The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (25 page)

As she plunged her face into the water, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Melanie’s face had fallen. Eyes shut, rubbing her face vigorously beneath the water, she decided it was just Melanie’s usual embarrassment at being complimented. But when she emerged from the water and had patted her face dry with a towel, she noticed that her younger sister looked genuinely distressed, as if she were about to cry.

She was about to ask her what was wrong when the door handle turned. When it didn’t open, there was a fury of hammering and yelling from outside the door. “Come on, it’s not private property in there!” Becca yelled.

Rachel heaved a sigh, and reached over to open the door with a disdainful click. “What’s your problem? Geez!” she snorted.

Recognizing Rachel, Becca retreated slightly, but seeing that her older sister appeared sane, she edged inside. “Sorry. Didn’t know who it was,” Becca muttered. Then she added cautiously, “You feeling better, Rachel?”

“Hmph. Yes,” Rachel said carelessly. She studied herself in the mirror. She was looking much better. Dear God, what kind of an impression had she made on Paul this morning? Rubbing the moisturizer into her cheeks and heaving a sigh, she resolved to go down and talk to him again, later on, to show him that she had recovered herself—that she was okay. Somehow, the thought of being indebted to Paul Fester’s kindness rankled her.

Paul took a morning swim, dried himself off, and took up his rosary again. He was praying aloud as he walked up and down the beach.  As he walked, distracted in his meditations, he glanced over at the island. A strong breeze was sweeping across the bay, and he could see the large house wrapped in its cloak of swaying firs. He barely made out a figure on the balcony of the house looking towards the Durham house. A flash of light coming from the figure caught his eyes. Light reflecting off of glass? Binoculars? 

Suddenly self-conscious, he wondered if he was the one being scrutinized. But a rustle in the bushes above told him that Michael Comus was probably training his spyglass on a more desirable target. Rachel was coming down the track to the beach.

She had showered and dressed, and carried herself with a bit of her usual pretense of disdain, but he could make out the hollows below her eyes. Rachel was still beautiful, even with the hairline cracks in her veneer of sophistication.

“What were you saying?” she asked, a touch of mild fascination in her words as she came up to him. “I was standing up on that cliff, watching you. You were just jabbering to yourself, the same words over and over again.”

He colored, and turned his back on the island. “I’m saying the rosary in Japanese,” he said.

“Really? Why?”

“My old aikido teacher was a Japanese Catholic, and he taught me. I just like the language,” he laughed, a bit uncomfortable. “Plus I’ve been trying to calm Melanie’s fears for my soul.”

“What do you mean?”

“She heard me praying the rosary in English once and became disturbed because of the language I was using with Mary. I figured I don’t want to rock her world, so whenever I’m over here, I just use Japanese.”

“I see,” Rachel pursed her lips, and he saw she was keeping back a smile. Why did she always hide her smiles? “So you were praying down here, not pacing in a cage?”

“Yes,” he said, and flushed. Had she actually been watching him that long? Why? “How are you feeling?” he asked, changing the subject and beginning to walk down the shore once more. He wanted to get her away from the gaze of the man on the island. “You looked pretty bad this morning.”
Like an old woman
, he thought, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“I’m all right,” she said, dropping her eyes and licking her lips. “I just spent the night on the beach, and woke up sore.”

“Was that all?” he had to ask as they rounded the bend.

“I had a nightmare.”

“Oh.” He understood something like that, and was relieved.

“Paul—”

“Yes?”

She had an odd expression on her face. “You have a problem with me, don’t you?”

He halted, wondering if she had found him out, after all. “What do you mean?” he asked at last.

“You think I’m a hypocrite.”

“I think you’re not living honestly,” he said at last.

“What do you mean by that?” Now she was defensive, her green eyes angry and afraid.

“You said the other day when we were talking by the tree that you didn’t think you could express your true feelings.”

“Oh, that!” she laughed sarcastically, but he could tell she was relieved. “Well, if I could have another life, totally separate from my regular life, I would! A day life and a night life. Wouldn’t you?”

“No,” he said. “I would try to live honestly in every part of my life. I think what you’re doing is a dangerous way to live.”

“Why dangerous? You could keep all the dark things in your life away from contaminating the light parts. Or would you prefer to be totally dark?” she pursued, swinging her hips as she walked.

He halted. “You’re a very strange girl, Rachel.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you seem to see everything as a conflict. Why does there have to be a battle between your day and your night? God separated them, but there’s light in both. God made the moon, you know, to beautify the night. There’s got to be room for mystery. Don’t draw battle lines where they’re not meant to be. There’s enough war in the world without them.”

She was amused. “Is that what’s so different about you?”

“What?”

“You’re not divided. I can’t make up my mind as to whether you’re a pagan or a Christian. You’re so strange that way.” She had taken a step towards him and was studying him curiously.

