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Sixteen

Nina spent a restless night dreaons and girls who cut off their fingers for love

Finally, she gave up trying to sleep and turned on the bedside la her eyes, she pulled out a pad of paper and a pen

The fairy tale was changing

Or otten to a place in the story that was new to Nina She’d never heard this part of the peasant girl and the prince before She was sure of it

And it was so detailed Not like a fairy tale at all But what did it all mean?

She wrote: FONTANKA BRIDGE (real)

She tapped her pen against the pad and went through the story point by point

CIGARETTES (since when did fairy-tale mothers sments?)

GALINA SOMETHING For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the ballerina’s last name, but it had been Russian

On that, Nina went down to her dad’s office and booted up the coe, but when the Internet came up, she ran searches on every word she could think of She was so caught up in gathering information that when Meredith touched her shoulder, she actually jumped

“You look like you haven’t slept,” Meredith said

Nina pushed back froht was all new, right? We’ve never heard that part before?”

“It was new,” Meredith said

“Did you notice the changes? Vera’s s, and Vera is pregnant before she gets married When did you ever hear shit like that in a fairy tale before? And listen to this: Galina Ulanova was a great Russian ballerina who danced at the Mariinsky Theatre in Leningrad until 1944, and after that, she was at the Bolshoi in Moscow And check out this picture: the theater has a lyre and crown on its cupola ”