Shoot the Messenger

Hi, this is Kaya. I'm not sure how to preface this story, so I'm just going to jump right in.

We made a big mistake. And now we're trying to figure out how we can fix it... and if we can.

Okay, that's actually too far ahead of myself. I'm going to backtrack a little. As Fiona said in the last post, Nutcracker is over, and we're really happy with how it went. It was a lot of fun, but totally exhausting at the same time. We're ready for a vacation. Today in the late afternoon/evening, our dance school had our annual holiday party for everyone, whether or not they were in Nutcracker. Then very early tomorrow (like 4 a.m.) I'm headed to the airport to board a plane to start on my way to Idaho for Christmas, and some of the other girls are also headed different directions too.

We were anticipating a pretty crazy couple of days. We had no idea.

Fiona and I were worried today at the party because Marie-Grace and Cécile didn't show up. They'd said they were going to be late - they couldn't come till the sun set - but they planned to be there. We didn't hear anything to indicate that had changed, so it made us nervous when even by the end, they never made it.

I suggested that on our way home, Fiona and I could stop by their house and make sure they were okay. What we didn't bank on was that we haven't talked to them about the specifics of their living arrangements since we found out they're vampires... so before, they might not have told us the truth for the sake of safety. We walked up the driveway, and noticed that the abandoned house next door must have burned down recently. It still smelled like charring and smoke. I'm not sure why that made me feel nervous, but I couldn't help it. We knocked on the door - and a very polite woman told us that no one named Cécile or Marie-Grace lived there, and she didn't know them.

Fiona and I both glanced over at the burned shell of the abandoned house. I hastily thanked the woman, and we hurried away. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, because I had a feeling I knew where the girls really live. Or lived... because there was hardly anything left. Just a bunch of debris on the ground, and a few charred standing beams.

I hoped that I was wrong. That I was just being dramatic. I mean, what were the chances we'd guessed right? Then I saw something purple and soft hooked on the back fence that was far enough away from the house that it was still standing. I carefully picked my way through the wreckage, and took it down. It was a lilac-coloured shawl, one we've seen Cécile and Marie-Grace both wear to ballet sometimes.

This burnt-out shell of a house was where they'd been living. And now they're gone.

I took the shawl with me, and we walked home in silence. When we got there, I told Inna what we had found. That's when, together, we realized our mistake.

When we got the warning about The Elders - the powerful old vampires who are making our lives difficult - we thought the danger was mainly to Tabitha, Clare, and Inna, so those were the people we were focused on protecting. We didn't even consider the fact that the Elders might shoot the messenger they'd used to deliver the warning.

We're pretty sure that's what happened, though. They haven't found Tabitha and Clare, and although they know where Inna is, in spite of their threats she's pretty well-guarded. They might manage to overpower our group, but it wouldn't be an easy job. They'd have a big fight on their hands.

But... they also couldn't go too long without doing anything at all, because it would make them look weak. So they went for the most exposed target, even if that target was peripheral at most to their goals.

We blame ourselves. It never even occurred to us that Cécile and Marie-Grace were in danger. If we had known, we would have insisted on bringing them here so we could protect them. We didn't realize they were living in some abandoned house, probably all by themselves. We would have helped. Now it's too late.

We don't know for sure that they're dead. They might be. I hate to say that, and the idea makes me sad and sick, but if they were in the house at the time of the fire, even a vampire wouldn't have survived. Especially if they'd already been staked or something. It's also possible... and I hope this is true... that the Elders took them away somewhere, or they managed to escape and run away.

The family members who are staying here are going to keep looking for them. Those of us who were supposed to leave are still going; we don't want to arouse more suspicion, and there's not much we can do at this point anyway.

I really hope we find out some good news. At the moment, all our hearts are pretty heavy.

Love,
Kaya

Performance Notes

Hi, this is Fiona. We're really tired, so this is going to be short. We'll write a longer entry tomorrow.

Tonight was the last night of Nutcracker! It's been an awesome but busy couple of weeks. I'm sort of sad that it's over, but sort of happy, and I'm really proud of us. Kaya did a great job, and the teachers seem proud of me, too. It was fun to be Clara, and Kaya switched between all her roles like it was nothing. All in all, it went really well. The audiences seemed to enjoy it. People clapped. Our family came to see it a couple of times and brought us flowers.

