“Who was she?” asked Buffy dryly. She thought she would like to hear what Giles knew before offering collaborating evidence.
“Her name was Samantha Kane, and she made quite a reputation for herself. She was described in letters and certain official writings as a sort of Joan of Arc type, in that she could perform with ease tasks formerly thought only the province of men.”
“I like her already,” said Willow slyly.
“So do I,” replied Giles. “Unfortunately it seems that poor Robert Erwin was unable to assist Samantha Kane as he so clearly desired to. He died of his fever, and she disappears entirely from the historical record around 1692, during the height of the infamous Salem witch trials.”
CHAPTER 4
“Sure we should be doing this?” Buffy asked Giles, as she deftly deflected a thrust of his kitana—a Japanese practice sword—with her staff. “Aren’t you worried that MacGovern might be spying on us?” Shifting her weight, she swung her weapon sideways, taking Giles’s feet out from under him.
He landed heavily on his back with a satisfactory thump. “Of course,” he gasped. He rolled over and coughed. “But he’ll probably attempt to verify his facts before trying to sell the story to his editors. After all, he needs to fill an entire show and be prepared to go on some cable news channel to defend his story.”
She reached down to help him stand. “Where did you learn that move?” he asked.
“From an old movie on TV,” said Buffy proudly. “I think it starred somebody—Flynn, or maybe what’s-his-name—Lancaster, I forget which. Are we done?”
“No, we must complete the session.” He rubbed his back and groaned. “As difficult as that might prove to be.”
“Okay! But don’t say I didn’t warn you—I’ve been watching a lot of old movies lately.”
“I was afraid of that.” Stiffly, Giles assumed a fighting position. “This is called a wombat stance—”
“Looks more like a drunken squirrel to me,” Buffy giggled.
He sliced sideways with the kitana. When she avoided it—easily—he grabbed her arm, twisted around and tried to throw her over his shoulder. But she was too fast. Using their momentum, she landed on her feet, pivoted around to face him and grabbed him by the collar. With one smooth movement she threw herself backwards and, with the help of her foot on his chest, she threw him across the room.
Buffy picked up her staff as she lept to her feet, ready for his next move, exactly as she would do had she been facing a genuine foe. “Can I go home now?” she asked, pleadingly.
“No,” Giles groaned. He reached out for a helping hand, which pointedly did not arrive.
“What is the point of this lesson?” she asked.
“Perseverance,” said Giles pulling himself to his feet. “And patience against an opponent who doesn’t know when he’s been beaten.” He tried to jab her with the kitana handle.
She dodged the blow easily, grabbed his wrist, twisted the kitana from his hand, elbowed him against the chin just hard enough so he knew she could do it, and then she sent him flying again.
He slid across the top of the desk like a stone skipping across a lake, and then hit the floor.
Fortunately Giles wore elbow, knee and chest pads whenever he worked out with Buffy, but now he considered just buying a padded suit to cover every inch of his body. “I am convinced, Buffy, that if demons and other ghouls don’t do in this particular Watcher someday, his favorite Slayer will manage to do the job for him.”
“Sorry about that. I really want to go home today. By the way, what was that stance again? The wombat?” Buffy attempted to imitate the stance Giles had taken.
Giles blinked until he got her into better focus, then said, “Hold the right arm higher. The left leg out a little more—”
* * *
“Walk me home?” Willow asked Xander at the gate to the school grounds.
Xander shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure. Why not? Why does Giles insist on giving Buffy combat lessons?” he asked, casually. “She keeps mopping up the floor with him.”
“Somebody has to do it, I suppose,” Willow replied. “Maybe Giles just wants her to keep her edge.”
“Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!” called out a woman’s voice from a street to their left.
Willow and Xander turned to see a man and woman getting out of a gigantic Hummer with tires that looked big and wide enough to ride the surface of Mars, if need be.
The man was in his mid-forties and wore an ill-fitting designer suit; he was just now getting out of the driver’s side. The woman, who was about a decade younger than he, wore a stylish, modern, blue power jacket and skirt. She’d been so intent upon reaching Willow and Xander she had left the passenger door open for the man to close. “Kids! You go to Sunnydale High, don’t you? May we have a word with you?” she called out insistently.
“I bet I know what she wants to find out,” whispered Willow.
“This is too weird,” said Xander.
“Thank you, this will just take a few moments. My name is Lora Church,” she said, holding out her hand. Her hair was short and brown, her face round, attractive and cheerful. “This is my husband, Rick. Your name is Willow, am I right? And you must be Xander?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” asked Xander, who found it somewhat difficult to take his eyes off her.
Willow nodded suspiciously. She didn’t like it when Xander noticed beautiful strangers, be they from afar or close-up. But then Rick Church looked into her eyes and she found herself holding her breath.
Managing to possess the illusion of danger while acting like a perfect gentleman, Rick Church said, “Well, Xander, we have a mutual acquaintance. She suggested you and your beautiful young friend here might be able to fill us in on the many unusual occurrences in Sunnydale.”
“Really!” said Xander dryly. “Actually, it’s not the number of occurrences but the lack of them that I find the most interesting. Nothing ever happens in Sunnydale. People don’t even run red lights here.”
