Page 4 of The Beast of Moscow

Until she was that ballerina.

She’d loved ballet that much.

Don’t you still?

Vera didn’t have an opportunity to ponder the question she asked herself.

“You’re late!”

The first shout came in Russian, ripping her gaze away from the flyer she must have walked by a thousand or more times but had only noticed it remained that day.

She didn’t even have time to ask why today?

Hanging out of the large, black marble doors adorned with golden swans for handles, Klara—one of the company’s ballerinas that agreed to help Vera make dance classes available to underprivileged children for free three nights a week at The Swan House.

If anything, it gave Vera something to do.

Or maybe just a reason to stay.

After all, she hadn’t danced on stage in years.

In English, Klara said, “I figured when you didn’t pick up my call that something was up. I’ve got the kids doing their warmup stretches, but I have to get to my own—”

“No worries, thank you,” Vera interjected, forcing herself to smile and hoping the younger ballerina didn’t notice what had her lingering out on the sidewalk of the grand Swan House instead of being inside teaching her ballet class.

The flyer.

Her fading star ...

Klara looked like she was considering heading back inside The Swan House but hesitated for a moment. No doubt, the practice she spoke of was all the way at the rear of the old stone cathedral and monastery. Once owned by the Russian orthodox church, no one really seemed to know how it became the property of a private family that converted it into a house of ballet complete with several studios and an entire theater that seated up to three-thousand people.

Vera thought someone knew; they simply didn’t want everyone else to know, too.

Klara eyed Vera as she climbed the few marble steps up to the doors, waiting until she was at the top before asking, “Ty v poryadke—are you okay?”

“Da,” she tried to assure her. “I was just up late talking to my ma back in New York and woke up way too late.”

She didn’t mention that she’d gotten drunk after she hung up with her stepmother, Claire. Or that a part of her desperately wanted to leave Russia and her shattered dreams behind she simply couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on doing so.

“And you’re late,” Vera told Klara. “Madame Lidia is going to give you hell. Go.”

The eighteen-year-old didn’t need to be told again, but she waited at the front doors just long enough to hold the heavy oak open until Vera slipped inside.

“And thanks again for the kids!” she called to the girl’s retreating back.

Klara only waved a hand high before taking the grand staircase that curved along the west wall of the massive entrance to The Swan House. Black marble greeted guests that were lucky enough to come inside. Floors, pillars, and even the stairs. The outside had been painted the color where it could be, and the stone wall surrounding the massive property included black wrought iron grating across the top. The rich tapestries and heavy silk and satin curtains that fell to the floor in luxurious piles around every window and entrance was all nostalgic for Vera.

She remembered the first time she saw it, The Swan House with its towering golden spires and massive stature looming amongst the backdrop of the city, and the way her heart had raced as she stepped inside. It was hard not to be amazed and in awe of this place, and what it had promised to her.

It became home.

Still was.

That’s why she had yet to leave.

Partly, anyway.

Vera crossed the mostly quiet entrance, the only sound coming from the squeaks of her runners against the marble floor, murmurs from somewhere upstairs and young laughter traveling beyond the hallway beneath the massive staircase. She headed into the hallway with her small canvas duffle bag emblazoned with the logo of the ballet company tossed over her shoulder. At least in the warmer months, she didn’t have to waste time bundling up, so all she really had to do was change shoes and toss off her light windbreaker. She already had on her staple black leotard and tights. Even the compress wrap that kept her left ankle steady while she danced only took a few seconds to put on.