The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (11 page)

She was referencing the last church anniversary, where the pastor’s wife had stood up before the congregation and praised the Durham family. The girls had been singled out as models of hard work and zeal for God, which had thoroughly embarrassed them, mostly because Rachel thought it wasn’t true.

“They don’t know anything about us,” she said. “For all of the ‘sharing’ and ‘testifying’ that goes on, they don’t really know what any of us likes, or wants, or cares about.”

Prisca tittered. “If they found out what we really wanted, they wouldn’t like us very much, would they?”

Rachel gave a bitter smile. “No, I doubt they would.” She had been around the parents enough to overhear their gossip about teenagers in the congregation that were perceived as ‘rebellious.’  “They’d hold us at arm’s length,” she said. Another thought occurred to her, and she went on grimly. “They’d start to think less of Dad and Sallie, too. They’d start out saying, ‘Poor Colonel Durham. Such a heart for God, but his daughters are out of control,’ and then they’d start carefully disconnecting themselves from him and Sallie. They’d pity them,” she spoke the last words distastefully.

“Damn them!” Prisca spoke out suddenly. “I hate the church! I hate it!” She slammed down her laundry basket.

“Don’t say that,” Rachel hissed, throwing a glance upstairs.

“Don’t curse,” Liddy said, eyes wide.

“But I do! I hate them! They don’t love us. Not really. And I hate having to bow to them!”

“Prisca,” Rachel said, thoughts running through her brain, “it’s wrong to hate.”

“So what?” Prisca looked up at her wildly. “I still hate them. I hate them all. I hate what they’re doing.”

“You can’t hate the church of God,” Liddy said, attempting to be reasonable. “That’s like hating Christ.”

“Oh shut up! Shut up!” Prisca sat down, folding her arms, and started sobbing.

There was silence. Rachel sat down next to her younger sister, and put a tentative arm around her. It frightened her when Prisca was like this, so violently emotional. But she steeled herself.
Distract her
, she thought.

“Prisca,” she said, invitingly, “we haven’t gone to Goodwill yet.”

Prisca wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Can we go there after we get done slaving for Mrs. Pearson?”

“Absolutely,” Rachel squeezed her hand.

The cellar door banged, and Tammy bellowed downstairs, “Linette! Debbie!”

“They’re not down here,” Rachel called up warningly.

“Paul’s here for their lesson,” Tammy yelled, and walked away.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “They won’t have to go to the Pearsons. Lucky Paul is in Dad’s good graces.”

“For now,” Prisca said. “Wait until he finds out that Paul’s actually a Babylonian Mystery Worshipper.” The joke had been making its rounds among the sisters, and hadn’t gotten old yet.

Rachel took out a load of bedspreads to hang up on the old clothesline. The dryer was full, and they would dry faster in the hot sun. Besides, she liked the smell of sun-dried sheets and spreads. As she hung up the spreads, she watched Paul coaching the young girls through some cartwheels and walkovers.

After she finished, he turned to her and said, “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said.
For swimming
, she thought bitterly. “Any plans for the day after your lesson with my sisters?”

“Nope. That’s the fun of being on vacation.”

She smiled at him sardonically. “All of us should be so blessed.”

He looked at her quizzically, and then cast his eyes around the property. “You girls must feel pretty lucky, growing up here.”

“I suppose we should.”

“I mean, you have so much land. And the bay. I guess since I grew up on a postage stamp in the suburbs, I’m jealous.” He grinned his baby boy’s grin at her.
So naïve
, she thought.

“I guess the kids have it good,” she said flippantly. “My little brothers get to run around and play as much as they like. And the young girls. They’re lucky.”

“Aren’t you lucky?” he asked.

“I suppose some people would think so,” she said slowly. “I’m supposed to be grateful, aren’t I? After all, I have a father and stepmother who are married to each other, a nice house, and a good Christian upbringing. Yes, I should feel very grateful, shouldn’t I?”

Her eyes bored into his.

“But you’re not,” he said quietly. “Why?”

The thought of Prisca’s fierce tears curled her lips with disdain. But that was not something she could tell him. Would tell him.

“If you can’t understand that, I’m not going to explain it to you,” she said distantly, and turned away from him.

Paul had found it difficult to adjust to his new schedule. He had been dragging in the afternoons.  At a certain time of day, no matter where he was, it seemed to him of utmost importance to get back to his tent and sleep.

The problem was, sometimes he wasn’t anywhere near his tent. Finally, the inevitable happened that day.  It was around three in the warm afternoon, and he was coaching Linette and Debbie through a second round of juggling, when he began to yawn prodigiously.

“Hey, are you tired?” Debbie asked, observing the obvious.

“A little,” he confessed, trying to cover his gaping mouth.

“Why don’t you go and take a nap?” Linette suggested. “You can lie down on the hammock.”

“No—that’s okay—” Paul’s body began to go on automatic pilot. “I think I’d better go home now.” He turned away, collecting his clubs. “See you later.” 

“Get some sleep!” Debbie yelled as they turned and ran back towards the house.

Paul stumbled towards the woods, intending a shortcut to the road. But his eyes were beginning to close. Then he spotted a hollow in the ground, plush with green moss, shaded by ferns.

Too perfect
, he thought, and let his bag of juggling clubs fall. Without further ado, he curled up in the dell and fell fast asleep.

