Luke shuffled out of his bedroom toward the kitchen and a cup of coffee. Feeling a bit fuzzy after last night’s celebratory drinks, Luke managed to fill the French press with grounds and hot water without making a mess, feeling it was a supreme injustice that making coffee required being uncaffeinated when one needed it most. Leaning up against the counter and sipping the first luxuriant sips, Luke finally noticed Alfred sitting rigidly outside his office door. Usually the giant orange tabby would be winding his way around Luke’s legs, hoping for the morning’s first scritches.
“What’s up, buddy?”
Alfred replied with a terse “mrao.”
“Is Gwen in the office? You know she’s allowed in there.” Gwen, still recovering from the traumas of homelessness and being captured, spent most of her time in the office with her nose in one of Luke’s books.
“Mrao.” Alfie turned and pawed at the door.
“Oh, is that it? Did she leave you out here and that’s why you’re all bent out of shape? Let me pour the rest of this coffee in a carafe and we’ll go say good morning to your kid.”
Luke topped off his cup and filled the carafe, then headed into the office. Gwen wasn’t there. Another short mrao from Alfred caused him to turn around. “Uh oh.” The secret passageway to his basement lair was wide open, the last volume of his Hornung edition of Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” nearly tipping off its spot on the shelf, leaving the door's mechanism engaged. Luke walked through the passage and down the spiral metal staircase that led down into the smaller first room. He kept his worktable where he cleaned and maintained his armor and swords in the first room. Halfway down the stairs, he could hear the telltale sound of a record that had finished playing and was on the final loop that swished around and kept the needle in its lock groove.
As he stepped off the last step, he saw that the door to his training facility was ajar. Setting the carafe down on a Danish mid-century end table that sat between two chairs of the same style, he lifted the needle off the record and turned the power to the console off. She’d been listening to side one of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.” Without the record drawing his attention, he heard wood thwacking on wood coming from the other room. He thought he could hear a voice as well.
Stepping through the threshold, he leaned against the doorjamb, letting the scene unfold before him. An undersized and overly skinny girl was dancing around one of his wooden practice dummies with a long, wooden practice sword in her hand. Periodically, she’d dart in and strike the dummy several times, all the while making lightsaber sounds.
“Broooooow.” *thwack, thwack* “Luke, I am your father…” *thwack, thwack* “No, that’s not true! Broooow. Search your feelings, Luke, you know it to be true…” *thwack, thwack, thwack* “No! That’s not true! That’s impossible!” *thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack* “Broooooow.” As she spun around for another pass at the dummy, she finally spotted Luke blocking the exit from the training room. She dropped the wooden training sword and tried to hide behind the tall, wooden practice dummy, but while she was small for her age, she wasn’t that small.
Gwen was still quite skittish and easily startled. Several months of quiet and calm living in Luke’s house couldn’t erase the nearly two years of homelessness or the home that had driven her to the streets in the first place. Luke didn’t want to scare her any further. He cast his voice loud enough for her to hear it but kept the tone as calm and light as he could.
“It’s OK, Gwen. I promise I’m not angry. I’ll be in the other room when you’re ready to come out.” He turned around and set his coffee cup near the carafe. That accomplished, he sat in the chair furthest from the door and the stairs up and out of his hidden basement lair. If she decided she’d rather escape upstairs, he wasn’t going to make her feel trapped. After a few minutes, he heard the release of a deep breath before Gwen stepped through the door and sat down in the chair, pulling her legs up under her. She looked down at the ground, keeping her hands folded in her lap.
“First, let me reiterate, I’m not angry. How did you find the door mechanism?”
“I don’t know. I was just looking for something to read…”
Luke’s eyebrows rose. “Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s got a cool spine. There aren’t a lot of choices.”
“Choices? There’re hundreds of books upstairs.”
“Not that I want to read,” Gwen mumbled.
Luke stood up, slid the record Gwen had been listening to back in its sleeve and put it back on the shelf. “Do you like Funkadelic?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of them before. I guess it was alright.”
Luke heard a meow from the stairs. Looking over, he saw Alfred poking his head around the stairs to see what was going on.
“Did you rat me out?” Gwen asked the cat.
Alfred meowed at her and came all the way downstairs. Unashamed at telling on her, he jumped in her lap and started purring.
“You know what happens to snitches, don’t you?” She scratched behind his ears and around his collar. “Snitches get scritches.”
Smiling to himself, Luke flipped through his records before selecting Beirut’s “Gulag Orkestar” and placing it on the turntable, setting the volume to a setting loud enough to hear but not so loud it would interfere with conversation. Refilling his coffee cup, he sat down. “Why’d you pick it?”
“I don’t know. I guess it had a cool picture on the cover.” Gwen took in a deep breath, steeling herself before looking Luke in the eyes. “Everything here is old guy stuff. Your books are old guys books. Your records are old guy records. It’s just…” She trailed off.
“It’s just there’s nothing here that’s specifically for you. I’m sorry. I guess I never thought about it. I’ve not really interacted with a lot of children, and certainly not had one in my home.” Luke ran his hand through his messy hair. “I can get some things for you. What kind of books do you like?”
“Um. I don’t know.” Her cheeks flushed light red as she turned her eyes back to the Persian rug in the center of the floor.
Luke understood. It’d been two years since she had access to anything like books or music of her own choosing, and who knows what she was allowed in her home with an abusive father. Plus, Luke figured kid’s tastes change a lot between nine and twelve years old. “I’ll stop by the library when I go out and get some books for you. I’m sure a librarian can help me find something a person your age will like. Also, I’ll set up your own Spotify account so you can find music you’ll like.”
“That would be nice,” replied Gwen.
