Silver Threads
by Patricia CorrellIt is midday when we reach the place where the Oracle dwells. In accordance with tradition we set two camps, one for each family. Ours is at the very edge of the meadow, far from the trampled path that leads to the Oracle’s home. Circles of scorched grass show that another party has camped here recently.
Tonight the groom and his closest male relatives will visit the Oracle, but my sister Parna and my mother and aunts and I have to wait until tomorrow morning. When I asked why we had to wait, Mother said it always happens that way.
I want to take my horse and explore the forest all around us, but Father says no without even looking at me. He’s talking to Parna’s future father-in-law. There’s no use even asking Mother. She and the aunts are all fussing over my sister, making her comfortable in her white tent.
So I cross the meadow to the other camp to look for Jaim. I didn’t know Jaim until six days ago, when our families met at the city gates to start the journey to this place. He’s the second-youngest cousin of the groom, exactly my age, so we were stuck riding almost at the very end of the party, right in front of the wagon where all the really little kids were. The babies can’t talk, and behind them were just the servants, so we only had each other for company.
The people in the other camp don’t even notice me. I’m just another child in the way. Finally a man with eyebrows like white caterpillars glances up from making a fire and tells me Jaim is helping to put up his parents’ tent. He is, too - crouched on the ground and pounding a stake with a wooden mallet.
"Jaim."
He squints in the sunlight. "Oh. Irix."
"Will you be finished soon?"
"Yes…wait just a moment." He bites his lip and gives the stake two more whacks. The sun makes his brown hair flame red and gold. "It’s finished."
We flee the noise and confusion of the camp and go to the forest. Near the Oracle path is a huge tree covered in grayish-green leaves, with lots of low branches, so we climb it. I go higher than he does, and we sit for a long time and watch the families skittering around like insects.
"I can’t wait to see the Oracle," I tell him. "I heard she has three heads and six legs and a tail like a tiger. Each head tells you one thing about your future. Her tail is striped orange and black."
"How do you know? I bet you’ve never seen a tiger." Jaim plucks a leaf off the tree and chews it, thinking.
"No. I saw a mural in the Temple when we went to get permission for Parna’s marriage. There was a tiger fighting a unicorn for the honor of the Sun Goddess. There was blood everywhere."
"I didn’t go to the Temple with Kharis."
I feel a little guilty. Jaim isn’t a close enough relative of the groom. He couldn’t go to the Temple, and he won’t get to see the Oracle. "I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow when we get back, I promise."
"Yes." He doesn’t sound happy.
The vague babble of voices and noise from the meadow is gentle, like a faraway waterfall, and suddenly I’m tired. I close my eyes against the glaring sun. When I open them again Jaim is standing tiptoe on his lower branch, shaking me.
"Wake up! Your mother’s calling you."
I blink several times, and when my eyes focus I see Mother, glaring up at us from the ground. Her long red dress looks like a splash of blood on the grass.
"Irix!" She sounds like an angry hen. A high, squabbling tone. "Come down here! It’s time for lunch!"
The smell of roasting meat drifts up to my tree branch. My stomach gurgles, but I can’t eat yet. I have to serve Parna first, and sit with my aunts while she eats with her future in-laws. Over in the other camp Kharis’ brothers will be doing the same thing with my parents.
Jaim shrugs apologetically. I sigh, but not so loudly that Mother can hear me, and begin the descent to the meadow.
That evening the families gather to watch Kharis and the men go to the Oracle. I manage to slip away from the women and Jaim and I sit in the branches of the same tree, which gives an excellent view of the path. It is only twilight, but the forest is a gaping shadow against a sky streaked with fire.
The men walk in pairs, father and brothers and uncles, led by Kharis, who holds a lantern. He looks striking, dressed in formal clothing, long rusty hair held back with a gold ornament. His cloak sways as he walks, revealing its shiny red lining. His head is held straight, his face grave.
They enter the gash between the trees without hesitation. I peer into the gloom, watching the flame of the lantern dance until it is finally swallowed by the darkness.
Whatever the men hear from the Oracle tonight will never be repeated to anyone. Kharis can't tell any woman what she says. And she can never tell him or any other man what she learns.
"Hey Irix, are you ever going to get married?"
Any lady should slap a man who asks such an impertinent question. But Jaim is two branches below me and I can’t reach him. "No!"
"Why not?"
Because once Parna is married, she’ll have to do whatever her husband says. Because I want to become a lady soldier like in the legend of the Gresha women. Because I’m tired of always being told to hush or come here or stop asking questions.
But it might be nice to be important for once. For Mother to pamper me like she does Parna, to have my whole family travel for days just so I can see the Oracle and have her tell me something, something secret and just for me.
"I don’t know. I just don’t want to."
"I will," Jaim yawns. "I want to have someone to take care of the house when I’m gone. I’ll be gone a lot when I’m a sea captain."
Annoyance flares up in me, though I’m not sure why. Without a word I start climbing down.
"Where are you going?"
