Excerpt: Passing the Torch

“I am going to have a heart attack,” Marianne’s overheated mind realized. “Right here on Court A in front of all these people, my God, my God.” Her fingers twitched almost of their own accord—not surprising, since she’d stopped being able to feel them about ten minutes prior to competition. Without wanting to, she looked over at her opponent and watched numbly as the woman drew back her bow.

A heartbeat, there! Marianne’s senses seemed to return with that single burst of energy from deep within her ribcage. So focused was she on that internal surprise that she barely even registered it when her opponent had made her shot. Marianne’s heart thumped again, and she realized the trouble had been that she had been holding her breath. The thought made her want to giggle, or cry, or dive screaming into the shelter of the photographer’s box nearby.

“Steady, now,” she told herself silently. “Deep breath. I need you to focus.” Obediently, her lungs filled with the same air that settled thickly all over the stadium, the same air drawn in by cheering fans, the same air gasped in by her waiting friends, the same air that she was about to slice with an arrow.

The fingers of her right hand fitted into a deep hook around the string, same as they had a hundred thousand times before. Her left palm slid into place in the bow grip, supple, relaxed. Before she knew what had happened, her training took over—the bow seemed to draw itself, the arrow seemed to release of its own accord. With a solid thwack, the shaft buried itself in the golden bull’s-eye seventy meters away.

“Kyu!” The Japanese announcer’s voice echoed around the stands, followed by an untranslatable cheer from the audience—a reverberation of sound that seemed to press in on Marianne’s mind. She’d shot a nine out of ten. Thank God.

Her opponent’s turn again. Marianne took a few dizzy breaths and tried to ground and center herself. Too much to look at! Too many people! Too much to frighten or overwhelm! Desperately, she searched for something to keep her safely distracted from the madness, from her numb hands, from her now buzzing heartbeat. It seemed like a good policy to watch her timing clock, so she narrowed down on the little dots—red now, it would snap green when it was her turn to shoot. She held the gaze of that one-eyed machine as if it could reveal the secrets of Olympic survival.

The clock ticked green and Marianne found herself shooting again. She wondered on some level if she had any real control over what her body was doing, or if it all came down to training. “Doesn’t matter,” she told herself. “None of it matters, just keep looking at that clock. Keep breathing. Just shoot.”

How many more arrows to go? She had already lost track, but didn’t dare look at the scoreboard. Probably only half a dozen more arrows to survive this match—or pack up and go home in shame. She was almost glad she hadn’t put in four years straight of hard work and sacrifice like so many of her teammates. Marianne’s eyes flicked upward into the stands almost involuntarily, searching for a single face among thousands. How awful would that feel, to loose a single match of twelve arrows and know you’d wasted four full years of your life? Oh, poor Casey…

“Stop it, stop it right now!” Marianne may not have been able to control her own body right this second, but she was not going to lose control over her thoughts. Stress or no stress, this match mattered. They all mattered. “Focus on what you can do. You can breathe. You can shoot. Deal with the rest later.”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the announcer, and a deafening roar from the audience. Her opponent had just scored a ten, and even Marianne could see that it had been a beautiful shot. Dead center of the target.

“Oh, God. Come on, come on,” came a familiar voice through the extraneous noise. It was Casey, there at the railing by a group of Germans, staring down to the targets as if she could somehow erase the other archer’s score by the force of her glare. She was clutching a forgotten camera in one hand, the other bunched into a fist over her heart. It looked as if Marianne wasn’t the only one worried about a heart attack.

Somehow, that made it easier.

The clock ticked green and began counting down from thirty seconds. Unconcerned for the moment, Marianne pulled another arrow from the quiver strapped to the front of her wheelchair. The fletches were holographic red, the color of a new camaro, and they shimmered in the sunlight. A gift from Casey earlier this summer, a little bit of “flashy” for her otherwise simple jumble of archery gear.

Twenty seconds. Marianne fitted the nock to the string, slipped her fingers in their leather tab, and set her hand in place. Deep breath. Mentally, she forcibly called up a memory of a simpler day—just two friends flinging arrows at the range for fun. So much had happened since those easy afternoons. They were an eternity past, and half a world away, but just thinking of those carefree hours helped Marianne push back the adrenaline, and the noise, and the fear. Just long enough, she had space for herself. Deep breath.

Ten seconds. Marianne could almost hear her coach clear his throat. “Cutting it a bit close?” he might have asked. Well, her coach wasn’t on the field right now, was he? This was Marianne’s match, come hell or high water.

The string was moving again, almost on its own. The bow drew itself effortlessly in Marianne’s hands. Her muscles shifted smoothly together. The sight pin drifted down, lighting on the target. Hovered on the bull’s-eye.

With two seconds left on the clock, Marianne released the string, and found herself once again holding her breath to see where it had landed.

“Just breathe,” she told herself in that moment before the announcer called out her score. “Just keep breathing.”