Dancing on Air

Prologue

Eight-year-old Cora held her position until she felt her toes go numb and her insides shake. Only when Madame Celine tapped her cane twice did she finally lower her feet slowly and, most importantly, gracefully to the ground.

Bien, Madame Celine said in a low voice. We are done.

Cora knew that meant the older woman no longer wanted to work with her. Part of her was happy that she could go sit with the other girls, and part of her was upset at herself for not pleasing the woman who could decide the fate of her dancing career.

When she sat next to her friend Megan, she glanced out the window and held in a groan when she saw her mother standing just outside, watching her. Pam Thomas was… well, not all there.

Her mother had struggled with bipolar disorder her entire life. The first time that she had been admitted into Twin Valley, a state-run facility almost an hour from their home in Columbus, her mother had only been nine years old. One year older than Cora was now.

Every single day of her young life, Cora thought about what she would do if she became like her mother. She supposed it was why she focused so hard on her dancing. It kept her thoughts off what she would do if she started to lose her own mind.

Each time her mother had an episode, as her aunt Patty called them, Cora would be shuffled off to her aunt’s much nicer home. To be honest, she didn’t know why she ever returned to the run-down place her mother called home. No one took care of the place when her mother was gone.

Since her father had never been around, her aunt had always stepped in and taken Cora so that she wouldn’t be taken away by the state and put into foster care. At least she had her aunt, the only person in her life who acted like she cared at all.

It was actually her aunt who had first encouraged Cora to signed up for dance classes back when she was around four.

She wished she could just stay at her aunt Patty’s forever and ever. But her aunt always encouraged her to return home to her mother whenever she got out of the facility. Her mother had been in and out of the facility so many times over Cora’s life that she’d lost count. She would be gone for months at a time. Sometimes, even when she wasn’t locked away, her mother would go off and leave Cora with her aunt.

A few days ago, her mother had once more returned home from somewhere. Cora didn’t know if she’d been locked up this time or had just taken off. At this point, her mother was practically a complete stranger.

At least one thing was going right for Cora now. She had been accepted into a new dance school and had spent most of the past year living in a dorm room with other girls her age. The school was more than an hour away from her mother’s home, which was a huge relief because she knew it was a hassle for her mother to drive all the way up there each week to see her.

If all went well and she impressed Madame Celine, she’d be heading to New York soon, escaping her mother’s hold on her altogether.

It took almost half an hour for Madame Celine to call an end to the session. Afterward, she called three names, Cora’s being one of them.

She and the other two girls approached Madame Celine.

The three of you have been chosen to follow me to New York to the Broadway Art Center later this year, Madame Celine said. Cora held in a squeal. Of course you’ll need your legal guardian’s permission. Cora’s gut twisted as her heart dropped. Her eyes darted to the glass where her mother still stood like a statue, watching her with huge eyes. Tears threatened to surface in Cora’s matching eyes.

If it was up to her aunt Patty, Cora would definitely be heading to New York. But her mother was still her legal guardian, and there was no way her mother would sign off on her leaving the state.

Her mother was… clingy.

Madame Celine tapped her cane again, and the three of them rushed away to gather their things.

When Cora stepped out into the cold after changing into her sweats and jacket, her mother was waiting. It was snowing, and she was thankful her aunt had purchased a warmer coat for her.

What are you doing here? Cora asked, tossing her bag over her shoulder.

She was only eight, but Cora was a very mature eight. She often walked between the dance studio and her dorm all by herself.

I’m here to take you home. Your father will be returning soon, her mother said in a booming voice, as if she wanted the entire world to hear her. I’ve fixed everything. We’re finally going to be a family. Her mother’s smile spread, reminding Cora of the villain from a movie she’d watched with her friends recently.

Cora’s insides twisted and vibrated with fear as the thought that someday she might end up as unstable as her mother. It was why she never let anyone get too close to her. She’d seen firsthand what her mother’s illness had done to her and her aunt Patty. She was determined not to hurt anyone that much. Ever.

Chapter One

Hold it together, Cora told herself as her body froze in the position while she held her breath. This was the most important moment of her life. What happened now would either make her or send her down a totally different path once more.

She was just a few months past her eighteenth birthday, at her prime as far as dancers went. Nothing could hold her back now that she was officially an adult.

Focus, Cora told herself.

Then she noticed the woman standing just inside the studio doors.

Don’t look at her.

She tried very hard to stare straight past the woman’s shoulders.

With each spin, her mother’s face oddly became clearer and more in focus.

She felt her body waver and had to stop the pirouette early. Madame Louis clapped loudly and ended the session early.

Damn.

Her mother had messed up her life… again. While everyone else in the room was busy changing or gathering their things, Cora marched across the room, grabbed her mother’s arm, and pulled her out into the hallway.

What are you doing here? she hissed.

Why can’t I come to see you? Her mother responded much like a child would have.

Mother. She crossed her arms over her chest. You know you’re not supposed to interrupt my lessons.

Her mother’s eyes darted around, as she searched for an excuse.

When Cora was eight, her father, Paul Thomas, had moved back home full time. Since that time, her mother had been in and out of the facility a half dozen times.

Shortly after her father’s return, Cora moved into her school’s dorms full time and stopped returning home, except for two weeks each year during the holidays, when she had no choice. Normally, she’d stay with her aunt Patty, but after her aunt died in a car accident one winter, she’d been stuck returning to her parents’ place instead. At least with her father there, the old home had been improved and fixed up a little.

Are you done for the day? her mother asked.

Cora glanced over her shoulder and then nodded.

Grab a coffee with me? her mother asked.

Cora nodded again. I’ll just be a moment. She rushed back, removed her toe shoes, put on her sneakers, then slipped on her sweats and a jacket over her leotards and grabbed her bag.

