Oracle in the Mist

by Linda Maree Malcolm

  “The baby? Where’s the baby?” one of the natives asked and Bobby and David looked to the professor simultaneously for an explanation.

  “I assure you that there is an answer to every one of your questions,” the professor said politely, “but first be so kind as to allow me to spend some time with these lovely young people who have just arrived and in time all will be revealed. Do we have an agreement … please?” He then gestured that Bobby and David should be allowed to pass through the crowd and the people parted to allow them through. Bobby and David moved through the crowd and started to ascend a narrow, sandy path that disappeared into the jungle.

  “Right, now where were we?” the professor asked. “Ah yes, we’re setting off to my place for that cup of tea. Splendid idea, even if I do say so myself.”

  Bobby and David each had thoughts racing through their minds as they made their way to the professor’s house. Going off into the jungle with a virtual stranger went against everything they had both ever been taught but in their hearts they knew that they were safe and that there was nothing to worry about.

  The path passed through a fern glade that was so lush as to be dripping and then they found themselves walking on the softest and greenest moss they had ever seen. They next started to climb tiny steps that zigzagged up and up until finally they reached the plateau where they found themselves standing under a massive house supported underneath by gigantic bamboo stilts.

  The professor pointed behind them and each of the children turned at the same moment to look and see a view that was so incredible that they each inhaled sharply — an immense sparkling aqua ocean spread out as far as the eye could see. The blazing sun shining on the water made it seem as if diamonds were jumping from the water in all directions. But it wasn’t just the water that was completely mesmerising. It was what was going on above and in the ocean that was most astonishing. Sea creatures floated through the water and jumped from it. Bobby could have sworn she was looking at the Loch Ness monster and whales and dolphins leaped from the ocean effortlessly. And above the ocean, the sky was just as busy. Birds of all shapes and sizes flew all about.

  David recognised that many of them were not species found in their own world and were probably what they would call “prehistoric”. Bobby and David looked at one another and then at the professor incredulously.

  “This is beyond anything … How can this be …” asked David, struggling to find the right words.

  “Yes, all in good time, my lad. Now let’s make haste.” They all turned to continue walking up another flight of tiny steps when the most peculiar thing happened.

  Coming down the steps, towards them, was a procession of cats of all shapes, sizes and colours. Not just any old cats — no, there were all kinds of cats! There were lions, tigers, leopards, and domestic cats too. Tabby cats and hairless cats. And even sabre tooth cats and other cats that the children had no name for in their own language. All magnificent creatures and all coming towards them. Bobby became frightened but the professor reassured her that there was nothing to be alarmed about. The cats would make their way straight past them.

  “Oh yes, how silly of me. Dratted memory,” the professor said, smacking his own head. “I’d completely forgotten about the cat meeting being held up there at the meeting place this morning. Well, I certainly do hope they have reached a workable solution to their problem.”

  Bobby could see that David was about to ask “What problem?” when the foremost lion, who had reached the bottom step and was right next to them, let out an almighty roar. David held Bobby’s hand again and stood in front of her. She found herself starting to like this idea of the boy protecting the girl, but then told herself to stop being so silly.

  “Extraordinary!” exclaimed the professor as if to answer the lion.

  “So very pleased for you and such incredible progress; good for you,” he said, again to the lion and he gave the lion a low bow and then, with his hand, gestured for the lion and his company to proceed down the stairs.

  “After you, kind sir,” he said to the lion. The lion stood up from resting on his rear legs and after letting out one more earthshattering roar, set off down the stairs with his following behind him.

  “Orr, orr, orr, screech,” said the monkey to the professor.

  “Yes, I know. I really am terribly pleased for them, old chap, aren’t you? An excellent outcome and I really must say that I’m rather staggered that they’ve finally found a solution. Completely unprecedented. What a most wonderful day this is shaping up to be — and not just any old day either, but a very special day in the history of our island!”

  “Screech,” said the monkey.

  “Quite right, Sebastian, quite right,” agreed the professor.

  Bobby had to resist the urge to start laughing hysterically at this point. It wasn’t just the fact that the professor seemed to be able to communicate with animals or that there were prehistoric creatures roaming around or even that there was complete harmony between the animals and the people or the fact that she had apparently just time travelled to another dimension with a boy she hardly knew, leaving behind her mother who would probably be frantic with worry about her daughter by now. No, it wasn’t any of that.

  The thing that amused her the most and made her cover her mouth with her hand to stop the giggle from erupting and making her appear rather rude was the attitude of the cats. Apparently cats are the same in all time dimensions. Each and every one of the cats marched past the small gathering with an air of superiority, tails and noses up in the air, eyeing the children nonchalantly as if they had not the slightest bit of interest as to who they were or where they had come from. They obviously had far more important things to tend to. In fact there may have even been a slight air of distaste from the cats towards the small group. The last tiny furless cat, who was quite ugly by anyone’s standards, gave an aristocratic flick of its head as if to dismiss them completely and proceeded to make its way down the stairs. Such an air of royalty, Bobby had never seen before, not even displayed by the royalty of her own world. The professor continued to bow low to the cats as they passed and as soon as the last one was away down the mountain the little group made their way to the entrance of the professor’s house.

