Part 6 - Magic in Dreams

Christie bounced out of the ladies' dressing room and into the dojang's main studio sporting a big smile. It was Saturday, and all of her school work was already done, but that wasn't the best news. It really wasn't a done deal yet, but Grandfather Kim had just told her that he planned to convince the Red and Black Belts to let her test for her 6th Geup Green belt two weeks from today! She'd been hoping to take that test despite the fact she hadn't completed the usual four months as a 7th Geup Green Belt required by the Taekwondo Federation's guidelines. Grandfather had reviewed that WTF time requirement and found that it intended to ensure a candidate had completed the necessary training before trying to advance to the next level belt. The four-month criterion assumed a casual student taking three, one and one half-hour classes per week, or roughly 100 hours in class.

Christie usually doubled the usual hours she trained on a class day class, so Grandfather felt she had met both the spirit and the intent of the Federation's requirement. Besides, he'd told her that she was way beyond well prepared in any event. She was regularly sparring with the dojang's blue belts and holding her own with them.

Which was why Christie was already rigged out in her full sparring gear. She wanted more sparring, especially against more advanced and experienced students. She wanted to ace that test, so she wanted some practice bouts today. And if someone else was looking for a match, then, gee, Jeja Christie is evidently more than ready to oblige. Pick me! Pick Me!! PICK ME!!!

Giggling at herself, Christie began her usual pre-class stretching and warm-up exercises regimen. She was early for her class, as usual, to be ready for her lessons when they started. Or maybe an impromptu sparring bout?

Most Saturdays, she had the studio to herself at this early hour. Today, however, a few other students were already working on the mat. They probably were getting ready for test day, too. Young-Soo's daughter, Kim Eun Ae, or as she preferred, Eunice, was out on the mat sparring with Greg Fresnel. Both currently held the rank of 5th Geup Blue Belt, which was evident as neither was kitted out in their protective wear. Christie watched them and saw that they were more shadow boxing than actually sparring. Safety first, she thought.

Warm, loose, and ready, Christie stood just off the mat, bouncing lightly on her toes, and watched the two teens working together. Greg positioned Eunice and then slowly walked through a combination of moves Christie had seen him working on recently. He started with a ridge hand lead, followed up with a spinning back fist before launching into a spinning kick aimed at his opponent's head. It was a pretty impressive combination, Christie thought. Greg then made the moves again, this time somewhat faster, with Eunice standing off to the side where she could safely observe and offer advice for improvement.

Christie began thinking her way through the progression of the combination in time to Greg's attack. She was just about to walk through it on her own when she saw that Greg did not land solidly on his back foot when he finished the faster combination, tweaking his ankle. Shaking it off, he seemed to limp, ever so slightly, as he returned to his starting position.

Greg gestured for Eunice to take up the opponent's position across from him, and Christie felt her blood run ice cold. Even as Greg started the ridge hand lead, Christie was racing across the mat toward the two teens, screaming, "GOMAN!! GOMAN!!"

She was almost too late. When Christie reached them,.Greg was already spinning into the back fist's setup. Only to be surprised and off-balance when his target was suddenly pulled away from him. Regaining his balance, he turned around to glower at Christie. "WHAT THE HELL, Christie!?" he yelled, even as he moved towards a perplexed Eunice. "What was that all about??"

Christie noted that he was favoring the injured ankle even more. Without ice and a wrap, it was probably starting to swell. Swallowing hard, she tried to keep her tone firm but reasonable. Pointing to the foot he was now obviously favoring, she said, "That happened. You hurt your plant ankle on that last demonstration. Neither of you is outfitted for full contact, and I was worried you might lose control when you planted for the kick and miss your aim point."

Greg just stared at her. "Ah, that's just bullsh. . .ugar, Christie. The ankle's fine. Good to go. Watch" He did a little spin jump but couldn't stop a wince when he landed on the injured ankle. "Okay, it's a little tender, but it's no big deal. You had no business pulling Eunice away like that. You could have hurt her badly."

"You say the ankle is good enough? Okay. Do your combo on me, full speed. I'm already fully kitted out for sparring with my chest and body protectors. Just let me put on my headgear. If you can complete that combination to form, I'll apologize and then see Young-Soo and Master Kim for discipline."

"Aw, you don't have to do that," Greg averred. His ankle was getting pretty tender, but darn it, Eunice was here, and he didn't want to look fragile. "Just don't do that again."

"Do the combo with me, Greg. I want to see it from the point of view of your opponent anyway. I might have to spar with you for testing one day. Let me have it, big guy! Time to show off for your girl, Romeo!"

"Okay, you're on, McKellar," he said as he took his starting position opposite Christie. "You ready?" He asked as he brought his hands up in front guard.

