Oracle

Being away from my cards for so long now, was having its own connotations. I was starting to get nose bleeds. I was starting to get headaches. My emotions were on edge and I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should. I could think if nothing but retrieving those significant squares that had always been there for me, that had been caressed by the hands of my ancestors. I was a woman possessed, and in want of only one thing. The cards, for I would surely die without them, or worse, be driven insane by the whispers.

We had left the anarchy of camp behind us, each of the children that August had saved placed with a relative. They would rebuild.. and stay, refusing to leave their homes. The next time I’m sure they thought they would be more prepared. I wondered how many times they’d thought that.

We were on our way back to the tarn. Back to the sanctity of civilization where people were not considered a delicacy. And I was breaking down, apart, the product of legends and lore was going to come to an end, and I was to be the last sacrifice, my cards having been left in Tukuli’s camp with our escape.

I am not normally a selfish woman. In fact, it is usually to the opposite extreme, giving too much of myself to those I care for.

I have never been able to explain the connection of cards, with their frayed edges and faded pictures, the emotion that burns through me when I touch them. I had always thought I was born for them and that we would never be separated, but here I was, stranded without their whispers, and faced with insanity at the sounds of their screams.

How could I possibly make him understand.

But I was not the only one who was fighting for those slender, silken threads of reality. He was alive. He was awake. I might not have tokens of my ancestors, but I did have him. I had agreed to continue with them. A small voice in my head repeated that it was only paper, but another incessantly argued that I had been responsible for taking care of them. That I was to never leave them. Generations. Ties.. bonds. Bond that could not even be broken by former.. possessors.

Today, however, my selfishness would override everything, my terror at what I would become without them would prevail and August would relent. Even though I asked him not to go. I knew the risk. But I also knew that if anyone could do it, he could. But at what price? He called me a martyr and took off through the jungle, with me following him as best I could, calling out to him, pleading that he not take the chance, but it was too late, and soon he had disappeared into the foliage. I had guilted him to get what I wanted. I knew it, I was sorry for it, and I hoped he would come back with them.

I was not a popular woman with Silas and Jonah and I was told if August did not return, that I would be delivered with garnish back to the mamba, which I knew was no less than I deserved.