It was raining outside. Pegatha wasn't sure when it had started, but as it poured down on her from the dark heavens she imagined that it would last all night.
Why does he have to work all the time? It's not fair! I hate him!
She kicked at a batch of drooping dandelions sticking up out of a rent in the sidewalk and they cracked backward so that the yellow head of one was sent flying into the street, out of sight. She stared after it moodily for a few seconds before sighing and pulling her dripping jacket further over her head. Why did it have to be raining? As if she wasn't already feeling bad enough.
She'd left a note for her mother that stated she was going to stay over at a friend's house, but now that she'd started out she didn't much feel like going to Haelie's; for one thing, Haelie lived all the way across town. And secondly, Arick was really the only one she could trust to keep her presence a secret.
But he, of course, had also run away.
This made her stop to think. After a few moments, she came to a conclusion. She had two choices that she could see: the first was that she could just turn around and head back home. One thought of her father, however, convinced her that she wasn't ready to do that. Not until he was sorry. Not until he'd searched far and wide for her, and only then if he promised her that he'd never go back to that other job. Only then would she go home and not one minute before.
And so, that left the second choice, which was that she could go and stay with Arick at the dojo for a few days. She had some clothes and her school books in her knapsack, enough to last her until the weekend; and by then, her father would probably have started to worry enough to take time out of his busy schedule to look for her.
She was drenched by the time she reached the entrance of the dojo. It encouraged her to see that the lights of the practice room were on, even if it was empty. She entered without hesitation and spent a moment wringing the wetness out of her clothes and hair before glancing around. A half-open door at the back of the room caught her attention and, seeing that no one had noticed her arrival, she approached it to peek in.
A stairway led down from the doorway into what looked to be the dojo's cellar, and voices engaged in conversation floated up from below. She struggled for a moment with the thought that she didn't belong here. She was no student, no hopeful martial artist; she was just a runaway with nowhere else to go. The idea of heading back out into the storm, however, convinced her to venture down the stairway.
There were about twenty people in the cellar, either standing around or sitting on some of the beds lined up against the two longest walls. Some of them were practicing moves on the cement floor. Most of them, she noticed right away, were boys she recognized from the dojo, though there were a couple of girls as well. A few conversations stopped when she came into view, and one of the boys pointed.
"Hey, look! It's that girl the sensei was asking about."
All chatter was silenced as every head turned her way. She stopped on a stair and, uncomfortable under all of the curious glances, looked desperately for Arick among the crowd.
It wasn't hard to spot him. He was already pushing through the others toward her.
"Pegatha, what are you doing here?" he asked once he'd reached the base of the stairs.
Pegatha descended toward him in relief. "I ran away from home," she explained quickly in a subdued voice.
Arick frowned in surprise. "You ran away? Why?" Pegatha didn't answer immediately and he shook his head. "Never mind. Tell me later. I've got news for you! Mr. Brescher's on his way. Deke actually asked me to go and get you so you could be here, but I didn't want to risk your parents sending me back home, so I..."
"My parents don't know you ran away." Pegatha interrupted. "Your mom hasn't called our house to ask where you are. At least, not while I was there, and my mom hasn't said anything about it to me."
Arick's expression faltered. "She didn't call?" A look of anger passed briefly over his face before he forced a grim smile. "Oh well. At least she doesn't have the police after me to arrest me. That's how she got me home the last time."
The rest of the people in the room had gone back to what they'd been doing before Pegatha's arrival, and so she felt a little more at ease when Arick began to lead her to an unoccupied bed where she dropped her knapsack and dripping coat.
"So, this is where you stay?" she asked, glancing around vaguely. The room was large and gray with no carpeting or wallpaper or any adornments of any kind. Nothing but the beds for them to sleep on. She admittedly felt a little uncomfortable sleeping in a room with so many other people, especially when they were strangers (she'd never even had to share a room with a sibling before), but there didn't seem to be anything for it unless she felt like returning home.
