I wonder…
Could that have anything to do with this? The fae’s intention to kill her and her sister? Had that been why she’d uprooted so unexpectedly?
Placing my hand on the small of River’s back and drawing her to me, I addressed everyone. “We need to head to Hortencia’s cave.” And hope she has another little bottle waiting for me there, containing some clue as to what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
Aisha and the other jinn knew where Hortencia’s cave was located—although none of them seemed to know much at all about her twin, Pythia.
Once we had arrived outside the cave, I decided that it was best for only three of us to enter, the same three as before: River, Aisha and me.
Trudging through the tunnel, we reached her front door. I didn’t bother knocking this time; the door wasn’t locked, anyway. When we strode inside, the small room was exactly how we’d left it. Certainly there were no signs of the oracle having returned. The empty bottle that I’d drunk from still sat on the table, along with the note she’d left.
I gazed around, desperately hoping there would be another bottle here. Another note. Another something.
“Oh, look!” River pointed upward and my eyes shot to the rocky ceiling.
Somebody had scrawled a note with white chalk, so bold and jagged it looked creepy.
“Everyone has something to hide.”
I stared at it, unblinking.
She already told me this last time I had a meeting with her. What does she mean by it now?
“What if she means… herself?” River suggested.
“What would Hortencia have to hide?” I muttered.
River shrugged, then cast her eyes around the room again. “Maybe… Maybe it’s an invitation to dig a little deeper. I dunno…”
“Maybe she’s hiding something in here?” Aisha said, catching on to River’s train of thought.
“Let’s search deeper then,” I said, and the three of us began searching the room—something that didn’t take long, since there wasn’t much to search. When I reached the oven, to my surprise I found a book inside. A thick, dusty, fabric-bound book.
“Look at this,” I murmured, capturing the girls’ attention as I placed the tome on top of the table. A cloud of dust rose in the air as I opened it and turned to the first page, making River cough.
What is this? It must have been old, for the paper was yellowed, and the small black writing—Hortencia’s handwriting—was faded. Not too faded to read, however…
As I began to scan the page, River and Aisha stood on either side, reading along with me. I’d gotten halfway down the first page when I realized that this was some kind of journal that the oracle had been keeping. Much of what I read didn’t even make sense to me, and seemed more like ramblings without a thread of thought behind them. It felt creepy to be reading this, like a window into her mad mind. A dozen more pages in however, the sentences began to make more sense, until I realized that what I was reading were confessions. Retellings of some truly atrocious acts carried out by her and her sister.
Deliberately misleading a young werewolf family into being caught by a group of black witches. Destroying relationships by planting doubts in each person’s mind. Even sparking wars between opposing clans. All of this for no reason other than spite. The way she wrote was sickening. I could practically feel her glee emanating from the pages.
“How did she write all this without eyes?” River wondered softly next to me.
“No idea,” I murmured, my mind still drenched in her confessions.
I continued reading until the writing came to an abrupt stop, only one third of the way through the book. She hadn’t even finished the sentence she’d started. It just trailed off. The rest of the book was empty except for the very last page where another note was written—one that I could only assume was meant for me:
“Don’t you think we deserve to die?”
Ben
Deserve to die?
What is she trying to communicate to me?
“Truthfully,” Aisha muttered, drawing in a breath, “I never knew those two sisters were so meddling.”
Meddling, was putting it politely.