Read Online Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black - Free Book Online Page A

closed her eyes and listened to Hilda’s tapping, trying to memorize the meter, but it didn’t make any sense.
    Nonetheless, on Hilda’s word, Vanessa began to move, her feet arched and taut as she bent forward, extending her leg like the tail plumes of a bird.
    “Now left!” Hilda said. “And hold. Now up, and lift.”
    Vanessa followed her commands, trying not to think about the strange beat, to feel it in her limbs. Gently, she lifted her right leg. She swept her arms over her head, then out to her sides and held them there until the next command, the arrhythmic beat batting her body around like a wooden doll.
    “Good,” Hilda murmured as she walked past Vanessa. “Very good.”
    Vanessa opened her eyes to see TJ in front of her, stepping completely out of the meter.
    Hilda walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “First listen,” she said, and tapped the rhythm onto TJ’s collarbone. “Now try.” But it was no use. TJ’s limbs didn’t seem to want to stay in place.
    She wasn’t the only one having problems. Vanessa could hear Steffie breathing heavily behind her. Up ahead, Elly struggled to keep in time, her legs a half beat too slow. The only other person who seemed to get it was Blaine, who had inched so close to the boy in front of him that he could touch the back of his tawny head.
    “And now it switches,” Hilda said. The music changed tempo again. “Imagine the seeds of a dandelion blowing away in the wind. We are trying to capture the pattern of chaos. One-two, and three and four, five-six, and one …”
    Vanessa pressed her lids shut, trying to imagine herself as the long stalk of a flower standing in a breezy field.
    And suddenly, it made sense.
    Her body bent and arched and flexed and curved, her arms pushed this way and that, as if she had lost herself and become the flower.
    And then a strange feeling took hold of her.
    Her steps became quicker, her limbs seemed to move without her. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, but it was too blurred to see. The beat of Hilda’s clapping seemed to echo her own pulse, and time around her started to thin.
    Faster, faster she twirled, her toes curling in their boxes asshe spotted. The room began to warp, the floor melting away. Vanessa’s classmates faded into a dizzying wisp of colors. Hilda’s clapping sounded distant, watery. Her voice slurred.
    Margaret
, Vanessa thought.
Margaret
.
    Hilda’s loud clap brought her back to reality. She slowed to a stop and bowed her head, waiting for her eyes to refocus.
    “You looked great,” Steffie said while the other girls wandered away for a water break. “No one else could finish that turn, but you kept going like you were weightless.”
    “Just luck,” Vanessa said, holding on to the barre to steady herself.
    “Okay, that’s enough.” Steffie lowered her voice. “You’re an amazing dancer, Vanessa. Like,
amazing
doesn’t even do it justice. Your dancing kicks amazing’s ass. When someone compliments you, all you have to do is say thank you. Okay?”
    Vanessa gave her a sheepish smile and thought of her mother, who always told her to take a compliment when she was given one. Still, part of her
did
think it was just luck.
    “If you don’t want her accolades, then I’ll take them,” Blaine said, poking his head between them. “Those steps were
hard
.” He wiped the sweat from his brow, reminding Vanessa that he had been the only other dancer who finished the exercise. “I know how you feel though,” he said softly to Vanessa. “Like you’re a fraud. Like every time you land a jump or finish a complicated step it’s because some outside force helped you do it—not your talent.”
    Vanessa froze. It was as if Blaine could read her thoughts.
    He let his gaze drift to his reflection in the mirror, studyingit with a critical eye. “I thought it would go away if I became the best dancer at school. And when that didn’t work, I thought it might go away when I got into