delphi shepherd | d10 | god-touched | fin

She was four when Mama told her that she was the new oracle. She didn’t know what the word meant, only that it felt profound in her mouth. The word was big and clunky and important. Like the ceiling of the chapel where she would spend most of her weekends, hand clutched in Mama’s. The word, just like the ceiling, felt high and tall and like something you couldn’t touch with your hands.

It wasn’t until she was twelve that she realized what being the oracle meant. She was the seer. She spoke to the Old God and he spoke right back. The elders or maybe sometimes the priest led her into the room and gave her sweet wine and candies and blew smoke in her face as she lay on the cold stone ground. She didn’t remember much of anything after that, only that the smoke smelled like rotten eggs and that she had visions of falling into a deep chasm.

She only remembered waking up when they whispered “sweet child” in her ear. They told her she had done a good job. That the gods had touched her with their words, with their hands. That she had climbed the ladder to the sky and touched them right back.

Being the oracle had its perks. Papa even got the best ox to use for the harvests because of her. And Mama always had fresh bread and eggs and they sat in the front row in church and the elders touched their foreheads to her and whispered which was weird, but it was all for the glory of heaven. It was all for redemption.

Through her, the gods could whisper the truths hidden in the scriptures. Could change the course of their history and rewrite their story.

Through her, anything was possible.

She was sixteen when she first saw him. He was picking flowers behind the barn and the sweat sparkled along his brow like a halo. Like he had been god-touched too.

His hands were calloused but damn it if he couldn’t make the most beautiful arrangements for the altar. His quiet nature spoke to a deeper well of knowledge that she yearned to dive into and submerge herself in.
The room with the smoke never had flowers. She was older when they told her that it was called the adyton. Such a stupid name.

Even after she had asked about the flowers and was told that it wasn’t allowed, she wished to see a flash of green or a burst of gold before the visions took over and the gods spoke through her mouth.

When she was seventeen, the adyton was changed and a veil was hung between her and the priest. They even began charging for her visions, like she was a commodity or circus act. Questions would be asked before the smoke was inhaled and she remembered nothing after that, except maybe that she had fallen through the veil and into the ground.