It was as though fairies had put a spell upon him, so thoroughly did he sleep. He wasn’t certain how long he had been there when he heard the crack of a twig quite near him.

He slowly opened his eyes, but didn’t move from his spot. Suddenly he heard voices close to him.

“Let me see, please, let me see!” a girl’s voice begged in a whisper.

“Shhh! No! Not till we get to the cave!”

Then there was more cracking of twigs, and he heard, faintly, a rustle of plastic bag.

“Oh… my … gosh… that is so gorgeous,” was a hushed voice.

“Twelve bucks.” Paul recognized Taren’s voice.

“No way!”

“Yes. Mine, all mine. But if you like, you can borrow it after I’ve worn it a few times.”

“That is such a killer dress. Feel the material! How did you get it?”

“Well, Mom was looking for swimsuits for the boys, so I just started looking through the sales racks. And I found it! Then I just waited for her to go into a dressing room to try something on, and rushed up to the counter and paid for it with my babysitting money! See, it’s so little it folds into a nice packet. It fit right in my purse.”

“Your legs will look great in that.” Paul wasn’t sure who the other girl was, but he was sure it was one of Colonel Durham’s daughters.

“You bet. Now I just need to find decent shoes.”

There was a rustle of plastic, and then silence. A few minutes later Paul heard the two girls making their stealthy way back up through the woods.

He waited until they had passed him, and lifting his head gingerly, saw them going into the house.

After a long while, he rolled over and crept out of the woody hollow where he had unintentionally hidden.  Following the trail carefully, he found it wound down the side of the cliff leading to the beach. Suddenly he came upon a dark opening in the side of the rock.

Casting a glance behind him, he went into the cave, blinking in the dim light. There were a few bicycles and a large wooden trunk of rough boards. It had a padlock on it.

He put a hand to the padlock, and realized it hadn’t been closed properly. Giving it a slight jerk, he opened it and slid it out of the ring.

He carefully raised the lid, and saw a jumble of dresses in a variety of colors. Folded on a plastic bag in one corner was a short brown tank dress of a suede material. They were all quite different from the dresses that the girls usually wore. Like night and day.

For a few moments he looked at the dresses, not moving, thinking. Then slowly he replaced the lid and the lock, closing it properly.

I’m taking a risk
, he thought. But Colonel Durham had said he could.

Quietly he left the little cave and retraced his steps back to the spot where he had been napping, where his juggling bag still lay.  He stood there in the woods, wondering what to do next.

Then he heard the screen door bang closed, and a girl came out of the house. He didn’t move.

She started to wander down towards the bay, her golden hair falling around her pensive round face. He recognized her—Melanie, the quiet smiling one.  

When she was almost upon him, she looked up and saw him.

“You’re still here, Paul,” she said.

“I am.”

“What are you doing?”

He indicated the dell. “I fell asleep here, and just woke up not too long ago.”

“Oh.” She looked toward the bay through the woods, still pensive, and then looked back at him. Seeing his serious face, she smiled.

When she smiled, her eyes crinkled into half moons. He couldn’t help smiling back at the young girl, her face as open as the sunshine. She reminded him of his youngest sister.

“Can I ask you something about Mary?” she said, walking towards the bay.

“Of course,” he said, swinging his bag over his shoulders and falling into step beside her.

“Meeting,” Rachel said.  The girls dressing in the cave by the light of the camping lamp stopped and looked at her.

Rachel, who had gotten into an old dress of her mother’s, a sleeveless white sheath, said, “We’ve got to make some rules. In order to keep our secret.” Given how Prisca had behaved this morning, Rachel was not entirely sure this conversation would go well. But she forged ahead.  “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Miriam said, and Cheryl and the twins nodded. The other girls gave their assent.

“When we go out, we have to be careful how we behave, just so that nothing carries over into our lives the next day. For instance, smoking,” she looked at Prisca, who had been sharing a smoke with Alan in the boat last night. Prisca had also been quite familiarly nestled up against him, which, Miriam had informed Rachel, had incensed Pete. “Smoke gets into clothes. And hair. And skin. It has a smell.”

“A stink,” Debbie volunteered, wrinkling her nose. Some of the sisters giggled.

“A smell,” repeated Rachel, “which could tip off the parents, hmm?” The other girls considered. “Plus if you were to acquire a habit, just how are you going to satisfy that nicotine craving in the middle of the day? Running off in the minivan to spend your babysitting money on a pack of ciggies?”

“Mom and Dad would ask questions, and if they found out, all of us would be in trouble,” Cheryl spoke up, a bit self-righteously. Prisca scowled at her.

“All righty then!” she snapped.

“Same with alcohol,” Rachel said. “It has a smell. If you have any, you’d better brush your teeth at least three times before we go upstairs. Plus, if you take too much, you’ll have a hangover the next day. You want to run that risk?”

All the girls shook their heads no.
Good, that part was easy
, Rachel thought to herself. Lucky her sisters were inexperienced with drinking anyway.

“Third thing,” she said briskly. “A buddy system. We can’t have anyone falling overboard, drowning, getting drunk, whatever. We have to watch out for each other, at all times, or we’re going to be sorry. Can you live with that?”

This was the most ham-handed she had yet been, and she waited, a bit anxious, to see how her sisters would take it. She knew that some of the older girls were yearning to get alone with a particular guy, and this would put a crimp in their style. All the same, Rachel didn’t see any way around it. 
I don’t mind us being risky, but not stupid,
she repeated to herself.