As the music continued, she relaxed her foot and began to hum along, and she swept her arms into a great circle overhead, bending at the waist, first this way, then that, always flowing along with the song. It was as if her body knew what to do, her muscles carrying out the dance they’d been trained to do so long ago.

She was dancing. She was remembering. I watched the song sink into the forgotten places of her soul like a fishing line, returning from its depths with the associated memories hooked on the end. From this dusty, parched old mind came the precision of long-ago movements, learned routines, and natural poise. I watched in awe as her arms moved through the entire piece, executing slow, sweeping movements from her chair. As the notes crescendoed to a finale, she straightened, arms arched overhead in a pose of completion, then bent immediately forward in a low bow.

John Michelson and Dr. Turner clapped, faces glowing, and Anna sat upright to drink it in, bowing her head as if accepting a theater’s praise. “Come, collect the flowers, won’t you?” she said to me in her faint, willowy voice. “They enjoyed the show, didn’t they?”

“You’ve impressed them.”

At the sound of my voice, she blinked and her eyes focused on me. “Of course. That’s what I do,” she murmured, as if collecting her thoughts. “How grand. How perfectly lovely. It was always like this, every show. Every time.” She was like Sleeping Beauty, having received her kiss—awake. Alive. Slowly returning to the world after a long slumber.

“Annika,” spoke Dr. Turner softly. “Do you remember the story of the red shoes? You told me about them once. Were they yours? Can you recall those days?”

Tears budded in her eyes, and I took her hand, smoothing the dry skin with my thumb.

“I gave them the idea for that story, you know. That silly Russian boy always playing about my feet, wanting tales of the theater. He had red velvet curtains in his gaze, I tell you. Wanted to be a dancer.”

“What boy was this?”

“Oh . . . you know. The one who wrote the music for it. For The Nutcracker.”

“Tchaikovsky,” I said. “It was Tchaikovsky.”

“Yes, yes, it was.” She laughed softly, her voice slow and garbled. “Just a lad he was. I told him the story of a ballerina. Way up on a balcony. Always wondered if that’s where that little bit came from. It was true, you know. She threw her enchanted red shoe down into the alley to rescue the other dancer. Such a love story they had, that Ella Blythe and her hero.” She sighed at the memory. “I told it all to him, and years later . . . Oh.” She patted her lap, the arms of her chair, searching. “My music box. Where is it?”

“I’m afraid it’s broken.” I laid a hand on her arm.