Oracle (Book I)

Myth of The First

With nothing left to do but loiter in a room full of strangers or go find Bossa, Caprice waited for two girls to exit the stairs then headed up into Kinshara's Garden.

Each solid gold sconce between the doors lining the hall was molded into the shape of a flourishing flower or plant and embedded with a luminous crystal. The sound of a sitar and drumming rose from somewhere. No one else looked lost, so Caprice held her head up and tried to look like she knew what she was doing as well. She did her best not to attract attention by not looking at anyone (except for a quick glance at girl whose hair was a crown of living red and orange flames).

Realizing she had no idea which room belonged to Bossa and Nezzle, she walked straight down the hall and into the bulb shaped turnaround. All the doors here were closed except for one.

"Bossa," she called. A little louder, she tried again. She jumped when Bossa's disembodied voice called back.

"Caprice, down here!" Luckily, the reply was coming from the open door.

Caprice stepped inside...and knew even without Bossa' saying another word that she was in the right place.

Books. Everywhere. Two beds were stacked on top of each other on the wall to her left; the bottom bed was messy and unmade, using the top to hang sheets for a canopy. The bed on top was made but covered in books. The floor to ceiling window on the center wall overlooked a field and a dark line of trees. Only one of the room's lamps was lit. In the center of the room was a scorched spot in the floor where the coral-colored carpet was singed away; whatever was beneath was so charred that Caprice couldn't tell if it was stone or hardwood. There were four narrow and tall wardrobes. The fourth was crammed in a the corner behind the door and overflowed with tomes.

Thumbing through the book she'd had in her hand earlier, Bossa lay in a gold, purple, and orange hammock that was strung in the corner diagonally from a perfectly made, unoccupied bed. What seemed to be her belongings were arranged underneath the hammock—a trunk, a large rucksack, a few books, and sheafs of blank paper.

"Close that, will you?" Bossa gestured at the door. "It's always so noisy on the first day back."

With the door closed, the sounds from outside dulled considerably.

"So, what do you think? Ready to change rooms already?" Bossa grinned.

Caprice shook her head. She looked at the unoccupied bed. Then she looked out the window into the dark. Around this time in the village where she had lived her entire life, the quarters where everyone was kept at night were quiet as a grave. They didn't speak and they didn't move. They were watched the closest when there was no work getting done. When there was nothing to keep them busy.

"What. Don't tell me you're scared to talk to me."

Looking away from the window, Caprice hesitated then nodded.

"Why?"

"We're not supposed to talk to one another."

"Where do think you are?" When no answer came, Bossa sighed, "Fine. I'll talk. I'll tell you a bedtime story. So settle in. Then I'll start."

It does seem silly to sit here not speaking. We're not in the village ruts afraid to breathe too loud and get lashed. Caprice tried to think of something to say. Anything.

"Nezzle disappeared in the dining hall."

Bossa rocked her body until the hammock swung from side to side. "Sorry, Nezzle does that. She's wicked fast at Apparition. Betiding and evanescing. Poofing from one place to another."

Caprice nodded. She knew what it was, but, like so much of magic, she wasn't allowed to do it.

"She's probably in the Library right now. It's rude but she makes up for it." Bossa sat up. Wriggling and turning this way and that, she stripped to her undergarments: a strange, very short chemise and, even more strange, a much smaller pair of breeches than the ones she'd worn earlier. With a grunt, she resettled herself in the hammock and set it to swaying again.