Under The Willow Root

“And those who were seen dancing were thought crazy by those who could not hear the music.”--Friedrich Nietzsche

Lara Ashley’s face stares at me from the confines of the picture frame, her laughing eyes full of life and mischief. I touch my own face, which I know is a near mirror-image even though my mother was a few years older in this picture than I am. It was taken at her high school graduation. She was seventeen...no, eighteen. Her birthday was in April. April twenty-second. I have to consciously call up this fact from my memory the way I would a piece of information from a text book. It’s not an everyday fact, not a part of me the way my birthday or my grandmother’s is.

Baba Nadia’s arms envelop me from behind, and I squeak in surprise. She moves like a ghost even in this old, creaky house. Baba Nadia chuckles and picks up the picture, gazing at it with a familiar mix of bittersweet joy and crushing grief. As always, seeing such strong emotion in an elder makes me uncomfortable and I look away, tracing the lines of my grandfather’s bland, remote face.

“I have something for you,” Baba Nadia finally says. “For your birthday.”

“What is it?” I ask immediately, as excited as any little kid getting a birthday present.

“Come sit down,” she says, and leads me into the kitchen.

“Well?” I ask eagerly, grinning in anticipation.

“Patience, kitten,” Baba Nadia laughs.

She takes out a small box from the pocket of her robe. It’s so prettily wrapped I almost don’t want to open it. Almost. I carefully remove the silver ribbon and paper and open the box to reveal an exquisite antique pendant wrought of lacy white gold and moonstone. I gasp with delight and turn it over in my hands, admiring the elegant lines.

“Someone very special gave me that on my fourteenth birthday,” she says. “I wore it for many years.”

“What made you stop?” I ask, still engrossed in my present.

“It made your grandfather uncomfortable,” Baba Nadia said. “Not that he ever said anything, dear man, but he was never particularly good at hiding his feelings.”

At this, I tear my eyes off the pendant and look curiously at my grandmother. “Why did it make him uncomfortable? Who gave it to you?”

Baba Nadia smiles. “Your namesake. Aleksander. He gave it to me on my fourteenth birthday, right before he left to fight the Germans. It was his mother’s, and the most valuable thing he owned. I told him I couldn’t possibly accept it, but he said he was giving it to me with his mother’s blessing, that she had given it to him to give to his wife. He wanted to give it to me a little early, he said, so I would have something to hold on to while he was away. It never entered either of our heads that he wouldn’t come back, or that I would leave. He was only seventeen.”

A tear trembles at the corner of her eye, threatening to escape. I realize that my mouth is hanging open and I shut it with a click. I don’t know what to say.

“Is that the boy in the picture next to your bed?” I finally ask.

“Yes,” she says with a little laugh. “He was so handsome, and so proud to be a soldier. He was bursting with it. He could barely sit still for the picture.”

I’m silent for several minutes while I take this in. The idea that my grandmother had loved someone else before she met my grandfather is shocking. Even that she loved anyone in a non-grandmotherly way is new for me. I’ve never thought of her as a girl--a young woman. I’ve never thought of her as anything but my grandmother. It’s strange...and a little uncomfortable.

“What happened to him?”

“He died,” Baba Nadia says simply, but I can see the pain behind her eyes. “I found out much later, of course, long after my parents sent me away.”

Once again I find myself at a loss for words. I have no idea what to say or how to reconcile this suddenly real and vivid picture of Nadia, a girl my age, with Baba Nadia, my grandmother. She saves me from having to reply by taking the pendant from my limp grasp and fastening it around my neck.

“I want you to have it,” she says. “So would he, if he were here. He would have been your grandfather...he should have been. He would have loved you so much, kotik.”

She pats my hand and shuffles off as silently as she came, leaving me feeling overwhelmed and confused. I head out to the studio and mull things over as I warm up. Then I dance, letting emotions and ideas pass through the music like flour through a sieve and sort themselves out through movement. When I’m done, I feel like I’ve sweated out all the bad so that it lies on the surface of my skin, ready to be washed off. Only the good remains, the trust that my grandmother placed in me and the memory of her first love.