"Yep," Arick answered, hoisting himself onto the bed, and he pointed across the room. "My bed's over there, but I could move next to you if you wanted."
Pegatha nodded, sort of relieved that he'd offered instead of waiting for her to ask. "Who are all these others?" she wondered aloud.
Arick shrugged. "Some of them are runaways, some of them didn't have homes in the first place. But they've all been affected by the gang in some way. We're all here to learn how to protect ourselves. And this place is safe and they take care of everything."
"Everything?" Pegatha asked dubiously. "Not education, do they?"
Arick paused for a moment before continuing. "That might not be a problem for too long. Deke said earlier that Mr. Brescher wants to open up separate classes for us. That way, the kids who ran away from home can't be found by their parents through the school, and they still get an education."
Pegatha frowned. "You mean, they don't want kids to be found by their parents?"
"Not if their parents beat them," Arick asserted. "A lot of these kids came from alcoholic or abusive families. They're better off here than at home."
Pegatha still felt like it was wrong, somewhere on some level, to grow up without one's parents, but she didn't feel like arguing it so she let the matter drop. "Well, I don't think I'm going to stay here very long. I just..." She sat down beside him wearily. "I just had to leave my house for a few days."
"Why?"
Pegatha shrugged. "My parents. My dad's working at another place now and my mom..." She sighed as the weight of her feelings came back to her. "I don't know."
Arick picked distractedly at a piece of fluff on the blanket. When Pegatha didn't continue, he spoke. "Hey, you should be glad to have a father at all. And your mom's great. I wish she was my mom." He gave her a seemingly benign glance, but Pegatha could easily see his opinion in his eyes. He thought she was crazy for leaving such a paradise, and for a moment she agreed with him.
But he hadn't been there. He wasn't dealing with her anger and pain and confusion. He didn't know.
She struggled with these warring thoughts for a moment. "Well, anyway," she began after a pause, "I'm not going to stay long. I just had to get out of the house."
Arick nodded mutely and Pegatha fell silent. She didn't want to say so, now that she'd come all this way, but she was missing her own bed in her own room. She was also starting to feel a little badly about running away. Her mother was probably worried about her. She was just starting to think that she should call her mother to let her know where she was when a couple of boys who'd been talking together a few feet away finally approached.
"Hey, Arick," one of them, a tall skinny boy Pegatha recognized from the classes, greeted Arick.
Arick sat up and nodded at them. "Hey, Lef. Hey, Marc."
"What's going on?" the taller boy, Lef, continued, brushing some of his dirty blond bangs out of his eyes. "Is this the girl the sensei was looking for?"
"Yeah, this is Pegatha. She's the daughter of that shop owner who fought four gang members single-handedly, the one I told you about."
The shorter boy raised his eyebrows and Lef broke into a grin. "Really? I heard all about that, but the papers didn't say anything specific." He turned to Pegatha. "Was it really your dad?"
Pegatha nodded and ventured a slight smile. "Yeah. My dad knocked the four of them out before they could steal anything."
Marc, the shorter boy, seemed vaguely skeptical. "How could he have done that?" he asked. "They must've been armed."
"They were. I..." She paused, searching for an image of her father fighting that she could describe, but gave up when nothing realistic enough came to mind. "Actually, I don't know how he did it. I didn't see."
"I saw part of it," Arick cut in. "It looked like he was using some sort of martial arts, a little like what we're being taught."
Pegatha suddenly remembered something her mother had said. "He had some training when he was young."
"Well, if he can use this stuff to protect his shop, then we can use it to protect ourselves," Lef said with a grin. "So, are you here to get some training like your dad?"
Pegatha hesitated for a moment. "Um...well sort of, I guess. I actually just came here for a few days."
Marc frowned. "Why?"
Again, she found herself at a loss for an answer. "I sort of...ran away from home," she explained haltingly.
