Page 30 of Death and Divination
“Ophelia.” Shelby smiled nervously. Everyone in town tended to be nervous around me, mostly because I was an oracle, but I got the feeling the werewolf had a more personal reason to be stressed about my visit.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
She hesitated then stood aside and opened the door wider. “Alberta’s not here right now.”
“That’s okay. It’s you I need to see.”
Shelby flinched at that, then fluttered her hands toward the couch. “Sit. Sit. I’ll get you a cup of tea. It’s herbal—ginger peach. Is that okay?”
“It sounds lovely.” I sat and watched her pull two mugs from the cupboard and turn on the kettle. Alberta’s place was a cozy timber frame and wattle dwelling under the bridge. The ceilings were low, and there didn’t appear to be more than one window in the entire tiny house, but it was neat and clean with bright colors and all sorts of knickknacks on the shelf-lined walls. The house was one room with a kitchenette in one corner and a bed in the back. A little table separated my sofa spot from the two-burner stove and diminutive fridge. Trolls weren’t small people by any means, but they liked living in small places. Alberta had once told me it made her feel warm and safe and loved to have four walls close around her and all her possessions within reach.
Watching Shelby fiddle with the tea, I wondered how a werewolf was coping with what to her must feel claustrophobic. I hoped she was shifting and running through the woods on a nightly basis; otherwise, I worried the closeness of the house might affect her mental health.
“Here.” Shelby handed me a mug of tea. “Oh! Do you take sugar?”
“No, this is fine.” I sipped the tea. “It’s lovely.” It was. The sweetness of peach and the bite of ginger made for a wonderful combination.
Shelby sat across from me on one of the chairs at the table and stared down at her mug. “Just tell me why you’re here. Is Alberta going to cheat on me? Leave me? Kick me out? Is Dallas going to kill me? Am I going to die?”
Oh, the life of an oracle, so welcome everywhere I went.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I told her. “I had a vision of a trail of blood that led to your door.”
The werewolf paled. “I swear I haven’t hurt anyone. Not since the incident with Clinton. I know the rules of this town, and I follow them. I’m not about to get kicked out of the one place that stands between my death at the hands of the pack or living as a human in the outside world, unable to let my wolf run free.”
“I didn’t get the impression you’d harmed anyone, Shelby,” I told her. “There was blood on oleander leaves, something dead at the edge of a woods, and a moonrise on a mountaintop, and…golf balls for some weird reason. In the latest vision, there was a trail of blood leading to your door. It felt like there was someone injured who was coming to you for help.”
Shelby picked up her mug and sipped her tea. As she sat the mug back on the table, I saw her hands tremble. “No injured person has come to me for help.”
There was truth in her statement, but I could tell she was hiding something from me. And I could tell there was someone she was protecting.
“You know my role in this town, right?” I waited for her nod. “I’m a Perkins. A witch. An oracle. I was born with the sacred duty to serve the residents of this town, to protect them, to keep them safe from whatever may harm them—either from the outside world or within our town wards. I’m afraid, Shelby. I’m afraid that someone is going to die. And I need to do everything I can to prevent that. Help me. Don’t let someone’s death be my fault. Don’t let me fail.”
Her hands shook so hard on the mug that the tea slopped over the edge and onto the table. “I can’t. I’ve given my word. It’s not my secret to share. I’ve given my word and I can’t tell you.”
“Is it Alberta?” I asked. “Is she in trouble? Because I can help.Wecan help.”
“No. I can’t tell you, Ophelia. I really can’t.”
It had to be a werewolf. If it wasn’t Alberta, then I couldn’t imagine anyone else who would be coming to Shelby’s door needing her assistance. I closed my eyes, feeling my way through the vision once more. Fear. Fear and desperation. And Shelby represented a safe spot, a home base where whoever this was might find an escape from what was bearing down on him or her.
“Ask them if you have permission to tell me,” I pleaded. “I want to help. Ineedto help. I feel as if this person is afraid and doesn’t know where to turn to or who to trust, but please let them know that they can trust me. I’ll help them.”
“And if you can’t?” Shelby asked.
I thought of Nash, of my dead plants. I didn’t know how far his powers now extended or if he had anything but the most minor of abilities, but perhaps we could bluff.
If a lifetime of being an oracle had taught me anything, it was that people feared death above most anything. And who else could represent that fear better and drive it home than a reaper?
“I promise you I can help, Shelby. I promise.”
She stared at me a moment. “I’ll…I’ll talk to this person and let you know. That’s the best I can do, Ophelia.”
I drank down the rest of my tea, knowing that would have to be good enough.