"I’m tired." When I hit the ground my knees are trembling, though whether from weariness or anger I don’t know. I leave Jaim, invisible in the leaves, and stalk back to my family’s camp.
By the time Kharis and his men return I am asleep.
I am already up when Aunt Liel comes to wake me. When she braids my hair she pulls so hard that tears start in my eyes. She rushes out, snapping that I should stop mooning and help my sister dress.
But I can’t help it. This is the first long dress I’ve ever worn. The hem brushes the straps of my sandals, and the green velvet is soft. Usually I wouldn’t wear a long dress for another two years, but this is a special event.
At breakfast I’m the only one who eats anything. Parna fiddles with her hair ornaments so much that Aunt Sabura has to take it all down and pin it up again.
Everyone watches as we file out of the tent, Parna first, Mother and I behind her, and the aunts trailing us. I see Jaim, peering from behind his father’s shoulder, chewing a piece of toasted bread.
Parna walks slowly, and it seems like years before we reach the border between the bright meadow and the forest’s shade. The path is wide, and I see now that it is paved with stones worn even by thousands of feet.
The air is cool, much better than the dry air of the meadow. Narrow blades of sunlight cut through the trees to illuminate tiny white flowers in the undergrowth. Parna trudges ahead, as if she’s going to an executioner rather than a fortune teller. I try to keep my skirt from catching on brambles.
The Oracle’s dwelling is a cave set deep in the side of a hill. The entrance is guarded by a pair of massive pillars carved to resemble Gaion and Gorax, twin gods of wisdom. They look fierce with their long curled beards draped over the tablets they clutch in their hands. I strain to see, but within the entrance there is only darkness.
Parna freezes. Behind us my aunts whisper to each other. Mother clears her throat. "It’s all right, child. Every woman does this."
But she doesn’t move, and I know she can’t, like the time we were caught stealing bay fruit from the orchard, and she couldn’t run away even when I pulled her arm as hard as I could.
I reach forward and grab her hand. Her skin is soft, and she trembles. Mother looks at me, but she isn’t glaring like I expected. I squeeze, and Parna glances back at me with a tight, worried smile. I smile back and drop her hand. Her shoulders move as she takes several deep breaths, and she steps forward hesitantly, like a frightened deer.
But before she can go far a figure appears in the darkness of the cave. One minute there’s only black, and the next a faint shimmer of silver mist. I peer over Parna’s shoulder, watching the shape come closer, becoming more distinct. It’s a woman with long dark hair pulled loosely back. The silver mist is a dress of soft wavy fabric that looks like spider webs, like it might fall apart if touched. The woman is young, I think, but older than Parna.
She stands in front of my sister, regarding her with no expression. "Welcome, bride."
Her voice is low, for Parna alone, and I have to lean forward to hear her.
"The Oracle is waiting." She turns and flows back into the cave. Parna follows slowly, and the rest of us after her, a train of women.
The transition from light to dark is so abrupt that colored spots dance in front of my suddenly blinded eyes. I fear stumbling, but the path is as smooth and flat inside the Oracle’s lair as it is without. The cave is cool and smells like water. Before my eyes have a chance to adjust, a flame springs to life. The woman holds a lantern that burns with a strange blue-green flame. In the flickering light we all seem to be underwater.
"The Oracle is waiting," She repeats. There is a door behind her that I didn’t notice before, wood lashed together with what appears to be silver rope.
Beyond that door lies the Oracle and Parna’s future. A shiver of excitement tickles up my spine.
The door has no visible handle, but swings open at the woman’s touch. Unseen hinges creak wearily behind us as we enter. I look around, gaping like a landed fish. Mother won’t like it if she sees, but I can’t help it.
This room is large and roughly circular. Lanterns set into the wall at regular intervals flood the space with watery light. The rock walls are smooth and glitter with moisture. This cavern is natural, no sharp, chisel-hewn edges, just old stone. In the center of this room is a litter, like the ones used to carry the royal family through the streets. No one holds this one, though. The litter is covered with the same soft spider-spun material that our guide’s dress is made of. The curtains are drawn back to reveal an interior strewn with white pillows.
Two men kneel on the stone floor at either side of the litter, heads bowed. They don’t look up or make any sign that they notice us.
Inside the litter, cross-legged among the pillows, sits the Oracle.
For a few moments I don’t know who she is. I peer past the small form, expecting a tiger-tailed monster to leap out from behind the litter and begin prophesying in a voice like thunder. Mother and the aunts stare fixedly at the creature in the litter, and slowly my dull brain realizes that she is the Oracle.
The Oracle is a woman. She is small and delicate as a bird. Standing she might be my height, but it’s hard to tell. Her skin is so white I can see the tracery of blue veins beneath. Everything about her is smooth and soft, as if she, like the rocks, has been molded by flowing water. Her long, black hair is loose and shines in the blue light, the only thing about her not faded by the darkness. The Oracle is dressed identically to our guide, and her hands are folded in her lap. Her eyes are closed.
She’s beautiful, but it’s a sad kind of beauty, and my throat suddenly clogs with tears. I am only slightly disappointed that she doesn’t have six legs or a tail.