Later, as I lie on Baba Nadia’s enormous bed with Melanie and Tara giggling on either side of me, I wonder why my mother named me for her mother’s dead fiancee rather than her own father. Somehow it disturbs me, and I resolve to ask Baba Nadia about it later. Then Melanie shrieks with laughter at something on Tara’s phone and I roll over to look, all thought of names and long-dead husbands and lovers forgotten.

I open my eyes on darkness and fumble for my phone until I remember that I have no phone, and it’s not Melanie or Tara in the bed next to me but Dove. I sit up, wondering if I can find my way back to the bathroom. Unlikely. I lie back down gingerly, trying to make as little noise as possible, and turn over.

I wish I had a glass of water. The more I try not to think about it, the thirstier I get. I toss and turn, unable to ignore my thirst but too tired to do anything about it. I drift in and out of sleep, one minute focused single-mindedly on every little discomfort from the dry skin on my hands to the itchy scabs on my scalp and the next reliving scenes of terror and bloodshed and starvation. At some point I cross over into true sleep, but it seems like only a few seconds go by before Dove is shaking me awake.

Through the window I can see that the sun hasn’t even risen yet. I almost open my mouth to complain before I remember that I have no right to an opinion. I’m a slave, and a lucky one at that. I think of my narrow escape from the oily man and thank all my lucky stars that Ismeni happened to walk by that alley. Unconsciously, I reach for my throat and fumble for something that isn’t there. I frown, wondering what it is that I’m looking for.

Dove hands me my dress and veil from yesterday and then pulls on a gown much like mine. It’s simpler than the dresses I’ve seen her in so far. She leads me through the halls and, after a pitstop at the bathroom, out of the house. We head back down the central lane, accompanied by several other yawning, downtrodden looking people who must be slaves like us. I wonder where we’re all going.

We pass through the narrow canyon with its carvings and emerge on the hillside above the city. But instead of going down the central road, we turn and walk along the cliff wall until we reach a squat, nondescript building with only a few vines and shrubs for decoration. The men from our group break off and go around the side of the building. The rest of us enter through a plain wooden door and I find myself in a room lined with benches and little cubbies. It’s a locker room, I realize. Or something like it.

Dove and the other women remove their shoes and clothes, revealing the same starburst symbol that’s been burned into my own hip. I jerk my eyes away as Dove pinches me, gesturing to the cubbies with a stern look. I reluctantly undress, half afraid that my clothes won’t be there when I get back, that I’ll be forced to go naked like an animal again. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to take my clothes off again without feeling that small clench of fear in my stomach.

I follow Dove and the others into a warm room with a pool. We all get in and sit there for several minutes, enjoying the heat. No one speaks. By now I’ve accepted that, for whatever reason, slaves can’t speak. I’m too tired to try to figure out why. I just tip my head back and doze until Dove shakes me awake and hands me a pot of the powdery soap.

I tip some into my palm and scrub myself as the others are doing and dunk myself under to rinse. It feels good. We leave the Warm Room and enter a Freaking Hot Room filled with steam. I breathe it in and feel like I’m drowning. I turn and try to go back the way we came, but Dove grabs my shoulder and gives me a firm push toward a bench in the center of the room. With a sigh that makes me cough and gag from the scented steam, I trudge over to the bench and sit down.

After several minutes, I get used to the steam and find it actually feels kind of nice to breathe it in, like it’s cleaning out my airways, and the heat makes my muscles feel droopy and relaxed. If only we could talk to each other, it would actually be really pleasant. Once again I thank whoever might be listening for saving me from the oily man and placing me in a role which apparently demands that I hang out at the spa.

We leave the Steam Room and go back to the Warm Room for a brief dip, then go to a third room with a pool of cool water. It’s wonderfully refreshing. I submerge myself completely, enjoying the feel of the water on my scalp. After a while, though, I get chilly and look around, wondering if I’m allowed to get out.

