“Too bad. We could have met sooner,” Reid answered. He had discovered one of my weaknesses and revealed to me it was one of his strengths. I wondered how an empath moved through sound while holding onto a dance partner.
The next morning, I drove myself to Mr. Parks’ house and arrived early. As I rounded his stepping stone path, I noticed one of the dojo’s sliding doors was open. I crossed the threshold and felt the heat of a match. Reid was sparring with someone.
Mr. Parks, in his white shirt and black track pants, gave me a brief nod of recognition but his focus was on the match. Reid’s opponent was fighting in the style of a tiger and I guessed it was Tomi Chiang, Reid’s greatest adversary in competition and another student of Mr. Parks.
Tomi reminded me of a wrecking ball. He was solid and powerful once he swung into motion and his fighting style was simple and direct. Brute aggression was his main weapon and tigers were known for no defense. Tigers only attack, which is why there is an old Chinese saying that “when two tigers fight, one is lost and one is severely hurt.” This is because for a tiger, there is no retreat and no surrender.
Watching Reid spar him amazed me. His quickness and accuracy outmaneuvered Tomi’s power. When Tomi did connect a hit, its force shocked me and I marveled at Reid’s ability to withstand it. How could I have beaten Reid? I asked myself. He was too fast and incredibly strong.
Mr. Parks kept the match under close control. When he called for a break, Reid and Tomi were dripping in sweat and fighting for air. I didn’t want to eavesdrop on Mr. Parks’ evaluation so I went into the kitchen.
After watching Tomi and Reid, I sized them up as competitors and didn’t think I could best them time and again. I stood at the refrigerator with the door open lost in thought when Reid walked into the kitchen with a towel on his head.
“Want a hug?” he smiled as he stretched his arms out at me. They glistened with sweat and his face was bright red from exercise. His eyes beamed with delight knowing I would not want to be wrapped up in his embrace.
“Maybe AFTER you shower,” I negotiated carefully. The refrigerator door was to my back and he continued to walk toward me with his arms out like Frankenstein. Ew. No thanks. He would get me soaked and I didn’t bring a change of clothes. My mind spun for an exit as he backed me against the refrigerator door.
I spotted my defense and grabbed the Reddi-wip can from the refrigerator shelf and popped off the red cap. He took another step and his eyes widened in disbelief as I shook it up and put my thumb on the dispenser tube. “I’m warning you.”
“You wouldn’t,” Reid challenged. His eyes reviewed me for a sign I was bluffing. The standoff heated the atmosphere of the kitchen despite the cold air flooding out of the appliance behind me. He moved toward me so I closed my eyes and pressed down. The white whipped cream splattered his face and, as I blinded him, I slipped past him.
Reid laughed. “I can’t believe you did it. Clearly, I miscalculated. Is that thing turbo charged?” He wiped it off his face with the towel that was on his head and licked his lips. “Mmmm…”
“Tomi, as you can see, I can’t leave these two alone for a second. This is Whitney, also known as the Reddi-wip bandit. Perhaps it is no surprise to you that she is one of my panther stylists. Reid, don’t you know yet she will always do the unexpected?” Mr. Parks said, chuckling at Reid’s messy face. “You did not expect to end up with a face full of whipped cream. That should have been your clue that you would.”
“Nope. Definitely didn’t think my girlfriend would mace me with whipped cream to avoid a harmless hug. Don’t get any ideas, Chiang. My life has been nothing but trouble since I have met her,” Reid said as he peeled off his soaked shirt. I smiled as I felt him cross into my mind.
“That’s true. Although most of the trouble is your own fault.” I set down my dessert canister weapon on the counter and used my peripheral vision to check Reid out.
“Whitney, I think we will be good friends. That almost made up for me losing my match to Wallace. Almost. I hope we always meet under such enjoyable circumstances,” Tomi said as he walked toward the door. “Bye, Wallace. Or should I say cream puff?” Tomi ducked out the door before the towel Reid launched at him could hit him.
“Hurry up and shower, Reid. Whitney and I will be waiting for you.” Mr. Parks picked up the teapot and I grabbed the cups. I followed him to the low table that overlooked the woods.
