The Oracle's Harem

by Devyn Forrest

  I was totally and completely lost.

  “All you can do is believe,” Professor Binion said, his voice low. “With the increased control you have now, together, you and I will begin to shape and mold your powers to fulfill your destiny. This is the reason I set my life aside. I wanted to be here for this—to ensure the plan could be set into motion. Tell me, Ivy. Tell me that you’re up for this. Tell me that it all hasn’t been a waste.”

  He gasped for air and placed his hand across his chest. His cheeks burned bright red. For a moment, I thought he might fall back, collapse. I thought perhaps all the excitement had gotten to his heart.

  But no. He just needed an answer.

  “I believe we can do this,” I whispered. “I’m up for the challenge.”

  Apparently, I sounded sure enough, confident enough, even though I didn’t feel it at all, not in a single bone of my body. Professor Binion nodded and said, “Thank you, Ivy. Thank you for all you’ve done for me, for the students, for the supernatural world. Your sacrifice will one day be honored, I promise you. Now. Go. Rest. You’re going to need it for when we begin the real work.”

  I stood and walked toward the door, my heart pounding. When I turned my eyes back toward him, I found him more weary-looking than ever, his eyes staring at the wrinkles across his hands. I wanted to tell him again how sorry I was, but I knew the words sounded so flat. All we could do was press forward, together. All we could do was find a way to win.

  Chapter Eight

  I shot out the main building and walked back through the arboretum. For the first time in a long time, I was completely alone. The boys were probably back in their dorm rooms; Celeste was in hers. Even Margot and Zelda and Riley were probably packing for their moves back home. As I walked, I paused again at Margorie’s memorial and dipped my nails into my palms, drawing blood. The world turned on a horrible axis.

  I decided to head back to my dorm to check in on Celeste again. I’d never seen her moods so volatile and ever-changing, and I wanted to hug her close and tell her again that everything would be all right—that she would live, as long as she remained far, far away from me.

  When I reached the foyer of the girls’ dormitory, Professor Springer stood in the center of the stone floor with her arms folded over her chest. She glowered at me, then clucked her tongue.

  “You of all people shouldn’t be out wandering around on your own, Ivy,” she blared.

  I paused and assessed her, my hand on the railing of the staircase. It was a funny thing, seeing her like this. After all, I still had very clear memories of those first few weeks of school, when the likes of Professor Springer put the fear of God in me. She was a witch, head of the girls’ dormitory, brutish and angry. Now, I knew that the reason she spoke to me like this was tied up in how afraid she was of me. I could feel it in the air between us.

  “Don’t worry, Professor. I don’t think it’ll come down to you to save me,” I told her, my words contemplative.

  Professor Springer arched her brow. “I don’t suppose I understand what you mean?”

  “No. I don’t suppose you do,” I said, before turning back and marching the rest of the way up the stairs.

  When I reached my floor, I found the rest of the girls my age in a state of chaos. Zelda and Margot bickered in the corner about a few different items of clothing, which, it seemed, they’d lent to one another so many times, they couldn’t fully remember which belonged to whom initially. I was grateful that their anger was directed toward one another, instead of at me. It was all I could hope for.

  I traced a path toward Celeste’s bedroom to find her on the phone with her mother. I felt a pang of sadness, listening to their conversation—knowing that I would never be allowed to just sit in their kitchen and eat snacks with them, gossiping and watching bad television. Although they were witches, they loved basic human-bullshit, silly television shows that made us all double over with laughter. Of note, since they were witches, their snacks had always been better than anything you could buy from a store—with heightened flavors I could never re-create at my own place. Even Aunt Maria, a shapeshifter, hadn’t been able to figure it out.

  Of course, I’d hardly known the difference between the human world and the supernatural one at the time. I hadn’t bothered, since I’d assumed for nearly seventeen years that I was a human, like my father.

  “Yes. I’ll see you soon, Mom,” Celeste said. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Can we have oysters when I get back?”

