They walked away from the lights and music into the quietness of Yarmouth, where a few houses from the olden times still persistently clung on. Adjusting his jacket and rubbing at his mittens to protect him from the coldness of the night, he looked at her expectantly.
“Where do we go, baby?” He squeezed her hand for her to lead the way.
Chapter-7
Finding the Oracle’s Home
The street had houses made out of stone, built in the colonial style, scattered between those of a more modern design. Yarra exhaled and saw the white vapor escape her lips from the chill in the air. Her heartbeat began increasing.
Though the place had changed considerably from how it had been two hundred years ago, the main street of the suburbs remained. She remembered the younger Naunoru in her vision coming down that very street in a horse-drawn carriage, heading towards the Oracle’s home.
“There.” She pointed out to the field nearby.
At the end of the lane was a huge field overlooking a forest reserve. Grass grew erratically and without order, an eyesore compared to the pristine pruned hedges to either side. It seemed that the people deliberately avoided the field for some unknown reason, for there had been no attempt made at taming it to fit in with the rest.
Yarra knew that the Oracle’s home was nestled within the wild grass of the field. Although the place looked different, the spatial orientation of the place had not changed. The forest was still on the west, and the ocean came in from the east.
True enough, there was a small pathway in the field where the wild grasses had omitted proliferating. It was as though the pathway through the field was waiting for someone.
Yarra walked on ahead, with Avice following behind her. As they walked, the pathway widened as if to accommodate them. With their footsteps crunching on wet soil, they reached the front door of the wooden shack.
“This is his house.”
It seemed that time had not ravaged the shack as expected. The wood remained impervious to the elements, unaffected by moisture, wind or the sun. There was a certain magic surrounding the house that made it invisible to the eyes of mortals.
“Vanishing magic,” Avice stated, sniffing at the air. “This structure has a strong hint of vanishing magic surrounding it.”
Yarra wanted to ask more about the magic that Avice had described, but began to feel woozy. Her head and heart continuously pounded with each step leading to the Oracle’s home. It was as if there was a different, almost sinister force in the house waiting for her to enter.
There was nothing particularly eye-catching about the front door. It had a metal knocker which Yarra held on to, and then pulled. The dusty door creaked. Instantly, they were both hit with a musty smell. In the darkness, they entered the house gingerly, only aided by the pale moonlight streaming in from outside.
Avice rubbed his fingers together to create some sparks. It was another simple ability of his, to create a light source. He snapped his fingers as one would do fire stones, and sparks flew before creating a small, silvery glow of light. The space between his thumb and forefinger glowed brighter, and the light from there fell upon every corner of the shack.
It was exactly as Yarra had seen in her vision when Nainoru was tasked to kill the Oracle. The stove was laid bare, with the exception of a single black pot, where the Oracle’s wife had been cooking his last meal before Nainoru had come to visit. The floor thudded with a hollow percussion as their footsteps fell upon the wood. There were dusty chairs around a small dining table and a beaten up couch where the Oracle had probably sat after a long day of work.
It was then, when Yarra’s eyes fell upon the furthest wall, and she had to stifle a scream.
A human skeleton was heaped in the corner. Thoroughly decomposed, the clothes still retained their faint color and design. It was the Oracle, just as Yarra had seen him in her vision.
“Is that…?”
Yarra hushed Avice. She walked forward, aided by the light in his hand. The sight of the skeleton, where it had first terrified her, now provided an odd sense of calmness. The white bones were discolored by time, but still retained the framework of the man who was her predecessor.
She knelt in front of him, unsure of what to feel.
So, she chose instead to look at the dark sockets which was used to house his eyes.
One question had been niggling in her mind ever since the vision of Nainoru meeting the Oracle.
“Why did he choose to kill himself?” she wondered aloud. “He could have chosen instead to run away with his wife and children to America. Yet he chose to die.”
Avice did not know how to answer. Instead, he simply placed a hand on her shaking shoulder.
It had all been a wild goose chase. They had come to the Oracle’s home to find an answer to her past. But the heaped pile of bones provided nothing more than being further evidence of Alicia’s cruelty.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said again. There was an uncomfortable tone to his voice. He knew that the rest of his clan members would have probably guessed where he and Yarra were heading for. It would not take long for them to catch up.
She nodded. She could not help but feel disappointed at the lack of answers. The black sockets in the skull provided nothing but an indiscernible abyss of darkness.
She made a move to stand up, but the bones began to vanish like particles of dandelions blown by the wind. The floor withered from underneath to reveal nothing but a swallowing blackness. Trying to grasp at Avice, she realized that he too, had vanished from her sight. Even though nothing solid laid beneath her, she did not fall, but instead floated in the nothingness.
