Chapter 6

The Next Day

On my way to Melissa’s and Jana’s room, I saw that the door to Holden’s and Hamish’s room was standing open. I was bursting to tell the news to someone.

I stopped in the doorway, my mouth open to speak, then saw what was going on inside and watched silently.

One of the First Year girls, Richelle, was hanging, her naked body squirming at the end of the rope. We were near the end of the year, so the First Years had been introduced to all of the standard moves and were becoming fairly proficient. A discerning eye would see the lack of polish in comparison with the more advanced students, though. And of course, they couldn’t hang nearly as long.

Holden was watching Richelle intently, his chin resting on the palm of one hand. His eyes were intensely focused and barely blinking. I had seen that look in Holden’s eyes before, but nevertheless I was stunned again by the resemblance to Grant. Grant was the only other person who had been capable of that depth of concentration on another student’s hanging. Hamish, standing beside his brother, was similarly absorbed, though his eyes seemed to move more, taking in different parts of the performance that Holden seemed to be seeing all at once.

Without looking, Holden reached for the lever to bring the platform back up. As soon as Richelle could stand, she asked Holden, just slightly out of breath, “So did you see anything?”

Frowning, his eyes now unfocussed as if he were replaying a video of the hanging in his head, Holden said quietly, “Well, I think you hold your elbows a little too far behind you, but that’s just your own style. You’ve always done that, and I don’t think it’s really messing you up. But there’s kind of an overall extra tension in you that I didn’t used to see. When did that start?”

Richelle shook her head. “I didn’t even know I had it. If it’s there, it’s not something conscious.”

“So when did your hanging times start going down?”

“I guess ... about a month ago.”

Holden’s frown deepened. “About when the classes on the Shawna Move started?”

I smiled. That was what the name the students had given to that desperate downward stretching. NooseMeisters had always done it to some extent, but Shawna had turned into an art form. Similarly, they called the hip-thrusting leg wraps the “Grant Move.” It was one of the ways Shawna and Grant would live forever at the Academy.

Richelle nodded slowly. “I guess so. I thought I was doing it right. Mona said I looked really good doing it.” Mona was a Third Year, one of the teachers for beginning hanging classes.

Holden said, “Oh, you are. You do. Except ... I’m wondering if you’re getting too much into the mind-set of the move. When we do the Shawna Move, we’re pretending we’re in a panic, struggling to reach something to stand on. I’m thinking ... it’s like you really believe that’s what’s happening. The tension I’m seeing has a taste of panic in it. Do you...”

Richelle suddenly nodded excitedly. “Yes! I’ve always ... Well, I’ve always kind of fantasized about hanging, even before I started doing it. I’ve been talking to the other students, and they do it too, but it seems like mine are more vivid, I guess. They’re more focused on the excitement of it, I think, and I kind of get deeper into the story going on in my head. When we started learning the Shawna, I started getting that really desperate feeling washing over me.” She suddenly looked worried. “Holden, the fantasy, the story, that’s part of what makes this work for me. I have to have the fantasies. If I stop doing it...”

Holden waved his hand to stop Richelle. “No, I know. You’ve always been one of the most convincing students in the First Year, and the fantasies you have must be the reason. But now they’re getting in the way of something you need to do. Let me think a minute.”

While Holden’s wheels were turning, Hamish suddenly spoke up. “You can’t drop the fantasy, but maybe you could just tweak it a little?”

Richelle gave Hamish a blank look, and asked, “What do you mean?” But Holden suddenly spun toward his brother. “Yeah!” He looked up at Richelle again. “Look, what if, while you’re hanging, about to go into the Shawna, you see your lover riding in on horseback, in the distance...”

Hamish continued Holden’s thought from mid-sentence, “Coming to save you. Just a few minutes away. You’ll be rescued, if you can just hold out a tiny bit longer...”

Holden resumed, “You need to reach the platform so you can breathe, you can survive, until your lover gets there...”

Hamish continued again. “So that’s the desperation, but it’s hopeful, it’s excited, you’re going to be okay if you can just make it through. You wouldn’t have that panic tension making everything stiff...”

Holden again. “Then when you go on to a different move, go back to whatever fantasies go with that. But always come back to the rescue image when you’re doing Shawna.”

Richelle’s eyes were wide with excitement, and she bounced in tiny hops on the platform. “Yes!! I can see the whole thing now! Let me try it.”

Holden grinned at him. “Okay, but take a few minutes, okay? You were just up there. I want you to calm down and get your breath back first.”

I backed into the hallway, shaking my head. There it was again. For as long as I’d known Holden, I’d been aware that Holden and Hamish were so close as to be a single person in two bodies. I’d known it from what Holden had told me. But now I was getting to see it — in their physical intimacy, and now in their interaction with another person. I needed to let my mind boggle for awhile before trying to cope with more of it.