The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (24 page)

She was alone with the night. As she had wished. Warmth rushed through her, and she was no longer cold.

The hour approaches
, she thought.
If I say the right thing, if I dream the right dream, I will be able to walk into that enchanted world and be a midnight butterfly forever.
She felt power coursing through her, down to her fingertips.

Yes,
she thought.
It will happen. It will.

And she lay down, and listened to the waves, and drifted hauntingly to sleep.

fourteen

Rachel woke with the taste of sand in her mouth. She smelled it, and breathed it in, and woke up, choking. At first, she couldn’t move. It was as though all her limbs had frozen. The sand lay on her tongue, the roof of her mouth. All that was left was sand, dust, and dryness.

She rolled forward, and every joint moaned with pain. Not a sharp pain, but a dull, bruised pain. She put a hand to her face and touched grit, and dryness. Nothing was there but dust and sand. 

Eyes blinked open, and sand smarted in them. It was a gray world, a fog. Neither night nor day was visible. Both had fled.

For a moment, she experienced with each of her senses all that remained of her dreams—felt sand, smelt sand, saw sand, tasted sand. And there was no sound but the dull, inanimate rush of a wind tunnel.

For a moment, she took this in, and then her spirit shrunk shrieking into naked insanity. 

Sand, dust and ashes. Dust in the wind. Sand blown away. Foundationless. 

She writhed, a faceless, breathless, mouthless victim.

Gripping, she only slid further on the sand. Where was something to hold onto?  

God—

She flailed outwards and with a splash, found salt water.

And so she lifted her head to the cold world, her face dripping with salty water and crusted over with sand. There was sand on her lashes, and she couldn’t wipe it off, because her hands, though wet, were still sandy. Once again, her body moaned with soreness, and she sobbed. 

She raised her eyes to the island, and saw only the heaving gray waters of the bay. If there was a rising sun, it had shrouded itself behind heavy clouds and would not look at her.

Stiffly she pulled herself onto all fours and crept back up the beach, sickened by how wretched she felt. The blanket was a wet stiff knot that held no more comfort. Her own clothes clung to her like damp rags, a sodden sandy mass that kept the cold in instead of keeping it out.

Her tears, at least, were dissolving the sand out of her eyes and lashes. She crept about in vain for something to wipe the sand off of her. She found a piece of driftwood and attempted to scrape the sand off, but it was useless.

I’m like a crazy crone
, she thought,
sitting on the beach trying frantically to clean myself.

All of her dreams of the night rose up with the wind to yank at her sand-clotted hair and slap against her face, jeering in her ringing ears. Sand blew out of her nostrils, mixed with mucus. All enchantment had fled.

How could she ever face anyone again?

At last, staggering like a crippled woman, she scrambled up the beach, clutching at sea grass that traitorously came loose, spraying more sand on her. She was so cold.

Through the woods and into the grayness of the cave she hurried, and stripped herself of her sodden dress and pulled on the clothes she had left there—a t-shirt and denim skirt. At last she could wipe her hands clean, and then wipe her face and hair clean.

A shower
, she thought fixedly, but even the thought of bodily comfort did not tantalize her. Would she ever get the sand out of her hair? More to the point, would she ever get the taste of the sand out of her mouth? It was still there. Her tongue was thick and swollen.

She couldn’t face her sisters. Creeping up the stairs in this devastated state was more than she could bear. Alone, cold, and ashamed, she wound her way up the bike trail to the lawn, where she realized she would have to sneak inside the house without being seen. She skulked through the woods to the garage, and sidled around the edge. She was just hurrying towards the open door to slide between the cars when she saw Paul walking up the driveway.

He was wearing his usual khaki shorts and striped shirt. When he saw her, he halted.

She couldn’t hide from him. He hurried towards her.

“Rachel,” he said. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

He was looking at her anxiously; his brown eyes all puppy dog concern.

She licked her lips vainly, and attempted to speak.

“Rachel,” he said in a low voice. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” she said hoarsely. “I just spent the night on the beach.”

“Why?”

That was a stupidity she could not confess even to herself, let alone anyone else. “What are you doing here?” she said with an effort.

He didn’t respond. “Let me take you inside,” he said at last. “You’re shaking. I hope you don’t have hypothermia.”

“I don’t want to wake up my parents,” she said faintly.

“I understand.”

He led her into the garage and made her sit down on the steps leading to the house. He opened the door cautiously, listened, then grabbed a huge towel from the stack in the mud room and threw it around her shoulders. 

Then he knelt in front of her. “Let me see your feet,” he directed, and she put one out aimlessly. He began rubbing it vigorously, circulating the blood, first one, and then the other.

After a few minutes, he looked up into her eyes, scanning her face for something she couldn’t fathom. Then he said, “Go inside and take a shower. And then go up to bed.”

He didn’t say she would be okay. She wondered how much he had read in her eyes.

