Girl Takes The Oath

by Jacques Antoine

  “There you are, sweetie,” Stacie said, when Emily poked her head inside the backdoor.

  “Where’ve you been?” CJ asked.

  “Just chatting with some guy on the balcony.”

  “Let me guess,” Dave said. “Chelly?”

  “Yeah, I suppose… whatever. You guys getting tired?”

  “It’d kill him to hear what you just said,” Dave said, and CJ laughed along with him.

  “It’s getting late,” Emily said.

  “One more dance,” CJ said, with a hand held out. “C’mon, Em.”

  “I love this song,” Dave said, as the band cranked out the opening chords of “Get Me to the Church on Time,” an old Broadway show-tune they’d converted into a dance number.

  “What is it?” Stacie asked “It sounds so familiar.”

  “It’s from My Fair Lady, I think. These guys are genius with this stuff. They do another number based on a Milton poem, but with heavy metal chords.”

  CJ laughed at this and said, “That ought to be right up your alley, Em, you know, poetry and all.” After such teasing, of course, resistance quickly became futile, and Emily let herself be drawn onto the dance floor.

  Dancing with her friends gave a sweet release from the usual concerns, and having Dave in their little circle may have added some piquancy to the moment. Eyes all around the room seemed to find them. She could hardly avoid feeling it—and how could they not, with a trio like this, three amazons dancing with one of their own. Some of the boys, like Chelly, must have wished they could join in, and the girls, too. Soon enough, the floor filled up, and it no longer mattered so much who danced with whom.

  Another kind of eye watched the dancers, with a darker sentiment behind it—Emily felt that, too, not so much curiosity as vigilance palpable in it, though she hardly had the leisure to pursue it. Pressed on all sides, jostled here and there, she barely managed to breathe out the noise and breathe in the energy, the restless life all around her. Still together with Stacie, dancing with arms stretched toward the rafters, while CJ and Dave drifted off into another eddy, Emily’s heart beat slowly, at peace, unthreatened. The blood pulsed in her veins, and something in her heart expanded with her breath to fill the entire room, at first squeezing up against the walls, then slipping out the windows. She felt the urge to soar up into the night sky, to find the stars, and the softening darkness that haloed them.

  The song changed to something more urgent, but also still merry, a celebration of youthful springtime, of riding the breeze across a sunlit meadow. The sweet soprano voice of the singer reached into Emily’s ear and reminded her of a different destination for her reverie:

  Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

  As he met her once a-Maying,

  There on beds of violets blue,

  And fresh-blown roses washed in dew…

  And when her mind came gliding back to the boathouse, finally pressed against the window, she felt like a fairy waiting for the human population to find sweet sleep so she could arrange the dew on each blade of grass before dawn broke. The image intoxicated, though the sense of a darker surveillance hadn’t left her—what did those eyes hope to see? Still, the song drew her back to the dance.

  … Filled her with thee a daughter fair,

  So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

  Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

  Jest, and youthful Jollity,

  Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

  Nods, and Becks, and wreathéd Smiles…

  She noticed Dave and CJ dancing together on the other side of the room, and on her right, Chelly had found a spot in some sort of orbit around her and Stacie. Another boy she didn’t remember dancing with earlier bumped up against her and smiled. Soon she found herself separated from Stacie—he wanted to touch her, put his hand on her waist, take some sort of lead in a dance with prescribed forms. She let him, resting her hands on his shoulders, unenthralled and unthreatened, but still charmed by his attention.

  What did his hands discover about her? That she was too hard, not at all yielding like the girls he knew from St. John’s. He felt soft to her, not effeminate, but not muscular either, at least not like Zaki or McDonough, and certainly not like Perry. His neck shivered when she let her fingertips graze it, little hairs suddenly standing on end. When the music stopped, he looked into her eyes and she saw how pretty he was, with welkin eyes and curly blond hair.

  “Hi,” a shaky voice managed to say, a hand on his hip and one foot behind the other. “I’m….” Before he could finish, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

  “Thanks for the dance,” she said, and then went off in search of her friends.

  The lights came up and the band began to pack up their instruments. Moans and groans bounced around the room, until the grim reality took hold in a final sort of way: the party was over.

  “What time is it?” Stacie asked, as they made their way to the door.

  “I dunno,” CJ said. “I didn’t wear a watch.”

  Outside on the lawn, a stream of students started the long, dark walk across campus, while Emily looked up and let Cassiopeia point out Andromeda. With no moon, the three brightest stars stood out even to the naked eye, one red, two white.

  “It’s after midnight, maybe fourteen hundred hours. One more dance,” she snorted, with an eye on CJ.

  Back to top

  Chapter Ten

  A Wakizashi in the Dark

  Like diamonds scattered across black velvet, the night sky inspired the girls to linger by the upper edge of the slope into which the boathouse was nestled. From that vantage, they could look down onto a lower field, enclosed on three sides by the bend of the hillside, and across the water to the woods beyond. College Creek shimmered faintly with the current and a light breeze, and reflected an uncertain heaven. No traffic on the nearby bridge disturbed the silence or undid their night vision with headlights. In fact, once the boathouse went dark, the only lights visible anywhere came from the buildings around the quad, over a quarter mile behind them.