The walls had vanished, and were replaced with a fabric of space with many speckled stars and nebulous clouds of disarraying colors unfurling all around her.
“Avice?” she stammered.
Looking around, there was no Avice, no house, no Great Yarmouth. All that existed was the fabric of space and her. She had never experienced anything like what was happening to and around her before.
“He isn’t here,” a voice said out of nowhere, making her jump.
She had heard that voice before, from her vision. Looking at the source, she was enveloped by a warm feeling of familiarity. The Oracle stood in front of her; skin, flesh and life intact. His hands were folded as he regarded her with a shrewd smile on his face. When he spoke, his voice was soft and accented. But she understood it completely.
It did not matter the medium that they spoke in, for nothing but the truth was relayed from one person to the other.
“Where am I?”
“This is the Tome of Sight.” The Oracle extended his hand out to her.
She reached to him. When their hands grasped, he pulled her closer for a hug.
“Welcome back,” he whispered.
The entire space they occupied glittered and glowed just as outer space would. But, the place was not filled with large cosmic bodies. Upon closer inspection, she could see that each stars actually glowing with a different light. At the crux of every glowing panel was the life story of a person, animal or thing on Earth. This was the place that saw everything that had happened, was happening, or would happen.
“This is surreal,” she gasped, looking around in wonder.
“Too many images are here. We spend our time in this afterlife looking at the Earth through the lenses of all living things,” he explained. “From humans, to animals, to plants, insects, and even through the lens of the smallest bacteria.”
“Are we the only two Oracles here?” Yarra asked, bending over to inspect a particular star showing the image of a cat running through a busy street in Tokyo.
“There are Oracles all over the place,” he explained. “All of them are looking at different stars, trying to find the Secret.”
“Secret?”
“Somewhere in all these images lie the secrets of the universe. We have been spending hundreds, some even thousands of years being in this Tome, looking for it.”
Yarra wanted to ask more, but the Oracle led her along the formless floor towards another small orb. It showed someone looking at Yarra in the shack.
“We are looking through Avice’s eyes,” she said.
“That man loves you, a lot. See here,” the Oracle said. He rippled the orb with a touch of his fingers and the images broke. In all the images, just like her vision, it showed multiple outcomes, most of it involving his life with her in the future.
“He sees nothing but love in you, for you and with you,” the Oracle said.
Yarra nodded. It had been something that was weighing on her mind. For a long time, she had only predicted her own future. In this particular Tome of Sight, it showed the futures, pasts and presents of all the people on Earth. She knew what she had to do.
“I have to go back to him,” she said, with a small nod from the Oracle to indicate that he had heard in answer.
“Will I ever meet you again?” she asked, as they walked through the infinite space.
“You will meet me when it is time. For now, you are the physical manifestation of all of us on Earth. You will remain on Earth until the next Oracle is born, or at least until you get a vision of the next Oracle’s coming to the Earth. Then, we will call for your presence to join us in this Tome.”
“That is why you allowed Nainoru to kill you,” Yarra realized. “You saw the future where I was to be born two centuries later.”
“So long as you know that vision exists, it will come true. The day I foresaw your birth was the happiest day of my life.”
For Yarra to exist, the Oracle needed to die. That was why his wife and kids had needed to run to America. He knew that two hundred years later, his descendant, Yarra Davis, would return to the very shack in which he had perished.
Smiling, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Go back to your lover, and your life Yarra. When it is time, I will come and get you.”
“Thank you for this, Oracle.”
“Matthew Finley,” he smiled. “My name is Matthew Finley.”
As the room around them faded, the Oracle called out to her. “Follow the vision strongest to your heart, Yarra. In it, you will find eternal truth.”
Chapter-8
The Bite
And Yarra found herself back in the shack with Avice holding on to her shoulder. He was still staring at the skeleton, oblivious to what she had just experienced. She had been given a preview of what was to await her in the afterlife. But that would only happen if there was to be an Oracle left on Earth.
For now, she would act as a bridge between these two worlds.
“I’ve received my answer,” she smiled, turning to Avice.
Her lover looked at her in wonderment, his eyes full of questions.
Then was not the time to celebrate, for they suddenly heard multiple footsteps stepping in the grass outside the shack. But it was too late. The Keepers of the Blade had caught up with them.
“Baby, they’re here,” Avice said, frightened not so much for himself, but for her.
Yarra remained smiling, a look of serenity streaked across her face. She cupped her hand against his cheek. In response, Avice transformed into a vampire, ready to battle, to protect her. His eyes were blood red, and the fangs shone in the moonlight.