She doesn’t open her eyes, not even when the guide brings Parna to stand right in front of her. Instead she tilts her head, like a horse listening to a faraway sound. Everyone is silent. I can almost hear Parna trembling.
"Bride," The Oracle says, and her voice is like the rest of her. "You are very fearful about what you will hear today."
Parna starts. How can this woman know that, if she won’t even look at my sister? I feel a twinge of annoyance.
"What I tell you will happen whether you listen to me or not. So you may listen - or not - as you will.
"Your marriage will last until your husband’s death, years from now. During that time you will lose something dear to you, something of your own, but your husband will comfort you. However, you will also spend nights crying alone in a cold bed.
"Most days you will be happy. Your children will be a great pride, and after many years you will mourn your husband with true sorrow."
Parna’s hand flies to her mouth. The aunts murmur among themselves. No one moves.
Then Mother leans close and whispers to her, "It’s over. Bow to her, and we’ll leave."
Parna bows abruptly, then turns and pushes past us. Mother and I step forward. As we bow I flick my gaze upward to sneak a close look at the Oracle.
I see that she has not merely refused to look at us.
Her eyes are sewn shut.
Silver thread weaves in and out between her eyelashes. The sea light around me fades. My limbs go numb. Nothing exists in this underground world but myself and the Oracle. My gaze is locked on those silver stitches, roads criss-crossing the forest of her dark lashes.
She doesn’t know how I’m staring - she cannot. She’s blinded by some cruelty I can’t imagine.
Mother grasps my elbow, and whatever line binds us is snapped. She steers me around and back, and two of my aunts move forward to take our places.
The walk to the mouth of the cave is a blur of nausea and darkness. The silver thread that seals shut the Oracle’s eyes seems to dance in my vision, sickeningly clear in the blue glow of the guide’s lamp. When I trail Mother out of the cave the sudden muted sunlight makes my head ache. Before my last aunt is out of the cave I stagger to the side of the path and vomit.
The others don’t notice. They are gathered around Parna, who is sobbing into her hands.
"Did you hear her?" She wails. "My baby is going to die! And Kharis will have other women!"
"Don't whine so, Parna," Mother wipes at her cheeks with her handkerchief. "No man is faithful all the time. And didn’t you pay attention to what else she said? There will be other children. Your life will be easy compared to some. Now stop - "
She breaks off and looks at me. "Irix? Are you all right, child?"
The sour taste of bile fills my mouth. I shake my head. I can’t feel sorry for Parna, not now. After all, she will have a life above ground, in the light, not imprisoned in a hole somewhere, prophesying for spoiled brides.
Aunt Sabura hurries over. She wipes my mouth and feels my forehead. "You’re not feverish. Maybe you ate too much this morning."
We start back to the camps, Parna anxiously rubbing her eyes, so that Kharis and the families won’t see she’s been crying. I trudge along, still feeling sick, unable to forget the Oracle and her pale suffering. Mother hangs back until we are walking together some way behind the others.
"What’s wrong, Irix? Are you upset because of what the Oracle said to Parna?"
"Mother…" I try to compose my words. "Why were the Oracle’s eyes sewn closed?"
She looks surprised. "Well, it’s always been that way. When I came before I married your Father it was the same. It might have been the same Oracle. I don’t know for sure, and it doesn’t matter. They looked the same, but any woman kept in the dark for a while would look like that."
"But why? It’s so cruel! You don’t even blind a pig or a dog like that! Are those people her jailers? Why is she kept down there in the dark?" My stomach lurches again.
"Goodness, Irix, I don’t know. I expect they’re her servants. The Oracle must be treated well. She’s very important to many people. As for the eyes..." She gazes off into the sun-spattered woods. "If she can’t see physically, then it’s easier for her to see other things. Everyone knows that without physical sight, your spiritual sight is more powerful. That’s all. How could she be unhappy when she’s such a special person?"
Because she’ll never feel the sun again. Because she’s forced to see things, things she can never do. I think this, but don’t say it to Mother. She’s trying to be kind, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But the sick feeling lodges itself in my chest and won’t go away. "Mother? What did the Oracle tell you?"
For a long time she’s quiet, and I think she won’t answer. Finally she turns to me with a strained smile. "Almost exactly what she told Parna. It may have been the same Oracle after all, now that I think about it. She said I would lose a child. She said my husband would not always be faithful, but I would be happy. Almost all of that has turned out to be true."
For a moment the Oracle is shaken from my mind. A lost child? Did Mother have another baby before Parna or me, a brother or sister that died? She never mentioned it before, nor did Father. Maybe Parna knows? I resolve to ask her as soon as we’re alone.
Mother strides forward to join her sisters and fuss at Parna to look more cheerful. I say nothing to anyone the rest of the way back.
By the time we arrive at the meadow Parna is composed enough to give Kharis a faltering smile. I still feel sick, and use that as an excuse to take refuge in the tent I share with widowed Aunt Liel.
