When I arrive back at my crib that evening, I find another gift waiting for me on my pillow. This time it is a jewel encrusted sphere made of fine gold filament that I can hide in my hand. I notice that it is filled with something that, when I sniff it, it fills me with memories of home – not here on the Planet Alfea but on Terra – and a feeling of terrible homesickness. For some reason, I spin the sphere on the tip of my fingernail and, as it spins, it flashes and I am drawn into its trance.
I am a four-year old child in my home village in Italy. My name is Ishandra as is my mother's. It is an ancient name derived from the phrase Isha E'andra which means "wise woman" in a long dead language. The villagers, however, find it too difficult to call me "Little Ishandra" to distinguish me from my mother so they call me "Isha" which, strangely enough, is the element from my mother's name that means "woman". My father is an English sea captain and owner of three ships that sail the world in search of the odd and the unusual which are sold in our village's market. His ships are famous and collectively known in England as "TheTrio" and in our home port in Italy as "LeTrix". There is the large, double-hulled Icy that has sailed the frigid waters from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Darcy is the dark one. She is a smaller ship built for speed rather than cargo space with sleek black lines and a pitch-black hull. She glides into dangerous ports to take on small but precious cargoes and to sail them swiftly and safely back to our port in Italy often hotly pursued by pirate and brigand ships lusting for the treasures she holds. Often these pursuing ships would sail straight into the muzzles of the heavy shore batteries of our port that spew a deadly cross-fire of chained shot, canister, grenades and shrapnel at any invading ships. Finally, there is Stormy. Perhaps the bravest of the three, Stormy is famous far and wide for her many dangerous voyages around the Horn of Africa and her daring voyages to the New World. No matter which of his three ships my father sails, his voyages leave my mother and I on our own for much of the year, however, we are well provided for and we live comfortably in one of the richest and well-furnished houses in our village.
My Italian mother is considered a beauty in our village. She is tall and slender but still winsome with her jet-black tresses, dark brown eyes and Mediterranean olive skin. I am her image in miniature except for the angularity of my face which is a trait from my father and his family.
This day, I am standing beside my mother holding her hand while she talks to the owner of a fruit stall. I am hungry and want to ask her to give me something to eat but I behave as she has taught me and remain silent while she continues to talk. Then I spy a juicy, red apple perched on top of a pile of other apples. I hold out my hand and thinking of my hunger I bid the apple to come to me and as I do it lifts itself from the top of the pile and floats into my waiting hand. Both my mother and the fruit stall owner witness my little feat. The fruit stall owner looks shocked and as if she is about to scream but my mother makes quick and subtle gesture with her hand and then she is smiling benignly at my mother as she drops coins into her hand the incident seemingly banished from her mind.
"Sweet child," she tells my mother as I happily munch on my prize apple.
"Thank you," replies my mother and smiles. She then grabs my hand so tightly that I almost cry out and departs quickly from the fruit stall.
The walk home that day is not our usual casual, chatty stroll but a quick silent march. I become fearful as I become more and more certain that a spanking is awaiting me at home for taking the apple without asking. Imagine my surprise when we get inside and my mother bolts the door then she sweeps me up and hugs me.
"Isha! That was marvellous!" she whispers with pride gleaming in her eyes. "That was your first feat of levitation and telekinesis. I'm so proud of you!"
But then her expression becomes so serious and she frowns and I, fearing that I was still in store for a sound spanking, burst into tears. "I'm sorry, Mamma!" I blubber, the tears falling from my eyes. "I was so hungry and the apple was there so I wished for it in my mind. I didn't know that it would come to me, honest," I beseech her crying even harder.
"No, no, Isha!" replies my mother with tears in her own eyes and holding me even closer to her. "Calma ti! Don't fret about the apple. I know you are my precious little girl who would never steal anything. What happened at the fruit stall was a surprise even for me. I didn't know you had the power. Don't cry, Isha. Mamma is not angry with you."
After a few minutes, I do stop crying but my mother still has that serious look on her face. "Ishandra, listen to me," says my mother, her voice quiet and very serious. "There is something I need to tell you that you must listen to and swear to obey for the rest of your life."
"What is it, Mamma?" I ask feeling fearful again.
"Isha," continues my mother, "you must never do what you did at the market again without my supervision but, and more importantly, never, ever in front of other people – not even your father. Do you understand me, Ishandra?"
"But why, Mamma?" I ask feeling disappointed that I couldn't show Babbo when he got home.
"Isha, my sweet, we come from a long line of women with special talents and powers most other women of the world have not developed," she gently explains to me. "Most other women and especially all men are in fear of our special powers. They fear that our powers come from evil sources. They don't but people don't want to hear about it. They would rather believe the horrible myths and terrible lies that have been created about us than believe that there are natural forces they cannot see but which we can manipulate with our minds to do fantastic things. To them it is all 'black magic' and they fear it and will destroy anyone they believe possesses it – even a little girl and her mother."
"But Babbo?" I ask my mother in great disbelief. "Babbo would never harm or try to destroy us if he knew, would he?"
"No, Isha," replies my mother tenderly. "Babbo would still love us and would do all he could to defend his wife and his little girl even if he knew our secrets. Babbo is very enlightened for a man but we must keep him from knowing things about us that could put his life in great danger as well as ours. Do you understand, Ishandra? Babbo must never, ever know of our powers."
My mother, unlike most of the village women, is literate and true to her name she has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. My father encourages her to learn and on his voyages, he makes it a point to find books, scrolls and manuscripts to bring back to her on every subject and in every language imaginable. Through her studies, my mother becomes an expert in handling and investing money. My father soon entrusts her with all his land-based trade. Often times, while he is a sea, she has not only managed the sale of his cargoes but has reinvested a portion of the money from this into worthwhile projects within the village. In this manner, upon his return from sea, my father finds his profits increased by a full third or even a half. He, in turn, lavishes my mother with endless praise, admiration and all the love that he as a man is able to give her to which she responds like a flower in sunlight.
I inherit my mother's thirst for learning and from my father I learn English, map reading and the names of all the stars in our sky and how to tell time and navigate by them. From my mother I learn the subtleties of educated Italian and read from all the great writers and thinkers of our country. Together we learn Latin and Greek and all the important languages of commerce such as Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Of these languages my favourite is Arabic because it is so unlike the others with its gracefully flowing right-to-left script and its way of describing the world and its mysteries in a way that cannot be approached by other languages. When I turn twelve, I find that there is fair amount that can be made by waiting on the docks for the ships from Egypt, Morocco and Arabia. The sailors, who are largely illiterate and homesick, are so surprised to find in Italy this beautiful, unveiled girl who is so much like them and yet so different yet who can speak, read and write their language as if she were born knowing it. At first, there is great resistance to the idea of having me, a bold-faced, unveiled girl, speak for them but I quickly prove my value to them and soon the captains of these ships pay me with gold and silver coins to interpret for them and help them negotiate deals for their cargoes on shore. Often, for their cargoes, I negotiate the trade of items from my father's ships that sail waters that their ships can't or won't for items from where their ships go and ours don't. The items we trade them, they sell as rare commodities at their own far-off ports of call for ten and twenty times what they originally paid and we sell their goods at our ports of trade at the same increase and we all prosper. The common sailors pay me still more gold and silver coins to read and write letters from and to family, wives, sweethearts and friends and sometimes just to recite poetry and stories to them in the classical manner from their own lands.