The Oracle's Locket

by Devyn Forrest

  “Cast yourself forward. First, 100 years to the country of France. See it. Know it. Tell me. What does it look like?” he finally asked.

  We’d done similar exercises before. As an oracle, I was meant to know every detail of the past, every detail of the future. But there, blinking at this stupid map, I had nothing. My head was just a manic dump.

  “I don’t know.” My words sounded jagged, angry. I crossed my arms tight over my chest and glared at the map, directly where his yardstick sat.

  “Focus, Ivy. We’ve done this before. You were able to think this through, even two weeks ago. Come on,” he coaxed.

  I started to shake. I stared at that mark, at the stupid country of France—Margot’s homeland. Why the hell couldn’t I come up with anything? Hell, make something up! I thought. But all I stared at then was a piece of paper.

  And suddenly, that paper caught on fire.

  The map took on the fire really fucking quickly. Professor Binion leaped back to stand in line with me. I stood slowly, genuinely shocked at what I’d done. I’d stared so hard, thought so frantically, that the map had gone up, just like that.

  Professor Binion hurriedly muttered some kind of incantation to make the fire stop. He couldn’t save the map. Its ashes piled up on the ground, and the last of it hung and swayed back and forth from the little peg on top.

  I didn’t have the energy to apologize. Did I actually care? I turned to look at Professor Binion, whose hand flung out to grip my shoulder, over the fabric.

  “It’s clear that you’re very frustrated. Very angry,” he said. “And it comes through in your inability to control your powers. As you can see, it can create horrendous damage. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You could do lasting damage. To people, even.”

  The image of the platter crashing against Aunt Maria’s head filled my mind. I pressed my hands against my eyes and shook and shook. I think I even blacked out for a second. When I came to, I heard Professor Binion’s voice like it was far away, out the window, even. Tears dripped down my cheeks. I was careful not to make any crying sound, even though it was obvious I was on the verge of breaking down.

  “I never wanted this,” I told him. It was the same thing I wanted to tell everyone. “I never wanted to be an oracle. I never wanted to be anything but a small-town girl who—who played soccer and maybe got asked to go to prom. I wasn’t even allowed to be at home for Thanksgiving, and Aunt Maria says I probably won’t even be able to be home for Christmas. God! I just want to feel safe! I just want to feel okay for five seconds!”

  Professor Binion loosened his grip on my shoulder and returned to the other side of the desk. His movements were slow. I could tell he wanted to say exactly the right thing, to choose his words carefully so as not to make me even angrier. I was a ticking time bomb.

  “What you’re saying about wanting security?” he began. “It’s what we all want, isn’t it? Security. Love. Family. Time to laugh and forget about all the horrible things we’ve been through. Maybe this caught up to you a little bit early—but in actuality, some version of this catches up to everyone. Security is just an illusion we let ourselves fall under. And—need I remind you—your Aunt Maria has given her entire life to ensure you’re safe. She only wants what’s best for you.”

  Great. Just another thing to feel guilty about.

  “I know,” I whispered, wrapping my hand around my throat and blinking out the window. I couldn’t look at him anymore. He seemed to think I was some kind of idiot now.

  “It’s just up to you to do as we ask so that it isn’t impossible to keep you safe,” Professor Binion continued. “Me. Your Aunt. Your good friends. We’re all here to make sure you get through this time. And we care about you, Ivy. You’re not in this alone.”

  Chapter Six

  I didn’t know where to put my anger. I felt equal parts pissed at Professor Binion for having guilted me into how I felt now, and I also felt enraged at Celeste for asking me why I was acting the way I was. Of course, there was an extra dose of madness for Margot—but most of the wild, sizzling anger I felt was directed toward myself. Guilt shot through me and made me nearly frozen. I paused several times on my walk back to the dorm, gripping the railing on the staircase and then walked slowly through the arboretum. Time felt really amorphous to me at the moment; I hadn’t been allowed any time at home for break, which meant the semester had stretched on without rhyme or reason. And here I was, lost, anxious and homesick.

