Manchester, 1984

1.

"So, may I go, mother? Please" A teenager begged through the brick mobile phone she carried everywhere, her voice slightly trembling.

Mostly, it was only used between mother and daughter. And it seemed that the call was going to cost really expensive, especially for the distance between them. She could hear her mother speaking to someone else at the other end of the line. She was probably in a meeting.

"I don't really want to go, but, I promised Scarlet and you promised me that if I..."

"Hold on there, just a second please." The blonde teenager sitting on the floor heard her mother talking to somebody else.

Then she was back with her, the girl arranged her glasses on her nose bridge.

"Edna, I am busy right now" The woman's cracking voice said emphasizing each word and making her daughter cringe at each one of them. "How's school?"

Edna prayed for the day mobiles would sound better. Sometimes she couldn't understand her mother.

"Good!" The teenager exclaimed knowing that her mother would start with her little interrogation and that could only mean one thing: maybe, probably, perhaps, she would get to hang out with her only friend just for an afternoon.

"Have you finished your homework?"

"As soon as they gave it to me" She answered back.

"What about your French classes?" She heard her mother speaking a bit more out of the line, the blonde's expectations falling to the floor.

Her mother was not paying attention to her.

"Yes, good."

"The Russian ones?"

"Perfect!"

"Chinese"

"I'm working it out."

"Spanish?"

"Good, good! Mother, all of them are okay."

She heard the woman sight at the other end of the line.

"Please!" Edna begged one more time.

"Where are you now?"

"At the Academy." Edna looked around at the high ceilings, the wooden floor, and at herself, sitting on the floor, in every mirror that surrounded the great space of the ballet academy. Her voice trembled again "I-I wanted to practice, alone."

"You're there? Alone? Right now?"

Her mother never liked when she wandered alone, which, Edna had always thought, was an irony because Edna was always alone. She didn't care about being alone, though. It allowed her to do all the things she had to do to make her mother happy.

Honestly, she didn't really want to go to the movies with Scarlet, sitting inside a movie theater for two hours eating popcorn was a waste of time. Still, she had promised her friend to go with her and watch the movie that had just came out, Ghostbusters. She couldn't give herself the luxury of losing her friend (because it wouldn't be the first time she would let her down), she didn't have another one. Maybe, it was for the best, Edna thought at times. Maybe friends were a waste of time. If anyone wanted to become a successful woman, just like her mother, they had to prepare just like her mother, just like Edna was preparing herself.

"I-I wanted to practice, before the other girls arrive..." Edna answered, stuttering. "I wanted the dance room all for myself"

It wasn't true.

Edna took off her sunglasses and heard her mother sight. It was no surprise she didn't have any friends. Nobody liked her.

First, she was a nerd, a know it all, and her looks shown it off. She was the daughter of the most important woman in England, after the Queen, of course. But she always had her nose stuck inside a book, she lacked social skills. Well, she had skills, but Edna had always been taught to be direct, honest, and carry out the things she was asked in the most efficient and effective way. People, girls especially, have never liked that. In their eyes, Edna was her mother's robot, and she seemed to like it, which was worse.

"You can't never be successful in life if you keep cowering every time a girl tells you that you don't look good on your glasses" Her mother scolded her.

The glasses were not the problem now. Edna looked down at herself and sighted. She couldn't tell her mother the new gossip going around the ballet girls.

"Listen, you are a professional." Now her mother had her full attention on Edna. It seemed it only happened when her mother had something to complain about from her. "You've been in this as soon as you started walking. Those girls have nothing on you. You are a professional." She repeated. "Behave like one." She ended.

Edna's lips started trembling. Soon all of her was trembling trying to hold on her feelings.

"Okay" She answered.

They stood there in the line for a few seconds, in silence.

"What about this..." Her mother started, though her voice was starting to sound in parts" I'm at Paris... I'll be back at... at night...since you have your free day...all day in the Academy"

It was early in the morning and Edna was hoping to go to her house to rest for a while and come back after the students of the Academy left at night. But her mother wanted her to stay there all day...

"...what if I pick...see your routine and decide... tomorrow with Scarlet or" She paused "if you'll stay all Sunday... practicing to improve your..."

Edna's face contorted in vulnerability.

"Okay" she answered. Edna never knew if her mother ended the call or if the line just crashed.


She had been practicing all day, her feet were hurting and so did her arms.

The Academy students have finally started leaving. She had survived another day in hell, with all the gossiping and the harsh stares. She was taking a break, sitting on the floor with her sketchbook and her colors lying on the floor by her, drinking water and eating a chocolate trying to hide it from view, as she drew a set of tiaras and crowns in colors like red or green or bronze. Her hair was finally free from the tight bun it had been in all day. Her long, wavy hair, fell down her back in a cascade of silky locks.

God, how she wanted to cut it all off. It only attracted more eyes. Why couldn't she just keep it short like her mother's?

