Highlander Enchanted(92)

I felt no different but assumed it was like the boundaries of my home, capable of blocking me and the world from one another.

“Do you have any belongings you need to collect?” Father Cristopolos asked.

I shook my head. I owned nothing of value.

“Very well. Remain here with Father Ellis.”

The four of them turned and left. I watched them. This didn’t feel any more real than watching the strange grotesque-creature at the lake. It had to be a dream. A prank. An epic misunderstanding.

“Things are about to change,” Father Ellis said. “It’s only right I give you this.” He held out a small pouch. “Herakles left it with me for safekeeping in case something happened. I think this qualifies. It belongs to you.”

I accepted the small velvet pouch and opened it. Something glimmered inside. I dumped it into my hand and stared at it. A teal gem on a plain chain with a bronze finish nestled into my palm. It was huge, clear and so bright, it almost seemed to glow. Its multifaceted surface reflected sunlight and caused faint rainbows to appear in the air around it.

“Wow,” I breathed. “It’s mine?” Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. It felt like it belonged to me. The strange sense wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before.

“It was all you brought with you when you arrived. You don’t remember how you came to have such an incredible piece of jewelry?”

I shook my head. “I don’t remember anything from before the day we got here,” I murmured. I closed my hand around the gem and considered replacing it in the pouch. It didn’t seem natural or right for me not to wear what was mine. I tugged it over my head and tucked it into my t-shirt. The gem settled against my chest.

“It’s special, whatever it is,” he said.

I know. Uncertain how it was possible for me to understand a gem I’d only now laid eyes on, I stepped away, too wired to be still.

Father Ellis sat down and closed his eyes to meditate.

“How can you pray at a time like this?” I asked in agitation.

“What better time is there to pray than when you’re in trouble?”

To each his own. I rolled my eyes.





Chapter Three


There is nothing permanent except change.

– Heraclitus




How fast could reality, a world, life in general, transform into something I never knew existed?

I was waiting for Father Ellis to laugh and tell me he was joking about everything. But as the next two hours passed in silence, he didn’t change his story. He was quiet and calm, choosing to meditate in the peaceful meadow. I initially paced then sat and stared at the sky, lost.

Everything they’d said began to sink in. When I realized this was real or at least, the priests believed it to be real, I also knew I had to do something. I stood. The monk was seated cross legged in meditation, his eyes closed.

“I’m going to get my emergency pack,” I told him. I waited for him to tell me not to bother, because they were messing with me.

He opened his eyes. “Is it far?”

“Half hour.”

“I’ll wait here.”

My insides were shaking when I turned away and started into the forest. Yesterday, I was desperate to leave the forest. Today, I was scared of the same thing. It was stupid of me to be so worked up! I didn’t buy the idea of me having power, but I did know we couldn’t stay here when the place we all lived was destroyed.

And there’s Herakles. He was the strongest man alive and had been for fifteen years. But I worried about him. If something else was going on here, like maybe the priests were lying to me for some reason or hiding something worse, then I wanted him with me. I trusted him. I loved him.

I couldn’t leave him trapped in someone’s basement or prison or wherever he was. Even refusing to believe that I was the Oracle, I found myself looking closely at the red cord around my wrist and wondering if it really did what the priests said it did – hid me from the world.

I moved through the forest to the place where we kept emergency packs and stopped at the base of the large, old tree in whose trunk we’d stuffed supplies. Pulling on the pack, I tightened the straps and rifled through the other supplies to make sure I wouldn’t need them.

The crack of a branch made me tense, and I straightened, listening.

Someone was there. Not the priests, who didn’t know how to walk with discipline, but someone who was trying to navigate the forest without being discovered. The occasional brush of cloth on wood, the careful placement of slow footsteps …

Pulling free my knife, I faced the direction of whoever was following me. “I can hear you,” I called.

There was a pause, as if the forest was waiting, too. Finally someone spoke.

“I seem to have gotten lost,” the man said. He eased out from behind a thick tree trunk.

The stranger was dressed in the type of clothing indicating he wasn’t a lost camper but someone who wanted to blend in with his environment. He carried several hunting knives and was built like he knew how to use them. His exposed forearms were scarred and tattooed. A tattoo wound around his neck and disappeared into the clothing covering his chest. He was too handsome to be a priest by far, but it was the gleam in his eyes – the spark of a predatory awareness Herakles had taught me to be wary of – that disturbed me. He had the look of a soldier, aside from his medium length hair.