She shook her head. “No. It might have been symbolic, but I’m not sure. Oracular visions can come in a variety of ways. They can be from the past or from possible futures, or they can be a dreamlike sequence of images that has particular significance to a petitioner. My grandmother and Petra could tell the difference, but I haven’t had enough experience yet. This was only the third time I’ve accessed the Oracle’s Power. My second time was with Carling and Rune.” She gave him a twisted smile. “Both my grandmother and my sister, Petra, said the same thing. The Oracle sees a lot of weird shit. They also said they—we have a kind of built-in defense mechanism that helps us gain distance from the visions after we have them. The visions we see come for other people. We’ve got to let go of them or go crazy. Petra thought that might also be why the Oracle sometimes blacks out. I think I’m starting to understand what she meant.”
“Is it normal that both Cuelebre and I heard it?”
“Yes and no.” She grimaced at him. “Sometimes the Oracle can channel someone who has died for those who are in mourning and who need to say good-bye, and when we prophesy, the Power has its own voice. Several people might hear it, but usually that’s when we’re all together. And usually the Oracle only prophesies from a place deep in the Earth.”
“Why is that?”
“I think part of it is tradition. That’s how things have always been done, so we continue to do it that way. Also, the Power that comes to each Oracle is inherited.” She frowned as she fumbled to explain something she knew so intimately. “Just like anybody else, we each have our own wellspring of Power, talents and affinity to things. My sister was really good at a kind of clairvoyance called farseeing, which is a kind of seeing at a distance but in real time. My talent is an affinity to spirit. I’ve always had it. I have a facility with ghosts and other spirits, and I know when you’re around even when you’re not visible or in physical form. I could also feel the connection you created.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “That is quite unusual. I have never heard of another human able to do so.”
“In our family, our talents make us potential Oracles, but the Power of the Oracle itself is an inherited Power.” She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “I knew my sister was dead when I woke up in the hospital, because the Power had come to me. I know this sounds strange, but we never know who will inherit it, except that it always moves from female to female. For example, theoretically it could have moved to Chloe when her mom died, although I’ve never heard of it going to someone so young. But it wouldn’t have gone to Max.”
His eyes narrowed. “So you didn’t have a choice about it coming to you.”
“No,” she said. She felt a sudden impatience and brushed that aside. “But that doesn’t matter. It’s mine now, and it’s up to me to see what I can make of it. Basically what I’m trying to say is most people have one source of Power. I have two sources, the one I was born with and the Oracle’s Power that I inherited earlier this year. That is a very old Power, and it runs deep.”
He watched her face closely. “What do you mean?”
“It’s always present. I can feel it, but it sits just on the edge of my consciousness.” She tried to sift through the lifetime of teachings in her head to distill things for him quickly and easily. “Did you know that human witches often take a patron god or goddess?”
He shook his head.
“Our goddess is Nadir, because she’s the goddess of the depths. There’s one family legend that says Nadir gave us the Power of the Oracle. There’s another that says it came from someone else, another god or Powerful creature. Whatever the truth of that is, the original temple at Delphi was in a cavern below ground, and we have a small cave system here on the land. When someone petitions to speak to the Oracle, that’s where we take them. Going there helps us to reach down into that deep part of us, so we can access the Power.” She thrust her fingers through her hair again. She muttered, “I’m giving you too much information.”
“Do not trouble yourself about that,” he said. He was still frowning. “So this Power might leap from you to Chloe.”
She shook her head grimly. “Not while I’m alive,” she said. “When I die, it will pass on to another female in the family. That may be Chloe. She’s the only other living female relative that I have right now. Or maybe by then we’ll have more family, if Chloe and Max grow up to have kids.”
“And what happened this morning was different from how the Power usually manifests?” he asked.
“Well, I’m no expert,” she said. “But yes, it was different from anything I’ve experienced or anything Petra or my grandmother talked about. What happened this morning came out in full daylight. I was taught that we have to reach for the Power, to call it up, but this morning it just spilled out. I don’t know if that was because Cuelebre’s presence triggered it, if the vision was urgent, or if it had something to do with me and how I connect to the Power. I’m just grateful Chloe and Max didn’t know what was happening.”
He pressed his palm against her back, almost as if he would press strength and calm into her body by willing it to happen. “Did the voice take you over?”