  “You know, guys, it’s not all that safe back here at night,” Dave said, craning his neck around to see if they were alone. “We should head back.”

  “What’s down there?” Emily asked.

  “Nothing, really,” Dave said. “No one uses that field much, except for the end of the year party, when we have the Battle of Salamis in the creek.”

  “Whoa, a Battle of Salamis reenactment, I’d love to see that,” Stacie said. “What kind of boats do you use?”

  “It’s nothing so serious. We use canoes and a greased watermelon.”

  Emily laughed. “I’d still love to see it,” she said.

  “I can get you guys Reality passes, if you really want to come.”

  “Reality?” CJ said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s what we call it. It’s like a traditional joke, bidding farewell to the graduating seniors before, you know, they enter the real world. You guys should definitely come.”

  “What’s happening over there?” Emily asked, gesturing to what looked like a construction site surrounded by a chain link fence.

  “New dorms. An alum gave us the money, and the administration wants to make sure everyone who wants to can live on campus.”

  “Don’t you all live on campus already?” Stacie asked.

  “No, not even two thirds of the students live on.”

  “How many students are there altogether?” CJ asked.

  “Maybe four fifty, give or take.”

  “Wow, that’s tiny. You probably get to know everyone pretty well.”

  “Yup, sometimes too well.”

  As interesting as these facts seemed to be to CJ, Emily had something else in mind when she asked her question. Her heart told her something was happening behind the fence right now, and a quick glance told her that all the other revelers had gone. They were alone at the dark end of campus… except for the other set of eyes she felt on the dance floor, which had not gone far either. A rustlin
g among the construction detritus had caught her attention, though she couldn’t quite say whether she’d seen it or heard it.

  “Why don’t you guys head back and, maybe, send security down here,” Emily said.

  “What are you talking about, Em?” CJ asked.

  “Yeah,” Staci joined in. “We’re not leaving you alone again.”

  “What? You mean like the other night?” Dave asked.

  “Guys,” Emily said, and then paused a moment. She wanted to tell them their help was not needed, that they would only get in her way, especially if she ended up having to protect them… but, then she thought better of it.

  “What’s up, Em?” Stacie asked, now scanning the chain link fence. “Did you see something?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said, now concerned that the eyes she felt on her might be Kano’s, and not wishing to force his discovery.

  “What have we here?” a mocking voice from the shadows behind them called out.

  “Fresh meat,” another responded.

  Three men, rough-looking, as far as the darkness allowed them to be seen, probably southside gangsters, stepped out from behind a clump of boxwoods and moved toward CJ and Stacie. Dave reacted quickly, probably instinctively, and inserted himself between the girls and these intruders.

  “C’mon, guys, we don’t want any trouble.”

  “Well, maybe we do,” the leader of the trio said, and laid a hand on Dave’s chest, pushing him back. He resisted, digging in his heels, fists clenched. With CJ and Stacie in front of her, there was no easy way for Emily to step in, and from out of the shadows a swinging club glanced off the side of Dave’s head and he fell to the side, stunned. The man leaned down to strike him again, apparently not thinking the girls posed any sort of threat to him, and before Emily could intervene, CJ had seized his wrist behind the club and twisted up and out.

  “Get away from him, you son of a bitch,” she howled, as the man tumbled forward shrieking, his shoulder hideously distorted. Dave lay on the grass inert, eyes open but not focused on anything. CJ released the wrist, kicked the assailant in the face, and then turned back to Dave, kneeling beside him with a hand on his cheek.

  Emily watched as Stacie leapt into action—a quick block and reverse punch to the chest, aggressive and strong, knocked another man down, a kick to the knee and a palm-heel strike to the nose felled the third. “Those early morning sessions have certainly given them confidence,” Emily thought, even as she also wondered why she hadn’t been more alert herself.

  Others eyes watched her, and others were approaching. No time for a deep breath to clear her mind, a shallow exhalation and she felt them behind her, four more men on a dead run. A quick turn and she saw them, at least their movements revealed them, arms and legs churning, trying for more stealth that a random mugging would typically require. Who were they? Stacie seemed to have things under control behind her—jamming one man’s face into the turf, twisting his wrist back as she prepared to strike the back of his neck. All that remained for Emily was to close the distance.

  Three quick strides and she hit the nearest man hard, lunging for his face, grabbing on to whatever her fingers could find, and using his head to pivot both legs around to kick the man directly behind him on the ear. Both men taken down, the one unconscious from her kick, the other not moving, having been twisted down by the neck, lay face down in the grass—Emily hoped she hadn’t killed him. The darkness her assailants had counted on now became her best friend, as she took the final pair by surprise with a double kick, practically running up the first man’s chest and sending him sprawling back into the last man, collapsing the two of them into a groaning heap. A quick strike across the bridge of the last nose and they troubled her no further.

