We couldn’t have imagined then how we were being hunted, watched. How could we ever have dreamed up the twisted nightmare you demons had in store for us?
So on we went, through the darkness that would have swallowed us whole.
___
Closing my eyes, I feel the self I have always known slip away. Replaced. My gaze lifts to the window’s reflection, and a stranger’s face stares back. Dark skin has changed into ruddy cheeks, and rather than my normal stubble, my cheeks are etched with the faint scratches of age. My black hair is gone, with only soft white dandelion fluff in its place. The face turns and I don’t control it, for I am simply a spectator here. It’s not my place or opportunity to change the past, but through another’s view entirely, I can at least hope to understand it. Another breath and even my thoughts are gone.
I am this stranger.
Looking down, I see hands that straighten my tie, and I lean back with a sigh at a long table, harsh sunlight cast onto it through the skyscraper windows. Around it, men in crisp suits and women in heels and pencil skirts shuffle papers or check their phones one last time.
The meeting is called to order, yet I don’t listen. My focus is on a man with gray eyes I don’t recognize. He sits like a king, a calm superiority on his features. Meeting my eyes, he gives a slow nod of acknowledgment like I was a peasant before his throne.
The hairs on my arms rise.
I’ve found my success fighting or partnering with one business tycoon after another, but something in the way my heart rate picks up tells me that this is no casual entrepreneur. Something tells me I will regret the day I met this man.
My jaw tightens, and I look away.
SIX
Tuscan Italy, July 1471 A.D.
Our shadows melted into the midnight darkness of the city, with only the rare lamplight or tavern glow to bring them back to life. All moonlight had become blocked by clouds that had rolled in, and my eyes strained into the night as Leo, Alessio, and I walked quietly along the cobblestone streets, each gray stone beneath our feet joined with such precision that the gaps between them nearly disappeared. I should say under my foot, as walking on the other was an impossibility. I wished I could have transformed into a bird and fly rather than force myself to breathe and stay conscious with each step, but the pain was far too distracting for me to take animal form.
Before us, the city unfolded like a grandmother’s quilt, each piece unique with its own story. Though I loved that place fiercely, as one can only love a childhood hometown, it seemed different in the moonlight. Unknown. For once, the constant battle of man against brick and mortar was at rest and these beautiful buildings were the victorious soldiers, silent and content on their battlefield. Though I wanted to let a scream of agony split into the night, even whimpering would have desecrated the stillness there. What I would give to see it again.
I recognized Alessio’s home ahead, though I had never been there. Anyone would. No other home in Florence was so prominent. I had never set foot somewhere so grand, and for a moment, Alessio seemed like someone entirely different to me. Someone untouchable. This was what our society told us, after all—that young men like him should be with women of a certain standing. Not for the first time, I wondered if perhaps this was why we kept our relationship a secret. If we didn’t spend all our time flying in private, would Alessio hold my hand in public? Could he face his father with me by his side? One thing I did know—if I went in there, in that mansion he calls home, I would never again be able to see him without his servants and rich foods, the elaborate tapestries and long, cold staircases that I imagined lay inside. And there I came limping, the picture of weakness, dripping blood on the pristine floors. How could that not change us?
“This way.” Alessio swerved to the left just as we entered the courtyard. “My nonno prefers to have his own separate home out back.” I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Alessio; my Alessio, as I had always seen him.
Leo, on my other side, hadn’t said a word since we first started our journey from the lake, as though we would send him away if reminded of his presence. How did he not know I could never send him away? That at that moment, in all my pain, he was as sure and steady to me as the cobblestone under us?
Alessio chuckled to himself as he pointed to a cottage lit by three candles in the windows. “Lucky for us, my nonno has always been one to enjoy the small hours of the night.” The home was designed after the same manner as the mansion, with bricks the color of cinnamon and immaculate flowers potted around the ornately carved door. Yet its size gave it humility, and its flowers flowed carefree from their pots. Just to look on it seemed a healing balm, and my breathing became slower. Alessio knocked, then turned the knob before an answer came. “Nonno?” he called ahead of him to his grandfather.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sallow light, though when they did, I saw an aged man standing over baskets of turnips and onions. The savory scent of fresh onions colored the home. He was preparing the food by candlelight, and he picked up one candlestick to study our faces, the flame creating a soft but brilliant arc of gold.
“Alessio? What is the matter?” But then he saw my face, how carefully I tried to hold my lips so my agony would not spill out of them, and he stepped around the table toward me. “Are you all right, my dear?” His voice was so informal and kind, as though he had always known me. He reached a hand out to me, and though his years had left him as worn and wrinkled as an apple left in the sun, his hand was steady. Guiding me to a chair, he never took his attention from me, and almost in his peripheral, he stoked the dying embers in the hearth.
“This is the girl I told you about, Nonno,” Alessio gestured to me, and even in my suffering I couldn’t help but softly smile, touched that this was all the introduction he needed to give. I lowered my gaze, hoping Alessio wouldn’t see in them how I had doubted him, had believed he had fallen for the society expectations he’d been spoon-fed all his life. When I lifted my eyes, he was looking at me with such tenderness and I knew how wrong I was. “We were flying when we saw . . .” He gestured to Leo, who still lingered in the doorway.
