shadows just under her eyes.
“I wanted to have this discussion with you over dinner, but it’s coming out now, so -” John-Michael pocketed his cell phone and in the next moment Alice had to crane her neck up to meet his eyes. She hadn’t heard his footsteps close the distance. The stage lights were playing all kinds of tricks on her eyes tonight. Alice’s fingers closed tighter around her coat button.
“You’re not auditioning for the role of Giselle. You’ll be playing Myrtha, the Wili Queen instead.”
Alice’s eyes focused too much on the movement of his lips, so dry and pink, to hear him. When his brow furrowed, his words caught up with her.
“That’s absurd!” she spat.
She threw her hands out at his chest, jostling more than pushing him. It was the first time she had ever touched him. With heated cheeks, she stomped away from him.
“Absolutely absurd! Myrtha? So I’m supposed to sit the entire first act out? I’m overqualified for the part.”
“The company has concerns about your – longevity. You turned twenty-seven last year. It’s time to start thinking about retirement.”
“Retirement?” Alice’s shoes scratched as she whipped herself around. A lock of brown hair had gotten free of her bun and swung in her face. “It’s not like I’m thirty!”
“Ms. Harker -“
“Oh, shut up!”
Her yell rattled the theater, echoes hung in the air like smoke. John-Michael watched her with a cool expression. Flat. Neutral. It never changed, the way he looked at her. No outsider would ever know that he had known her for seven years.
“The company will allow you to sit in on the auditions. The director values your input.”
Alice scoffed. “I’m not going to choose the next rising starlet -“
“Think of the production. Think about the work. The art -“
“I always think about the art! I’ve bled for this art. That’s why I’m the best choice! I will always be the best choice!”
Again, silently, immediately, John-Michael was in front of her, even closer this time. His arms lifted and softly, so softly, his hands rested on her shoulders. Alice froze completely. It was the first time he had ever touched her.
“Even at the end of its life, a star still glows.” His voice was low, overcast with a tremble of thunder. “And when it dies, it explodes. That’s what I want for you. You are the best choice. I’ve always known that.”
Alice’s whole jaw dropped, but her words failed her. Too soon, John-Michael pulled away, and whatever had changed in that moment was now lost. He was the same, impartial, practical to a fault man he had always been.
“Come to the auditions,” he said, “you might be surprised by what you see.”
Alice next entered the Nederlander Theatre by night. Walking through the theater was like walking through a Southeast Asian palace. Gold blazed in every direction she looked, from the intricate ceilings and chandeliers, to the reliefs of the Buddhas on the walls. Even the carpet was woven with the color.
Alice threw her practiced smile to the judges who waited at the front of the auditorium, already seated with their clipboards. Her breath stilled when John-Michael turned around and offered her a closed lip grin.
She took the open seat next to him. A mildly raised eyebrow out of the corner of his eye was all she got, but it was something. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. A flicker of movement stage right pulled her eyes to the wings. Probably some anxious conservatory graduate fooling around with their positions.
“We’re ready to begin.” One judge called. “Noriko Inoue. You’re up first.”
A young woman shuffled out from behind the curtain, already en pointe, already in mid-performance. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen years of age, if she even was that old.
She had a moon-round face, just as pale, just as bewitching. Her black eyes sparkled. Muted rose lips formed a desirable, meek little pout bereft of any malice. The dance rolled through her tiny body, all flowing, quiet movements, a virginal grace.
Alice couldn’t help but feel ungainly in her seat. She became very conscious of how much space her body pushed into, obtuse bones and girthy shoulders. Alice’s English lineage bequeathed to her a boxy face and a buttonish nose, though diet and a strict exercise routine always kept her cheeks shallow enough to trick anyone’s eye to see more slender lines.
But that was a trick. This was real.
The girl ended her performance in a stunning flurry of pirouettes. The judges did not clap, it would be unprofessional to do so, but the smiles on their faces revealed everything.
“Who is this girl?” Alice hissed to John-Michael.
“Noriko.” He answered, almost breathless, like he had said the name of something sacred. Alice turned to him in alarm.
He was smiling, full and bright. It was the most genuine expression Alice had ever seen on him. The girl took a small bow and when her head lifted, the stage lights carved a thin ring of light around her irises, the peak of a lunar eclipse.
Alice refused to attend any further rehearsals. She shut herself up in her hotel room for nearly a week, living entirely on room service, which she only ordered from once a day, and it was always the house salad. The wine included in the order was more the point. She was at the barre every day, for hours. Here, running through her positions, the cracking and grinding of all the little bones in her feet made sense. Come morning, she woke to find thin strips of blood by the footboard. One of her toenails had split. She took extra care to wrap that foot before her routine that day. As she knew, the common reason for ruined pointe shoes was the bloodstains, not the act of going en pointe itself.