  As I walked back toward the girls’ dorm, there was a hazy shadow off to one side of the ancient stone building. I paused for a second to peer at it. There, poised so delicately, hardly moving, was a tiny black kitten. My heart lurched. What the hell was a kitten doing on campus like that? Perhaps she was lost. As I approached, she gave out the tiniest mew I’d ever heard.

  But when I was no more than a foot or two away—I could literally count the little whiskers on the poor kitten—I felt the whack of two hands on my back. Suddenly, the cat disappeared as I flung forward and my cheek bounced on the stone. I whirled around, my head buzzing after impact, to see none other than Margot, Zelda, and Riley. They stood in a kind of triangle in front of me, with Margot in the center. It only took a second for me to realize that the cat hadn’t been real.

  “Here, she is. The most powerful girl in school,” Margot said snidely. She snapped her fingers, and the little black cat appeared at my feet again, whipping through my ankles. Before my eyes, the kitten transformed into a snake. I leaped up, trying to escape it, which made the girls cackle even more.

  Damn. Margot had skills.

  “What the hell do you want?” I demanded, my eyes toward Margot’s. I had no use for the other girls. They just cackled, providing the soundtrack for whatever Margot wanted to do next. It was pathetic.

  Margot popped her lower lip out, mocking me. “Mon Cherie, don’t you already know? I want to see your famous powers. I want to tease them out of you. All I’ve gotten from you since the break? A bit of turkey stain on my shirt. You know how easy it is for me to get such things out of my clothes?”

  “She’s a witch, idiot,” Riley spat.

  Anger rippled through me. I’d already been in a horrible mood; now I wanted to destroy them. Emotion and terror rippled through me. I wanted to blast the energy toward them, the way I had with the painting on the wall in Professor Binion’s office—but when I tried to generate it, I just felt hollowed out, tired. I fell back against the stone wall and heaved a sigh, my eyes flickering closed.

  This made the girls laugh even louder.

  That made me madder than ever.

  I snapped my eyes back open. I could feel them glow, the way they had the night of my birthday. Margot, Riley, and Zelda’s faces slowly shifted, showing a tiny bit of fear. Riley, the least powerful of the three, took a delicate step back.

  Margot placed her hands up, on the verge of attack. There, behind the shadows, I was sure nobody would come find us. Nobody would ever know. If Margot took it upon herself to destroy me—the ancient fucking oracle, or whatever, on the brink of saving the world forever, then that was her business.

  But I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  Suddenly, an enormous figure burst through the triangle of girls. The force of him cast Riley to the ground. She flailed out, wailing, while Zelda and Margot hunkered together.

  Raphael stood a foot away from me, arrogant and broad-shouldered. His brown hair curled toward his shoulder, and his eyes glistened, and as he gave me a cutting smile, he showed just a hint of his werewolf fangs—weapons that could rip and shred through any tiny, waif-life witch and her fae and vampire friends.

  He glared at Margot and boomed, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Margot? Keeping up your bullshit attitude? What the hell are you trying to prove, huh?”

  Margot’s eyes grew enormous. You could see her analyzing every inch of him, the weight of his muscles, the glint of his fangs, the anger in his voice. Raphael took another step toward her s
o that he now growled directly into her face. She cowered a bit, her knees clanking together.

  “Get the fuck away from her,” Raphael said, his voice low.

  Margot took another stagger back. She gripped Zelda’s wrist, maybe to keep herself standing. But, true to Margot’s way, she had to get the final word in. Her eyes shot back toward me as she snarled, “You know, I wanted to see what you got. I wanted to see all that power you’ve got churning in there. But obviously, you’re nothing but talk. Here he is—your knight in shining armor.”

  “Fuck you,” I whispered. I lurched forward, preparing to attack with the only powers I’d had before all this—physical ones. But Raphael’s hand-stretched across my chest and shoved me back against the stone.