On Friday, Bree's drama club had their final performance too. Bree had planned to be backstage, because she likes the tech stuff rather than acting on stage, and at the last minute she got pulled into being the replacement stage manager! She was really nervous, but it went great. The show was a variety of holiday songs, skits, and sketches, and it was really fun. Kaya didn't get to go because of Nutcracker, but my cast wasn't on stage that night, so I got to see it. All the kids did a great job, and Bree did really well organizing it all. She's been grinning ear to ear ever since, because she made it work.

Now we're off to get some sleep! ;-)

Just wanted to fill you in about how our stuff has been going - very well! Pretty soon people are leaving for their holiday trips. For now, we're basking in successful performances. :-)

Love,

Fiona

Performance Time

Hi, this is Kaya. It's late, and I'm wired... because tonight was the second day of Nutcracker! So far I've done three performances, and Fiona has done two because her role is double-cast. It's going really well. We've had good crowds every time, and got a lot of applause. Our family came to opening night and brought us both roses, and they're going to come to the final performance too.

***

I should backtrack a little, though. Before Nutcracker, there was a difficult conversation to be had. A few days ago, Clare told us that our new friends are vampires. Obviously, we needed to bring up the subject with Cécile and Marie-Grace. What was less obvious was how. The girls all thought I should be the one to talk to them, because Fiona and I know them best from being in ballet together, and I'm more diplomatic than Fiona is.

Um... yay? Lucky me? I win the prize and get the bad job? ;-)

I couldn't exactly say no, though. I wasn't looking forward to the chat, but there were valid reasons for it. During the time between when we decided and when I saw Marie-Grace and Cécile, I practiced what I was going to say. I was trying to come up with something more eloquent than, "We know you're vampires, but it's all good." The others didn't have any brilliant ideas either.

On Thursday, on the way to final dress rehearsal, I crossed paths with Cécile and Marie-Grace as I walked from my school to the theatre. I think the two girls could tell that I had something on my mind, because they followed me as I went into a side-street where we wouldn't be overheard. I took a deep breath and said...

"We know you're vampires, but it's all good!" (I told you I couldn't think of anything better! :-P)

Cécile and Marie-Grace exchanged a worried look.

"Sorry we didn't tell you," Marie-Grace said sheepishly. "We didn't know how to."

"Didn't you realize we had a vampire in the basement?" I asked. "She could tell you were upstairs."

Cécile replied, "We could tell there was a vampire, but we thought she lived with your random neighbours rather than your family, and either way, we didn't know why she was there. If she was a family member, or a prisoner, or if someone was about to stake her and set her corpse on fire, or... what."

Yeah, it might have been a good idea to mention to them at some point that the Roses live in a separate house. Oops! They've only ever seen Summer and Kiwi either at the Green house or out and about somewhere else. No wonder Cécile and Marie-Grace were confused.

"She's a family member," I quickly clarified. "Not the other stuff."

"We wanted to find out more," Cécile explained. "So we stayed nearby to try to find out."

Hastily, Marie-Grace added, "But we did really want to be your friends too. We like you."

"I know," I replied. We've had a lot of fun together, so I wasn't really worried about that. "Are you... really old vampires?"

Cécile nodded. "Yes. We're really from New Orleans, but it was... a long time ago. We were turned during a Yellow Fever epidemic. With so many deaths, no one saw anything amiss in two girls suddenly disappearing."

Marie-Grace nervously asked, "So what happens now?"

I shrugged. "Nothing changes. I just wanted you to know we knew, so you don't have to worry about keeping it a secret."

"You girls still want to be our friends?"

"Of course we do," I assured them with a grin.

"There's danger," Cécile told me bluntly. Then she clarified, "Not from us. We wouldn't hurt you. We're old vampires, and we've been working on self-control for a long time. But... others. There are dangerous vampires in this town, much older and more powerful than we are - and they're trying to 'cleanse' the city of those they consider a threat to their way of life. Which very well may include the two of us."

"Do you know who? Or why?" I asked, with a sinking feeling. If there was risk of these ancient vampires going after our friends, Tabitha and Clare are probably in danger too.

They both shook their heads, and Cécile said, "We've been trying to stay out of their way. It's dangerous enough to keep going to ballet, but... we have to keep living our lives. We can't figure out a way to snoop around without drawing their attention. And their fire."

