Page 1 of When Hearts Awaken

Part One

The White Swan

Prologue

I was ten yearsold when I fell in love.

For the first and only time in my life.

Mommy pulled me out of recess time in school and snuck me into the backstage of the Met Opera. I remember gaping at the towering archways and the enormous wall of glass lit up by thousands of bright lights.

I thought I was going to Mount Olympus, and the gods were waiting for us behind those doors—we’d just learned about Greek myths in class that day. My little heart pounded as my breathing thinned in anticipation.

I knew my life was going to change forever.

“Today is a magical day,” she told me as she led me through a side door. A harried looking woman beckoned us inside, all the while looking surreptitiously around as if we were criminals she wasn’t supposed to be letting in.

My older sister, Grace, would get the occasional special days when Mommy would take her to the bookstore, and I’d get the random magical ones. Mommy said it was because she worked all the time, and this was her way of making it up to us. She told me she knew someone at the Met Opera, and she wanted me to see professional ballerinas on stage. Mommy said I was just like her—bitten by the performance bug and born to dance.

I remember hiding backstage behind the thick velvet curtains and feeling the heavy weight of the disapproving stares from adults towering over me.

I bet they could smell the stench of the week-old hot dog I had for breakfast, see the holes in my favorite rainbow leggings, or the frayed edges of my beloved pink ballerina T-shirt. Or perhaps they were looking at Mommy, whose eyes were unusually bright, lipstick fire-engine red, wearing the slinky black, glittering mini dress required for her work at the dance club.

She squared her shoulders and glared right back at them. Then she gently squeezed my hand in reassurance.

We didn’t belong there, that was obvious enough, but at that moment, I didn’t care.

Because I sawthem.

The ballerinas on the stage—beautiful fluffy tutus so white, I imagined they’d never get dirtied like my well-worn sneakers. They were fairies dazzling under the bright spotlights.

But none of them were as beautiful asher.

Odette, the white swan.

She was twirling on the stage, each spin so graceful, so breathtaking, I couldn’t look away. Jenny from school must be wrong. Magic did exist in the world because this…this gorgeous princess gliding across the stagehadto be magical.

I remember the feeling of bubbles forming in my chest, my muscles clenching with giddiness. The world around me faded into black until all I could see was her wearing her glorious white dress, delicate white feathers in her hair, moving so effortlessly on her tiptoes she appeared to be floating.

She was dancing with her prince, her one true love.

She looked at him like he held her world in his hands, like he hung the moon in the skies just for her.

It was then I fell in love right alongside them.

Tumbled into it, head over heels.

It was as magical as Mommy described. Mommy believed in love—she used to tell me she was drunk on it. Grace would roll her eyes and tell me she thought Mommy was silly, but I’d always thought that was impossible. Because what would make an adult feel this way? What would make someone as smart and kind as Mommy want to risk everything over and over again even though she’d secretly cry in the dark when she thought we were asleep because the men would ultimately disappoint her?

I had the answer then. That day at the Met Opera.

The butterflies flapping their wings in my stomach. The lightness of my breath. My body coming alive. I felt like I could soar high in the skies, that everything in the world would be okay as long as I was in this moment, surrounded by thisfeeling—dancing with them, knowing everything would be all right as long as the other person was by your side.

This had to be it—why Mommy was in love with love.

But then the unthinkable happened. Odette died at the end of the ballet with her prince, because the evil black swan, Odile, and her villainous sorcerer father schemed against them.

The glorious white swan didn’t survive, only the ugly, scary black one did. There was no happily ever after. I bawled my eyes out, unable to stop the sobs tearing from my throat despite others trying to shush me because I was causing a scene. I didn’t care. Mommy always said holding in your emotions wasn’t healthy. My little heart clenched in pain, not understanding why something so magical could end so tragically.

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