The Midnight Dancers: A Fairy Tale Retold (The Fairy Tale Novels)

by Regina Doman

  “Paul!” Debbie screamed.

  Her voice was drowned in a general wail. Rachel’s vision clouded, and she felt her hands trembling on the steering wheel. Viciously she forced her mind free and pushed hard on the gas.

  We have to get help, she thought. And fast.

  But the boat was still heavy and slow, and it seemed like she was caught in a limbo of immobility, surging towards a house that never got any closer. The effect was heightened by the fact that she was surrounded by weeping and commotion, including her own.

  “Quiet!” she shouted at last, and the sisters subsided. She had rounded the bend towards their house, and the quay was out of sight.

  “When we get to shore,” she said, “everyone needs to run upstairs as fast as you can, and get Dad, and the police, and get them back over to the island quick.”

  “We tell them everything?” Cheryl asked, the weight of this sinking in quickly.

  “We tell them everything,” Rachel said, abruptly wiping her eyes. “Like we should have done before,” she said. “Prisca! Come here!” Her younger sister put her head near hers. “Make sure you tell Dad everything. Make sure he knows.”

  Prisca quavered, “Okay,” uncertainly. She’ll understand in a moment, Rachel thought.

  They were drawing near the shore, at long last. “I’m not going to dock,” she said. “Buddies, stick together. Jump off into the water, get to the shore, and RUN!”

  The sisters splashed into the water, the boat listing to one side as they did so. Rachel leaned the other way to steady it. They floundered to the shore, the older ones holding the hands of the younger ones. Rachel counted them all, and as soon as the eleventh one had reached the shore, she pushed her foot down on the gas and yanked the steering wheel sharply, peeling around in a spray of foam.

  “Rachel! Where are you going?” she heard cries behind her, but she didn’t look back. Her tears flew behind her into the wind. She was going back for Paul.

  twenty

  “Paul,” Michael’s voice hovered in the air above him. “So that’s who you are. I should have guessed.”

  They had torn off his mask. Paul, held down by six men, looked up, and saw a slow smile spreading across the blond man’s face.

  “He’s the one who gave me this,” Michael said to his buddies, lifting his face to the moonlight. Paul could see the beginnings of a dark bruise swelling on his cheek.

  “Let’s give him one of his own,” Craig said, squeezing his hand into a fist. “Or do you want to do the honors?”

  “No,” Michael put a hand out. “We can have him arrested for trespassing and assault. There’s no need to bloody him up. What we want is something more like this.” And Michael punched Paul in the stomach, and his friends laughed in surprise.

  “Good one, Comus,” Craig said while Paul tried to recover his breath. “How about we get going with turning him over to the police?”

  “But what about the girls?” Brandon asked, looking at the escaping boat. Behind them, Mark was crawling out of the water, dripping wet.

  Michael shrugged. “They won’t tell anyone. Their father is a strict fundamentalist Christian. He’d throw them out of the house if he even thought they were out at night. No, I think we’re safe.”

  His eyes wandered over Paul and he smiled again. “Paul, on the other hand, is just passing through town. I saw him at the festival yesterday. He’s a juggling clown.”

  The others chuckled. “Ooh, a ninja clown!” Craig chortled. “This is going to be great!”

  “Get him up,” Michael said, and Paul found himself roughly heaved to his feet. Craig and Todd still held onto his arms.

  Michael reached down and nonchalantly picked up a life preserver that hung on a hook in the quay. He flipped open a pocketknife and cut the rope off the life preserver. Coiling it around his arm, he said, “Bring him up to the heliport,” and tossed the life preserver aside.

  Craig twisted Paul’s arm behind his back painfully and moved him forward. They pushed him up the narrow stone steps that led through the woods to the flat ground where the helicopters could land. As they moved upwards through the dappled black of the forest, Paul’s thoughts were on the girls. They might be almost home by now. At least they were out of danger. Even though he wasn’t.