I knew this 'fire' could be literal. Of the 'set on fire' kind, like the bad vampires who were killed. Typical of the vampire legends, too.

"We'll help you," I promised. Then I linked arms with each of the girls, and we walked to ballet rehearsal. I let myself sense their feelings... and sensed relief and friendliness.

Good. That's what we like.

***

Life goes on, and we're dancing in Nutcracker now. People clap, and dangerous things seem far away. I hope it stays that way for awhile. Either way, though, family protects each other... and new friends protect each other, now, too.

Love,
Kaya

An awkward (but still fun) visit

Hi, blog friends. This is Kaya. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment on another post, our new friends came to visit us after tonight's Nutcracker rehearsal. It's easy to have people over after dance because our house is only about two blocks away from the dance school, so we just walked here after practice ended. It's getting dark here by late-afternoon this time of year, but it's still a pretty safe walk, especially at such a short distance.

Cécile and Marie-Grace seemed happy to visit, although they were a little shy. I think they don't get invited to people's houses very often. Unfortunately, as soon as I turned my key in the lock and let them in, Tabitha started freaking out. She's used to the family coming and going, but we weren't sure how she was going to handle a guest.

It was even worse than Halloween. Tabitha's room is in the basement of the Rose house, but we live in row houses so we only have interior walls between us. Cécile and Marie-Grace heard everything... including Tabitha ripping her bed apart and throwing pieces of it at the wall. They obviously weren't quite sure what to do.

I wasn't sure either, honestly. I'm used to Tabitha, but Tabs doesn't usually cross paths with "civilians." Was I supposed to joke about it? Explain? (Which would have to be a lie. I can't tell our guests, "Oh, that's just one of our vampires.") Should I apologize? Pretend it wasn't happening?

I went for a brief vague apology, followed by pretending it wasn't happening. Fiona followed my lead, but she kept glancing anxiously at the wall that separates the two houses, as if she was afraid Tabitha was going to burst through at any second. I was... not unconcerned about that possibility, too. Clare was out hunting, so at least we didn't have two of them to worry about. Since Clare is more used to being a vampire, she's in better control and has more options for that kind of stuff; we can't let Tabitha hunt alone in the city, but Clare can control herself well enough to stick to rats instead of humans.

Weirdness aside, we actually had a fun time. Cécile and Marie-Grace said they'd already eaten, and apparently they have a bunch of food allergies, so they didn't want anything to eat, but we all had some herbal tea. We talked about dance, and the places we've visited, and what their lives were like in New Orleans. They didn't say anything about their family, though, so I'm not really sure who they live with. When it was time for them to go, they walked home, so I'm not even positive where they live... although they did mention what street, and it's not far from here.

By the time we had finished our tea, some of my other sisters had joined us, and we played Scrabble and listened to music. (Cécile won the game.) Marie-Grace taught us some old-fashioned ballroom dance steps she had learned back in New Orleans. Not all of my sisters are very wonderful dancers - I thought Kirsten was going to sprain something - but we had a good laugh and it was a lot of fun.

Finally it got late for a school night, and Marie-Grace and Cécile had to say goodnight. (Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, so tomorrow is just a regular school Thursday for us.) It was a fun time, in spite of the weirdness with Tabitha.

Speaking of Tabitha, she totally destroyed her room - especially her bed, which is now in small pieces. At this point, she's being nonverbal again, although she stopped being aggressive once the girls left. Inna says Tabitha will snap out of it; actually Inna thinks Tabitha is over whatever happened, and is just being silent because she's too embarrassed to talk about it. I hope she doesn't feel too bad. I like it better when Tabitha is happy, and it's not her fault she's still struggling with being a vampire.

The weather probably didn't help. We're supposed to get a big snowstorm tomorrow. (I wonder if we'll get a little "holiday" from school after all?) Can vampires sense the weather like wild animals can? It's not a very flattering comparison, but I should ask Clare anyway. It would be interesting to know.

