Oh, no you don’t, she said to what had come to live inside of her. I’ve put up with a lot of shit in my life because of you. You chose me. Well, that makes you mine. Do you hear me? You will come when I call, because you are mine now.
Maybe she wouldn’t have done it if she had paused to think about it. But she didn’t pause to think. Instead, she reached deeper and harder inside of herself, and much as she had with the connection to Khalil, she grasped the Oracle’s Power and pulled.
She connected. For one wild moment the Power bucked in her hold, stronger and fiercer than she had expected. It rushed up in a roaring wave and threatened to engulf her entirely.
Oh, no, she thought. You don’t own me. I own you. She wrapped her awareness tighter around it and held on.
It tried to recede again.
No. She would not let it go.
The sunlit meadow disappeared. Everything went dark. She held steady as the Power thundered and crashed in her grip, a feral, undisciplined storm. She got a feeling of immense connectivity again, the dark ocean flowing everywhere, touching everywhere, where the veil of time and space grew thin. Losing her grip and falling into it would be crossing a threshold to drown in a constant state of epiphany. She had heard stories of Oracles getting lost in the Power and babbling madness for the rest of their lives.
And she simply refused to do that. If nothing else, she was stubborn. She had dishes in her sink that needed to be washed. She had to change the oil in her car. Max and Chloe needed to be tucked into bed that evening. There was also something else she had said she would do. She couldn’t think of what it was, with all the crashing and heaving going on in her head, but she knew she had promised to do it, so she wrestled the Power down.
As she did so, she glimpsed a ghost.
She stared, confusion tumbling through her thoughts. She could “see” ghosts, such as the elderly women in the kitchen. They looked like indistinct, transparent smudges overlaid on normal reality.
Oracular visions were an entirely different experience. Those streamed directly from the Power, and like the vision that came for Cuelebre, they overwhelmed her regular senses.
Seeing this ghost felt like a true vision. It was another anomaly. According to what she had learned, the Oracle’s visions came for other people, but at the moment no one else was around. Wasn’t anything going to go the way it was supposed to?
The ghost certainly wasn’t Don and Margie’s father either. It was either Wyr or Demonkind, a strange creature with a face like a human female’s, except its features were too sharp and elongated, and it had more of a snout than a nose. The face flowed back to a hooded cobralike flare of a neck before falling to the body of a serpent as thick as a man’s waist.
Grace felt a pulse of recognition that went deeper than knowledge, past instinct. It came from the Power she held. She said to the ghost, This was once yours. This Power came from you.
The ghost stared at her in astonishment. Then it gave her a merry, feral smile. Very good, child. Very, very good.
She knew the ghost did not speak English, but she still understood every word. Blood thundered in Grace’s ears, or maybe it was the sound of the dark ocean. The ghost came clearer, and Grace seemed to see her in a cavern. Struggling with astonishment and an odd sense of betrayal, she said, I thought we were human.
You are, said the ghost. Mostly. Your many times great-grandmother found me after an earthquake on Mount Parnassus. My body had been crushed from tons of falling rock. She tried to help me, but it was too late.
Grace asked, How did we inherit this?
The ghost’s smile widened to reveal long, sharp fangs. I gave her the serpent’s kiss as my thanks. I meant to give her the Power to walk the night, but I died while I kissed her. I gave her all of my Power instead.
Another vision came to Grace. Although the image was born from a far distant past, it was also as sharp and clear as if she were truly present. Grace watched the serpent creature convulse in death throes as she bit a screaming human woman.
Grace said, We’re an ACCIDENT?
You are a thing of beauty, the ghost whispered. Although your ancestress went a little mad.
Good gods. Grace shuddered and almost lost control of her hold.
The serpent-woman ghost coiled on itself. Your grandmothers created a history of prophecy and service out of the legacy I gave them. You should feel proud.
I don’t need you to tell me how I should feel. Grace noticed how the Power pulled toward the ghost. She said, You didn’t mean for any of this to happen, so you never really let go.