But it wasn’t the pain that kept her out of the theater. It was the indignity of having to posture as something less than herself. She was never meant to play the Wili Queen in this production; it wasn’t something she did even in her junior years. For whatever reason, the director refused to call out the other cast member’s mistakes, particularly Ms. Inoue’s.
Alice’s nostrils flared as she ran through the fourth position.
Noriko Inoue.
Alice hated that small, pursed smile of hers. She was convinced the girl did it to hide crooked teeth. When she spoke, Noriko always looked forward, out into the shadows of the house, and perhaps, even farther than that. It was a soft voice, but too heavy-lidded with a rasp to be considered sing-song. It made her sound young and old simultaneously.
But her eyes, Alice hated her eyes most of all. Dark as opal and wide. It made Alice feel off-balanced, like she could fall into the pit of her gaze at any time. It was hungry, eager. Even when Alice took it upon herself to reprimand her form that day in the director’s place, that spark never wavered. If anything, it looked more alive.
“Please correct me, Miss Alice.” Noriko had said, her attention out in the dark, her body holding her current position with the rigidity of a statue.
Miss Alice.
Alice never knew she would stumble across something she despised more than “Ms. Harker.”
A light flashed across the hotel room from the nightstand. Her phone vibrated with a call. Alice knew it would be John-Michael. He had been trying to get a hold of her for days. She never used to ignore his calls, but then, he never stuck around for the entire duration of rehearsals before either. He never used to come at all.
Alice wouldn’t think about what had changed.
If John-Michael wanted to speak to her, he would have to show up in person. Here, in her room.
Or perhaps my bed. Alice thought darkly. He had a lot to make up for.
Alice dropped to her heels. Her ankles popped with a throe that made her clench her teeth, but she made her feet march to the bedside. She ignored her cellphone in favor of the hotel’s landline. The clock flashed 9:00pm. Time for more wine.
Before she could reach for the phone, a flicker of movement from the window drew her eyes upward. A clump of black moss hung behind the glass in long, straight tresses. It beckoned Alice for a closer look. It fluttered in a silent breeze. Curling. Unfurling. Watching. Waiting.
When Alice’s knees bumped into the bottom of the window pane, it vanished, sucked up and away, thrown by the wind. The window opened with a sharp whine. The city growled with the noise of traffic. Pops of color from tail lights, ambulance sirens, dancing billboards, flashes of TV screens from adjacent windows assaulted her vision. Alice drew back into the quiet of her room. She grabbed her cover-up before she left for the restaurant, but the window stayed open, a wide implicit invitation.
That night Alice lay her head down in the bed, her cheeks flushed with rosé. She was still in her leotard, her feet still bound inside her shoes. The drink did little to dull the pulsing pain that flogged her toes, her ankles. She tossed over the sheets fluidly, going through the steps of the thousand dances she knew. She laughed a cackling giggle.
You see, John-Michael? I can dance any part in my sleep.
Any part? Alice imagined him responding, with that brilliant half-smile and dancing light in his eyes.
Oh yes, she’d answer. I would play any part you want.
Alice turned onto her back, a low heat rising in her belly. She placed her hands on her cheeks. Her palms felt warm and exhilarating against her skin. She moved them up into her hair, imagining they were his, tangling her hair up in tight ringlets around his long fingers. She imagined what his neck would smell like as he leaned over her. Bergamot and brandy, she decided. She’d catch the hint of the floral and spice as he stretched her arms above her head, and he’d smell the rosé in her breath as she arched to touch her nose against his. Then, he’d tease her by aligning the weight of his hips on top of hers, letting her feel the promise of him against her clothes.
Alice sighed a groan of wanting. She wanted her hand moving down her body, but her arm was locked fully into place above her head, the same spot she had imagined John-Michael put it in. It refused to move. In fact, her elbow ached with the strain of over-extension, something Alice had felt in her legs so many times. A weight kept her hips pinned to the bed too, but it was cold. Alice felt bones pierce into her thighs. She wanted to wake up, but her eyes wouldn’t open.
She whimpered and tried to thrash out of the paralysis that had settled into her, but the sheets didn’t rustle, the bedposts didn’t creak. She heard no evidence of her struggle. She tried to scream, but she only heard choked, muffled, cries. The cold weight had spread over her lips.
She heard a low cooing. Too guttural and rough to be some kind of bird outside of the window, which Alice realized too late was still open.
And it was close.
She felt something tickle against her cheek. It was feathery and stringy. It moved back and forth over her nose, in time with the cooing noise.
Alice summoned all her strength of will and her rebellion, to force open her eyes. The skin of her eyelids ripped with intense pain.
She was alone inside the room.
