Oracle (Book I)

The Western Gardens

History lessons were not held outside on the Mederi's ship again, but Professor Volkorn did continue to tell his adventures as a start for his lectures thereafter, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. That day, Caprice stayed afterwards and approached the professor about their next lesson.

"I have a question about the test, professor—"

Professor Volkorn held up a hand, stopping her.

"Don't worry about the test, Miss Bilberry. It is well-documented that conquerors like the Yurogheeans falsify history. I won't ask you to memorize their lies. Just be familiar with them. I daresay people would falsify the facts of the weather were no one able to go outside and look for themselves. It is one thing to tell a story from one's perspective. Completely another to edit, omit, and embellish as you see fit. Testing students on lies only serves to reinforce the lies as historical truth."

Volkorn cleared away the final item on his desk. The polished surface was as good as new, its only blemish a dark ring where an ink well or a teacup might've overstayed its welcome up until that moment.

Professor Volkorn did something he'd never done before in the now quiet schoolroom devoid of his pupils. He stood and walked from row to row, straightening chairs and rubbing smudges off the surface of the desks, voicing softly and absently the names of each of the students who sat in each chair.

"Miss Bossa was here." He smiled at that and laughed just a little. "She preferred the version of history least edited by conquerors, that is for certain."

Caprice looked on in soft, quiet horror. She didn't know why she did it but as Professor Volkorn came to the desk nearest her, she opened her arms and hugged him.

"Oh, Professor," she said tearfully, "what's wrong?"

Professor Volkorn returned the hug with a good squeeze. He only shook his head as he pulled away from her. With wet, shiny eyes, he rubbed her arm from shoulder to elbow, seeming to be comforting himself more than anything. He patted her near the shoulder, then ended the contact.

"We'll meet again, Miss Bilberry," Fahim said. "I'm sure of it. I must be...or all of this has been for nothing."

White light ate at Caprice's vision. She was shouting something. Not again. Not now. She felt her hand gripping Professor Volkorn's arm and holding on tight. Fahim's tearful, smiling face faded into the eerie brightness, subsumed. Disappeared.

     Caprice awakened in her bed and very confused. The room wobbled, the afterimage of Volkorn's schoolroom and the door, the end of her bed, and Nezzle's bed and wardrobe warped, twisted, and overlapped in a disorienting mess right before her eyes.

"Where am I-- How did I--? Nezzle, Bossa?!" she cried. Half-remembered words and voices echoed and jumbled around inside her skull.

This place isn't—

Only those who grasp the past can forge the future...

You won't remember this anyway. None of you ever do...

We'll meet again, Miss Bilberry...

The voices subsided almost as quickly as they'd come but a panging in her head had her squeezing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, the jumbled voices and hissing echoes stopped.

What was even more confusing about this barely-dawn morning was that Bossa woke up as bewildered as Caprice.

Bossa stirred in her hammock. She grasped her head in one hand; the other hand was on Fritter who had been sleeping on her stomach in a little ball. Sitting up had moved the feline into her lap.