BLACK RAVEN [ piper mcLean ]

Doom and Gloom

COULD THE DEAD even talk to the Oracle? Maybe . . . as the Oracle herself was dead. Those were Ali's thoughts as she climbed the four flights up, the stairs ended and under a green trapdoor.

She pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and the smell of snakes.

Yum!

She held her breath and climbed.

"Medusa?" She called out along the way. Ali had never been to visit the Oracle before, so she had no idea what to expect. There was a smell of reptiles, so maybe Medusa was the oracle.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things—severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

This must be the oracle. Ali would be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little disappointed that the Oracle wasn't Medusa, but a dead corpse instead.

Looking at her sent chills up her back. Alison didn't even know what to ask her to get her to talk!

"Hey."

Nothing.

The oracle ignored her.

ALi shifted her weight from foot to foot, crossing her arms over her chest, extremely unsure of how to go about this.

"You're the oracle so can you like . . . tell me my future or something?"

She waited.

Still nothing.

Ali started to backtrack. "You know what, never mind. I don't really want to know my destiny anymore. It'll probably be all doom and gloom soo, no thanks." 

 Ali had to stop in her tracks unforuently, as that was because the oracle sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. Ali stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside her head, she heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around her brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

Alison forced herself to take a deep breath. Despite the dead mummy now inside her not alive mind. "What's my destiny." She whispered, hoping the oracle didn't hear her.

The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around her in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil. It felt more like the Three Fates; ancient, powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing her, either. Not that it could.

The mist swirled more thickly at her question, collecting right in front of her and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. There was no illusion, no image. But the screaming voice echoing loudly in her mind.