Dance of Fire (6 page)

Erik's voice came from the upper bunk. ‘We've stopped.'

‘Is that OK?' I asked. I pictured us adrift somewhere in the North Atlantic, bearing down on an iceberg, about to pull a
Titanic
.

I had only gone up on deck once since we'd departed from Trenton, New Jersey, and I hadn't enjoyed it. The sea hadn't been
romantic at all – just a cold, never-ending plain of white-capped grey – and all of the sailors were running around or shouting at each other in Portuguese, smears of motor grease ground into their overalls.

‘Of course it's OK,' Hal said with a yawn from his bunk. ‘It means we've arrived. Lady and gentleman, welcome to dear old Blighty.'

‘Blighty?' I asked. ‘Is that the city we're in?'

Erik laughed. ‘No, we should be in Southampton.
“
Blighty
”
means “England.”'

Hal switched on the overhead light. ‘It's what British soldiers in World War Two called England when they got homesick.'

Homesick. I had to blink away tears. Maybe it was Hal telling me earlier that I could never contact Vanessa or Mom and Dad, but at that moment home seemed further away than ever.

I swore to myself then – and I repeat my vow here, on paper – that I will find a way to talk to Vanessa again. Somehow I will get word to my family that I'm OK.

I owe them that much.

It was surprisingly simple to leave the boat. We just had to dodge some of the sailors and head down a railed gangplank to the dock, a wide road made of cement and asphalt. Street lights led the way to a bright, low building.

‘We have to pass through customs,' Hal explained. ‘Everyone, be cool.'

That early in the morning, no one was in a rush to help us, and it was only after the third time Hal explained that we were students who had booked a cheap passage to England aboard a freighter that someone took our papers.

The customs agent looked a bit like my grandma if my gran were built like a sofa. She raised her eyebrows. ‘You're eighteen?' she asked me.

‘Yes, ma'am,' I said, trying to stand taller. It was obvious that no matter what Hal had put on my fake passport, I still looked fifteen. I needed to find some way to come across as older than my years. ‘You going to take all day with that?' I went on. ‘I'm dying for a cigarette.'

The customs agent just scowled and stamped my ­passport. The machine made a satisfying
thunk
against the page, and I was officially Margot Adams.

Handing it back, the woman said, ‘You kids look younger all the time, but you never get any smarter, do ya? Tobacco will kill you. Shift along now.'

And just like that, we were outside on an empty street. Though it wouldn't be empty for long. Already up and down the road, shutters were being raised with a rattle – businesses opening up for the day.

‘What was that all about, crazy girl?' Hal asked. ‘Are you trying to get us arrested right off the boat?'

Erik laughed. ‘No, that was smart. Just enough to bother her, but not enough to get us into trouble.'

Hal's shrugs must be contagious. I shrugged and said, ‘I guess so.'

‘Well, whatever it was you were doing, you got us past her,
'
Hal said.

And there on the street, Erik took my hand in his and gave it a gentle kiss. ‘Now we're even,' he said, as my fingers fell from his.

‘Who's paying for all this?' I asked as we took our seats on the train, facing each other across a table. Outside the window, the countryside passed by, neat rows of buildings glowing gold with the rising sun, burning off the morning mist.

Hal shrugged and said, ‘Erik's people.'

Erik said, ‘It's complicated and hard to explain, but I have access to money. Not a ton of it, but enough to get us over here and to pay for a few months' rent on a flat.'

‘A flat?' I asked. I admit it, diary: I had dreams of some cosy apartment like the ones I'd seen in movies.

‘It's not much money, so it's not much of a flat,' Hal added. ‘A room, more like.'

‘A room?' I repeated. Clearly they had discussed this without me. I wondered what other surprises they had in store. How much do I know about Hal and Erik, really?

‘More like a room with a cubbyhole,' Hal said. ‘It was the best I could do. But it should be hard for the people you're running from to trace us.'

‘Don't worry,' Erik said. ‘It will only be for a short time, until we've found some way of making money and blending in.'

‘And I'll only be there for a few days,' Hal said. ‘Just long enough to rest up before moving on.'

Hal had told me he'd taken a year off to travel the world on the cheap, couch-surfing in the homes of hacker friends and getting around in the most thrifty ways possible – which was how he knew to book the freighter.

‘The room we're letting is above a pub called Barre None, not far from the Royal Court,' he went on. ‘I wanted someplace where the two of you would blend in, and the woman who runs it is a former dancer. She calls herself Coppelia.'

‘Calls herself ?' I asked.

He shrugged and ran a hand through his dishwater-blond hair. ‘I don't think it's her real name. But it doesn't matter. Everyone says good things about her. I trust the online community.'

A former dancer
. I don't doubt that Hal's online friends are trustworthy, but the dance world is small. Can we trust someone who doesn't even give out her real name? Can I even trust Hal? Why is he so devoted to Erik?

‘At least you'll always have a place where you can eat,' Hal said.

‘Good,' Erik said, ‘because I'm starving. I didn't think I'd miss having breakfast on that merchant ship, but if we don't get food soon, I'm going to have to eat one of you.'

‘Eat Hal,' I said. ‘He's got more meat on his bones. I'm pretty scrawny.'

Erik's smile was for me alone. ‘But you're so much tastier-­looking.'

I laughed and looked away, embarrassed but for some reason bursting with joy. He always seems to know how to make me blush.

Fla
t
is kind of an overstatement. Even
room
is pushing it. When we got there, Barre None wasn't open yet, but this Coppelia woman met us at the door. She had that faded beauty of so many former ballerinas – perfect posture, with her white hair pulled back into a messy bun.