She saw Elena's gang at the other side of the room, they were there, looking at her. And she was trying to hid under the pages of her long sketchbook.

"Edna!" A voice called her.

Everyone in the room turned at the entrance of the room. There, in all her glory, was standing Mrs. Taylor-Moore.

Even in her fifties, her face was so well taken care of, you could barely find wrinkles in her face. Her body, was so thin and fit, that every girl in the room wished to look like that in their fifties. Her hair had always been over her shoulders, since Edna could remember. And even if the moon rose high in the sky, she wore her black sunglasses and bloody red lipstick. More than a business woman, Mrs. Taylor-Moore looked like a film star.

Edna put everything inside her bag as soon as she could, dropping a color here and there. When she walked to her mother, the woman was talking to the CEO of the Manchester's Royal Academy of Ballet.

"Yes, I like what you've done with the place..." Her mother was saying. Being a co-owner of the place of course she'd have something to say. "We can talk business later, I just came to pick-up my daughter, darling." She said with the sweet voice she used when talking in public "Thank you, take care."

No wonder, people adored her. The CEO would never walk out of her office, but only when important people arrived. And, well, Edna's mother was at the very top. The sunglasses turn at her and Edna knew she had her mother's attention.

"Go ahead. I want to go home, sweetie"

"Yes" Edna took her tick hair band out of her back. She had been waiting for this all day. "Just let me put on a hair..."

"Edna, if you haven't finished with your practice, you shouldn't get too comfortable."

Her mother was a good mother, but she had authority and presence and whenever she talked all the room would hear. It just made it all more embarrassing for Edna.

"Sorry, mother" She murmured trying not to catch more attention.

"I don't have to keep repeating myself, sweetie." The woman said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Edna decided to let her hair down. It would be a nuisance, but she had danced before like that. She walked in the middle of the floor and turned to the piano, where Gatleen, the olive- skinned prodigy piano guy who was currently visiting England in his world tour, was. She nodded at him, and he arranged himself to start playing. He already knew the piece she was dancing, after hearing her practicing all day.

And so, she started.

She had never really liked ballet, but she was good. Really good.

The skirt of her black dress, as long as her shin, flew around her with every pirouette and arabesque she did.

The kitri's grand jeté was perfection.

The piece had reached the adagio stage, where she could take a breath, still she couldn't relax for she had to be even more concentrated as she slowly moved across the floor. She felt her ankle throb, but she hold it in. She was halfway there.

Croisé.

Attitude.

Adagio.

Adagio.

She gulped.

Adagio.

She lowered to the floor.

Adagio.

Her arms stretched to the sky. In a second she was dancing again across the floor.

Allegro.

Allegro.

Seven double and one triple fouettés.

Faster.

Faster.

Her ankles failed her...

But somehow, she managed to finish it.

The room was silent.

Rufina Liukin, champion of the Prix de Lausanne when she was only 15 years old, and instructor of the Manchester's Royal Academy of Ballet was the first to talk.

"It-it wasn't bad" She stuttered standing next to Mrs. Taylor-Moore.

Edna noticed, even the famous Rufina Liukin would speak up as if she was asking for permission to do it, near Edna's mother.

"It was bad" Her mother replied taking her sunglasses off. "And what was that at the end?"

She didn't sound angry. She sounded confused, still everyone in the dance room didn't know personally her mother. They didn't know she was just startled. In their eyes she was humiliating Edna.

"I thought you had been practicing all day. I don't know..." She was perplexed.

Edna could feel the dozens of eyes on her.

"My ankles..." Edna tried to explain. "I think I over..."

"You've been overstretching and rolling them too much. I know, I saw it." Her mother argued "I am not a ballet dancer yet I know you're not supposed to do that" She shook her head, her voice coming each time more acute. "Edna, are you or are you not a professional?"

It had started to become too personal, that even the pianist guy had decided to walk out of the room. It was just Rufina, Edna and her mother, then.

"I-I am" She answered holding in her tears. She sighted and turned around. "You must be tired mother, go to our home and rest..."

"And you?" Mrs. Taylor-Moore asked her, already knowing the answer.

"I'll stay... and practice" Edna answered still holding it in. "just for a few hours more. Then I'll go to rest and come back first thing tomorrow morning."

"Good," She couldn't see but she knew that her mother had just put on her sunglasses "that's what I wanted to hear"

Then she left the room.

"Edna?" Rufina asked her with worry.

"I'm okay, Rufina. I just need to practice some more. Thank you"

And then she was left alone, only then she relaxed.


Edna didn't last long in the practice room.

She tried to, but her ankles were killing her and everyone knows that athletes reach a point where all they have to do is rest. So, she walked through the halls, past the other practice room where younger ballerinas prepared, past the jazz department and the contemporary dance one. She walked down the stairs, but she didn't go to the main entrance of the building, no. She walked to the now closed practice room of pre-ballet for the littlest girls. The new room was in the second floor, so the original one wasn't used anymore.

