I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Jamison Shea
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Monster Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
We were desperate to be the girl who dies, always. Eager to show how
dolefully we danced, how prettily we perished, in every ballet, at every
audition. In every room was a chance to have our graceful suffering
acknowledged.
Today was no exception.
The clock ticked toward auditions for Giselle, and the hallway air was
thick with desperation, with hunger. Pale ballerinas swarmed the studio
windows, elbowing each other to get a better look at the demonstrating
soloists, the judges, the board of directors, and our instructors. People who
held our futures in their frowns got acquainted with the teachers who had
watched us both soar and plummet for eight years straight, six of which I
spent at the top of my class. They always told us that dancing meant sharing
a part of yourself with your audience—well, now we were ready to give
them everything. Once we crossed that threshold, none of us would come
out whole.
Take it, the palm prints on the glass pleaded. Have all of me, I’m
offering.
Fighting the urge to gawk at my executioners, I squeezed out of the
crowd. With our final year at the Ballet Academy of Paris drawing to a
close, every audition was more important than the last. Today, it was for
Giselle, our last production before graduating, and next, for the company,
the Paris Ballet, swirling in luxurious satin and tulle on one of the greatest
stages in the world. What we gave today mattered because it was all they’d
remember of us tomorrow. The girl who claimed the heroine became who
they craved in three months’ time as an apprentice.
So my shoes had to be perfect, because now wasn’t the time to
overcompensate for a dead pair, and that mattered more than analyzing any
judge. Madame Demaret, who taught for both the academy and the
company, had said during our very first pointe class, “The shoe is an
extension of your foot.” And the best shoes required a delicate balance—
rigid enough to prop you up but beaten into silence and the shape you
needed. Firm but still broken. And always beautiful.
Just like the perfect ballerina.
“Of course they brought Joséphine Moreau to show us how it’s done,”
Vanessa remarked loudly from the window, twisting the twinkling diamond
necklace at her throat. “As if we don’t get enough of her with Cinderella
posters all over the city.”
Keeping my head down, I focused on the pair of new pointe shoes in my
lap. The soft pink satin was still unblemished, the scored soles and darned
box not yet darkened from scuffs or worn away, fabric still neat on the sides
and back where I’d stitched elastic and silk ribbon. I’d started customizing
them the night before, working my nerves out in the crack and pop of the
vamp and shank, rapping on the floor and shutting the tip in doors to reach
that sweet spot.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB