The Twelve Dancing Schoolgirls
Madame Yvette's School for Young Ladies was the most prestigious all-girls boarding school in the New York City area. Wealthy parents from all over the country would send their daughters there for their education. Madame Yvette's boarded an average of three hundred girls at any one time. They were split into groups of twelve, and those twelve girls would do everything together: classes, sports, extracurriculars. They would sleep in the same suite.
The rules at Madame Yvette's were quite simple: no drugs, no alcohol, no boys, and no leaving the premises unless permitted by Yvette. Naturally, the teenage girls weren't pleased with these rules, and always tried to slip out at night to go into the city. They never succeeded. Madame Yvette had eyes – and cameras – everywhere, and never had any girls managed to slip off the grounds without getting caught.
Then one group of girls managed. Yvette watched them closely, but every night, they went into their suite as ordered and did not emerge until morning. There was nothing they said or did to give suspicion they were sneaking out – but they were. The random, secret checks Yvette's people did of the suites found dirty clothes that would not be allowed to be worn on campus and other such signs to show that the girls were spending time off the grounds.
Yvette threw a fit. Her girls were not to be perusing the city unsupervised! It was entirely improper. So she called together her staff and told them what was happening, offering a very substantial raise to whomever could discover how they were escaping unnoticed.
For days, the staff surreptitiously watched the twelve girls, trying to see if they would give away any of their secrets. A few of the cleaning staff polished the hallway outside the suite door to a new extreme, just as an excuse to watch the suite. Still, though, they learned nothing, and the tracked-in dirt from outside was a dead giveaway – the girls were still getting out.
While everyone else in the building worked tirelessly to discover how the girls were leaving, one person, the gardener's assistant Michael, just kept working. Only eighteen, he was taking a year off to save for college, and was spending that year working at Madame Yvette's; it paid well enough, and he did enjoy being outside. He heard Madame Yvette's offer of a raise, and wished he could get it. It would substantially help his dream of attending college. He just wasn't sure how to go about discovering the girls' secrets.
He considered just asking Lily. She was one of the girls in question, and she was always out in the garden. They were always exchanging books to read in their free time, and they were at least sort of friends. However, he didn't think they were close enough that she would tell him – and he certainly didn't want her to know he was trying to prove their rule-breaking to Madame Yvette.
What Michael didn't know was that he was the last in a long line of a family cursed to live out the same scenario generation after generation after generation – and that this was the scenario playing out yet again.
One day, while working in the garden, a strange woman approached him. "Hello, boy," she said pleasantly.
He looked up at her. "Hello," he said, wondering who this woman was and what she was doing on the premises. She was probably a one the of the girls' older sisters.
"I have a gift for you, boy," she said. "It's from…an anonymous friend of yours." Her eyes danced as she watched him.
He stood, eyeing her warily. "What are you talking about?" he asked.
She tossed him a cloak. "Use it wisely, boy," she said, and walked off.
He stared at the cloak in his hand. What on earth was she talking about? He ran after her, but she was nowhere to be found. Shrugging, he threw the cloak around his shoulders, just to see what would happen. He yelped in surprise as his arms disappeared into thin air. He looked down, and sure enough, his entire body was gone.
It took him quite some time to get used to this. Invisible. He was invisible. For a while, he just couldn't get his mind wrapped around this. And then it hit him – he was invisible. Completely and utterly invisible. No one could see him. He could do anything he wanted to.
Naturally, he came to the conclusion that with this, he could discover the secret of the twelve disappearing girls.
That night, Michael slipped into the suite behind Karin and Amanda, the last of the twelve girls to go to bed. He waited, invisible, in the living area as they all went to bed. Yvette herself came to check that they were all there at curfew. She left after thoroughly searching the room, and locked the door.
Minutes later, Amanda slipped out of her room and slinked to the door. She looked out the peephole. Satisfied with what she saw, she called quietly, "It's clear." She pulled off her nightgown to reveal black pants and a low-cut shirt that would probably get her expelled if she were caught wearing it. The eleven other girls came out, wearing similarly frowned-upon clothing. Karin walked over the old bookcase on the far wall and reached behind it. To Michael's surprise, it completely swung away from the wall, revealing a doorway. One by one, the girls walked through, Karin holding a flashlight ahead of them. Lily, the last one through, pulled the bookcase closed behind them, turning on her own flashlight as she did so.
Michael waited a few moments before going over to the bookcase himself and feeling around for a latch. Sure enough, he found one and the case swung forward. Quietly he ducked into the passage and ran after the girls.
It wasn't long before he caught up with Lily, and followed behind her for quite some time. Then, accidentally, he stepped on the hem of her skirt. She immediately spun around with her flashlight. He froze, though she wouldn't have been able to see him even if he had been moving. She gazed suspiciously at the seemingly empty space before her, but finally turned and continued on her way. Michael breathed a slight sigh of relief and followed.
