Chapter 21

"Consider yourself, one of the family!"

It was a few days before New Year, and I was in the exercise room, watching Mary and Debbie sparring together. Debbie had wonderful form and looked graceful, but I could tell from the amount of sweat she was generating that she was getting tired out by the workout. Mary, on the other hand, hadn't yet broken a sweat, and wasn't even breathing heavily.

June passed by on her way out toward the pool. "Mary's quite talented," she remarked.

"She won't tell anybody how good she is," I said.

"Want me to find out?" June asked.

"Huh?"

"You know I work out constantly. I also fight when I get a chance. I even put a punching bag into the cottage so I stay in shape."

I looked at June's pleasant topless body. "You have an excellent shape, June."

June reddened a bit in embarrassment, but she smiled at me without answering.

Debbie called a time out, and went over to the wall where she had a water bottle filled with Gatorade, sipping about half the bottle at once.

Mary turned to see June and me at the entrance of the room. "Hi, guys. What's up?"

"Would you mind sparring with me after you finish beating up Debbie?" June asked.

"Do you practice?" Mary asked.

"Yes. I have a bag in the cottage, and when I'm on the big island, there's a dojo that I visit a few times a week."

"Sport or self-defense?"

"Sport."

Mary's eyes twinkled. "That's Debbie's problem. She's self-defense. She knows enough to avoid getting hurt, but has difficulty grasping the concept of offense. Do you compete?"

"Only with my instructor, and occasionally with fellow students. I never attended an actual competition, though."

"I think you should at least put on a top," Mary said.

June was only wearing bikini bottoms, as she had been considering using the pool. "I'll need to find one."

Debbie spoke up. "I'd offer you mine, but my top is soaked." I figured that Debbie's offer was in jest, since June's breasts weren't very large.

"You still need to work on your assertiveness, Debbie," Mary said.

"You need to be a little less willing to hurt your own sister," Debbie retorted.

Mary grinned wickedly at Debbie's comment. June had already run out of the room, and came back a few moments later with a bikini top on.

"What level do you compete?" June asked.

"I don't compete," Mary answered.

"Oh."

The two girls squared off. They bowed, and then moved back. I knew that June had been assessing Mary's technique as she had watched Mary wipe the floor with Debbie, so June made a tentative jab at Mary, who easily deflected it, adding a jab behind June as June followed through. June easily avoided Mary's jab, and the two were once again facing each other.

The initial probes were all similar, June making some sort of move, and Mary reacting. It was like the workouts that I had done with Mary when Debbie had been away, only June's speed was about twice mine.

Debbie was watching the pair with me, and we were both in awe. This was nothing like the typical scene with Mary and a partner. June would not allow Mary to dominate her, and Mary seemed to be merely assessing June, not actually attacking. June landed a kick on Mary, who simply shrugged it off, and then rotated her body, forcing June to the ground for a half-second before June propelled herself back up, facing Mary.

Mary looked impressed at June, and then, without warning, started her own probe into June's defenses.

Now the action was getting quicker, and it almost looked like a choreographed Kung Fu movie running at double speed. June's and Mary's movements were almost impossible for the eye to follow, becoming nearly a blur.

For about ten minutes, the girls traded moves. On one occasion, June knocked Mary down, but Mary used the opportunity to roll through June's legs, almost toppling her. June jumped high, and rotated around, but as June was about to unleash a wide kick, Mary caught June's leg and threw her left arm at June's throat that stopped millimeters away. The two girls were now frozen for a second, June on one leg, Mary on two. Mary started to follow through, despite the fact that she had intentionally stopped her hand. June simply ducked backward, executing a back flip that had her up and facing Mary almost immediately.

"Jesus!" June exclaimed.

Mary just grinned. "You're quite good."

June lunged at Mary, and the action got even faster. To a person like me, the moves could only be imagined, as the eye wasn't able to follow the quick movements of both girls at the same time accurately enough. The two girls were throwing harder punches and harder kicks, but neither one landed anything, and neither girl was being knocked down now.

After a rather remarkable five minutes of near constant movement, Mary found an opportunity and launched another chop towards June's neck. This one was much faster than the earlier one, and it appeared that Mary was going to kill our chauffeur when Mary suddenly deflected her own arm lower at the last possible millisecond, where she made contact with June's shoulder, knocking the girl down.

My jaw dropped, and I felt the urge to run and help June, but Mary was quicker than me. She had winced when she connected with June, and immediately moved down to pick up her partner, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry," Mary said, very upset with herself. "I thought you'd back away from that one."

June was breathing heavily. "I was thinking of ducking, actually. If I did so, that would have hit my neck."

