Oracle

by Jackie French

  ‘And why should they?’ His father’s voice softened. ‘Take the girl then, if that will make you happy.’

  Something tugged on his goatskin tunic. Nikko looked down. Thetis’s eyes were wide and troubled. She glanced at the doorway, then back at him. He bent down and picked her up. Her clothes were as rough as his, but her skin felt smooth as honey and warm from the sun, and her hair smelled of barley. Their mother must have sent Thetis out to grind the grain in the quirn again, to keep her busy and out of the village’s way.

  Thetis held up a crock of flour as though she knew what he was thinking. She put it down on the dusty ground and glanced at the door again, questioningly this time.

  She’d heard. Somehow he had to make her smile. A butterfly fluttered past, then landed on a flowering dock plant. He pointed to it. ‘Once upon a time, the butterfly was a buttersit. All it could do was sit upon a rock. And then it learned the flying song.’

  Thetis looked at him questioningly. He grinned. ‘It goes like this.’ He clapped his hands around her bony body as she clung onto his chest with her thin arms and legs. Clap clap clap, clap clap clap, clap clap clap…

  She tilted her head, and tried to copy the rhythm: clap clap clap. Somehow she managed to hold onto him with just her legs.

  ‘That’s it!’

  Nikko grabbed her hands and began to whirl her round and round. ‘See, it works! You can fly too! Up and down you go, just like the butterfly.’

  Another child would have shrieked with pleasure. Thetis’s mouth opened, but no sound came. Yet for a moment her face lit up, like the cliffs struck gold by the rising sun.

  The voices were quiet inside now. Nikko put Thetis down and took her hand. ‘Come on. Let’s see about our dinner.’

  She followed him obediently as he parted the goatskins and led her inside.

  They set out before dawn, so early that only the cuckoo was calling. Thetis was silent as always, her brown eyes taking in every detail of the quiet huts as they trod down the track. Their mother carried a bundle of food to eat along the way, and a length of goat-hair cloth she had spun and woven as a gift for the hag. Nikko carried his father’s second-best hunting spear. A boy and a spear would be no match for bandits, but it would be enough to scare away a wolf or even a mountain lion who might think a small child a tempting meal.

  Normally the oldest son would have accompanied his mother and sister on a journey like this. But somehow everyone took it for granted that Nikko was Thetis’s protector. Nikko wasn’t sure how he felt about this. Proud, perhaps, stepping out of the village gate with the spear, but uncomfortable too, that once again he was forced to behave differently from the other boys in the village.

  Behind them the first of the morning’s smoke was puffing out of the huts’ smoke holes. They crossed the stepping stones over the stream, singing to itself, bright with snow-melt; past the scratchings where the women grew the beans and barley; and then down through grapevines and olive trees, their leaves green-silver in the dawn, with bees nuzzling at the olive blossom.

  Thetis smiled and pointed at the flowers on the trees, turning to make sure Nikko looked too and appreciated their beauty. She’s still young enough to find the seasons’ change exciting, thought Nikko, with the wisdom of his nearly eleven summers.

  And then the world became trees—pines and juniper—and rock, as they passed the tended lands of the village, into country held by no man, except the High King—land of the animals and gods.

  Light spilled across the world as the sun rose. The dew became a cloud of mist, sparkling in the growing sunlight. They walked along the sunlit track until the valley narrowed again, and the trees created a roof of shadow overhead. Nikko held his spear more tightly.

  Suddenly Thetis stopped. She pointed up the mountain, into the world of stones and scrub beyond the trees. Nikko caught his breath. A mountain lion lay on a rock, warming itself, gold as the sunlight. He hesitated. A lion’s pelt was valuable. No other boy in the village had ever speared a lion. But all he had ever hit with a spear so far was a goatskin ageing on a branch. Hitting hares with a slingshot was different from spearing a lion. A wounded lion might attack…but it was more than that. The lion looked like the king of the forest, so sure of itself it could sleep in the open.

  He felt rather than saw Thetis shake her head. She clutched his hand and tugged. Nikko looked back. Their mother walked on, oblivious. He smiled at Thetis and followed her. Suddenly he found himself humming.

  His mother looked up. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A song.’

  ‘I haven’t heard it before. Who taught it to you?’