Lef and Marc didn't reply for a few seconds and then they exchanged a glance. Pegatha had the distinct feeling that they, like Arick, weren't quite understanding why she'd run away from a place where she was obviously safe. Feeling faintly uncomfortable, and not at all like trying to justify her decision, she was relieved when Deke came down the stairs and asked everyone to join him in the dojo.
Once they were all upstairs, Deke had them don robes. "Mr. Brescher will be here any minute," he kept saying as he urged them to hurry.
When he passed behind Pegatha and the three boys, Arick called his attention. "Look, sensei. Pegatha's here."
Deke stopped pacing around and glanced at them vacantly for a second. "Who?" he snapped initially as if irritated by having been torn away from his anxious brooding, but then his eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh, Pegatha! I was hoping you would come." He put a hand on her shoulder and she had to fight the urge to back out of his reach -- his hair looked greasier than usual, as if he had been too busy to wash it even once during the week, and she could smell it. "This is wonderful! Everyone's here! Great!" He smiled, but it didn't seem to be directed at any of them, and in a moment he was off again.
"He seems more excited about this than we are," the boy named Marc mumbled just loud enough for Arick, herself, and Lef to hear. Pegatha smiled a little at the remark, also a little surprised by the sensei's behaviour. Maybe Brescher had donated the building, but wasn't Deke the man in charge of the dojo? Why, then, was this visit such a big deal?
Once they were all ready, the sensei had them step onto the mats and start their exercises, or 'katas' as he called them. Pegatha had noticed that, over the few times she'd been to the dojo, she was getting better and less out of breath by the end of the routine. She was starting to wonder if sensei Deke had been right and that she did have potential for this sort of thing. The thought encouraged her and she felt a little better for coming.
It wasn't until they'd begun the first round of practices that Mr. Brescher arrived. As per Deke's instructions, everyone continued with what they were doing as if they hadn't noticed him enter; however, Pegatha found that it was impossible to carry on without casting at least one glance in the man's direction.
He was tall, she noticed immediately, maybe her father's age but still strikingly good looking, and dressed in a gray suit and a tie with a white button-up underneath. His hair was the colour of sunlit sand and he kept it fairly short, though just long enough for her to admire the way it waved, not quite curling like Arick's. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses as well, so although she looked, she couldn't tell if one of his keen blue eyes was indeed made of glass.
"Is that Mr. Brescher?" she whispered to Arick once they'd finished one set.
He nodded. "This is only the second time I've seen him. Business usually keeps him pretty busy."
"What kind of business?" she asked in another whisper as they prepared for another round of moves.
"I don't know," Arick answered. "Some kind of weapon manufacturing, I think."
Pegatha thought about this for a moment before frowning. "So...he makes weapons so that people can kill other people, and yet he has a dojo to teach kids how to protect themselves?"
Arick didn't answer, but she had the faint suspicion that she'd annoyed him with her question. In a moment, following his example, she turned her attention back to the training. Lef and Marc had paired up and were practicing nearby, but Pegatha barely acknowledged the presence of anyone else in the room as her occasional and curious glances became more and more focused on the newcomer/business-man, Mr. Brescher.
Good, everything was going better than he'd hoped. Deke disguised a smile and glanced at his employer. Brescher continued to say nothing for another minute. When he did finally speak, it was to call the sensei over so that they could speak privately.
"Who is that girl over there?" he asked quietly, nodding at the groups of students. There were, however, a couple of girls within his range of sight.
Deke frowned. "Which girl, sir?"
"That one, there," Brescher told him curtly. "The pretty one with the black curly hair. Who is she?"
Deke straightened up. "That was the girl I mentioned earlier, the one who came in a few days ago and has picked everything up with relative ease. Her name is Pegatha." He faltered for a moment. "I don't know her last name," he admitted after a moment.
Brescher didn't answer. After a pause, he spoke again. "I want to see her. I'm going to go into the office upstairs. Send her up in a few minutes." With that, he turned away and headed for a stairwell to his left. Deke watched him go and then, once he was out of sight, turned back to his students.
