Dark and Deepest Red(16)

I tried to get my balance back.

Instead, I slid into the feeling of being dragged from where I stood, like the red shoes were moving without me moving them.

I pressed my feet into the ground.

But the red shoes drove my steps.

They prodded me forward.

The force of them pinched and tore, taking my breath so I couldn’t scream.

In a sudden rush, they dragged me past trees and stones, my feet tripping over roots. They whirled me through the night, their pull as strong as fingers on my ankles.

They were making me dance.

No matter how hard I tried to keep still, I danced.

Even when I threw my body to the ground, the shoes made my feet kick out from me. When I knelt, trying to keep the soles of my feet from touching the undergrowth, the shoes twisted me around. They made me dance on the air as though it were solid as ice.

This was not the delicate turn of the music box ballerinas Sylvie and Piper had when they were little.

This was not the soft mischief the red shoes had been sprinkling over Briar Meadow.

This was a dance as hard and violent as a possession. It had all the fury of vengeance. I felt it in the jerking force with which the shoes led my body.

I reached for them, trying to pull them off.

They wouldn’t let go of me.

I tried to slide a finger between my heel and the cloth of my right shoe.

It didn’t catch. My finger couldn’t find its way into the space. It glanced off the velvet at the back of the slipper.

I grabbed the shoe by the sole.

It didn’t give.

I tried to pull the left shoe off my heel.

It stayed.

I tried knocking the back of one foot with the toe of the other. They would not come off.

I tried prying them away. They wouldn’t budge. I tried to jam my fingers between the arch and the lining. But there was no give, no space, not even between the side of my foot and the shoe’s soft inner wall.

The red shoes would not come off.

I clutched at the ground, digging my fingers into the hardening earth.

But the shoes kept me moving, dragging me by my ankles.

They danced me through the trees, pulling me over roots that bruised my shins and fallen branches that snagged my jeans. They danced me to where the trees thinned again, up to the edge of the county road.

The desperate hope bloomed in me that maybe the woods were doing this. Maybe the second my feet touched the pavement, the shoes would let me go.

But they dragged me toward the centerline, red following the double yellow. They flitted over the asphalt, gleaming with oil sheen.

The first glimpse of headlights broke the darkness.

I looked down at the shoes, willing them to dance me back into the trees.

The headlights grew, turning from far-off lamps into twin moons.

Not a car.

A semi, the kind that came through hauling produce.

My heartbeat grew hard in my throat.

I tried to resist the shoes’ pull, but in this moment, my feet weren’t mine. They fought my effort as much as I fought the red shoes.

The shoes danced me away from the centerline and into the truck’s path. They whirled and spun me until my hair was a veil over my face.

I slipped into the space between terror and resignation, between screaming and bracing, shutting my eyes.

It was only then, with me screaming into the oncoming headlights and the blare of the horn, that the shoes turned me out of the way.

They pulled me from the truck’s path, twirling me back into the trees.

Then they went quiet.

They went still, and I fell.

They left me there, crumpled on the undergrowth, fighting to get my breath back, my lungs as lit up as the burning leaves I could smell in the air.





Strasbourg, 1518


“In the name of our Lord, we beseech you,” the priests say, as strong men herd the dancing women onto the carts.

Lala watches, her throat tight as a rope.

Even with the carts penned in on the sides, the women writhe and turn. Some cannot be brought on at all, twisting from even the strongest grasp.

At the crier’s last count, there were thirty-four. Days of dancing have tumbled blond and copper hair from cornets and ramshorns. Brown and black hair has shaken from its braids. Dirt and blood stain the hemp cloth of shifts, the dyed linen of surcoats, the silk of bliauds.

The ringing of bells for Delphine, the announcement of her death, still tinges the air.

“You will be cured, my daughters,” another priest tells the living dancers. “By Saint Vitus, you will find your rest and your salvation.”

Saint Vitus? Lala wonders. The cave of Saint Vitus is in Saverne, at least two days’ walk from Strasbourg. How well will they make the journey when they can barely keep the women on the carts?

The watching crowd fiddles with their hands, restless in the heat.

Whenever they move, flashes of color show in their palms. Then they close their fingers, and the color vanishes.

Without turning her head, Lala casts her eyes to the side.

They clutch handfuls of bright purple, rich as a queen’s gown.

Another look sharpens the green stalks and violet petals. It comes with the chill of realizing how many eyes are on her, how many Strasbourgeois whisper.

Wood betony.

They all hold wood betony, the flowering herb for protection against the devil and the witches he sends into the world.