Book of Earth

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“What?! Of course it hurts—you hit me!”

She glared at Manat, anger and disappointment bubbling in her chest. Why had she trusted her? Manat was no different from her mother—worse, in fact, since she’d tricked Bradamante into closing her eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“Clear your mind, Bradamante. Don’t let your feelings rule your thoughts. Just tell me, does it hurt?”

The question was so peculiar, Bradamante had to ponder before answering. Cautiously she raised her hand to her cheek. No, she realized with astonishment, it doesn’t hurt at all. She tried to recall everything she had felt: a brief, sharp sting; the weight of Manat’s fist against her cheek; her uncontrollable spin and fall into the sand.

“Does it?”

Slowly Bradamante shook her head.

“Good,” Manat said. “Come here.”

“No.”

“You have to trust me,” said Manat. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Trust you? You hit me! When my eyes were closed! How could you do that?”

“I did it to show you what’s possible. If we’re going to train here as hard as we must, you have to understand that you won’t be hurt. Nor will I. You have to be willing to fight as hard as you can, without fear.”

“You could have told me that.”

“No, I had to show you.”

“No,” Bradamante said. “You tricked me.”

Manat stepped forward casually, ignoring Bradamante’s upraised hands. “Try this,” Manat said. “Keep your eyes on my hands.”

Bradamante allowed her to come closer. Manat extended her hand and pinched the skin beneath Bradamante’s arm.

“Ow.”

“You see, then. That’s why I asked you to close your eyes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You felt that?”

“Yes.”

“Because you expected to feel it,” Manat said. “If you’d seen me raise my fist and hit you, you would have expected that pain as well.”

“Of course I would have.”

Manat calmly smiled. “Let go of your anger, Bradamante. You’ll understand as soon as you clear your mind.”

Reluctantly, Bradamante breathed deeply. Clear my mind ... forget what you did...

“Not forget,” Manat corrected, “simply release any feeling about it.”

Bradamante risked closing her eyes once more. Clear my mind...

She breathed deeply. In time her shoulders relaxed. The tension left her face. “All right. I’m ready.”

“The woman you are here,” Manat said, “knows how to control her pain. She knows because she has practiced. You and I have practiced.” Manat paused. “Perhaps you’ll understand it this way. Open your eyes.”

Manat closed her hand in a fist and opened it again to reveal an acorn. “What is inside this seed?”

“A future tree,” Bradamante answered.

“Yes. This seed is a possibility, isn’t it? If I plant it where it wants to grow, if I feed it rain and sun, it will open one day and become what it can. You and I are the same way. We hold within us the seed of what we can become. Everything you see in yourself here is possible for you. The woman you are now, here at the white house, is within you now, as a girl. You simply need training—like rain and sunshine. Do you understand?”

“You said she—I—know how to control my pain. But I don’t.”

“You do. You will. It takes time. Now, shall we begin with your mother?”

“What?” It was the last thing Bradamante had expected to hear.

Manat raised an eyebrow. “Did you want her to continue beating you?”

“No, I...” Bradamante’s cheeks reddened. She still felt strangely guilty letting someone else—even Manat—know the truth about her life. “No. I want it to stop. I want you to teach me what to do.”

“Good. Then let’s begin.”

For the next few hours Manat attacked her with slaps, hits, kicks, curses. She tripped her, scratched her, screamed at her, dragged her by her hair.

“Don’t ever strike back,” Manat warned, “only deflect—redirect. Take control like this.” She showed Bradamante some simple wrist locks that even a girl of Bradamante’s true size could use against someone larger. “Aggressors like your mother are all the same. They want easy prey. They don’t want to have to fight someone who will fight back. They’re like mountain lions—they grow tired very quickly. But don’t hurt her—that will never be necessary.”

Manat attacked her relentlessly, but none of it hurt. Each time Manat made contact, Bradamante felt the first twinge of pain, but it lasted only a moment. She didn’t bruise or bleed. Her body seemed to heal as quickly as Manat injured it.

“How is this possible?” Bradamante asked, flicking her tongue to the edge of her lip to taste blood that wasn’t there.