Pegatha didn't exactly start when Deke approached her from behind and tapped her on the shoulder. When she jumped, it was with the surprise of someone who senses a presence behind her but doesn't expect them to want her attention.
Deke smiled toothily when she turned. "Hello, Pegatha," he said softly, leaning into her. "Mr. Brescher asked me to invite you up to his office. He'd like to talk to you."
Pegatha exchanged a surprised glance with Arick. "Me?" she asked.
"Yes, you."
"Now?"
Deke nodded to cover up his inopportune impatience. "Preferably. I don't think you want to keep him waiting. He's very impressed with what he's seen so far of your talent."
Pegatha didn't miss Arick's expression, the way his jaw hung open as if he wanted to protest but knew he had nothing to say. Was he feeling jealous, she wondered? After all, he'd been here longer than she had and had yet to be noticed by Brescher. However, she didn't have time to ask him because a moment later the sensei was leading her gently but firmly by the arm and all she could do was follow.
Deke accompanied her half-way up the stairs and then left her to go the rest of the way by herself. Swallowing down her nervous excitement, she ascended the remaining steps.
Her feet led her into a dim, uncarpeted hallway that had obviously escaped the renovations done to the first floor. There were scorch marks on the walls and floorboards where the fire had licked at the wood, and some of the yellow-brown wallpaper had had its glue melted off so that strips of it hung down overhead like drooping sentries. A couple of doors led off to other rooms on the left, but only the door on her right was open. Pegatha halted at the frame and peered into the room.
Mr. Brescher was seated behind a small desk that was the only piece of furniture between the four walls, save his chair and one other chair across from him. The walls were an eggshell white and a curtainless window behind Mr. Brescher looked out on the night sky, still dark with rain. A bolt of lightning flashed suddenly outside and, as the thunder rolled, he glanced up from something he'd been writing and gave Pegatha an inviting smile.
"Come in, please, Pegatha. Sit down. I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes."
Pegatha hesitated for a second in the doorway, but there was an intelligent wit in his bearing and tone that made her feel a little more at ease. She entered and settled in the chair opposite him, thinking to herself that he looked even more handsome up close, even with the glass eye that was more apparent now.
Mr. Brescher laced his fingers together and gazed at her as if trying to memorize her face. This kind of scrutiny made her uncomfortable at once. She hated it when people stared. It always made her blush. Quickly, she dropped her eyes, hoping her discomfort would translate across.
It did. He was astute and swift to notice such things. Metal joints squealed as Mr. Brescher straightened up in his chair, and he cleared his throat. She waited for him to speak.
"Well," he began, and she could hear his smile in his voice, "I've heard some good things about you from sensei Deke. He tells me you're catching on very quickly to the routines."
Pegatha glanced up from where she'd been looking at the floorboards. "Well, I..." Her voice had become little more than a whisper she noticed and cleared her throat as well. "I've only just started coming here. I've never really been into this sort of thing before."
"I think you're a natural."
Pegatha's eyes widened a fraction, but then she dropped them to her lap, inexplicably embarrassed by the comment. She'd never been 'a natural' at anything, and being called one was making her face flush in earnest.
"I've been doing this sort of thing for a long time, Pegatha, and I know talent when I see it."
Pegatha looked at him as if unsure he was telling the truth. "You think I have talent?"
"Yes, by God. Tons of it, untapped. And that's the best kind because then we can train you from the beginning. Why, at the rate you're catching on, I'm positive you'll be better than any of the others within a month."
Pegatha raised her eyebrows. "Really?"
He nodded. "Really. You'll see, if you stick with it. Pretty soon, you'll be leaving them behind, and then we can train you at a higher level."
"You mean at another dojo?"
"Oh. No." He shook his head. "Not exactly. But in the Gold Saucer. I've got rooms there already being used to train people."