She felt something foul in the back of her throat. Her whole body contorted into heaves and gags and deep, wet coughs. She could taste it, that foul thing crawling from her throat to her mouth. Her fingers dived in, seizing whatever it was and pulled it from her. It stretched out in a long clump, something stringy, and black.
The moss –
Alice stopped. As she pulled it apart in her fingers, she realized what it really was.
Hair.
Alice walked to the theater the next night, and she did not intend to leave until the sun rose. The over-jolly smiles and dead-eye stares of the Buddha carvings leered at her as she traversed its halls, making the back of her neck tingle with the dreadful feeling of being watched.
Or stalked.
Someone had left the stage lights on. Something that Alice might have found comforting, if not for the bleeding red tint of them.
She wasn’t alone.
Noriko Inoue was already here, stretching out on stage. The red light cut across her white leotard like a gaping scar. Her black hair hung loose and straight over her shoulders. It was difficult for Alice to piece together where her dark hair ended and the shadows began, elongating the whole look of it. As if her hair was endless and everywhere. Alice wanted to gag.
“Miss Alice.” Noriko greeted her without looking up. “I thought you might be here instead of the studio.”
Alice squinted at her. “Why?”
Noriko brought her hands to rest just above her thighs and her feet flattened into First Position. She danced as she talked, looking through Alice as she always did in their brief conversations.
“We’ve been missing you at rehearsals, but I knew you had to be practicing somewhere.”
Alice suppressed a shiver. She cursed Noriko for wearing her hair loose. What kind of ballerina even danced that way?
“And,” Noriko continued, “John-Michael dropped me a hint.”
Alice couldn’t stop the sneer that contorted her features. “You shouldn’t get involved with him. Your career’s too young to handle a scandal like that.”
An excited smile flashed across Noriko’s face, but then it was gone. She brought her arms up in the Fifth Position, and then she turned in a tight series of pirouettes, her tutu and hair fanning out in a rotating display of white and red and black.
“Did you know that this stage used to be lit with gas lamps?”
Noriko spun to the edge of the stage. The electric lights on the perimeter lit her up from below, painting her skin and costume red.
“All the pretty girls would twirl and dance so close to the flames,” Noriko continued, “it was inevitable that the fire would one day spark free and catch them. Spinning and screaming, they’d spread the fire to their sisters… whole companies of girls died in the middle of their performances.”
“A pity for them.” Alice scoffed bitterly. “As they say… the show must go on.”
Noriko lifted her head. Even in the dark, those black eyes of hers sparked. “Don’t you feel sorry for them?”
Alice shrugged, her annoyance growing. “If it was me and the end was coming anyway, you can bet I would die in the most memorable explosion.”
Noriko stood still for a brief period. Alice expected to see scandal, or disappointment, on her young face, but the spark in her eye was now a flame. A wicked grin creased her lips. She moved again, but this time, Alice didn’t recognize the dance. Her movements seemed entirely random, swapping and jumping into positions that didn’t entirely make sense. It was like watching a video with missing frames. The edges of Alice’s eyes pricked with tears from the stress of looking at her.
Without wasting any more words, Alice fully turned to exit, but not before a set of fingers fastened around her arm. Even through her coat, an icy cold seeped into Alice’s skin. Noriko’s round, pale face looked up at hers, curtained by her long black hair.
The cold spread. To the small of Alice’s back, to the edge of her own fingertips. It creeped across her chest and clutched her lungs. Alice was back on her back. Paralyzed. Looking up into a white face draped with tendrils of black.
Alice opened her mouth to speak but Noriko spoke over her.
“John-Michael. Do you want him? I’ll give him to you.”
Alice believed her. She saw the way John-Michael always looked at her, how he always waited for a moment to glimpse her. Somehow, Alice knew John-Michael would do anything Noriko asked of him.
“Yes…” she stammered, “give him to me.”
Noriko smirked again and fanned her fingers over Alice’s cheek.
“Oh, my beloved Alice… say please.”
Alice trusted Noriko to make all the arrangements, whatever those might be. The only thing she asked Alice in return was to follow her lead during the performance on opening night.
Alice waited out the first act in her dressing room. The light, happy music of Giselle’s dance with Albrecht twittered through the walls. Alice plastered a smile on her face, determined to be unbothered as she dabbed at her cheeks with the starch white makeup meant to transform her into a being of the next world.
She watched the door from the vanity. Usually, John-Michael would come to offer words of encouragement before a performance, but it was well past the time. So much for Noriko and her promises. Why had she been so certain Noriko would, or even could, give her what she wanted?
It had been a strange little contract they had made by night. Alice’s shoulders shook in a bemused chuckle. What a stupid little fool she was, carried out to a hysterical sea by a deranged little girl.
