Several strained minutes ticked by as we waited. At last, the doorbell rang and Dad went to answer it. I hadn’t seen Mrs. Hahn since the last time we’d had class together, and I was ill prepared for how she would look. Not wearing any makeup, her face was smattered with bruises in various stages of healing—purple, yellow-green, and gray. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
Leaning heavily on her walking stick, Mrs. Hahn followed us into the living room. Then after awkward greetings and Mom offering her a drink, we sat down, me between Mom and Dad, and Mrs. Hahn in an armchair.
“I see you’re keeping up with your practice,” she said, indicating my dance clothes.
“Yes, ma’am. Jenna and I have been going to a studio across town.”
“Very good. But that’s not why I’m here.” She offered me a frail smile. “I came to talk to you about Erik.”
My nerve endings snapped to attention. Part of me had known this conversation was inevitable, but now that it was here, I didn’t want to go through with it.
“There are things about him—well, there are things you need to be made aware of.”
I turned my head to Dad and he patted my knee. “It’s okay, honey.”
“I’m afraid there’s no easy way to say it,” Mrs. Hahn continued, “Erik is my son.”
Inhaling sharply, I clamped a hand to my mouth and blinked away my shock.
“I was eighteen years old, living and dancing in Paris, when I got pregnant. Erik’s father was a choreographer—he was married, just not to me. The man’s family was quite wealthy, so they set me up in a house outside the city—that’s where Erik spent most of his life. After he was born, I wanted to continue dancing, so his grandparents hired live-in nannies to help. He was a beautiful child, so precocious, and he was a natural dancer. He used to say he was going to grow up to be my dance partner.”
If Mom and Dad hadn’t been beside me, I might have thought I was dreaming this—Mrs. Hahn sitting in my living room telling me Erik was her son.
She hesitated then, shutting her eyes tightly for a second. “When I moved from the corps de ballet to a soloist position, I traveled more. I tried to visit as often as possible, but it was difficult. I was so young and self-absorbed, and I managed to convince myself he was fine. He had everything he needed or wanted, given anything he asked for.” Her hand fluttered to the cane and she fiddled with its faux ivory handle. “But, as he grew, it became evident that he was different. He was extremely bright and talented, in not only dance, but also music—he could sit down at a piano and play a tune he’d heard for the first time only moments before, and technology—electronics were like extensions of himself. He was truly a wonder.”
She paused, looked down at her wrist, and tugged her silk sleeve down to cover what I now knew to be a burn scar. When she continued her voice was shaky. “As he got older, he began exhibiting signs of cruelty. There were tantrums that escalated, and on occasion, he abused his pets. Eventually, there came a time when he could no longer attend school with other children. He couldn’t function—socially, that is.
“Of course, we took him to various doctors, but no matter their course of treatment, whether it was medications or therapy, nothing helped. How could it when he thought himself smarter than they were?
“Ultimately, he directed his malice at me. He resented me being gone so much. He even became jealous of ballet. By the time he was a teenager, he would spiral into violent rages, and I couldn’t bear going to see him. I was afraid of him.” She pressed her fingertips to her trembling lips.
I spoke up then. “I don’t understand. He told me his mother died in a fire. He said he tried to rescue her—you—and that was how he was injured.”
Mrs. Hahn shook her head. “He set the fire.”
“Oh, my god,” Mom whimpered.
“His father and I had started seeing each other again. Erik had always disliked any man I went out with, but he hated his father. And one night, we were together—you understand?”
I nodded.
“Erik had been in a manic state about it for some time, but I’d convinced myself he would get over it, that he’d come to accept his father into our lives. But then he set the fire. It wasn’t until we were both in the hospital”—she lifted her cane then and I realized now her injuries were from the fire—“that I discovered what he’d been about. He’d wanted to play the hero, to rescue me, and then I would forever be enamored with him.”
“And his father?” Dad asked.
“It was he who died in the fire.”
Mom, Dad, and I sat stunned into silence.
“I believed him,” I muttered. “Every lie he told, I believed him.”
Chapter Seventy Five
“That’s how he is,” Mrs. Hahn explained to us. “He can be quite persuasive. It’s part of his mania.”
“If he set the fire,” Dad said, “why didn’t he go to prison?”
“It became evident the fire was arson, and there was an investigation. We were both questioned while still in the hospital. I suppose Erik realized he might be caught and one night he simply vanished from his hospital bed.
