WOLVES DON'T TALK

Chapter 18. THE KEY

Pythia reached in her pocket and added the third coin to the other two lying in the palm of her hand.

"I'm proud of you, Carmen," she said.

Her praise made my heart pound with joy. Being lost in the forest, crazy animals, the weird old wolf, and the fire surrounding us did not matter just then. I'd kept my promise to the lady by finding her key and returning her magic, which would stop anything from harming me as long as I stood by her side. I knew that.

"Now, tell me about the coins," Pythia ordered.

"W," I said, pointing to the first one. "I found it when the rabbit trampled my fingers."

I felt like a fool just thinking about it and how I'd been hurt because I'd tried to convince myself that Ashley and her dumb saying about not knowing something would keep you safe. My sore fingers proved that denying reality and the facts that went with it could be very dangerous indeed.

"And the next one?" Pythia pressed on.

"H," I said.

I'd found that one by the chemical dump. I considered it my reward for having enough sense to get the heck out of that place and go looking for more information to learn about it. I'd hoped to get back to the wolf, figuring he would know but, so far, hadn't been able to do that.

"And the last one?" Pythia held up the final coin, the one I'd taken off the white rabbit and the wretched fox.

"Y," I said, knowing it had to be the letter on the coin without even bothering to inspect its surface.

I'd been rewarded with its discovery when I'd finally recognized the rabbit for what he really was. I'd learned how ignorance and hate and greed can hide behind beautiful faces and smooth words. I could still feel a ball of anger rising inside me as I thought about how they'd tried to kill the wolf just because he was smart and different, making him an easy target for their evil stupidity. They'd also been more than willing to sacrifice Pythia to gain the shiny coins that provided her the key she needed to survive in an ignorant world.

But none of that mattered anymore because the key was in her hand and my head. I would never forget those letters that glistened in the light of the fire surrounding us as we stood calmly admiring their existence.

"W," I said, reaching out to touch and caress the first one. "H," I added, tracing the letter on the coin with my fingers. "Y," I finished, staring at the secret of the third one, the one I'd guessed without setting eyes on it, knowing as I spoke that my guessing days were over. I had the key of knowledge in front of me and all I would ever have to ask was WHY and the secrets of the entire universe would begin to bend to my inquiries. How amazing is that.

The flames surged around us as I glowed in the joy of my discovery. Pythia bent over me and encircled me in her arms. I could feel the scales on her skin as she wrapped around me and finally dissolved into the serpent I'd always feared her to be.

"We will travel now," she hissed, grasping me tightly in her coils and forcing the surrounding forest and fire to fade into a world of dark nothingness.

Sometime, someplace later, I opened my eyes and found myself in an eerie world coated in a grey mist. Pythia stood next to me in her original form, looking once again like a white statute of an ancient Greek woman. Stone pillars rose nearby on a cold marble floor. The mist kept shifting around us, but near as I could tell we'd traveled to an ancient Roman or Greek temple in another time, another land.

A woman wrapped in a sparkling white robe sat nearby, shuffling small square tiles and organizing the results of the shuffle into neat rows on a table in front of her. A streak of jealousy shot through me as I stared at her. Even the mist could not block the perfection of her profile or dim the rich tones of the thick black hair hanging over her shoulders and down her back. When she focused her attention away from the tiles and onto the two of us, her brilliant violet eyes sparkled with knowledge and a stunning sense of calm.

"Ah, it's the Greek," she said, looking at Pythia. "Come to share your prophecies with me before slithering off with the rest of your serpent clan and swallowing someone whole?"

I admit I trembled pretty solidly when I heard this.

"Ah, it's the Roman," Pythia hissed softly. "Still playing with magic letters?"

"How did the ones I gave you work out?" the woman replied, ignoring Pythia's cool response, completely unconcerned with her snaky nature. I'm sure she knew what I learned much later: Pythia's serpent clan had their niche in nature and served it well.

"We have them all. Show them to the Lady Carmenta," Pythia directed as she nudged me toward the beautiful woman.

"Carmenta?" I choked out, not believing I'd heard correctly.

"Oh, yes, Carmenta, the deity, the charm, the song, the magic spell, the great Roman oracle, the Great Diviner, Car the Wise to some," Pythia replied.

I stumbled forward with my mouth hanging open, stretching out the palm of my sweaty hand and offering the three coins up to the beautiful woman. Her touch felt like velvet when she retrieved them from my grasp. I shuddered as she took them, feeling both stunned and confused at learning about another Great Diviner and another Carmen like myself.

"Yes," she simply said, examining each one carefully and then laying it on the table in front of her with the collection of tiles. "These will help."

"What .?" I started to ask.

"I'm making an alphabet," she responded coolly.

I bent over the table and noted an odd letter on each of the tiles and then watched as they literally shifted in the mist to form other letters, more like those in the alphabet I used; not quite the same but close.

"Carmenta is rumored to have invented the Latin alphabet, changing our elegant Greek letters to Roman trash, but never mind," Pythia interjected, sounding somewhat snotty.

But I didn't care, Carmenta had me under her spell. She and I shared a name. I could see strength in her calm violet eyes and almost feel knowledge seeping out of her elegant self. Sensing my awe, the lady took my hand and clasp it between her palms.

"Pythia is a great oracle," she said. "She believes in you. The day will come when you will matter to more than just a few. You needed help understanding your own powers and now you have it," she added, motioning to the coins on the table.

I almost snorted at this; she had to be mistaken. Both of them had to be wrong about me, a helpless kid. But I contained myself and stood there respectfully, feeling secretly flattered they thought me worth their time and prophesies.

"Yes," I finally replied, not knowing what else to say as I stared at them.

Carmenta smiled at this and nodded to Pythia, who joined the Roman oracle by my side. Then without any warning, much like everything else that had happened to me in the past few days, Carmenta stood up and commanded the universe to do her bidding.

"Now, go," she instructed and the mist responded, swirling wildly around the three of us. I reached out to both women but they didn't reach back and I watched helplessly as they faded in its gloom.

Once again, I awoke later, this time lying on a mat of dead grass in the clearing where I'd fought with the wretched fox and the huge rabbit. Thankfully, both of them were gone. Orange flames danced around the clearing now. I half sobbed as I rose to my feet and then almost fell over when I saw a small golden key slip from my fist and drop to the ground.