Alice made a decision. After this, she would say good-bye to the ballet company, and to Noriko and John-Michael and wish them well with their psychotic love affair. She’d move to Europe and become a star so bright that ballet itself would perish along with her.
Alice rose to her feet, not displacing a sound with the movement of her stool or her walk out the door. She glided, with the silence of a ghost, and the poise of a queen. The warm fall-colored lights of the stage guided her through the wings. Noriko rushed through the other dancers of the corps on stage, enthralled by Giselle’s feverish dance when Albrecht’s lies came forth. That long, dark hair flowing in her wake.
Alice breathed to fight the tightening in her throat. It wouldn’t be long now before Giselle – Noriko – collapsed from a broken heart and the curtain would fall on act one. When Noriko fell, she swooned into the arms of a very familiar face.
But nothing was familiar about what John-Michael was wearing, dressed in full costume, tunic and tights and all, or what he was doing, bowing low over Noriko’s feigned still body, embodying the grief of Albrecht.
The curtain closed. The audience’s applause sounded like rain pelting the rooftop. Alice stood in the middle of a stampede of dancers as they swapped out their costumes and cleared the stage. Noriko and John-Michael entered the opposite wing, their smiling profiles burned into Alice’s eyes. Even when she blinked, she saw them.
Witch.
Alice couldn’t think of any other word. John-Michael wouldn’t dance at nightclubs, he certainly couldn’t perform ballet. Alice would’ve known. She would’ve noticed it in the way he walked, the way he carried himself. She would’ve recognized that sameness.
“Get into position!” A stage manager hissed at her from behind a curtain.
The show must go on.
She fell into position as easily as slipping her feet inside her shoes. As the curtain rose, she shuffled onto the stage, en pointe, from end to end, between the black and green trees of the set. Alice fell away and Myrtha, the Wili Queen, took her place. She commanded the other wilis, intent on cursing all the unfaithful men to dance into their graves. She did not let John-Michael mourn over Noriko’s abandoned headstone. She caressed his face and turned it up to meet her eyes. With a sultry smile, she coaxed him to his feet, and forced him to dance.
And dance he did. His finesse and technique surprised Alice. Truly, some spell had overtaken him.
The corps dancers abruptly fled the stage, as if called away by some unspoken command. Alice watched them in confusion and realized she didn’t recognize even one of their faces. John-Michael moved closer to her, his hands gently embracing her waist as he danced with her in a routine entirely off-script. Myrtha and Albrecht didn’t share such an intimate dance together, that was reserved for Giselle.
Alice let her confusion fall away. The pale faces that sat out in the dark beyond the stage did not matter to her. They would be entertained regardless. She danced Giselle’s dance with John-Michael, letting him lift her and hold her and long for her.
Then, just before it was time for Giselle to return to the beyond, John-Michael turned her and pushed her into the arms of Noriko. Her hair was still loose about her shoulders, the white wedding veil pulled back, so Alice could finally fall into those black eyes. Noriko danced with her, taking up both of Alice’s hands in more of a waltz than a ballet. They were alone, save for the white faces in the audience. They watched the women dance with an unnatural stillness, like grey stone epitaphs in a cemetery.
Alice became dizzy. “What’s going o-“
“Follow my lead.” Noriko cooed in Alice’s ear.
Alice surrendered. She heard her toes crack in a silence she only now noticed. When did the orchestra stop playing?
Noriko lifted Alice under her arms and she instinctively went en pointe to prepare for a lift, but Noriko spun her with a burst of speed. Alice felt her right ankle snap and she lost her balance. She pitched toward the edge of the stage, but Noriko saved her from the fall by scooping Alice back into her arms. Noriko’s dark eyes flashed with excitement. Her small mouth finally opened into a wide, unabashed grin, and Alice caught the gleam of light off of impossibly beautiful teeth.
Alice watched, paralyzed, as those long tresses of black hair dangled over her cheeks. A bestial sound hissed in Alice’s ear and Noriko leaned into her, lulling her with a raspy whisper.
“Will you become – more?”
Alice’s breath left her. She could only nod. Noriko dipped her head to Alice’s neck.
A warmth blossomed in the pit of her stomach and bloomed lower. The pain in her feet evaporated. Alice floated in Noriko’s embrace. The white lights above the stage turned to that deep red of the night before.
And then, the warmth erupted into a scalding, blood-boiling heat. Alice could only twitch her fingers as every part of her burned. The pain consumed her feet, her legs, engulfed her head, chewed on her lungs, and swallowed her pleas.
This is what he wanted for me.
Alice couldn’t look away from the lights. They spread out along the edge of the stage, a sinister parade of tiny flickering lamps. The heat dressed her in a gown of flames. The audience bathed in her glow.