I lie on my pile of cushions, staring at the false sky of blue cloth above my head. They kidnapped her, of course - no one would consent to such treatment, to have their eyes closed forever, concealed in a damp place beneath the forest to grow whiter and whiter until they faded away into a voice full of nothing but other people’s futures.
My life in the sun suddenly seems carefree and rich. The bars of my mother’s rules are slight hindrances, nothing like the miles of rock that burden the Oracle. I pull the blanket over my head. For a moment all is dark, then pinpricks of light begin to find their way between the threads, until the entire blanket is suffused with a soft glow. I pull it tighter about my neck and squeeze my eyes shut. The air is hot and choking, nothing like the icy draft of the cavern.
How does she see them, the visions that are her jailers? As dreams? As images flitting across her closed eyelids? Or does she not know what she will say until it is said?
"Irix!" My morbid train of thought is broken by Aunt Liel’s voice. I hear the tent flap shoved aside, and then, "Why are you buried like a mouse in a nest? Are you still feeling sick?"
I lie still and pretend to be sleeping, but she yanks the blanket away. "There’s a young man asking after you. Kharis’ cousin, I think he said."
Jaim! I promised to tell him about the Oracle. What can I say to him now?
"I thought that might get your attention." Aunt Liel brushes some loose hair from my face. "You have to go outside, I can’t let him in here."
Jaim will listen. He might even understand. He’s waiting a little way from the tent, brow furrowed in concern. I ignore Aunt Liel’s smirk and go to him, absently smoothing the wrinkles from my skirts.
"Are you well, Irix? Your aunt said you were sick."
"I’m fine." Without discussing it we begin walking around the ring of tents.
He is quiet a moment, and I can feel him watching me. Finally he asks, "Did the Oracle have a tail? Was she a monster? What did she look like?"
"No." We come to the makeshift hitch post where the horses are tied. I find Aren, the mare I rode here, and pull grass for her. While I feed her I tell Jaim the story, haltingly, with pauses to conquer the rising tears. When I am finished I stand still, Aren’s wet lips tickling across my palm. Jaim sits at my feet, chewing his lower lip.
"That’s horrible." he says softly. "She’s a prisoner down there and no one even cares. They just keep going down and making her prophesy for them."
I sink down and hug my knees to my chest. Our shoulders touch. "No one cares but us. They think that’s the way it’s always been. The way it should be."
We are quiet. I want to save her, to set her free, the way I once popped the jaws of a trap I found in the forest behind my house to free a little fox with a mangled leg. Idly I begin to map out a plan for freeing the Oracle. I’ll need a horse, a lantern, some money, a few hours, an accomplice - that last is sitting next to me.
"Jaim?"
"What?"
"I know how we could do it. I need you to help me."
"Are you crazy? We can’t save the Oracle alone."
"Just listen to me. I think we can."
He listens warily as I explain. "We leave tomorrow, so it has to be tonight. When everyone else is asleep, we can sneak out and follow the path to the cave. It’s not hard as long as we bring a light. We can go in and get her. She’s not big, we can carry her if we have to."
"What about the servants? You said there were three. You’re crazy, Irix!"
"No! We’ll get around them. I bet they leave her alone at night. Why would she need them at night? So we bring her back to the edge of the meadow - "
"What then? Are you going to take her home with you?"
"No!" I point to Aren. "I’ll tie Aren to a tree near the path. We can cut the Oracle’s stitches. And then we can give her some money and send Aren to the town we passed right before we got here. She can stay at an inn for a few days until she gets used to being outside and then she can..." I trailed off. It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder what the Oracle would do after that. "She can…can do whatever she wants!"
"It still doesn’t make sense. Where are we going to get money? What happens when they find Aren missing?"
I think. I have no money, and neither does Jaim. But adults always have money. I glimpsed a small drawstring bag in Aunt Liel’s luggage as she unpacked yesterday. I feel guilty at the thought of stealing from Aunt Liel, but she’s a widow, and Mother said her husband left her more money than is good for her.
"They’ll think Aren ran away. And I can get money." The gods won’t punish me, since it’s for a good reason.
"We’ll get caught, Irix. Then she’ll still be a prisoner and we’ll be in trouble."
"If we don’t do it, she’ll suffer forever. Can you live with that?"
He still looks doubtful, so I do the one thing that I know will always get a boy do what I want.
"Fine." I rise and brush loose grass from my dress. "If you’re scared, I’ll do it myself. Don’t worry."
I am only a few feet away when I hear Jaim scramble to his feet. A moment later he’s walking beside me.
"I’ll do it," He refuses to meet my gaze. "I’m not a coward."
In silence we go back to the tents. When I saved the fox, I took it home, only to see it die a few days later. Father said the teeth of the trap had probably been coated with poison.
Releasing the Oracle should make up for the fox, I think.
It is laughably easy to take Aunt Liel’s money. I simply go back to our tent and take the drawstring bag out of her trunk and transfer it to mine. There are many coins of various sizes and colors. How much does it cost to rent a room? No matter. There has to be enough here to keep an innkeeper happy for days.
