Page 11 of Guarded By the Phantom

I used to pretend it wasn’t like this. I thought I was free, and I even had a crush here and there, going out with a few boys in ballet school. Then one time, I asked my mother if I could bring my boyfriend home.

She said nothing, her eyes growing cold, her only response a sigh of utter disappointment that made me squirm instantly. I knew I did something wrong, even though I had no idea what.

The next day, he broke up with me, and my mother sat me down for The Talk.

She spoke at length about destiny, genetics, and duty. She explained some people belonged to a better stock, while others were more common, and stressed those two kinds shouldn’t mix. You don’t throw pearls before swine. You don’t marry royalty and peasants.

“Think about horses,” she said when I stared at her, struck dumb by her speech, yet not really shocked.

Those ideas floated around me all my life, coming through in whispered gossip and jokes. Only, I’d never heard them expressed so clearly and with such direct relevance to myself.

“You don’t breed Arabians and Shires, do you? The mix would be unbecoming and useless. They would be neither beautiful nor strong enough to pull a plow.”

I was silent for a while, and she waited patiently, giving me the time to put it all together in my head. When I felt like screaming or maybe cackling, I swallowed and pushed it all down.

“And in this analogy, am I the Arabian or the Shire?” I asked, forcing a playful smile on my face.

“Neither,” she replied with a scowl. “You are an Ashford and a Kingsley, a culmination of two powerful dynasties that can trace their roots back to the Renaissance. You are one of a kind, Barbara. There is no one good enough for you, but one day, we’ll find someone who’salmostyour equal. And then, my dear, you will be allowed to fall in love and bring him home.”

Allowed to fall in love.Those words echoed in my head as I looked up, bent over my leg stretched taut in front of me. I met my eyes in the mirror, flinching when I saw how dark and furious they looked.

I was so used to pushing the anger down and ignoring it, I didn’t even notice as it burst into flame inside me, but my eyes revealed all.

Knowing I was reduced to mybreed, just like a horse, made me look more closely at my life, and especially, my parents’ relationship. I did some research after The Talk and found out what eugenics was. Both my grandfathers were huge proponents of it.

Their beliefs resulted in my parents’ cold, unhappy marriage. I refused to face the same fate, only—I didn’t know how to escape it.

“Good,” Madame Morozova said, tapping my thigh again. “We’ll practice some battements first. Maybe if you stretch those horse legs enough, they will look like ballet legs again.”

I had to give it to her—she drove me hard until the very last minute of our practice. I didn’t know if she had seen the video or not, because she didn’t mention it and I didn’t ask, but I suspected she had.

My teacher was simply too classy to speak of something so vulgar, yet she helped immensely by taking my mind off things. I was so focused on perfecting my posture and movements to the rhythm of her sharp corrections, the video didn’t even feature in my thoughts until I crawled into the shower to wash off the sweat.

It went downhill from there. With nothing else on the agenda and no one I could talk to, I had no way to fend off my thoughts.

When I finally broke down and cried, it was after six. I locked myself in my bathroom, turning off all lights save for one small amber lamp, and sobbed in the bathtub. I didn’t even touch my phone, terrified to see what everyone said about me.

It shouldn’t matter what others thought, but the problem was, I thought it, too. I wasweak.That video wasn’t just a wild terrorist act. It was a symbol of mylife.

That was what I cried for. That was what I loathed. What that manipulator did was simply give me a different part to play from the one I always did. Instead of being demure, he made me brash. Instead of being silent, he made me talk. Instead of eating with reserve, he made me devour food on screen, but really, that was all it was. The rest was just as my life always was.

Utter obedience. Playing a part someone else wrote for me.

I sobbed, pressing my fists into my eyes, the tears hot with anger. Really, how easy it must have been for them to take over control. They probably waltzed right in and realized I had the mind of a puppet. Everything was perfectly organized, perfectly leashed.

Barbara Ashford-Kingsley was hollow. She was a vehicle for other people’s plans.

I howled, choking on my tears. The truth was so clear now, and it devastated me. I was never my own person. Everything I did was because I’d been taught to do it. Even horseriding, which I used to think was my own choice, was an option I wasallowedfrom a list of sports I once showed my mother, asking which I could play. I was ten and longed to be around other kids more, which was why I wanted to play a sport in the first place.

She instantly said no to the top five positions on my list, which were all team sports. Finally, she gave me a nod at riding. It was my ninth choice, but I meekly took her permission, and I wasgrateful.

And ballet? I wanted to go to college, but apparently, a unique, beautiful creature like me wasn’t made for learning.

“You’ll destroy your eyesight and develop a stoop poring over books,” my mother told me when I said I was interested in studying Environmental Science. “You’re such an excellent dancer. You should hone your talent without distractions, Barbara. Focus on your training in the Washington School of Ballet. It will look excellent on your resume.”

And so I did. And with every nod of my head, with every meek acquiescence and a quiet, smiling “yes, Mother”, I became more of a husk.

“What resume?” I asked through tears, my voice wet yet bitter, dark with anger. “I will never have a fucking job, Mother! All I’ll have is a husband onceyoupick him out for me! The resume is for him, isn’t it? He’ll want a ballet dancer without a degree. What a prick!”

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