“So who’s our mutual acquaintance?” asked Willow.
“A ghost,” said Rick. “You don’t really know her, though she knows very well who you are.”
“Explain,” said Willow simply.
“On those nights when there really isn’t a whole lot to do, my husband and I hold séances,” said Lora. “We call up dead acquaintances or family members, just to see how they’re getting along in the afterlife. Or we call up historic figures at random. We think of our séances as spiritual fishing expeditions. We’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve spoken to the spirits of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Victor Hugo.”
“All in English?” asked Xander.
Rick laughed weakly and looked at Willow as if she were the only woman in the entire world. “It’s been well documented that called-up spirits tend to speak in the language of the séance holders, whose minds they must be filtered through. Well, last week, we bumped into someone who claimed to have been reborn and living in Sunnydale.”
“If the spirit was reborn, then how come you reached it on the astral plane?” asked Willow immediately.
Rich blinked; he hadn’t been expecting that question. “Why indeed? But who else could be in two places at the same time, if not a spirit? This spirit distinctly mentioned you, young lady.”
“What did she say?” asked Willow.
“Not much,” said Lora. “Spirits rarely do. She intimated that the two of you have a lot in common with us, and suggested—most strongly—that we look you up.”
“Which we did,” said Rick. “So what do you think of that, Willow? Your fame precedes you.”
Willow had the distinct feeling this charming man was an utter fruitcake. “Gee, I’m flattered but, hey, I told my mother I would help around the house after school. We can talk later.”
“Fair enough,” said Rick. “When? Soon, I hope. Surely it shouldn’t be too much trouble to fit in a cup of coffee—or a milk shake—with Rick and Lora Church, occult mavens extrao
rdinaire.” He bowed slightly, gallantly. “You might have the rare opportunity to take part in one of our supernatural adventures.”
Willow decided that in the final analysis, the fruitcake was still charming. “How about tomorrow,” she suggested.
“Excellent! Same time, same place? I trust that will give you enough time to do a background check on us via the World Wide Web?”
Willow grinned. “Plenty of time. I mean, uh, that’ll be fine. C’mon Xander, we’ve gotta go.”
Xander still couldn’t take his eyes off Lora. So Willow took him by the arm and pulled him away. Lora and Rick waved good-bye at them.
“By the way,” called out Lora, “where can we find Rupert Giles?”
“In the library. Where else?” Xander replied, flattered to have been asked.
“Xander!” Willow hissed.
“Oops. Sorry.”
They walked. Willow was relieved to be alone again with Xander, but it still bothered her that the Church couple had asked for Giles. Considering everything that was going down, perhaps she should have been more curious.
* * *
Lora Church and her husband opened the library doors the instant Giles flew out—backwards! He missed them both completely, landing rump-first on the hard tile floor. Lora grimaced at the impact. “Ooh! That had to hurt!” Rick said.
“Ouch!” was all Giles said after hitting the floor. He didn’t have time to say anything else, because he was still sliding across the hall.
From inside the library, Buffy shrieked at what she’d done, and she ran into the hall, between Rick and Lora, without noticing them.
They realized immediately this lithe, slip of a girl was responsible for the commotion. “Hey! Wait up!” Rick cried out, as he and Lora followed Buffy to where Giles lay, unconscious and unmoving, except for a few twitches now and again.
Buffy knelt beside him and felt his pulse, then she put her ear to his chest. “Come on, Giles, I know you’re alive,” she said, “I can hear you wheezing.”
“Wait, wait, young lady, I know first aid,” said Rick, gently pushing her aside. He had already taken off his jacket and was putting it gently under Giles’s head. “Giles. Giles! Are you comfortable?”
Giles shook away three or four of the zillion cobwebs clogging his brain. “I make a pretty good living,” he croaked. Then he groaned. “I need a cup of instant coffee.” Suddenly, he woke up, getting his bearings instantly. He looked at them all suspiciously. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m Buffy.” She peered closely at Giles, trying to determine whether he really didn’t remember her.
“I know that! I’m talking to him!”
Rick bowed his head slightly. “Rick Church, pleased to make your acquaintance, sir, and this is my wife—”
Giles gasped. Suddenly he had recognized her . . . from somewhere. A few seconds passed. He gasped again. “Lora—?”
“You know each other—?” said Rick in surprise.
“Hello, Rupert,” Lora said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Lora,” said Giles, his eyes going all misty and sentimental. “Nice to see you.”
* * *
Xander listened; Willow talked. It was a sunny afternoon, the air was warm and exhilarating, and he could barely keep his mind on what Willow was saying.
Eventually he concentrated hard enough to gather that her computer had crashed the night before and she’d stayed up till three fixing it. Willow detailed every method she’d used to find out which program had corrupted the others as if Xander should have been fascinated by the process. As it was, he could barely understand. . . .
What a second! Xander thought. Normally I’m only too happy to listen to Willow. But something’s calling me, like a songbird from over the next hill. . . .
Then he heard it: the sharp crrrack! of a bat striking a baseball dead-on, and the cries and cheers of young boys playing around the next corner. Willow was three steps behind before she realized he’d sped up.
