October 6, 1864

For a girl who had nothing, I lost everything. Being as young as thirteen, as poor as I am, there is only so much I have that holds a special meaning. And what little meaning I have is all I have ever known.

But nothing could match the meaning of my father, whose meaning was my everything.

Never had I thought my father would one day mingle with the stones of the cemetery, barricaded behind an iron gate as his body rots beneath the earth, and his spirit mingles in the Heavens.

My only comfort now in this moment is that he is somewhere better.

I was able to visit his gravesite today and say my final goodbyes.

As the first snowdrift fell around me, I stooped over his stone, a hand placed on its head as I wept, reciting a poem of pain:

Never will I hear your voice.

Never will I feel your arms around me.

Never will I hear your violin.

Never will I sing for you again.

All I have at my keep are my memories.

As I wept, a hand fell upon my shoulder. I was not startled but disheartened.

"Nicollette," a compassionate, yet firm, voice said, "we must go."

Madame Giry, once a good friend of my father's, has offered to shelter me with the other ballerinas. I have been given a home in the Opera Populaire where many young ladies have been saved and protected from young ages, raised to be ballerinas.

Now I have joined them.

With nothing but a journal bequeathed to my name, I am to be raised in the heart of Paris, where I shall document my life amidst this opera palace, and the world I am now to know.