Afraid of stepping out of line, I wait for Dove to go first. When she does, the others and I follow. Attendants appear seemingly out of nowhere and sit some of the women down to trim, pluck, and wax them to perfection. Others leave after a brief inspection. While Dove gets her hair trimmed, an attendant looks me over and shakes her head as if wondering what on earth can be done to make me less hideous that hasn’t already been done. Eventually she shrugs and hands me a towel before dismissing me.

I wrap the towel around myself and settle on a bench to wait for Dove. I’m cold, and want to go back to sleep. To keep myself awake, I swing my legs up on the bench and lean forward, stretching my back and hamstrings. The muscles are tighter than they’ve ever been in my life. I can barely touch my toes. I sigh and lean back against the wall with my legs still stretched out, alternately pointing and flexing my feet until Dove is done with her haircut.

We put our clothes back on and head back to the house. By this time, the sun is up and people--real people, not just slaves--are out and about. They pay absolutely no attention to us. As we go through the canyon of pictures, a party of well-dressed men approach. Dove pulls me aside and pushes me down to my knees. She touches the knuckles of one hand to her forehead like she did for Ismeni. She reaches out and I hastily copy her before she can pinch me again.

I stare at the ground and wait for the rich people to pass so I can get up. There’s a rock digging into my knee, but I’m afraid to move even a little bit. I can’t help jerking in surprise, however, when a furry mass crashes into my stomach and knocks me over.

I scramble backwards and press against the canyon wall. The thing--I think it’s a little dog of some kind--comes after me and plants its paws on my knees. I get a brief glimpse of bright black eyes and a button nose at the end of a pointed snout before that same nose is shoved into my face.

The dog’s bushy tail whacks against my shins as the dog washes my face with its tongue. I twist my face away and try to push it off me, but it squirms away from my hands. I want to laugh. I twist my fingers into soft fur and tuck my chin to my chest, scrunching my face up against the dog’s enthusiastic assault.

A voice calls out and the dog dashes away after one last slurp from chin to forehead. Once I wipe the dog spit from my eyes I can see that it’s not a dog at all but a fox. It races toward a smiling young man dressed in well-cut leather and makes a flying leap into his arms. Another man who looks like his brother laughs as the fox tries to lick its master’s face. I forget for a moment that I’m supposed to be staring at the ground. My eyes are glued to the man’s face--the one with the fox. His smile is seared into my brain like the memory of a camera’s flash.

Dove pinches me again. I hastily avert my eyes, but the two men don’t even look our way before continuing down the path. We might as well be carvings on the wall. We’re nothing. I stare after them through my eyelashes and try to hold back the shame and despair that floods my stomach.

Dove helps me up and we make our way back to the house, where she drags me to the bathroom first thing and briskly cleans my face before going back to our bedroom. Once there, she whips my dress over my head and leaves me standing in my thin underdress in the middle of the room while she rummages in a trunk and holds up this dress and that against me, sometimes shaking her head and throwing the dress aside, sometimes nodding approvingly and giving me one to hold. By the time she’s done, my arms are so full of dresses I can barely keep them all from tumbling to the floor.

She plucks a dusky rose colored dress from the pile and helps me wrap it around myself before we fold the rest of the dresses and put them away. She drops yesterday’s blue dress in a woven basket in the corner, making sure I see her do it, then sits me down to apply more salve to my face. That done, she brings a wig from underneath the vanity and settles it on my head, fixing it in place with some kind of adhesive.

It’s itchy and uncomfortable, and I feel ridiculous. I change my mind when I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look human again. I’m recognizably me, though the wig is a little darker than my own hair and my face is still messed up and way too thin.

Dove quickly arranges the wig into a simple braided style and tugs me away from the vanity. I trail after her to a room near the kitchen where we sit with several other slaves. When other slaves bring in food and set it on the table before us, it takes me a minute to realize that we’re being served--these other slaves aren’t staying to eat with us.

I look around in confusion, but no one else seems to take any notice. What kind of place is this? Am I a slave at all? I myself have been served one thing or another several times, but, aside from bowing to a bunch of people, I have yet to serve anyone.