  Off to her left, in the cover of the construction site, something else, or someone else, moved. With all her senses operating at extreme acuity, she saw—or thought she saw—two more men, but not like these, not street toughs. These men wore suits, one kneeling by a pile of lumber, the other leaning against a fence post, and both appeared to be aiming at her. Before she could react, one man lurched forward and fell to the ground, the other was yanked back and thrown in to the fence.

  When she finally saw him, Kano, all in black, practically invisible, moving with stunning decisiveness—a few fierce hand movements and each man was disarmed and thrown to the ground— Emily couldn’t help but admire the precision of his technique, and the swiftness with which he moved. Then she heard the familiar sound, polished steel sliding along the lip of an unornamented sheath. In the dim light, the short sword pointed to heaven, and she recognized their doom. This is what Masako had sent him here to do, to keep her safe, and eliminate all threats. But she knew it would only lead to more trouble, just when a lower profile might be needed.

  “Yame, Kano-san,” Emily cried out. “Korosanai de… kudasai.” The sword hesitated, the light of a distant flashlight glinting off the edge. Kano glanced at her and nodded, slipping the wakizashi back into its saya, then brought the butt end down across the bridge of one man’s nose and jammed his knee into the back of the other man’s head.

  The footsteps of the security guards running across the lawn drew her attention back to her friends. Had they seen him? When she turned back, Kano had already gone.

  “You guys were fantastic,” she said to Stacie, as soon as she noticed the gleam in her eye—the sort of excitement one gets from a violent encounter, the triumph and exultation, that could so easily flip over and become crippling guilt and recrimination later. CJ had defended Dave like a tigress, though now she seemed only interested in tending to him.

  “Oh my god, Em,” Stacie said, looking past her to the carnage in the field behind her. “I didn’t even see those guys.”

  “What the hell just happened?” CJ demanded.

  The security guards peppered them with questions, which Dave fielded to the extent he could, in his present haze. No one seemed to want to wait around for the police… except maybe for the guys lying still unconscious on the field. Emily knew there’d be questions later. Better later than now.

  “Let’s go home, guys.”

  “I’m gonna help him back to his room,” CJ said, gesturing to Dave. “He’s still a bit shaky.”

  ~~~~~~~

  “So what changed your mind?” Coach Parker asked, early the next morning. The low winter sun slanted through windows high enough not to require shielding his eyes. Her eyes grew even darker as she told him the news, and something about her manner suggested a kind of resignation. She stood before him, ramrod straight, hands behind her back, looking as resolute as ever. Still…

  “I’m headed down to Quantico anyway, and since they moved up the dates…”

  “It’s just… you seemed so opposed before.”

  The rest of the team sat scattered about the floor on one end of the fieldhouse, stretching, chatting, a few growing restless. Dust motes danced and swirled in the beams.

  “Roll up the mats, guys,” Parker called across the room. “We won’t be using those today.”

  “Maybe some things have made me reconsider,” Emily said.

  “Things?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. How’s the team look for the tournament?”

  “Bauer’s out, of course, with that shoulder, and Trowbridge seems distracted. But Carnot’s got a new fire in her eyes.”

  “One more thing, I want to compete in the men’s division. Can you arrange that?”

  “Maybe,” Parker said. “If someone plants the idea in the Deputy Commandant’s mind, he’ll probably make it happen. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  The expression on her face gave him some pause, as did the recollection of how she manhandled him in the same tournament three years earlier.

  “I don’t want to get in the way of the other girls.”

  “Even if they make the men’s advanced kumite full contact? They’re considering a rule change, you know.”

  “It makes no di
fference to me.”

  “No, I guess it wouldn’t,” he said, looking into those eyes that had intimidated him on several other occasions. “And what you used to say about stealing chi, that doesn’t concern you now?”

  “It does, but maybe I feel like I’m losing my edge. Something about this place… I’m not sure I can explain it.”

  “Losing your edge? Here? We’re all about discipline here, and you more than anyone.”

  “It’s not about discipline, Coach. It’s more than that.”

  “Carnot, take the lead,” he called out, giving her a laundry list of techniques to guide the team through. “Shuto age uke, gyaku zuki, yoko geri keage, ushiro geri, uraken uchi, ura zuki, yoko geri kekomi.”

  With a nod, Stacie repeated the complex command to the team, now lined up and ready to work through the combination: rising knife-hand block leading to a sharp punch with all one’s weight on the back foot—a signature shotokan technique—followed by a high side-kick rather like the one Emily demonstrated on Zaki a month earlier. The first imaginary opponent dispatched, a back kick delivered without putting the foot down led directly into a back fist, the rotation initiated by this move enhancing the energy of a short, inside uppercut and a finishing side-kick.

  “Are you gonna train with us today?”

  “If you’re sure I’m not a distraction.”

  “They don’t deserve to win if they can’t focus around you.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go change. But I don’t want to lead the class,” and then, in a lower voice, “and I’d mainly like to spar with Trowbridge.”