Chapter 10- A Decision

Sam sat behind her uncle at the peace treaty. One of the foreign Ministers was babbling in one of the few languages she didn't know yet. Her uncle was translating into American Sign Language under the table so she would know what was going on without drawing attention to herself. However she wasn't paying attention.

In the years since her little family fell apart she had been traveling with her uncle. Recently she had noticed something odd about him, and even more recent she's noticed the same thing in herself. It seemed Sam's uncle never lost an argument. Not even when he was wrong. She figured out why about a year ago.

They had been staying in a hotel in Japan. Her uncle had been mediating a trade deal. The meetings were over for the day and Sam was allowing herself to give into one of her occasional fits of homesickness and had gone up to the roof to be alone.

She had just settled onto the edge, enjoying the breeze pulling at her clothes, when a sniffle caused her to look up from the tiny people on the street below. She turned her head to see a young Japanese woman standing on the ledge beside her. Sam briefly wondered how she had missed the woman when she came outside but dismissed the fact quickly.

Worried she'd startle the woman and cause her to fall, Sam started whistling, hoping to catch the woman's attention. She succeded, the woman looked down at Sam with a mixture of extreme sadness and fear.

"Nice day." She said in perfect Japanese. The woman just stared at her in disbelief. "I'm Sam. You are?" Still no reply. "Maybe you don't speak Japanese?" She switched to English, "English then?.. No... How about Swedish" She switched, "Chinese?... Arabic?"

The girl actually laughed, one quick bark of a laugh. Probably hoarse from the crying. "Japanese please." She said in harsh English, then back in Japanese, "I'm Lynn."

"Well, Lynn, may I ask why you're standing on the ledge of a very tall building? I understand many people to be petrified of heights. I have a sister myself who can't stand them. I personally love to sit in the breeze that has yet to be tainted by the city." She was rambling on purpose. It caught most people off guard outside of the United States. It was rude, but it held the girls attention and may just off balance her enough to get her to talk back. So, just as suddenly as she began, she stopped.

Silence pervaded for a few seconds as the Japanese girl adjusted to the fact that it was her turn to speak. "Death haunts me." Was all she said.

"Like literally? I mean I've come across some pretty weird stuff in my life, trust me, but being trailed by the grim reaper is new."

"No, first my father died, then my baby girl. Death comes in threes you know. I can't handle a third."

"So you're thinking about offering yourself as the third?" The girl looked surprised that this short american woman guessed exactly what she was feeling. "You see, I just don't think that's a good idea. Baby girl you say? Then you're married?" The girl nodded. "What about you're husband then?" At this a scowl crossed the girls face, whoops wrong subject.

"You just don't understand! You can't!" It was weird to be yelled at by a japanese woman, ever since they arrived she's wanted to scream at the politeness of it all. The shock of the break in politness almost caused her to miss it when the lady began falling forward.

"WAIT!" Sam yelled. And she did. Only not exactly how Sam expected her to. The girl had jumped, but there she floated, just off the edge, parallel to the ground. Not falling, not rising, as if in equilbrium with gravity.

That was when Sam realized that is was actually impossible for someone to disobey or diagree with he or her uncle when one of them put their mind to it. The girl, Lynn, now traveled with her. It turned out the husband was beating her and was actually the cause of the childs death. Sam had used her new found skill to force the man to confess to the police and had taken Lynn on as an assistant.

Her Uncle was proving to be a new problem, with the new found information. As Napolean, he was supposed to be leading the world toward peace. But it seemed every time things got close something happened to push the world closer to war. Which should not be happening when you can bend someone elses will to your own.