I know I shouldn’t complain, but it makes me nervous. Baba Nadia always used to say that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. All this pampering after being hauled around in a filthy cage for months just makes me wonder when the ax will fall and what shape it will take.

Then Dove sets something that isn’t soup in front of me and I stuff it in my mouth without even looking at it first. I stop worrying about the ax and focus on cramming as much food down my throat as I can before Dove cuts me off. When we’re done, Dove and I go back to the kitchen and collect a tray of food. Despite having just eaten the best meal I’ve had in months, my mouth waters at the sight of it. Dove gives me a stern look before placing the tray in my hands.

Dove leads me back through the halls to Ismeni’s room, where our mistress lies sprawled across her bed in a tangle of blankets and nightclothes. Somehow she looks elegant even with her limbs flopping around and her hair in her face. Dove motions for me to set the tray on a little table while she moves about the room, putting away stray pieces of clothing and tidying Ismeni’s vanity.

She beckons me to the closet and pulls out a sleeveless gown and what looks like it could be a cloak or another dress after it. Both are of the lightest, softest material I’ve ever felt. The edges of the cloak are embroidered with golden thread and studded with pearls. I run my fingers over it admiringly and set it out in the dressing room at Dove’s gestured instructions. I wonder if Ismeni is some kind of a princess or a queen or if she’s just really, really rich.

Dove pulls the curtains open and gently shakes Ismeni awake. Ismeni smiles sleepily and sits up, giving Dove a fond little pat on the cheek. She sees me in my wig and laughs, clapping her hands in delight. She waves me over and turns me around, cooing at me like I’m a baby. After a moment, Dove pulls me away and sets the tray of food in front of Ismeni. While she eats, we set out some creams and cosmetics on the vanity. They smell like flowers and honey, and I want to eat them. I wonder when we get to eat lunch.

We--well, mostly Dove--help Ismeni dress and do her hair. I hover and watch and try to remember what goes where. I wonder if I’ve always been this slow. I don’t think so. I feel like my brain is clogged with mud. When we’re done, Ismeni floats off to do whatever it is rich people do and we tidy the bedroom again. Dove gathers a bunch of jewelry and combs and we take it downstairs, where we clean and polish every piece.

Our morning continues on much the same vein, and I’m uniformly terrible at everything Dove tries to get me to do. I’m not--or I wasn’t--bad with a needle, but everything is different here from the needle itself to the thread to the kind of stitches Dove wants. My many years spent making dance costumes is no help--I’m used to doing almost everything with a sewing machine.

We have a light lunch in the afternoon with the other well-dressed servants, and then Dove takes me out to a beautiful garden where she sits and stares into a pool of water. I sit awkwardly beside her, wondering what we’re doing. I wait for her to show me something, give me some instruction, but she just sits.

I begin to doze there on the bench, but Dove doesn’t seem to notice. I want to lie down and take a nap, but once again I find myself foiled by my pretty dress. I sigh and shift my weight, silently cursing my bony, cushion-less behind, until I can’t stand it anymore and get up. I take a step away and look anxiously at Dove, waiting for her to pull me back. But she just keeps staring into the water.

I gather my courage and walk away, looking over my shoulder every few steps until Dove is out of sight. I stroll around the garden, letting myself enjoy being alone for a little while, surrounded by pretty flowers and elegant sculptures.

The statues are my favorite. I reach out to touch a marble swan about to take flight and feel tears prick the back of my eyes. I stare at it for several minutes, completely immobile. I can’t think what it is about the swan that affects me so deeply.

It only comes to me later, when I’m lying in the dark after a long afternoon and evening spent helping Ismeni change her clothes a completely unreasonable number of times. The realization makes tears sting my eyes. This time they overflow.The swan statue positively radiated hope and freedom...and I have neither.

“Sasha, can you hear me?”

I blink at the doctor stupidly, wondering what’s going on, but nod jerkily.

“The results of your PET scan show substantial activity in--well, everywhere. Far more activity than can be expected in someone lying down in an empty room. Can you tell me what you were--or are--seeing and hearing? We hope it might help us figure out what the problem is.”