"Oh, dear," Mary said, fretting over the fallen girl. "Your shoulder is going to bruise."

"Mary, can you tell me something?" June asked, her breathing still ragged.

"What's that?"

"You were being easy on me, weren't you?"

Mary simply grinned. "You're better as a partner than Debbie." Mary quickly added, "Sparring partner, anyway." She looked over at Debbie, hoping she hadn't hurt her sister's feelings.

"You'd wipe the floor with my instructor in his own dojo," June said.

Mary simply shrugged. "He's probably sport as well."

"Yes. He has competed and won tournaments."

"I wasn't trained to compete."

William Voder's words came back to me. "Mary was trained in the military as an assassin, June."

"Fuck me!" June said, her eyes wide in amazement.

Mary looked at me sharply. "That's not general knowledge, Jim. I doubt it's even in my military files. I know that I never told anybody about my experience in the military!"

I shook my head. "That's not a denial, Mary."

"May I ask that the three of you keep that information to yourselves?"

"We don't keep secrets from Aimee, Mary," I said, adding, "Besides, Aimee already knows."

"Aimee knows?" June asked, quite surprised. "That's impossible!"

"Why is it impossible?" I asked.

June looked confused. "It was Aimee's idea for me to spar with Mary. Did she want to kill me?"

From behind me, Aimee answered. "I had no such intention. I merely thought that Mary might be a good instructor for you. I didn't think you'd try to beat Mary when you saw that she was better than you."

I turned around, startled by Aimee's presence. "What?"

"June is extremely competitive," Aimee said. "I think she has been all her life. I didn't foresee that, and for that I'm sorry."

Without another word spoken after her apology, Aimee turned and walked out.

The two sparring girls looked at me and then each other, confused.

Debbie broke the silence, "Isn't that a big fuck-up?"

Totally confused, I turned and ran after Aimee. "Wait up, Aimee!"

"Let's go to the beach," Aimee said, not turning around.

I picked up the beach blanket and followed Aimee.

Aimee picked a secluded spot on the beach, and turned around to face me for the first time since she left the exercise room. "June will be more helpful if Mary trains her."

"You want Mary to train June to be an assassin?"

"No," Aimee said. "I want Mary to train June to be your bodyguard."

"You're serious about having June enter our family."

"She's already a part of our extended family," Aimee said. "She needs to become more involved. She is one of us, although I only realized it a few weeks ago."

"Why do I need June as my bodyguard?"

"June has a fixation on you, much the same as Mary and Debbie," Aimee explained. "It's been building ever since she started staying in the guest house after Mary became pregnant. I saw the fixation and that's when I looked deeper within her and realized that she has a gift, herself. At the same time, once Dawn was born, Mary's focus shifted, very slightly, but it now includes her flesh and blood."

"I don't see that. Mary doesn't love me any less."

"No, Master," Aimee said, softly. "That's not the case. The difference is that Mary no longer loves just you. It's a mother's instinct, so you shouldn't take it personally. You felt the same thing once your daughter was born."

"I love you all, equally," I stated. I was quite sure of my emotions, having thought about them the previous night while lying awake with Debbie passed out and exhausted at my side.

"Does that include June?" Aimee asked.

I was about to utter a quick denial, but the way Aimee asked that question made me consider my true feelings. I remember the sight of Mary's palm connecting with June's shoulder, June landing on the ground, and the way my heart jumped as June fell onto the exercise mat. I was about to run in and take care of the fallen girl when Mary was already down there.

"I guess so," I finally said.

"Equally?"

"I don't know," I admitted.

"It will be difficult for you, because you won't be able to express your love to June the way you express it with us, especially Debbie."

"When you say things like this, it makes perfect sense, but when I think about it later, it all seems wrong."

Aimee and I just sat on the blanket for a few minutes.

Finally, Aimee said, "Consider this. June and Mary are walking with you on this beach. A person aims a gun at you. Both June and Mary will react to the danger to you. I can see that as if it had already happened."

I didn't know if I would agree with Aimee, but that woman is rarely wrong about things. I wisely didn't say anything.

"On the other hand," Aimee continued, "by the time that same person managed to point a gun at Dawn, Mary would have the attacker dead before June would even realize that there had been any danger."

"How is that possible?"

"It's the nature of Mary's gift. She can spot danger and know exactly what to do almost before that danger exists. It's a more streamlined version of my gift for seeing trouble in advance. That, combined with her mother's instinct to protect her flesh and blood, would be a deadly combination."

"And June?"

"June's has a gift that is similar to Mary's, although she doesn't have the years of experience honing her physical skills as deadly as Mary has. That may actually be a good thing. June also has a gift similar to yours."

