Divine

Chapter 10: Advice From Hecate

Pierce

The Fates were my first stop but the minute I walked in, they sneered and glared at me in turns. I shrugged in what I hoped seemed apologetic as I began going through all the newly cut threads next to Atropos. The crone walked away from her section of the room to where Clotho was and began muttering, angrily from what small parts I heard.

There was a minimum they had to cut a day as Clotho spun an equal number to compensate for the loses, but usually Atropos had cut a fair amount more than Clotho could spin. One time I had tried to tell her to not cut as much as she did and her answer was something along the lines of her cutting mine instead of the extras and surprisingly enough I didn't agree to that deal.

I sighed as I memorized the number and walked over to Clotho and Lachesis' shared pile. And after I had finished, the number was smaller than the one from before. I went to the paper on the wall and wrote down the two numbers, sighing as I looked back at their glares and walked down the hallway towards Hecate's room.

Out of the three regular stops I made daily, Hecate's was the one that I almost enjoyed. She could be scary at times but usually she was fairly easy, she didn't resent my checking on her like the others did and that made it easier.

I tapped on the larger, heavier wooden door that guarded her room and heard the flurry sound as she came to open it. She was almost never in her room when I came to check and I knew that, but somehow whenever I knocked she would appear in less than a minute to open it. The door swung open easily and she smiled at me from the other side.

I will admit she was beautiful but like I have also said, they were all beautiful. And hers was more of a dark beauty, like there was a shadow hanging over her head constantly. Dark waves of hair that were long enough to touch her waist and a dark cast over eyes that never seemed to be the same color from one day to the next. Today they were darker than usual, which gave her a demonic appearance as she peered at me from behind the door.

"Yes, Pierce?" she asked me as I stood there and didn't say anything for a while. The way her eyes looked right then was throwing me off enough that I couldn't remember why I was checking on her.

"Uh, I was just. . ." I was stuttering, I knew that but I couldn't really think. I glanced behind her into the room to distract myself from her.

It looked generally the same, stone walls with a darker shadow, even with the black stone lamps that were casting flickering firelight over the room. Her perfectly made bed was there, the closet that wasn't technically a closet, the dresser of identical drawers that were in every furnished room, the scattering of ornaments that I couldn't comprehend the use of, and all the other witchy things lying about the room. She even had the mirror lying out on her bed.

"Pierce, the status of . . . well, everything is the same," she said, rising up on her toes to catch my eyes with hers again. "Are you okay?" she asked me sincerely.

I opened my mouth to reply that I was fine but my throat kept me from letting any sound out. I finally just sighed and gave up saying anything. Besides, Hecate was definitely smart enough to see through any lie I could say.

She sighed and gently took hold of my arm to pull me inside the room with her. "Okay, now sit down and tell me what's wrong," she said in a sigh as she let go of my arm and turned to shut the door.

I settled down on the bed carefully, I had never actually been inside her room before, so it was weird when she turned back to me and settled back against the dresser with a waiting look on her pale face. "There's a new girl here," I started slowly, I wasn't quite sure that's what was bothering me but I went ahead and said it anyways.