Title: Timeless Pirouette (Book II of ‘Time Flies’ Series)
Author:
Jill Wallace
Genre:
Time Travel/Romance/Reincarnation/Aviation Antics/Soulmates/Found Family
Book Blurb:
BOOK 2 in the 'Time Flies' Series.
A vivid dream of the past. A desperate hope for the future.
My name is Brie Lenz.
In the hushed sanctuary of a Boeing 747’s crew rest in 1983, amidst the hum of engines and the dance of distant clouds, I lay my head down as a South African Airways air hostess. I dream of a beguiling beggar, his eyes a mesmerizing shade of emerald, who ignites a flame in my soul. His ambitions for my ballet career in 1887, take me higher than I ever dreamed. He is my anchor, my guiding light, my inspiration, my love.
But as reality pierces through the veil of slumber at 36,000 feet, I am jolted awake, haunted by the echoes of Tchaikovsky and the lingering mystery of that enigmatic beggar. With the pulse of an odd drumbeat echoing in my ears and a shiver coursing through my veins, destiny delivers, this time, in real life. Is it too good to be true?
Fast-forward to the present, and though embers of that centuries-old connection still smolder within me with the man I adore, I cannot deny there is something missing and something amiss.
When an unexpected invitation to a transformative retreat arrives, I am torn between fear and fervor.
And amongst women I barely know, I find myself in a magical odyssey of self-discovery and a crossroads filled with pitfalls and shrouded in guilt.
Can I reclaim the lost magic of 1877 and weave it into the fabric of my present, or will the past that lurks beyond that crew rest dream continue to cast its long shadow over my future?
With my heart suspended between two worlds, I brace myself for the ultimate reckoning.
Book Excerpt:
Timeless Pirouette Book II in the ‘Time Flies’ Series. Chapter 9.
Moscow, 1876
Perfecting my technique is theoretically impossible in my papa’s coat, and to most I must look like I suffer from Saint Vitus’ dance because there is much movement but little grace and my tutu is well hidden. His hefty soldier’s boots seriously impair my best turnout. One foot is always colder than the other because of the hole in one sole, but this is all that remains of the only person who found me worthy of having a career in ballet. Worthy of his love.
I love to feel my papa close, even though his body lies shattered and cold in a military cemetery, with only a wooden cross to mark his sacrifice. I’ve whittled “You will always keep me warm, Papa” on the cross, and it distinguishes his place of rest from the thousands of other unmarked crosses.
I can strengthen my core and practice balance and deportment out here in the open with no judging eyes, and all the while, Coupé can do her business and stretch her little legs.
I can also mark the complex steps in my mind so I can do them automatically while trying to feel something, which Madame claims is more important than technique. Of all the demanding balletic requirements, feeling is surely the hardest?
My Coupé has a sixth sense. She knows our love is forbidden. Were Coupé discovered we’d hear the piercing screams of the entitled. They who’d never met a rat or a mouse of any color in their homes or along the fancy cobbled streets on which they live.
The fortunate part is, I don’t count in the eyes of my fellow students. I am not worth observing; thus, my secret friendship is safely cloaked in invisibility by hiding in plain sight.
“Coupé, go, do your business and no mischief. I have but eleven minutes to practice my adage.” I lovingly place my white rat down, and while she acclimates herself, I am three bars and eight steps into the music playing in my head.
Every so often an irregular “clink” disrupts my focus. Metal on muted metal. Annoyed, I follow the sound and see little Coupé on her way to investigate a tin cup set on the pavement.
She ducks, fortunately, before she’s pelted with a coin. I try to concentrate: “Chassé, pas de chat, tendu ...” but I imagine Coupé being harmed and leave my makeshift barre to search for her.
“You’re a tame little fellow,” says a timber-rich voice holding a smile. I glance up from the tin cup and around the corner, to where a bearded man sits on the pavement. His body is turned sideways, and he holds Coupé in both hands, an inch from his face.
The little minx has a look of bliss in her pink eyes.
He must feel me watching because he twists to face me, still smiling. I first check out his smiling mouth and see straight teeth between the hairy upper and lower lips. The condition of those teeth alludes to someone who cares what he looks like, although the bushy beard contradicts that notion. And there he sits. One leg gone. Missing. His pant leg neatly folded and pinned so a hand’s length of flat trousers hangs from one hip.
