This was it.
Determined yet also breathless with wound-up nerves, I walked with my classmates onto the dark stage as the audience grew quiet again. My heart pounded against my ribs. I found my opening position and posed. I could hear the audience a few yards away, shifting in their creaky seats, the occasional cough or murmur.
The recorded piano notes began, so much louder than at the studio. I would have jumped in surprise, but last night's dress rehearsal had braced me for the difference in volume.
The spotlights brightened in tiny increments, bathing me and my classmates in soft blue light as we began to dance in fluid movements. Though I knew I was dancing, a rush of adrenaline made the moment surreal. It seemed just a dream, and I was separate from it all, feeling myself turn and leap as the music built faster and faster toward that peak note.
Then the music slowed toward its quiet ending. I reached for the light above, everything inside me held captive by the music and the moment. And then I blinked, and it was over. I was in my final pose, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, as the audience clapped and cheered far louder than politeness required. The harder they clapped, the faster my blood rushed through my veins, until it seemed I could jump out onto that sound and fly on it like a strong wind.
Ohhh. So this was what the Charmers felt when they performed. And they got to experience this all the time.
I could definitely get addicted to this.
Forming a horizontal line with my classmates, we walked to the front edge of the stage to take our bows. In midcurtsy, I looked out into the audience, squinting to see Nanna and Mom beyond the spotlights. And Dad's back as he walked up the aisle toward the exit.
He was leaving already? I still had a jazz routine to perform!
My throat choked up. Breathing was nearly impossible as I finished the curtsy and followed the other dancers offstage on legs that had suddenly turned awkward and stiff. As soon as I reached the wing's darkness, I started running, weaving down the hall past props and mothers and dancers. Didn't Dad know I had two routines to perform tonight, not just one? I had to reach him, had to stop him before he left.
Rain poured down outside. I could hear the water pounding the building's front cement steps as I reached the foyer. The glass doors thudded closed after his retreating figure.
I slapped the door open again. "Dad! Wait!" Could he hear me over the rain? Oh, wait, of course he could. He was a vampire with that same supersonic hearing I had.
Despite the weather, he carried no umbrella to protect the dark suit he always wore, now soaked and clinging to his trim figure. The water didn't seem to faze him as he stopped halfway down the sidewalk and turned to face me with those emotionless eyes so like my own.
"I-I'm glad you came." I couldn't close the distance between us. I was still in my ballet slippers, and rain had splashed under the entrance's metal awning. My slippers' leather soles would be ruined if I got them wet. I edged out as far as I dared so the door could shut behind me and block my voice from carrying back into the theater.
"Um, did Mom mention that I'm doing two routines tonight?"
I thought he would be surprised. Instead, he nodded.
He knew I had another routine to perform...and was still leaving?
I forgot about the wet cement and took a step forward. "Well, the second routine is a jazz number. So if you don't like ballet, you don't have to worry about it because all the ballet routines are done now."
"I enjoy ballet, Savannah. But I must leave now."
"You've got somewhere else you have to be? Right now?"
"No. But I watched your ballet routine and have seen enough. Probably too much, in fact."
"I..." What could I say to that? I played with the stiff, scratchy folds of my romantic-style tutu. "Was my dancing that bad?"
"No. Your dancing was beautiful."
My head popped up in confusion.
He sighed. "That is the problem. Your performance was too good. You should not be able to dance even half so well for a beginner. How long do you think you will be able to outshine the others in your classes before someone begins to ask questions?"
"So...you're saying you'd rather I danced like crap instead?"
"No, I am saying you need to stop performing. Completely. As you continue to change physically, you are sure to improve at everything you do. Eventually, you will dance better than even the professionals. And then the inevitable questions will begin. People will want to know how you can leap so high, turn so fast, balance so well. They will see you for what you are...as something different. Something not quite human."
A freak.
My heart hammered faster, and I found myself shaking my head without even deciding to. "No." He had to be wrong. No way could my one happiness in life make me an even bigger freak. "I...I can control it. You know, not push myself so hard. I mean, I only did so well tonight because I wanted to impress you and Mom and Nanna. To make you proud of me and show how much I've improved."
"If you really want to make me proud, you will stop dancing. Immediately."
He might as well have slapped me. I struggled to breathe for a second as I tried to imagine never dancing again. And couldn't. "But dancing is a really big deal to me, Dad. It's the only thing I've ever been good at."
"I am sorry. But if you do not stop dancing, your actions could risk the exposure of our world." He glanced around as if to point out the potential for eavesdroppers. Like anyone else would be dumb enough to hang out in a downpour in East Texas during tornado season just to listen to us. "And if you risk exposing our world, the council will have no choice but to step in and stop you."
I bit my lip. Everything seemed to be about the big bad vampire council. What the council wanted. What the council demanded. What about what I wanted for a change? Whose side was he on anyways? "Can't you just tell them that I'll be careful? I can learn to blend in, honest. Just give me time to practice at it."
"It is too high a risk. You have no idea what the council is capable of. The only safe course is for you to never dance again. Ever."
"Mom wasn't worried about my dancing. Aren't you just being...overly cautious?"
"I am doing what your mother should have done...protect you. You should never have begun dance lessons in the first place. I warned your mother that this would happen, but she was as headstrong as ever." He took a step closer to me and held out his hands palms up. "Please, Savannah. Do as I ask and do not persist in this."