Oh! I also got another letter from my penpal in Nunvavut today. I found out she's a foster kid like I was; I wonder if they matched us up on purpose because of that. She told me more about her school and her activities, and it turns out she likes dance also. She also likes animals. I'm going to write her back about Nutcracker.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers who celebrate it, and Happy Thursday to the rest! :-)

Love,
Kaya

P.S. We've decided to use our little cartoons of ourselves in posts we write so it's easier for our readers to remember which one of us is talking. Hopefully it won't be confusing! Group posts won't have a picture, but individual posts will.

P.P.S. Happy Birthday, Inky! :-)

Practice makes... new friends?

Hi, this is Kaya again - three posts in a row from me, you guys will be so sick of it. :-P

I'm writing to update you again because the biggest new thing going on right now is Nutcracker rehearsals. Other than that, life is pretty normal. Well, at least our normal, which includes vampires and shapeshifters and stuff. ;-)

School is going okay for all of us. It's a pretty busy time of year, because the teachers want to get stuff done before the holidays, and we have a lot of extra activities. Speaking of those extra activities, Bree's drama club volunteered to do backstage work for Nutcracker! So now a third Green is involved; Bree has never danced in ballet in her life, but will be working on tech. At the moment, she thinks her job will be to operate the spotlight, which is very important to the show... but they're still deciding for sure what everyone's job will be.

Bree's drama club is also doing a holiday program of skits and songs at their school just before classes let out. She's doing tech for that, too. Bree has decided that she doesn't really like acting in front of people - although she enjoys the improv games they do at their practices - but she loves the backstage stuff. Personally, I think that's great, because it takes people doing both to make awesome shows happen. If everyone wanted the spotlight, plays and dance programs wouldn't be half as good, so I'm glad there are people like Bree who like to help with the unseen but equally important side.

Tabitha is doing well. She has good days and bad days, but the good days have been more frequent lately, and the bad days haven't been as bad. Maybe someday she'll feel comfortable blogging about it herself. For now, though, I'm pleased to tell you (with her permission) that things are better. Kiwi is feeling a lot better, too.

So... Nutcracker! That has been occupying a lot of my time and Fiona's in the past week. We've had rehearsals pretty much every day - although fortunately we have tomorrow off. It'll be nice to have a little break. Things are still pretty rough, but we still have a bit of time, and the teachers seem pleased with how it's going. We tried on our costumes today for the first time, and they look really nice, I think. Somehow, wearing the outfits we'll wear on stage (even without stage makeup and stuff) made it seem more real that we're actually going to be doing this thing in less than a month.

During rehearsals, we've made some new friends. That probably sounds weird since we're all from the same dance school, but our school is pretty big, so sometimes there are kids our paths don't cross with very much. For example, Fiona and the other Clara. They're at the same class level, but since that level has a lot of girls in it, it's divided into two sections so the teachers have a smaller group to teach at a time. Fiona and the other Clara, whose name is Cécile, are in different sections, so they have their normal classes on different days and don't really see each other. Nutcracker mixes that up a little, so we get to make friends with kids we wouldn't ordinarily get to know.

That's how Fiona and I ended up making some new friends. One of them is the girl I just mentioned, Cécile. She has a sister named Marie-Grace, who is also in the Nutcracker. I think maybe one or both of them might be adopted, because they look really different, but I didn't ask because I didn't want to pry. I thought it was neat that they have the same first names as the new American Girl characters - but they didn't seem to know who that was. Oh well.

Marie-Grace is playing Maria (Clara's best friend in the Party Scene) in Act One, and a Polichinelle in Act Two. At our dance school, it's a tradition that whoever plays Maria is also a Polichinelle, as another way the Kingdom of Sweets is like Clara's real life, although most of the audience never notices that.

The other girls at our practices were kind of ignoring Cécile and Marie-Grace, and whispering about them that they're weird. They wear really old-fashioned clothes and hairstyles, and they have a different accent. When the other girls tried to talk with them about the newest songs from the radio, or movies, or TV, Marie-Grace and Cécile were polite but clearly didn't know what the others were talking about, so the conversation kind of fizzled.

They don't go to the same school as anyone else from the group does. That's really not as unusual as it sounds... there are a lot of schools in the metro area, both public and private, and some kids are homeschooled or do co-op like I do... but it means yet one more thing they don't have in common with anyone else, because they don't know the same people or take the same academic classes. Eventually the other girls just stopped paying any attention to them.