I trudge to him through the snow in Papa’s boots and put my hands out to retrieve Coupé. “I’m so sorry ...” I begin, but when he stares up at me, his green eyes arrest me with their intensity.
So powerful is his gaze, I feel my body reel away from it and yet ... and yet, I can’t break eye contact.
But more importantly, I don’t want to.
A force like a horizontal lightning bolt emits from the man’s eyes. His life force seeks out my heart, finds it, and earths itself there. Then the glow of familiarity and deep love, planted by that bolt, seeps from my heart into my soul.
I force my mouth open to gulp in some icy air and restore my good sense. He is, after all, a beggar and I, a ballet dancer. There must be a mistake.
I sense my face, conditioned to express feelings, shows him my dilemma. But when he puts my Coupé down and turns his torso away from me, my sensation is one of barren loss.
I have a desperate urge to pull his head around with both my hands so his green eyes will hold mine again. Then, perhaps, the sense of belonging will return.
Although his back is to me, the invisible cord between us refuses to stop its magic sizzling, nor will it allow me to move away.
Not that I want to.
I have the feeling I’ve known him for as long as time itself.
I pick up Coupé and hold her to me, then try to finish my apology, though my voice shakes. “Coupé doesn’t usually trust strangers. I’m sorry she disturbed you,” I say loudly, to his back.
“Disturbed?” He turns back and smiles again, this time avoiding my eyes. “She’s delightful,” he says, leaning as far as he can from his sitting position to scratch my pet behind her ears again and make her swoon.
We watch her bliss when he says, “You are the first girl I’ve ever seen with a white rat as a pet.”
Avoiding my face, he deliberately looks from my bulky coat to the gigantic boots. “Or perhaps you’re a soldier whose voice has not yet broken, back from a skirmish at the front.” His lips twitch, teasing me, then spreading into a smile. His perfect teeth demand my attention.
He points with an index finger peeking through his worn glove, right at his heart. “I am Mikhail.”
I let Coupé snuggle into my neck and feel myself aligning my feet into a balletic fifth position, placing my left arm in first position and my right hand over my heart, fingers slightly apart and curled, as if I am holding a delicate rose by its petals.
I wonder, fleetingly, why I want so much to impress this beggar with my balletic interpretation of love. “I am Polina.” I feel desperately silly when I remember the beautiful movements I’ve created just for him are lost under Papa’s coat.
But that has not deterred him. He stares up at me from the ground, then closes his eyes like a camera’s aperture capturing a moment.
Ballet photographers are always evident, and their instruments intrigue me, but his emerald eyes fascinate me more, and I teeter as if on a tightrope, waiting for him to open his eyes.
He lifts them slowly, as if he’s dreading something, like someone might no longer be there ... but she is. He smiles the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. His eyes twinkle from green to gray to sage and back to emerald, and my heart lurches, pumping hot blood through my veins at a radical speed.
To cover this odd effect the depth of his eyes and his dazzling, albeit furry, smile have on me, I say possessively, “This is my spot,” then frown at my own rudeness. I blame it on this odd reaction he has ignited in my usually trained, disciplined body.
“Well, may I share it?” he asks simply.
His sincerity makes me smile. “Of course. You’re here and I’m”—I move quickly back to the stone wall—“over here.”
A safe distance away and yet I still feel the cord that connects us, and I have the urge to never stop smiling ... and suddenly I realize. Smiling is something I seldom do.
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Author’s Biography
Born and bred in South Africa, Jill’s lived half her life in America. She considers herself bi-continental. In South Africa she was a contemporary dancer; an air hostess; and a PR Officer. In America, she’s been a movie extra, a realtor and now, an award-winning author.
A true WWII love story told to Jill at age 3 danced in her head until she wrote a screenplay. Twice optioned for a movie, fate got in the way of production, but "War Serenade" the novel, garnered great accolades. Next came "Zebra" a heart-tugging story of a rare friendship, also set in South Africa which launched as an Amazon #1 New Release.
Her new series "Time Flies" is a mishmash of genres and troupes, including psychic mystery; romance; soulmates; reincarnation; female friendships and found families.
Timeless Pirouette is Book II in this series.
SIX books. ONE 1980’s 747 with a haunted crew rest. FIVE naughty ex-hostesses from the Golden Age of Aviation. ONE psychic dog. FIVE soulmates lost centuries before. ONE murderous bastard…
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