God, she hoped her break in concentration wouldn’t affect Madame Louis’s decision to submit her to the BAC, the New York dance company that she was so desperate to get into.

Sitting with her mother at the coffee shop across the way wasn’t anything new. Her mother showed up at her class often when she was free and somewhat in her right mind. Strangely, that had been happening more often than in the past.

You have a half-brother, her mother said shortly after Cora had taken a sip of her coffee, causing her to spit the warm liquid out.

What? Cora asked after she coughed. Thoughts of a younger brother hidden from her somewhere raced through her mind.

His name is JT Whistler, her mother said.

Cora paused for a second and then laughed. "The author of the Crescent Creek series? The horror books?" Now she knew her mother was really losing it.

Yes, her mother said. His real name is Jerry Thomas. It’s where your father was, before he returned to us. He was with them. You also have a half-sister, Kara, or Kayla. She shrugged as if she didn’t care. She’s of no importance.

Cora shook her head and blew her mother off, but later that night, something caused her to search the internet for the man.

It was true. JT Whistler, aka Jerry Thomas, was the son of Mary and Paul Thomas. The same Paul Thomas that sat out in the living room watching the game every night that she was home.

What sealed the deal in her mind was a picture of her father standing next to a completely different family. It appeared to be an older photo. There was a blonde woman holding a young girl. Beside them stood an older red-haired girl who looked a lot like Cora. Her mother had only mentioned one half-sister. Who was this other one? Then there was the young Jerry, or JT, who was standing proudly next to his family.

She didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. Her mother was the other woman. Cora was somehow the other family. What had caused her father to choose to live with her crazed mother instead of what appeared to be a perfect family?

It hurt too much to think about, so she pushed it aside and focused on her dance.

Weeks later, school break started and Cora was once more stuck at her parents’ house. This time when she arrived, she noticed that her father looked sick. When she asked her mother about it, she claimed he was dying.

She didn’t put much stock in her mother’s words. Whenever Cora had gotten the flu as a child, she’d told everyone that would listen that Cora was dying.

That first night home, however, when she was hiding away in her room watching videos of dancers that she followed online, she heard yelling.

She quietly cracked open her door and listened to her parents fight for what seemed like the first time in her life.

They were arguing about JT. Apparently, her father had called him and asked him for money, which had pissed her mother off. She was about to shut the door and go back to watching her videos when she heard her parents leave the house.

Almost two hours later, her father returned home without her mother. He claimed she’d needed to take a break and was staying with a friend.

She vaguely wondered if he’d committed her again, because her mother didn’t have any friends.

But the following morning, Cora called Twin Valley, and they assured her that her mother wasn’t there.

When she confronted her father, he grew angry and shoved her back into her room and locked the door, like she was a child.

Two days later, Cora had enough of her father skirting her questions. She was growing super afraid of him and just needed to get out of that house. She packed her bags and snuck out in the middle of the night, determined to get either answers or help in finding out what had happened to her mother. Since she didn’t have a car, she hitchhiked to the small town of Silver Creek, where her half-family lived.

She kept telling herself that she just wanted to talk to her brother and see if he knew anything about her mother’s whereabouts. And to see why he wouldn’t help their dad financially. After all, it appeared he was super wealthy.

Over the years, she’d earned some money by dancing and had stuck it in a savings account. She had originally done it to save money to purchase toe shoes, but the school had provided them to her and she hadn’t touched the money at all.

If she had more money of her own, she would have moved out long ago. Moved closer to the school so she didn’t have to return at all.

After all, she was eighteen and an adult. But she didn’t have enough money, nor did she have a job or a car. After her aunt’s death, a trust had been set up for Cora’s schooling, but that money was almost completely drained.

That was another reason why Cora hadn’t moved to New York yet. The cost.

What was going to happen to her now? Would Paul keep paying for her life now that her mother wasn’t there to encourage him to do so?

Jerry Thomas, aka JT Whistler, lived on a private island off the coast of Maine.

She’d never been to Maine before, but at this time of year, it was a lot like Ohio, with the exception of the ocean. She’d never seen the ocean.

At first, she struggled to figure out how to get out to his island. She asked a few people in town about it and each of them seemed eager to tell her where it was. None of them explained how to get out there though.

So she’d borrowed a rowboat that had been tied up to a dock and had spent more than an hour rowing out to the secluded island in the dark. Thanks to her phone’s GPS, she’d only gotten lost once.

Thankfully, it appeared he wasn’t home at the moment she arrived.

When she stepped off the dock with her backpack, she was so consumed with scanning the area, and so worried about getting yelled at by someone, that she forgot to tie the small rowboat. By the time she noticed, it was so far out in the water, there was no way she could get it back.

She’d come this far, why not go all in, she thought. She started exploring the island.

There were cobblestone pathways leading from the boathouse and dock area up to the classic New England–style home. It appeared some of the home was still under construction, and she was worried he’d have security cameras, so she steered clear as much as she could.

If he wasn’t home, she didn’t want some security firm showing up and hauling her away.

The island seemed to be around five acres of land. There were a few small buildings, including one that sat at the top of a hill at the highest point of the island. It was made of glass and appeared to be brand new.

There was a stone fountain in the middle of the pathway that had flowers around it.

This was as close to paradise as she could have ever imagined.

That first night, after fairy lights flickered on, apparently on some sort of timer, she’d slept in the boathouse in a sleeping bag she’d packed with her.

It was cozy enough and the sound of the water soothed her. She had just enough food with her that she didn’t feel afraid of going hungry. There were a couple of water spigots on the boathouse, so she had fresh water.

Since she had the island all to herself, she spent her time exploring. She had spotted the security cameras easily enough after dark, as they had