"I'm ready," Christie acknowledged. "Eunice, will you give the order to begin, please?"

Her father's daughter, to her core, Eunice stepped smartly to the typical Joo Sim position, between the fighters but a few steps back. "CHARYUT! (attention)" she ordered, then "Kyungnet!". Then, when Christie and Greg had finished their bows, she commanded loudly, "Si Jak! (begin)."

Knowing what was coming, Christie let the ridge hand strike land but softened the impact of the blow by moving with it. She deflected the spinning back fist and then braced herself. As she'd feared, Greg's plant ankle buckled under the strain of putting his body in the kick. With that essential support compromised, Greg couldn't get his leg up high enough to touch Christie's headgear. At the same time, however, he was still carrying all the momentum from his spinning back fist into the kick. The rotational stress on his already hurting ankle threw him completely off balance and into Christie. The kick hit her hard, VERY hard, right in her solar plexus.

Even with her protective gear, Christie went down flat on her back with her wind badly knocked out of her. Completely out of control and flying on the kick's momentum, Greg landed on top of her prone body.

"GOMAN! GOMAN!" Multiple voices yelled as all three Kims came rushing onto the mat with the other red and black belt instructors hot on their heels. When they tried to find out what had happened, the only one who could still speak was Eunice - Christie couldn't catch her breath with Greg writhing on top of her holding his injured ankle.

Young-Soo took charge of getting his daughter's story. Master Kim helped Greg get up off Christie while Grandfather squatted down beside Christie to check her out.

Things eventually calmed down as the Kims worked to restore order. When Christie finally had gotten her breath back, Grandfather gave her his little half-smile and asked, "Want to tell me what really happened, Jeja Christie?"

Swallowing hard, Christie levered herself up so she could whisper into the old man's ear. "Papa, it happened just as I've seen in my dreams all week. A fighter hurt his ankle but kept sparring and then threw a combination that his ankle couldn't support. He lost his base when his ankle failed and blasted a kick right into the other fighter's solar plexus. I saw Greg turn his ankle when he did a second walk-through of that combination for Eun Ae. Grandfather, she didn't have her chest and body protectors. When I saw that, it was like the faceless fighters in my dreams suddenly became them. . . I couldn't take the chance. . .I.... "

Grandfather put a finger to her mouth to shush her. "Rest now, Jeja. We will speak more of this later in a more private setting."

She nodded and sat up and heard talking to Master Kim, "I don't know how she figured it out, Master, but Christie was worried I'd hurt Eunice, so she stopped us. Guess I probably would have, huh?"

"You landed that kick quite solidly on Jeja Christie, Jeja Greg," Master Kim observed, even as he checked the boy's injured ankle.

"I'll say I did, Master. I don't think I've ever hit anything that hard before. Well, maybe the heavy bag, but that's about it. Maybe someone should take Christie into the locker room and check her out? I mean, she took that kick right here," Greg said, demonstrating on his own body, "Just below the wishbone."

"Good thinking, Jeja Greg," Master Kim looked up, scanning the room until his gaze fell on his favorite black belt student. "Wiillllll-MAHHHH!!" He bellowed in an unusually deep, gravelly voice.

Wilma Davis came hustling over, looking just a little peeved. "Darn it, Master, if you don't stop using that blasted Fred Flintstone impression with my name," she mock-growled, "I will put salt in your tea instead of sugar!"

"Mercy! I surrender!" Master Kim teased back. "Wilma, please take Jeja Christie back to the dressing room and look at where she was kicked. From where I was standing, that kick looked Donnie-ish. Fortunately, Jeja Christie was wearing her protective gear, but she took the kick in a vulnerable body location. Let us know if she needs to go to the emergency room."

"Yes, Master."

"I'm all right," Christie tried to refuse.

"Oh?" Greg snarked at her. "Like I was all right, Christie? Shut up and obey the Master, already."

"Yes, Thank you, Jeja Greg. Shut up and obey the Master, Jeja Christie," Master Kim repeated, his voice completely deadpan.

Wilma took Christie's arm and led her across the mat toward the dressing rooms. "Come on, girl. Got to obey the Master!"

"All right, All right!! Sheesh!" Christie giggled as everyone ganged up on her. "I'll obey the Master!"

"And Jeja?" Grandfather Kim called out from behind her. "You can leave your sparring gear in your locker. You won't be sparring today, even if you can continue in today's class."

Christie's shoulders slumped at that, but she turned and bowed to Grandfather, acknowledging his order before turning back to the dressing room.

