Natascha awoke up to find herself in a large room in a castle that continued upwards onto another level where there was a medieval tower. The roof was completely open to the night sky. She had been lying awake her eyes getting accustomed to the darkness and moonlight around and above her, high upon the mountain when she heard a chatty male voice come through the door, followed by a young couple.
“So this is where you can stay, as you can see there is a lot of space” Kaspar, who was no older than 28, was gesturing to Natascha`s room and turning in an almost gleeful dance as he showed it to them. The young woman, dressed in stripy black and white stockings and a dungaree skirt was giggling slightly as she sank down onto Natascha`s bed with her back turned to her. She had not even noticed that Natascha was now sat upright, in her pyjamas and looking mouth half open at this scene before her.
“And you can put your instruments here” he gestured to a chest at the end of the bed. “They`ll be quite safe, even if I do say so myself” He let a finger touch his lip as he pondered this for a nano-second then let it whisp away into the air before he began again. “You`ll be able to rest quite fine here, away from all the noise and bustle of the arts center, it`s one of our best rooms” He gestured up to the open night sky and the young couple gazed up at he stars with him in collective, silent awe as Natascha looked disbelieving on. The young woman with stripy tights jumped up to hug her partner and let out a high-pitched squeal “Just think! All ours, up here..with the stars” Her partner a tall fellow with identical ebony hair such as hers, silently approved her glee, by gently squeezing her to his chest.
“Well, good, then it`s settled. I´ll draw up the papers...” said Kaspar dressed like an extravagant dilettante.
“But wait a minute” Natascha finally protested. “You said that I could have this until July and even then we would talk about it, it wasn`t certain that I would leave, why all of a sudden all this?” Natascha was now out of the bed and up with her face near to Kaspar`s. Kaspar looked down his nose at Natascha in her white pyjamas and bare feet on the stone floor. He raised his eyebrow slightly and had both hands poised in the air one slightly higher than the other. The young couple in their ebony embrace looked puzzled towards her.
“So, as I was saying.....”Kaspar continued, walking towards the couple and guiding them out of the entrance of the open sky room leaving Natascha standing bear-foot and alone staring at the closed wooden door.
She went to the oak wardrobe and pulled out her dressing gown. She rushed, out of the room and up the stone stairs to the medieval tower. Flinging open the door she saw a restaurant with low pine tables, white tea cups all set with blue and white cotton napkins. There was a ceramic jar filled with cutlery on each table. There were dried flowers and pictures of mountains in the countryside painted in a naturalist way hanging on the wooden covered walls. There was a waitress dressed in traditional matching blue and white Dirndl laying more cups on the tables. She looked up as Natascha entered and flew through the room to the back where Natascha barged open another door to see a cupboard with shelves and shelves full of tiny, black, ballet pump shoes all in pairs, on top of each other. " I know it has to be in here somewhere", she thought to herself, and lifted up a pair, then another looking underneath. She stopped for a minute with the pumps in her hand and looked up at all the identical shoes crammed into this tiny space. Slowly she looked back at the black ballet pumps she was holding. "Wait a minute" she thought, putting one of the shoes onto her bare foot and then the other, carefully whilst thinking. Remembering, she pointed her foot and drew it up against the other leg at the knee with her arms out to balance herself "Strength comes from tiny beginnings" she whispered to herself, balancing and poised.
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