Pegatha felt as if a door had been opened inside her head. Suddenly, there seemed to be a multitude of roads stretching out in front of her. The idea of a new choice for a future she'd rarely considered made a part of her feel very small and young and out of her league, but another part reacted with excitement. "You'd really train me?"
"Of course! And then, I might even employ you. There are always positions opening up for people with trained skills like the ones you'd learn. You'd be surprised."
Pegatha was staring dazedly across the room, not really looking at anything but certainly seeing a number of things unfolding in her mind. Once, the future had seemed to consist of only herself, her mother, and her father. Now, here was something else; and, without pretending it wasn't scary, the thought of it was alluring.
But then, the door began to close, and she was young Pegatha again. She sank into her chair. "I'm not a runaway like the others," she told him quietly, thinking he'd expected as much. "My parents..." She meant to continue, but there were so many contrasting ideas in her head right now concerning her parents that none of the words seemed to fit and she fell silent.
He didn't respond right away. She heard the chair protest as he sat back and she wondered if maybe he was going to take back his offer to train her.
"So, you still want to live at home?"
He was looking at her rather intently with his hands folded over his stomach. She nodded, and wondered why she felt like she was admitting to something she'd done wrong.
"You get along with your parents?"
She hesitated this time, for a second, before nodding.
Mr. Brescher sat up. "Both of them?"
This time, her pause was longer and she fumbled once before answering. "Well...most of the time...I...i-it's hard to explain right now," she finished in a mumble.
"I see." There was another pause, longer than her own, long enough that eventually Pegatha began to get a little restless.
Mr. Brescher sighed suddenly as if coming out of thought. "Well, we'll see what happens. I don't like to train people who aren't ready for it, or who can't move with the group if we're forced to relocate. It seems a waste of your time and energy to teach you when it would be impossible for you to reach your full potential."
Pegatha felt deflated, as if something curiously important was slipping away from her. "I...I want to keep coming here," she told him.
"I'm not saying you can't," he replied. "But you'll eventually have to decide between what could be your future, and the childhood you ultimately have to leave behind."
Pegatha couldn't think of anything to say. Was her childhood really coming to an end so quickly? Did she have the make the decision so soon? She marveled that Arick and the others had been able to choose this for their futures without seeming to suffer any hesitation. But, she thought a moment later, perhaps their situations at home had been bad enough that they'd welcomed the dojo's offer.
Mr. Brescher leaned back into the work he'd been doing. "Well, I should let you get back to your lessons. It was nice to meet you, Pegatha." He raised his head and met her eyes one more time. "But, spend some time thinking about it before you decide. I think you could have a great future ahead of you, but you have to take advantage of the opportunity. And sometimes, that means giving some things up. Just remember that you're deciding between your past and the rest of your life. It's never an easy decision, especially for those in your age bracket who aren't sure what's out there. But let me tell you, you may look back and regret it if you don't decide to stay."
Pegatha nodded dumbly and stood. Her legs felt like jelly beneath her, but she managed to make her way back down to the dojo.
The three boys were waiting for her. Everyone else had gone back into the cellar.
"I can't believe you got invited up to his office!" Lef exclaimed. "I don't think he's ever done that before. What did he say to you?"
Arick was standing about a foot behind the other two with his arms crossed over his chest, not saying anything. Pegatha chewed her bottom lip for a moment. "Nothing, really. We just talked."
"What about?" Marc asked.
She didn't feel like repeating the conversation. "Do they have good food here?" she asked instead.
Lef straightened, his eyes aglow with the mention of food. "Oh, yeah. There's a kitchen down the street that makes all our meals for us. Last night for supper we had steak and potatoes and broccoli. The night before, we had meatloaf and stewed carrots. Or wait, was that the night before?" He gave her a rundown of the variety of foods available to them as they headed back down to the cellar, Arick a noticeably subdued presence at the rear. Pegatha paid little attention to Lef, her thoughts still on what Mr. Brescher had said to her in his office. She didn't think she was ready for the lifestyle he was presenting, but what if it was time to start thinking about her future? It was becoming more obvious that her parents weren't always going to be everything for her; maybe now it was time to start looking out for herself, though this thought left her feeling as if there was rock in her stomach.