Soon after, they emerged in the forest outside of the school, coming out of the side of a tree. Michael gazed at the bark after the door was closed, but he couldn't see any sign of a doorway. It certainly looked like a real tree. Shaking his head, he ran after the girls.
It wasn't long before they reached the bus station. He slipped onto the transit vehicle behind them, and they all headed into the city.
The next morning, Michael arrived at work fifteen minutes late, yawning. He had been out following the girls until almost midnight, though the girls were still out and about at that point. They had snuck into a New York club using presumably fake identification.
He looked down at the book he held in his hand. The Eight by Katherine Neville. He had promised it to Lily; he knew she would like it. Grinning slightly, he slipped into the first page a business card from the club they had gone to the night before.
It was one o'clock that afternoon before he saw her. The girls had a free hour after lunch, and she usually came out to the garden. He found her sitting on her usual bench. "Hi, Lily," he said.
She looked up from her book and smiled. "Hi, Michael. How goes it?"
"Not bad," he said. "I brought that book I was telling you about."
"The Eight?" she asked excitedly, eagerly taking it from him.
"I've got to get back to work," he said, backing away.
"Thank you, Michael," she said seriously, looking up at him, and he suddenly felt a pang of guilt.
"Anytime," he said, and hurried out of sight. Pausing behind a tree, he glanced back in time to see her open the book to glance through it, and saw her go pale at the sight of the business card. Satisfied that she had found it, he turned and went to get back to work.
For three weeks, Michael continued to follow them, though he opted to just wait at the bus station rather than having to sneak into their room all the time. Four more times in that time, he lent Lily a book, only to have her open it and discover a card from the club they had been to the night before. He wondered how long it would be before she either confronted him or went to her suite mates. He had gotten so used to her not doing anything that it was almost a surprise when an anonymous note was slipped in with his gardening tools. "Be at the bus station at ten-thirty" was all it said. So, naturally, he was at the bus station at ten-thirty that night.
The girls arrived ten minute later. "You're late," he told them pleasantly.
"Yeah, well, Madame Yvette was running late checking curfews tonight," retorted Stephanie.
"How did you find out about us?" demanded Karin, getting right to the point.
He shrugged. "I have my ways," he said casually.
Karin shook her head. "Well, on the bus," she said, gesturing to the ten-forty-five bus that was pulling up. She walked over and handed him a card. "Fake ID," she explained, and led the way onto the bus. The other eleven girls followed, and Michael brought up the rear. He sat down in the seat next to Lily, but didn't say anything. Finally, after ten minutes of silent riding, he turned to her and said, "Why are you guys sneaking out?"
She looked at him in disbelief. "You're kidding, right?"
He shook his head. "Nope."
She sighed, leaning back in her seat. "That place is a prison," she finally said. "We have no freedom. We may get a decent education, but it's not worth it. Julie found that secret passage a couple of months ago, and it was like a holy grail to us. When we're not in there, we can do whatever the hell we want. We don't have to worry about the cameras catching us and Madame Yvette expelling us. We get what we want, she gets what she wants, and our parents won't kill us for getting kicked out of school." She turned to glare at him. "Well, they didn't," she said. "If you tellMadame Yvette how we're getting out, then suddenly that part of the plan isn't going to work so well anymore."
"Hey, I haven't told her yet, have I?" asked Michael. "There's still plenty of time to convince me to do otherwise."
"Why do you think you're sitting on this bus?" she retorted. Before he could respond, she stood and went to sit with Amanda.
Michael fell into a chair at the bar, watching the girls disappear into the throng of people, and shook his head. He had no idea what he was doing there.
"What can I get you, boy?" asked the bartender, loud enough that he could hear her over the music.
"Diet coke," Michael said immediately.
"You go to all the trouble of sneaking in with a fake ID, and all you get is a soda?"
Michael's head snapped around and he stared at the bartender. "How-?" he began. He trailed off as he gazed into the eyes of the woman who had given him the cloak.
She winked at him. "One diet coke, coming right up," she said, getting to work.
He stared after her, mouth agape. Finally she came back, setting his soda onto the bar. "How'd the cloak work out for you?" she asked.
"Where did you get it?" he asked. "Who are you?"
She laughed. "It was your own cloak," she said. "It belonged to your mother's father before you."
"And how do you know my grandfather?" he asked doubtfully, noting she was only in her early twenties. "He's been dead for fifteen years."
She smiled, and leaned down on the bar so she could talk to him without being overheard. "Have you ever heard the fairy tale 'The Dancing Princesses'?":
He shrugged. "Yeah, I think so. The princesses whose shoes are worn through every morning, and the old soldier who uses an invisibility cloak to discover their secret and marry…" He trailed off, looking at her with wide, surprised eyes.