  There was something about it, about being dominated by him. I licked my lower lip and watched as he turned back to Margot and flashed his long canine fangs. Little hairs spurt out of his chin, the sides of his face, along his jawline. He whispered, “You’re going to leave Ivy alone from now on. Do you understand me?”

  Margot was frightened. You could see her tracing through all the potential come backs, anything, but as she shook there in front of this tremendously powerful Lycan, she grabbed Zelda’s hand again, reached for Riley, who remained on the ground. Together, the three of them rushed around the side of the building and then clanked the girls’ dormitory door behind them.

  I was free.

  I was angry.

  I was bitter.

  But there I was, stretched out against the wall beneath Raphael’s massive, hairy hand, gazing up at him. I could hardly breathe.

  He’d saved me, although I didn’t want to admit it.

  His hand was stretched out just over my heart. He heaved in a breath, which calmed him a little and brought in his fangs. The hairs snuck back into his skin. But still, he gazed at his hand, his eyebrows furrowing.

  “I can still feel it,” he muttered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your powers. I could feel them all the way across the arboretum. It’s tremendous. It felt like this punch to the stomach. And I knew it was you. I knew I had to come.”

  Rage shot through me again. I grabbed his hand and thrust it away—just quick enough, so I didn’t feel an attack of his memories or his future.

  Why had he just had such a change of heart toward me? Oh, right. It was because I’d suddenly shown myself to be this powerful monster. That sort of thing got you far around here.

  “You’re just like everyone else,” I told him, my voice sinister.

  Raphael arched his brow. “Why do you say that?”

  “All semester, you treated me like garbage. And now, just like everyone else, you’ve decided that I’m some special thing you want to protect. It’s fucking bullshit. Do me a favor, and leave me the hell alone.”

  But he interrupted me. Again, he pressed me hard against the stone, even as I tried to whip around him and return to my bedroom. God, all I wanted to do was sit alone in some kind of darkness.

  “Stop it,” Raphael said, his voice low, gravelly.

  I hated it. My pussy tightened at the sound. My breasts tingled, and my eyes bore into his. I could tell they glowed, just the slightest bit.

  Raphael took a small step toward me so that his lips were only a few inches from mine. When he spoke, it was no more than a whisper. “Need I remind you, Ivy Whitestone. My opinion of you changed, oh, just a little before your powers manifested themselves. Or don’t you remember what you, me, Ezra, and Quintin were up to on the night before your birthday?”

  Remember? I thought about it all. The. Time.

  Their kisses. Their lips on my pussy. Me, crying out their name into the night.

  It had been like a ceremony for something.

  And then—

  The moment I had came—

  I’d lifted into the air and transformed. I’d felt my powers come over me, so naturally, as though they’d always been burrowed somewhere in my body, in hibernation, prepared to uncoil and become what they were always meant to be.

  Fuck. My nostrils flared as I stared into his eyes, stunned. I’d angered him, and he showed a glint of his fangs, his eyes flashing.

  “We had no fucking clue what you were or what you were capable of,” Raphael boomed. “When we—”

  “So, what?” I demanded. I lifted my chin, suddenly enraged all over again. “Now, I’m just your plaything, aren’t I? The girl you know you can stick it in whenever you want—so long as you save me from Margot and her crew.”

  Raphael bucked back. His fangs grew longer, shinier, and hair bucked back out along his jawline. He’d told me that as a Lycan, he had ultimate control over his abilities—but it was obvious that, like me, his emotions could sometimes take control instead.

  “That isn’t it. And you know it,” Raphael said, his voice low, demanding.

  What the fuck did these boys think they had on me?

  It had been just like this with Quintin in the library.

  This deep, impossible yearning.

  We meant something—something to each other.

  Something I couldn’t fully understand.

  And I wanted to fight against it. My eyes spit with electricity, ager.

