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When Harrowhark Nonagesimus was ten years old, she stole her mother’s credit card. Being proficient in lying and sneaking since the day she learned to form sentences, this wasn’t hard to do. Neither was logging onto the computer in her parents’ office and buying herself a pair of pointe shoes, the classical pink satin kind, of her very own. When they arrived in the mail, she snuck the box into the house in her school bag and proceeded to bend them until the glue in their soles cracked and they could be worn to fit her own arches when she pointed her toes, like she’d seen the older girls who didn’t like her at the studio do. She put on a pair of thick socks and held onto her book shelf and practiced relevés en pointe, up and down and up again, despite the incessant wobbling of her ankles and her full body weight crushing her toes. She did this every day, after ballet class, in secret, until she felt blisters form and break and bleed. Her shoes had little splotches of red on the inside lining, and no ribbons. The promise of being physiologically mature enough to take pointe classes in a few years’ time wasn't enough for her. Now, she was ahead of the game, even if her feet were probably a little bit fucked up forever. That just meant she was dedicated. A month into these secret practice sessions, her parents died. So, she practiced harder, and felt better for it. Lift, Harrow; find your control. Échappé, pas de borré, passé en relevée until her lower body screamed to the point where she could no longer ignore it. Do it again tomorrow. By eleven, she had mastered triple pirouettes en pointe. By thirteen, she was doing them in class. The girls who didn’t like her trembled and fell, twiggish fawn-legs knocking in at the knees, and Harrow silently mocked them in her own head with her newfound sense of gloating superiority— she had not really been a natural, but she looked it. — Alecto had not been as much a role model to a very young and motivated Harrowhark than she was her muse. Subsequently, she had not been as much her muse than she was her secret, undying (read: unhealthy) obsession. World renowned, multi-award-winning, beloved alum of the company and principal dancer Alecto was not a real person to Harrowhark Nonagesimus. She was a god. She was a supernova. She was the Giselle and Odette and Odile of Harrow’s most girlishly wishful dreams, and to watch her dance was pure magic. Well, Harrow had never actually watched her dance. Not in person, anyways. The first of her Alecto encounters had been with the framed poster of her in the studio foyer, advertising her run starring in Swan Lake. Someone had hung it up when Harrow was eight years old, and from that day onward, it had entranced her. Alecto was tall and imposing, intimidatingly strong and lean, every line of her body cleanly posed in a sharp, painstaking arabesque that looked so effortless that Harrow always imagined her floating, like the stage itself was that misty, glass lake. When she’d finally gotten the opportunity to ask, one of her teachers had acidly told her that Alecto was just barely twenty years old, and that if Harrow wanted to make it in this industry like her, she had better get serious right now, or else it was utterly hopeless. Then, she’d told her that the bun at the nape of her neck was off-center, and, with a reproachful tch, turned around and walked away. This had happened when Harrow was nine. She had no choice to get serious, in any case. Even if she hadn’t wanted to (which she did, very very badly), ballet was all she had. Her parents’ deaths had put her in the care of her god-awful great aunts, and she practically lived in the studio, only returning to the musty bedroom she’d been allotted to eat and sleep, though she did not do much of either. So, in retaliation against the cards she’d been dealt, at fourteen, Harrow had become the company’s long-standing Clara. Come Nutcracker season, she would don her cotton nightgown, but she would dance like the Sugar Plum Fairy. Specifically, Alecto’s Sugar Plum Fairy, the one in the videos from years gone by that Harrow watched night after night, burning every detail of the performance into her retinas to use later, to mimic and embody. Gorgeous, precise, light as a feather. Razor-sharp technique. Flawless. Not flawless enough, though. Another teacher of hers had always said, “You are your own worst critic, miss girl”, but the truth was that Harrow wanted someone to say something worse than all of the things she’d told herself, and maybe that would whip her into shape just a touch extra, to push her beyond what she already knew she was capable of. She wanted Alecto status. She wanted endurance and strength and awe-inspiring perfection. The only thing she didn’t want was to replace Alecto, because Alecto was untouchable.Of course, there were other dancers vying for similar futures. She wasn’t scared of any of them; she saw their downfalls laid out for her like upturned cards on a table. Palamedes Sextus was a stickler for technique, but he did not have flat turnout, which was an obvious liability. Camilla Hect, attached to his hip, had more potential than she recognized, even if her turns fell flat at times, which would doom her as well. Ianthe Tridentarius did not take lessons seriously because she thought she was already leagues above everyone else, and her ditz of a sister, Coronabeth, was too busy admiring her own reflection to really focus. And Gideon Nav, well, you had to drag her by the nape of the neck to the barre in the first place, and she’d come kicking and screaming. But once she was there, she was good. Quite good. Harrowhark did not consider anybody else in her cohort to be enough of a threat to take note of.Gideon had been in ballet classes with Harrow since they were toddlers. From the very beginning, everybody knew that Gideon was different, and that her relationship with ballet was a complicated one. When they reached their early teens, Gideon refused to dance on pointe, and fought to be allowed to learn the men’s parts in variations. Harrow