  I grinned, remembering the oyster nights at Celeste’s place. They’d been messy but delightful, freshly caught and purchased at a little fish market near the coast.

  I bounced at the edge of Celeste’s bed and then lay back, listening to the cool cadence of Celeste’s words as she wrapped things up with her mom. When she finished, she placed her phone on her chest and blinked at the ceiling. I could feel the guilt coming off her in waves. She felt bad that she could return to our old life, and that I didn’t have anything to do with it anymore.

  “You don’t have to feel that way,” I told her.

  She propped herself up on her elbow, blinking at me. “I guess we don’t even have to speak words to each other, now that your powers are so advanced.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. “I just feel how you feel about it, is all. It’s really bright. I can almost feel your emotions like seeing colors, if that makes sense.”

  “Maybe,” she returned. She then clucked her tongue and added, “I wish you could come home with me. I wish we could put a weird disguise on you and say you’re my long-lost twin sister.”

  I giggled. This kind of fictional conversation reminded me of when we were girls, just making things up as we went along. “Do you ever think it was all a mistake?” I said suddenly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Maybe I’m not the Oracle, you know? Maybe there was another baby, born at the exact same time, to a supernatural mother and a human father? Maybe the Oracle is meant to be that girl, and the supernatural factions have picked me incorrectly.”

  Celeste furrowed her brow. “It’s a nice sentiment, but I’m pretty sure you’re the chosen one.”

  “I don’t want to be chosen!” I protested.

  “Your mark? It’s burning all the time, right?” she said, blinking those big eyes.

  I groaned and scrubbed my eyes, falling back on the bed. “Maybe the mark is just a bad tattoo I got when I was high or something.”

  “You’ve never been high,” she said with a slight giggle. “And if you got a tattoo without me, you know I’d be pissed.”

  I sniffed, trying to laugh at the joke. The laughter never came.

  “I just never wanted this destiny. I never wanted any of this,” I said, heaving a sigh.

  “I know,” Celeste returned softly. “But I’ve also known you my entire life. I’ve never known someone more mentally capable of anything. You’re a grade-A badass, Ivy. You used to operate with that badassery in the human world, and now, it’s needed here. Professor Binion clearly believes in you. Hell, he put his entire life on hold so that he could train you!”

  “I know. Try living in that guilt,” I told her. “It’s horrible.”

  Celeste grimaced. She stood again and stared down at the suitcase, splayed across the floor, letting out a groan. “Packing is the worst. It’s even worse than cleaning. I just want to crawl into bed and sleep.”

  I watched her for a while, folding items gingerly and splaying them in little piles at the bottom of her suitcase. Our conversation turned to other things—to the boys, for one, who she was grateful to for staying with me. As I spoke a bit about Ezra’s clear annoyance toward me, Celeste blinked up toward the window. Her face changed immediately; her lips parted.

  “What is it? What’s up?” I demanded, suddenly fearful.

  “Nothing. I mean. Well.” She swallowed. “It’s not raining anymore.”

  “Oh?” I burst up from the bed, surprised. After all, it had been ra
ining for the previous months, without even a moment’s pause. As I moved toward the window, however, I found myself staring at something I’d never seen, not in all my days as a Louisiana resident.

  There, coming down from the billowy grey sky, was snow. It was beautiful, glowing white, the kind you only see in Christmas specials. Together, Celeste and I stared out the window, both of us captivated.

  “It’s snowing. In Louisiana. In spring,” Celeste whispered, becoming the voice for both of us. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “What the hell can possibly happen next?” I returned.

  Chapter Nine

  That evening, I watched as Celeste boarded into her mother’s car and left me at Origins. She spread her hand across the glass and blinked out, tears filling her eyes. I waved as hard as I could, trying to keep my own face from crumpling.