He poured the tea for us and asked, “What did you think of the match?”
“Honestly? I was thinking that I wouldn’t want to fight either one of them. You have trained them both well. Reid is quick and fatiguing and Tomi is a human wrecking ball. I am not sure how I beat Reid in the past or if I could pull it off again.” I wrapped my hands around the cup and let it warm me. Vulnerability made me cold and the thought I may have been lucky against Reid gave me a chill.
“Things are not always what they seem. That is why I wanted you to see them fight. Yes, they have superior strength but you win through evasion and strategy. Do not ever underestimate its power. Solve problems; do not fight them. You will need to remember this if you are outnumbered. That is why you and Reid need more training as a team. Today, we will do tandem work.”
My inner warning alarm went off and I sensed I wasn’t going to like “tandem work.” As a trained survivor, I was more comfortable on my own. Reflexively, I looked at the open sliding glass door. Mr. Parks followed my eyes.
“This is precisely why you need the tandem training. A worthy adversary looks for a weakness and will exploit it. You know how this is done. It is your strength.” Mr. Parks smiled. “But it can also be done to you. A team must also have good timing.”
Reid walked into the room. His hair was wet from the shower but he had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. It was odd he was wearing socks.
He crossed the wooden floor to the middle of the room and looked like he was waiting for something. I looked at him blankly. “Oh, he hasn’t told you? Before you freak out, let me say this wasn’t my idea. I’m going along with it for the good of the team.”
Mr. Parks tossed me a pair of socks. I usually trained barefooted and had only worn flip-flops. “Put these on and stand facing Reid.” He walked to the light switch and the overhead lights went out. He flipped another switch and Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” started to play loudly through the in-room speakers.
My hands got cold and clammy. Dancing? “No way. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I know, I tried to talk him out of Michael and go with something slower after I saw you mangle the hula but he ignored me.” Reid held out his hand and waited for me to take it. I felt frozen. I wasn’t talking about the music choice. I was talking about dancing.
“Start!” Mr. Parks barked. He turned to walk into the kitchen. “I will be back before the song ends and I want to see what you can do.”
I was agitated as I grabbed Reid’s hand. It was the only thing I knew to do and Reid looked like he was on autopilot. He pulled me close to him and my heart felt like it was about to explode. I did not even know what to call the moves his feet were doing. It was far beyond swaying at the middle school dance and my terror escalated.
Music was not my friend and the beat pounded into me and the chords tripped me up. I could not stay in sync with him and I hated feeling so inept. It was immediately apparent the difference between someone who had practiced dancing with a partner hundreds of times at Junior Assembly and someone who had not.
“You’ve got to stop resisting.” His eyes twinkled and I got the distinct impression he was trying not to smile. I became stiff as a board when he picked me up and held me closer. He set me down on top of his feet. “Relax. Rest your feet on top of mine so we can actually move forward. This is not that hard, martial arts expert. It is just a little something called dancing. Other people pull it off all the time and they think it is fun.”
Reid made me laugh. I couldn’t fight the magnetic pull between us and I
didn’t have any better ideas. If I didn’t figure something out quickly, Mr. Parks would get involved and that thought was even more embarrassing than me fumbling into Reid.
I held onto him more tightly and he expertly whirled us through the music. The gentle touch of his fingertips and the shift of his weight changed our direction. Together, we were gliding across the floor with grace and mastery. I stopped resisting and found when I did I felt as light as air. It was a persuasive and alluring connection and I did not expect the experience to be so powerful.
The last time I felt this free was on the boat when learning to close my third eye. This was different because beyond the euphoric haze there was the cool rush of air on my skin and the heat of synchronized movement. My feet rested on top of Reid’s and the dance carried me away as we moved together in perfect harmony. The faster we moved, the more the light of the room blurred. A purple glow seemed to have encircled us like a sparkler trail. It was a beautiful light but it became so bright, it was like looking at the sun. I closed my eyes and felt Reid’s lips meet mine. The music stopped.