  On entering the professor’s house, the children were stunned by how much was packed into the four walls. While the hut they had awoken in was completely empty this one was the exact opposite. It seemed as if not one more thing could be jammed into this house. Both Bobby and David expressed their surprise at the sheer volume of books lining shelves all around the inside of the house and also acting as freestanding room dividers. Bobby thought that there were probably more books here that she had ever seen in any library. It would take weeks or even months of snooping and investigating to see everything that this house held. There were a lot of areas that were cluttered with old rubbish and had been left so the dust had built up but even that did not diminish their enthusiasm. Many nooks and crannies were appealing to the children and they both had to fight the urge to run off and start exploring the house.

  “Oh, be my guests,” said the professor, as if he could read their minds. The children looked at each other gleefully and took off in separate directions. Bobby found herself drawn to a sketch of a woman that hung on a wall by the window.

  For a moment Bobby thought she recognised the woman, but no, it was probably just her imagination playing tricks on her again, but still she couldn’t help staring at it. There was definitely something about the eyes …

  “Ah, yes, I thought you might notice that. Beautiful, isn’t she? How is Daphne anyway?” but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he clapped his hand to his mouth and said in a whisper repeatedly, “Shut up old fool, oh shut up, what have you done, silly old fool, taboo subject, remember?”

  “What was that?” Bobby asked, becoming intrigued. Could it really be her mother?

  “What?” he said calmly and turned away as though to ignore her.

 
“You just mentioned my mother’s name, Daphne.”

  “What’s that? Your mother’s name? No I didn’t. No, I said, ‘Lousy artist, what a shame!’” the professor insisted.

  “But I heard you … just now,” Bobby persisted.

  “Your mother … why would I ask about her? I have no idea who she is.” Even though Bobby had just met the professor, she could tell by the way he avoided looking at her and stood gazing out of the window with his hand on his hip, humming a tune nervously to himself that he was lying.

  “Screech,” said the monkey.

  “Oh good heavens, yes Sebastian, I’d quite forgotten.

  Time to make the tea. Excuse me,” the professor said and he bowed slightly and turned to take the whistling kettle off the boil. Bobby and David stared at one another, puzzled. David had heard the reference to Daphne too. David shrugged his shoulders to show Bobby that he found it quite mysterious as well.

  “Right. Time for tea. Aahh, are there any better words in the English language?” the professor said becoming quite excited at the prospect of having a fresh pot of tea. He stirred the pot enthusiastically and then poured the amber liquid straight into cups already prepared with milk and sugar. He handed it to the children. It was quite delicious. Very creamy and sweet. He also offered them some Anzac biscuits.

  “So, have you met my mother then?” Bobby took up her line of questioning from before.

  “You know, I’ve just this moment realised that these blasted tassels that have been the bane of my life for, oh, let me think … too many years to remember, can easily be detached.” He took the moccasin from his foot and held it up to demonstrate. “You see, every time I move my feet about, when I’m walking for instance, they bounce and bob around in the most annoying fashion.” He was staring at the slipper intensely.

  “Screech,” said Sebastian.

  “My sentiments exactly, old chap. I believe I have stumbled onto the solution. See how tea gets the old grey matter working. Remarkable! Now all I have to do is snip them off,” and again he demonstrated by pretending his fingers were the scissors and snipping at the base of the tassels. “Now where did I put those scissors? Let me think. Oh, that’s right!” He smacked the side of his own head. “I lent them to those dratted natives decades ago and it’s my guess that they never returned them.” He let out a long sigh. “Fantastic people but simply no idea how to care for things and so unreliable in that way, you know, with things that you or I just take for granted. I’ll bet those scissors are lying buried somewhere all rusted up and underground by now. Still …”

  David and Bobby looked at one another blinking heavily. Something told them they had just stumbled into the drawing room of the most eccentric professor that ever lived. David went to ask a question but the professor overruled him by talking loudly over the top of him.

  “I could use my pocket knife. Splendid idea, old chap.” He seemed to be talking to himself now. “Now where is it, I wonder? Oh that’s right.” He jumped up from his spot, one slipper in hand and the other on his foot, and sweeping up the knife, opened it and severed off the tassels all within a few seconds.

  “There,” he said, most pleased with himself and the look of the new moccasins. “So incredibly easy and quite liberating, if I do say so myself. I can’t think why I didn’t do it years ago.” He walked around in the slippers in circles, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Right, now … where were we?” he asked the children and took his seat again, smiling hugely and marvelling at his moccasins.

  Bobby and David exchanged glances again and David frowned and shook his head at Bobby as if to imply she should discontinue her line of questioning.