She took in the three of us and said to Hal, ‘You must be Henry Greene.'

‘I prefer to be called Hal,' he said, nervously ducking his head.

‘Henry it is,' she said, not bothering to introduce herself to me and Erik. Then she turned and led us down a dim hallway and up four flights of stairs, her long skirt stirring up dust until it tickled my nose.

At the top was a worn-looking wooden door. The woman unlocked it and started downstairs again, saying, ‘I'll be sleeping until two, so see you don't ring my bell until then.'

We stood in the doorway and beheld our new home.

It is an attic room, mostly unfinished. It stinks of woodchips and mothballs. There are two big beds with sagging mattresses pushed under the eaves. Erik and Hal dragged those out and pushed them
to opposite ends of the room. ‘We'll take one,' Erik said, ‘and we'll let you have the other.'

‘Obviously,' I said.

With loose planks on top of a bureau and a vanity without a mirror, they created a desk. Almost immediately, Hal produced three laptops from his bag, plugged in an adapter and a power strip, then hooked up all the computers. ‘This is how I make my living,' he said, plopping himself into a rickety old wooden chair and hooking up a glowing blue plastic thing. ‘First thing to do is set up our internet access. Second thing is . . .'

Erik held up a sheet of paper, ‘Second thing is to see if he can get us registered for this.'

‘What is it?' I asked. He gave me the sheet. It was a notice of a scholarship programme for the Royal Court: two dance students each year get a free ride with their company. Provided those two students beat out ninety-four other dancers. ‘Sounds difficult,' I said. ‘Plus you have to be affiliated with a dance school.'

‘You are one of the best dancers of your generation,' Erik said, sitting down beside me and taking my hands. ‘You will have no problem winning one of those two positions. Me, we shall see. And as for needing to be affiliated with a dance school . . . Hal? Can you do something about that?'

‘Already on it,' he said, hunching over one of his laptops.

For the first time in a long while, I breathed a sigh of relief. God only knows what my parents are thinking right now, or Vanessa, who's only in middle school and too young to understand
what's truly going on. I may be in a strange city, with boys I barely know, but at least I can continue to dance. It's what got me into trouble in the first place, but maybe – just maybe – ballet can still be my saving grace.

Chapter Four

‘See you later, darling!' her mother called out to her after their too-long lunch. ‘Good luck! Not that you'll need it. The Adler women are born stars.'

‘Right, Mom,' Vanessa said. ‘I'll keep that in mind.'

‘But that doesn't mean that you don't have to practise,' her mother added with a raised eyebrow.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. ‘I know, Mom. Don't worry. I've got it covered.'

‘I know you do, darling. And –'

‘– you'll be proud of me, no matter what happens,' Vanessa said, completing her mother's sentence. ‘But you'll be even more proud of me if I win.' She'd heard her mother say those words many times, and while they usually made her anxious, their familiarity was almost comforting.

Her mother squeezed her shoulder. ‘That's my Vanessa.'

Vanessa pushed her way inside the entrance to the White Lodge, waving goodbye to her mother. She dug her phone out of her pocket – it was 2.50 p.m. She had ten minutes to get back to her room, change into her dance clothes, and meet Enzo for their three o'clock rehearsal.

No way she was going to be on time.

If only her mother had had less to say about Rebecca, her long-lost ballet friend from San Francisco, maybe their lunch would have clocked in at under two hours.

‘Rebecca and I were the stars of that company,' her mother had said, picking at her Caesar salad with grilled chicken (no dressing, no croutons). ‘She danced Cinderella, and she was marvellous.' Her mother paused. ‘But then I danced Giselle
and
Juliet in the same season.'

Vanessa had nibbled at her sandwich, half listening, half watching the clock. All her life she had known how high the bar was for her and her sister. It didn't matter how well they danced; if they weren't the stars, their performances would always just be mediocre.

‘Sure, Mom,' Vanessa had said. ‘Sounds incredible.' She'd realised a long time ago that her mother's nostalgic excursions were just another way for her to reinforce the expectations she had of her daughters. She closed her eyes, thinking about Margaret's missing shoes. Svetya must have taken them, but where were they – and why would she have stolen them?

Back in her room, she slipped into a white leotard, then pulled on a loose-fitting pair of shorts and her hoodie. She grabbed her
dance shoes and a bottle of water, threw them into a bag and glanced at the slip of paper Enzo had given her ­earlier.

Rehearsal Space B1.

Could he have been any less informative? There must be rehearsal rooms in the building, but she had no idea where they were. Vanessa took out her phone again – 3.05 p.m.

Great
, she thought.
Just great.

After asking five different people, Vanessa found the wing of the building with the rehearsal spaces. There were four floors of dance studios, but none was labelled B-1.

Then Vanessa spotted an
exit
door. Did
B
stand for
basement
?

She had to push hard on the door before it opened, its hinges squealing, to reveal a dusty corridor, the walls a drab grey, the ceiling low. A faint smell of old grease hung in the air. The corridor led her beneath a string of dingy lights until she reached a spiral staircase that descended into darkness.

She touched the railing. Her fingers left clear marks in the thick dust.

Down she went, the metal steps ringing beneath her feet, to a dank basement passageway lined with steam pipes and mossy brick walls.

She shivered. Something about this place made her uneasy. It reminded her of the basement practice room back in New York where Josef had rehearsed
The Firebird
. The damp air felt thick in her lungs.

She turned a corner and found herself in an alcove facing a set of ancient double doors. She pushed them open. This was their dance studio?