“Because you’re learning a different way to think. Back home, in your waking life, your body is everything. It carries your mind and decides what it will feel. Your body reaches out to touch things, it sees and smells them, and then your mind forms a judgment about how the world must be.

“In a vision, your mind is in control. Your mind carries your body. It decides what your body will feel. Your body will do whatever your mind asks of it here, because nothing stands between your desire to do something and your ability to accomplish it.”

Bradamante nodded, but she couldn’t hide her puzzlement.

“All right,” Manat said, “try this.” She squinted up at the clouds, then pointed. “See that bird? Go to it. Be inside it.”

Bradamante felt her stomach lurch. Her body jerked upward as though plucked from the ground by an unseen hand. Looking back to the beach she could see Manat, far below, shielding her eyes to look toward the sky.

She couldn’t immediately feel where she was. She could see the white house and the water and the shore as though from the back of the gull, but she knew she was too large to be perched on its back. She changed the way she saw. She tried looking at the scene from somewhere else, but all she saw was the seagull sailing through the air.

Bradamante closed her eyes and tried once more. This time she knew where she was. She was looking at the world from the eye sockets in the bird’s white head.

I am this bird. With that thought, her stomach lurched again as she fell toward the earth.

Manat’s voice came from somewhere beside her. “Move your wings.”

Bradamante could still see Manat standing on the shore, but she also felt Manat there inside the core of the bird, telling her how to move.

“Relax,” Manat coached. “Feel the air. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on seeing what you can from up here.”

Bradamante coasted along a current of air that flipped her to one side. She adjusted her wings to steady herself. She no longer felt sick from the motion, and her panic was beginning to subside. She tried to breathe normally. She tried not to think about anything, and just let her body move as it should.

“Are you seeing everything you can?” Manat asked.

Bradamante looked down toward the water. It was a clear, light blue-green. She saw fish of all sizes, some scurrying through the waves, some gliding beneath the surface where the water was deep and still. She saw other birds. They dove into the water, or skimmed the surface, or flew toward the high pines beyond the meadow.

“Can I go over there?”

“Go anywhere you want,” Manat answered.

Bradamante ducked her head into the wind and flew toward the forest. The trees were so densely packed that she couldn’t see anything beneath their crowns. She didn’t dare fly more deeply downward. She wasn’t sure how to land on the slender width of a branch, not sure at all how to stop the sailing motion and halt her flight so that she wouldn’t crash into the sharp needles or fall rapidly to the ground. So she turned again to the sea.

“Turn your wings up, Bradamante—toward the wind. Try it.”

She did, and plunged toward the earth.

“Again. Quickly! Try again.”

The abrupt descents and ascents made Bradamante feel ill again. I need this to stop, she thought. Just help me to stop.

“All right, that’s enough,” said Manat.

Bradamante stood beside her again, two feet, two arms, and suddenly very heavy. “Sit down if you need to,” Manat said, and Bradamante’s legs collapsed.

“I’m going to—” Bradamante bent forward and vomited onto the sand. When she was empty, she raised her head and smiled. “Oh, Manat!” She thought again of being free, with nothing around her but the air. “That was wonderful! What else can I do?”

“Many things. Your mind is a powerful weapon—more powerful than you know. Most of us underestimate how much we can do. But you need to train your mind, just as you train your body. The greatest warriors don’t rely solely on their physical strength. Often you’ll be smaller and weaker than your opponents. What you must have is an invincible mind. Strategy and faith are more important than physical strength.”

“Strategy and faith,” Bradamante repeated. She liked the sound of both.

Bradamante wondered afterward if she had baited her mother. Maybe, she thought, she put herself in harm’s way, just to see what would happen. She wasn’t as careful as she usually was to keep from looking her mother in the eye, or to stay near Rinaldo and far from Aya.

Baited or not, the time came soon enough when Aya lashed out at her daughter again.

And this time Bradamante was ready.

She raised a skinny wrist to block her mother’s outstretched nails. She stepped aside and batted away her mother’s kick. She moved deftly in a circle, staying just out of reach, until Aya panted in frustration and effort, staring at the girl with wide, amazed eyes.

