Posted in Posted by Mary Norton

     “You needn’t worry about him,” Asmarelda said, that melting sweet confusing working into her voice again. “He’s a traitor to his own kind.”

     Rachael’s glistening emerald eyes met his sad, stunningly bright blue ones, the only part of him that she could really see. They dropped after an instant, as if he were both ashamed and afraid of some dark secret she might discover there.

     “So…..what am I gong to do?” Rachael wanted to know. She felt kind of stupid, asking Asmarelda question after question, but the woman seemed not to care and answered every single one of the,.

     “You’re going to be a knife-thrower, of course, love,” she said, entering a long hallway that was off to the side of the huge room. “Do you know what that means?”

     Rachael nodded. “Throwing knives at a big round board with a target on it, right?” she said. “Sometimes you spin it around to make it harder to aim, and sometimes-” She stopped short, horrified.

     “And sometimes what, love?” Asmarelda prodded cruelly. She knew what the girl was thinking. She’s too soft, the woman thought. I was so sure that after the old coot died, she’d be perfect. It’s going to take a little hardening up before she can enter the virtual reality.

     Swallowing, Rachael continued. “Sometimes you tie a person to the board and you have to be real careful not to miss or you’ll kill them. But,” she stammered, “I…d-don’t think that I’m that good.”

     “Confidence is the key,” Asmarelda said. “If you don’t worry about failure, you won’t fail. Besides,” she laughed, “you’ll begin with a training dummy. Then we’ll move to higher levels. We have plenty of time before the show is complete.”I wonder what that means, Rachael thought, as Asmarelda opened a door to her right. “This is where you’ll be sleeping, love,” she announced. It was rather large for a bedroom; in fact, it looked big enough and had enough furnishings in it to account for two. A twin bed made up with yellow daisy-freckled linens, a small chest of drawers, and a silver vanity table accompanied the east wall, where a window presided; and on the west wall, a metal-rimmed bed covered by a midnight-blue comforter, a dresser made from dark wood. And a strange locked box was set. There was quite an extended space between the two beds, about twenty yards, Rachael figured.

     “This side is yours,” Asmarelda said, motioning to the yellow bed. “And Joey sleeps in the other; but he won’t bother you. He never makes the slightest sound, not even so much as a squeak.”

     “Joey?” Rachael said questioningly.

     “The mummy-boy,” Asmarelda responded. “He’s my acrobat---very flexible.” She fell into thought for a moment, and an awkward silence filled the room. So I’m going to sleep in the same room as “the traitor to his kind”? Rachael thought. But then again, this mummy-boy hadn’t seemed so vicious when she looked into those eyes. With her ten-year experience on the streets, she definitely knew what vicious looked like. Sure, he looked kinda creepy, wrapped up in all that stuff. Why did he wear it? Rachael wondered absently. Whatever he’d done had to have been an accident.

     “Now then, you’re free to get settled,” Asmarelda said, breaking the silence so suddenly that she made Rachael jump. “We’ll start practice tomorrow.”

     “I guess I’m going to find out,” Rachael said in answer to her own mental question, as the mysterious dark woman strode out of the room and left her alone.

Copyright © 2009 by Elenya Súlimë