Slow Moon Rising by Eva Marie Everson

change this. I decide I will impress them with my abilities. I will do something so spectacular they will stop in their merriment and, instead, stare in wonder. I place my feet in second position, bend my left knee, and thrust my right leg out for the fouetté en tournant. Each turn is executed en pointe and with precision. I whip around once, twice . . . five times. And the crowd, I can hear them now, they are no longer laughing. They are mesmerized.
    Someone calls out, “Grand jeté!” which I know I can do. Beautifully, in fact. I’ve been told by Letya I perform the grand jeté as no one she has ever seen.
    I attempt to leap upward and extend my legs, as though my body is elevated by wire from the rafters. But, for some unknown reason, I cannot stop the fouetté en tournant. Try hard as I may, I cannot. Eighteen, nineteen . . . like a windup ballerina on a little girl’s music box. The faces of the crowd whip past me . . . again and again and again.
    And the laughter resumes.
    Then I hear Mom crying out, “If you want to stop turning, you must forgive him!”
    I am somehow able to stop spinning. I scan the audience to find her. She is sitting front row. Center seat. She is dressed in a pale pink Kasper suit, the kind she always wore to meetings and to church.
    â€œMom!” I shout to her, running as far as I can without falling off the stage.
    She opens her mouth to respond, but her words do not come. Instead, blood gushes from her O-shaped mouth. Her eyes roll back, her head lolls.
    â€œMom!” I shout again.
    She straightens, as though she is now well enough to speak. Her words are direct, not haunting. Not strangled or confused. “Forgive him, Ami,” she says, looking at me. “Forgive him as I have forgiven him.”
    I fall to my knees, press my face into the cupped palms of my hands. “Mom, don’t tell me another word,” I beg. “I don’t want to know . . . I don’t want to know!”
    â€œAmi! Sweetheart! Ami!”
    I bolted upright in my bed and into my father’s arms. “No!”
    Dad’s arms came around, squeezing. His voice was, as always, strong and protective. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
    I gasped as my eyes flew open. Anise stood at the doorway to my bedroom, looping the top button of a baby-blue Eileen West peignoir set. Her hair—thick and mussed—swirled around her shoulders. Even as I struggled to leave the world of sleep and enter my reality, I was struck by the thought it was understandable that my father fell in love with her. She was perfection.
    â€œIs she all right?” Anise asked Dad. I thought it interesting that she asked him and not me.
    Dad looked into my eyes. “Having a bad dream, sweetheart?”
    I nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    â€œDo you want to talk about it?” he asked.
    Anise turned from the doorway. “I’ll get you some water, Ami.” From my bed I could see her padding down the staircase.
    Dad rubbed my arms as though he thought I was cold. “You’re okay now. Want to talk about it?”
    I did but I didn’t. I wanted to tell him about my dream. About Mom asking me to forgive him, just as she had donethat awful night. I wanted to ask him about her accusations. But I could not because . . . because what if they were true?
    â€œI’m okay.” I smiled at him. “Silly dream brought on by too much practice, I think.” But my heart hammered beneath one of my father’s oversized tees I’d turned into pajamas. Like Mom sometimes did.
    He brushed hair away from my face, kissed my forehead. “Well, your old dad is here now. If there’s a dragon I need to slay, you just let me know. I’ll go get my sword and send him to his death.”
    I giggled. “My knight in shining armor.” With a dad who said things like this, surely Mom had been wrong.
    I looked