The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold

by Regina Doman

  But he was shepherded into the house by his admirers, and Sallie insisted on making up a bed for him on the couch. He thanked her, his head slumping forward, and Colonel Durham said, “Stop pestering him now, girls. He’s exhausted.”

  Paul staggered appreciatively onto the couch, attempted to say something that sounded like good night, and plunged forward, dead to the world again.

  “What did they do to him?” the girls asked Rachel anxiously after they had tiptoed out of the living room. They had, of course, noticed the obscene word which was still faintly scrawled across his forehead.

  Rachel attempted to explain what she had witnessed as she wobbled over to the kitchen table, feeling more than slightly exhausted herself.

  “That is so sick,” Tammy said angrily. Debbie got up from the kitchen table and slipped out of the room.

  “Girls,” Colonel Durham said from the corner. They all looked at him, suddenly silent and guilty, remembering that until tonight, he had little knowledge of the events that had led up to this night’s catastrophe. He opened the cupboard. “Does anyone want something to drink? Rachel?”

  “Yes please,” Rachel said, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was. She lowered herself into a chair. The others also asked for drinks, and their dad pulled out glasses and poured juice and water for everyone. Debbie came back in, took a coffee mug, and went over to the sink. Sallie, still in her bathrobe, handed around the glasses until everyone was settled.

  When everyone was sitting down with their glasses, Colonel Durham pulled out a chair on one side of the table and sat down, rubbing his graying hair.

  “Well,” he began, looking around at them, a bit hesitant. “I’d very much like to hear the whole story, if any of you want to tell me. Your mother and I have been mostly in the dark, until you all stormed into our bedroom at two this morning.”

  Sallie nodded. Cheryl raised her hand. “I have one question,” she said, “how much did Paul tell you?”

  “Nothing,” Dad said, spreading his hands. “I asked him if he could find out from you girls what was going on, and he said he would, but only if he was free to not tell me anything until you girls were ready to tell me. So I’ve been waiting, and praying, and I don’t know very much at all.”

  Rachel’s face reddened. “That’s what Paul said the other night to me,” she said. “That he wanted us to tell you ourselves.”

  “Well, will you?”

  Rachel looked at the other girls for the final decision. Brittany was nodding her head emphatically, and Melanie, Cheryl, Lydia, Rebecca, Tammy, Taren, Linette, Miriam, and Prisca were all doing the same. She noticed again that Debbie was missing.

  “All right then,” she said. “Cheryl, you were there at the beginning. Why don’t you tell them how it got started?”

  Cheryl looked at Rachel a bit surprised. At first she looked as if she would object, but then seemed to change her mind. “Well,” she said, “it all started when a few of us decided to rearrange our room one night.”

  Everyone in the family was listening to her intently. Rachel drained her glass, and unobtrusively rose from the table. After a few minutes, she stepped into the dining room, looking for Debbie.

  Rachel found her in the living room, kneeling next to Paul’s head. She had a coffee mug of warm water and a small washcloth, and was cleaning his forehead carefully. He was still blissfully asleep.

  The ugly word was mostly erased. Debbie worked slowly. “I’m trying not to get soap in his eyes,” she explained.

  “Are you sure you’re not bothering him?” Rachel asked.

  “I asked him and he said to go right ahead,” she said. “I don’t think he even knows I’m doing it any more.”

  Rachel sat down in an easy chair, put her hand on her chin, and contemplated the sleeping man, grateful to see him comforted. What a remarkable person he was. Her first assessment of him, made a bare few weeks ago, had vastly missed the mark. Paul’s goodness—for he was good, not just nice—was of a different quality—less easy to categorize, tame, and dismiss. He hadn’t been content, either, to remain apart from them, untainted in his goodness, but had insisted on going out and getting himself mixed up with their own brand of badness. And she had seen what it had done to him.

  Yet he had accepted it. She could tell he didn’t resent her, despite the spasms of pain that momentarily knitted his sleeping brow.

