A Once in Two Lifetime's Chance
Prologue
"Do it! Just do it Ella!" The girl commanded to herself. She was on stage in front of hundreds of people dancing. Eleanor was a ballerina. It was her chance to show people that she could be a professional dancer some day. She had been working for months on a particularly difficult maneuver. The sixteen year old girl had not quite gotten it but now was the final test.
She leapt, spun, missed her mark and landed wrong. She fell. As she fell there was a sickening crack as one of her ankles snapped. She screamed as the excruciating pain shot up her leg. Ella hit her head on the hard wood floor of the stage and knew no more.
Chapter 1
Eleanor woke to some one yelling. "My lord some one go get Madame Giry. One of her Dancers here looks injured," Ella heard many feet running and then a woman leaned over her.
"This is not one of my girls Monsieur. But I shall take care of her. Robert please carry her up to the dormitories," Eleanor felt herself being lifted almost effortlessly off the floor and carried.
By the time Robert had laid Ella on the bed her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size. Madame Giry felt where it had been broken. Ella's yelped with pain and sat up. She immediately regretted it though because by doing so she shifted the broken leg and caused it to hurt worse.
"Lay down girl. I am trying to help you," Madame Giry told the distraught girl. "I have sent for the physician. He should be here soon." Eleanor looked at Madame Giry as for the first time. "Where am I and who are you?" She asked. The middle aged woman looked at her, "You are in the Opera Popular and I am Madame Giry the ballet instructor. You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. Now tell me, do you have a name?"
"I am Eleanor," replied the girl and then she gasped as the full meaning of what the woman had said hit her. "What year is this may I ask?" Madame Giry looked surprised but answered. "It is 1870. My girl, you have gone white. Are you okay?"
Indeed Eleanor had gone white. She was in the nineteenth century when only a few moments ago she was in 2005. Ella groaned as another pain shot through her leg and then fainted.