  Whatever the truth was about Daphne, it would have to wait. Obviously for some unknown reason, the professor was not comfortable discussing it. Bobby sat on her hands and chewed her bottom lip furiously. She felt as though she was being ignored and she didn’t like that feeling, not one little bit. She held herself back from shouting the thing that was on the tip of her tongue which went something like this: “How dare you speak my mother’s name, have a drawing of her hanging on your wall and yet not give me the information that I have requested. I have a right to know …” but she kept her feelings bottled up, because by hook or by crook she knew she would get to the bottom of this mystery.

  David sensed her anger and reached out and held her hand, just for a second and mouthed the words, “It’s okay; we’ll find out.” Together they would get the answers they needed.

  “Professor Lambert, I wonder if you might be so kind as to explain to us,” David cleared his throat to ask his question, “where we are and … how we came to be here?”

  Bobby felt secretly pleased that David was able to talk the professor’s language. Clearly they had been brought up in similar environments.

  “Ah yes, the matter of time travel,” the professor said thoughtfully. “Well now, let me see, how best to explain this?” he tapped the side of his head.

  “Have you ever heard of spacetime continuums, parallel universes and dimensions, time travel machines or of Oracles for that matter?”

  “Well yes, I have actually. But in our reality they are things that have only been written about in books. They’re not actually something that anyone has ever succeeded in inventing, well not to my knowledge, anyway.”

  “Well, what if I told you that what you have been reading in books is actually a possibility? What if I told you that people in your time have actually had the ability to do this kind of travel for a very long time? Hard to believe, I know. But how else do you explain all of this?” he asked with his eyes widened and again he gestured with his arm in a 180 degree arc. “What if people in your time could do these things and then kept it secret for fear of the top minds of the world and governments catching on and then disturbing the natural balance of things and so destroying the immense beauty of this paradise of which you have already been witness to.” He now had the children’s full attention. Finally they were getting the information they’d been asking for.

  He went to a massive chalkboard and drew a long white line with chalk. He then proceeded to write the years along the line starting from the beginning of time and reaching all the way into the future jumping between the ages every 1000 or 1,000,000 years or so. He then drew another line above this one and on it wrote unusual words that the children had never heard of — perhaps it was a different language.

  “Now, bear with me if you will. Just imagine that there exists the ability to go from here,” he pointed to 1930, which was almost at the end of the first line, “to here,” and he pointed to another spot on the second line right back at the beginning where he had written the word “Gufawemici”.

  “Roughly translated this means ‘Garden of Eden,’” he said pointing to the unusual word. The children looked at one another in astonishment. Of course, it made perfect sense … what other place could this be? The professor went on to explain a lot of other things in a very scientific fashion which both of the children had difficulty understanding.

  Besides, they were both immersed in their own thoughts and each of them was wondering how it was that they had been the ones chosen to come to this living and breathing Garden of Eden.

  “Oh, not just you, my lovelies,” the professor said, cutting into their thoughts making each of them feel as if he had read their minds yet again.

  “No, not just you, but your ancestors too!”

  “Excuse me,” David said.

  “Let me put it this way. Back in 1930 your time, a bunch of bedraggled, boisterous and bored children found the crystal ball that you have in your backpack, Bobby — a story that can wait for another time — and after reading the fancy print on the ball — Oracle in the Mist — the children found themselves involved in an enormous adventure. They each had an idea in their minds of where they hoped they would end up but because they were not aware that they themselves had the powers to manifest a destination within them and because they were all complet
ely terrified of what the outcome would be, their worst fears came true.

  “I hate to be the one to have to tell you this but your ancestors Ina and Henry, landed themselves and six other youngsters in a dark and sinister place that they would later refer to as the ‘workhouse’.” Bobby and David stared wideeyed at the professor and each of them was positively bursting with questions to ask the professor. Especially David who was wondering why the professor was referring to the other children as their “ancestors”. But they were also intensely curious to find out what had happened to the original eight.

  “Please continue,” David said, enthusiastically.

  “With pleasure,” said the professor rubbing his hands together with delight. He gave a slight bow and then proceeded to make another pot of tea. “Good things shouldn’t be rushed,” he added. The children sensed that this story was going to take some time to tell.

  The children had no idea that the crystal ball that they had found actually belonged to an evil Oracle that lived in an even eviller land,” the professor continued, now that he had made some more tea and resumed his position next to the children.

  And so his story began

  This evil Oracle was actually the one who had lured the children into the oak tree on the Brewsters’ property. Oh, she wanted the children all right; she intended to put them to work in her workhouse but most of all she wanted her crystal ball back. She had lost it thousands of years earlier (she was very old, you know) and since that day was unable to have another crafted that was just like it. All attempts failed, much to the Oracle’s fury. Many innocent craftspeople were murdered and thrown into her furnaces for failing her. She felt that losing the ball had weakened her power and power was the one thing that the evil Oracle lived for. In fact it was what kept her alive. With a soul as black as night, the Oracle fed on the screams and sorrows of the poor, innocent children she had kidnapped over the years and the faster and more cruelly they died, the more powerful she became. She would never give up on her quest to find the ball.