We all turned to Leo, who tried to meet our gaze, but scratched his neck and started to look around the room for somewhere else for his eyes to land beside us. If he had only looked up, he would have seen in my face how I didn’t accuse him, never could, and the old man’s soft, welcoming smile. “It scared her, so she changed form and fell from the sky,” Alessio finished. “Will you help her?”
His eyes on me, the old man’s answer was as warm and soft as his home. “Is that a question? Of course I will. I would be honored.”
Honored? The word spun in my thoughts, a confused but joyful dance. Why would he be honored to help me? He had never so much as laid eyes on me.
“Hand me that stool there, will you, Alessio? Thank you.” I thought he was going to sit on it, but instead he placed it under my foot and then gingerly lowered his aged body to the stone floor until he was kneeling before my injury. Then he looked up and met my eyes.
“My name is Cristoforo. Through the earth, I can help you. Will you receive it?” His words sounded round like a pebble in a stream, clearly worn from being spoken over and over before he ever channeled his abilities.
To answer would have been to let him hear the torment in my voice, so instead, I pursed my lips and nodded. Cristoforo lowered his gaze, but did not close his eyes completely. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alessio come close, then crouch on one knee by my side. His fingers intertwined with mine, and when I turned to look at him with wide eyes, he only gave me a sweet smile. It was enough to still the raging waters inside me to a flow, something manageable. With a glance, he brought my attention back to his grandfather, but his fingers never left mine.
Cristoforo’s hands rested just above my leg, and though he didn’t touch it, I suddenly felt pressure—a presence, maybe—emit from his hands and gently settle upon me. The pain did not go away immediately, and seve
ral minutes passed this way, yet each time I looked up at Alessio, he just smiled, pleased, and raised a knowing hand as if to say, Hold on. Just wait.
The change was so slow, the ever-so-slight shift of cartilage and bones, that to watch a clock tick seemed faster. But change did happen. For nearly an hour, we sat still, and when at last Cristoforo looked up and wiped his hands on his thighs, I knew that all in my body was just as whole and in its proper place as it had ever been. I looked down at my slightly swollen but smooth skin—no grit, no trace of blood. The only noticeable evidence left of my fall was my torn and dirtied nightgown.
“The swelling will take a bit of time to go down.” Cristoforo was the first to break the silence. As he started to stand, Leo stepped forward to help the old man up, and when Cristoforo looked upon Leo’s face, his voice went soft. “Oh.” He smiled. “We are not done tonight, are we?”
“Please.” Leo’s words came out quick. “I have so many questions…”
“Of course. I will answer all I can. Alessio, grab me that chair. Yes, put it there. Now, young man, you seem ready to combust. What is on your mind?”
“What is on my mind?” Leo shook his head in disbelief. “I saw them both flying! He . . . he was human, but Jo! You changed into a bird! How is that—how can this be possible?” Leo’s words seemed to come out faster than his thoughts could properly form them.
“The earth,” the old man answered as he rubbed his knees that had just knelt on the stone floor for so long. “This marvelous place we are privileged to conquer and sail, dance upon and eat of its fruits, is not so impartial to us as we may think. The earth has, in essence, a soul. When it is fully appreciated by people, it recognizes that. But this trait of gratitude alone is not enough—the individual must carry a belief in the extraordinary, must be able to grasp that life and reality can be more than is generally understood. More than most will ever understand, for that matter.”
I pause in my story and look away from my captor. My hands tremble in my lap, and my heart feels as though it’s struggling to keep beating. Perhaps it’s the narcotic they gave me still wearing off, but it feels as though my heart is simply giving up. It can only take so much sorrow.
Azure uncrosses her legs and leans forward, her subtle cue that I must continue. My mind strains to remember where I left off. Oh. The individual must carry a belief in the extraordinary, more than most anyone will ever understand.
How can I ever make them understand? They never will. Azure can sit in her chair collecting “research,” but she can never comprehend what it feels like to soar through the night with an owl’s eyes as a guide, or experience the breathtaking power of a bull’s muscles becoming braced for a fight.
Azure shifts her weight to the other side of the chair, her patience seeping from her like water down a drain.
With a slow exhale, I continue.
Cristoforo spoke to his captive audience while Alessio smiled over the hearth, the old man’s words obviously as familiar to him as a childhood lullaby. Some things you simply never forget, for they become part of you. “When a child exemplifies this gratitude, this openness, the earth can then grant them an ability. An ability that uses the forces of nature.”
Alessio stood, his hand still protectively on my shoulder, as he grinned at a memory. “When I was young Nonno taught me how to master the abilities the earth had given me. Nearly broke my neck trying to learn, though. And poor Mama! She is still baffled how, as an eight-year-old boy, I ever got stuck in that church’s clock tower.”
They chuckled together, grandfather and grandson, before Cristoforo continued, gesturing to Alessio. “Now, in Alessio’s case, even as a child, he knew he wanted the most high-spirited and . . . well, entertaining ability the earth has to offer. Flight.”
