Leaping at Shadows Read online

  Text copyright © 2013 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Cover and interior photographs © Hans Neleman/Stone/Getty Images (main);

  © iStockphoto.com/Selahattin BAYRAM (paper background).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Atwood, Megan.

  Leaping at shadows / by Megan Atwood.

  pages cm. — (The Dario Quincy Academy of Dance ; #1)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–0930–9 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–1627–7 (eBook)

  [1. Dance—Fiction. 2. Haunted places—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—

  Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.A8952Le 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012046156

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – BP – 7/15/13

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1627-7 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3318-2 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3317-5 (mobi)

  To my parents, for their constant support. And to Patrick, who literally held me up when I fell down. My love and gratitude to you.

  Chapter 1

  The building looked like it smelled. Old. Like a grandfather’s closet. Or a mortuary.

  Madeleine shouldered her bag, straightened her shirt, and touched her necklace. She started up the first step of the massive, ancient-looking building in front of her. For reasons she couldn’t understand, looking at the windows along the building, shrouded in darkness, made her shiver. It was morning, after all. Did the sun not shine on this place?

  “Hey, what about a hug goodbye, at least?”

  Madeleine whirled around and smiled at her mom sheepishly. “Sorry. Of course.”

  She touched her necklace again—the necklace that had belonged to her grandmother; then her mother; and now, as a going-away present, to Madeleine—and bounded down the stairs to wrap her mom in a hug. The idling station wagon next to them let out a bang and a puff of smoke. Madeleine and her mom jumped and then shared a laugh. When they separated, Madeleine saw tears in her mom’s eyes.

  Her mom sighed and held Madeleine by the shoulders. “It’s just until Christmas, and then you come back. Three months. This is your chance, Madeleine. You’re so good—you got in two weeks after the semester started, which I was told several times they never do. Don’t mess it up.” She winked, then said softly, “My talented, beautiful daughter. I will miss you.”

  Madeleine laughed and wiped tears from her eyes. Her mother had sacrificed a lot to send Madeleine away, even with the scholarship. “I won’t let you down, Mom. I’m going to blow them away!”

  Her mom nodded and walked to the driver’s-side door. “You better. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” As she got inside, she called out, “Maybe you should bourrée them away!”

  Madeleine giggled and shook her head. That was her mom. Cheesy to the bone. Madeleine’s heart hurt as she thought about leaving her for two whole months.

  Her mom shifted into drive, and Madeleine watched her pull away, waving like a crazy woman and swerving so much she almost hit the brass statue of the dancer in the roundabout driveway. Madeleine waved back, and then the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She had a strange feeling of being watched. She flipped around and searched the windows in the building again. Nothing. She shook it off—it had to be nerves.

  When she flipped back around to give one last wave to her mom, the old, awful station wagon was gone, leaving only a puff of smoke to remind Madeleine of her old life.

  She turned again to the school, her new home for the next year. Or for as long as she could hold on to the scholarship.

  The Dario Quincy Academy of Dance was etched over massive, medieval-looking wooden doors.

  She shook her head again to clear away the creepy feeling that was crawling over her. Nerves—nothing more. This was it. She had won a scholarship to the most prestigious ballet school in the country. If the building got up and tried to eat her alive, she would still go in.

  Madeleine squared her shoulders and walked up the long, creepy stairs toward her new life.

  Chapter 2

  “One, two, three, one, two, three, legs up ladies, stomachs in—Kayley, if I see you drop that leg one more time, I swear I will cut it off—and up and two and attitude, onto pointe and …”

  Madeleine warmed up on the side of the class, stretching her leg on the barre and putting head to knee, all the while watching her new ballet mistress, Madame Puant, work the classroom. Madeleine had met Madame Puant once before, of course, when Madame had seen her audition for the scholarship position. But seeing Madame Puant up close, seeing the talent in the room … well, Madeleine’s heart dropped. In her old class, she had been far and away the best. The new class would be a very different story. She touched her mother’s antique gold necklace, thumbing the silhouette of the grand jeté, and willed herself to calm down.

  Four girls did center work as the rest of the class warmed up and stretched. Groups of girls huddled together and whispered—about Madeleine, she could tell. Boys peppered the room here or there. Madeleine had never seen so many guys in a ballet class before. In her hometown, hardly any boys would be caught dead dancing ballet—even though it was one of the most challenging physical activities a body could do, as she’d been happy to tell them. A surge of excitement shot through her. Finally, here she was at a real ballet school.

  Madame Puant tapped the piano. “Thank you, Patrick. Per usual, your playing is exquisite. We’ll do full company center work now, two groups.” She peered from below her eyelids around the room, sizing up every person inside. Madeleine felt herself shrink a little.

  Madame pointed to eleven different girls and boys and then to Madeleine. “You are group one. The rest are group two.”