  “Sorry,” Debbie whispered. “I’m almost done.”

  She rubbed even more slowly. “Rachel, what did that word mean?”

  “You don’t want to know,” Rachel said wryly. “It wasn’t true, anyway.”

  Meeting Paul had done something to her, and she wasn’t entirely sure what it was. But she felt certain that she was never going to see the world in the same way again.

  Now her own eyes began to grow heavy, and she put her head back against the chair. The last thing she saw before she drifted off was Debbie kissing Paul on his cleaned forehead and patting his hair.

  But once she closed her eyes, the stupidity of her actions and the pain and anguish she had caused came back to her. She put her head against the cushions of the chair and wept again, her tears hot on her cheeks, this time asking for forgiveness. Somewhere in that misty land between sleeping and waking, it was granted, and she fell asleep.

  With everything that had happened, Rachel should have slept in. But something woke her up before nine in the morning.

  She found herself in bed, and was confused for a moment. She didn’t remember coming up to bed, but after a few moments, recollected her sisters and Sallie helping her into some welcome softness at some point during the night.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes. The girls’ bedroom was warm and air was heavy with the sounds of gentle breathing. Carefully she moved away from Debbie, who was snoring peacefully on the other side of the bed.

  Cheryl slept in the other double bed, her arms protectively around her youngest sister Linette, who still looked like a baby when she slept. Tammy and Taren were lumps of blankets crowned with strands of blond hair. Miriam, her arm thrown over her dark hair, breathed deeply in her top bunk bed, and Prisca was sleeping fitfully in the bottom bunk, half-laughing to herself in some dream. Lydia’s arm hung over the side of her top bunk, and Rachel tucked it back on the bed. Becca lay on her back, the covers up to her tilted nose. Brittany slept like a guy, the blankets over her head and her bare feet thrust out of the covers.

  Below her on the bottom bunk, Melanie was curled up on her pillow. Her face was perfectly content, and she smiled in her sleep. Touched, Rachel stroked her cheek with the side of her finger, and her sister sighed and turned over. Rachel couldn’t help smiling at her. Melanie’s heart was unburdened at last.

  Rachel was still wearing her midnight butterfly dress, which, despite its trials, was in fairly decent shape. But after having slept in it, it felt to her like a tight cocoon. She wriggled out of it, relieved, and put on her denim blue dress. Paul liked this dress on me, she thought, and felt an unusual tremor in her stomach.

  I’m never leaving you again, she had said to him fiercely, sometime last night, or this morning. And she vividly remembered her hands touching his distressed face. There was something there she didn’t want to let go of.

  But she was suddenly conscious that this was the daylight, not the phantasms and terror of the nighttime. Things were different here—different religions, different churches, differing paths of life. There were obstacles here, too—more prosaic and discernible, but still obstacles. But Paul had asked her to live in both the night and the day.

  In the bathroom, she carefully brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth, and studied herself in the mirror. What will Paul think of me now? After everything that’s happened? She didn’t know what to expect.

  At last she stole downstairs and tiptoed to the living room, to look again on the sleeping man.

  But all that greeted her in the living room, bright with fresh sunshine, was a tangle of blankets, and no body.

  D
umbfounded, she stood still. For an instant she almost wondered if she had been right—if Paul, as she had thought of Michael last night, wasn’t really a human being, but something else, something beyond human. But that was silliness.

  She hesitantly turned away and went into the kitchen. Her father was up, at a sunny spot on the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading his Bible. He turned when she came in.

  “Good morning, Rachel.”

  “Good morning,” she came to him, put her arms shyly around him, and kissed him. “Where’s Paul?”

  “He’s already up and gone,” her dad said with a smile.

  “Gone?” she repeated, dismayed.

  “To church. He just left a moment ago. He said he just had time to walk to morning Mass, so he left.”

  “Oh.”

  He took her hand unexpectedly. “Rachel, I’ve decided to step down from leadership in our church. What do you think about that?”

