me want to cry at the thought of all the lies and half-truths I tell her on a daily basis. “You work so hard,” she says quietly.
I bite the tip of my tongue. The last thing I deserve is her sympathy. I don’t take advanced math and science and every AP class the school counselor will let me into because I’m some brainiac who’s all self-motivated and ambitious. I do it because if I tire my mind out enough, I don’t have time to think as hard. About the visions, about my utter lack of social life, about the fact that I ruined my mother’s life and now we’ll grow old together, two lonely spinsters.
Three, if Sierra stays with us.
“Gotta get into Harvard,” I say in the lightest tone I can manage. It’s another lie. I’ll go to Rogers State in Claremore, about twenty miles away, so I can live at home. For a million reasons. Because Mom needs me and I’m responsible for her. Because it’s dangerous for me to drive to Massachusetts, at least semi-irregularly, on the freeway, where I can’t pull over at the first sign of a foretelling.
Because I could never live with roommates.
But Mom doesn’t need to know any of that. Not yet.
“Is Sierra home?” I ask, changing the subject. Even though Mom’s basically self-sufficient now, Sierra’s never left.
And even though I hope it’s not because she thinks she still has to babysit me, she kinda does anyway. I don’t mind. Much. It means she’s there to talk to, and the three of us all get along really well. Like Gilmore Girls plus one.
And a big-ass secret.
Mom often reminds Sierra that, although we love her and she’s welcome to stay as long as she wants, we don’t need her anymore and she can go out and have a “real life.”
But Sierra and I know the truth: Sierra’s an Oracle too, and her “real life” is inside her head. There’s not really a possibility of anything else for Oracles. Getting married? I’m pretty sure a spouse would notice all of the weird things we aren’t allowed to explain. I’ve always hoped that maybe someday Sierra would find that perfect person who she could trust enough to confide in. But even assuming Sierra would be willing to go against the rules, would finding out the truth chase someone off? And if it did, would they keep their mouth shut about it? Not likely.
Or, let’s say they did believe her—it would take a pretty big person not to start prying about their future. Everyone thinks they want to know the future.
Everyone is wrong.
So it just … wouldn’t work.
Similarly, there’s no perfect soul mate in my future either. Only a lifetime of hiding. I didn’t choose this. I wouldn’t choose this. But it’s the hand I was dealt. The hand Sierra was dealt. Some people are short, some people have freckles, some people see the future. It’s all genetics.
“I think so,” Mom says, and I’ve forgotten what it was I asked.
Oh yeah. Sierra.
“But you know how she is; she sneaks in and out and I don’t hear a thing.” Mom grins at me over her shoulder before turning back to her work. “Check her office.”
I pull Mom’s door closed and walk down the hall to the room Mom always refers to as “Sierra’s office”; but it’s really her room/office/work/life. When Dad died, we didn’t have the money to move—especially not with all the medical bills—but Mom couldn’t handle sleeping in the master bedroom anymore, so she gave it to Sierra. It’s a big room with a small sitting area and private bathroom and … well, Sierra doesn’t leave it very often.
At least not when I’m home.
Her desk is set up in the sitting area and about half the time I bring dinner in to her so she doesn’t have to stop working. The walls are covered with shelves full of books about history and mythology and other Oracle stuff that she is constantly pulling out to use as references. When I was twelve, I asked what she would do if Mom came in and really took a look at her books but Sierra shrugged and said, “I’d tell her it’s research.”
Then I asked what she would do if I started coming in and borrowing books. She said she’d start locking the door.
Two days later when she caught me with Oracles of Rome, she started doing just that.
She always knows more than she’s willing to tell me. She says too much knowledge makes what we can do excessively tempting and that she only trusts herself because of years of resisting as she researches. I’m not even sure what that means. I guess we might be tempted to change the future, but she talks like there’s more.
And I desperately want to know what that more is.
I don’t think it’s fair. I can’t really believe any other sources; they’re legends at best. But Sierra’s library is the real deal. Ancient books and manuscripts that don’t exist anywhere else in the whole world. I keep trying to sneak glances at them, but Sierra’s not stupid—she notices. That’s why she does most of her errands when I’m at school.
And if I am home, the door is always locked when she leaves.
I try not to resent it. After all, she’s devoted so much of her life to me. She taught me everything she knows about fighting foretellings, and she’s always patient. I’ve actually never seen her lose her tempter.
But all those books … She says she’ll let me read more when I’m a member of the Sisters of Delphi. Like her.
Sierra is an author of several texts about Greek mythology and the unseen world. That’s what she does to pay the bills. And while her books are probably really great—I can barely understand the few paragraphs I’ve read, but she wins awards all the time—it’s just camouflage for her real job: the historian of the Sisters of Delphi.
The Sisters is an ancient organization of Oracles that basically monitors all of the Oracles in the world. All twenty or so of us. Sierra won’t tell me much about them. Which seems weird to me since there are so few of us. Shouldn’t we all share our information? But Sierra says that when I’m eighteen and it’s time to join them, I’ll be ready to know more.
Always the promise of more. But not now. Drives me crazy.
I knock softly on Sierra’s door. She must be home; her door is not only unlocked, but open an inch or two.
“Come in.”
Sierra’s work space is bright and inviting. The curtains are pulled back, letting in the sunshine, and there are two tall, standing lights flanking each side of her desk, which are on as well. The surface of her desk is a jumble of stacks of papers and books and about six coffee mugs, but there’s no dust, and certainly no darkness.
Darkness is our enemy.
Sierra doesn’t even look up until I’ve been standing beside her chair for what feels like a very long time. “Charlotte,” she finally says, pushing wisps of hair away from her face with a smile. Her hair is a shiny brown—just like mine and mom’s. At least it is now.
I remember when it was strawberry blonde, when she curled the edges and it danced around her face. Now she dyes it. I don’t know why anyone would opt for brown over that gorgeous strawberry. But when I asked her about it a few years ago, she looked so sad I’ve never asked again.
That was back when she always looked pretty and dressed up. Not anymore. No makeup, no fancy hairstyles. A single ponytail, a braid down her back, sometimes a bun. I glitz myself up more than Sierra does, and that’s saying something.
She’s staring at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for me to speak, and my mind vacillates. Confess or keep quiet? I honestly don’t know what the best thing to do is. I’d like advice, but I feel like a kid again, confessing that I wasn’t able to block a vision. Despite the fact that Sierra and I are close, she’s still my mentor, and she expects a lot of me.
“When