  One girl in Madeleine’s group, beautiful and tall, with a perfect ballet body and long neck, stared at her with narrowed eyes. The girl and three of her friends—Madeleine could already tell these were the belles of the ball—moved to the front of the room. Madeleine took her place behind them.

  Madame Puant clapped her hands. “Group one. Let’s begin with the following: Start in fifth, prepare out, plié, arabesque en pointe to attitude, fourth, then pique pirouette, pirouette, pirouette, back to fifth, relevé, and down …”

  Madeleine was amazed at the sheer number of directions Madame listed off just for the center work. She looked around to see if her group seemed to catch it all, and everyone seemed engaged. Some shadowed the words with the moves. Sweat trickled down Madeleine’s spine. She did two nervous pliés in first and one relevé just as the pianist began to play. Suddenly, Madeleine felt all eyes on her. She knew as the new girl, she would be scrutinized. This was her first time to dance in front of everyone. She touched her necklace for luck.

  But as the first notes tinkled out, as usual, the music took her over and she didn’t need luck. Madame’s directions came to her like waves on the sea. She hit every move and felt every position, delighting in the way she could propel her body, double-checking the mirror to make sure she was hitting the steps.
Her foot in arabesque needed a bigger turnout, but otherwise, she felt good about the exercise. In the mirror, the tall girl glared at her once again, and Madeleine, comfortable in her dance, stared back, keeping her expression friendly.

  “Group two now.” As Madeleine moved out of the way, she thought she saw Madame Puant give her a little approving smile. She smiled to herself. Maybe this would work after all.

  Madeleine tried not to notice the tall girl and her group look at her and whisper. As she leaned down toward the barre, she felt different pairs of eyes on her. She looked out the open classroom door and saw two adults, one woman and one man, standing outside, whispering furiously to each other.

  Their eyes were wide and scared. The man’s white button-down shirt was untucked, disheveled, his tie askew. The woman wore a long, flowing skirt and kept her hair tied in a bun. She pushed up her glasses and looked away from the practice room. The man continued to stare at Madeleine.

  Madeleine stood straight up, and her leg fell off the barre with a clunk. A burst of giggles came from the group of girls across from her. Madeleine blushed and wished she could disappear. When she looked outside the classroom door again, the adults were gone.

  “Group one again. Same sequence. Add bourrées to the center, then after the sequence running jeté, jeté, jeté, grand jeté, pirouette out, yes? Space appropriately and go.” Madeleine barely had time to get in line before the music started. Once again, the tall gorgeous girl who kept giving her the stink eye stood in front of her. The girl’s silky, beautifully bunned head turned, and the gorgeous girl gave Madeleine a wicked smile.

  “Don’t crowd me, newbie,” she whispered. The music started, and the line began to move.

  Madeleine shook it off and let the music take her over. She gave the girl in front of her plenty of room, then started her routine. She bourréed to the center and then performed the sequence flawlessly, flipping her arms without thinking to the correct positions, making beautiful curves in the mirror. When the time came for her grand jeté, Madeleine pliéd and then exploded, throwing her legs out in a straight split high in the air, her arms and back curved in a perfect arc. She loved the grand jeté and the feeling it gave her.

  And then she landed. Right on the back foot of the girl in front of her.

  Madame Puant’s voice rang through the music: “Ophelia, switch with Madeleine for the next sequence. Madeleine’s jeté is better.”

  There was a gasp from the rest of the room. For the second time that day, Madeleine wished she could disappear. Madame continued counting for the next group, “One, two, three, tak-tak-tak and a …”

  The girl, Ophelia, evidently, spun around and hissed, “I told you not to crowd me, you freak.”

  Ophelia’s face was bright red. A knotted strand of hair had come out of her bun. Madeleine had a feeling that Ophelia rarely got corrected.

  Ophelia stared at Madeleine’s necklace and snorted. “Nice necklace. They don’t have style where you come from?”

  Now it was Madeleine’s turn to go red. And before she could help herself, she said, “They don’t have ballet lessons where you come from?”

  She had to fight putting her hands over her mouth. She couldn’t believe she’d said it.

  Ophelia’s eyes went wide, and she stepped forward. But before anything could be done, Madame’s voice echoed around the room. “OK, now full jumps, two at a time, group one—Madeleine, Ophelia, and go.”

  As Madeleine took her place, she heard Ophelia say, “You’ll be sorry for that. You better watch yourself, new girl.”

  Madeleine jumped as far and as high away from her as she could manage.

  Chapter 3

  Madeleine threw down her shower caddy and flopped on her bed. Her first class at the academy and she’d already made an enemy. And from what she could tell, a bad enemy to have. Couldn’t she have pissed off a squirrel or something?

  Since Madeleine had arrived midday, she’d managed to miss all the non-dance classes for the day, and she’d only made the second of two ballet classes. Students practiced for six hours a day, from six to nine in the mornings and then from three to six in the afternoons. At six thirty, dinner was served. Even in her room on the second floor of the huge house, Madeleine could smell something delicious cooking in the ballroom. Dinner, she’d been told, was buffet style. Though her stomach growled, the thought of going into the ballroom and facing the girls from practice made her cringe. After class, she had barely made it into the shower before anyone else, and she’d scooted out as fast as possible to avoid any awkward run-ins.