For the rest of the afternoon I replay the plan over in my head. I can’t stay still, so I wander the meadow aimlessly, getting underfoot, until Father cuffs me and sends me to see if Parna wants anything.
She doesn’t, but she’s happy to have someone to cry to. I sit in the corner of her tent, picking at a splinter in my elbow while she worries about the Oracle’s prophecy.
"I don’t know why you aren’t paying attention," She says crossly. "This concerns your own sister, and your nieces and nephews, and your brother-in-law."
"Parna, did Mother and Father have any other children besides us? Maybe one that died?"
She raises her eyebrows. "No. At least they’ve never mentioned such a thing. None of the family has."
I don’t answer.
The hours pass, but so slowly that they feel like years. I am surprised when I look in Parna’s mirror and see that I’m no older than I was. At dinner I push the food around my plate, earning a concerned glance from Mother. I wonder if Jaim is also too nervous to eat. At bedtime I tense, waiting for Aunt Liel to discover her missing money, but if she notices she doesn’t say anything. I lie there for hours, fighting sleep.
Once I doze off and dream of the Oracle, sitting astride Aren, surveying the little town we sent her to with wide eyes the color of moss. It is the dream that keeps me awake after that, and that fuels my weary limbs to rise when the voices of the men drinking by the fire finally die.
As quietly as possible I dress in my traveling clothes; short skirt, breeches and boots, my hair tied firmly back. I attach Aunt Liel’s money bag to my belt, where it clinks softly when I move.
I slip outside and pause. The meadow is dark, and the steepled tents are black silhouettes against the night. Early morning now, for it’s long past midnight. Here and there a lantern still burns, or the red-orange embers of a fire cling to life. The air is crisp and smells vaguely of smoke. My riding boots are soundless on the grass.
The assembled horses whicker questions as I approach them, but the stable master lies propped against a rock between his tent and his charges, snoring loudly. A lantern flame reveals an empty mug clutched in his insensible fingers.
Aren greets me by shoving her damp nose in my face. Poor loyal girl. I’ll have to slander her tomorrow by saying she probably ran away. I touch the soft, shivering place beneath her jaw and loose her tether. As we pass the drunken stable master I snatch the lantern from his side. It provides enough light that I can lead Aren through the trees at the edge of the meadow, just deep enough into the forest that we won’t be seen or heard by any last-minute revelers.
I don’t know how to saddle a horse. I’ve never done it myself. But I’ve ridden bareback many times. I can show the Oracle how.
Aren’s hooves finally tap on stone. We’ve circled the meadow and are on the path to the Oracle’s cave. The mare noses at the grass that springs from cracks in the path, and I wait for Jaim.
It can’t be more than a few minutes, but I’m already cursing his cowardice when there is a rustling in the brush nearby, and a voice calls, "Irix?"
"There you are." I disguise my relief with a note of reproach. He emerges, face looking peaked and sickly in the lantern’s yellow light. He is dressed as I am, in his riding clothes. He draws from his boot a slender knife.
"I thought we would need this. You said her eyes were sewn shut, so we’ll have to cut the thread."
"Oh, of course. Good idea." I’m annoyed that I didn’t think of it myself.
Jaim squints at Aren. "She isn’t harnessed."
"If a saddle was missing, no one would believe she ran away." I’m pleased at this response. I could never admit to him that I can’t saddle a horse.
I tie Aren to a tree, leaving the rope long enough that she can graze. Jaim hesitates, then takes the lantern from its spot on the grass. We start down the path without another word.
It is different from this morning. The woods on either side of us are alive with creatures, with soft skittering sounds and the flutter of wings. But I’m not afraid, not now, not yet. The lantern isn’t bright, and flickers with every step, but we can see the walls of trees on either side and the expanse of stone ahead.
Without Parna dragging along we make much better time, and it isn’t long before we reach the Oracle’s cave. Jaim stops and stares, eyes wide, at the twin gods with their dead stone eyes. I halt too, and don’t push him to hurry. He hasn’t been here before, after all. And maybe I want a minute to rest. To let my muscles unclench and breathe before we enter the cave.
After a moment he tears his gaze from Gaion and Gorax. I go to the cave, eyeing the pure blackness within, and am surprised to find I am trembling a little. Jaim joins me, and we follow the lantern’s light inside.
I am relieved to see that there is only one passage inside. We follow it around the corner where the guide took up her strange blue light, though now there is nothing there but darkness. The cave looks very different in the yellowish flame, not soft but hard and angular, and the moisture on the walls glistens like slime. Jaim has his thin knife drawn.
The door is there, set deep in the rock. There is no handle, and no keyhole. I can only pray that it will swing open for me as easily as it did for our guide. Jaim glances at the door and watches me expectantly. Taking a deep breath, and silently begging the gods for help, I reach out and touch the door.
It feels smooth and slick, slicker than any wood should feel. It doesn’t move at my touch. I push. Nothing happens. Tears well up in my eyes. Have we come this far to be defeated by a door? Jaim sets the lantern on the floor. His hand lands on the door beside mine, not quite touching. We push together. The door opens without a sound. Beyond is a faint bluish light, much fainter than it was this morning. Leaving the lantern, we step inside.
