Oracle (Book I)

Earth & Sky

Deep orange and red sunset pressed at the darkness and shadows of Trelawney's Loft. The light brightened everything in the sight of the wide, high concave bay window but it did not reach into the darkness permeating the rest of the chamber. The only furniture visible in the room was a small round table standing on high thin legs centered a few feet from the window. There was a lavender porcelain pitcher on the table. It sat alongside a narrow, crystal bulb vase bearing a single purple neverwither.

Sitting on the wide sill in the window against its right wall, Earithean stared out over the grounds of the Wilds. How she wished she could see the end of this long story. But she couldn't see anything that the Oracle didn't show her.

There was something in the room with her. Her gaze shifted away from the window, looking into the corner in front of her. Something was definitely there. Earithean did not search for it or call out to it. Nor did she attempt to imagine what it was. It was probably hiding from the same thing she couldn't hide from. She would leave it to itself without giving away it's presence in this room. Whatever it was, it was already in Merlin's web.

"There you are, Earithean."

Unannounced as usual, Nobles walked down the room towards her and started talking.

"That cursed friegle knows." Skyla shuddered. "Its been leading the Bilberry girl all around the school at night...close to the Eastern Wing."

"Friegles are vextiously intelligent creatures. Furthermore, there is no way to know what they are thinking most of the time. The only thing we can do is make sure they don't get too close to it. Or go inside." Sighing inwardly at the intrusion on her quiet, Earithean continued, "The incident in your Basics class. I heard that the Whitehare boy threw a fit." She supposed it wasn't an intrusion to someone who still viewed you as a table they owned that spontaneously hemmed their skirts and darned their stockings whenever they laid them nearby.

"Positively rioting. After I took him to my office, I couldn't work out the enchantments at all so I had to call Professor Mosshue in to handle it. Enchantments are his area after all. One of us will have to speak with Alastair's parents about the matter if he is to have things back the way they were. No doubt Mr. Whitehare and Mrs. Whitehare need to have a very long discussion with the boy..." Nobles paced on the spot and kept talking. "I don't understand how a student was able to break such a powerful enchantment with a simple Dispelling. Were it so easy a task, someone should've accidentally broken it long ago."

Things couldn't ever go back to the way they were. No magic existed that could completely conceal truth no matter what lengths a witch goes to. Once you know, you cannot give back what is learned.

"Is it so difficult to believe that some students are just that talented and powerful?"

"It isn't very likely." Nobles looked at Earithean incredulously, almost as if she'd suddenly said or done something silly. "You have so much faith in those three?"

"Why don't you?" Earithean returned.

"They are children. If I, nor even you, cannot break a single one of the simplest of enchantments biding Oracle then how can they?"

"Are they?"

"What?"

"Children, you said."

The white witch's eyes narrowed. "Is that what this is about? Or is it about you and me?"

Earithean looked out the window. "It doesn't matter."

"You once told me your true name," Nobles said quietly.

"And you took it and bound my magic." Though she said it plainly enough, an old sorrow and anger resounded inside of her.

"Knowing what I know now, do you still think that I agree with any of this? We are all of us trapped here. All of us merely a means to an end. In any event, isn't this what you've always wanted? To be suddenly told it was all over. To be told that you are free. Oracle gives that to children like them."

"Again, are they children? You can only be a child if you have a childhood. You can only call it a childhood if you're free to live it. Isn't that why your kind doesn't see them as children after you've taken everything away from them? Even their lives."

"You didn't answer my question. Any degree of freedom for people like you is worth something, isn't it?"

Nobles didn't seem to see the irony of her ignoring Earithean's questions at all.

"Yes... The truth is, I wouldn't believe it even if it did happen. Look here at us standing here. Nothing has changed. Only you are no more freer than I am. Whatever rationalization you invent, in any event, it changes nothing."

"This is what they will get. It's all there is for them."

"You decided that. That was always the problem with your people." Earithean moved around and put her legs over the sill. Sliding down to stand, she gathered her robes around her and walked toward the door in the floor.

"There are things that fly in the skies and things that walk the earth. It is a shame we can't choose what we are. Ere—"

Earithean stopped and rounded sharply on the other woman.

"Never call me by that name. As though you were my sister." For the first time in many years, disgust and hate flashed on her face. "Never again, Skyla Oathbreaker. And those children? They have been forced to endure things that, were they the color of milk, would make you cry yourself to sleep and weep through the night. The Suhngha have endured. Still, they rise. I, for one, believe in them. The Oracle has not shown me  what will happen to you or any of us. But if they cannot do it, no one can. We will serve the Headmaster's purpose. Even for you, that will be the end."