  She paused, holding his hand. “I think that would be wonderful, Dad.”

  “The more I’ve been thinking about it, the more right it seems to me. You girls are growing up so fast. Before you know it, you’ll all be out of the house. So I want to take advantage of the time left and spend more of it with you and your sisters. I’m convinced that God wants this of me. And I’m ready.”

  His eyes were solemn. She bent down and kissed him, feeling a sweet happiness come over her. “Thank you, Dad. I think that’s just what our family needs.”

  “Good!” he said, kissing her cheek and letting her go. “Would you—” He started to say something else, but she cut him off, unintentionally.

  “Dad, can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead.” He didn’t seem to mind that she had interrupted him.

  “Can I—” she looked away, towards the door, where Paul had left. “Can I go—?”

  “With Paul?” he asked. “To church?”

  She nodded.

  He seemed to be a bit disappointed, and she realized he had probably been about to invite her to join him for morning devotions. But then he seemed to make up his mind.

  He squeezed her hand again and smiled a knowing smile. “Go with that young soldier, Rachel.”

  Nevertheless, she didn’t let go of his hand right away. “Dad, are you sure?” she asked, uncertainly.

  “Go with him, daughter,” he said, smiling sternly. “That’s an order.”

  Without another word, she kissed him on the cheek, turned, and ran out of the house.

  The sun was moving swiftly up into the blue sky, and the bay breeze was gusting merrily as she ran down the driveway to the gravel road. Her sandaled feet slapped against the brown pebbles, and her hair kept blowing in her face, but she didn’t care. As she rounded the curve, she saw him far ahead of her, walking easily. The bend of his muscles, his brown hair fluffed by the breeze. She called his name.

  I’m never leaving you again.

  He turned, and she raced towards him, scattering pebbles behind her. Her breath was catching in her throat, and she laughed, almost giddy with the exertion. She had never run after anything this fast, she was sure.

  And as she came closer, she saw his face, first startled, and then wondering, like a child’s, and then he understood. And a grin lit up his face like she had never seen before, and he held out his hand to her.

  He knows, she realized. He knows. And I know, too. I know that I know.

  I know goodness. It has a name.

  The great philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand once said that if beauty and goodness are separated, then a curious disembodiment of the culture takes place. Goodness becomes abstract and merely moral, perhaps even boring; and beauty appears to be mere sensual glamour, a distractions, and perhaps even evil. For of course, said von Hildebrand, goodness and beauty are in their essences the same thing. As human beings, we need goodness to be incarnated in beauty so that we can more easily love goodness.

  After I pondered these words for some time, I began to wonder: how could you possibly cure someone for whom goodness is boring? As a cradle Catholic, I had grown up knowing many jaded Christian teenagers who were sure that they knew “all about that stuff,” Christianity, and they were sick and tired of it. To them, goodness was truly boring. What could be done for them?

  To try to figure out the answer, I wrote this novel.

  So right at the beginning, I have to acknowledge my debt to von Hildebrand, whose thoughts set me on this path, and also to Dr. Benjamin Wiker, who pointed out the disastrous consequences to the soul who finds goodness boring. Without the writings of these two men, this book would not exist.

  I’m also very grateful, one again, to the collage of friends and family who helped me with this book, primarily my own brothers and sisters, and my friends Ben Hatke, Nicholas Marmalejo, and Andrew O’Neil. Ben helped me with the juggling parts, Nick helped me with the aikido, and they both helped Andy choreograph that marvelous fight scene at the climax of the book. I’m never going to forget watching them stage the battle in the living room of our old house: truly memorable!