  He wanted to say, ‘The lion. It’s a song about how it feels to be fierce and unafraid, and sit on a rock in the sun.’ But he just shrugged and said, ‘Someone.’

  His mother bit her lip and tugged Thetis’s hand again. She was scared, Nikko realised, and not just of going out of their own village lands into strangers’ territory. She was scared of what the hag might say.

  He might protect them against a lion. But some things were greater than he could help with.

  They kept on walking. The valley grew wider, then widened even more as they went downhill. The track was white with dust, staining their bare feet, though the soil in the patches of barley on either side was red. Why does bare ground seem so much hotter than grass, thought Nikko, almost as hot as rock? The sun rose higher. The dappled shade was a blessing now.

  Nikko would have liked to talk. But somehow talking to his mother now would exclude Thetis. Besides, what was there to say?

  Another stream rippled in the sunlight, wider than theirs at home, the grass on either side short-cropped by animals. His mother nodded toward it. She sat on the grass while Nikko and Thetis paddled their feet in the water, and ate yesterday’s barley bread, already hard, and soft white goat’s cheese, hot from the sun. The taste of home was comforting, in a land of strangers.

  His mother stood and brushed the crumbs from her tunic. They kept on walking.

  Nikko could smell cook fires now, and the scent of goats. They rounded another bend in the track, and there was the hag’s village.

  It was protected by the same kind of high fence that sheltered their own village—made of saplings and tree trunks bound with goat hide. The gate stood open, and through it they could see wood huts with sloping thatched roofs, just like their own, straggling up the hillside, the same cook fires and barley plots and olive trees. It was strange to see something so familiar but different too, all the things he knew, but in the wrong positions.

  Children in ragged goatskins stared and pointed at the strangers, then ran giggling into their huts. The older boys stared without giggling, standing hands on hips as though to say ‘this place is ours’.

  Thetis edged closer to their mother, her eyes taking it all in. Their mother lowered her gaze, as was proper for a modest woman, when there might be men not of her family about. Nikko lifted his chin. He was the man. ‘Which is the hag’s house?’ he said loudly, and was glad his voice didn’t tremble.

  The nearest boy lifted his fingers in the sign against the evil eye, then gestured toward one of the huts, a little way from the others under the shadow of the mountain.

  Nikko nodded his thanks. He began to walk up the slope, his mother and sister behind him.

  The hag was sitting on her doorstep, grinding barley in her quirn, though when Nikko looked closer he saw it wasn’t barley grains at all, but green stuff, ground almost to a paste. She looked like any old village woman, or at least one with many sons to provide for her, for her dress was cloth, not goatskin, and she was well fleshed too. But her hut looked too small for a family, and had no goat sheds.

  She ignored them, peering down at her quirn, till they were almost on her, then lifted her head and smiled. Nikko saw with a shock that her teeth were long and white. He had never seen an old woman with all her teeth. He gripped his spear. Had she charmed a wolf to take its fangs?

  ‘And who comes asking for
the hag?’ The voice was strong for a crone too.

  His mother held her fist to her head in respect. ‘Maronis, wife of Giannis, and my son Nikkoledes and my daughter Thetis, mistress. We humbly ask your aid.’

  The hag stood up, showing strong feet splayed with age and work. ‘You are welcome,’ she said formally, as any woman would to a guest. She pushed aside the well-trimmed goatskin door, and led the way inside.

  It was cool in the hut, smelling of flowers and the smoked meat and cheeses that hung from the ceiling beam. Nikko stared. The hag was rich, with so much food. A small fire glowed on the hearth, not strong enough to send its smoke through the smoke hole, so it stung his eyes and throat. Wooden stools carved with lion’s heads stood around the walls and a fine bearskin sat on the bed platform. Two big stone pots hunched by the fire and other storage pots were arranged next to the walls.

  ‘Sit.’ The hag waved her hand. She bent over one of the big pots by the fire and ladled out three cupfuls of something, then took some small loaves out of another pot. ‘Eat,’ she commanded. ‘There are no men in this house to be served first.’

  I am nearly a man, thought Nikko, and I eat with Father and Aertes before Mother and Thetis, as is proper. But he wasn’t going to argue with a hag.

