"I think she's at my house," I say, looking at his eyes, so like Charity's. "She won't remember you. She has a slight form of amnesia and can only remember bits before the fire, like my brother and clips of her mother. But you never know."

            Jake follows us to my house. "I live here with my mother, my older brother Luis, he's twenty-eight; Theresa, my sister, who's eighteen, and Miguel, who's sixteen. My oldest brother Antonio and my father left our family when I was very little." I inform him. I point to my room/studio in the attic. "There's my bedroom and my dance studio. I pretty much live there, or at Jessica's."

            "Paloma just got back from Mexico," Jessica tells Jake.

            "I was with my aunt. She helped out with my ballet... she was once a ballet star herself. Maria Lopez?" I say, knowing he doesn't know. "That's her."

            "Cool," Jake remarks. I take his hand and lead him inside. "Miguel? Are you here?"

            "Yeah!" Miguel hollers back. "What do ya want, Ketchup? Is Mustard with you?"

            "Yeah. And someone else too."

            "Who? It isn't a boy trying to steal my sister's heart, is it?" Luis asks, coming into the entry and grinning.

            "Luis, this is Jacob Standish, Charity's brother. Jake, this is my brother Luis."

            "Miguel and Charity are playing video games in the next room." Luis says, nodding his head towards the family area. Jessica and I exchange smiles and we head to the family room.

            "Get your heads outta that game," I demand, laughing. They look up from their Mario Kart battle and Charity's eyes grow big.

            "You're that boy!" she says. "The one in my dreams!"
             "Who is this?" Miguel asks me.
             "I'm Jacob Standish... Charity's younger brother," Jake introduces himself.

            "I knew it! I knew there was someone out there, someone close to me," Charity tells us, looking at him, searching for traces of herself. "You have the same powers, don't you?"

            "What?" I ask, looking incredulously at Jake, then to Charity, then back. He explains, "Charity, Aunt Grace, my mom, Jessica's brother Noah, and I are all....well, we have some special kind of power against evil. Your mother, Jessica, doesn't remember this and Charity, you must just be getting twinges of your memory back. When Charity comes into her full powers, she will fight the evil."

            That's what that dream was about, I think to myself. The one with the music and the two people dancing.

~*~
(next day)

             “What happened?" I ask Jessica the next day. "Where's Jake staying?"

            "At the Bed and Breakfast, next to Uncle Hank," she informs me. "Mom, Dad, and Kay were pretty surprised!"

            "Hey, we were too," I say, playing with the bottom of my pink tank top. Jessica and I were in my attic room, looking at the rain falling on my skylights.

            "Paloma! Jake's here!" Mamma announces. I let him into my room and he looks around. "Pretty big place you have here."

            "I had to fight Luis for it," I say, and he laughs.
            "You have a really close family."
            "We have to stick together. We live on love."
             "Oh."

            "Dance, ballerina, dance, and do your pirouette in rhythm with your aching heart!" Jessica suddenly starts to sing and I stand up and grab my pointe shoes, singing along with the childhood song.

            "Dance, ballerina, dance,
             you musn't once forget a dancer has to dance the part.
             Once you said his love must wait its turn,
             you wanted fame instead, I guess that's your concern
            We live and learn... and love is gone, Ballerina, gone...."

            "Whoa, where'd you get that?"

            "One of my music boxes played it," I tell Jake. "We sing it all the time.”

            "Now really dance," he orders me. I tie up the laces on my pointe shoes and do some plies to warm up. Jessica puts on the music, a song by Tchikovsky, and I dance.

            When I dance, I forget the world, everyone in it, and everything. I am on air, in the sky, whirling in the arms of my lover-prince, who jetes so powerfully the world shakes and he can carry me like a feather. I don't notice the music has stopped and I'm dancing to the music in my head. Their applause pulls me out of my trance, but I see the vision of my prince: Jake.

~*~
(a year later)

            I am sitting in the audience, watching Miguel, Charity, Kay, Reese, and Simone graduate from high school, with Jake and Jessica on my sides. I squeeze Jake's hand and we all exchange proud smiles. I have been accepted to Julliard, and I will probably finish my schooling there, though I'm reluctant to leave Harmony.

            That night, I lie awake in my bed, thinking about the graduates at Sam Bennett's resort in East Maine, and what they're doing. Suddenly, Jake comes running into my room and lightning crashes. "What's wrong?" I ask, noticing his soaked body.