I don’t know what they’re talking about. I see several doctors hovering over me. I see Emily slumped in the chair next to the bed. That’s probably not what they’re talking about. It’s probably another trick.

The doctors leave when it becomes clear that I can’t or won’t answer. Emily sighs and leans over to smooth back my hair. She looks terrible, like she hasn’t slept in days.

“At least they believe there’s something wrong with you now,” she says, staring darkly at the doctors’ retreating backs. “I mean, not that having seizures is a good thing, but at least they’ve stopped trying to have you committed.”

I make a grunting noise and Emily squeezes my hand.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “They’ll find the problem and they’ll fix it. Everything’s going to be okay.”

To my dismay, I find that the pre-dawn bathing expedition is a daily routine. Every few days I get re-waxed, have my nails trimmed and buffed, or am otherwise touched up. Dove and I act as Ismeni’s personal slaves, caring for her belongings, helping her dress, doing her hair, and running whatever errands Ismeni thinks we can be trusted with, mute and foggy-minded as we are.

While Dove seems to follow Ismeni’s directions before the words are even spoken, I struggle to grasp even the simplest of commands. It takes me a week to even respond consistently to my own name. For some reason I feel like I should be good at languages, but I have no idea why. I get frustrated with myself, which only makes it harder to focus on new words.

Eventually I accept that I’m just a little stupid and try my best, accepting whatever slaps and pinches I receive from Dove and Ismeni as my rightful punishment. The last thing I want is for Ismeni to be displeased with my service. My memory of how I came to be here is more than a little hazy, but I remember the oily man with a sharp, almost painful clarity. I’ll do anything, take anything rather than risk going back to him or someone like him.

Each day is a constant mental struggle made harder by the fog in my head. I can’t remember more than a few instructions at a time and frequently forget what I’m supposed to be doing in the middle of a task. At first I’m disgusted and angry with myself, but I soon forget that I was ever anything but slow and dimwitted. I plod through each day, moving in whatever direction Dove points me and putting my hands to whatever task is given to me with a dull resignation that sometimes feels oppressive, sometimes liberating.

The only time I feel even a little bit alert is when Dove and I take our break in the garden. It’s as if the plants with their vibrant colors have so much life in them that it spills over and I soak up a little bit of it. I walk the paths in a never ending circuit, not caring that the flowers I admire are the same ones I admired the day before. Half the time I forget what I see from one day to the next, anyway.

It’s during one such moment of forgetfulness that I take a wrong turn and find myself surrounded by wild, overgrown rose bushes in a forgotten corner of the garden. Against the canyon wall is a small, empty pool surrounded by a beautifully carved wooden rail at waist-height. I wander over and lay my hand on it.

The carvings under my hand feel wrong. I want the rail to be smooth. But the motion feels natural, more natural than anything I can remember feeling for...I don’t know how long. My other hand seems to rise of its own volition over my head, bending me over sideways. The stretch in my side feels nice, and I do the same thing with my other arm.

I do it again, this time bending my knee over flexed toes at the same time. I don’t know where the motions are coming from. It scares me, but it feels too good to stop. I sink into deep squats with my toes pointed outward. My skirts get in the way, so I pull them up around my waist and use one of my many sashes to keep them there.

I rise on my toes and stretch my feet. I bend down over straight knees, feeling the tension behind my legs. I reach out with pointed toes to the side, in front, behind, each time rotating my leg from the hip. I sweep each leg across my body and back, dragging my toes along the ground. I touch pointed toes to my knee and stretch my leg out from my body in a perfectly straight line before bringing my toes back to my knee.

Each movement flows into the next, as naturally as one breath comes after another. I continue, enthralled, until Dove’s sharp whistle summons me back to the present. Panting, I hurry back to the front garden on trembling legs, my mind reeling. I want to go back to the wooden rail with a frightening urgency. I feel it like a hook in my stomach pulling me back toward the garden. What does it mean?

