Book of Earth

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bradamante felt a warm, strong grip on her wrist. In the next instant she was in another room, beside another fire, in a house she had never seen before.

She was not alone: a young woman sat in a rocking chair beside the fire.

“Hello?”

The young woman didn’t answer.

Bradamante took in her surroundings. The house was small—smaller even than the tenants’ cottages—and made entirely of white wood. Its single room was clean and bright, with windows courting sunshine from every direction. Instead of an open firepit like the one Bradamante and Rinaldo slept beside, this room had a fireplace with a chimney. An iron kettle hung from a hook above the fire. The only pieces of furniture were the rocking chair, two cushions beside the fireplace, and shelves along every wall, brimming with books.

Bradamante could see the whole room from somewhere above it, looking down, and from inside it at the same time. She wondered what was wrong with her eyes. She shut them tightly and pressed her fingers against the lids. When she opened them again, she could see only the fire in front of her.

A voice said, “You’re awake.”

Bradamante sat upright in the rocking chair. The movement felt strange. She caught sight of the hands in her lap. She lifted them for a closer look. They were not hers. They were too large. She gazed down at her clothes. Instead of Rinaldo’s shirt she wore a gray wool robe and thick woolen socks. Tucked into the back of her robe was a long braid of thick hair, tied at the end with a strip of leather. Bradamante reached back and felt the braid, knowing it couldn’t possibly be hers. Her hair was gone. This hair—this body—were someone else’s.

“Here, this should warm you.” A woman appeared from behind carrying two mugs. She was tall and sturdy-looking, with a tan weathered face and shoulder-length dark auburn hair. She wore a faded black tunic belted at the waist and loose black trousers.

She filled the two mugs with steaming liquid from the kettle, then sat cross-legged on one of the cushions beside the fire and tucked her bare feet beneath her thighs.

“Come sit with me,” she said. “You’re still shivering.”

Bradamante stayed where she was. She knew her shivering was not from the cold. She felt locked in the wrong body, unable to lift even a finger.

“Try,” the woman encouraged. “You’ll feel better if you move.”

This isn’t real, Bradamante told herself. It’s only a dream. She gazed down at her body again, this time shyly noting the curves she knew she didn’t have. This isn’t me.

“It is you,” the woman answered, as if Bradamante had made the comment aloud. “You’re not twelve anymore. You’re older here. You’re thinking with an older mind, too. Can you feel it?”

Bradamante’s thoughts scattered, none of them settling long enough for her to know whether they were childlike or adult.

“Come sit with me,” the woman coaxed. “Give yourself time. I know it can be difficult at first.”

Bradamante rose slowly, testing her legs. She took two halting steps, feeling her way forward as though she were walking in the dark. Nothing felt right. She was slow and too large and out of balance.

She sank onto the empty cushion.

The woman beside her smiled warmly. She handed Bradamante one of the mugs. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” Bradamante asked in a voice she knew wasn’t her own.

“Black clove tea. It brings clarity. I thought you might need that right now.”

Bradamante sipped the spicy, unfamiliar liquid. It slid down her throat and warmed her chest from inside. From her vantage point above she looked down and saw the younger of the two women drinking from her mug. I can taste this, Bradamante thought. Maybe this is me. But how can I be her?

“Look again,” the older woman told her. “Believe your eyes.”

Bradamante studied the young woman. She was long-legged and broad-shouldered, with light brown skin and curly brown hair gathered into a braid. She looked like Rinaldo, with his full cheeks and square jaw, but her skin and eyes were darker. She looked like Lady Aya, too—a fact which did not please Bradamante. Although she had heard people refer to Aya as beautiful, when Bradamante looked at her mother, she saw only coldness and anger.

The young woman shook her head. No, Bradamante thought, she’s right—that’s not my mother’s face at all. Mine is … softer.

Bradamante shut her eyes tightly. When she opened them, she was looking at the fire once again, through the eyes of the body she wore. She reached up to touch her cheeks and knew that she felt her own skin.

“But this can’t be me.”

“It is.”

“I don’t look like this,” Bradamante insisted. She traced the length of her braid. “This isn’t mine. I cut it all off.”

“Not here,” the woman answered. “Not now.”

Bradamante’s pulse quickened. “Where is here? What is now?”

“Here is in the white house,” the woman said. “Now is when you’re older—twenty-two, twenty-three. In your regular life you’re still a girl, but when you’re here, you’re already grown. Your hair grew back long ago.”

“That’s not possible.”

The woman smiled. “Believe me when I say you hardly know what is possible.”

“But—”

The woman held up her hand. “Drink. We have work to do.”

Bradamante had barely taken a sip when the woman reached over and tugged lightly on her braid. “You cut this off tonight. Why?”

Bradamante's eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? Who are you?”

“My name is Manat. Now tell me why.”

Bradamante hesitated. She hadn’t told her brother the truth, so why should she tell this stranger?

“You’re worried,” Manat said. “Don’t be. I already saw what happened with your mother today.”

“You saw? How?”

“The same way I saw you cut your hair.” Manat waved her hand dismissively. “But I don’t want to speak of her. Your mother is of no consequence—”

“No consequence?” Bradamante repeated with a laugh. “You wouldn’t say that if you really knew.”

“I do know. And that is why I can say her cruelty is meaningless. You have greater matters to attend to than the ravings of one bitter woman.”

Bradamante could barely contain her shock. No one had ever spoken of Lady Aya that way.

“So tell me,” Manat pressed on, “why did you cut your hair?”

