They Called Us Shaman

by Corinne Beenfield

  Leo looks to the wild treetops. I see a single tear catch the light while it hovers in his eyes, but doesn’t break free. He swallows hard and doesn’t answer me.

  “Anyway, there is a world of good that needs to be done here.” We begin to walk down the rows of the orchard, nothing left to be done. “I was thinking about all that energy you put into making sure science could succeed. How about taking a new angle?”

  Raising an eyebrow, he answers while we tread through the trees. “What do you suggest?”

  My eyes watch the leaves catching the sunlight as we walk. “When we were at the Academy, I was shown a microscope. When you look through it with your naked eye, the lens magnifies the image of what you are seeing beyond what the eye could ever behold on its own.” Plucking a leaf, I hold it up to my face, then hand it to him. “Earth’s creation and science, with a potential that is untapped when each work alone. But . . .” I smile, shining from some unbolted door inside me. “Together they could unlock worlds.”

  Leo looks at the leaf in his hands as though trying to imagine the cosmos that lay within it. When he lifts his head, a smile has spread across his face and lights in his eyes.

  “Now I like the idea of that.”

  “The only problem is . . .” I look at my feet as we walk. “I don’t know how much longer the earth will allow me to have my magic. I’ve completed the purpose that I time traveled for—I’ll lose it any time now. Frankly, I was shocked this morning to find I could still fly.”

  Leo mulls on that for a moment, then stops in his tracks. “You think so?” He shakes his head. Meeting my gaze, he grins impishly. “Ever since you mentioned just how ‘purely evil’ you all believed time travel to be, I must admit I thought you were being, well, dramatic.” His cheeks flush red, but he continues. “I mean, the earth never specifically told anyone it is forbidden. I think that to a degree, you are right—the earth probably doesn’t love the use of time travel and that’s why a shaman loses their abilities if they use it. But. I think shaman have taken that belief and become overzealous about it. I know how easily one can get carried away with what you believe in.”

  He pauses and shakes his head. “It seems to me that because of you, magic came out of oblivion. You were the hands and feet—you did for the earth what it couldn’t do for itself. It would make no sense for the earth to punish you for using time travel—that would be ‘biting the hand that fed it.’” We walk in silence a moment before he nods confidently. “You wait. You keep waking up every morning seeing if you can still fly. I would bet money that your magic isn’t going anywhere. What better thank you could the earth give?”

  “You think the time travel ban is lifted for us?” I ask, and the instant I do, I notice a difference. The heavens don’t part, no ray of light bestows its blessing on us, but somehow the air smells, even tastes, brand new. Breathing it in, it warms me down to my marrow, and when I look at Leo, I can see he feels it too. A simple, unmeasurable knowing. “Yes,” I answer my own question. “It’s not to be abused, but She will let those of us who helped Her set things right in our own lives.”

  Suddenly Leo laughs, relief washing him clean. “So Joanna could come back!”

  Not to me. But I find a smile and nod. “Yes, I believe so.”

  He laughs until it peters into a happy sigh. “Well, where do we begin?”

  “Where else?” I shrug, and my laugh joins his. “Your ornithopter, of course!”

  He glows.

  “Lead the way, DaVinci,” I make a show of presenting the path before us, but he shakes his head.

  “You don’t need me leading you, Alessio. It’s like you said. We do this—every step—together.” Then he looks down at the leaf in his hand. Suddenly in a flash I remember him looking at another leaf just as he did this one, the moment before he stepped off the scaffolding. His voice goes quiet, and he muses to himself. “That was always what She wanted us to know.”

  Looking away from Leo, I try to see Her, truly see Her hiding in the upturned wine-glass shape of the trees around me. The branches seem unruly and wild, like a toddler’s hair when it wakes, yet the careful rows that every tree was planted in help each one get the sun and soil it needs. It’s chaos and order woven together, the orchard all the more beautiful for the harmony it has struck.

  Sunlight catches the leaves as they shake, and I am filled with both awe and my own nothingness, like a pauper before a queen. Thank you, I think She whispers.

  Closing my eyes, I can only humbly bow my head.

  Evening has come, in deep purple, to the desert. Ramose lifts his hands to my face, his thumbs gently stroking my cheeks.

  I lean back and tilt my head. “What happened to them? Leo and Alessio.”

  Ramose smiles. “They became known as the Renaissance Brothers. The scope and depth of their influence are without precedent in history. Their goal to unify the magic arts with the sciences has inspired millions for centuries to come. This work has continued to go forth and is responsible for the discovery of hundreds of cures, saved the coast of this very land from falling into the sea with an earthquake, and has used its combined abilities to suspend entire cities in the air.” He motions to the kingdom he just flew from. “This is the city of Passerota, named for the first machine they created together, as documented in their writings.”