“Sorry, Willow, I know I promised to walk you home, but I just realized—”
“Oh.” She was none too successful at hiding her disappointment, but it didn’t matter because Xander didn’t notice. “What’s that?”
“It’s spring, and in spring, a young man’s fancy turns toward—”
“Yes?”
“Baseball.”
“Oh.”
“See ya!”
The sandlot game was in its fourth inning when Xander asked to join one of the teams. Xander couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball from a yard away, but one team needed a right-fielder—the position least likely to see any action, making it the position for which Xander was most perfectly suited.
Willow watched Xander play until it became apparent Xander would ignore her completely, because that’s how boys were supposed to treat girls when they were playing baseball.
So she walked a few blocks to a small park and sat down on a bench. She read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility until the game was over. Maybe then Xander would be interested in walking her the rest of the way home.
The distant noise of the game barely made a dent in her consciousness as she became lost in Austen’s comedy of nineteenth-century English marriage, death and manners. She was jolted back to the present by the sudden knowledge that one of Xander’s teammates—a huge blond with more muscles on his arms than she thought possible—was trying to get her attention.
“Earth to Willow! Come in please!”
“What—?”
“It’s Xander! He’s been hit on the head!”
“Oh no! Poor Xander! Is he hurt?”
“With him it’s kinda hard to tell. A fly ball hit him on the head and knocked him out. He’s been wacky ever since, calling your name, calling other people’s names.”
“Such as Mom? Dad? Giles? . . . Buffy?”
“No. He’s talking about someone named John Kane. And who else? Danforth. Corwin. Ever hear of any of these people? ’Cause I sure haven’t.”
But Willow was already running away. She was out of breath and utterly exhausted by the time she reached right field. The two teams were gathered around Xander. One of the smaller guys poured water from a plastic bottle on his face. “Let him breathe! Let him breathe!” she yelled, despite her burning lungs.
The boys parted to let her through.
“Xander! Are you all right?”
Just then he woke up, sputtering water. “Willow! I just had the strangest dream!”
“Terrific—he’s awake, folks!” shouted the short guy. “That’s three outs!”
* * *
“It’s good to meet you too,” said Rick Church, shaking Giles’s hand. “Although I must admit I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about you until recently,” he added, staring at his wife.
Buffy grinned at Giles’s red-faced embarrassment.
“Mrs. Church and I were together on the Oxford debate team, Buffy,” said Giles.
“And that was only the beginning!” said Lora happily.
Giles looked at Rick, directly and honestly. “Yes, but after we graduated we lost touch, as university teammates are so inclined to do.”
“I never would have guessed,” said Rick dryly.
Giles was escorting Buffy and the Churches into the library, then seemed to think better of it. “Would you care to join me for a cup of coffee in the teachers’ lounge? I feel the need to freshen up.”
“But what about me?” Buffy blurted out.
“I think the combat lesson is over for today,” said Giles. “I’ve really had enough punishment.”
“You’re teaching her combat?” exclaimed Lora. “You have changed!”
Giles cleared his throat. “Not as much as you think. In the ways of combat, Buffy is the instructor, while I am just the pupil.”
“She’s teaching you!” Rick laughed
Buffy opened her mouth to reply, but Giles stifled her by putting a hand on her shoulder and steering her away,
while saying to Rick, “She has a gift, remarkable for one so young. Now why don’t you two wait for a moment? Buffy usually offers me a few private words of encouragement after my lesson, and today I desperately need to hear them.”
Rick snickered. “Sure. We’ll be right here.” He watched them make a turn down another hall and then said to his wife, “What did you see in him?”
Lora smiled, remembering the young Giles fondly even as she said, “How am I supposed to know? I was young and impressionable. Besides, remember that truckstop waitress you told me about once? What did you see in her?”
“That was completely her idea. I had nothing to do with it.”
“A likely story. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Since meeting you, I never thought of Giles at all until the ghost suggested we see him while we were in Sunnydale.”
“Now I’m happy.” He pointed at his lips. “How about another smooch?”
Meanwhile, Buffy was letting loose with a barrage of questions about Giles’s personal life. And even though Giles tried to impress Buffy with the fact that his pre-Watcher existence was none of her business, he nonetheless couldn’t help remarking, “It’s like seeing a ghost, only I’ve seen ghosts and they’re not nearly as attractive. She has such wonderful—” He cleared his throat. “Buffy, I have no idea what Lora and this Rick Church fellow—”
“Her husband,” Buffy pointed out.
“—are doing here, but I will find out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has something to do with the Eisenberg prophecy.”
“Why? Maybe she and her husband are just passing through town.”
“I suspect this ghost they spoke of is helping them overcome the spell of forgetfulness too. Besides, did you notice something profound about the connection between Lora and me? I think you would call it ‘cosmic.’ ”
“Why would I do that?”
“It wasn’t quite as if we were actually destined for one another, like genuine soul mates, just that we shared the feeling we’d shared something, sometime, somewhere, where there was a place for us. Then, for no apparent reason, we drifted apart. But it’s gratifying to know something of that feeling remains to this day.”
Night of the Living Rerun Page 4