Once she'd parted ways with Lef and Marc, she headed for her bed and curled up on her side on top of the blanket. Arick, notwithstanding his mood, moved his things so that he occupied the bed beside her. She was grateful for his proximity when she knew so few of the others, but he made no effort to speak to her. If he noticed her distress, he didn't let on.
Sometimes she and her dad had talked about her future, about how she might someday inherit the gunshop when they grew too old to run it. As a child, being allowed in the forge had been as exciting for her as a day in the park, her mother had said. She'd loved to sit on her father's lap while he'd polished revolver barrels, every few seconds pointing a pudgy finger at something she hadn't noticed before and asking "Wazzat?" When had her curious exuberance changed to hum-drum indifference? Pegatha had the sneaking suspicion that it had happened around the same time she and her father had started to drift apart.
There was a peculiar lump in her throat. She tried to swallow, but it remained. She missed him. It was almost too hard for her to admit. She missed him so much. The telltale sting of oncoming tears warned her that her control was slipping. For a moment she didn't care, but then she decided that she didn't want to cry in front of all of these others. Sniffling quietly into her pillow, she waited until the urge to weep had passed.
The unshed tears made her stomach feel a little uneasy, but she made herself eat when Deke led them to another room in the building that had a large dining table. The food was good, as Lef had so assiduously stated, but she barely tasted it. It was hard to concentrate on anything.
Lights out was at ten o'clock. That night, Pegatha was unable to get to sleep for a long time. When she did finally drift off she was plagued with disturbing dreams.
Her father was walking along the road outside their house. As she watched him approach, she noticed a black cloud that looked almost like a billowing cape come up behind him. In a moment, it had engulfed him, and the last thing she saw was his hand reaching out to her before it was swallowed up in velvety darkness.
In the next moment, she was inside the cloud, pushing against the insubstantial walls as she searched for him. She knew instinctively that he wouldn't be able to breathe in the cloud so she had to find him quickly. But there was no sign of him anywhere, no matter how she tried.
She woke up crying. A second later, she shot up in bed, unable to remember where she was. It came back to her once she'd glanced around in the small light coming in from a rectangular basement window and she lay down again, feeling cold and alone and very much wishing to be in her own bedroom with her parents down the hall.
She didn't get back to sleep for a long time after that.
It was nearly ten thirty by the time Mr. Brescher descended from his upstairs office, his glasses still perched on his nose as he flipped through the handful of financial statements Deke had left on his desk. He looked as if he was about to leave out the front door without glancing around for his host when Deke heard his footsteps and came out of another room.
"Mr. Brescher?"
He turned a few steps from the door and peered over the rim of his spectacles at the sensei. "Yes?"
Deke smiled and jaunted up. "So, what did you think of the girl?"
"Pegatha?" He glanced up at the ceiling as if searching for the words. "I think she's tied a little too tightly to her mother's apron strings."
"Oh." Deke frowned. "That's a shame. She was doing so well, too. But that's the way it goes, I suppose. There are some others in the group that I'm sure you would find more..."
"I'm giving her the chance to change her mind, however."
Deke mouth stumbled to a halt in surprise. "What?" He stopped himself before he could say anything more out of shock and regained his composure. "You're giving her another chance? Well, this is certainly a first. Pardon my asking, sir, but why the special treatment?"
Mr. Brescher's expression turned pensive as if his thoughts were turning inward into some deeply buried part of his mind, and for a moment it looked like he was about to speak. But then he seemed to realize his audience and he closed his mouth and shook his head. "Good night, Mr. Pokorny. And, as a favour to me, stop spending so much money on food. I said feed them, not turn them into gluttons." He then turned and pushed his way out of the dojo.
And Deke was left wondering for the longest time whether there was more about the girl Pegatha than he knew.