  By evening, all the students had left campus except Raphael, Quintin, Ezra, and I. Together, we sat in the girls’ dormitory, now completely empty, and played cards and drank a bit and watched the fire. The snow had continued to pile up outside, without any sign of faltering, and we shivered against one another, hoping for warmth.

  Sometime after eleven in the evening, we wandered out into it and lifted up the snow with our hands. It glowed mystically, although there was no sign of a moon overhead, since the cloud cover was so thick.

  Since we had the whole campus to ourselves, we decided to put an extra bed in Raphael’s bedroom and sleep all together. On this first night, I pressed myself hard against Ezra, with Raphael’s hand on my shoulder, and Quintin in the bed close by. Luckily, I was able to drip in and out of sleep, maybe stitching together a few hours.

  The next morning, I dressed, donned a coat and a pair of boots, and headed to the dining hall, making big footprints in the snow. As it was only seven, the boys remained in bed, groggy and unwilling to face the chilly morning yet. “I don’t know how people in the north do it,” Raphael had grumbled, before turning around and falling back asleep.

  When I reached the dining hall, I was surprised to find Professor Binion upright, seated at the end of one of the long tables, dipping a shining spoon into a bowl of cereal. He blinked up at me, grimaced, then said, “I assumed you wouldn’t be able to sleep well.”

  “So you thought you’d find me here?” I asked.

  “I suppose so. I wanted to speak with you about next steps,” he said.

  I placed my hand across my stomach, no longer sure if I had it in me to eat anything. Still, following his lead, I poured several cups of cereal into the bowl and sat next to him. Together, for several minutes, we ate contemplatively, both of us coming awake to a snowy morning.

  Finally, he said, “Some weather we’ve had lately.”

  At this, I laughed. “I guess they’ve really made a mockery out of us.”

  “I think we should use it. Now that the other students are gone, we should push your powers’ muscles, so to speak. I want to see if you can have any effect on the chaos these spells are raining over the Academy.”

  “You mean, snowing,” I returned.

  “Yes. But as you’ve probably guessed, outside the Academy, there’s no snow. Hardly any rain. Just beautiful blue skies,” he continued. “We have to try out best to change this as quickly as we can. Already, the trees and vegetation have begun to die. I saw a frozen squirrel in the middle of campus earlier this morning, just stuck there with his arms out holding an acorn. We can’t allow this to go on.”

  I shivered.

  “We need to bundle up even more,” Professor Binion affirmed. “This isn’t autumn weather in the south. It’s winter in the north.”

  Together, we returned to his office, where we piled on extra cloaks and coats. I didn’t ask him why he had all this extra stuff; it seemed he had his reasons. Then, we headed back into the blustery snow. It was always a surprise, even so many minutes in, when a snowflake smashed itself into your face and melted immediately. I was drenched, chilled to the bone, yet ready to do whatever Professor Binion told me to do.

  Together, we began to walk toward the edge of the forest on one end of the grounds. We then entered the snowy woods, where Professor Binion pointed out a small den, where a family of foxes huddled together, shivering, hungry. There was certainly nothing they could do, now that the winter had come. They weren’t accustomed to it.

  All of this had happened because so many wanted me dead.

  Because of this, innocent animals would surely starve to death or freeze to death, shiver up and die in the center of the woods.

  It was monstrous.

  My heart was overwhelmed with love for these creatures, love for this campus—love for the birds and the fish in the nearby Gulf and the foxes, quivering there in the den. I clenched my eyes shut and ached with it; I had tremendous empathy for every being in my immediate surroundings, for the love they had for their own creature-families, their own dying world.

  Suddenly, Professor Binion interjected through my thoughts.

  “Ivy. Look around you,” he said.

  I opened my eyes to discover that in the three-foot radius around me, the one-foot tall snow had completely melted. Only puddles remained around me, making the muck and the mud even grimier. I blinked up, shocked.

  “I can’t control the weather, can I?” I whispered.