It seems a much smaller space than it did before. The numerous lanterns are extinguished, allowing the shadows to close in. A single flame illuminates the litter in the center of the floor, its curtains drawn. A thought occurs to me. What if the Oracle sleeps somewhere else? What if they move her to some inner chamber, where we cannot find her? Before I can give in my sudden doubt, I step forward and throw the spider’s web of curtains aside.
She is there, as she was this morning. Not sitting now, but reclining, half-lying, wearing a white nightdress. Her dark hair spreads over the pillows in shining waves. Blue veins branch down the backs of her hands. The hideous stitches shine in the blue light. She is still as a statue. Is she sleeping? Jaim ventures closer to peer in over my shoulder. I hear the sharp intake of his breath as he sees her for the first time. At this noise her hand twitches.
"Oracle?" How to address her? "We’ve come to help you."
"I know." Her tone is full of - what? Sorrow, maybe? Or relief?
"How did you..." Jaim begins, and trails off when I shoot him a withering look. She’s an oracle. "We’re going to set you free. But we have to be quick. Can you walk?"
"Not well." She shakes her head. Jaim holds up the knife questioningly, but I frown. Not here, in the dark- we should do it in the light when she can see and know that her long blindness is finally ended.
"We’re helping you up now. Then we’ll take you out of the cave."
The Oracle nods. Jaim kneels on her other side. "I’m going to take this arm, and Irix will get the other one."
He slides his arm beneath hers. I follow his movement, and carefully we stand, the Oracle hanging between us. She is heavy, much heavier than her slender figure reveals. She is exactly my height. Her bare feet find the floor, but they don’t seem able to support her weight, so Jaim and I are forced to move slowly, dragging her along. This close, she smells vaguely floral, like a flower frozen in an icebox all winter, its scent nearly drained.
"You’re the girl from this morning, the one who stared," She says. "I felt you staring at me. I dreamed you would return to take me away from here."
"I can’t stand by and watch them torture you. It’s wrong. It’s wrong to lock a person up and use them like that."
"You like to help things that are helpless. Like the fox." It sounds as if she smiles, but I don’t dare glance sideways. I am already panting with exertion.
Maneuvering all three of us through the door is more difficult than I imagined. It takes the better part of five minutes for Jaim and I to position ourselves so that we can slide the Oracle though. She doesn’t make a sound, not even when I accidentally knock her shoulder into the door. I pause then, glancing back into the dark room, the empty litter. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, as if someone is watching me. But there’s no one there.
Like a strange six-legged beast we lurch and shudder our way through the mercifully wide passage. When we turn the corner the pale blue light winks out, and I realize that Jaim left the lantern behind. It doesn’t matter. Our hands are occupied with the Oracle.
Finally the inky blackness lightens. The cave entrance! We stumble out into moonlight. I tell Jaim to step off the path so we can rest among the trees. As soon as we stop my knees buckle, and the Oracle and I collapse together in a tangle of limbs while Jaim tries to pull us both up. The Oracle gropes for a tree and sits, her back against the bark. I kneel beside her, wiping moist soil from my hands. Jaim remains on his feet.
She sits very straight, turning her head back and forth, taking deep gasping breaths. "It’s been - been so long. This night air..."
"How long have you been in that cave?" I regret the question immediately. But she doesn’t seem offended - her expression doesn’t change.
"I don’t know. Years upon years upon years. Sometimes I think I was born there, spawned in some underground lake. But then I remember my mother. She had a smile like the sun, so warm. I was very young when they took me."
So she was kidnapped. I listen, entranced by her tone; soft, a little sad, but without the anger or regret I expected.
"I was tiny, far younger than you. I had long braids and fat cheeks. One day I was in the field with my mother when a man came by on a white horse. He was so big, and his beard so long, I thought he might be a god. He stopped his horse and looked at me, and I stared back, too young to be afraid. He leaned down and swept me into his arms. I screamed, but he took no notice.
"After we arrived he told me that the Oracle here had died, and he had chosen me to be the new one. I don’t know why. Perhaps he just fancied my face. But I was brought here, and my eyes…like you see. Then the dreams came, all at once, not slowly. I was the new Oracle."
My throat closes up. A little girl, ripped away from her mother…I think of my own mother, with all her rules and lectures, and suddenly I miss her.
"What’s your name?" It’s the first time Jaim has spoken since the cave, and I look at him, surprised. The Oracle tilts her head toward him.
"They call me Oracle."
He persists. "Did you have a name before? One your mother gave you?"
She pauses, as if trying to remember. "My mother called me - she called me Lisay."
"I’m Irix, and this is Jaim." I quickly tell her of our plan. She listens, I think - it’s hard to tell without seeing her eyes - and nods a few time.
Jaim taps at my arm. "We’d better be going, Irix. Someone may come."
He’s right, though I want to sit here all night and listen to her speak, lose myself in those measured syllables as if I were drowning in the slow flow of cave water. I give her my arm, and Jaim takes her other one. We resume our struggle up the path, to where Aren waits.
