Her heart squeezed as she thought of her family. God, how she missed them. She wondered how Lana was doing. They’d never been apart for this long. But this was how it had to be. She was keeping them safe the only way she could. By being dead.
Moving toward the source of the music, Natalie realized there was a small glass-front studio a couple of doors down from the hardware store. She smiled, watching the half dozen or so young dancers, ranging in age from about five to sixteen, execute the ballet steps in their classic pink tights and black leotards.
Their dance teacher was young but obviously a traditionalist. The diminutive brunette with her hair in a bun and also wearing dance clothes barked out corrections with the authority of an old general as the girls moved around the room with varying levels of success.
The teacher looked at the door impatiently and caught Natalie’s gaze, causing her to start.
Frowning, the teacher headed toward her at the same moment as Natalie turned to leave, realizing what she was doing. Staring at young girls through a window was probably not the best way for a stranger to go unnoticed.
Natalie took one step toward her car when she heard a door slam and a car drive off. A moment later, she saw a flash of pink and black as a young girl who was obviously late for class came racing around the corner toward her. She took the curb with a graceful, well-executed leap that was only ruined when she landed on a wet pack of leaves (it rained a lot in Vermont, with August being thewettest month) and her ballet slipper–clad feet slid out from under her.
The girl would have landed hard on her backside if Natalie hadn’t reacted quickly. She heard a cry that she assumed came from the teacher as Natalie lurched forward and caught the girl in her arms. Or mostly caught the girl in her arms as Natalie came down hard herself on the sidewalk.
“Oh my God,” the teacher said, helping the girl off her. “Are you okay?”
Natalie peeled her skinned forearms and knees off the sidewalk and came to her feet with only a slight wobble. “I’m fine.”
Mostly. The scrapes on her arms and knees—of course she had to be wearing shorts (in addition to rainy, August was also warm)—weren’t going to feel too good later. But they weren’t bleeding too heavily. Just lots of rocks and dirt with a few spiderweb lines of red.
“Samantha, apologize to this poor woman!”
The girl who was slight and older than Natalie initially thought at about eleven or twelve if the braces were any indication, turned to her with wide eyes. She looked stunned and on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry. I was practicing my dance in my head and didn’t see the leaves.”
“You should have been practicing the dance in the studio,” the teacher said sternly. “You are late again. What did I warn you about last week?”
The glimmer of tears in the girl’s big brown eyes grew thicker. “But it wasn’t my fault. My dad got a call on the way and we had to stop and check on Miss Mabel’s barn. The lock she put on it was cut off, and she found beer cans again.”
“Partying teenagers is a job for the county sheriff? If this were the first time, it would be one thing, but you’ve been late to class the past three weeks in a row.”
“My dad is busy,” the girl protested.
“But it isn’t always your dad, is it?” the teacher said more kindly. “Didn’t you say you forgot what day it was last time you were late?”
With obvious reluctance, the girl nodded.
“I thought you wanted this part?” the teacher asked in a gentle voice that showed she was not immune to the burgeoning crocodile tears.
“I do, I do!” the girl protested. “The Sugar Plum Fairy has the best dance. Please, I promise to get to class on time next week.”
The teacher nodded and the girl ran off before she could change her mind. But right as she got to the door, the young girl stopped and flashed Natalie with a brilliant smile that gave no hint of the tears looming a few moments ago. “Thank you again for catching me. I would have broken my butt.”
Natalie laughed and smiled. “No problem.”
When Samantha was gone, the teacher turned to Natalie with a sigh. “Thank you from me as well. Sammie’s mother died when she was young, and she’s been raised by her father. She’s our best dancer. A real natural talent. But she doesn’t take it very seriously. I think she prefers hockey over ballet,” she added with a dramatic shiver.
Feeling the same way about hockey herself, Natalie could commiserate. “She’s young. Maybe she’ll change her mind.”
The teacher shrugged as if she didn’t think that very likely. “You’re new around here?”
Natalie tensed defensively, the instinct to cut the conversation short with the question—even an innocuous one—strong. But she knew that in a small town like this it would only provoke more comment if she appeared to be hiding something.
She’d grown up in a town about this size whereeveryone knew everything about everyone else. Although they hadn’t known everything about her. How could they? Not evenshehad known everything.
It was common knowledge that she and Lana had been adopted from Russia, but who could have imagined that they were the daughters of Soviet “traitors,” who had been put in some sort of secret program as punishment for their parents’ sins.
Her parents had been ballet dancers in the old USSR who’d tried to defect to the West after a performance but had been forced to abandon their plans when the woman who was watching Natalie and her sister fell asleep in front of the TV and failed to bring the girls backstage after the show as she was supposed to have. Natalie’s parents had been arrested and thrown into a Russian prison to die, and the lives of their two children had been destroyed because of a boring TV show.
Ironically, the Soviet Union dissolved later that same year. But it was too late for her parents, and the former KGB members who emerged in the new government as SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation) agents had not forgotten the children of the former traitors. They were unknowing and unwitting “sleepers,” sent to America as children via an adoption program and ready to be “awakened” if the relations between Russia and the US were to chill again.