Aya said nothing, but simply walked away.

The second time Aya acted with more stealth. But Bradamante heard her coming from behind and twisted with her arms already raised, her hands poised to protect her face. She sheltered her body from the short rash of blows, until once again Aya retreated in frustration.

One more attack, and that was all. Manat had been right. Aya was too weak to continue fighting. Bradamante had won without ever harming her mother.

By the time a short layer of hair covered her bare scalp again, her mother’s beatings had stopped. From then on, whatever rage Aya felt she expressed in glares and muttered curses.

“Manat, tell me,” Bradamante asked one night, “why does my mother hate me so much?”

Manat lifted her eyes from the book on her lap. “Does it matter who loves you and who doesn’t? What would it change?”

“I just want to know. Please. If you know why, tell me.”

“There is a better question to ask. Ask what good comes from having a mother who doesn’t love you.”

“No good comes from that,” Bradamante answered sullenly. She drew her legs beneath her robe and feathered the end of her braid with her finger.

“That’s not true. You should realize you wouldn’t be who you are if not for your circumstances—all of them. Examine your life. What good is coming to you?”

Bradamante sighed. “Freedom, I suppose.”

“Good. If your mother loved you, she would raise you to become a different woman than you are. Instead of spending your days in the wild, you would have sat at her knee learning to sew and spin. You would spend your girlhood learning the skills of a country wife. You would look toward a future that isn’t yours.

“Because your mother doesn’t love you, you can grow to become someone else—the woman you are here. Your circumstances allow you to become strong.

“Now back to your lessons,” Manat said, pointing at the book Bradamante had been reading. “I won’t have an illiterate pupil.”

Bradamante lay on the grassy bank of the stream while her brother fished for trout.

“Why won’t you believe me?”

“Because,” Rinaldo answered, “they’re just dreams. You know that.”

Bradamante sighed. “Visions.”

She rolled onto her belly and reached down to the muddy edge of the water, and carved a word in the soft earth.

Rinaldo glanced over. “What’s that?”

“My name.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“Manat.” Bradamante swept her palm across the mud. She traced a different series of lines and curves. “This is ‘Rinaldo.’”

Rinaldo studied the markings. “Hm.” He returned his attention to the fishing line. “They’re not biting today. We’ll have to get something else. Want to go back for our bows?”

“No, let’s just stay here.” Bradamante rolled onto her back again and stared up at the trees. “Are you ever going to believe me?”

“I’m sorry. A dream is a dream. It’s not real. Just because you dreamed you can fly doesn’t mean you really can.”

“I know that. I told you, Manat said I was just seeing out of the bird’s eyes. What about the other things? Where did I learn how to fight? How did I learn how to read? How did I learn to write our names?”

“How do you know those are our names? All I saw were lines.”

“I never met someone so stubborn.”

“Then look in the water at your own reflection.”

Bradamante groaned. She draped her arm over her eyes. She hadn’t counted on her brother being so difficult. She had meant to teach him everything she learned. Now he was so far behind. How was he ever going to catch up?

An idea wormed into her thoughts. Bradamante smiled to herself. She rolled onto her stomach again and dangled her hand in the stream. She stirred the water with her fingers.

“Don’t,” Rinaldo said. “You’ll scare the fish.”

A shadow scurried through the water—a nice fat trout. Rinaldo pulled up his line and dropped it again downstream of the fish.

Slowly, Bradamante turned her hand over, palm up. She crooked her finger beneath the water’s edge, beckoning the trout.

“Brad, come on. Stop.”

The fish darted past Bradamante’s hand, then past Rinaldo’s line. Suddenly it reversed course and swam upstream toward them. Bradamante continued crooking her finger slowly, rhythmically.

The trout swam onto her palm.

Bradamante pulled the fish from the stream and knocked its head against a rock. She handed it to Rinaldo. “I’m going to take a walk.”

Rinaldo stared at the fish, then at his sister as she padded down the trail through the trees.

“Where did you learn that?” he called after her.

“Manat.”