She walked into the room, the light off, and there where white sheets covering old stuff. Edna remembered that place bigger, but then again, she had been 3 years old when she was there. Now she was about to turn 18, and yet she was still marveled by the great and ancient mirror standing in one of the walls. It was cracked at several parts and the years and dust had blurred the reflection, she noticed as she touched the cold surface and her fingertips got covered in dust.

But, what marveled her about the mirror, was the golden frame of it, adorned with flowers and structures which made it seem like the cover of a tree. In the middle of it, at the upper part there was a craving of a lion, looking back at her.

The sight of it had helped Edna pass through those hard first weeks when she had to enter into the discipline of ballet. Edna remembered the blurred memories. Now, she had returned but searching for a bit of comfort.

It wasn't as comforting as she had expected.

She turned around and rested her back on the mirror, not caring if her ballet dress would get dusty, or if she would get dirty. During practice she had taken her glasses off, after everyone left she had put them on, and once again she was taking them off and putting them into her bag.

She closed her eyes and tried to meditate.

She had to work harder, she had to be the best, she had to put feeling in her dance; the technique mattered yes, but Rufina's problem with her was the lack of feeling in her dance.

She had to improve.

She had to...

But she never finished her mantra because she felt the mirror supporting her disappearing and then she was falling.


Back at last. After a year of waiting, they were finally back at last. Susan couldn't believe her eyes as she played around in the water, laughing, while Peter and Lucy kept throwing water at her. In the distance she saw Edmund smiling looking around him while pushing Peter, but suddenly stopping.

"Ed?" Susan called him "Ed!"

"What is it?" Peter asked him.

"Where're you supposed to be are?" He replied.

"Where do you think?" Peter thought it was obvious.

"Well, I don't remember any ruins in Narnia" He said.

All Pevensies stopped their games and turned at the green cliffs, where the ruins rested. Susan's eyes flickered down at the beach. There was something bothering her eye. It was something gold over the sand. She took a few steps in said direction, slowly, when panic raised on her chest.

"Edmund!" She yelled.

With difficulty because of the crystal water and the little waves of the sea, Edmund went to her in just a few seconds. His brother saw what she was seeing, and soon enough so were Peter and Lucy.

"D'you think that is..." Lucy never get to finish it, because her siblings were already racing to shore.

Susan's heart stopped for a moment when she realized that the golden she had seen over the body of the girl lying unconscious on the sand was actually the sun's rays reflecting back at her on the golden hair of the girl.

Her younger brother was the first one to reach her and he turned the body around, with a bit of force.

"Carful, Edmund! She's unconscious." Susan scolded him.

"Sorry, I" He said looking at the girl's face "just thought it would be her." He finished.

It wasn't her, Susan noticed. First of all, this girl was blonde, and too skinny, you could even see her collarbones. Also, that, she was dressed in a black dress that was showing off all of her arms, and part of her back and chest area. Susan saw she was carrying a bag with her and in her feet she was wearing a type of shoes she had only seen in a classical dance and music recital, on tv, and books.

"A ballerina!" Susan shrieked "How did she end up here?"

They all took a look at their setting. Ruins? A ballerina? Where they really in Narnia?

"Give her some space" Peter demanded since everyone was around her, she probably couldn't even breathe. He leaned down to check her. "I think she drank water."

He then proceeded to give the girl CPR, just as he had learned on his previous life...and at high school.

The girl started coughing and gasped. Susan helped her turn around so she could spit it out. She was heavily breathing and it seemed she had a headache, because of the way she rested her head on her hand.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked her.

Edmund and Peter had moved a step away out of respect and to not scare the girl.

"Where am I?" The blonde girl whined as she slowly sat up.

Edmund and Peter look at each other. Susan knew what they were both thinking. Where were they?

"We want to know too" Peter answered her. "We were about to find out?" He extended a hand at her. "Would you like to stay here under the sun or do you want to come with us?"

The girl opened fluttered her eyes, rubbing them, mostly because of the salt on them. Once she seemed to see properly again, and noticed her bag, she opened it, took a pair of glasses out and put them on. The ballerina looked at Edmund, then at Peter, a double look at Lucy, then at Susan and back to Peter's hand.

Susan had noticed the clear blue eyes the girl had, almost as clear as Narnia's sky in a sunny day, like hers. Susan had hoped to see whiteish grey eyes, but she only found blue, behind a wall of glass.

Finally, the ballerina girl gave Lucy one last look, frowning, before taking Peter's hand.


And so, Part 2 begins. Gosh! Can you believe I wrote all of part 2 in like 2 days? And just for the record, I don't know a thing about many topics I talk about through the story(ballet, for example) yet, I made A LOT of research for this story. Seriously, every single thingy in the story has a meaning or reason to be, so, yeah I had a lot of research to do, but I loved it!