BALLET WAS ONE OF THE LAST WIDELY PRACTICED FORMS OF MAGIC. ENCHANTMENT TO BE PRECISE. Which was why Gola was having such a hard time focusing on her work. She wasn't zoning out, she was entranced. Long since she could remember she'd dreamed of dancing.
Dreaming of gliding across grande floors in frills of bejeweled tulle, laiden with the most excellent embroidery, spotlight wrapped around her as snug as her papa's hugs . But the only thing she'd been able to do other than dream of becoming a dancer is watch yona dance.
"Saute, saute, saute, close fifth." Mrs. Valkova passionately raved, dramatically attempting to gracefully jump along with the the younger dancers."Allegro!"
Ms Valkova was a show all in herself. Beautiful was too simple a word for her. Beauty was within lines, defined by superficial eyes. No, she was something else. Almost elegant, eerily bewitching, and bold.
Other people may have thought her expressions of pain too exaggerated, her appearance an oddity, the bluntness of her personality to hard to bare. But Gola knew those expressions to be brief glimpses of agony packed deep within her bones, old stories never told. And Gola found Ms Valkova was of an unmatched beauty. Especially in her older age.
Her silky silver hair kept pinned professionally in bun, her huge round granite eyes and crimson painted lips that only ever seemed to press firmly in a straight line. There was something awfully tragic about her.
A once famed magnificent ballerina, with her broken foot that never moved the same way, doomed to scrutinize a tiny mistake that changed her life for the worst every day until the end. She almost had it all. On her darkest days she could still hear the crowd cheering her name.
Ms Valkova, gently pushed off of the floor, gracing the air before landing in a pose silently. Her movements were like liquid. Languid and smooth, it was as if only for a moment she defied gravity and floated.
"You look like you you're in love." Yvonne, sneered with a raised brow.
"Huh?" Gola blinked, she'd been only half present. Her thoughts were scattered like ashes on some invisible breeze. "Maybe I am, Besides my sister, Ms valkova is the only one in this theater who actually knows how to dance."
Ms, Valkova closed her eyes for a pause in time, placing her hands sternly on her thin hips. She wouldn't reject praise. Especially not the truthful kind.
"If you're such the expert maybe you should dance." Nyx rolled her eyes, lowering to the floor to rest.
Prue her fire headed best friend followed suit, eyeing Gola while whispering into Nyx's ear. Whatever she said had them both grinning like hyenas.
"But who would clean the floors, work the kitchens or tend to the mending?" Yvonne retorted, hand over her heart, feigning real concern.
The room came alive with soft sound of giggling. Question; how could such a sweet noise sound so terrifying? Answer; when it bounces to and fro empty marble walls feverishly with a clamor twice as fierce as thunder so that you might hear the sound of a horde of fangs being bared.
Gola felt an uncomfortable heat creep up her neck to the tips of her ears. Even so, she raised her head to a challenging glare. "I don't really need to clean the floors, you do that for me with how many times you're kissing it a day."
Yvonne shrugged the slightest, a smirk curling all the way to her ears. In the short time she'd been at Brookville, Gola had gathered she preferred a well won fight than easy prey.
"You'd know all about kissing inanimate objects!" Prue laughed loudly, making childish kissing faces with Nyx. "dance with that broom well enough."
Gola readied yet another swift and witty retort. The way one would reload a gun. But when she made to fire there was nothing but a short heavy breath like a puff of exhausted smoke.
A tenseness a built in her chest making impossible to breath. Instead she gasped like the air had been knocked out of her lungs.
Her mind replaced the laughing teenage girls with much younger ones. Who pointed fingers, screamed obscene things they had no comprehension of while throwing rocks. They made her bleed and left scars in places that the eye couldn't see.
"Not so tough now, huh little rat?" Someone in the theatre was taunting her, someone in the now.
But she couldn't hear them, the worst pieces of the past were replaying like a broken record in her head. She couldn't understand why her mind so desperately cling to memories she prayed to forget.
"I think that's enough." Yona snapped, pushing through the theaters carved red oak double doors, a whole thirty minutes late to class, and unapologetically so.