despised the fuss she always made, but when she got her way, she was a marvelous dancer. Harrow hated this even more. And yet, when they were fifteen, and Gideon had let it slip to Harrow while the class was stretching that she planned to quit ballet once and for all, Harrow had been furious. For years to come, she would not understand why, but the anger she felt towards Gideon for even entertaining the idea was immeasurable. Gideon couldn’t just leave. It would be outrageous for her to leave, and especially now that the group would soon be attending their first real, high-stakes auditions. It would be a disgrace to leave the company in the dust— not that Harrow wasn’t obviously more advanced and on the way to principal dancer status (probably, hopefully). It just didn’t make sense. Gideon never did follow through on it, though; she’d stayed for some inexplicable reason after waffling on it for months, and once Harrow realized that she was staying, the relief she felt was immeasurable. However, it was quickly followed by the realization that now she was more stuck with Gideon than she ever could have imagined. They were going to be entering the big leagues together. —Harrowhark Nonagesimus, now eighteen, sits in her dressing room chair on a flurrying December evening, sweeping candy-pink blush across the apples of her hollow cheeks. She hates to wear makeup, but stage makeup is a completely different thing. This will be her sixth year dancing Clara in this year’s production of The Nutcracker, and god willing, it will be her last. With the former Sugar Plum Fairy and a cohort of other similarly experienced dancers moving on from the company to a real theatre– (Harrow envies them, but whatever) – every dancer and their mother had been abuzz with gossip. Naturally, theories had arisen over the past year surrounding who would be chosen to take her place, but Harrow knows that it will be her. She’d been sick of Clara for years now, beloved as she had always been dancing her part. It all had started to feel juvenile, the flat shoes in the first act, the frilly costumes with the bloomers and the ribbons, the childlike wonder. And in any case, Sugar Plum is a far more respected role; one that she not only wants, but needs desperately. She sees a figure approach in the mirror, her fuschia bell-shaped tutu catching her attention instantly. Harrow sighs, she’d always thought of the flower corps as a bit of an eyesore.“Miss Cla-raaa,” says Ianthe, all sing-songy, her pointe shoes thudding as she saunters into the dressing room. “More like perma-Clara.” Harrow doesn’t answer, only switches to a smaller makeup brush to swirl the blush onto the tip of her nose. Maybe she needs more concealer; her eye bags don’t exactly make her a very convincing angelic preteen anymore, even with her height working in her favor. When Ianthe plants her elbows on the back of Harrow’s chair and cradles her chin in her hands, Harrow sighs. “What do you want, Tridentarius?”“Only to tell you how darling you look,” Ianthe says. When Harrow rolls her eyes, already frustrated with her bullshit, she amends: “And to pass along some news. I’m not supposed to tell anybody yet, but I thought I’d let you in on my dirty little secret. As a treat. It is of great interest to you.” Harrow watches her own brows furrow in the mirror, then looks at Ianthe’s reflection. Her washed-out blonde hair is sprayed flat against her head and swept back into a Balanchine bun, and her angular features are dusted with a fine shimmer, even her false lashes. Her glossy, magenta-painted mouth is smirking, like she can’t hold her tongue any longer. She looks like a cunt, and not in the way that she might consider a compliment. Harrow finally says after a beat, “Don’t waste my time.” “You’re so mean to me, Harry.” Ianthe sighs, then reaches just around the sides of Harrow’s head to tuck a couple of loose tendrils of her hair behind her ears (Clara wears her hair down). Harrow stiffens. “I’ve heard some whispers, so I talked to Augustine, and he says they’ve all already made up their minds.” They both watch Ianthe’s hands in the mirror, primping and fluffing Harrow’s long black hair, her fingers combing through the ends. It’s then that Harrow knows what’s coming, the truth dawning on her like a shadow, menacing, filling her with dread. Ianthe’s smile widens, and she leans down to whisper into Harrow’s ear. She almost doesn’t want her to say it. “I’m the new Sugar Plum Fairy.” It doesn’t hit Harrow like a battering ram like she thought it might; it’s more like what she imagines drowning to feel like. It’s claustrophobic, she’s stuck in this fucking cotton nightgown, maybe forever. When Harrow doesn’t say anything, Ianthe continues. “He said it really is a tragedy that Collette’s leaving us, but that we’ve really been needing a fresh face in a major role as of late. He says I have potential, and that I’m expressive , and all that sucky bullshit. He really is too much, but I look forward to it.” She smiles at the mirror, and Harrow can’t tell which of their reflections it’s directed towards. She knows that the kind thing to say would be congratulations, but Harrowhark is not a very kind girl. “Yes, well,” she says, plucking Ianthe’s hands from where they’ve come to rest on her shoulders, “Plenty can change in a year.” Ianthe’s smile does not falter in the slightest, but something shifts in her eyes; they grow a thin rime of ice. Harrow can see it, that tiny flip from smugness to contempt in her face, though on Ianthe, the two expressions are almost identical. Harrow takes grim satisfaction in the knowledge that she’s pissed her off. After a silence that feels ten whole minutes long, Ianthe bends and, to Harrow’s utter shock, plants a kiss squarely upon her cheek, with a softness that she never could have anticipated. “Best of luck tonight, Clara,” she says in closure, and turns to leave. Harrow does not wish her good luck in return, only stares at herself in the mirror when she’s alone again, grits her teeth, and scrambles for a makeup wipe to scrub away the blurry magenta impression of Ianthe’s lips on her cheek.