Mind Or Matter

Chapter Twenty Two - Until 2009

That spring of 2007, when William was fifteen and Lilly was fourteen, the two were getting ready for Swan Lake. William was cast in the Czardas dance in Act 2 and Lilly was a Swan and a Spanish dancer.

William was backstage with Lilly, waiting for the intermission to be over. They were dressed in their stage costumes, chatting.

"I heard we're doing Sleeping Beauty in the fall," Lilly started, using the desk mirror to fix her false eyelashes.

William gelled his hair and replied, "yeah, Mr. Dwain's choreographing it, since Ms. Minnie is retiring."

Lilly sighed, setting down her eyelash glue. "It'll be weird having Minnie gone. Just think, this is the last of Minnie's choreography we're dancing."

William shook his head, adjusting his position on the floor. He looked up at Lilly, who sat on a stool in front of a table, and said, "they're keeping Ms. Minnie's Nutcracker choreography."

Lilly only smiled.

Changing the subject as he slid into his right splits, William chuckled a little. "You nervous?"

Lilly looked at him with the same, cold stare she had worn for the past few months. Slowly, she began to shake her head, turning back to face the mirror. After changing from her Swan costume, Lilly also had to competely redo her makeup.

William decided to give up trying to talk to Lilly. She had been acting strange, and William assumed that it was just another one of her mood swings.

If only he had known...

Lilly had been right. In the fall, their ballet company performed The Sleeping Beauty, Lilly's favorite ballet. She was cast as the Fairy of Generosity and one of the friends in Act 2. Meanwhile, William was dancing the same role he had last year – Bluebird. But, in addition, he was also one of the princes in Act 2. In the company Lilly and William danced in, the princes also danced with some of Aurora's friends. The choreographer, a new teacher named Ms. Tina, made them partners on Ms. Minnie's request. After all, everyone in the company (including the ballet masters) loved to see William and Lilly dance. Lilly's friend Kelsey often joked that they were they greatest partnership since Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.

Lilly' depression had gotten a lot worse. She could barely make it through rehearsals now. All of her doctors were ordering her to stop dancing, that it was too much. But, according to Lilly's parents, ballet was the only thing keeping her sane.

But it was also slowly killing her. So Lilly knew that she'd have to make a decision soon: quit ballet or continue. Obviously, there was no way Lilly would quit dancing. Not only would she never want to, it would hurt the company. Even though she wasn't a principal, she could dance anything. "It would be a shame to lose such talent," Ms Minnie had once said to Mr. and Mrs. Swan, "not just to the company, but to herself."

Lilly's parents had let her continue dancing, but they felt worried. And they weren't the only ones. Whenever Lilly had a mood swing or even a bad day, everyone in class, including the teacher, would try to help her. They would encourage her to sit out for a few combinations or to take some water.

Nobody wanted to lose Lilly...

...except for Lilly.

2007 was a rough year, especially near the end. Nutcracker was an absolute mess – the boy dancing the Nutcracker Prince got the flu from the second rehearsal to the last performance, one of the corps girls in Waltz of the Flowers twisted her ankle after falling out of a turn, and Tesla Credence, the girl dancing Sugar Plum Fairy, was suffering from horrible migraines that often got her sent home. Even worse, Tesla's understudy had injured her hamstrings in the beginning of November, and she could barely get her leg higher than ninety degrees.

William was the understudy for the Nutcracker Prince and luckily got to dance the role with Lilly, who was Clara. Lilly was isolating herself most of the time. The only time she left the house was for ballet. Several hours of her days were spent lying in her bed. Most of her hair had fallen out in the fall, barely touching her shoulders. For the Nutcracker performances, she had to wear a fake bun, which was hard to find in her hair color, which was such as light shade of platinum blonde that it was hard to believe that it was natural.

On the last performance, during the battle scene, Lilly had snapped. She started crying, onstage. Nobody knew why, but William guessed it was the stress and depression. Of course, the dancers adapted. In the end, the audience hardly noticed. Because it was the battle scene, a part where the rats were fighting the soldiers, it didn't seem odd to watch Clara crying.

Afterwards, Ms. Tina had taken Lilly to her office, leaving William alone in the hallway outside the door.

Lilly had sat down in front of Ms. Tina's desk. This used to be Minnie's, she thought, looking at all of the photographs of her old teacher dancing – Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, etc...

Ms. Tina, a thirty year old woman with thousands of ideas in mind, a new choreographer in the ballet world, wasn't an expert, but she could tell that ballet wasn't helping Lilly anymore. In fact, it was hurting her.

After explaining this to Lilly, Ms. Tina waited for a response. Lilly, still staring at the brown rug below her, shook her head slowly. "No, no, I can't... I can't stop dancing." Slowly, she looked up, her hazel eyes burning into Tina's. "It'll kill me."

Ms. Tina wasn't sure if Lilly was exaggerating. "Lilly, I just want you to take a break. Maybe sit out of the spring show..." she turned around in her chair to face the calendar on the back wall, "...Cinderella."

Lilly had tears in her eyes. "Please... I can't. If I stop dancing, I stop living. I don't care what the doctors say, they don't know me. I need to do ballet. I-I..." Suddenly, Lilly burst into tears, holding her face in her hands.

Ms. Tina knew she had to make a decision then and there – kick Lilly out of the company and prevent her from dancing, or-

"Okay," she said in a low voice, looking down at her dark hands. "But I forbid you from dancing Cinderella. Take a break, do yoga, think... whatever you need. In the summer, we'll see if you're healthy enough to dance Swan Lake."

Lilly nodded, then stood. "Thank you," she sighed, then trudged out of the office. Ms. Tina let her leave, praying she had made the right decision.

Somehow, by the time auditions for Swan Lake were arriving, Lilly was feeling much better. She seemed happier and showed a better mood towards Ms. Tina.

But that all changed in the fall, when Lilly was cast as Carabosse, the evil fairy that curses baby Aurora in the beginning of the ballet.

Most companies would have an older, male dancer play Carabosse. The character would never dance to the dark music, instead using mime to tell her story to the audience.

But Ms. Tina wanted to do things a little bit differently. Lilly, at the age of fifteen, danced the evil fairy, whose role included several small solos, each one more difficult than the last.

Lilly was furious. She often talked to William after rehearsals, saying that Ms. Tina had no right to stray from the traditional storytelling.

But, in the end, Lilly loved dancing Carabosse. She let a dark side of her come out – a personality she soon began to use in real life.

Lilly had changed.