  He sipped his drink. It tasted of flowers, sweet and fragrant. But the bread…he took another bite. He had never tasted bread as good as this before, sweet with honey and dried grapes. He saw Thetis’s eyes widen. She reached for another loaf, and then looked up at the hag for permission.

  ‘You like honey cake, do you? Take it, take it.’ The hag stared at Thetis thoughtfully. Thetis stared back as she bit into the cake. She seems quite unafraid, thought Nikko. Suddenly she put the cake down. She pointed to her teeth, then to the hag, her head on one side questioningly.

  The hag laughed. ‘Ah, a watcher! I like that. And a questioner! I am a watcher too, girl. You want to know how I keep my teeth? Many would like to know that, but they don’t have the stomach to ask me. Will I tell you the secret?’

  Their mother shivered. She seemed about to refuse when Thetis nodded.

  The hag laughed again. ‘Do not worry, wife of Giannis. It’s no charm of mists and moonlight.’ She leaned forward. ‘It is snails.’

  ‘Snails!’ Nikko flushed. He hadn’t meant to speak.

  The hag nodded, still gazing at Thetis. ‘Every spring, when there is no milk or cheese and the hunting is bad, when the rest of the village goes hungry, I gather snails down by the stream. I make broth with the meat and I grind the shells to mix with my barley flour. It is something my mother taught me, and her mother taught her. It is a secret anyone could share, if they would ask. Then they could keep their teeth too, even when they are as old as me.’

  Could it be as simple as that? thought Nikko. Were all the hag’s charms wisdom that anyone could use?

  The hag glanced at Nikko’s mother. ‘And now you want me to make your daughter speak.’

  His mother unwrapped the goatskin. ‘I have brought a length of cloth, mistress. It is my best weaving—’

  ‘I am sure it is.’ The hag spoke absently. Nikko expected her to put on the apron of the Mother, as the headman’s wife did when she made the sacrifice at planting time. But instead she just reached out and lifted Thetis’s chin with two stained fingers and stared into her eyes.

  ‘Do you know why she does not speak, wife of Giannis?’

  Nikko’s mother hesitated. ‘When…when she was born…my husband took her to the mountain. It was a bad winter, mistress, and so little food…’ Her voice stumbled into silence. Nikko wondered if she had ever spoken of her daughter’s birth before.

  The hag looked at her sharply. ‘So you gave your daughter to the Mother. Then how is she here? Did a wolf suckle her, or an eagle fly her home?’

  ‘Nikko.’ His mother gestured at him. Her voice was almost too soft to hear. ‘He brought her back.’

  ‘Ah.’ The hag looked directly at Nikko for the first time. ‘So you took back a gift to the Mother. But the Mother kept part of her gift. Your sister’s voice.’

  ‘She wasn’t a gift to the Mother!’ cried Nikko. ‘The wolves would have eaten her! Why should we give a gift to the wolves?’

  ‘Why indeed.’ The hag almost smiled. ‘I think you are right, boy. The Mother does not need babies left to die on the mountain. So perhaps there is no reason why your sister should not speak. You girl, what’s your name? Thetis. Swallow,’ she ordered suddenly.

  Thetis swallowed.

  ‘Now open your mouth. No, over here, where the light is better.’ The hag thrust two fingers onto Thetis’s tongue. ‘Breathe out, then in again. Lift up your tongue. Now poke it out.’ The hag sat back. ‘Shut your mouth now.’

  The hag sat quietly for a moment. The hut was silent. Nikko could hear goats bleating up on the mountain, and pigeons cooing down in the barley fields. A shadow flitted through the gaps in the door as a pair of swallows dived for flies.

  The hag looked at Nikko’s mother. ‘She cried as a baby?’

  His mother nodded. ‘At first. But later…’ she hesitated ‘…it was as though she learned not to cry. I have never known such a silent baby. It was,’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘as though sometimes she wasn’t there.’

  ‘And she has said no word at all? No sound?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Your husband—this Giannis—how did he like his daughter coming back from the mountain?’

  Nikko’s mother looked at the ground. She didn’t speak.

  At last Nikko said, ‘He pretends it never happened. He doesn’t talk to Thetis. No one does. He doesn’t even look at her, most times.’

  Or me, he thought.