"I don't understand," I said. "You mentioned this the other day, but didn't explain it. What, exactly, is my gift?"

"You know it, but you deny it to yourself. The first time we spoke together, I told you what your special gift was, but you have many gifts. Ask yourself what they are. Some of them are obvious, like the ability to communicate that you share with Mary and me, and to a lesser extent, Debbie. You also have that rare capacity to love people fully and without hesitation, and that is a gift as well. Not one of us has any jealousy about you when you are with one of the others, with the obvious exception of Mary when her hormones were influencing her mood swings when she was pregnant. Those, however, are only two of your gifts."

I had other gifts? This was news to me.

Aimee, however, wouldn't tell me any more. She said, "Jim, you need to know your gifts to be able to know how to use them. You cannot tell a fish that it can fly and have it fly. It has to know it can fly before it will launch itself out of the water."

Sometimes, talking with my sweet Aimee can be so fucking aggravating.

The two of us kissed for a few moments before we went into the surf. The other three girls, including June, found us about ten minutes later and we all swam for about a half hour.

The girls set up a daily schedule for sparring. June was now Mary's main partner, and both Mary and June additionally practiced with Debbie as well, usually after a hard workout together to give Debbie a better chance.

Over the next few weeks, I didn't see much difference in either Mary's or June's techniques, but it was quite obvious that June was a much better teacher for Debbie. Debbie was getting more aggressive in her workouts, and she confided in me one night that the reason June was a better teacher was that Debbie didn't see the deadly intent in June's eyes that we all saw in Mary's when she was fighting.

I don't mean to imply here that Debbie was any less strong or talented in the martial arts than June or Mary. In fact, when I had the occasion to spar with Debbie after she started working out with June, she quite easily handled me, a big change since last year. The difference was that Debbie had originally been taught to defend herself, and hadn't been taught to be much of an aggressor. June had been taught competitively, and Mary, well, was quite another story. June was teaching Debbie more aggressive moves, and Debbie seemed to take the instructions from June better than from Mary.

June and I continued to attend flight school. I now had close to forty hours of flight time, and was only a couple of weeks from being able to earn my pilot's certificate. I would soon be flying solo. June, on the other hand, was about halfway through her flight instructor's course. It was just something else she could put on her resume if she were ever looking for a job, something that I figured would never happen, since Aimee was insisting that June be considered a member of our family.

One fine January day, I was talking with June on the way to flight school.

"I've got just a couple more weeks to go," I said.

June nodded, and continued driving.

"What's next?" I asked June. "Should we purchase a Cessna for the family? We could take small trips to Oahu."

"You should get instrument certified first," June suggested.

"Yeah, my instructor said that, too," I agreed. "He said that not having certification is totally stupid. Unexpected things can happen at any time, especially around the islands, and there's no reason to be ignorant on purpose."

"I also sort of imagine you as a skydiver," June said. "You seem to like the thrill of flying, and having the air rush by you as you head toward the earth..."

I shuddered. "I was almost stationed in the 82nd," I said. "They have paratroopers there. I felt a bit uneasy about it at the time, and then Mary hit me with a jeep, saving me from having to jump out of planes."

June laughed. "And here I am, suggesting you do just that now!"

I shrugged. "I'm older, I guess. I still feel like I'm in my twenties, but my body tells me that I'm pushing forty. It's so strange. I can still remember high school like it was yesterday."

"For you, it was," June said. "There's also gliders, Jim."

"You know, June, you're perceptive," I said. "I think I would like the rush of air against my face, but skydiving seems a bit extreme for me. On the other hand, a speed boat or something like that would be fun..."

There was an uneasy silence, and then June said, "Aimee and I had a talk a while back."

I sighed. I knew that June and I would have this conversation. "I know."

"She told me that I should sleep with you."

"She told me the same thing."

"I'm not like that," June said. She sounded sad.

"I know, June, and I don't want you that way," I assured her.

"Then can you tell her to stop pushing me?"

"Nobody tells Aimee what to do, June."

"It makes me uncomfortable. She says that I'm in love with you."

"No she doesn't," I corrected. "Aimee says that I'm your focus. It's not the same thing."

"Aimee also wants me to get weapons training from Mary."

I sighed. "Aimee wants you to be with me so you can be my bodyguard."

"Why do you need a bodyguard?"

"Aimee foresees danger. She sees things before they happen."

We were getting near the airfield. June said, "Aimee believes in old myths her mother told her."

"Her aunt," I again corrected. "And to Aimee, they're not just myths."

"It's like ESP or telekinesis. They don't exist."

"Aimee doesn't call it ESP, June. To her, the old stories are as real as the two of us sitting here."