Four words and there was unquestioned silence. Unquestioned obedience. Such was the power of the queen of brooksville. All would kneel or else commit social suïcide.
"I agree." Ms, Valkova clapped her hands, herding her dancers back together, "Back to first position at once."
Blinking through her tears Gola offered Yona a weak smile. A token of appreciation. And found her sister glaring at Yvonne with the fires of hell in her eyes. The former grinned from ear to ear in return.
She'd found a worthy opponent.
———————
There was a sharp pain in Gola's chest, like a needle being forced through. While it hurt, it was nothing to be alarmed about. After all chest pains after anxiety attacks were apparently normal.
She couldn't find it in herself to be grateful. Sometimes she found herself wondering if living a life consumed by fear was a life worth living at all. But those were on her dark days. And it hadn't gotten a chance to get bad this time.
Yona had stepped in and saved her yet again. This was another not-so-bad thing that she couldn't find it in herself to be grateful for. She wished she didn't need saving.
"You look sad." Dean sighed, his eyes shifting between Gola and the road. "Why is that?"
Yona looked up momentarily, stretching her legs out onto the dashboard. "She always looks sad." She snorted, turning the radio back up.
Dean silenced the radio again and rolled up Yona's window for good measure. "Princess." He prompted.
Gola didn't look away from the window as she sighed, "Just tired, daddy." Because at the point she felt her only strength was in pretending to be strong.
"You know you can tell me anything right, babe?"
Gola couldn't resist a small smile at this. "I know, daddy." She feigned annoyance. "It's nothing, really."
"That's not true. Remember when little mouse asked you what an èrection was because of the news reporters were mocking one direction, calling them one èrection? You totally went blank and ran away." Yona laughed to herself.
Dean however was as red as a rose with embarrassment. "That's not what happened." He cleared his throat, using one hand to scratch the back of his head.
Gola couldn't help but burst into laughter too. "It so is daddy, you literally jumped over the kitchen counter to get away from me. Ran out the door mumbling about food and had the audacity to show up the next day empty handed."
"NOT EVEN A FRY!" Yona yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. "And I was so damń hungry!"
"Language." He warned Yona, with a pointed finger. "So maybe that's what happened a little bit."
"A little bit huh?"
"Cut me some slack! I was supposed to teach the both of you how to knock their lights out and make em wish they were dead. Your mother was supposed to teach you about kissing...and stuff."
Silence followed. A moment of mourning.
Gola gave another small but sad smile. "But I bet she's proud of you, for everything you did teach us given the circumstances."
"Given the circumstances." Both Yona and Dean agreed.
———————————
"Watch you're step." Dean advised Gola as he helped her step down from the car. "It's slippery."
When they'd finally arrived home it was dark and raining. Hard.
"Out of the way!" Yona pushed past the both of them into the house. "My show is about to come on."
Dean shook his head, amused. "Alright kiddos, working a double tonight i'm off to work. You know the rules, no boys, stay out of step-mothers things and try not to stay up too late."
"Yeah, whatever old man." Yona snorted from the door.
"I mean it, Yona Anise smith."
Although his voice had been firm, Yona only rolled her eyes. "That girl makes my blood pressure rise." He sighed, dragging his hand down his face.
Gola lightly chuckled, standing on her tippy toes to press a kiss to her fathers cheek. "Goodnight, daddy."
"Night, sweetheart."
Yona was found wrapped up in her confronter on the couch. Binge watching some teen horror show at the volume loud enough to make them both go death. There was only one thing to do.
Join her.
Gola retrieved her own blanket and wrapped it tightly around her head and shoulder like a burrito. Stuffing handfuls of popcorn into her mouth as some ghost masked killer ran around chasing collage students with a kitchen knife for petty reasons.
And then lighting struck so close to the house the living room came alive with the light.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
The boom of the thunder hadn't been far behind. Yona and Gola were holding each other's shoulders screeching like banshees. The last thing the tv had shown before it flickered off with the rest of the power was the ghost masked killer at the main characters door.
BOOM!
BOOOM!
BOOOOM!
Only this time, it wasn't thunder alone. It was midnight and someone was at the door.