  “No. You can’t control the weather,” Professor Binion affirmed. “But it does seem that you can counteract the damage that’s been done. I initially suspected this, which was why I brought you through the woods. I wanted you to feel the weight of the damage, to see what sort of emotional response would occur. What exists in your heart seems to be the most important facet of your powers. But you must have noticed this by now.”

  I continued to blink down at the melted snow, still amazed with this incredible shift. Now, I noticed that as the snow floated down around me, it seemed that the area around my body altered the snowflakes, melting them immediately and turning them to rain. It was an eerie sight.

  “What were you thinking about when it happened?” Professor Binion asked then.

  “I was thinking about what it looked like here before the snow,” I whispered. “I was hurting for them. I wanted to change it all, to go back in time. I wanted....”

  “Channel it,” Professor Binion said, his words urgent. “Use it.”

  I clenched my eyes tightly and imagined turning back everything that had happened the past few months. I imagined the storm clouds parting. I imagined actual sun on my face—what a revolutionary situation. That imagined warmth seemed to extend through my limbs, down my legs and through my toes. And suddenly, I felt the warmth that flowed through me turn to heat outside of me. I opened my eyes in surprise, frightened—yet in mere moments, the sensation actually felt pleasurable, beautiful, the way it felt when you lay out on the beach on a hot summer’s day. I felt powerful, but incredibly calm—as though I only needed to breathe every few moments. As though I was a part of the air and the water and the sky.

  “Yes, Ivy. Yes!” Professor Binion cried.

  I closed my eyes again and focused harder. I could feel my feet lift from the ground, could feel my heartbeat quake through my limbs. A full minute later, I opened my eyes again to see that the clouds overhead had begun to crumple apart. The snow had stopped, and the first sign of sunlight dripped through and splayed across my coat. I gasped and blinked up at Professor Binion, who wore a generous smile.

  “What did I just do?” I whispered.

  In the pause that followed, the last of the clouds separated. The snow melted, and I spotted several of the foxes bucking out of their den, surprised at the quick shift in the weather. They pointed their noses toward the sky, inquisitive, then turned their eyes toward me. They looked at me as though they knew I was responsible.

  “You’ve taken the first step toward really owning your abilities,” Professor Binion murmured, drawing his hand across his throat. He looked almost alarmed, yet pleased. “You’re going to get there, if you keep g
oing like this.”

  Chapter Ten

  As Professor Binion and I returned to the center of campus, the snow around us melted and the sky seemed to grow perpetually more bright blue. Professor Binion actually started laughing on the way, a bright and free sound I thought I would never hear again. Beneath us, the grass looked dull and lifeless, but there was a hope and a promise that it would return to its full glory.

  “What do you think they’re thinking right now?” I asked suddenly.

  “The supernatural world?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure they’re recognizing that they weren’t able to fully add up the density of your powers,” Professor Binion returned. “I’m sure they’re recognizing that you’re much more to grapple with than they initially assumed.”

  “I’m the Oracle,” I murmured to myself, yet again coming to terms with it. After all: with great power came great responsibility. At least, that’s what I’d always heard. Now, it played itself over my life, proving itself to be utterly true.

  When we reached the boy’s dormitory, Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra stood outside, staring up at the sky. It seemed like all of them had only just rolled out of bed. Raphael remained shirtless, his muscles gleaming beneath the newfound sun. He stretched his large hands out in front of him and blinked at the blue.

  “It stopped,” Quintin said.

  I stopped in front of them, still all bundled up in the spare coats I’d gotten from Professor Binion. The boys blinked at me. Slowly, their smiles widened. I hadn’t seen them smile like that in ages. The joy was palpable. Suddenly, I burst toward them, leaping into Quintin’s arms. He swirled me around and around as I cackled.

  Finally, Quintin put me down. I unzipped my coats and flung myself out into the middle of the field, in full view of the gorgeous sunlight. Professor Binion placed his hand on his forehead and saluted me, then returned to his office. This left the four of us to celebrate.