"Faster! You need to be faster - again, do it again!"
My neck was slicked with sweat and the few strands of hair I liked to call bangs were glued to my head . As my mother spoke she whipped a Bō staff at my head, barely ducking the weapon I forced my body to roll as a savage kick was aimed at my ribcage from a metal tipped shoe somewhere above me.
I managed to stretch my arm out as I saw a small Shuriken lying about a foot away. I could just graze one of the stars cool edges with the tips of my finger when my mother leant on the Bō and let it crush my wrist. With a short groan I clenched my eyes shut, rolled away from my crazed mother and pulled my arm in close to my chest, cradling my wrist. My rolling came to a stop as the staff bounced off of the cool masonry floor and my breath was stolen from my lips as the crazy lady I've learned to call mom dropped down onto my chest. My eyes flew open on contact and a smooth, deadly sharp curved dagger rested at the pulse in my neck.
"You're moving too slowly Isabella, if I were any real threat you'd be dead. We'll pick this up tomorrow, wrap your wrist and clean up the cage."
I guess I should explain why my mother felt the need to attack me then suggest that I clean up a cage. My family is, in a word, strange. Folklore and common myths would have you believe that we are a mix of wizards,witches and fairies but we go by leitores de espejos - Readers of Mirrors, I know it sounds lame in English.We originated in Brazil so Portuguese is our first language, we migrated to Greece,Japan and Rome before finally settling in the States.
Anyway, Readers of Mirrors, it sounds entirely like something a nutjob would say but what we do is actually pretty cool. Cool but totally insane.
For as long as I could remember my great-grandmother told me stories. The earliest story I could remember was about a prophesy, in a nutshell the prophesy said that there would be one girl from a group called The Clan that would save the world and her race from destroying each other. When I was told that story it was edited, The Clan is leitores de espejos and supposely the chick is somewhere around my age.
I never paid a lot of attention to the prophesy, it was lacking in detail and my family didn't ever make it something to dwell on so I didn't. The other stories were intricately woven tales of heroics and battle. They were always about this woman who could predict anyone's death but she wouldn't always know how they died and she almost never knew the person she saw.
See the woman never had to look into a crystal ball or read lifelines on anyone's palms, for her to tell the future she only had to look into a mirror. The mirror wasn't one of those electronically programmed ones like the ones that say you're the fairest in the land and it didn't have to be a full mirror, just a sliver of reflecting glass would do.
It was on my sixteenth birthday that I was told the truth about all of those stories. They weren't so much stories as history. My family's history. My five times great-grandfather (great-great-great-great-great grandfather) discovered that his wife had the ability to predict death before it happened and he freaked but he loved his wife enough to stay with her through everything that comes with finding out something like that. In the case of my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents fighting,hiding and a whole new life was in their future.
My five times great grandfather died wihle protecting his wife but not before she became pregnant. His wife, my great-great-great-great-great grandmother, had two daughters, one was born with what we now call the sight and one was born without it. From there the rest is history.
My family moved around the world searching for a safe country or at least a country where it would be safe enough to be different from everyone else and as they searched they grew. One of the daughters fell in love while in Japan, the other daughter fell in love before they left Brazil and both managed to have one daughter before continuing on to Greece. In Greece the family grew again but again, only by one daughter in each branch of the family. Every daughter born after the twins had the sight.
Now the leitores de espejos live in America and that's where my story begins. I live with my mother - or as I like to call her - crazy lady. My father is a no-show. I haven't seen hide or tail of him since I was six. There was a knock on our front door one day and my mother was told he'd gone AWOL from the marines. Being six my first thought was something like 'yay my daddy is coming home' but of course by the time I was eleven and I still had not heard from or seen my father I knew he was not coming back. Enough of the sob-story, I have a cage to clean.
My house has three levels, the main floor, the top floor, where we sleep, and the basement. I'm not exactly a big fan of our basement, I've spent more time there than I ever wanted to but I don't complain, none of the leitores do. Our basement is a standard leitores basement, anyone who is not a mirror reader would think it is a training dojo of sorts - they'd be right.
My basement is a fight club's wet-dream. It's filled with almost every weapon known to man and some that the average militia man has never seen. In one of the far corners a boxing ring is pushed against a wall with gloves and head gear on a rack nearby. Training dummies line the rest of that wall. Across from them a few punching bags hang off the walls.
In the center of the room is the cage. The leitores have to test how well one of us could fight in enclosed spaces, you never know when you'll be fighting for your life in a prison cell. Fighting in wide,open areas is something most people could do easily but when the walls are tight and you can't run from your opponent how would you do? The cage is approximately 8x8 feet big and only about 5'3 feet tall, forcing a lot of us to crouch and protect our chests and stomachs because most of us are tall and lanky. In my cage there is a row of Bōs and Shurikens lined on the wall, jump ropes,spears and a few other unmentionable weapons. (Unmentionable meaning I could say what they are but I'd have to kill you if I did).
Standing in the cage I surveyed the ground, making sure that the mats did not have any unwanted fluids, you know;sweat,blood,etc. before I pressed the discreet button on one of the cages bars that would retract the mats and leave behind concrete flooring.
Using my uninjured hand I lifted the Bō and placed it on its rack. Standing back the Bō looked more like an oversized bamboo stick than the fierce weapon it really is.
After picking up the Shuriken and carefully placing it among my prized collection of hand crafted Shurikens I surveyed the room. Everything was as it should be, taking a minute to memorize the cage I stood still and silent before turning sharply on my heel and headed upstairs.
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New Story!!
Sorry about the others, this story has been in my head for years, the idea at least. I needed to write it down. VOTE + COMMENT = VOMMENT, FAN,ETC.
