“What did the Druid say?” Aida asked.
“He said the whole Eritopia region is surrounded by mists, like a force-field. As soon as someone passes into them, they cease to exist anywhere else. It’s a way of protecting the area…making sure no one discovers it. I guess it stops people—other creatures from the In-Between—going back, or others following them.”
“You believe him?” Jovi asked, echoing my own thoughts.
Serena shook her head. “That I don’t know. It could all be a trick…but why bother? The only motive I can see for him lying to us is that we might give up hope GASP would come and rescue us, but it seems to be an extravagant way of accomplishing that, especially when things are feeling pretty hopeless anyway,” Serena replied despondently. “And I’m starting to believe he’s telling the truth—maybe not about everything, but some things at least.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked. Serena was naturally skeptical—she questioned everything, and rarely took things on say-so alone. If someone declared something was a fact, she would want evidence—she would want to prove it, beyond all reasonable doubt. Serena wanted to study journalism, but I often wondered if she wouldn’t be better off becoming some hotshot lawyer.
“A diary I found,” she replied, looking sheepish. “I didn’t mention it earlier, but it’s something I found in one of the other rooms. It belonged to a woman who lived in this house, a long time ago—and I think she was an Oracle too. The Druid mentioned another Oracle was here before the Nevertide one, and she’s the reason I don’t think the Druid’s making this all up. Her diary mentions the dangers outside—how the Druid’s father was keeping her safe.”
“And you didn’t share this because?” Phoenix questioned his sister, his face darkening.
“Because I wanted to find something in it that would be genuinely useful,” Serena replied. “I’m sorry I kept it quiet…I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I felt a weird bond with the woman. It was so personal, everything she’d written.”
“Diaries are personal,” Phoenix replied dryly. “We need to have a look at it.”
Serena nodded, leaving the room without making eye contact with the rest of us.
“I just don’t believe this,” Jovi muttered. “How can we simply vanish from our parents’ lives? From our own lives? I mean—what about all our stuff? The photographs around our houses? Does that all vanish too?”
No one could answer him. Any other questions we had would have to be put to the Druid when morning came. Then we’d just have to decide whether or not we were going to believe the answers he gave us.
Serena came back into the room, holding a small, leather-bound book. Its pages were clearly yellowed with age, as if the whole thing might crumble to ashes if a sudden gust of wind dashed through the window.
“It was written in the eighteen hundreds. Her name’s Elissa.” Serena opened the diary for us all to see. The handwriting was feminine, but cramped. On each page, I could almost sense the urgency with which she wrote everything down, the letters spiked, with ink blots here and there, indicating a sense of intensity—from rage, passion or frustration I didn’t know.
“How can she write everything down if she’s an Oracle?” Aida asked the obvious question. “I thought they were supposed to be blind?”
“I wondered that too,” Serena agreed, her cheeks becoming flushed with excitement as she turned through the delicate pages. “But she never mentions it—and goes into detail about the house, the Druid’s father…everything.”
Serena fell silent.
“You should keep reading it,” Field told her. “Find out what you can, especially anything about the side effects of visions, things like blindness or the lack of reproductive organs—the Oracle twins were barren, and blind. If this Oracle has found a way to circumvent that, I want us to know how.”
Serena nodded, and Field turned to us all, his face thoughtful.
“I know tonight’s been tough,” he said, as Aida rolled her eyes. It was a huge understatement, and Field half-smiled. “It doesn’t change anything, though. We still need to stick to our plan—using the Druid to help develop your Oracle abilities. Clearly, if the Druid is to be believed, using the visions is going to be our only chance of getting out of here.”
I nodded. Field was right—our original plan wouldn’t change. We would use the Druid for training purposes, getting him to help us develop the visions until we could use them for our own benefit. I didn’t really know if I felt bad about our manipulation. If the Druid was on our side, as he claimed, then if we could find a way to get home safely and escape the clutches of Azazel, he would support us. If not, well—that would just be tough luck on his part. We weren’t his puppets, and we never would be.