“In the years since then, he’s followed me. After my injuries, I left Paris and taught in London for a while. He would leave notes in my home or office—some kind and tender, about how much he missed me, and others angry and threatening. Then when I came here, I knew he was nearby when my office was broken into. Of course, I’d hoped it was some of the students playing a prank, but when my necklace went missing…”
“You’re necklace?” I asked.
She nodded. “It was one he’d bought for me, and it was stolen from my purse in my office.”
“Is it a heart shaped locket?”
Mrs. Hahn looked surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
I hurried to my room, opened my jewelry box, and retrieved Erik’s necklace I’d taken off the night Raoul gave me his. Back in the living room, I held the necklace out to her. “Is this it?”
With shaking fingers, Mrs. Hahn gently took the necklace from me.
“He gave it to me. Said it belonged to someone special in his life.”
Her hands unstable, she opened her purse, pulled out a pocket book, and slipped the necklace into a zippered pouch. “Thank you,” she mumbled.
Sitting down again, I said, “Erik told me he’d danced in Paris and at the Bolshoi.”
Mrs. Hahn shook her head animatedly. “That was me. I danced there. Erik never visited any of those places. Though he’s a gifted, even superior, dancer, he could never master to the personal discipline necessary to dance in a troupe.”
My hands in my lap, I stared at a magazine cover on the coffee table and thought, was there anything he told me that was true?
Mrs. Hahn spoke, “I know now I should have called the police when I found the note. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I had.”
“The note?” I asked.
“Yes. A few days before he attacked me, I discovered a note from Erik in my car. He hadn’t signed it mind you, but I knew it was from him. It said if I didn’t allow you to audition for the second company there would be dire consequences.”
“That’s how the police connected me to you,” I surmised.
“I’m sorry, Christine. I tried to handle it myself. I took off a couple of days and hired a private investigator to look for him. I intended to have him confined somewhere where he could receive professional help. Unfortunately, when I didn’t respond how he wanted, well, you know what happened next.”
The room fell quiet for a moment then Dad sputtered, “This is unacceptable. You should have done something when you first suspected he was near. You put not only our daughter, but also every other student in that school in danger. You might have prevented what happened to Christine had you come forth in the beginning.”
“Dad,” I muttered.
He sprang to his feet and moved purposef
ully to stand behind the sofa and place a hand on my shoulder. “Given this man’s track record, I think this could have been prevented.” His face took on a red hue as he ranted. “Do you have any idea what Christine has been through—all because you wanted to handle it yourself? You had no business even being at that school as long as you suspected he was stalking you.”
Mrs. Hahn looked me in the eye then. “He’s right, Christine. I should have come forward. I bear the responsibility for what happened to you. You were a pawn in Erik’s game of revenge. He wanted to best me by turning you into a better dancer than I could. Can you ever forgive me?”
I swallowed the bitter taste of reality. Dad could be upset and rage on, but what had happened couldn’t be undone, and blaming Mrs. Hahn wouldn’t make it any better.
“We were all pawns,” I told her. “But he’s dead now, and I don’t hold it against you.”
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “That’s the problem, and the reason we let Mrs. Hahn come here to talk to you today. We don’t believe Erik is dead.”
“What?” I exclaimed, turning to stare up at him. “But I watched him bust that gas pipe, and I saw an explosion. He couldn’t have lived through that.”
Dad sat back down. “It was all staged, honey. The pipe wasn’t filled with gas, but water. What you heard leaking out was steam. Then, like a two-bit magician, he caused a small blast of flame before the computer monitor, which made it appear larger than it was. It was an optical illusion, and in your fear, you ran to the theater believing what you thought you saw.”
Incredulously, I shook my head back and forth. “But they said there was a bomb threat.”
“That was you,” Mom said. “When you called nine-one-one, they thought you were making the bomb threat.”
Still disbelieving, I mumbled, “And the ambulance?”
“That’s routine in a suspected bomb situation,” Dad said. “But no body—Erik’s body—was never found.”
Unable to sit still anymore, I stood and took a few steps away, only to retrace them and stand before Mrs. Hahn. “So where is he?”
“I wish I knew,” she replied. “I still have a private investigator looking for him, and the police have detectives searching, as well.”
“You see why we thought you should know about this,” Mom said. “We don’t want to frighten you anymore than you already have been, but you need to be aware…”
“That he might come back for me,” I completed her sentence.
“Personally, I don’t believe it’s you he would come for,” Mrs. Hahn said. “It’s me he’s always been after.”
A beat passed while I ruminated on all they’d said. Erik was still alive. The horrible nightmares I’d had reliving the event, and all along, he’s been out there somewhere—very much alive.
