LITMIR.BIZ

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dreams on good nights and jarring Stravinsky nightmares more often than she cared to admit.

      Why shouldn’t her subconscious cling to the songs of her youth? Why wouldn’t her dreams be set to music? Since the moment she’d slipped on her first pair of ballet slippers, Tessa’s life had become a dance. It still was, long after she’d stopped hearing the music.

      She could hear it now, though. She didn’t know how or why, but she could. Music like nothing that had touched her ears before. Jarring. Bigger than a symphony. Bigger than sound itself. She felt it, too, much like she always did, but without an ounce of the concentration it normally took. The notes rose up from the wooden planks of the rehearsal room floor, hummed through the soles of her pointe shoes and into her body like an electrical current. She felt alive with it, almost manic.

      Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she’d pulled a Natalie Portman and gone full-on Black Swan nuts. God, she hoped not. She’d lost enough since the accident, without adding her sanity to the list.

      What in the world was happening, though? Could she be cured? Was it possible for an injury like hers to reverse itself?

      Possibly.

      The doctors had told her this could happen. But so much time had passed that she’d given up on ever hearing again. She’d made peace with the silence.

      The noise in her head was anything but peaceful. She couldn’t focus on what her body was doing. She could barely hear herself think.

      Tessa felt a tap on her shoulder as she fell out of a turn. Her legs were moving far too quickly. She could see the other dancers out of the corner of her eye, each with a number pinned to the back of her leotard, just like Tessa. Unlike Tessa, they moved in perfect unison. It was mortifying. Tessa spent extra hours in the classroom at the Wilde School of Dance every night to guard against this very thing. She squeezed in extra practice whenever she could. Perfection would never be within her reach. Other girls might have higher arabesques or nicer feet, but Tessa was determined to keep time with the music as well as, or better than, all of them.

      It was just so hard to concentrate with the sudden commotion in her head. She’d wished for her hearing to come back for thirteen long months, but she’d never imagined how overwhelming it would be. Or frightening. She wasn’t even sure it was real.

      Why did it have to happen now, in the middle of her audition? Why was she losing her mind today of all days? She stumbled to a stop and found the company ballet mistress, Madame Daria, standing directly in front of her. Frowning.

      “Number twenty-eight?” She stared at Tessa.

      Tessa nodded. The number twenty-eight had indeed been assigned to her when she’d shown up bright and early for auditions. It was to be her number for the full three days of tryouts.

      If she lasted that long.

      “You’re off. Count.” Madame Daria ticked off her fingers. “Five, six, seven, eight.”

      Beyond her gesturing hands, her mouth moved. A fuzzy, indecipherable sound came out of it. Tessa had to read the woman’s lips, just she as always did.

      She nodded and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got it.”

      This was getting weirder by the minute. She could hear, but nothing sounded right. Everything was too loud, too confusing. Too much.

      She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears. Instead, she readied herself to begin again at the next eight count, but Madame Daria’s hands abruptly clapped together, and suddenly the music stopped. Tessa’s ears rang with melodic echoes.

      Thank God. She needed a minute to regroup. She tried inhaling a few deep yoga breaths, and thankfully, everything grew quiet once again. With any luck, it would stay that way.

      Still. Silent. Normal.

      The other dancers paced or bent over with their hands on their knees, catching their breath, eyes flitting to the studio door in anticipation. Tessa’s heart skittered, and she pressed the heel of her hand against her breastbone. This was it. The moment they’d all been waiting for. The arrival of the great Ivanov, the man who could—and often did—make or break a dancer’s career on a whim.

      And Tessa had just fallen out of a simple piqué turn.

      Plus, she was suddenly hearing things. Marvelous.

      The dancers rearranged themselves—company members near the front, and those who were auditioning crammed in the back of the room. It was less than ideal for Tessa, more difficult to read lips from a distance. She could have asked to move closer to the front, but she didn’t dare. She’d never once asked for special treatment, and she certainly wasn’t going to start now.

      She fell in line with the others and leaned against the barre beside Violet.

      “Are you okay?” Violet pinned back a wisp of hair that had escaped from her ballerina bun.

      Tessa shrugged and did her best to feign nonchalance. “Just a little off today. I’ll get it together.”

      “Good.” Violet gave her a firm nod, designed, no doubt, to remind her of the importance of the occasion. As if Tessa could forget.

      For a moment, she thought about confiding in Violet. But what could she possibly say? She wasn’t even sure what was happening herself.

      Besides, there was no time. If things didn’t go back to normal, she could always talk to Violet after the audition. Then she would make a beeline to her doctor’s office.

      For now, Tessa scanned the mirrored walls, searching for the best possible angle. She’d become an expert at using the mirrors to her advantage. Out of necessity, of course.

      She’d learned to rely almost solely on her sight. As her gaze swept the room, she tried to remember every detail about the space. Until her gaze snagged on the vaguely familiar, scowling man sitting at the piano in the corner.

       Him.

      She blinked a few times, just in case she’d started seeing things in addition to hearing them. But it was most definitely him—the rude man from the subway station—and he was sitting at the company piano.

      Tessa frowned. How had she failed to notice the rehearsal pianist? Particularly this rehearsal pianist?

       Maybe because you were distracted by the full-scale orchestra in your head?

      She stared at the piano player and wondered if he could possibly have something to do with what was happening to her. It was an absurd notion. She was experiencing some kind of medical phenomenon, and the pianist was nothing to her. No one.

      He was handsome, though. Quite handsome, actually, with that strong chiseled jaw and those piercing blue eyes that seemed bluer than ever in contrast to his dark hair. And then there was the rather intriguing scar that she’d noticed before by the corner of his lips...it drew her gaze straight to his mouth. His perfectly shaped, perfectly scowling mouth. Why did he seem so annoyed all the time?

      Tessa forced her gaze away from his mouth and found him watching her. He lifted a single, accusatory brow, which probably meant he recognized her as the horrible ballerina who’d dared to dance off beat with his playing. Tessa promptly looked away.

      She needed to pay attention to the ballet mistress, not the rehearsal pianist.

      “Dancers, your attention, please.” Madam Daria clasped her hands in front of her as her gaze swept the room. The front of the room, technically. The ones who mattered most.

      Even the company members were being forced to audition for Ivanov, though. Technically, no one was safe. The auditioning dancers weren’t stars, though. Not like the company members. But that was fine. Tessa was lucky she could still dance at all. And maybe, just maybe, since she was a nobody, the ballet mistress had already forgotten she’d fallen out of her turn.

      There were advantages to being invisible.

      Daria

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