Epilogue - Closing the First Circle

It was the third Saturday in August and another testing day at Kim Young-Soo's Karate Dojang. Christie and Valerie were both in attendance, although neither were among the students testing today. Christie was still a few weeks short of meeting the five months as a 4th Geup Blue Belt that the Federation required before a candidate could test for the 3rd Geup Red Stripe Belt. Grandfather had told her that if she wished, he would allow her to test due to her having more than enough total training hours to satisfy the spirit of that rule, but she'd decided to wait for the next test day later that fall. Valerie hadn't been cleared by her doctors for any contact sports yet - much to her annoyance.

Val had finally been released from the hospital in time for the Fourth of July holiday. It had taken the presence of the highly acclaimed Dame Jessica MacTire, MD Ph.D. and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, to help engineer that escape. And not because she wasn't and hadn't been getting progressively better! Oh No. The local docs' issue was that THEY couldn't figure out HOW Val was getting better, and they REALLY wanted to know! They were all for keeping her in durance-vile, hooked up to every hi-tech medical contraption they could find until they DID figure it out. Naturally, they had Mr. and Mrs. Stevens convinced that was the best, safest option to assure their girl's full recovery.

Aunt Jessica had put paid to that silly notion, right enough! They could monitor her just as well as an outpatient as they were currently! The doctors couldn't offer a single fact or datum that demonstrated that staying in the hospital did anything measurably positive towards Valerie's recovery. Hurricane Jessica demolished the local medical ivory tower gang. Valerie would spend her Sundays in the hospital for tests and scans and whatever else the doctors could come up with. However, so long as her condition improved, which it had, the outpatient status would be sufficient for Val's needs. In fact, Aunt Jess figured that she was maybe three, four at the most, Christie-treatments from being completely healed.

Their next challenge would be how to get the athletically inclined teen back into some rigorous physical activity. Valerie was already going crazy due to the lack of exercise. She wasn't even allowed to go running, for heaven's sake! 'Too much shock transmitted to the brain through the spine,' some idiot doctor had opined in Mrs. Steven's hearing. Val's Mom was perfectly happy to wrap her daughter in yet more cotton-wool bundling - for her own safety, of course!

Christie had learned some new Gaelic curse words when they relayed that 'considered medical opinion' to Aunt Jessie. Too bad she had refused to translate them for the girls afterward, though. They had sounded really cool, and better yet? No one else would know what they'd said!

As a possible solution to Valerie's exercise deficit, Christie tried to convince her friend to try dance at Madame Renee's studio. At least until they could convince the local doctors AND Valerie's Mom to let her do more than that. "There's really no impact, you know," Christie had loudly told her friend where Mrs. Stevens couldn't help but overhear, "And no contact if you only dance solo. Just good stretching and strength-building activities. I'll even be there with you to make sure you don't overdo it!" Well, at least she'd tried. They'd have to keep working on Valerie's Mom in the meantime.

They were currently waiting for today's committee of black belts to finish their deliberations on who to advance to their next rank or not. None of Christie's students were testing this time either, and only a couple of the people she usually trained with had tried. Christie's main reason for being here today was to watch Donnie Colt's 2nd Dan Black Belt test. Charlie and Donnie had taken every belt test together from 4th Geup Blue Belt to Red Belt in Charlie's timeline. They'd always been a team - working, learning and testing together. Advancing together, too.

They would have tested for 1st Dan together, too, if Charlie's transformation to Christie hadn't happened. In this timeline, Donnie had earned his 1st Dan black belt that day, and so far as Christie had been able to tell earlier today, he'd passed this test as well. She liked to think that Charlie would have been testing for his 2nd Dan today along with Donnie and that he would have been advanced, too.

Waiting until the fall for her next test wasn't that big a deal for her anymore. With the Federation's increased emphasis on their time in rank requirements, she wasn't planning on earning her black belt before she left for college anyway. What with her ballet, school work and sorcery training, there simply wouldn't be enough time to do it all AND pack in the hours in the dojang required to meet the intent of the rules for advancement. Besides, there wasn't any point in calling attention to herself or the school. Christie would be ready for her 1st Dan test sometime during her first semester of college. She would just have to find a good dojang wherever she attended college. Probably in Baltimore, Maryland, she mused, if the MacTire women got their way. They probably would, too. Or else, Aunt Jess style.