  “‘She who is learning to fly.’” I smile, looking past him to the hundreds of shaman and ornithopters as each turns on lights they carry to be seen in the dimming sky.

  “When I saw that memory, the same feeling filled me of the air ‘tasting new.. I knew this gift was offered to me as well—nothing held me in Egypt anymore. I could come to you.”

  “But . . .” I swallow. “How does this work? How can it just suddenly be okay?”

  “I think it’s like this.” He searches my eyes for understanding. “You’ve always said that time travel is like murder. But isn’t there a time and place when one can take a life and be seen as a hero rather than a villain? Just as hate can never justify war, so can regret never justify time travel. But this is different.” His gaze seems to drink in the sight of me. “This is love.”

  His words make my heart go hummingbird fast, and I feel the corners of my lips twitch into a smile.

  “Yes.” I nod, barely getting the beautiful word out.

  “So I came,” he continues. “Months ago, and have spent the time learning your language. Every day praying I wasn’t losing my mind, that I understood what the earth was trying to show me. Praying that all this would be worth it. And it was because you’re here.” He looks at me with incredulity, like I’m the spring of water he wasn’t sure was hidden underground, but he dug anyway. Running both his hands into my hair, he gently pulls me close until our faces are nearly touching.

  “I’m here,” I whisper. “With you. There’s nowhere else in all of time I’d rather be.”

  My hands rest on his chest, and I feel his heart rate increase as his eyes flutter to my lips. My small body melts into his, all space between us disappearing like the centuries that had once divided us. My hands explore, finding his spine, my fingers walking each ridge. Both our breaths are shaky, shallow with anticipation. Not even an hour ago I thought Ramose was a distant star—a light that might have died thousands of years before, but more real to me than anything. But now I hold that star in my own two hands.

  Slowly I savor the beautiful sight of his strong jaw and soft eyes, his black hair and rich skin peppered with stubble. The face of the man I love, the man I get to live with and die next to. A tear rolls down my cheek. “This is magic,” I utter. For what is magic but finding the steel to your flint? The one who can spark something inside you that no one else can?

  A hot, humid breeze pushes against us toward the city in the sky. Ramose’s gaze pulls from my face, and he whispers, “You did that.” My eyes follow his.

  All around, I see stars. The sky alone cannot contain them all. Each window of the city is lit with a luster of its own. The sha
man and ornithopters dance, like thousands of fireflies, blinking in the darkness. An entire galaxy within reach. We stand there, unmoving, letting the stars fill us right up to the brim.

  Lost in the embrace of the soft desert air, Ramose turns to me again. His familiar scent of cinnamon floods over me as I close my eyes. His hand cradles my face then his warm lips meet mine. There is something inside that kiss, something strong enough to win a war, something enduring enough to melt time. Until that moment, I realized, I had never truly known magic. His fingers slide until they tangle in my hair and tense around the back of my neck as he kisses me again. We hold on to each other as if all the years and struggles that had stood in our way would try to pry again between us. But we won’t let that happen. I’ve found my forever. And I think that as long as I live, whenever we kiss, I will taste starlight and the gift of dreams, I will feel the glow of the golden threads that stretched across the centuries now binding us, inseparable.

  With our kiss, we add our light, one more star in the dark, to the night.

  The End

  Author’s Note

  While the initial idea for this book came from a dream, it was studying the life of Leonardo da Vinci that put the meat on the bones. I tried to stay true to him throughout this novel. He was the bastard son of a wealthy man with one of his maids. Though Leo (as I came to think of him) had a father who was involved and cared about helping him in society, Leo’s status as a bastard son attempted to stunt him, but he would not have his wings clipped. He did create a personal code to push past all obstacles and shatter expectations.

  He achieved greatness that is still considered uncomparable, yet his strongest dream was apparently never accomplished. To fly.

  Over the years, he created more than 500 sketches and 35,000 words dealing with flying machines, the nature of air, and bird flight. He built his ornithopter just as described in this novel, with over thirty feet of silk wingspan and a plank in the middle to lie on and maneuver it. Though it was structurally correct for flight, he discovered it could never gain the momentum to get off the ground.

  All research states that he never achieved his lifelong dream. Yet we have these words from him.

  “Once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

  So perhaps there was more to his story than we knew.

  And I just couldn’t resist a good “perhaps.”