“That’s only part of why I came here today,” Mrs. Hahn said. “The other thing is I want you to know I’m leaving the Rousseau Academy. But before I go, I plan to recommend you be allowed to audition for the second company. Ms. Zaborov will see it’s done.”
How long had I yearned to hear those words? Now they seemed so trivial, so utterly unimportant.
She got to her feet then. “I suppose I should go. But before I do, I want you to know this was not your fault.”
I looked her in the eye and whispered, “I know.”
Epilogue
True to her word, Jenna had left school at the end of the semester. She’d started attending public school, spending her spare time at the Street Feet Studios. And now, many months later, she was still seeing Dionte. It was the longest relationship she’d ever had.
After his leg healed, Van came back to school. He’d moved on from his attempts to get a TV show interested in a theater ghost, to auditioning for a reality program about the lives of ballet dancers. Though I never said it to anyone, I believed Erik pushed Van down those stairs. Considering everything I’d learned about him, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
As she’d said, Mrs. Hahn never returned. Rumors she’d had a mental breakdown after the attack circulated the school, and only a few of us knew what really happened. Ms. Zaborov, Mr. Darby, and Mrs. Crane committed to protecting me from snooping reporters and blabbering classmates, but only so much could be done to stop teenage girls from gossiping. What they thought didn’t bother me, though. I knew what had happened, and so did the people who mattered to me most.
Mom, Dad, and I started seeing a therapist shortly after Mrs. Hahn’s visit. There was family as well as individual counseling. A few months in, Dad gave up his room at the hotel and moved home. I knew it wasn’t easy for either of them, but they were trying.
It was a little more difficult for me, though. It took several months for me to stop looking over my shoulder everywhere I went. Finally, I came to believe what Mrs. Hahn had said. It was her Erik had been after. I was merely a tool.
Raoul remained my rock, always there for me. He even applied to the University of Houston so he’d be close to the Rousseau after he graduated. Many times I had nightmares as my vivid imagination toyed with what Erik might have done to Raoul had he had the opportunity, but eventually those dreams faded, too.
In the spring, I auditioned for the second company and was accepted. Though I was grateful for what Erik had taught me, I knew I earned that position and I deserved it. I’d found what was missing, the je ne sais quoi that had eluded me, and I had no doubt I got in on my own merit.
Since then, I’d performed with Rousseau II on tour, and I’d received lots of praise from instructors as well as ballet lovers. Mr. Darby even said he’d been told the New York Ballet had their eyes on me. Me! The New York Ballet had their eyes on me!
Tonight’s performance was different. It was special because it wasn’t with the second company. Tonight, I danced with the main company, the Rousseau Ballet, in La Bayadere, filling out the corps de ballet in the Shades scene, which required many female dancers. I was in the back—dancing with the main company! It was a dream come true and reminded me of the evening I sneaked into Claudette Sunderland’s dressing room and imagined the possibilities. Although, I haven’t gotten to that level of professionalism—I’m still a long way from my own dressing room—I’m satisfied with my decision to stay in ballet.
And chillingly, I knew I had at least one devoted fan somewhere in the audience at every performance. Because after each show, when I arrived back at the dressing room I shared with the other corps dancers, I found a single, pink dahlia waiting for me on my dressing table.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lesa Howard is the alter ego of author Lesa Boutin. Lesa writes for younger audiences, as well, hence the pen name for her edgier YA and adult writing. Lesa’s day job is teaching creative writing to children in inner-city schools. She also conducts writing workshops and author visits to schools and conferences. If you would like to know more about her other books, or arrange a workshop, see her contact information below.
www.lesaboutin.com/
[email protected] Facebook: www.facebook.com/lesa.boutin
Other books written by Lesa,
Amanda Noble, Zookeeper Extraordinaire
Amanda Noble, Special Agent
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I set out to write this story, I had no idea what it took to become a ballerina. The dedication, athleticism, and sheer passion I discovered in my research astounded me. Though many attend ballets, I'm convinced few know the extent of commitment and sacrifice the ballet dancer makes for his or her art. Only those in this small distinguished community are fully aware. To that end, I apologize for the liberties I've taken in this book. At times, I may have sacrificed the purity of the ballerina's craft to fit my own.
I'd like to thank Jennifer Sommers with the Houston Ballet. Without her help I would have stumbled, pun intended, my way through the world of ballet. Also, and enormous thank you to Hafsah at Icey Designs for the seriously fabulous cover and the patience it took for us to get there
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