They Called Us Shaman

by Corinne Beenfield

  Yet I alone know what he is capable of, what he will stoop to if backed into a corner. I wouldn’t wish life bound to someone like that upon anyone, especially the woman I think I may be falling in love with. There is no one else I care for more.

  Closing my eyes, I lean toward her until our foreheads touch.

  I must show her. For people always protect what they love most.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tuscan Italy, May 1470 A.D.

  Ramose has done more than put me in Leo’s shoes—I have been placed directly inside his mind. Yet I am still a spectator. Like with Brigetta’s memory, I have no more control over Leo’s actions than I could change a childhood remembrance. This has already happened, and I am simply along for the ride.

  I look at my familiar hands, though they aren’t my own. It’s the hands that have known clay and paintbrush, the hands that peeled oranges for me because their master knew I didn’t like to do it, the hands that yearned to turn to feathers, but never did. That’s the last thought I have as my own, as Joanna, before the merge of the memory is fully complete.

  With a last exhale, I am Leo.

  I barely graze my hand across the cathedral ceiling, the paint still sticky where it was put on thick. Yesterday, Verrochino began his commission here, and as his apprentice, I was brought to fill in the sky amongst the winged angels he painted. Afterward, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, though drinking was not a problem. For when unrequited love enters one’s life, there is no escaping the image of your love in all things that surround you. The ceiling painted with heavenly messengers, birds, and light pouring from swirling eddies of clouds all tormented me. What no woman could ever do to me, this simple idea has accomplished. Flight. Without this love in my life, all else is empty. What is the point of sunshine if not to soar through it? Every moment, I daydream of being loved in return, of the sky holding me up and the wind caressing my body as I glide. My mind supplies me with nothing else to think of but how to convince my soul mate to come to me. And yet, it eluded me. It has always loved others instead, simply overlooking me.

  Yet today, everything has begun to change. I had felt it, burning orange inside my chest, as I lay beneath a tree this morning, my heart crying out for an answer. I had pushed on every door, walked down every path, and forever found myself running into locks and dead ends. My pathetic human heart had worn gray and thin.

  “Why?” I had begged the earth, fingers twisting in the grass beneath me. Above my head, the greens of the leaves against the sunlight remind me of stained glass. Cristoforo had said the earth had a soul of sorts, and would reward those that truly valued it. “Who could appreciate you more than this?”

  At that exact moment, a leaf from a tree had broken loose. There wasn’t a hint of wind, and it’s spring, not autumn. Yet down it came down until it rested exactly on my shoulder. A spark of brilliant white was lit inside me until the entirety of me was consumed. And I knew. I knew at that moment that the earth, my beautiful earth that I loved without reserve, cared for me in return. “I’m right beside you,” it seemed to say. I didn’t remove the leaf from my shoulder right away, but placed my fingers gently over it, like resting a hand upon a hand.

  Now I stand on the cathedral scaffolding, painted heavens above me and whispered prayers below, with the feeling—deep and maroon and right down to the marrow of my bones—that everything has changed. I’m so sure of it, I have sent word to Jo and Alessio to come meet me here. They need to see this.

  With the leaf still in one hand, I smile to myself as, with the other hand, I touch an angel at my eye level. How cavernous the black jealousy had felt just yesterday when I had painted these wings. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how your dreams always seem to come true the day after your darkest hour?

  My eye catches to see Alessio walk into the cathedral. Where he is, Joanna can’t be far behind these days. I look at him and see now that he is just human too. A beautiful yet simple human, no wings coming from his shoulder blades, blood coursing through his veins, not light. There is no explainable reason why he and Jo should tour the skies while I stay forever on the ground.

  Alessio gives a silent wave so as not to disturb the peace, and then leans back and waits with arms folded for me to come down.

  Oh, I’ll come down.

  I step to the edge of the scaffolding, closer than any of the other painters naturally do. Alessio tenses and quickly steps forward, giving me a look that very clearly says, “Don’t even think of it…” The message in his eyes starts to pull the plug on my amber courage, and I must look away before I am drained completely. Near me, light streams through a window, a shaft resting just out of reach. The white light calls to me, pure and honest. Dust particles catch in it, reminding me that even something so ordinary can take your breath away. With a smile, I reach my hand forward, take a step, and am caught in the light.

  In an instant, the totality of the betrayal is evident. The leaf crumbles in my clenched fist, and I know as I fall that it was never more than a leaf. No love letter or sweet caress—all it symbolizes now is the delusion of a desperate man. The earth, if it ever had any love for me, now treats me like a stranger, cold and completely oblivious that its indifference has destroyed me.

  My soul breaks before my body does. My hopes are shards littering the cathedral’s mosaic floor, shattered fragments of what might have been.

  I am lost in Leo’s memory. The only reminder that I am not truly there, not truly him, is the feel of wet tears sliding on my own cheeks. They catch in the corners of my mouth and drip slowly off my chin. In the back of my mind, a voice, my own, screams to save Leo, and if I can’t stop him, then to at least stop the memory. I don’t want to know what comes next. I could pull back from Ramose and it would all disappear.

  But I won’t.

