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Normally, I’d take a moment to soak up the thrill and anticipation of the season’s first competition, but instead my eyes zero in on the flash of blue and white wool I catch disappearing behind one of the giant potted ferns lined up along the back wall.

“Deanna,” I call when I get close enough for her to hear me, “you don’t have to—”

I swallow the end of my sentence and replace it with a groan when Deanna shoots out from behind the fern and starts weaving her way through the crowd at breakneck speed.

I take off after her yet again, but I neglect to remember that I, a twenty-year-old woman with what I like to describe as a luscious physique, do not have the ability to squeeze through the same spaces as a seven-year-old with twigs for legs. Deanna bolts around a volunteer parent carrying an armload of folding chairs, but I realize a second too late that my own swerve is going to send me crashing into a group of chatting moms Deanna narrowly slinks past.

I come skidding to a stop, but the mom with the chairs switches paths at the last second when she swivels her head to stare after Deanna. I bang my shin against a hard metal leg, hobble a few steps as pain clouds my vision, twist to avoid the chatting moms, and end up losing my balance.

I land flat on my ass, the impact ricocheting up through my tail bone as the hairbrush and bobby pins scatter across the floor. The coffee mug I’ve managed to protect this whole time flies out of my hands to soar in a perfect arc that dislodges the lid and gives everyone within radius—including me—a baptism by caffeine and cream.

The room is filled with shrieking and gasps. I’m so busy answering the half dozen voices asking me if I’m okay and trying to assess if I’ve somehow broken my butt that I don’t notice the new additions to the crowd until they’ve all filed through the front doors to assemble like a highly trained army unit in matching tracksuits.

The sheer force of their presence alone takes the focus off me and my coffee spill victims as the crowd cranes their necks to look at every dancer’s worst nightmare: the students, staff, and parents of the Rebecca Stewart Highland Dance Academy—or Stewies, as I like to call them anywhere but to their faces.

The group that’s walked in is only a fraction of them, probably less than a dozen in total, but their reputation fills the lobby like a rock star walking on stage to command a crowd of thousands. The kids already have their hair gelled back and pinned up in brutally pristine buns, and the moms are unanimously clutching Starbucks cups and monogrammed garment bags.

If highland dance was an Olympic sport, the Rebecca Stewart Academy would be the Canadian training ground. They’ve sent more dancers to the world championships than any other school in the country, and they never miss a chance to let everyone know it.

“What is going on here?”

Catherine Stewart, daughter of Rebecca Stewart herself and the current reigning iron fist of management at the academy, steps forward with her own Starbucks cup in hand. The ends of her dark, silver-streaked bob brush her cheeks like the tips of two pointed blades. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since I’ve been back in Ottawa. She has a few extra lines creasing her face, but she still looks just as ready to jump into a world-class sword dance battle to the death.

My mom beat you.

It’s the thought I’d mutter to myself every time I saw her stalking around at competitions when I was a kid. Miss Catherine, as we all grew up calling her, definitely leaned on the tough love side of teaching, but I’d seen the pictures and the medals from the eighties. I knew my mom took home almost every trophy she and Catherine went head to head for, and I used that to make it hurt less the first time I overheard Catherine tell another teacher that ‘the Murray kids all turned out a little tubby.’

“Just a little slip, Catherine,” the mom with the chairs I had the misfortune of colliding with responds. “Everyone’s okay. You are okay, right, Moira?”

She turns to me with concern in her face, and I nod after deciding my tailbone will live to see another day. The room slips back into motion, the Stewies continuing on their way as the girl working the snack table comes over with a roll of paper towels she distributes to everyone who got sprayed with my coffee.

I get a dirty look from one of the moms who happens to be wearing white, but everyone else is sympathetic. I ignore the offers of help as I clutch some balled up paper towel in one hand and push myself to my feet with the other.

I’ve gotten much more confident about my weight over the years, but I do not want to be the ‘tubby’ girl who needs help getting up off the floor. My cheeks have already started to heat from all the attention.

“Looks like I need to work on my turns,” I joke, trying to laugh it all off as I dab at my shirt. “They were always my downfall on stage. Maybe Deanna—oh crap, Deanna!”

I whip my head from side to side, scanning the lobby for any sight of her, but there’s nothing, not even some telltale blue tartan behind the ferns.

“Did anyone see which way she went? The little blonde girl in a black vest and blue kilt?”

The parents all start looking around as frantically as me. A few of them call Deanna’s name.

“Crap, crap, crap,” I mutter as I dart over to peer down the closest hallway. “If she ran outside...”

She’s only seven, and she’s clearly terrified. I wouldn’t put it past her to run into the street.

Amidst all the upheaval, the sound of a hallway door opening nearby catches my attention. I turn to watch, my heart hammering in my chest and my mind swirling with horrific possibilities, as Deanna inches back into the room safe and sound, clutching the hand of the woman behind her.

“Deanna, you’re—”

My gaze shifts up from Deanna’s sheepish expression to get a good look at her rescuer, and my whole body goes rigid with shock.

I don’t even blink as her dark eyes find mine.

The Deanna debacle was a good distraction, but besides that, I’ve spent all morning—and most of last night—wondering when I’d run into Kenzie Andrianakis today.

The last time I saw her, I was eighteen and getting loaded onto a stretcher in Scotland after busting my ankle at the biggest highland dance competition in the world.