Oracle in the Mist (9 page)

For a moment Bobby thought she recognised the woman, but no, it was probably just her imagination playing tricks on her again, but still she couldn't help staring at it. There was definitely something about the eyes …

“Ah, yes, I thought you might notice that. Beautiful, isn't she? How is Daphne anyway?” but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he clapped his hand to his mouth and said in a whisper repeatedly, “Shut up old fool, oh shut up, what have you done, silly old fool, taboo subject, remember?”

“What was that?” Bobby asked, becoming intrigued. Could it really be her mother?

“What?” he said calmly and turned away as though to ignore her.

“You just mentioned my mother's name, Daphne.”

“What's that? Your mother's name? No I didn't. No, I said, ‘Lousy artist, what a shame!'” the professor insisted.

“But I heard you … just now,” Bobby persisted.

“Your mother … why would I ask about her? I have no idea who she is.” Even though Bobby had just met the professor, she could tell by the way he avoided looking at her and stood gazing out of the window with his hand on his hip, humming a tune nervously to himself that he was lying.

“Screech,” said the monkey.

“Oh good heavens, yes Sebastian, I'd quite forgotten.

Time to make the tea. Excuse me,” the professor said and he bowed slightly and turned to take the whistling kettle off the boil. Bobby and David stared at one another, puzzled. David had heard the reference to Daphne too. David shrugged his shoulders to show Bobby that he found it quite mysterious as well.

“Right. Time for tea. Aahh, are there any better words in the English language?” the professor said becoming quite excited at the prospect of having a fresh pot of tea. He stirred the pot enthusiastically and then poured the amber liquid straight into cups already prepared with milk and sugar. He handed it to the children. It was quite delicious. Very creamy and sweet. He also offered them some Anzac biscuits.

“So, have you met my mother then?” Bobby took up her line of questioning from before.

“You know, I've just this moment realised that these blasted tassels that have been the bane of my life for, oh, let me think … too many years to remember, can easily be detached.” He took the moccasin from his foot and held it up to demonstrate. “You see, every time I move my feet about, when I'm walking for instance, they bounce and bob around in the most annoying fashion.” He was staring at the slipper intensely.

“Screech,” said Sebastian.

“My sentiments exactly, old chap. I believe I have stumbled onto the solution. See how tea gets the old grey matter working. Remarkable! Now all I have to do is snip them off,” and again he demonstrated by pretending his fingers were the scissors and snipping at the base of the tassels. “Now where did I put those scissors? Let me think. Oh, that's right!” He smacked the side of his own head. “I lent them to those dratted natives decades ago and it's my guess that they never returned them.” He let out a long sigh. “Fantastic people but simply no idea how to care for
things
and so unreliable in that way, you know, with things that you or I just take for granted. I'll bet those scissors are lying buried somewhere all rusted up and underground by now. Still …”

David and Bobby looked at one another blinking heavily. Something told them they had just stumbled into the drawing room of the most eccentric professor that ever lived. David went to ask a question but the professor overruled him by talking loudly over the top of him.

“I could use my pocket knife. Splendid idea, old chap.” He seemed to be talking to himself now. “Now where is it, I wonder? Oh that's right.” He jumped up from his spot, one slipper in hand and the other on his foot, and sweeping up the knife, opened it and severed off the tassels all within a few seconds.

“There,” he said, most pleased with himself and the look of the new moccasins. “So incredibly easy and quite liberating, if I do say so myself. I can't think why I didn't do it years ago.” He walked around in the slippers in circles, grinning from ear to ear.

“Right, now … where were we?” he asked the children and took his seat again, smiling hugely and marvelling at his moccasins.

Bobby and David exchanged glances again and David frowned and shook his head at Bobby as if to imply she should discontinue her line of questioning.

Whatever the truth was about Daphne, it would have to wait. Obviously for some unknown reason, the professor was not comfortable discussing it. Bobby sat on her hands and chewed her bottom lip furiously. She felt as though she was being ignored and she didn't like that feeling, not one little bit. She held herself back from shouting the thing that was on the tip of her tongue which went something like this: “How dare you speak my mother's name, have a drawing of her hanging on your wall and yet not give me the information that I have requested. I have a right to know …” but she kept her feelings bottled up, because by hook or by crook she knew she would get to the bottom of this mystery.

David sensed her anger and reached out and held her hand, just for a second and mouthed the words, “It's okay; we'll find out.” Together they would get the answers they needed.