Bradamante’s lips curved into a smile. This was the best dream she had ever had. Was it possible, after all these years of concealing her pain—of withholding all the terrible details so that Rinaldo wouldn’t feel any greater burden than he already did—was it possible Bradamante could finally tell someone exactly how she felt?

She ran her hand down the length of her thick braid. Then for the first time in her life she said it out loud: “I hate my mother.”

“A useless emotion,” Manat said, “but go on.”

Emboldened, Bradamante did. “And I’m never going to let her do it again.”

“Hurt you.”

“Yes.”

“In particular, drag you by the hair like that.”

Surprised, but relieved not to have to say it herself, Bradamante nodded.

“Good,” Manat said. “Very good. I don’t agree with your method, but it was the best you could do with what you know now. You defended yourself. You tried to take away your opponent’s advantage. Those are good strategies. In your heart you already know who you are.”

“Who I—”

“Come outside,” Manat said, rising to her feet. “I want to show you something.”

Surprised at the abruptness, Bradamante nevertheless followed Manat to the door. As they crossed over the threshold, Bradamante’s long wool robe transformed into a thigh-length tunic like Manat’s, only brown instead of black. Underneath she wore soft thin breeches that grazed the tops of her ankles. Bradamante reached back to make sure her braid was still there.

“You won’t lose that,” Manat said. “You’ll always look the same here, even when you’re much older.”

They stepped off the covered porch onto a white sandy beach. Bradamante walked slowly, savoring the view. She dug her toes into the warm white sand. In front of her was an endless blue bay stretching toward the horizon. A moist breeze funneled off the waves onto shore. White gulls dipped and sailed through the air. In the distance a fish exploded from the water.

To their left a trail led away from the house up a slope to a lush meadow where long grasses and yellow and blue wildflowers nodded in the breeze. Beyond the meadow was a forest, where aspen leaves fluttered on their stems and pine trees stretched their tips toward the heavens. Everywhere Bradamante looked she found unfaltering splendor. “What is this place?”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“The white house is my favorite place to come,” Manat said. “I discovered it a long time ago—when I was your age. One night I fell asleep a girl and awakened in the body of this forty-five-year-old woman, wondering how I’d grown so old.” Manat laughed. “Of course, that was before I knew what old was.”

Bradamante liked Manat’s lopsided smile. She liked her sun-weathered face and deep-set eyes. Manat looked older than Bradamante’s mother, and yet she seemed so much more ... alive. She lacked that pale fragility that Lady Aya and so many other women regarded as beautiful. Instead Manat moved with the effortless grace of someone comfortable in her strength.

Bradamante knew her mother would scorn a woman like this—consider her rough or common—but Bradamante liked the way she looked. She liked how regally Manat had sat in her bare feet and simple clothes in front of the fire. She liked Manat’s strong, lined hands, her warm hazel eyes, her thick wavy hair the color of freshly-turned soil.

And there was something else: an intensity about her, like the charge in the air before a storm. Even standing still, Manat seemed capable of tremendous force. Her face was kind, her words were gentle, but Bradamante could see there was nothing delicate about her.

“You’re strong, too,” Manat said. “Look at yourself.”

Bradamante gazed down at her body. She pushed back her sleeves and found tightly-muscled arms. She lifted her pant legs and examined her sturdy calves. It was true: this body looked and felt powerful. Bradamante wished she could test it—lift something, throw something.

“Run,” Manat suggested.

Bradamante turned up the hill and ran toward the meadow. She pumped her arms and legs and raced across the grass to the edge of the woods. The part of her that was still a child thrilled at the speed and strength of her movements. She took deep, hard breaths that would have burst the chest of the girl at home asleep next to Rinaldo. But here, this girl—this woman—could run as far as she wanted, as fast as she wanted.

She raced along the pines, touching the trunks as she passed so she would know the trees were real. A stag startled and burst out in front of her. Bradamante chased the deer as long as she could. Then she turned from the dark woods back into the sunlit meadow. She stretched out her legs and ran to the limits of her lungs. Flying down the hill, she sped back to shore.

She bent over to catch her breath, then grinned up at Manat.

“Do you see?” Manat said. “This is who you are. I’ve been watching you for years, Bradamante, and tonight I finally saw what I was waiting for. You proved to me that in your heart you already know who you are.”

“What do you mean, who I am?”

“Look at yourself,” Manat answered. “Feel what it’s like to be inside that body and to think with that mind. What you and I are here in the white house is the best of what our souls have to offer. I’ve spent my life striving to become the woman I am here, and now it’s your turn. But to become this young woman,” Manat said, pointing to Bradamante, “you have to make a choice. And you have to make it tonight.”

“What choice?” Bradamante’s brain fogged with confusion. It was all coming too fast.

“Between the life you have now, and the larger life that awaits you.”

“What larger life? I don’t understand.”

“In your soul you’re a fighter, Bradamante—a warrior. Test your heart. You know it’s true.”

“A warrior,” Bradamante repeated, her heart pumping furiously. A strange heat sped through her veins. Her skin prickled, as though flames flickered just below the surface. Her heart felt suddenly larger—almost too large for a single body to contain. She imagined a mound of coals burning brightly in the center of her chest, heating her body from the inside out. Her fingers tingled. Her entire body crackled with energy, as if she were standing in an open field during a lightning storm. Bradamante pressed her hand against her chest, trying to contain the flames.

“Am I really a warrior, Manat?”

“You can be, if you choose that life and work hard to have it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I am this young woman’s teacher,” Manat answered, pointing to the grown Bradamante. “I have been training her since she was twelve.”