  All I can do for Leo now is make sure someone else knows his suffering. In at least that, he won’t be left alone.

  Alessio grabs at my collar without attempting to be gentle. Looking at his face, I think he’d like to throw me the remainder of the way to the floor, but that would be defeating the point of saving me, now wouldn’t it?

  We land, though his hand, rather than releasing me, only anchors a firmer grip on the back of my neck. He storms us out of the cathedral; it’s not proper etiquette to smash your fist into someone’s nose inside a church, I suppose.

  As we go, the voices around us clog the air, no one caring about being reverent now.

  “Did you see that?”

  “That’s Giotto Medici’s boy! What’s his name?”

  “He flew! I can see it in my mind’s eye yet! He saved that other lad!”

  It’s the attention Alessio has always craved, yet he seems completely ignorant of it now, each of his muscles rigid with fury. Once outside, he quickly turns us to an alley and throws me to the ground. The buildings on either side huddle closely, watching and waiting for the fight to begin. Not one to waste time, the first blow comes, hitting me in the side of the ribs. He kicks me in the stomach next, then the manhood, taking my ability to fight back.

  “You. You fool. How many times must you risk suicide before you understand?” Reaching down, he hoists me from the ground by my ears, his grip threatening to rip them from my skull. Bringing my face close to his, I can see that as he speaks, his lips barely move, as though his jaw is wired shut. The laughter that normally fills his eyes has entirely evaporated. The most active part of his face is the vein on his temple, threatening to detonate. “What are you trying to prove? That you’re more than what you were born as? Do you truly think you have anyone deceived?” He throws me down, my ears fiery hot and my spine striving to curl fetal. His rage seems pointless to me—I am already broken. My soul feels lost at sea, starving for some reason to live, some reason to fight on. But Alessio doesn’t see this. The red rushing to his head has left him blind to anything else as his words move from angry to nasty.

  “Do you truly think you are different? Where do you come off thinking you
are better than anyone, you bastard?” Each of his words punch the air, and though he doesn’t lay another hand on me, he has no idea the damage he inflicts. I feel my heart quicken. With a flick of his tongue, he has discovered my old wounds and pries at them as if with a knife.

  “How audacious are you? Thinking that you of all people could learn to fly after already being grown? You can’t even take your father’s place in society, yet you hope to surpass us all.” He scoffs in disgust. Each insult cuts and fillets me open until I can only lay wordlessly on the street, heart red, raw, and bleeding. Then he throws his arm behind him, showing off the sky. “See that? It’s impossible. It has never been done, not once a person has grown, so just leave it for those of us who it does belong to. The more you try, the more you humiliate yourself. You humiliate me for trying to teach you. It is an absurd idea, always was, and I shouldn’t have played along. I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for Joanna.” Anger radiates from every inch of his face, as one by one the words clip out. “You. Will. Never. Fly.”

  He stares long at me then, seething eyes behind a stony expression. He kicks me again, his foot embedding in the soft part of my stomach. Once more and blood gushes from my nose, turning the street below me burgundy. Then turning, he throws his final dagger. Two steps and he is off the ground, the thin air holding him as steadily as if he was on the solid street.

  The way just moments ago, it refused to do for me.

  Looking over his shoulder, he catches my eye one last time, and the spark of laughter in them is back, but twisted and gray. “Ha,” it says. “Take that.” When I thought he could pull me no lower, he knew just what to do. When did I become his enemy?

  Pulling my knees until my elbows rest on them, I place my head in my hands, the air around me still polluted with his toxic words. In my hand, something pricks my cheek, and I see the last remains of the leaf, stuck to my palm.

  And I know. Alessio is right—through the earth, I cannot fly. I will never fly.

  Through the earth.

  The earth may not love me in return, but when have I ever let how someone else feels define me? Tell me what I can or cannot do?

  For Alessio was right again—I am out to prove something. I have been ever since as a child, I lived in my father’s house and saw how, as his illegitimate son, I was treated differently by guests and my half-siblings. From that time on, I have dreamed of flying—for the wonder of it, yes, but perhaps more to show them that there is no obstacle that can hold me back. With their necks craned back and mouths gaping open, they’d see that there was no limit they could put on me that would stick. As a child, I hadn’t been able to articulate why I dreamed of flying, but I am no longer a child.

  I feel my jaw set firm, and I rise to my feet without bothering to wipe the dirt of the street from my trousers or the blood from my face. Alessio is barely a speck now, and watching him, my shoulders straighten and a smile returns to my face. Perhaps it is a bit twisted and gray as well, but pride swells yellow inside me that after such a beating, I’ve picked myself up.

  This code I take now to myself, to push past all obstacles, to shatter their expectations. It pulses through me as real as blood, as liberating as breath.

  I will fly. With the fierceness that I previously placed my trust in the earth, I now turn to science. Exquisite, controllable science. I don’t have to wait for it to love me in return. Unlike a feeling, there are simple laws it must abide by. Laws I will use. I will use them to do what no one else has done.