What time is it now? I can’t tell, but I know we must hurry. Again, as we stagger up the path, something tells me to look around, but when I do there’s nothing there. Some night animal watching our charade, I think. Or the god - twins staring sightlessly.
I leave Lisay and Jaim in the sheltering forest and go to Aren alone. She whickers in confusion and noses my hand, but makes no sound when the others appear - Jaim limping under her weight, Lisay trying to make her feet carry her. As if sensing Lisay’s blindness, Aren gently breathes into her face, nostrils flaring.
"A horse?" She says it haltingly, as if recalling the word from a distant place. Her hands find Aren’s head and rove over her narrow face, fingers digging deep into the dusty hair.
"Your horse," I tell her. "You’re taking her to the nearest town. She’s yours now."
Something like a smile twitches at Lisay’s lips, the first sign of emotion I’ve seen from her. "Mine..."
I turn to Jaim and mouth the word, "Now." If we cut the stitches now she can see her gift, her horse. It will be perfect.
But just as he draws the small knife, just as I open my mouth to tell her, there is a cry from the meadow. Lisay’s head snaps up. Jaim and I exchange frightened glances. He breaks away and scrambles to the head of the path.
He is gone for long minutes. My muscles ache with tension. Something cold touches my wrist. Lisay is feeling for me, trying to clutch my arm. I take her hand in both of mine.
Jaim comes back, making too much noise in the process. "There’s some kind of uproar in the camps. Your aunt was shouting for you, and someone yelled something about the Oracle. There were people running all around. I couldn’t see who. It was too far." He drops his tone to a whisper. "Irix, there was a strange man there. On a white horse."
A chill begins at the top of my head and distills through my blood until my whole body is shaking. Cold as Lisay’s hand. Not now. Gods, not now. We’re so close.
"Help me, Jaim." I let go of Lisay. "Help me get her mounted on Aren."
He gapes at me. "Why?"
"Because, fool, it’ll be much faster if we don’t have to carry her."
"But Irix, they know! We have to take her back!"
"No!" My voice is so loud, so hard, that Lisay steps away from me. "We can make it! The road isn’t far. He can’t have her again!"
Jaim says nothing. A horrible image flashes into my mind - Jaim, turning away, walking back to the meadow, calmly telling that man of our hiding place.
But he only takes a deep breath. "Go stand on the other side of the horse. I’ll lift her up."
I scramble to Aren’s opposite flank. Peering beneath her bulk, I see Jaim’s hand grasp Lisay’s foot. There are some half-heard instructions, and he launches her up. I catch her arm to keep her from sliding off the mare’s other side. She wraps her fingers in Aren’s mane, and her mouth twists into a real smile.
"So warm," She says, and buries her face in Aren’s neck.
I untie the horse and turn her, warning Lisay to hold on. Jaim walks on the other side of Aren’s head. This is hard, harder than before. At least then I had a lantern to light my way. Carefully, with agonizing slowness, we lead Aren through the trees and around rocks, approximating the edge of the meadow, squinting and cursing.
Unseen branches whip past, leaving stinging trails of blood on my skin. Several times Lisay nearly falls when Aren stumbles over a rock or in a gopher hole.
"He’s slow. His horse moves like an old cow." Jaim says a few minutes later. "We can reach the road a long while before he does."
I know we can. We must. And we do. We burst out of the woods onto a wide track of packed dirt, rutted and hardened with travel. Far behind us is the gap between trees that opens into the meadow. It is empty. I imagine the families swarming like mice to the cave, down the passage to the room where the Oracle no longer waits. We stand at the edge of the road, Lisay hanging limply across Aren’s back while the mare crops grass. Jaim reaches into his boot for the knife, preparing. I drop Aren’s lead and go to help Lisay down. Aunt Liel’s bag clinks gently against my leg.
In a moment. There’s something else we have to do first.
She slides off the horse at my urging, trusting me to catch her. She is limp, as if her legs have weakened since we left the cave. The poor girl - girl, as if I know how old she is - is probably exhausted. She’s not used to moving, much less walking and riding. She leans on me as I lower her to the ground.
"Lisay," I brush a lock of hair away from her cheek, and she starts. "We’re almost there. But we have one more thing to do first."
"What?" The word is exhaled more than spoken. Her breathing is shallow. Jaim crouches beside us.
The silver stitches glow in the moonlight. "We’re going to give you back something they took from you."
Jaim lifts the knife.
"Please hold still, Lisay," He says apologetically. "This may hurt a little."
I gasp a little as he slips the knife under the first stitch. Lisay’s back arches slightly, and her breath quickens, but she doesn’t move. Jaim works slowly, his tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration. Lisay whimpers, but says nothing. The stitches come away with surprising ease. I had feared that the thread would have grown into the skin and been difficult to remove, but soon Jaim is finished, a tiny pile of bloodied silver thread on the road beside him. Tiny spots of blood, black in the moonlight, dot Lisay’s eyelids. I wipe them off with my sleeve. Now, my moment of triumph. She will open her eyes, and the abused, blinded Oracle will see again, her first sight a winding road bathed in soft white moonlight. And we will have won.