  She sat up on the bed just to flop down once again, strands of wet hair landing on her face.

  For this night only, maybe she would avoid dinner, sneak in late for something to eat later, and then try to smooth things out at class the next morning. Madeleine threw her arm over her eyes. Not a great start. She played with her necklace and felt a wave of homesickness wash over her.

  And then she jumped to her feet. Here she was, at the most prestigious ballet school in the country, and she was feeling sorry for herself. No way. The least she could do was explore a little while everyone else ate. It wouldn’t hurt to get a sense of the gigantic institution she now lived in.

  Through her door, Madeleine heard girls walking out of their rooms and voices echoing in the hallway. The school was huge, but all the rooms on Madeleine’s floor had been split up into one-person units. When the voices died away, she opened her door, looking tentatively into the hall.

  No one stood in the dark hallway. The deep red carpet faded to black as Madeleine glanced down the hall each way. Antique lights that looked like candles flickered at intervals, and Madeleine saw what seemed to be a line of endless doors. Here or there, some girls had tried to decorate their doors, but somehow the hallway resisted any color except deep red—the decorations seemed to get absorbed into the walls. A chill crept down Madeleine’s back—the same chill she felt when she first entered the school.

  The spiral staircase leading to the dining room gaped to her left, and she heard the murmur of voices and the occasional spike of a laugh. Clinks of silverware traveled up the stairs. It sounded like life and fun. Madeleine’s homesickness came back, full force. For a moment she remembered lunchtime at her old high school, having a table to sit at.

  Having friends.

  She touched her neck and realized she hadn’t put her necklace back on.

  Madeleine heard what sounded like a creaky door opening to her right. Lights flickered and the hallway curved so that she couldn’t see all the way to the end. She called out, “Hello?”

  Silence answered her.

  She hesitated in the doorway, then gathered up her courage. Down the staircase, in the dining room, was certain persecution. Down the hall, to the left, was the unknown. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? Madeleine carefully closed and locked her door.

  She tiptoed across the bloodred carpet, keeping her eyes fixed on a darkness that always seemed to curve out of sight. How big was this place anyway? The hallway seemed to go on forever.

  She passed a door with a wooden sign that read OPHELIA. Her new best friend was only three doors away. Great.

  As Madeleine stopped to check out Ophelia’s door, decorated with photos of ballet dancers and some band Madeline had never seen before, she heard the creaky door again. She flipped her head to the end of the dark hallway.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice echoed down the hall.

  Madeleine kept walking, slower this time. The roar of dinner was gone. A stillness hung like a thick blanket in its place.

  Finally, she reached the end of the hall, the carpet running out and a five-foot stretch of cold marble taking its place. High windows stood above the marble on both sides. At the edge of the marble, Madeleine saw a pair of French doors, curtains draped across them.

  Light from the large windows reflected off the shiny floor, throwing shadows everywhere. Madeleine looked back down the hallway, the students’ doors disappear
ing into darkness. She shivered, her hair still wet.

  Loud footsteps on the other side of the door made Madeleine jump. She gasped and fell against the wall that held the window. Something from the other side of the curtains cast shadows that looked like feet on the marble.

  Running feet.

  The footsteps seemed to get louder and faster. Then, just as quickly, they died away. Madeleine grabbed a hold of the door handles and turned, bracing herself for the squeak that she’d heard earlier.

  But the knobs wouldn’t turn. The door was locked.

  She knew the squeak had come from this door. It couldn’t have been anything else.

  And who was running on the door’s other side? More importantly, what were they running from?

  Outside, the sun was setting. The courtyard trees’ branches seemed twisted and deformed. Through the opposite window, Madeleine could see the statue of the ballet dancer at the front of the school, the one her mom had almost hit. From this angle, the ballerina’s body looked twisted, just like the branches of the trees, as if she were writhing in pain. The first dead leaves of fall scraped along the sidewalk, the wind starting to pick up.

  Madeleine had that feeling again, the feeling from when she first entered the house. The tingle down the back of her neck. Goosebumps all over her body. She felt chills, even through her thick sweatshirt and Uggs. She began shaking, and she knew this time that it wasn’t from her wet hair.

  Something was wrong. Something was not right in this house.

  She instinctively put her hand to her throat but only touched bare skin. The necklace. She hadn’t put it back on.

  Something knocked sternly on the doors in front of her.

  Madeleine gasped and stumbled backward. Once she regained her footing, she sprinted down the hall back toward her room, all thoughts of exploring gone from her mind.

  She ran as fast as she could, her ears primed for any strange sounds, for any running footsteps behind her.

  When she reached her room, she fumbled with her key in the lock, then flung open the door, slamming it behind her and locking it again.