  It becomes clear to me now, just as clear as Alessio had been as he stood above me, raging. It has always been magic versus science, with science forever sorely losing. For centuries, the world has spun this way, every one of its citizens, in every country, in every civilization groveling to magic. They expect it to answer their questions, show them their purpose, fill their holes. So long as all faith is put into spells and enchantments, potions and the earth, no one will turn to science. No one will find the answers it has to offer. Yet so few have met someone with true magic, which is the best tool I have. I will take it, like a pickax, to the thin ice of their faith and break it apart until they see the waters of science below. Life-giving waters.

  Magic’s day is over. The world is about to spin in a new direction.

  ___

  Every mind I’ve visited has stayed with me. Not one hasn’t felt like a dear friend when the moment was over, that I didn’t want to see win. Perhaps that is because the earth only sends me memories from those who are good, those who are trying. Or perhaps it’s because there is no one you couldn’t love if you could see through their eyes.

  I don’t hate Leonardo. But I do wonder if he, like all who declare war, would hesitate if he were to be the one on the front line. One that must fight, shed real blood, and die.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Californian Remains, September 2048 A.D

  Like in all the worst dreams, I opened my mouth to speak, to scream, but could not. Of course, being inside his mind, I can see why he made the decision he did, but now, living in our future, I see what he could only begin to imagine. A world where science has a voice—no, a world where it is considered the voice.

  And magic has none.

  In the last dregs of the memory, I see through Leo’s eyes my own willowy form entering the cathedral, and Leo turns the other direction. His last thought was, “She’ll never understand. I must do this alone.”

  Then Leo is gone. I open my eyes slowly from the nightmare, cool sweat and warm tears on my face. My forehead still leans against Ramose, as though all strength has been taken from my neck and limbs, and only he holds me up.

  Placing his hands on the sides of my face, he meets my eyes. “That’s the moment all this began.” He nods his head to the walls around us. “He preached publicly against faith in magic and more belief in the sciences. He gathered like thinkers to him. The more well-known he became, the more the world listened to him. Like at the beginning of all wars, he never could have fully predicted the impact of his actions. Though no armies marched, a very real war had started. It grew over years and centuries, long past Leo’s lifetime, until magic was thoroughly conquered.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “No one outside these walls believes in us anymore.”

  “I was there,” I whisper. “I had gone to the cathedral to meet them, but didn’t see what happened. I waited while the whole time, they were just outside, just a few streets down. If I had known . . .” What would I have done? I would have helped Leo to his feet and thrown my arms about his neck and begged his forgiveness. Forgiveness for Alessio, for the earth, and most importantly me for the part I had played. For I know my hands are not clean either.

  Suddenly Alessio’s voice cuts into our cloud, but with none of the warmth of sunshine. “Tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”

  I look up and he’s there, standing to the side of the waterfall where there is a clear view of this secluded space. Ramose drops his hands from the side of my face and pulls back, but doesn’t deny the intimate moment Alessio thinks he has witnessed. A little ways behind him, the three trollops watch the encounter, confused as to what stole their entertainment away.

  I know how this must look to Alessio. I want to argue, to defend what has happened, but when I look at him now, it’s as though I am seeing someone entirely different from the man I once caressed. His face from Leo’s memory comes back to me—jaw muscles rigid with fury, veins pulsing in his neck, something molten in his eyes spilling over. I wish more than anything to see Alessio as I always have, but the pain of him kicking Leo in the stomach still lingers in my gut, the throbbing in my head of being lifted by the ears still burns. I look at Alessio, and now all my eyes fill with is horror.

  My silence only confirms his suspensions. “So this . . .” He motions to Ramose, not even bothering to give the title “him,” but rather, looking at him like an animal. “This is the noble cause you left me for?” Again, I say nothing. “The least you could have given me was h
onesty, Joanna.”

  For a second, I wonder if he will hit Ramose, rage on him as he did on Leo, but he doesn’t give Ramose even a glance as he turns and lifts himself from the pool. He stalks out, the three girls discarded and annoyed at losing their toy.

  I should follow. I should explain, ease his heartache, but who is it I would be following? Not the man I knew.

  But I can only live in my horror of what he has done for so long.

  For though I barely scratched the memory of Leo’s, I know none of it would’ve come to fruition if it wasn’t for me.

  Had I been a true friend to Leo, he wouldn’t have felt the need to prove something that day. Without the moment in the garden he and I had shared, the moment in the street Alessio and he had ‘shared’ never would have happened.

  I am not blameless. The very Academy I fight would not be here if it wasn’t for my influence. For a second, I think again of Gadian sending that liquid through the injured man’s veins, and I wonder if that felt like what this guilt feels like now. My insides dying slowly in the toxicity, badly burning every organ it touches, intending to leave only a shell.

  Except I don’t die. I have to face what I have done.

  “I could have stopped all of this.” I slide into the water and walk to the opening Alessio just left. Every door, every wall, every captured body in here places weights of regret on my chest. “Magic is dying, in part because of me.” I can’t look at Ramose, don’t dare see the blame that should be on his features. “How can I ever make amends?”

  Ramose walks up behind me until our shoulders touch.

  “You know how.” His voice barely comes out, as though it carries something fragile. And it does.

  It carries a call to set things right.

  A call to redemption.

  I nod, slowly but certain. “We give magic a second chance.”