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were
asleep last night. There is a place nearby where we can begin our
work.”
    “Are you going to feed me to the lions?” I
grumbled.
    Elsa snorted. “I am not quite that old, if
that is what you were implying. Besides they would not have fed
their seer, possibly their local healer, to the lions.”
    That caught my attention. I didn’t know
anything about Elsa or where she had come from. For all I knew, she
did live when the Romans built their coliseums. She seemed to know
I had a few questions on the tip of my tongue because she quickly
cut me off. “Later. I will answer your questions when we
return.”
    Not long afterwards, I was staring at a steep
set of steps inside Kezar Stadium, an old football stadium located
nearby.
    “You want me to run the stairs? Why?”
    “When I was your age I could ride a horse for
miles while holding a crossbow,” Elsa said, her hands on her hips.
“ I’ve fired a rifle from horseback while hunting with my tribe.
Can you do that?”
    I shook my head, trying not to laugh at the
image of me with a crossbow.
    “You need to get into fighting shape to
protect yourself,” Elsa chirped. “After a few weeks with the demon,
I fear you’ve lost some of your energy.”
    “I have no need to shoot anything from the
back of a horse,” I barked back. “I can’t see how this will help me
at all.”
    “Just run the stairs,” Elsa deadpanned. “I
will see you at the top.”
    This was too ridiculous. Hunt. Ride a horse.
I was a modern woman. I rode public transportation. It was with
that kind of mindset that I prepared to walk away. But where would
I go? I had asked Elsa to stay, and more importantly, I hated to
abandon a challenge. How hard could it be to run the stairs?
    I took off with gusto. The first few steps
seemed easy. “Piece of cake,” I mused privately. As I climbed
higher, however, my legs began to quiver. Then they began to ache,
my hamstring muscles burning like a match to the strip on the box.
I gasped for air, unsteady as my legs began to wobble. As I was
nearing the top of the steps, I tripped and missed breaking my nose
on the corner of one of the wooden benches by mere millimeters. I
barely managed to pull myself upright, still gasping for air.
    As I sat down to collect myself, I watched
Elsa, decked out in a pair of my yoga pants, come running up the
stairs. She was not out of breath when she reached the top. I hid
my face as she approached.
    “Don’t be embarrassed,” she said. “I didn’t
do that to humiliate you. But I did want to make a point. You need
to know your body and know your emotions. The best way to do that
is to be physically fit. Being fit also gives you mental endurance,
and you will need those skills when you allow your gifts to
return.”
    “I think I might throw up,” was my brilliant
reply.
    “By all means,” Elsa said in response, “But
when you’re finished you need to run the stairs again. We’re going
to be out here every day until you can do this easily.”
    “Why?”
    “I outlasted my enemies because I rode
harder, rode faster and rode farther,” Elsa said. “Endurance is
everything in war.”
    “War,” I said, a shiver running up my spine.
“I’m not at war.”
    “Do you want your career back? You will have
to stand up to the demon and Stoner Halbert to do it. That is not
something that can happen without work. Think of it this way. I
have been watching television and the men of your era seem to like
fit women. It is easy to distract men using physical beauty. It
will give you one more skill to use to your advantage.”
    It was not the motivational speech one would
normally hear from a personal trainer, but it worked. And so, my
training began, and in those first few days, Elsa and I settled
into a comfortable schedule. We exercised for several hours each
morning before returning home. The city, it turned out, was a
wonderful boot camp, with endless hills to climb, many lined with
hidden staircases. We drove to Crissy