“Tandem work is not so bad?” Mr. Parks asked from the doorway. He had a misty look in his eye and I wondered what he was thinking about. I crossed into his mind and saw he was remembering a dance with his wife, Chen. I heard her delicate wind chime laugh as he dipped her and saw her delicate silk slippers embroidered with cranes in flight. She looked fragile and frail and her beauty was haunting. There was a sense of foreboding from the memory.
“It was our last dance together. She was imprisoned the next day. They did not know she was dying of cancer.” My breath caught in my throat. Perhaps Vlad did not as heavily influence her suicide as I thought. Mr. Parks nodded. “Nothing is ever quite as it seems.”
Chapter Six: Trip the Light Fantastic
Mr. Parks clapped his hands once and called a break. Despite the command, Reid did not immediately relax his arms. We stayed for a second longer in the purple haze and the connection broke when Mr. Parks rested his hand on Reid’s shoulder. Suddenly, the room spun into sharp focus. “Tandem work is not so bad, huh?” Mr. Parks repeated. “Together is better.”
My voice sounded faraway and distant to my own ears as I heard myself speak. “Not so bad. But sparring is easier. I can’t believe I am saying that so soon after watching Reid and Tomi’s match today.” I felt oddly detached and unexpectedly lightheaded. I couldn’t make sense of it. The last time I felt this way was when I had danced with Reid at his party months ago, but I had dismissed the feeling because he was spinning me around so much. Could this incredible feeling be from us moving to the music together?
“Music is a sound wave of energy and extremely powerful. Empaths can understand and ride these sound waves and translate them into an expression of movement and emotion. I wanted to see how you would anticipate Reid’s movement in a more positive way than sparring. My guess was correct that together you move in perfect harmony.” Mr. Parks nodded to himself as he explained his objective to me.
This went way beyond Junior Assembly practice and it prompted me to think about Sean’s mixed tape. Reid had translated the message of the music on the tape and decided to call my attention to it even though he was fully aware it would irritate me. That’s why he had the song “Africa” in the CD player. I had to give him props for finesse but questioned whether he was more concerned for my safety or more focused on his own benefit. My mind flashed back to him pushing Sean into the pool at Gary’s party and there was no doubt he didn’t like Sean around me.
For the first time, I recognized the obvious fact that I hadn’t played Sean’s tape either. Intuitively, something about it made me wary. Perhaps it did have to do with the musical energy choices on the tape or that I knew I would have a hard time looking Sean in the eye after I heard it. Either way, Reid and I had reached the same conclusion.
“Reid, would you say that Whitney did well for a novice? It seemed like you two quickly discovered how to trip the light fantastic,” Mr. Parks challenged. Reid mentioned he had doubted the Michael Jackson song choice and now Mr. Parks was reminding him of it. I grinned at the way Mr. Parks masterfully created a teachable moment for Reid as I rolled the words “to trip the light fantastic” through my mind. Mr. Parks did not select that unusual phrase for dancing without purpose. He must have seen the light as well.
“You lied when you said Whitney could handle it because she was the best.” Reid’s deep voice rumbled through my head as he casually answered Mr. Parks. He had a somber look on his face and his adversarial response jostled me from my daze. His lackluster review made my already flushed cheeks burn with embarrassment. He cut short my plan to flee the scene by continuing, “She’s better. It was like the ground beneath us did not exist. I’ve sort of told this to her once before, but for me, dancing with Whitney is the best feeling in the world.”
I was glad my cheeks were flushed. Dancing together was not what I thought Reid had been referring to when we debated the best feeling in the world after I raced his BMW down the parkway. At least our feeling about dancing was mutual. I would have kept going into the heady oblivion if Mr. Parks had not called a break. It was freeing to have no choice but to rely completely on my intuition. Mr. Parks often repeated a Taoist quote to me and today it finally made sense. He told me, “Let go of who you are, to become what you might be.” When I was dancing, I felt as light as air and thought we were actually flying.
A figure in a navy UVA baseball hat and matching sweatshirt was coming toward the dojo. The figure had Dr. West’s voice and I honed in on the black bag he was carrying in his hand. There was a small red cross stitched on the fabric and my stomach felt queasy as I realized why he would need a medical case.