Even as I’m distracted by my desire to return to the garden and the wooden rail, I notice a slight but definite increase in my ability to focus on words and commands. I even earn a smile and what sounds like a word of praise from Ismeni after I successfully manage her simplest hairstyle on my own for the first time.

I can think of nothing but the wooden rail. I sneak out after dinner to play some more and come back exhausted but content. Dove scowls at me from her bed, but, unable to speak, she can’t demand to know where I’ve been or scold me for going somewhere without her.

I haven’t done anything wrong, I reassure myself as I get under the covers. If anything, it made me work better. Surely Dove wouldn’t mind if she knew. But I won’t let her know, just in case. I can’t bear the thought of losing my newly discovered treasure. I wiggle my toes and stretch my legs out, revelling in the flood of satisfaction that washes through me as my muscles stretch. I can’t remember ever feeling so good.

As I drift off to sleep, strange words pop into my head. Plié. Relevé. Passé. Tendu. I don’t know what they mean, but I like the sound of them. I turn them over in my mind, examining each sound. Like the touch of the wooden rail, they feel familiar. I clutch the blanket to my chest, imagining that I’m holding my new words safe inside, and I fall asleep.

“Shoulders down, Sasha,” Baba Nadia says. “That’s it.”

I come out of my arabesque and turn to face her.

“Baba Nadia, why did Mom name me after Aleksander?” I ask suddenly, surprising myself. I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask ever since my birthday, but I didn’t expect it to just pop out like that.

Baba Nadia doesn’t answer right away. Finally, she says, “She didn’t. I did.”

“Why?” I ask, shocked. “I mean, did my mom call me something else?”

“She didn’t call you anything,” Baba Nadia says sadly. “She was too sick.”

“But...I thought...she died when I was two,” I say uncertainly. “She was so sick even then that she couldn’t name me? What was wrong with her? You’ve never said.”

“Come sit,” she says, and settles herself on a folding chair. When I sit beside her, she puts a hand on my knee. “I don’t know what was wrong with her, Sashka, and neither did any of her doctors.”

“But...why was she...was she in a coma, or what?”

“No,” Baba Nadia says slowly. “Not when you were born. That came later.”

“So why...Baba Nadia, what don’t you want to tell me?”

“Your mother had...some troubles,” Baba Nadia says with a sigh. “It started when she went to college. Perhaps it even started earlier, but no one realized. She would go away, see things that weren’t there, hear things...she couldn’t sleep, sometimes for days. Sometimes when she talked, she made no sense. By the time you were born, she barely talked at all.”

“So my mother was crazy,” I say flatly. “And you never told me.”

“Lara was not crazy,” Baba Nadia says fiercely, gripping my knee tightly. “She was sick. Something neuro...neurological. But the doctors couldn’t fix it.”

“So she was brain damaged,” I say bitterly. “That’s so much better. How could you not tell me?”

“You never asked, and there was nothing to tell,” Baba Nadia says. “She was sick, and she died. If she had cancer, would you be angry that I had not told you of every time she vomited or fainted or how quickly she lost her hair? No.”

“This is different,” I cry.

“It is no different,” Baba Nadia snaps. “And there is no shame in it. She was sick, Sasha. If you would be ashamed of her for that, be ashamed of yourself first.”

I wake with tears on my face. I wipe them away, wondering why I feel so terrible. I must have had a bad dream. I’ve been having a lot of those lately, full of people I don’t know and images I don’t understand. I look out the window and see that it’s just about time to get up, anyway. I get out of bed and nearly fall down. My legs and back feel like they’re on fire. It takes me a minute to remember why that is and why it fills me with eagerness of all things.

I glance outside again and wonder if I have time to go to the garden before Dove wakes up. Probably not. With a sigh, I shake Dove awake and put on my clothes from the day before for the trip to the baths. No point in getting clean clothes dusty on the road. I think of the wooden rail and feel like I’m going to pop out of my own skin with impatience. I bring Dove her own dress and shoes. The sooner we start our day, the sooner I can escape into the garden.