  The hag turned away and stared into the stuttering sparks of fire. At last she said. ‘I can make her speak, if that is your wish.’

  His mother’s face lit up as though the sun shone on it. ‘Oh, thank you, mistress.’

  The hag held up a hand. The nails were dark and wasted, like snail shells. ‘Do not thank me yet. I said, I can do it if you wish. But if you are wise you will leave things as they are.’

  His mother looked bewildered. ‘But why, mistress?’

  ‘Because it is easier not to see a child who does not speak,’ said the hag simply.

  Nikko’s mother shook her head. ‘People whisper about her, mistress. If she speaks she will be like other children. Maybe…maybe people will forget—’

  ‘Ha. People only forget the things they don’t wish to remember.’ The words were soft as day-old cheese, but they still made him shiver. ‘So be warned, wife of Giannis.’

  Nikko thought of the night he’d carried his sister home. The hag is right, he thought. People are good at not seeing. But his mother was shaking her head.

  ‘If she does not speak she will never have a husband.’

  ‘Ha! A terrible thing, not to have a husband. Believe me, wife of Giannis, some men would rather have a wife who does not speak. But I admit they may not realise it when they choose a bride. Very well, if that is your wish.’ She looked down at Nikko. ‘You boy, do you want your sister to speak?’

  Nikko hesitated. Of course he did. Anything that made Thetis more like the other girls must be good. And yet…‘If she wishes it, I do,’ he said.

  The hag looked at him approvingly. ‘A good answer, especially from a boy.’ The words were kind, but somehow Nikko had the feeling the hag didn’t think much of boys. Or men. She looked down at Thetis, sitting on her carved stool, picking up the last crumbs of honey bread with her finger. ‘Very well.’

  She reached down into the neck of her dress, and drew out something on a twist of wool. It glittered in the light from the doorway, then flashed again as the fire light touched it. ‘Look at this, child.’

  Thetis bent closer. Nikko narrowed his eyes. It looked like a piece of rock, polished smooth. How could a piece of rock charm his sister?

  The hag twisted the stone over and over in her fingers. Thetis’s eyes grew w
ider, and fixed unblinking as it flashed again. ‘The dark of night took your voice,’ said the hag quietly. ‘Now the light gives it back. You will speak now. But if you ever choose muteness once and for all, it will be yours.’

  The hag closed her eyes for a second, her face still. Almost as though she’s praying, thought Nikko, or pleading with the Mother. Why should Thetis ever want to be silent?

  The hag slipped the stone back into her dress. ‘It is done.’

  Thetis blinked, then stared at the hut, as though she had forgotten where she was.

  ‘Well?’ Their mother’s voice trembled. ‘Can you speak to me?’

  Thetis nodded. ‘I can speak.’

  Her voice sounded matter-of-fact. It’s as though nothing momentous has happened, thought Nikko, surprised.

  Their mother gave a sharp cry. She gathered Thetis into her arms. Thetis hugged her politely, then looked back at the hag. ‘May I have another honey cake?’

  Nikko felt a smile stretch across his face. Thetis’s voice was light and dancing as the butterfly. The hag grinned, a shadow of relief crossing her face. ‘Those are good first words for any child. Yes, you may have another honey cake.’

  Thetis reached for the honey cake. ‘They are good cakes. Mother cannot make cakes as good as this. Father has all our grapes made into wine. Do people give you honey?’ Her voice sounds as though she has spoken all her life, thought Nikko wonderingly.

  ‘Yes, child. In return for my help.’

  Thetis settled herself on her mother’s lap, nibbling her cake, the only one in the room who didn’t seem stunned by what had happened. ‘If you told them how to help themselves they would not give you honey.’

  The hag stared. ‘No.’ She looked up at Maronis, whose face was damp with tears as she stared at her child, her talking child. ‘You have a child who tells the truth. It is not an easy thing, wife of Giannis, to have a daughter who speaks the truth.’

  ‘I would wish her to tell the truth.’ His mother brushed away her tears. She sounded even more bewildered now.

  ‘Ha!’ The hag grinned, showing her strong white teeth again. ‘Most people hide the truth under the skins of their bed, where they do not have to see it.’ She shook her head. ‘I saw that she was a watcher. But a watcher and a truth sayer—I do not know if I would have helped her speak if I had known that.’