She knew that he would die to protect her, but she needed to protect him too, for the sake of their future.
If remaining alive was her purpose, then she would do just that.
With a quick move before Avice could react, Yarra pressed her thumb against the sharpness of his tooth, causing it to pierce through her skin.
When her blood streaked out, she felt a numbing pain radiating from her thumb.
She had purposefully started the conversion without his consent, making him bite into her finger.
The look of horror on Avice’s face was too much for Yarra to bear. She tried to apologize, but his poison ravaged her voice box. Only hoarse sounds and groans came from her throat. The poison coursed through her body, affecting every cell from her head to toe. A tear fell from Yarra’s cheek, as she thought of her unborn child and Avice.
All became black.
Avice did not know what to do, as he saw Yarra slump in and out of consciousness. Her body shook as her blood remained in his mouth. He had not expected her to deliberately sink her flesh into his fangs; an inadvertent bite on his part, which he had had no control over.
“Baby!” Avice screamed out, not caring that there were vampires outside the shack waiting to ambush them.
Yarra convulsed a little and then stopped breathing. Her skin was pallid, having lost its lifelike glow. Avice shook her, tears falling down his face. He moaned out her name.
The door of the shack crashed behind him. When he turned, he saw his mother and a few clan members with swords, guns and knives in their hands, ready to rip them to shreds.
The lights from some of their hands fell upon Avice. Alicia, who was ready to jump in to the fray, stopped dead in her tracks. The sight of Avice holding the lifeless body of Yarra puzzled her.
Avice held back his sobs and continued to look down at his mate. Her lips, which used to be pinkish and full, now looked withered and blue, with the blood in her body beginning to clot.
“What happened?” Alicia asked, her voice just as cold and lifeless.
“She… she tried to attempt conversion,” Avice explained. He did not have the energy to fight anyone anymore. The purpose of his life was gone, held in his arms. “She’s dead.”
Alicia neither laughed nor relished in the fact that Yarra had died.
“Idiot girl,” she said, looking at the slight slice on Yarra’s thumb. “She thought that we would accept her if she became a vampire.”
None of them made a move for a while, merely looking at Avice cradling the body of the dead woman. “We still have to kill him for his betrayal to the clan!” Someone shouted to a fragmented chorus of assent. Alicia silenced them all with a cold, withering look.
“My son has killed Yarra Davis,” she gestured to Avice and the dead girl. “Though the circumstances are different to what I had designed, he has done what I set him out to do.”
There were murmurs all around Avice, but he did not care anymore. He held on to Yarra’s lifeless body, feeling the clammy skin. The softness of her flesh began to freeze.
This was not supposed to happen. They loved each other. Wasn’t that enough for him to be able to convert her? Why did it fail?
Alicia Selleck stepped in the shack then, looked at the body of Yarra.
“Though Avice had first betrayed us, he has killed the girl. Still, his earlier actions warrant consequences.”
The other vampires stood around her with bated breath, waiting for her to deliver her judgment.
“Excommunication from the clan,” she said out aloud.
Some of the vampires were disappointed by Alicia’s decision, and it showed in their expressions and body language. But, they respected their leader. Slowly but surely, they exited the shack and vanished away into the night, leaving Alicia with her son and the now dead Yarra.
She stared at her son, the one who had been destined to take over the clan, to replace her as its leader. He now knelt in front of her, ashamed, destroyed and damaged beyond repair, holding on to the woman that he had loved.
“Just kill me,” Avice cried quietly. Life did not matter to him anymore.
“No, Avice,” Alicia said, as she stepped out of the shack. “You will live with this punishment, knowing that you had killed her because your love was not enough. You will live with the knowledge that you can’t return to the Keepers of the Blades. Knowing that you will be grieving for the rest of your life, is punishment enough.”
With that, Alicia stepped into the night and was never heard of again.
The front door of the shack remained open, causing a cold gust of wind to come in. Avice cradled Yarra’s body and rested his head on her still chest.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he stamme
red. The tears continued to fall from his eyes.
“You’re ugly when you cry,” she replied.
Out of shock, Avice let go of her body, causing her to fall onto his lap. She squealed in pain and rubbed the back of her head where it thudded against the floor. But she had a wide smile on her face. Avice looked at her in disbelief as she sat up.
Her skin was now as pale as his. Her earlier hazel eyes were now red, and when her smile widened, he was ecstatic, relieved to see fangs there were shorter, blunter canines were supposed to be.
“You…, you didn’t die?” Avice asked, astonished.
A Final Game Page 4