  There was a big helicopter coming into view now, black and insect-like in the moonlight. For a moment, he half-believed that they were going to fly him to the mainland and hand him over to the police. But Michael abruptly turned off to the side, and started to go down into the woods. As Craig and Todd started to force him to follow, Paul knew his instincts were right—Michael had something completely different in mind.

  Seizing his chance, he thrust an ankle between Todd’s feet, tripping him, while yanking his arms free and pulling Craig off balance. Todd let go of him and fell, while Paul seized Craig and threw him on top of Todd. Both men crashed to the ground.

  It was a fast move, and the four guys ahead of them almost had no idea what happened. Paul was just about to turn on them when two swift punches hit him on either side of his spine, directly on his kidneys. Stunned by the sharp pain, he fell to his knees, and Michael’s arm tightened around his neck. Craig and Todd got back up from the ground, red-faced and angry and seized Paul’s arms.

  He felt a breathy chuckle in Michael’s chest. “Got you there, Paul.”

  Michael yanked Paul’s chin upwards and looked at him, breathing hard. The bruise on the blond man’s eye showed clearly in the moonlight. “Strip him. And tie him up. This clown is going to provide us with our entertainment for the night.”

  Rachel drove fast. Alan’s pudgy boat was surprisingly swift with only one person in it. She splashed over the oncoming waves with rhythmic bumps that hammered at her as her heart hammered at her chest. Soon she was approaching the island, its shadowed shores widening and engulfing her vision. The island was disrobed of its delight, but not of its dark power.

  She decided that the quay was too exposed for her to return to. So instead, she piloted the boat along the shore on the opposite side, near the docks. There were trees overhanging deep water, and she cut the engine, paddled the boat into the shadows, and got out, trembling. She was not entirely sure what she was going to do, but her anger and sense of justice wouldn’t let her stay away. Remembering Paul’s apprehension that something bad would happen tonight and his poignant acceptance when she refused to heed his warning, she felt even more bound to help him…This would be a good time to pray, she thought abstractedly, but she couldn’t formulate any words, except Help. Hurriedly she fastened the boat to a strong branch, and plunged into the woods.

  Paul shivered in his boxer shorts, his hands tied tightly behind him as they went along through the forest, going down, sharply down. He clenched his teeth as he stepped on thorns and was thrust through bracken, which scratched his bare skin. His war injury, which had been bruised in the fight with Michael, was starting to ache. It was difficult to see in the unfamiliar woods, but Michael and his cronies seemed to know where they were going.

  And then Paul found himself being pushed forward around a sharp bend and then he was stumbling on level ground.

  He caught himself and had barely time to take in the surroundings—a small cave with a wide opening that writhed away into shadows, lined with rough benches and log stools. And behind him a massive rock, with a twisted tree crawling up its side, branching over its top. There was an odd smell in the air, a mixture of sweetness, foulness, and dust.

  Michael pushed past him and turned on a light somewhere, and the cave area was filled with an unearthly gray light. The blond man popped a pill into his mouth, opened a beer bottle, and took a drink.

  “Let’s get started,” he said.

  Craig shoved Paul’s shoulders back against the tree’s trunk. Michael flicked out the rope, and passed it around the tree and across Paul’s chest, pulling it tight. As his shoulders were arched back against the tree, Paul’s bound wrists were shoved into the small of his bac
k, throwing him off balance. He tried to compensate by planting his bare feet on the sandy ground of the cave as best as he could while the rope was tightened and knotted. Recalling his breathing exercises, Paul began his mental preparation.

  The other guys lurched passed them into the cave and threw themselves down on the rough benches. Paul saw Dillon reach greedily behind a rock, pull something out and light it.

  While Craig tied his ankles to the base of the tree, Paul concentrated on centering himself. He knew that his body would get used to the discomfort of the knots if he could keep his mind from focusing on it. Plus, he sensed there was worse to come.

  When Paul was tightly lashed in place, Craig sat down, but Michael remained standing in front of him, observing his prisoner with a strange smile on his face. His eyes were deadened, as usual, but with a pale flicker of interest. Paul kept his eyes on Michael’s chest, waiting, watching for his adversary’s next move while keeping himself upright and balanced.