It had taken more effort than she'd expected, but she'd finally managed to convince Mrs. Dewinter to shift her senior-year course selections over to those recommended by her Aunt Jess. Mrs. Dewinter was close friends with and thought very highly of the school's Government, World History and Economics teachers. Their comments about Christie's performance in their classes taken from their final grade reports had been sadly accurate. They had included comments about 'lacks motivation,' 'doesn't apply herself,' and 'only does what is required.'

Thanks to her solid 4.0 grades in all her other courses and her Mom's and Aunt Jessica's personal intercession with the woman? Christie had finally gotten the advanced, science-heavy course load she'd sought, but there'd been a price. She would have Mrs. Dewinter breathing down her neck for at least the first grading period until Christie proved to the woman she could hack the load. Christie sighed mentally. She probably should have listened to her Mom about working harder on those stupid courses for those boring teachers. Oh, well. Life-long learning, as the teachers like to say.

Ballet was going very well, thanks mainly to the new and improved Renee Coulter. Christie loved being the Assistant Dance Mistress because she really loved working with the little ones. Renee loved it because she could see her students working harder and performing better under her new enlightened teaching style. Christie still helped with that by watching out for any sign of regression on Renee's part. Christie also helped with the soloists. Lisa had made particularly great strides in the past year.

In fact, both Lisa and Cindy would be going to Philadelphia before school started for preliminary auditions with Ballet Company there for appointments to their associated ballet school. Cindy might even have the opportunity to audition for the role of Clara in the Company's annual holiday performance of The Nutcracker. Both girls would have a foot in the door with the Company and other organizations as dancers to watch! They'd been noticed, and so long as they kept working and improving, other opportunities would open up for them.

And she was dating Val - almost. Maybe? Well, they'd been doing a lot of stuff together since Aunt Jess had sprung her friend from the hospital. Not just girl pal things either. They'd gone to dinner and a movie, gotten dressed up and gone to Philadelphia to see the ballet and even caught a baseball game together. Best of all, while they were there? Valerie had reached over, taken and then held Christie's hand! Maybe Valerie did do girls? Christie was really looking forward to what came next between them. BFF or lover, either or both would be fine with her as long as they stayed friends!

Which left the Sorcery aspect of her life, Christie thought. Her Mother and Grandmother were working Christie hard on the techniques and applications of general sorcery. Jessica and Karen were making several visits a month to help Christie refine her healing abilities. The only aspect of her sorcerous gift that she wasn't really all that gung-ho about was the precognitive thing. If she were honest with herself, that talent kind of scared her. Okay, maybe it scared her quite a lot.

Perhaps the whole 'Fate of Cassandra' theme from Homer's Iliad made her want to avoid using that ability. That whole 'seeing the future' deal really seemed like a double-edged sword. What if she started looking, found something but misinterpreted the vision, so she did the wrong thing? Or worse, suppose she had been right, but something bad happened anyway, and someone found out she'd known in advance and 'hadn't done anything?' Sure, the idea of being able to predict a disaster was nice in theory, but in practice? She wasn't so sure about that. The darn visions weren't like watching the 'News at 11:00'; they required interpretation! And they were darned nebulous, too.

So far, the recurring dreams had alerted her to employ that talent. Those had turned out okay, so, for now? At least until they found someone who could train her in using this 'gift'? Christie would let her dreams and fate be her bell ringer. No dreams, no peaking. That was her plan, and she would, by gosh, stick to it!

The door to the testers' conference room opened. Grandfather Kim marched out, leading the assembled black belts back into the dojang's main studio. Young-Soo went to the podium while Grandfather and Master Kim went to stand by the mat with the other black belts arrayed behind them. Master Kim had a bag hoisted over his shoulder that all the students knew contained the belts that he and Grandfather would shortly award to the successful candidates.

From junior rank to senior rank, the tested students who'd passed were called forward by Young-Soo to have their new belts wrapped about them and tied by the two Grand Masters.

Until, at last, only one student remained. All the juniors had passed their tests and been advanced. "Masters, instructors, students and guests. Your attention, please," Young-Soo said over the announcing system. "It is with great personal and professional pride that I announce that Donnie Colt is hereby invested with the rank of 2nd Dan Black Belt in the art of Taekwondo. Front and Center, Donnie Colt!"

Valerie and Christie leaped to their feet and began applauding wildly, as did the rest of the audience. Charlie's friend Donnie had come a very long way. As had she, Christie thought happily, as had she. She was proud of them both.