Searching for Power (Part I)

The 4th story in the Oracle

Menaia hobbled up the trail, fully aware that everyone was watching her. And well they might, as she was dressed far, far better than any of these peasants. Her black dress was made of finer material than anyone in this little village had no doubt ever seen. Well, except for perhaps another visitor to the oracle. She supposed she wasn’t the only wealthy person to have cause to visit.

 She had listened to everything, every bit of gossip, about this oracle, and she had decided to play it a trick. She was an old woman, there was very little in the way of price that it could extract. She had lived her life just as she had wished to and was rich… but what did she care of money now?

What she wanted was for everyone to know about her. To be famous. Popular. No…  important. She would no doubt die soon. She ached in ever joint, she could hardly walk without running out of breath. Surely the only thing that she had left was to make sure that her name would live on after her.

She finally made it to the clearing, passing through the very pretty, if simple, gate. She had no one to help her. Oh, she could have hired someone, and she had taken a carriage to the village. But carriages couldn’t come up this trail and, somehow, she didn’t think that it would be good to have help on the walk. She hadn’t had any help in her life. She hadn’t married… the idea had repelled her, and had no children. Her nieces and nephews only paid her attention because they thought they might get something out of her will. So, all in all, she thought it best to take this walk alone.

She had stopped for breath but then continued on to the cave. She knew the rules. It didn’t matter who else was with the oracle, there was no waiting. All she had to do was walk into the cave and…

The fog, that she had heard about, was brief. Far briefer than anything she had heard about. She found herself almost immediately in the bright sun in a forest clearing and her next step was onto a moss covered rock and she found herself falling, then sliding, then splashing into a pool where her dress threatened to drag her down  until she finally found her feet and emerged, gasping, from the frigid water.

“Ooompah!” she heard and saw a boy leaping from a branch high above her head and come splashing down next to her. “Most people don’t wear their clothes, swimming,” he said, when he emerged, a grin on his face.

“I hadn’t intended to go swimming,” she snapped at him.

“We don’t always get what we intend, do we?” he asked, swimming over to the tree he had jumped from and starting to climb it again. “Although I suppose you did.”

“I worked very hard,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he said, walking out on the limb, waving his arms for balance. “Or, perhaps not. Or why would you be here?”

He launched himself into the air and came down just next to her, sending water all over her. Frigid water. She would be very, very glad to be dismissed.

“So, I suppose you want your instructions,” he said, swimming back to the tree. He didn’t say anything more until he reached the branch, and then he sat down and stared at her, making her very uncomfortable.

“Listen very carefully,” he said, after a very long few moments. “When you leave here you are to walk straight West. Or, at least, as straight west as following the sun will allow you. When the sun sets you will find a very nice group of people with a fire and, they will allow you to join them. Very nice people.”

He sat there for the longest time making her very uncomfortable. Which she was already freezing and soaking wet but didn’t dare move.

“You will notice one of them get out a book and start to read it. You will ask to borrow the book, just for a minute. The person is very nice, so she will let you see it. You will read the page, and you will see a definition on it.”

Again he sat and stared at her. She shivered, but waited.

“That definition is your instructions,” he said. “The next morning you will get up and say a very nice goodbye to the nice people who fed you and let you share their fire and let you look at their book, and you will turn North. Or, at least,  you will start walking with the sun to your right.  You will walk and walk and, well, then you will know what to do.”

He suddenly stood up, jumped, landed next to her and sent an inordinate amount of water over her and she found herself outside. Drenching wet. Argh!

She considered for one brief instant going back to the hotel in the village and putting on new clothes. But she was not so stupid as to disobey instructions like that, so she turned and looked for the sun. Then she went out the gate and turned in its direction and started walking.

Three hours later she was repenting of her foolishness at the idea that nothing that the oracle could ask her to do would be particularly difficult, because of her age. She was walking through what seemed a trackless forest… although she routinely walked over paths and roads, none of them going where she was required to go. She had started in a very nice dress, that was utterly unsuitable for long walks, and was made infinitely less so by the fact that it had started out soaking wet.

And walking in soaking clothes meant that everywhere the clothes touched as they dried they rubbed and chafed and hurt more and more as time went on. She was wearing good walking boots, but they had started out full of water and were still startlingly damp and uncomfortable. The only hope she had in her life was that, as far as she could tell through these trees, it was getting close to sunset.

And then she came around a large bunch of bushes and saw a family at a fire. Finally!

But as she walked up she realized that this was awkward. The oracle had said that they would be nice and let her share their fire and hopefully give her some food but…. there were so many of them! She counted seven children! Disgusting. And she looked so filthy… she was filthy!

“Look, Mommy, a witch!” one of the younger children said, pointing at her.

“Cynthia! What a thing to say!” the father, said, looking at Menaia a bit askance. Grandmother, would you like to join our fire?

“That is too kind of you,” she said, coming forward. The children scooted out of her way and she sat down.  An older boy across the fire got up, scooped some stew into a bowl, and brought it to her. She was opening her mouth to ask for a spoon when she saw that none of the others were using them, so she carefully scooped some stew into her mouth. Not quite carefully enough, it turned out, and she had to lick her fingers off, which made the girl sitting closest to her giggle.

She was incredibly hungry but, luckily, the family had a lot of food. “Please,” she said, when she scraped the last bit of stew into her mouth. “Please accept this small token of thanks.”

She held out a small silver coin which, she knew, would more than pay for the food she had eaten. And the way she had phrased the request allowed the father to, reluctantly, take the coin. His wife stared at the coin with satisfaction. Obviously feeding a family this size wasn’t cheap.

She settled back against her log and was almost asleep when a girl across from her pulled a book from her pack and, turning awkwardly to try to get the firelight, opened it up.

Menaia sat up. “Oh, Darling, would you mind if I just glanced at your book? I’ll give it right back.”

The girl looked startled but handed her the book over to Menaia. She spared a quick glance at the cover, which showed stylized ivy growing up around a title which read, “The fortunate life of Mayana”. No doubt one of these modern romances.

The girl had opened to a page, which Menaia had carefully preserved when the book had been handed her and, assuming it was ‘the page’ she had been told to look at, she opened and began reading,

Marriage, my dear Mayana, is first of all a relationship between a man and a woman. It is the most vital of all human relationships, and is frequently misunderstood. I will tell you what it means…

… to be continued :)