  “A Catholic boy,” Michael murmured, putting out a hand to Paul’s miraculous medal. He jerked downwards, snapping the chain, and held up the gleaming silver.

  “I’m superstitious too, you see,” he said softly, and hurled it over the rock into the forest.

  Paul caught his breath, his neck smarting. He resumed his mental preparation, slowing his breathing, and finding his way back into calmness.

  Craig twisted open a beer bottle and flicked the bottle cap at Paul, hitting his thigh. “Make him scream, Michael,” he said. Some of the others chuckled in anticipation.

  Paul ignored him and kept himself still and as upright as possible, his head down, watching Michael, waiting, and preparing. He saw Michael’s eyes fix on his neck, and began to tense his toes in preparation, to turn the pain away from the upper part of his body.

  Michael’s eyes glimmered as he reached out with both hands and pinched the large nerve centers on the back of Paul’s neck and pulled up. Pain ratcheted up Paul’s neck and across his shoulders, but he was partially ready for it. He concentrated on working his toes, knowing that eventually the pinched nerves would adjust to the pain, and it would subside. He just had to wait. He hung from his tormentor’s hands like a limp cat, flexing each of his toes in turn, keeping his breathing steady.

  After a few moments, Michael dropped him and stepped back.

  There was general dismay. “You didn’t feel that,” Michael said accusingly. “I’m disappointed.”

  Paul meant to keep disappointing him, as long as he could. He dropped his eyes to hide his defiance. Openly taunting Michael in this situation would not be prudent.

  Michael probed along Paul’s neck again, his fingers as methodical as a large spider’s. He pressed Paul’s collarbone, working his way up towards the shoulder. Then he began to dig his fingers into the skin on either side until he had a hold on the fragile bone, and quietly began to pull on it.

  The pain was swift and screaming, followed fast by fear that the thin bone would snap. Paul writhed his wrists, found a nerve center, and dug down into it with his fingernails, so that competing pain began rushing into his hands. He wrenched his mind away from the fear and seized his self-inflicted pain and thrust it downward, away from him. Take it, take it, he prayed. Breathe. Breathe. Still. Still.

  “You’re not doing it right,” Craig complained, lurching to his feet. “He’s not squealing. Come on, break his collarbone! He won’t need it!”

  Paul disregarded the words and held on.

  “He’s just being obstinate,” Michael said. He held the bone ten seconds longer, and then released it.

  “You’re losing your touch,” Craig warned.

  Masking his relief, Paul tried not to let himself relax entirely. He wasn’t trained enough to stop from completely feeling the pain, but he had managed to stop himself from responding erratically. Once again, he sent up a grateful request for further endurance. It was not going to get any easier.

  Resolved or not, Rachel floundered about in the woods, trying to find her way up towards the house. The black skirt of her dress caught on the branches, and she wrapped it around her legs, trying to move quickly as well as quietly. But her outfit was scarcely conducive to stalking. At least it’s black, she thought to herself grimly.

  At last, almost miraculously, she stumbled across a path—plank steps leading from the dock to the side of the house. Her heels made clocking noises on the stone, and they were impractical. She tore them off. In her stocking feet, she crept up to the house, trying to ignore her anxiety. She wasn’t sure what she would find, or exactly what she would do when she found it.

  The lights were still on, but the house was silent.

  She approached cautiously, tiptoed up to the veranda and stood behind a pillar, looking in the window. There was no sound from inside, and no more music. The smoking ruins of the birthday feast were still on the table, sprayed with extinguishing foam, water dripping from the tablecloth to the carpet.

  After a moment, she stepped inside the house. She opened the door to the basement and listened. There were no sounds but the hum of some appliances. After a moment, she stole downstairs. There was the abandoned pool game, with cues and balls all askew, party napkins and drinks littered around the empty room.

  She searched the entire basement, then returned upstairs, opened the door to the kitchen, and tiptoed inside. There were the remains of Prisca’s omelet preparations and a can of beer on the counter, but nothing else.

  Finding a hallway and a staircase, she stole from room to room, opening doors onto empty rooms with increasing bewilderment. There was no sign of life. It was eerie.

  It was as though Michael and his cohorts had never existed. As if, with a flick of a magic staff, they had vanished with their captive into the ground, never to be seen again.

  Starting to become unnerved, she opened a bedroom sliding door and hurried out onto the small balcony. The breeze whipped her hair as she looked down at the portico where they usually danced. It was deserted. Only the branches of the willow trees swayed over the silent stones. She could see the helicopter gleaming on the heliport. Had they taken him away in a boat? She looked down at the dock, but couldn’t tell if any boats were missing.

  She stood on the balcony, searching over the wooded island, thinking. Her gut instinct told her that Michael was still here, though unseen. Perhaps he was watching her from some hidden corner, waiting merely for her to give up before springing his trap. She looked over her shoulder despite herself, and then steeled herself to be rational. Yes, somehow, she knew he was here, but not seeing him made her enemy seem increasingly omnipotent.

  Pain and humiliation. Those were their weapons. Weapons to both punish him and shut him up. Weapons to break him, and make him ashamed to go to the police, or to tell anyone about his ordeal.

  His obstacle was his helplessness. Tied down and barely able to move, he was relatively unable to resist. But within those boundaries, he had to fight his enemies, with as much persistence as if he were unfettered and armed.

  So far, he had managed to remain silent as he sweated and endured, even though he couldn’t keep his expression fixed. Although his concentration was sustained, he was finding it hard to stay still and upright, to keep pressure off his upper body, whose muscles would otherwise start cramping from the extra-tight ropes.

  His seven captors were taking turns, trying experiments and debating about what they could do next to break him. Since pain expands rapidly to fill its temporal space, Paul wasn’t sure after a while if he had been tied there for minutes, an hour, or several hours.

  He had to let that sense of time go, he told himself, licking his dry lips between moments. To hope for a definite ending would only make him desperate. And desperation was his biggest enemy now. Trust. Trust, he told himself. From moment to moment. That’s all I need.

  “I almost think he’s enjoying this,” Michael said, casting a sidelong glance at his prisoner.

  They had tossed beer bottles at him to see him duck,
and doused him with the leftovers of their drinks. His shoulders were sprinkled with broken glass where one had smashed over his head. Paul attempted to distract himself by taking an inventory of his wounds. He was bruised, he could tell, but not seriously cut. The beer still dripping down his neck continued to irritate his skin wherever it ran, and the smell mixed with his own sweat was unpleasant.

  “He should enjoy his prize even more then,” Craig said, with a sneer. “A free helicopter ride to the deserted field of our choice.”

  “Does he get his clothes back?” Dillon queried.

  “At this point, no,” Michael said.

  “He’s made you really mad, hasn’t he?” Todd said.

  “He knows it,” Michael said. His eyes were fixed on Paul’s face, but Paul was intentionally not meeting his gaze.

  “Then the deserted field is going to be at least as far away as Ohio,” Mark said.

  “More like Minnesota,” Michael said.

  “Too much trouble,” Craig said, flinging a bottle cap. Paul ducked again and it pinged off his neck. “I say if he’s being this obstinate, let’s fly over the Atlantic and see how far he can swim.”

  Paul knew they hadn’t meant most of what they said. He recognized that if he had given them what they wanted—groveling and begging for mercy—they would have let him off by now. But the foundation of aikido was treating even adversaries with dignity. He had to extend that respect to himself as well. Besides, he was stubborn.

  Breathing deeply again and making a sudden dodge against the dart of a bottle cap, he steadied himself internally.

  “No clown is going to get the better of me,” Michael’s voice said softly.

  Rachel retraced her steps downstairs to the ruined buffet, trying hard to think of what could have really happened, shoving aside the bloated image of evil in her mind. Unless Michael Comus were truly a demon, he and his cronies—and Paul—had to be visible and apparent somewhere on this island.