  Again, my old friend Dr. Frank helped me with the medical facts for the book, and my chiropractor Dr. Scott Berman helped me with the “alternative medicine” parts. My brother Paul Doman (Captain, National Guard) and friend Rich Morgan (Retired Senior Master Sergeant, Air Force) assisted with the military scenes. Rick and his wonderful wife Cathy, who are parents of teenaged girls, also gave me useful and illuminating recommendations on parenting. (Cathy and her daughter Caitlin also sent over two delicious dinners during the final editing stretch, which was a wonderful blessing!) And although I had Rachel ask her father not to share his insights with his friends at the start of Chapter 18, I am grateful that writer Elizabeth Foss chose to share her own epiphany on parenting teenagers with her readers, since it partially inspired that scene.

  Jean Vencil, Elizabeth Hausladen, and Pastor Greg Wright all helped me enormously by reading the book and commenting on the Protestant aspects in the story. So did Ken Fast (a former Mennonite). As a Catholic, I am grateful for their perspective.

  Special thanks to Caroline Miller for modeling for the cover photo. All other images were courtesy of iStock Photo, and almost all the fonts were from the great calligraphers at the Scriptorium. Two exceptions were the title font (A Yummy Apology) and the Little People dancing under the moon. The latter is a freeware font created by Emerald City Fontwerks. All fongs and images were used with permission.

  Other readers who gave wonderful advice included Micheala Berquist, Anna Hatke, Alyssa Hichborn, Katie Tietjen, Mary Clare Robinson, and Nance and Sarah Brown. And I must give a special note of thanks to screenwriter and writing instructor Janet S. Batchler who wnet over and over my opening scene with me until it worked. Since I tried for five years to fix it on my own, I am so very grateful.

  I cannot begin to express my gratitude to my husband Andrew, who put many hours into editing and revising this book, as well as arguing to convince me to tighten rambling or unnecessary scenes. I owe him so much.

  My children Caleb, Rose, Marygrace, Thomas, Joan, and Polly were also so patient with me during this whole process. Also I am sure my son Joshua was praying for me from Heaven. I’m thankful for all of them.

  And most of all I’m grateful to the man Who is the only person I know who can cure us of the illusion that goodness is boring: my Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. It was a privilege to write this book. I am glad to have been given this story to tell.

  About the Author

  Regina Doman lives near Front Royal, Virginia with her husband and their six children.

  More information about her Fairy Tale Novel series can be found at www.fairytalenovels.com. Regina always welcomes email, feedback, and questions from readers.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  The Durham Family

  1. The twelve princesses all slept together in a great room, their beds standing side by side.

  2. Their room was locked with a g
reat bolt and there was no way that the princesses should have been able to leave, but yet...

  3. A poor soldier, recently returned from the wars, heard of the king's mysterious problem...

  4. For the king had caused it to be proclaimed that whoever could discover the princesses' secret would have a rich reward...

  5. Therefore, the soldier presented himself at the front door of the castle...

  6. That night, the soldier slipped on his cloak of invisibility...

  7. After midnight, the princesses arose from their beds, put on splendid dresses, and hurried out of their room through the secret door, invisibly followed by the soldier...

  8. They went by boat across the water to a splendid castle in the middle of the lake, where they danced all the night long...

  9. The next morning the princesses were tired and their shoes were worn out as before. But the soldier knew he had more time before he had to make his report to the king.

  10. So the soldier kept his silence and the princesses did not guess that they had been seen.

  11. When one prince said, 'The boat is heavy tonight,' the youngest princess said, 'It seems light to me.'

  12. And again the princesses slipped through the secret door, and the soldier followed them off the boats onto the magic island as before.

  13. And again the princesses danced with their princes all through the night, until the morning was nigh.

  14. And the soldier kept his silence still.

  15. And the eldest princess laughed and said, 'It is good for the fool that he does not know our secret.'

  16. And still the soldier kept his silence, telling no one what he had seen.

  17. Now the hour drew near for him to tell the king, and the daughters waited with baited breath for his answer.

  18. On the last night, the soldier put on his cloak of invisibility and prepared to follow the princesses as before.

  19. And the princesses disembarked and went up to the faery palace, all lit as if for a festival, and the soldier invisibly followed them.