PROPHESY
I awoke and reacted with the usual momentary shock at the sight of my lavender hands. So such quickly, I remembered I was no longer Bekka of Thorns, bendo dreen, bramble dwarf with yellow-green skin and coppery hair. I was Bekka Ja Harick, the new lavender witch, selected and transformed to be so such by the Babba Ja Harick herself. I propped myself up on an elbow and blinked the cobwebs of sleep from my eyes. I glanced around at the neatly ordered interior of my edible cottage. Hearth swept, shelves dusted, cauldron scrubbed clean to a sheen, cupboards closed and latched, all seemed to be in order, but somehow something was wrong. I blinked again. What was it? Oh. The room glowed yellow. Such was so. Drained in a flash to a husk of fear, I bolted up. Behind me on the chocolate table rested my crystal ball of Prophesy. Though at my back, I knew it was the source of the yellow glow, something I’d dreaded seeing since first becoming Harick. Yellow glow meant danger! I refused to look. I wouldn’t face it. My mind raced here and there around and back. Oh, it’s all very well to be the Harick, the witch, when the crystal ball glows the blue of peace and serenity. Oh, cackle and fly your broom and practice spells and snack on your cottage and visit hither and yon and scribble your Chronicles as long as the crystal glows comforting blue. Such was the how it had ever glowed except for the time when my Wand made mischief. Now it glowed danger again! I dared not look. The cottage door opened.
“Oh, good!” said my best friend from ever, shapeshifting jrabe jroon Karro of Thorns, guised as her earliest bendo dreen self. “That means adventure, doesn’t it? Yellow glow danger. Something needs fixing. Not you this time. That’s a relief. What’s it about? What do you have to do?”
“I don’t glow … know! I never know! It’s just …” I sputtered.
I spoke a truth of sorts. Since becoming Harick, I suddenly knew things I didn’t know. I plodded forward into situations and some wondrous how always did something right to work ‘em out properly. I possessed hidden powers which remained hidden even as I used ‘em!
Kar stepped to the table and spun me around so such to face the crystal ball. She had a look of amusement on her face - half grin, twinkling eyes. My own face held, I felt certain, a look of terror.
“Looks like it’s snowing in the Charborr Forest to me. Don’t you think? Oh, look there now. Those are runes of a sort, aren’t they? Read ‘em to me, Bek,” chatted Kar, and she broke off one corner of a chocolate shingle she held and popped it into her mouth.
I risked a peek. The vision in the crystal ball showed what Kar had described. A gentle snow fell softly on a forest of tall black trees. Scrolling up the crystal in rows marched strange red loopy lines and squiggles, an oddness of script I had never seen before. And yet, knowing what I didn’t know, I was able to read every word! I began to chant, bidden to do so such by the hidden powers within me. I chanted:
“Snows are burying Charborr Forest
The flakes are falling in soft profusion
And when the last treetop disappears
Purple fire will be no illusion
A blanket of snow bursts into flame
Unless the rock is consumed
Who can consume it? Who will it be?
Ommy Anthus alone, alone
Ommy Anthus alone
The rock is a boulder above the tree line
Shaped like a great wedge of pie
How can it happen? How will it be?
Ommy Anthus alone, alone
Ommy Anthus alone”
“So. What’s an Ommy Anthus?” asked Kar, tilting her head, eager as ever she is for adventure.
“A charborr,” I replied, telling both of us something we hadn’t known.
“A charborr? Like the Forest? A creature of the Forest! No one’s ever seen one, I bet! We’ll be the first!” fizzed the excited Kar. “What else? What else?”
“Under … ground teller … no … dweller, yoss, beneath the … the … Forest,” I added, wondering what I would know next.
“How do you know, Bek? You never knew about charborrs before,” said Kar, asking the question I always ask of myself.
“I know … I know … of a sudden! Yoss! Of a sudden! Rich … stitch … witch! … powers are … ridden … no … hidden, but they are … they are … there,” I explained lamely, shrugging.
“Oh,” said Kar. “Then what do we do next? Find this Ommy Anthus?”
“I don’t know! I … I …” I began to get fuddled and flustered, suddenly weighed down with the realization I had been burdened for the very first time with a danger Prophesy, and it was up to me to do something about it.
“Settle, Bek. Let your mind go flat,” said Kar, gripping my hands. “It’s what I do when I shift to jrabe. It helps me sense when I’m blind.”
“My bind go fat?” I said, grasping at Kar’s advice.
“Maybe, if bind is mind, and fat is flat,” soothed Kar.
I closed my eyes and waited for some unbidden words to spill from my mouth. My mouth opened, and yoss, out they tumbled.
“To the Charborr Forest at once!”