“Rachel,” he said with an effort, feeling self-conscious. “Trying to split your world in two, and then trying to live differently in one world than you do in the other—that’s just not healthy. It can’t be done for long. It can lead to —” he paused. “Well, one thing it could lead to is mental disintegration.”

Rachel looked at him sharply, and flushed.

“What?” he asked. He saw that tense expression on her face again.

“Suppose—” she dropped her eyes and started walking carefully around the rocks at the edge of the water. “Suppose you’d been told all your life that you had to keep your eyes on the things of heaven, and keep away from the entanglements of the flesh, and then you grew up and realized that you were beautiful, and knew that wherever you went, you were going to keep on turning men’s eyes away from heaven down to earth and—” she looked up at him, “fleshly matters. How would that make you feel?”

“Evil,” he said flatly. “That’s why I don’t agree with looking at the world that way. Is that how you feel?”

“I’m not the only girl who feels that way,” she said quietly. “Prisca scares me sometimes. I mean, I’m a bit rebellious, but she’s very rebellious.  Sometimes she’s actually hostile about God and church and everything.” 

“Is that what you’re worried about?” He knew she was changing the subject, but it was clear that this other matter had been on her mind as well.

“Yes. Do you know what I mean? Isn’t there something a bit—strange—about her mood swings?”

He hesitated, again knowing more about the situation than she realized he knew.  Prisca seemed overly excited, swinging back and forth between exhilarating highs and sour lows.  And the way she threw herself in the path of strange men was disturbing.

“I’ve actually been wondering,” he said, “if your sister might have some undiagnosed physical problems.”

She stared at him. “You don’t mean mental problems?”

He dug into the sand with his toe. “A good doctor would look at her holistically. Yes, there may be some psychological problems, but I’m not sure that’s the whole thing. I’ve been sort of watching her. She doesn’t eat very well. It could be that she has an undiagnosed food allergy, and her mood swings are due to blood sugar fluctuations.” Feeling he was overextending himself, he looked at Rachel, who was gaping at him. “I only have a pre-med degree—I’m not even a medical student yet. But I guess I’d say my instinct is that your parents should have her checked out. Just have her tested for allergies, to begin with. And a glucose test.”

“You mean that everything might be due to—” she started.

He shook his head. “No. There’s a definite moral problem she’s struggling with, and that won’t go away just because of a medicine.  But it’s always more difficult to make the right choices when you’re feeling lousy, and this might help her out.”

Rachel lifted her face to him, and he saw she was looking at him differently. The disdain in her blue-green eyes was dissolving. “You’re very observant,” she said slowly.

He shrugged it off. “I probably have too much time on my hands right now,” he said nonchalantly. “Have I answered your questions?”

“Partly,” she said. “I’ll talk to Sallie, though, about Prisca. Right away.” She turned and started up the path. “Thank you,” she said, over her shoulder, and with a toss of her brown hair, she hurried off.

He watched her and then turned away. She was a pretty girl, dancing with danger and hiding her secrets carefully, but she cared about her sisters deeply.  He had to admire her for that.

fifteen

Paul found Colonel Durham in his home office that morning. 

“Good morning, Paul,” Colonel Durham said, when Paul came into the room. “What can I do for you?”

Paul shut the door behind him and sat down in the chair across from the colonel. He swallowed hard, and tried to find the words to begin. He took a folded paper out of his pocket. “I remember that you were looking for ways you could re-connect more with your daughters. I asked my dad if he had any recommendations about raising daughters, and I wrote down a few things he said,” he handed Colonel Durham the folded paper.

Colonel Durham took it. “Your father has how many daughters?”

“Five. The oldest is thirty-two, and the youngest is eighteen. They all get along with him just fine.”

“I see,” the man read over the paper silently for a few minutes. “Some of this I try to do already. ‘Speak respectfully to them.’ I always try to do that. ‘Listen to them.’ Well, if they would talk to me, I would listen to them.” He read over the paper and frowned. “This is a lot. I’m not sure if I’d have time to do all these things. ‘Take her out on a date periodically.’ Paul, I have a hard time trying to get some special time with my wife, let alone all those girls. Did your father do that?”

“Yes,” Paul said. “He and my mom would go on a date about once a month on their wedding anniversary day, and he’d also schedule time to take my sisters out to breakfast, or lunch, or whatever once a month too.”

“But he had five and I have twelve,” Colonel Durham said with a wry smile. “I’d spend half of every month on a date. Well, maybe that would help. I guess I could take them out to lunch on the days I work at home… All right, I’ll think about it.  Thanks for taking the time to put this together.”

“You’re welcome sir.” Paul rose.

“There is one other thing I’d like to ask you about,” Colonel Durham looked at him keenly.

“Yes sir?”

“Sit down.”

Paul sat again, and Colonel Durham took off his glasses and folded them. “I was up very early this morning,” he began. “And I was sitting at the kitchen table when I heard you and my daughter Rachel talking in the garage. Then she snuck inside into the bathroom, and I suppose you left. I was surprised, as you can imagine, to hear you two together so early in the day.”