“Special delivery,” Dr. West said as he walked briskly into the dojo. He set the padded black bag on the low table and unzipped it to reveal a complete vaccination kit. There were a lot of syringes and several small, silver-rimmed bottles of clear serum. Dr. West looked directly at me and said, “Time flies when you’re having fun. Who’s ready to kick off my vaccination party?”
“Not much of an invitation. Any chance I can forget to RSVP?” I asked, watching him fill up a syringe. He squirted some of the excess serum into the air and flicked the syringe with his middle finger to get the air bubble out.
He grinned at my remark. “Nope. No exceptions. Roll up your sleeve, Wink.”
My shoulders slumped in defeat. I sat on the edge of the low table and bared my left arm. The wet alcohol swab rubbed across my arm and I turned the other way.
Reid glanced at the vast assortment of syringes and sat down next to me. He seemed to know I could use a distraction. He picked up my hand and rubbed it in response to its chilled temperature. “How did Whitney get the nickname Wink? You are the only one I ever hear call her that.”
“Whitney’s dad used to call her Wink and, when she was little, she often called herself Wink. So, in the wink of an eye—it stuck.” Dr. West injected my shoulder with my first vaccination when he said the word stuck. I scowled at the unnecessary emphasis. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“Glad I could help you out,” I said sarcastically to Dr. West. “The reason my dad called me Wink is because my mom did. She sang ‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod’ to me each night. There was something about the poem and my mother’s voice that captivated me.”
I had not forgotten the sound of my mother’s voice singing to the poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” but I rarely allowed myself to remember it. The clarity of her voice rang through the air like no one I had ever heard. For a second, I recalled how I loved to drift to sleep dreaming I was sailing through the stars to the sound of her voice and blinked away the tears that stung the back of my eyes.
Dr. West rubbed another spot on my shoulder with an alcohol swab. He absentmindedly started to hum along to the sound of my mother’s voice I was replaying inside my head. We were again on the same wavelength. He said aloud, “Ellen had a beautiful voice. It was so melodious and as
clear as a bell. She could talk you into anything with it. There was no stopping her from what she wanted to do.”
“Headstrong and stubborn? Sounds familiar. Must be a family trait.” Reid squeezed my hand.
“Hmph. Isn’t that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?” I asked. Dr. West laughed, and he picked up another shot as he continued to use my shoulder as a pincushion. This one burned as he pushed the serum into my muscle.
“How many of these are we getting?” I complained. I had a field hockey game in a few days and I needed both arms to control my stick. My arm was starting to ache and I had a bad feeling it was going to be worse before it was better.
“Only a few more. You don’t want to miss these two. They are the malaria and yellow fever vaccines. They are also a key reason the trip was delayed a week. Immunity doesn’t happen overnight.”?
“I didn’t know the vaccines had anything to do with our departure. Diana had mentioned it was good timing for us to leave so I thought the decision was based on the Sirius B star orbit. You know, the spear would glow with its infused pure energy because of its proximity to the orbiting star.”
“Yeah, we saunter into a cave, pick up the glowing spear, and leave. Do we link arms and sing as we skip home? Come on, Whit. You do know it’s not going to be that easy, right?” His brown eyes looked serious and my silence condemned me. I DID assume retrieving the spear would be fairly simple, although I didn’t think we would be singing and skipping. Reid reminded me that planning and intelligence also had its place in decision-making and it was irresponsible to be too overconfident, especially with Blair and Patrick involved.
“Cocky panthers,” Reid scoffed. “We can’t afford assumptions on this trip because I’m sure we are not the first group of people to try and retrieve one of the most powerful and legendary weapons in world history. It has stayed hidden for a reason.”
My arm throbbed and Reid’s panther comment stung. I might have been guilty as charged in this instance but Blair did not assume anything, ever. She would never proceed without a plan—even going to Patrick’s house had involved code names, disguises, and duct tape. Before I could open my mouth and launch to her defense, Dr. West interrupted me. “I agree with Reid that this trip will not be easy. He has guardian instincts and if the Dogon have been chosen as guardians of the spear, it is for good reason. There will be protection in place and you will need to be vigilant and use all your training. Fortunately, the rainy season has ended and we will be gone before the Harmattan haze so visibility won’t be an issue.”
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