Book of Water

Chapter 23

23

Bradamante studied closely the movements of her teacher’s hands.

Manat lifted them from where they had been resting on her thighs, and turned them so that her palms faced up. Then she angled them toward the ground until the tips of her fingers rested lightly on the sand.

“This is a water chamber,” she told Bradamante as she slowly raised her palms in a steady line upward in front of her body.

As her hands rose, a wall of water grew upward from the sand, as though Manat were creating a waterfall that flowed in reverse.

She lifted her hands as high as she could above her head, then relaxed them on top of her thighs again. The wall of water remained. It shimmered and flowed in a continuous circle, rising from the sand, then dropping over the lip at the top and cascading down the back. Bradamante leaned closer to Manat and tried to look through it, but the water’s current was too thick.

Manat turned to her right and repeated the process. When she had raised this second wall as high as she could reach, its edges sealed against the first wall, creating a square angle. Manat faced front again and casually reached her right arm behind her. She raised the third wall without looking.

“Now you do it,” she told Bradamante.

Bradamante smiled in anticipation. She was excited to try. Manat had guided her through visions before that seemed just as physically impossible as this. She taught Bradamante how to travel great distances in her mind to visit people who didn’t know she was there. The two of them once flew side by side as birds. Even meeting in the white house should be impossible, yet they had been doing it for years.

And now, just a short time before, Bradamante had learned to split her mind into three places…

Out of curiosity she flipped the page back to see what she and Egalite were doing right now. They were no longer galloping. Bradamante was still on horseback as the two of them waded into waves up to Egalite’s chest. The horse lifted her legs high as she charged through the water, clearly enjoying herself. Bradamante’s clothes were soaked. She didn’t care. The water felt wonderfully warm. Her mind and body felt free.

Flip the page. Back to dry clothes as she knelt on the beach next to Manat. She glanced up the hill to the meadow. Egalite was still there, grazing.

Bradamante smiled to herself at the wonders of the white house. It was time to add a new one.

Imitating Manat, she held out her palms and touched her fingertips to the beach. Then she slowly lifted her hands.

A line of water began to form across her fingers. She curled them slightly to provide a better grip. She could feel the current sliding against her skin as she lifted it. She could feel the cool freshness of the water. It was as though she had sliced away a section of a busy stream and now balanced it on top of her hands as a single block.

But she was not carrying it, she was pulling it upward, stretching it, creating a solid wall of water just as Manat had.

The sounds in front of her were suddenly muffled. And all she could see was a crystal-colored, sparkling, flowing vertical screen. Daylight streamed through it, but she could not see anything beyond that.

When the wall was as high as the one Manat made, the two sections joined at the top. Now there was a single waterfall in front of them, flowing in reverse from the sand up into the air. Bradamante wondered what would happen if she threw a leaf or a twig into the current. She could imagine it rising until it reached the top, then tumbling over the back side of the waterfall onto the beach.

Bradamante repeated the process to create the wall of water to her left. Then, unlike Manat, she turned all the way around to face the back so she could watch while the final wall rose. Manat had probably made these countless times before, but for Bradamante it was all new. She didn’t want to miss a single moment.

The two of them were now fully encased by continuously flowing water on every side. Bradamante tilted her head back. The top was open and she could still see the brilliantly bright blue sky.

“Listen,” Manat said.

Bradamante closed her eyes and listened.

“Do you hear the waves anymore?” Manat asked.

“No.” In fact, Bradamante no longer heard any of the familiar sounds. Not the waves, not the breeze, not the seagulls crying overhead.

All she heard was the gentle burble and splash of the water as though she sat on the bank of a stream.

“You told me once,” Manat said, “that you couldn’t concentrate as well as you did in the inner chamber. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.” There was a heated, inner chamber in the White Temple where Bradamante always experienced her most vivid visions. It was where she had first seen the face of her fiery god. She had never seen that face again, no matter how often she tried.

“Do you remember what I told you?” Manat asked.

Bradamante smiled. She remembered not liking Manat’s answer at the time. “That I should be able to meditate as easily in a busy marketplace as in a quiet room. That I should spend as much time practicing meditation as I did fighting. Then I could be better at it.”

“Did you?” Manat asked, the creases to the outside of her hazel eyes already signaling that she knew the answer.

“Fighting was always more fun,” Bradamante said.

Manat held her hand vertically and pierced through the wall in front of them. She then slid her hand to the right, creating an opening large enough to squeeze through.

“Go outside,” Manat said. “Look at this. Tell me what you see.”

Bradamante stood and departed the chamber. Manat closed the water behind her.

Bradamante walked a few steps away, then turned to look. She could see her footprints in the sand, but they ended abruptly where she imagined the water chamber must be.

She could not see Manat. She could not see any moving walls of water. There might be a slight shimmer to the air, but if she looked too hard at it, the shimmer disappeared.

She could see the white cottage in front of her and all the familiar landmarks around it. If she didn’t know the water chamber existed, she would never know it was here.

Bradamante retraced her steps in the sand. She stretched out her hand in front of her, searching for the walls.

Manat’s hand reached out and gripped her wrist. Although Bradamante could feel it, she could not see the hand until Manat pulled her back inside.

Bradamante sank onto the sand within the chamber, laughing in amazement.

But Manat did not laugh. She waited patiently for Bradamante to settle again, her expression surprisingly serious.

“There may come a time,” she said, “when you will want a sanctuary. Someplace quiet where you can go so you can speak privately to your god.”

Bradamante’s pulse quickened. So this was no idle lesson. Manat had a reason.

“What… what should I do?” Bradamante asked. What she really wanted to know was when she would need it, and why, but she doubted Manat would tell her.

“Practice,” Manat said. “Spend as much time meditating as you do fighting.”

She pierced the wall with her hand again, then swept it forcefully to the side. All of the walls of the chamber collapsed and pooled onto the sand.

“You won’t tell me anything more?” Bradamante asked. She could hear the waves again, and the birds. And she could feel the speeding beat of her heart.

“No,” Manat said, but her gaze was sympathetic.

“Is it—is it because of Rogero?” Bradamante asked.

Manat considered for a moment. “Yes.”

Bradamante awoke from her vision, sweating.

Manat might want her to meditate, but right now all Bradamante could think about was fighting.