~-~

Christie had a bruise, which she had known before Wilma had stripped her, and it was going to be colorful - maybe even iridescent. Still, it was JUST a bruise, no worse than a hundred others she'd gotten over the years. Well, that Charlie had gotten. Somehow, she didn't think that argument would do much to appease her Mom. "You're not Charlie!" Rang in her mind as clearly as if Amanda was in the dressing room with them.

ANYway, nothing was broken; she would be sore for a few days. Fortunately, Wilma was both a girl and a karateka, so Christie had been able to fast-talk her way back out onto the mat for class. However, once she was there, it became apparent that her core flexibility was compromised by the injury and worsened as her class progressed.

Eventually, Grandfather decided she'd enough for one day and summoned her off the mat. "No more today, Jeja. You need to rest and let yourself heal, so your injury doesn't become worse. Come to my office, and we will have that talk I mentioned earlier."

Christie wanted to argue but knew better; her body told her the same thing as Grandfather. As she entered his office, Christie was surprised to find her Mom waiting there, sipping tea. "I called your Mother, Christie," Papa Kim said from behind her, "While you were in the dressing room with Wilma. I felt she needed to be part of our discussion."

"And I'm going to take a look at that bruise I've heard about, young lady," Amanda told her daughter, clearly as pleased with her daughter getting hurt as Christie had expected.

"Yes, Mom. Thank you for calling her, Grandfather."

"I will just step out for a few moments and let you and your Mother have some privacy. Call me when you're done, Amanda?"

"Of course, Papa," Amanda replied, setting her teacup down on the office desk. "Thank you."

The old man bowed slightly and slipped out, locking the door behind him. "Okay, Christie," Mom growled, "Strip off that dobok! Let me see what you've done to yourself."

Moving as quickly as she could without aggravating her sore abdomen, Christie did as she was told. "I didn't kick myself, Mom!" She groused.

"Well, according to what Grandfather explained to me when I got here, you took a kick intended for someone else, so you might just as well have kicked yourself! What were you thinking?!?" Amanda fumed as she placed a gentle hand on her daughter's bruise and began to scan with her Healing Sight.

Christie just sighed. She knew better! There would be no satisfying her Mom about this. But still! She'd had good reasons for what she did, darn it! Reasonable, Christie, she ordered herself. Make your case calmly. No emotion for Mom to grab and toss right back at you!

"Mom, you know I've been dreaming more and more. Well, I think . . .no, I'm almost positive. I saw what happened today in my dreams every night this week. And when I saw it happening right there in front of me, I couldn't NOT intervene!"

Amanda's head snapped up, and her eyes locked with Christie's. "You say you saw this? In your dreams? You SAW that you would get kicked into the middle of next week, and you still DID it??"

Shaking her head, Christie sighed softly. "It wasn't anything so clear and to the point, Mom. In the dream, there were two fighters in a sparring match. Just two fighters. I never saw their faces, and I was never sure if they were men or women. During their bout, one of them injured his ankle but kept sparring. One thing led to another, and the injury broke down during a combination of moves. The injured fighter kicked the other one hard in the chest or abdomen. Then the dream would start all over again.

"Well, today, I saw one of the guys in the main studio play-sparring with one of the girls. You know them, as a matter of fact. Greg and Eunice? They went to dinner with us after the recital, remember? Anyway, I saw Greg twist his ankle showing off for Eunice. He tried to shake it off and then started to do it again. In that instant, the dream flashed in my head, only this time I SAW Greg and Eunice in place of the two faceless fighters. I raced in and managed to separate them, but I think Greg injured himself further with that repetition."

"All right, this is getting a little out there, Christie. You intervened because you had a dream, right? And you got kicked because?"

"Greg was showing off for Eunice, Mom. Typical guy stuff. He was determined to show her this cool move he's been working on, but neither had their sparring pads on. I did because I wanted to spar today after class. If the dream held true, someone was going to get kicked. Eunice would have been badly hurt if she'd been kicked without her pads, so, I . . .um, I sort of taunted him into doing it with me, okay? I knew what was coming and what might happen. I figured I could protect myself."

"Really," Amanda drawled sarcastically.

"Umm, I guess his ankle was worse than I thought? I caught the kick square in the chest, full momentum on the spin, and then he fell on me and caught me in the chest again. The only difference between this and my dream is that three fighters were involved and not just two. Maybe because I stopped being an observer and became a participant, I changed the ending somehow."

"You do realize what you're saying, don't you? What you are describing is a precognitive event."

"Yeah, I kinda concluded that for myself. Uhh, this IS one of these sorcery things I'm supposed to be on the lookout for, right? It's spooky enough as it is. I'd at least like to be able to blame it on the magic!"