Fiona and I felt bad for them, so when we had a break in the rehearsal, we went and sat with them. They turned out to be really nice! They're also really smart. They may not watch television or listen to the radio, but they know all kinds of things about ballet and art and classical music, and they've traveled quite a bit. We've heard them speak fluently in both English and French. I asked if they were from France, and they said no - they're from New Orleans, and they also know Haitian Creole. Very cool! I didn't realize anyone else at our dance school was originally from the United States, besides some of the girls in our family.

I got teased a little for talking to them, but whatever. Cécile and Marie-Grace are much nicer than people who would make fun of someone for not being "cool" enough. I think it's neat that they dress differently and stuff. They have a unique style! Which is more than I can say for a lot of people.

Blakeney said they can come over for supper sometime after a rehearsal. I hope they say yes when we invite them. It's always fun to make new friends! That's a nice thing about Nutcracker, meeting new people. I hope we can keep being friends with them after Nutcracker is over.

Love,
Kaya

Nutcracker News

Hi, this is Kaya (with Fiona looking over my shoulder.) As I mentioned in the last post, today was a big day for us - the day our dance teachers assigned us roles for The Nutcracker. Now that we have our parts, rehearsals will kick into high gear, then we'll start performances in a little less than a month. Wow, what a whirlwind!

I got cast in several roles; this is normal for the pointe students at our school because there aren't as many of us. In Act One I'll be a Party Guest. Then I'll have plenty of time to change after my scene, but in Act Two I'll be in and out of Quick Change a lot! At the very start of Act Two, I'll be one of the three Sugar Plum Fairy Attendants, which is like a servant of the real Sugar Plum Fairy; not all productions have that role, but it's basically sort of setting the scene for the Kingdom of Sweets. Then I'm in the Candy Cane dance - that's what we do with the Russian music - and Waltz of the Flowers. I have the length of two other dances to change in between each of those, but still, I will be busy and I'm sure I'll always be in a hurry!

Then I have to change back into my Sugar Plum Fairy Attendant costume for curtain call for the evening performances. The daytime performances are shorter because they cut the Pas de Deux and the Cavalier's solo so it won't be as long for the kids who attend as a school fieldtrip, so for those I won't have time to change back. For evenings, they want me to try it, because that's considered my "main" role since it's a smaller group than my other dances. Madness!

The biggest news, though, actually comes from Fiona. Yes, little miss "I probably won't get a part, I'm not as good as the other girls, they've all been dancing longer than me, my teacher doesn't like me, etc." Apparently she was wrong about all this, because she got one of the biggest roles! ;-)

Fiona is one of the two girls who was cast as Clara! Woot! Our school double-casts for the younger kids, so that more people get a chance to perform, they don't get so tired, and they don't have to miss as much school. The two casts get the same number of performance days, and it's different from alternates; the alternate for Clara will only take over if Fiona or the other girl get too hurt or sick to perform. My roles aren't double-cast, so I'll be in all the shows, but on Cast B days I get to dance with my sister. We're both really excited! Fiona is so proud of herself and happy - as she should be.

There's one little fly in the ointment, though, and that is that the Clara understudy is not happy. She was just assuming she was going to get the role, and she's really upset that she got cast as an alternate. (Even though at the performances where she doesn't have to be an emergency Clara she'll still go on as a Polichinelle, so it's not like she won't be on stage in some capacity.) I think she's probably getting a lot of pressure at home about it, too, because her two older sisters both danced the role of Clara at her age, and her mother seems like one of those stage-mommy types. I feel bad for her in a way; it's no fun to be disappointed, and we were all hoping for good parts. I don't feel bad for her all the way, though, because she's being really nasty to Fiona and the other Clara about it. Both of the Claras joined the school in the past year, and the alternate is whispering to the other girls that they don't deserve it because they're new.

I was trying to cut her some slack because she was so miserable about it, but then I heard her tell her friend that Fiona is "crazy," and at that point I went and told her to stop it and grow up. Fiona has bipolar disorder, but she's not crazy and that has nothing to do with whether or not she can dance - which obviously she can, since she got the role.

The understudy backed off, but I'm worried she's going to try to spoil this for Fiona. Well, not if Big Sis Kaya has anything to say about it, she won't. ;-)

So Fiona and I are celebrating tonight, mean people aside. I think cookies and a silly dance movie are called for! :-)

Love,
Kaya