I wait for those wounded lids to rise and reveal eyes of - what? Blue? Brown? Or moss - green? I wait for Lisay to see, to finally see again. I wait for her grateful tears.
But nothing happens. She sits there, as if nothing has changed.
I reach out and put a thumb on one of Lisay’s blue-white eyelids, my index finger on the other. She doesn’t move at the touch, doesn’t make a sound. Her throat hardly flashes as she breathes. Quickly, impatient and feeling the approach of the man on the white horse, I push her eyelids open. They are stiff, as Jaim predicted. I peer at her, eager to see the long-dormant eyes.
My breath dies in my throat when I realize what lies behind those lids.
Nothing.
Where her eyes once were is a gaping black cavern. Twisted scar tissue lines the sockets, holes scooped out of her flesh by some demented surgeon. My empty stomach lurches, and I draw back. I’ve accomplished nothing. She is still blind, irrevocably blind. I let go of her lids and they slide closed, still bulging gently outward as if they hid eyes. Some magic, I realize numbly, so the Oracle’s patrons won’t see her sunken eyelids and be disgusted.
"I’m sorry, Irix." It is a whisper, barely audible. "I’m so sorry. I wish I could have told you, but then…"
Even in my horror I can’t hate her, can’t be repulsed by her. I can only pity this sad, sightless creature before me. "Why, Lisay?"
"Because it’s what I want. Poor Irix." Her hand gropes for my face. I lean forward, and her icy fingers caress my cheek. "You thought it would be different from the fox, didn’t you? But the teeth of my trap are also poisoned."
Jaim watches us, frowning in puzzlement. Lisay rests a moment, then goes on. "I can’t survive outside the cave. That’s another thing the man told me, just after they took my eyes. Some sort of magic, something he did to me and to the cave. I thought he might be lying, but now I‘m happy to find he wasn’t. No more dreams."
It’s over. Just like the fox. Lisay is dying and I am helpless yet again. I close my eyes, wanting to sink into the darkness that surrounds her, that is even now rushes up to claim her. But then Jaim says my name in high, thin tones.
The man on the white horse is behind us.
Lisay was right. He looks like a god, like one of the twin gods of wisdom that guard her cave. A long curled beard falls to his waist. The white horse stamps and snorts. In the dark I cannot see his face, or his eyes. He towers over the three of us.
The Oracle falls to her side in the dirt. I know before I turn to her that she is dead.
The man dismounts, letting the reins of his horse dangle. Lisay’s cold hand curls in my palm. Before he reaches us I close her eyelids and smooth them, the long lashes lying on the white cheeks. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jaim leap to his feet, a flash of metal as he wields the narrow knife -
Then the thunk of fist on flesh, and Jaim crumples. I can’t leave her. The man looms closer, and finally I tear my gaze from the dead Oracle. He kneels beside us. He touches Lisay’s wrist. Now I can see his face, weathered as those of the ancient gods, his eyes gray as slate. He looks at me, considers me. And even as I hate him I can’t strike at him. It won’t change anything.
The last thing I see is his raised hand, and then there is a sharp pain in my head, just below my ear.
The man said this to me: "She told you everything, didn’t she? Then there is nothing more you should know."
I don’t know what they did with Jaim. He was a boy, and of no use to them. They probably killed him.
But even that thought can’t hurt me. Nothing hurts anymore. Not even the thought of Parna, her wedding ruined, or of Mother, whose prophecy has finally come true. Her face is fast fading from my memory. Was her hair dark like mine? Was there gray at the temples?
By the time I awoke they’d already taken my eyes. And now I know how the Oracle sees her visions. They are images, fleeting but constant, always before my empty sockets. They shift and change like waking dreams, an endless play of color on blackness, so long as others stand before me. Only when I’m alone do they stop. I long for those times. Do I sleep then? There is no difference between sleeping and waking now. It is always cool and damp here under the forest.
I do not speak to the woman or the men who serve me, who keep me prisoner. The woman cried after I woke, I think more from relief that I lived than of sorrow for Lisay. I don’t know her name, don’t want to know it even as she washes and dresses me each day. I only speak to the brides and grooms who come to me for a glimpse into their futures. That is all the man on the white horse asked of me, and all I will do.
Some day some foolish child may come here and think to rescue me. Who will, in her earnestness, kill me - not realizing that the poison on my trap’s teeth will seep into her as well. Or perhaps I will wither away down here, a pale blind creature bloated by chill groundwater. Maybe Parna’s grandchildren will come to me for their futures, and I will not know them. Perhaps I’ll grow old and die here, with no memory of the sun.
I would cry if I could. Instead I grit my teeth wait for the next trembling bride to come to me.
©Patricia Correll
Patricia Correll lives in Kentucky with her husband and cat demon. She sells books to make money to buy paper and ink cartridges. She enjoys strawberry ice cream and kung fu movies.