The house was too quiet.
Christabel woke to the sound of silence—not the normal kind, but the heavy, deliberate sort that pressed against her ears like wool.
Something had changed in the night.
She dressed slowly, avoiding the mirror. Not because she believed the whispers. Not because of what Fedrica had said.
Just… in case.
The corridor outside her room was dim. The windows were clouded with dust, filtering in a sickly grey light. The wallpaper curled at the edges like old leaves. The smell of must and something faintly sweet—decay?—lingered in the air.
Fedrica's door was ajar.
Christabel hesitated, then knocked softly.
No answer.
She pushed it open.
Inside, the air was thick, too warm. The curtains were drawn tight, but a strange glow leaked in around the edges—flickering, like candlelight, though no candles were lit.
Fedrica sat on the floor, cross-legged in her nightgown, a charcoal pencil clutched in her hand. The walls around her were covered—covered—in drawings.
Overlapping sketches of the music box, again and again, like it had infected her hand. Some were detailed. Some were just wild spirals. But in every one, the ballerina was blurred. Smudged. Sometimes scratched out entirely.
"Fedrica?"
She didn't look up.
Her lips moved, whispering something over and over.
Christabel stepped closer.
Fedrica's voice was dry and low, almost inaudible.
"The mirrors tell lies… but the floor remembers…"
She traced another outline of the box on the floorboards.
"The steps are always the same."
Christabel crouched. "Fedrica, what steps?"
Fedrica blinked, slowly, as though surfacing from a long way down.
Her eyes locked onto Christabel's, but she didn't seem to see her.
"Don't dance," she said. "Even in dreams. That's where she starts."
A shiver crawled up Christabel's spine.
Fedrica looked past her shoulder, her pupils narrowing.
"She's watching."
Christabel turned.
There was nothing there—just her own reflection in the cracked vanity mirror across the room.
But…
Her reflection's foot was pointed. One arm lifted slightly. Mid-dance.
Christabel froze.
When she turned back, Fedrica had curled into herself, humming the music box's tune, her pencil rolling across the floor.
Christabel backed out of the room, heart hammering.
Back in her own room, she closed the door.
A draft stirred the papers on her desk.
She didn't notice the note at first.
Only when she turned to undress did she see it—pinned to the inside of her door, written in looping black ink:
You're already rehearsing.