Leo leaned forward, his fingers mindlessly drawn to the back of his neck where he twisted the hair tied there between his fingers. But it was Cristoforo’s words that he clung to like grapes to a vine.
“So you chose to fly?”
I turned in my seat to face Alessio. “I never felt as though I chose the gift of transformation, but that it chose me.”
Cristoforo answered, “The earth does more than grant a child its fondest dream—it can put their childhood dreams to shame. In my grandchildren, I would watch for the essential traits to be gifted from the earth. Alessio was the only one I ever saw show the characteristics necessary, so I raised him to be aware of magic and its capabilities. Further, I felt it my responsibility to warn him of the consequences of abusing the earth’s power, such as through time travel.”
“But I thought he could fly, not use time travel.” Leo tipped his head to the side, confused.
“All shaman have one specific gift from the earth, and one general vice—time travel. Once you have tapped into the earth’s abilities, you can then further learn to time travel, but it is forbidden fruit—the thing shamans are asked never to choose, the thing that proves their devotion to the earth. Time travel defiles the passage of life the earth sets before us. It has no respect for the past, no patience with the present, no trust in the future.”
I nodded as Cristoforo spoke, and he caught my eye.
“So even without someone to explain the workings of the harth’s gifts, you understood this?” he asks me.
I shrug one shoulder. “I suppose some things simply don’t need to be explained. Is murder evil? Of course. No one has to tell you these things—you just know them in your heart.”
“Yes,” Cristoforo agrees, then turns back to Leo. “Well, I still felt it important to instruct young Alessio here.” He gestured to his grandson. “True to his nature, he dreamed big. His dream was well shaped and he was prepared for it when the gifts started manifesting themselves. But you, my dear . . .” He paused, and the smile wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “You are truly special. To have no teacher of magic? That you have developed your abilities so thoroughly on your own is quite unique.”
Alessio must have told him that much, and I only smiled my thank you.
“Before meeting me, she wasn’t even sure if more people like us exist,” Alessio interrupted, and Cristoforo gently chuckled.
“Why is that surprising?” Leonardo asked, looking between the two of them. “Magicians such as yourselves are only ever heard of in the highest of courts, working for nobility. To common folk such as us, it almost seems like a rumor or façade. We have never seen an inkling of magic in our marketplaces or simple stores. If there are more Magic Ones such as you, why do you hide when you could have prominence in society?”
“I do not hide,” Alessio answered, clearly ruffled by Leo’s question, yet leaning against the mantel with arms folded, a challenging smile on his lips. “I wait.”
Leonardo raised an eyebrow as Cristoforo explained.
“First off, we prefer not to be called ‘The Magic Ones’ or ‘magicians’ such as the old tales do. These terms imply that we rejoice in our own abilities, glorify ourselves. But we would be nothing without our spiritual connection to the earth. We call ourselves Shaman, for it communicates that what we do is joined to something bigger than us.”
Shaman. I’ve loved that word since Mama first spoke it that day I met the swan. To me, it has always felt soft and lovely on my lips, like a kiss.
“Second of all, when a king or lord takes a Shaman into his court, he trusts him implicitly. The individual’s abilities must be as refined as possible, as near to perfect as can be, for the kingdom’s safety may lie in his capabilities.”
Looking at Alessio, I could easily picture him seated next to royalty, their most trusted confidant. It was already there in how he held himself with shoulders rolled back, in the ease with which fancy clothing hung from him, in the surety of his smile. I exhale, knowing how far such a throne would be from the quiet life Mama and I have always led.
“I would not want to work in a king’s court even if I could.” I ran my fingernail along a groove in the arm of my chair, then looked up. “It makes m
e too different, having these abilities. People don’t know what to do with someone like us. I do hide, Leo. I learned a long time ago that I can either have magic, or I can have friends. But this magic is part—an enormous part—of who I am. I cannot have myself and others as well, it would seem.”
Leo nodded slowly, but then in a low voice just meant for me, he whispered, “Could you not trust your secret with me, though?” He looked at me, hurt drowning in his eyes, and I felt as though I had failed to be the friend to him that I was born to be.
“Oh, Leo.” I paused, in my heart wishing I could undo all the moments I had kept my tongue knotted and silent, but it was too late for that. “Of course I knew I could tell you.” All I could give him was the only reason I had ever had. “But why would I hurt you like that?”
My question caught him off guard, and his eyes found the hearth. “Perhaps you do know me better than anyone.” He looked back at me and tried to give a faint smile. “Even myself.”
There was a silent, pregnant moment, and then as clearly as if I could see the future, I knew what he would say before the words came.
“Could you teach me how to fly?” The hopefulness in Leo’s voice broke my heart as he looked desperately around the room at each of us.
Alessio opened his mouth, shut it, then answered with pinched lips. “No. We can’t. It just—it can’t be done.”
I reached to Leo and clasped his fingers in mine, praying that the hand of an old friend could soften what I had to say.
“Mama tried. For years, she tried. This open mind that Cristoforo spoke of, the belief that reality can be more than most people will ever understand, is something adults can’t seem to grasp.”
They Called Us Shaman Page 4