"Precognition as a sorcerous ability is not unheard of, but extremely rare and usually annoyingly sparse on details. Like not knowing the faces and sexes of your fighters," Amanda stood up, pulling her hand back from Christie's abdomen. "Well, you've got a very deep bruise and some bruised innards to go with them. I can't sense anything too serious, but I'm still going to try healing you before calling Papa back. Now, sit still for me."

Amanda again laid her hands on her daughter's injury and began concentrating. Christie felt like someone had turned on a heat lamp inside her stomach. Soothing warmth began spreading outward from the focal point directly beneath her Mother's hands. Amazed at the feeling, Christie centered her mind and tried to sense what was happening.

She sensed, felt, experienced? Christie sensed a link or connection had formed between her Mother and her. She somehow felt her Mother 'telling' her body what to do next. Telling Christie how to heal.

Amanda maintained her healing touch for several minutes, then sighed deeply. When she removed her hands from her daughter's abdomen, Christie 'felt' the 'link' break, as if her Mother had 'hung up the phone' on her end. Eyes wide with wonder, she breathed out, "My God, Mom! I felt that!"

"Well, I should hope so!" Her Mom snarked, "Helping your body fix itself and accelerating your natural healing rates are hard work. You SHOULD be feeling less pain now."

"No, no! That's not what I meant. I FELT you healing me. There was this connection between us, and you were somehow telling the hurt places how to fix themselves. Oh! And it felt WARM where you were working. Do you have to feed some kind of energy into the injury to help it heal?"

Now, it was Amanda's eyes that went wide with shock. "You felt the link? Sensed the healing energy flowing from me to you? My God, you must have some emerging healing talent. Precog and healing? Good heavens, Christie, it took you long enough, but it looks like your power is finally starting to show itself! Your sorcery training requirements just got a lot more demanding, young lady. Hope you're ready to work!"

"Can I put my dobok back on now? And invite Grandfather Kim back in?"

~-~

"That's quite a story, Christie," Grandfather said once she had finished repeating her story for him. "Amanda, you are quite certain she will recover and not require further medical assistance?"

"Very sure, Papa. It is only a bruise. Without my healing intervention, it would have been rather painful and annoying. Now, she'll be completely healed by next Saturday. She will have to take it a little easy during her weekday lessons, but she'll be fine."

Grandfather nodded. "That's good. She needs to be ready to test for her next belt the Saturday after next. Your daughter has exhibited both a precognitive ability and a talent for healing, yes?" Both women nodded. "Very well. I assume you have training in hand to help her manage and develop these abilities?"

Amanda shook her head. "For the healing? Yes. I have some healing talent, and the women of my family have been scrupulous in keeping records of what worked and what didn't work for training young healers. The precognition? That's another story. We have folk tales about such abilities, but I don't know of any who had such abilities in my family. I know I haven't run across anything in our records about it. I don't have such abilities. For that matter, neither does my Mom. I am at something of a loss as to how we can help Christie deal with this talent."

Grandfather Kim smiled. "As you may recall from the incident with the unfortunately named Tinkerbelle, I have some talent in the mental arts. While I have never had a precognitive experience, I know a couple of people who have such abilities. From my discussions with them, the training I received to develop my talent was remarkably similar to the training they received for theirs. Mostly, it involves some fairly advanced meditative techniques to focus the mind and, eventually, the ability. With your permission, Amanda, I will start Christie's training in basic and advanced meditation. At the same time, I reach out to my friends for specific guidance about how to then develop her talent."

"Wow, Grandfather," Christie said, "That would be so cool! Those dreams were so annoying, and I couldn't make heads or tails of them."

"Yes, Papa, thank you for the offer. At least you know someone who knows something about all this. I would be at a loss where to start."

"Excellent. I think you should take Christie home and let her soak in a hot tub for a while. We will not allow her to spar until next Saturday at the earliest, and certainly not before you tell me she is fully healed."

"Thank you, Papa Kim," Amanda said. "She should be good to go next Saturday."

"Very good. Jeja? Be ready! I think you will need some sparring challenges. Why don't we plan on five-minute bouts with Valerie, Eun Ae, and Greg? Hmm?"

Christie just stared at the old man, trying to see if he was joking or not. Valerie was already one rank senior to hers, while Eun Ae and Greg were two ranks senior. Swallowing, she simply said, "I look forward to it, Grandfather. Con Sa Hom Nee Dha, Sa Bum Nim (thank you for teaching me, teacher)."

Grinning slyly back at her, Grandfather bowed, intoning, "Chun Mun A Yoe Jeja (you are welcome, student)."

Christie bowed as best her sore stomach muscles allowed and headed for the dressing room to change back into her regular clothes. As she left, she thought, 'I wonder how you would say BOHICA in Korean? Probably best not to ask. Grandfather would likely tell me!"