The heat of the baths feels good enough on my sore muscles that I don’t mind lingering a bit, but as soon as we leave, my thoughts return to the wooden rail and the strange words in my head. On the way home, I barely glance at the little fox with his handsome master. Usually watching the fox dash around acting silly is one of the highlights of my day, but today I just want to get home as quickly as possible. Not even the handsome man’s smile can distract me today.

By the time Ismeni dismisses us for the afternoon, I’ve almost made myself sick with impatience. I do my best to wander aimlessly away from Dove as I normally do, but as soon as I’m out of sight I run for the wooden rail. When I reach it, I heave an enormous sigh of relief. I touch the barre--yes,that’s the word!--and tears spring to my eyes.

I hike up my skirts and go through the strange patterns of arms and legs and torso. It’s all the more strange because it doesn’t feel strange at all. It feels as though I’ve been doing it my whole life. When I’ve gone through all the motions from the day before, I keep going, my body moving seemingly by itself. I let it happen without wondering or worrying about where these movements are coming from or what will happen next. It’s beautiful--magical.

That night, my dreams are filled with images of people and places that seem both outlandish and familiar. Names tease me, just out of reach. An old woman smiles at me, filling me with longing and grief. I wake up with a tightness in my chest and a lump in my throat that I can’t understand. I wonder who she is.

I spend as much time in the garden as I can without raising Dove’s suspicions. As far as I can tell, no one notices or cares what I do during those afternoon hours in the garden. The only dangerous moment comes when Ismeni returns from her afternoon outing early one day. I don’t hear Dove’s first sharp whistle and, after the second, I barely get away from the barre in time to meet her on the path.

Dove seizes my arm and hustles me away to the entrance hall where Ismeni stands, stiff with rage, hissing furiously at her husband, Orean. He puffs up like a rooster and bellows back at her while slaves and servants hover anxiously, clearly wondering how to handle the situation. Everyone avoids Orean if they can--he likes to hit people.

Only one seems unaffected. A girl with wild black hair and dark skin leans against a pillar behind Ismeni’s husband, looking on with bored amusement. I look closer and see that her eyes are an odd shade of light brown, almost honey-colored. She reminds me of some kind of jungle cat.

Orean barks something at Ismeni and stomps away, seizing the girl by the hand and pulling her after him. Ismeni stays for a moment, seething, then stalks past me and Dove. We follow her to her rooms and watch as she throws herself onto her bed and stares at the ceiling.

I glance uncertainly at Dove. Ismeni normally has a very strict schedule and routine. I have enough trouble handling things that come up every day--I have no idea how to approach this situation. I blink in surprise as Dove sits next to Ismeni on the bed and lays a gentle hand on her arm. Before I can blink a second time, Ismeni is sobbing into Dove’s lap like a little girl.

I look around, wondering what to do, and spot the water pitcher next to the bed. I pour some into a cup and tentatively offer it to Ismeni, who continues sniffling into Dove’s skirts. Dove gives me one of her rare smiles of approval and pats Ismeni’s shoulder to get her attention.

Ismeni looks up and giggles through her tears at my confused, earnest face. She takes the cup and pulls me down beside her, keeping hold of my hand. The three of us stay like that for several minutes until Ismeni takes a deep breath and orders us to lay out her dinner gown. Dove gets up and I follow a little reluctantly.

I look back at Ismeni, who now looks perfectly composed and as regal as ever. I sigh sadly and turn to help Dove, trying to ignore the twist in my stomach. For a few minutes, it was like we were friends. But it wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real. I’m not Ismeni’s friend--I’m her slave. I can’t forget that.

Ismeni dresses with our help and sails away even more majestically than usual to play hostess to her friends who are coming to dinner. She doesn’t say anything to us about it, but I know because she always wears particularly elaborate dresses when she holds her own dinner parties. It cheers me up a little bit. Dove and I always get really good leftovers when Ismeni has company.

I forget about the strange scene in the entry hall almost entirely over the next few days. Ismeni makes no mention of it and goes about her business as usual except for a barely noticeable tendency to avoid her husband. It’s barely noticeable because she never seemed to spend all that much time with him before, anyway. I don’t think they like each other very much.