Mumbling thanks, she got to her feet and stumbled indoors to the bathroom and locked the door. The frightening sheet of madness had lifted, and she was coherent enough to get herself a long drink of water from the bathroom faucet. 

Then she undressed, fumbled with the knobs, and got into the shower. But she couldn’t stand up any longer. She sat down, put her back against the cold tiled wall, put her head between her knees, let the warm water drum down on her head and neck muscles in a hypnotic rhythm. At last the physical sensations overwhelmed her tattered psyche, and she slept. 

Paul went down to the beach.

There was much he knew about, but he didn’t know what had happened to Rachel on the beach last night after everyone had left, including himself.  He had walked back from Alan’s dock and found Rachel alone on the beach. Having heard part of the fray between the sisters, he had assumed she was cooling off.  But something in her aspect frightened him.  He didn’t know if she was waiting for someone, or perhaps attempting to drown herself. So he had sat around and waited. But after she had driven him away with her shouting, he felt weary and thought to himself
, I’ll let her sit in her pout.
And had gone back to his tent.

Still he had woken up early, anxious about her, and had gone over to the Durhams’ house to make sure she was okay.

And she was not okay—one look at her had told him that. But why, he couldn’t tell.

Let it go
, he told himself again.
She can tell me if she wants to
. Once again, he felt conflicted, wishing that he could somehow force Rachel to open up to her father, who, in his groping way, would have thrown himself between her and whatever danger was threatening her soul if she would let him. But Paul couldn’t force Rachel, or any of the girls.

He had chosen this path of standing away, of guarding but not preventing, and once again felt the frustration. It was difficult to sit in the shadows, watching the twelve sisters so naively flirting with their own destruction.  He probably would have given up or given in days ago, if Debbie and Linette hadn’t confided in him how much his presence reassured them.  But they were young—what they needed was a strong witness of someone rejecting the whole lifestyle their older sisters were being initiated into. Was he confusing them by standing by, and not interfering? He was guessing that their instincts were good enough to figure out right from wrong, even in this tangled web, but he didn’t know. He was trusting—dangling in midair on a thin trapeze of trust, a chain of girls hovering in midair—and they were all playing without any net but supernatural grace. And that could not be presumed upon.

He murmured his prayers as he moved his fingers over his rosary beads in his pocket, and paced, wearing a frustrated track in the sand. It was difficult to wait, and to trust. Only the bright figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that wonder of terrible trust, with her shining peaceful visage, comforted him.

After her shower, Rachel got dressed and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked better, but still drained. After a while, she hesitantly started upstairs, hoping to get to the girls’ bathroom unseen for an early skin masque job. She wasn’t particularly anxious to see anyone from her family.

As she rounded the corner, she met Melanie coming down the stairs. Her younger sister brightened with relief when she saw her. “Hey, Ray,” she said softly. “I went outside to look for you but couldn’t find you.”

“I came in by way of the garage,” Rachel said quietly. Then, “Want to go up to the bathroom with me?”

“Sure.”

Once they were inside the large long bathroom, which was thankfully unused, Rachel locked the door, turned on the hot water in one of the two sinks, and breathed a deep sigh, starting to feel more normal.

Her younger stepsister hopped onto the counter and sat Indian-style, and started to brush the tangled honey-brown hair that hung around her gentle face. She didn’t ask any questions—she just waited for Rachel to start talking when she was ready.  Rachel ran her fingers under the surging water from the faucet and felt grateful for the lack of emotional pressure to tell what had happened to her. She still didn’t quite understand it.

“I had a lousy night,” she said at last. Melanie nodded. Rachel, remembering the feelings, blinked suddenly. “I know how Linette felt now, anyway,” she managed to say.

The next moment, Melanie’s arms were around her, gently hugging her. “That’s all right, Ray. You don’t have to say anymore.”

“Thanks,” Rachel whispered, wiping her eyes again.  It never ceased to amaze her how someone as young as Melanie could be so comforting to talk to.

“Dad said we’re having his share group over for dinner tonight,” Melanie said, changing the subject when the time seemed right.

“Of course they would be coming,” Rachel murmured, with a trace of her usual, normal annoyance.

Melanie’s smile was barely touched with wryness. “Lord, give us the patience to endure your blessings,” she said, quoting a plaque that hung in the downstairs bathroom, and Rachel had to smile.

When she had recovered, and started her daily skin therapy, Rachel said, “You know, Melanie, you’re the only person in the whole family I wanted to see today. I’m glad I met you first.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” Melanie said softly. “I’m glad I found you, too. I was worrying about you all night and praying.”

“I’m sorry I made you worry,” Rachel said with a sigh. “Your prayers probably helped.” Dabbing on some cleansing soap, she added, “I’m so glad we can talk like this together. Everyone else, I feel I have to be guarded in some respects, but I feel you and I can be totally honest with each other. I’m grateful.”