"Sound familiar?" she asked, smiling.
He leaned back in his chair, somewhat shocked. "What-?" he asked. "How-?"
"The one thing that is not mentioned in the classic fairy tale," she said, "is how the eldest princess reacted to being forced to marry this soldier. She was a beautiful young princess and he was an old soldier; he had discovered their secret and told it to their father. He ruined everything, and then she was forced to marry him. How do you think you would feel about this?"
"Probably not pleased," he said hesitantly.
"Precisely," she said. "So she went to speak with a witch. Who, consequently," she added conspiratorially, "was the same witch who would lock Rapunzel in a tower a number of years later. But that's not the point," she added, getting back to the story. "What the eldest princess didn't think of, though, is that this was a witch she was dealing with, and the entire plan backfired. She wanted to curse her husband the soldier; instead, his entire line was cursed. This curse has traveled through one child in every generation; they are put into a place where they, like the old soldier, have the opportunity to play out the story of the Dancing Princesses." She straightened. "That cloak, Michael, has been passed to every such cursed descendant of the soldier. It is the same one he wore when winning his wife's hand. That passage that the girls use? It wasn't originally in the building; the curse created it when you came to work at Yvette's, so it could be used to play out the story again."
"So I'm supposed to turn in the girls in to Madame Yvette," he said slowly, "and then – marry one?"
She laughed. "Heavens, no!" she exclaimed. "Girls these days are too independent. Not around here. Their fathers – or schoolmistresses, for the matter – can't force them to marry anyone. So if you ruin their lives, they don't have to marry you if they don't want to."
"Ah," he said.
She shrugged. "Think it over," she said. "Just remember – it doesn't have to play out exactly the same way every time."
He looked up at her. "Who are you?" he asked.
She grinned. "The youngest of the original princesses," she said.
"What?"
"Hey, someone had to keep an eye on all of my sister's descendants," she said with a shrug. "So I'm cursed to stay twenty-three for as long as the witch's curse remains."
"How is that possible?" he breathed.
She winked at him again, and went off to tend another customer.
Michael sipped at his diet coke, his mind reeling at what he had just heard. If he hadn't experienced invisibility, he wouldn't have believed it possible. But, well, he was somewhat more apt to believe in the supernatural now.
"Chatting up the bartender, are we?"
He looked over as Karin sat down in the seat beside him. "I guess she thought I was cute," he said, managing a smile.
She grinned, and then got to the point. "Listen, Michael," she said. "We kind of like our little excursions out of Madame Yvette's."
"I know," he said.
"We asked you to come with us so we could chat somewhere off the grounds," she said. "And where there are a lot of people so I wouldn't be tempted to kill you."
He choked on his soda. "What?" he yelped.
She laughed. "Kidding, kidding," she said. "But seriously, Michael; we don't want Yvette to find out about this." She gazed at him for a few moments. "You really like Lily, don't you?"
"What?" he laughed.
"No, you do," she said. "I can tell. Hell, Lily can tell. And she likes you, too."
"She does?" he asked.
Karin nodded. "She does. Quite a bit." She paused. "And you want to take away her – our – only bit of freedom at that God-forsaken school."
He was silent.
"Think on it, Michael," she said. She stood and went back out into the crowd.
Michael sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping at his soda. He did like Lily. He didn't really want to hurt her. It was all this curse, he assumed; he was being forced to play out the same story that had been played out for generations.
Looking up, he waved to the bartender – the princess – so that she would come over.
"Need another soda?" she asked with a grin.
"What would happen if someone didn't finish their part of the curse?" he asked. "What if they didn't turn in the – the 'twelve princesses'?"
She shrugged. "Never been tried before," she said. "Why, you considering it?"
He hesitated, thinking of the offered raise. Then, "Yes," he said, nodding, his mind made up. "Yes. I'm not going to tell Yvette how they're getting out."
The princess laughed. All around Michael, time and movement came skidding to a halt. He looked around in amazement at the suddenly silent throng of people so close to him, as they stood frozen where they had been dancing.
"And with that, you've broken the curse," she said, smiling.
"What?" asked Michael in confusion.
"All it took was one descendant of the soldier to refuse the calling because he cared too much about one of the girls," she said. "No one has done that before. They've fallen for the girls, but never have they forsaken the curse because of it. Congratulations, Michael," she said with a grin. Around them, movement and sound started up again as though it had never stopped. "And thank you," she added. She nodded to him, still smiling, and walked off.
Michael drank the last bit of his soda, and stood. He had broken this curse for one girl; now he just had to go find her. With a smile, he worked his way into the crowd in search of his own princess.