My time in the garden remains the high point of every day. The more I go, the more alert I feel. At first I think it’s just an added benefit of my growing physical strength, but I become increasingly certain that it’s more than that. My dreams become more and more vivid, and I’m sure my grasp of commands and my mistress’s language is improving much more quickly than it was before I found the barre.

Two weeks after Ismeni’s fight with her husband, I steal away to my corner of the garden and go through the familiar-not-familiar motions. My muscles stretch and contract smoothly with the occasional twinge as my limbs form new shapes seemingly on their own. I lose myself in it, thinking of nothing but the moment.

“Beautiful.”

I spin around, clutching the barre for support. The girl with lioness eyes approaches and lays a hand on the barre. She imitates me, stretching her leg out behind her in what’s actually a pretty good arabesque. She grins and motions for me to continue, but I back away, my heart pounding. My eyes dart to the path. I wonder if I should make a run for it.

The girl moves to block me off, holding her hands up in a nonthreatening posture. She speaks softly and soothingly, but I catch maybe one word in five. She must see the confusion on my face because she stops chattering and places a hand on her chest.

Slowly and clearly, she says, “Sadra.”

She looks at me half expectantly, but she must know that I can’t answer her. Just in case, I try. Blue, I try to say. My name is Blue. Nothing comes out, but that’s not why I frown. If feels wrong. I’m Blue. Definitely wrong. But if that’s wrong, what’s right?

Sadra explains through a mixture of gestures and simple phrases that she has been watching me from the bushes. I think that’s what she’s saying, but I can’t tell--or she hasn’t said--how long she’s been spying on me. She seems particularly interested in my exercises. Sadra moves to the barre again and beckons me to join her.

She makes a “go ahead” gesture and says, “Dance.”

For a moment, I just stare at her. I hadn’t thought of what I was doing as dancing, but of course that’s what it is. My face lights up in a brilliant smile and I join her at the barre to finish my routine. When it’s done, Sadra steps away and shows me a short series of movements incorporating her whole body, even her head and hands. It’s lovely.

I try to copy her and she giggles. I smile back, wishing I could laugh with her. Sadra repeats the steps more slowly. I try to copy her again, and this time I get it. She points to me and I spin, whipping my foot out and around. Fouetté. As before, the word appears out of thin air. Or, no, it’s more like it was there the whole time and I just never noticed it.

As I spin in place, my skirt flies up to expose...well, everything. Sadra collapses on the spot, wheezing with laughter. My face burns, but I force a smile. Sadra controls herself and comes towards me. She plucks my sash away to let my skirts down, then ties the ends between my legs. She points to her own skirts, which I now see aren’t skirts at all but very baggy trousers covered with a flap of fabric in the front to make it look like skirts. She says something too quick to follow and squeezes my hands, smiling encouragingly.

Sadra steps back and tries the fouetté. It goes a long way toward soothing my embarrassment when she falls right on her butt. I demonstrate again, relieved that this time I only flash a bit of thigh. We go back and forth, teaching each other and showing off. By the time Dove’s whistle sounds, my limbs are trembling and my breathing is ragged. Before I leave, Sadra squeezes my arm gently.

“Tomorrow,” she says, and lays a hand over her mouth and mine.

I nod seriously. I don’t know if we’re breaking any rules, exactly, but I’m positive that Ismeni--and Orean--wouldn’t like it. As I hurry back to Dove, I wonder anxiously if I misinterpreted Sadra’s gesture somehow. But it’s too late to do anything. All I can do is hope that Sadra meant what I think she meant, that she won’t tell anyone about our meeting.

Later, Ismeni dismisses us for the night with a kiss on the forehead, as usual. And, as she does every evening, she bids us goodnight. But tonight something is different.

“Sleep well, Dove,” she says. “Sleep well, Blue.”

That’s not my name, I think, and my heart skips a beat. My name isn’t Blue. It’s Sasha.

My name is Sasha.