“Once the pack gets you some new paperwork, we can get you a library card, and then you can check out whatever you want.”
“OK. I’d like that.” The glum expression on her face lessened as she pulled back her shoulders some, growing a bit in size as she slightly extracted herself from the small ball she’d made of her body to take up less space.
They sat awkwardly for a bit as the music played. Luke wasn’t sure how to bond with her. She lived in his space, but largely kept to herself and rarely spoke unless someone else started the conversation. She tried to take up as little space as possible while trying to stay unnoticed—defensive tactics from a bad childhood and life on the streets. The people Luke had spent most of his nineteen hundred plus year life around had been warriors, fighters, and soldiers. A young girl was a bewildering experience.
Thinking about what Maggie had suggested the other day at Gwen’s checkup, he took in a deep breath, settled on a course of action, then let the breath out slowly. For now, he’d have to fall back on what he knew. She was scrappy and had a bit of fight in her when the occasion demanded it.
“Would you like to learn how to fight? To defend yourself?”
She raised her head and made timid eye contact. “Yes?”
“If you’re not interested, you don’t have to agree to make me happy. I just thought, well, being a werewolf and well… You were playing with my training sword…”
“No, I mean, yes. I’d like to learn.” She smiled slightly, a look of excitement in her eyes.
Luke smiled back at her. “OK, we’ll start after breakfast. I’m hungry.”
“Me too!” That was the most excitement he’d heard from her since they’d met.
* * *
After breakfast, Luke had changed into his workout clothes and was directing Gwen through light warm-up exercises. They’d have to add workout clothes to the shopping list for Gwen. Once he was satisfied, he walked over to the wall covered in weapons racks and took down a pair of short swords.
“I think we’ll start you on short swords.”
“Why not on a samurai sword?” She gestured to the bamboo practice katana she’d been using.
“Katanas are cool, but you’re a bit on the short side.”
“But wouldn’t I want a longer sword, then?”
Luke turned around and grabbed two bamboo katanas off the racks, handing one to Gwen. “Follow me.” He led her to the center of the fighting mat, setting the short swords down just outside the ring marking the boundary of the fighting circle. “OK, hold the sword in both hands and extend your arms, pointing the sword straight forward. When I tell you to, walk straight toward me and poke me with the tip of the sword.”
Luke set himself, sword lowered at his side. “OK.”
Gwen walked forward, stopping with the tip of the wooden sword poking into Luke’s chest.
“OK, now reset.”
She walked back and started again. This time, Luke raised his bamboo katana and held it in front of him just as she walked within range. She stopped with the tip of Luke’s sword stopping her with her sword well over a foot away from Luke. Next, he had her stand inside his reach and asked her to try to stab him or get a good slash in with the bamboo katana. Its length made it nearly impossible for her to make any kind of real contact with him.
“You’re quite a bit shorter than me, so with equal length weapons, I have a reach advantage over you. And even if you do get inside my reach, a longer weapon becomes an encumbrance. I’m not sure what size you’ll be when you grow up all the way, but right now, we’ll have to train you to account for your size. In your case, short swords and polearms are going to be the order of the day.”
“How’s a short sword going to work? Aren’t I going to be extra short with one of those?”
“The key to a short sword against a tall opponent is to get inside your opponent’s reach. As a shorter person with a short weapon, you can neutralize your opponent’s reach by being fast and getting in close, inside of their weapon and where they can do damage.”
Gwen nodded, accepting Luke’s reasoning. “OK.”
She walked to the edge of the ring, set her bamboo katana down, and picked up the short swords, handing one to Luke in exchange for his katana. She set it outside the ring and returned to the center. Standing opposite Luke, she held the short sword in her left hand. She set her body with her left shoulder facing him and her right arm extended behind her with her hand in the air above her head.
Luke chuckled as she contorted her body into a passable imitation of the fencing en garde position. “I’m not teaching you fencing; I’m teaching you fighting. You’ll want that other hand for punching or blocking or holding another weapon. It won’t do you any good up there.”
Gwen blushed slightly and relaxed her body back into a normal standing position. Luke approached her, corrected her grip, and showed her the position she needed to set her body in to begin with. He demonstrated the basic forms and motions. Once she had the basics, he had her connect them in various sequences, calling out the combos he wanted her to perform.
“Slow down. Go for accuracy. Speed will come with time.”
She slowed down, going for precision. Walking around her, Luke corrected forms where needed but was pleased with Gwen’s ability to listen to and apply the information Luke gave her. If she kept up like this, she’d make an exceptional pupil.
“Alright, little one, that’s enough for today. You’ve done a good job.”
Gwen was covered in sweat, but one of the first genuine smiles Luke had seen spread across her face. She pulled her shoulders back, raising her head a bit higher. The lesson and the praise built a bit of confidence in the reticent child. She picked up the bamboo swords and placed them back on the racks with her short sword. Luke filled a couple glasses with water from the sink, then walked into the small antechamber and sat. Gwen followed him in, picking up Alfred from the chair where he was curled up in a ball and quietly snoring, and resettled him in her lap. Accepting the glass from Luke, she chugged her water and set the empty glass on the side table.
“Do you think you want to keep learning how to fight?” Luke asked.
Gwen nodded eagerly. “Yes, please. I liked that.”
“Good. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask Sam to join us. She’s an expert with a naginata…” Seeing the look of confusion on Gwen’s face, he elaborated, “It’s a Japanese spear. Basically, a stick with a sword blade at the end.”
“Sam can fight?”
Luke chuckled, remembering the battle last fall on the St. Johns Bridge; Sam had carved up vampires with ease. Although Gwen had been present, she’d been stationed in the middle of the caravan where she’d be safe and far from the fighting.
“Oh, yeah. She can fight.”