“Professor Lambert, I wonder if you might be so kind as to explain to us,” David cleared his throat to ask his question, “where we are and … how we came to be here?”

Bobby felt secretly pleased that David was able to talk the professor's language. Clearly they had been brought up in similar environments.

“Ah yes, the matter of time travel,” the professor said thoughtfully. “Well now, let me see, how best to explain this?” he tapped the side of his head.

“Have you ever heard of spacetime continuums, parallel universes and dimensions, time travel machines or of Oracles for that matter?”

“Well yes, I have actually. But in our reality they are things that have only been written about in books. They're not actually something that anyone has ever succeeded in inventing, well not to my knowledge, anyway.”

“Well, what if I told you that what you have been reading in books is actually a possibility? What if I told you that people in your time have actually had the ability to do this kind of travel for a very long time? Hard to believe, I know. But how else do you explain all of this?” he asked with his eyes widened and again he gestured with his arm in a 180 degree arc. “What if people in your time could do these things and then kept it secret for fear of the top minds of the world and governments catching on and then disturbing the natural balance of things and so destroying the immense beauty of this paradise of which you have already been witness to.” He now had the children's full attention. Finally they were getting the information they'd been asking for.

He went to a massive chalkboard and drew a long white line with chalk. He then proceeded to write the years along the line starting from the beginning of time and reaching all the way into the future jumping between the ages every 1000 or 1,000,000 years or so. He then drew another line above this one and on it wrote unusual words that the children had never heard of — perhaps it was a different language.

“Now, bear with me if you will. Just imagine that there exists the ability to go from here,” he pointed to 1930, which was almost at the end of the first line, “to here,” and he pointed to another spot on the second line right back at the beginning where he had written the word “Gufawemici”.

“Roughly translated this means ‘Garden of Eden,'” he said pointing to the unusual word. The children looked at one another in astonishment. Of course, it made perfect sense … what other place could this be? The professor went on to explain a lot of other things in a very scientific fashion which both of the children had difficulty understanding.

Besides, they were both immersed in their own thoughts and each of them was wondering how it was that they had been the ones chosen to come to this living and breathing Garden of Eden.

“Oh, not just you, my lovelies,” the professor said, cutting into their thoughts making each of them feel as if he had read their minds yet again.

“No, not just you, but your ancestors too!”

“Excuse me,” David said.

“Let me put it this way. Back in 1930 your time, a bunch of bedraggled, boisterous and bored children found the crystal ball that you have in your backpack, Bobby — a story that can wait for another time — and after reading the fancy print on the ball — Oracle in the Mist — the children found themselves involved in an enormous adventure. They each had an idea in their minds of where they hoped they would end up but because they were not aware that they themselves had the powers to manifest a destination within them and because they were all completely terrified of what the outcome would be, their worst fears came true.

“I hate to be the one to have to tell you this but your ancestors Ina and Henry, landed themselves and six other youngsters in a dark and sinister place that they would later refer to as the ‘workhouse'.” Bobby and David stared wideeyed at the professor and each of them was positively bursting with questions to ask the professor. Especially David who was wondering why the professor was referring to the other children as their “ancestors”. But they were also intensely curious to find out what had happened to the original eight.

“Please continue,” David said, enthusiastically.

“With pleasure,” said the professor rubbing his hands together with delight. He gave a slight bow and then proceeded to make another pot of tea. “Good things shouldn't be rushed,” he added. The children sensed that this story was going to take some time to tell.

T
he children had no idea that the crystal ball that they had found actually belonged to an evil Oracle that lived in an even eviller land,” the professor continued, now that he had made some more tea and resumed his position next to the children.

And so his story began

This evil Oracle was actually the one who had lured the children into the oak tree on the Brewsters' property. Oh, she wanted the children all right; she intended to put them to work in her workhouse but most of all she wanted her crystal ball back. She had lost it thousands of years earlier (she was very old, you know) and since that day was unable to have another crafted that was just like it. All attempts failed, much to the Oracle's fury. Many innocent craftspeople were murdered and thrown into her furnaces for failing her. She felt that losing the ball had weakened her power and power was the one thing that the evil Oracle lived for. In fact it was what kept her alive. With a soul as black as night, the Oracle fed on the screams and sorrows of the poor, innocent children she had kidnapped over the years and the faster and more cruelly they died, the more powerful she became. She would never give up on her quest to find the ball.

On waking up after stepping into the tree the children found themselves in a huge wooden dormitory. There were slits in between the slats of wood on the walls so that freezing draughts blew into the dormitory and the ceiling was completely covered in spiders' webs and huge spiders darted in and out of them menacing the children as if threatening to come and take them at any minute.

The children found themselves lying on filthy, mouldy mattresses and they could hear machines being operated in the room next door and a taunting voice that sang a sinister song over and over again:

“Don't ever make a creak,
Don't ever make a sound,
All does not move in
The house in New-Found.

Eryting is stil ,
Eryting is quiet,
To wake up herself is
To perish in the fire.

Keep your head down,
Keep your hands working,
The shadows are watching,
In corners they're lurking.

Don't ask for more food,
Don't whinge that you're cold,
Herself will just kill you,
For being so bold.

The children had quite by accident stumbled into the foul dungeons of dread that belonged to the Oracle. She had lured them to her place of residence in order to get her ball back.

In front of the beds that the children found themselves in, were many rows of windows that opened up outwards and upwards. Henry turned the latch of one of the windows and opened it to see what was making that awful sound. They all jumped up to go and peer through the opened window. On the other side of the window was a vast factory of massive machines the likes of which the children had never seen before.

They were huge, reaching up to the immense ceiling and were covered in knobs and handles and had large openings that things were fed into. Henry, who was a farm boy and so knew about all kinds of machinery, looked at the machines but was puzzled. As far as he could see they made no sense. Things were being fed into them all right but nothing then came out the other side. All at once the children noticed the ugly creatures that seemed to run the place — judging by the keys they wore around their necks and the batons and whips they held in their hands. They were what the children had heard referred to as ‘orcs' from the stories they had read in the past. But even worse than all of that was the appalling state of the children who operated the machines. They looked as though they hadn't eaten a decent meal or had a shower in months and their clothes were all in tatters. Worse still was the look of fear they all had on their faces as they watched the other children being whipped and tortured if they so much as sneezed. It seemed as if at any given moment these poor children would be gobbled up by one of those huge machines …

“What's this then?” one of the orcs demanded of a little boy no older than six.

“I'm sorry sir, but it's just that I'm so tired and me hands can't keep up with the pace sir, and …”

“Not good enough though is it me lad? In wiv ya then!” And with that he picked up the little boy with one hand, and to the cries of sheer terror from the boy and all of the other children, threw him head first into the jaws of the machine. Blood spurted everywhere and the sound of bones being crunched reverberated throughout the factory and reached the eight new arrivals behind the opened window.

“Oh my God, did I just see what I think I saw?” Ina said to Henry and all of the younger children who had seen the incident either started to cry or buried their heads into Henry and Ina's shoulders in fear.

“Where on earth have we ended up?” Henry looked at Ina, terrified as well. “Have we stumbled into a hell for children?”

“What's all this noise?”

The children heard a female voice that was hissing and cruel. Then they heard a sliding, slithering sound and watched as a strange creature that seemed to have tentacles instead of legs, but also wore a dress, came into their view.

She left a trail of slime behind her as she progressed to the centre of the factory. The children all fell quiet at once to listen to what the creature was about to say.

Henry told the children to be quiet but it was too late. The boss creature had spotted them peering through the window and recognised them at once.

“There they are,” she cried pointing towards the children. “They have my ball. Well, don't just stand there; go and get them and bring them to me and don't lose or damage my precious crystal ball or it will be into the furnace with you.” All of the orclooking creatures immediately started to head towards the exit that led to the dormitory.

The children all started to scream and cry in terror but luckily Henry had a plan. He had noticed a large window that led out on the roof tops of the adjoining factories.

Since the window was locked he took a chair and smashed at the window until it shattered. He then took the children and one by one led them out onto the roof — only just in time too because the orcs were not afraid of heights and were not afraid to chase them across the rooftops.

Henry finally found a ladder that they could scramble down to safety on the path. The children were most alarmed to find that the whole town seemed made up of these kind of orcs and all sorts of other creatures too, all evil and foul smelling. Some of them looked around in alarm and decided to give chase even though they had no idea why they were chasing the children. But most of them just grunted at the mob of children running past. Before they knew it the children found themselves on the docks of a vast ocean and Henry realised that the only way the children were going to get away from this foul place was to jump aboard a ship. The one that Henry chose just happened to be having her rope untied as the children boarded and luckily for the children, orcs just happen to be incredibly shortsighted and all of the crew were too busy with their individual duties to notice a group of mainly small children whisk past them faster than a hare and out of sight into the kitchen of the giant ship.

The workhouse orcs made it to the dock just as the ship was pulling out and Henry could hear shouts of “Hey, you there, did ya see a bunch of kids who are not from around ‘ere?”

“What?” came the confused reply.

“Kids, you know — about eight of ‘em. We can't find ‘em.”

But the ship was pulling out at full steam and already there was some distance between the orcs on the ship and the orcs on the dock.

“Nah, we don't want no kids. What would we want kids for?” The orc on the ship had completely misunderstood the workhouse orc's question.

“I know, but ‘ave ya seen any, like?” the orc on the dock persisted.

“Look mate, you must be in the wrong place ‘cause I ain't seen no …” but just then and not a moment too soon, a huge wind blew up and his voice was carried off with it into the distance.'

“What ya sayin'?” said the orc on the dock, but would you believe the ship's horn blew and was so loud that the wood on the dock actually vibrated under the workhouse orc's feet? Eventually they both gave up trying to have the conversation at all and the orc on the dock turned and ran off to the rest of the other orcs and they ran back towards the workhouse. The ship drew up her anchor and set off out to sea.

The children hid themselves away in the galley of the boat. They found an excellent place to hide behind huge sacks of flour, potatoes and piles of tins of beans and sardines.

Henry looked around and was pleased with the fact that they would have something to eat. The trick now was not getting caught. Every time the orc cook came in to get a new ingredient the children had to make sure they were out of sight. It wasn't long though until the orcs had finished with the kitchen for the night and the children could relax a little and make a meal for themselves.

After a simple, cold meal the children sat around and told stories of what their favourite destinations would be. Going home, of course rated on top of the list. It seemed to relax the younger children to talk of such things and Henry and Ina liked that their imaginations were still alive with adventure.

It was the general consensus that given a choice the children would choose a beautiful, deserted island as their ideal destination. The way they described it made it sound like a regular Garden of Eden, complete with every animal that ever lived throughout the millennium and of course no evil lurking in corners and danger for them to have to worry about. They would have the whole island to themselves and have plenty of fresh food to eat and lovely fish to catch from the ocean.

The younger children fell asleep on the laps of Henry and Ina and were soon breathing deeply. What a big day they had had. After a while Ina looked at Henry and asked, “Have you realised what I've realised, Henry?”

“What do you mean?” he whispered back. “Is it about the fact that we no longer have a way home because there's no Oracle to guide us through the crystal ball?”

“Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. What are we going to do?”

“Look, tomorrow's a new day and we'll find a way out of this. Don't you worry about that Ina.” He could see that she was very frightened.

“Now, do me a favour and go to sleep will you Ina? I'm going to need you to be at your strongest tomorrow. Who knows what's in store for us then?” Luckily Ina didn't argue with Henry and she didn't ask him any more questions that he just couldn't answer.

He smiled warmly at her and watched as she drifted into a fretful sleep with a worried frown on her face. He may have been smiling but inside he was frozen with anxiety and fear. He turned the question over in his mind too many times to remember during the course of the night, not allowing himself to fall asleep for fear of being discovered by the orcs: how to get out of this rotten place and back home where they belonged? He regretted deeply ever allowing the other children to convince him to take part in this stupid plan. He was now responsible for all of their lives being the eldest and the burden was almost too much to bear. ‘What would Dad do in this position?' he asked himself and he heard his father's voice in his head saying: “Never mind sonny Jim.There, there. No point crying over spilt milk. What's done is done mate. Just have to soldier on and remember that tomorrow's a brand new day with brand new adventures.” This comforted Henry somewhat and helped him to drift into a shallow sleep even if it was with one eye open.

The children awoke with a start at first light to the sound of, “Eh, what's this then?” being shouted by the head cook who had come into the pantry to fetch breakfast ingredients.

Luckily Henry was thinking quickly. He stood up and hit the cook, knocking him unconscious before he had the chance to say anything else. But it was too late. The children heard the sounds of orcs banging and thumping about and footsteps scuttling towards them from the other side of the ship.

“Quick,” Henry shouted at the others. “There's no time to lose,” and they scrambled up the ladder to escape the orcs once again. The morning sun hit their eyes and almost blinded them but after a moment Henry could see a life raft complete with oars on the side of the ship.

He wasted no time, hurled it into the water and then sent Ina down the ladder followed by each of the other children until they were all safely bobbing about in the tiny boat on the ocean swell. The orcs reached him just as he was about to descend down the ladder and so he jumped into the ocean beside the raft and then quickly scrambled into it and grabbing the oars, began to steer the little boat away from the ship.