  “You’re so fucking difficult!” Raphael cried, his own madness stirring up in his eyes.

  I shot to the side, rushing back toward the empty grass between the old stone buildings. I half-expected Raphael to follow me. Hell, he could catch me in a second if he wanted to. But whatever had happened between us made him let me go. Within seconds, I flashed up the stairs to the second-year girls’ dorm and crashed into bed, even as the door slammed closed behind me. I lay there, gasping, my eyes toward the ceiling. Despite my best efforts to lock them out, I could feel them: Riley, Zelda, and Margot—all of them seated at the edge of Margot’s bed, just a few doors down, hunkered around one another, plotting.

  I knew they wanted to kill me.

  Chapter Seven

  Weeks kind of took over after that. It was always strange—even back when I was normal with none of these damn powers—those weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. You wanted to catch them, hold onto them, enjoy all the cheer, sugar overload and excitement, or whatever. But all too soon, the days closed over you and you were cast into the grey swamp of January. Even down in Louisiana, the weather was shit.

  At the beginning of December, I got a letter from Aunt Maria. It was the first word I’d heard from her since the whole incident at Thanksgiving. Truthfully, I laid the letter on my desk, unopened, for several days, until Celeste pleaded with me to open it.

  “You can’t just never speak to her again,” she said.

  “But that’s basically what she’s doing. A letter? What is this, 1812?”

  “Just open it. Some things are easier written down,” Celeste said.

  “I think that’s why we have email,” I spat.

  Even still, I sat with the envelope, opened it, and then spread the letter out on the desk. It was written with Aunt Maria’s favorite blue pen—I could picture it in her hand—and it wasn’t very long, just a page and a quarter on the other side. It was obvious that she’d written the letter with the thought that it could be apprehended at any time.

  Ivy,

  I’m sorry for the radio silence. In the wake of everything that happened when you were home for those brief hours, Zoey and I had to set up another round of protection. We hope they’ll hold for another few months—although it’s difficult to know. I haven’t seen any activity since that night, thankfully. It’s been quiet.

  And I’ve had a lot of time to think.

  I love you, Ivy. I do. But I don’t think you should come back for Christmas break. I have no idea what to expect with all of this. And I know you’re not strong enough to protect yourself. Stay on at the academy. Professor Binion will be there for you. And I’ve spoken with Zoey: we both think it’s a good idea for Celeste to remain on with you as well, for company. I know you girls ca
n’t go many days without the other. I suppose I don’t think this is a tremendous sacrifice for Celeste.

  Please don’t think of this as a personal attack. I want nothing more than to be cuddled up with you on the couch, watching our favorite Christmas films.

  Did you know that I’d never seen any of them until I came to live with you? There was so much you had to teach me about. And now, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t watch Love Actually or Home Alone every single year. I guess I’m a bit broken.

  The letter went on like that. More excuses, intermixed with nostalgia. More reasons why I shouldn’t come back to Hillside Falls. I let the letter flutter back to my desk and then pressed my forehead against the paper. Celeste sighed.

  “What did she say?” Celeste asked.

  I told her. When I got to the part about her staying on at the academy with me, her face ticked only a tiny bit.

  “You already knew, didn’t you?”

  Celeste shrugged slightly. “Mom mentioned something about it over the phone the other day. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I know you had a tiny bit of hope that you could go home.”

  My stomach stirred with anger. “I mean, how can you stand that?”

  Celeste blinked at me, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re letting yourself be pushed around. They’re just telling you whatever they want you to do, and you’re just doing it. Aren’t you a witch? Shouldn’t you be able to do whatever the hell you want? Shouldn’t you be able to handle anything?”

  A bit of color drained out of Celeste’s eyes. I knew I’d pissed her off, yet again. I had a habit of doing that lately. She slid her arms over her chest and tilted her weight.

  “I mean, I can’t handle everything. You’ve seen my powers. Maybe someday I’ll be able to—but I’m pretty far away from that,” she said. Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact.