Helga's eyes were glazed and distant, lost in the flames dancing like ethereal wisps in the air currents above the wood. She slumped in her old chair and studied their movement in the fireplace, her legs comfortable beneath a heavy blanket, her frail arms relaxed on the armrests. She'd hoped for inspiration when she'd begun watching them, but none had come, and she'd spent the last hour lamenting her inability to create. At least the scent of burning oak improved the musty, dry smell surrounding her. The perfume of the ancient as she called it. Not so unlike the scent she gave off. Her rheumy eyes studied the firelight as it flowed from the fireplace and into the room. A considerable place made small because of the books.
Dozens of bookcases lined the room's towering marble walls. Each held hundreds of filled shelves that vanished in the darkness beyond the light's reach. Long tables had been placed against the bookshelves, then stacked with towering stacks of books. Once they'd become overloaded, additional tables had been brought in, then topped with more volumes. The cycle had repeated millions of times, gradually shrinking her world until there was nothing left but the few feet of space in which she lived. She'd realized months ago there was room for only one more book. Once finished, the volume sitting in her lap would be placed on the chair across from her, the last she believed the chair would hold before it collapsed.
She wondered where they'd start the next stack. In the fireplace, essentially cutting off her warmth, her light? Helga pursed her thin, wrinkled lips. As hard as she thought, she couldn’t think of any other options. There was nowhere else to put them. Not unless they filled the narrow path that led to the other side of the room. She turned her head and scrutinized the once vibrant door that was now faded and riddled with scratches and dents. She'd never been through the door. Maybe there was an empty room on the other side just waiting for books. Maybe there was even another chair. Another fireplace. Another never-ending existence waiting for her arrival so she could do nothing but write.
And if not, then what did that mean? Were the books done? Was she done? Was this why her focus seemed to be leaving her? Why she felt so old?
She looked at her bony, wrinkled hand—pale as the day she'd been born. Never touched by another, never kissed by sunlight. Skin so thin, she felt she could tear it with a scratch of her nail. Her gaze moved to the book lying on her lap.
A diamond-tipped dip-pen moved along the pages on its own. The blood-red ink in its center glowed inside the transparent glass before being deposited on the paper. Scritch, scratch, scritch. A sound as familiar and comforting as her own heartbeat, it now faded so deeply into the background that she rarely noticed it. The popping of the fire, the beat of her heart, the scratch of the pen, the sounds that meant home to her were also forgettable.
Helga looked up when the door at the end of the room flew open, smacking the long table set beside it. She watched the tower of books stacked on top of it wobble, then sway slowly away from the wall. The wizened old man who stepped inside jumped forward and pressed his hands to the front of them. His cloak's long sleeves fell, exposing his painfully thin arms as he shoved the books back in place. "To heaven's end," she heard him mutter as he braced his hands against the teetering stack to straighten it. "Not today!"
She giggled, then had a thought. Her smile fell as her eyes narrowed in worry. "Why are you here, Hamish?" Her hands came together against her stomach. "It's late." Her voice sounded strange to herself. When had she last spoken? All she did was write.
Hamish glanced over his shoulder at her, then dropped his arms and backed away from the books. Turning, he shuffled sideways through the almost impassible path between two tables, his eyes flitting side to side as he watched for things he might accidentally brush against.
When the aisle widened, he again turned his head towards her, and she noticed his thick white eyebrows had merged into a single line with his scowl. He was angry, and she knew why.
"What have you done, Helga?"
Helga shifted in her seat. "I'm fixing it," she said, watching as he tried not to topple another stack on his way to her. Nothing made her happier than those days when he couldn't navigate the path successfully. Sure, it made him angry, probably ruined his well thought-out day having to restack all the books that fell, but it didn’t effect what was to come or what had been. It did, however, give her hours of amusement she could replay in her mind over and over. The only entertainment she got since writing had ceased to fulfill her. Today, however, she just wanted him to leave.
"Are you? Fixing it? How?" His eyes narrowed as he scanned her. They were a pale blue, so pale they almost didn't have color. The firelight's reflection seemed to dance inside them.
For some reason, it hit her that she didn't know what color her eyes were. She'd never been curious before, which in itself was curious. But then again, her eye color was not important in the big scheme of things. Maybe mine are green, she thought, turning to the fire and thinking about Margot, the prettiest of the crones with her bright green eyes.
"Are you distracted already?" Hamish muttered.
"No," she answered reflexively, turning around.
"Yes, you are. I can tell—" Hamish jerked to a stop, and his hands flew into the air. His arm sleeves flapped once, then slid down to his elbows. "Helga! Look at what it’s doing! Stop it now!"
She flinched. Scritch, scratch, scritch. The beat of her heart. The flow of the pen.
She'd forgotten about it again. She grasped the thin glass and began to write in small tight letters. It was a slow, painful process, not like centuries ago when the words flowed from her mind through the pen in liquid thoughts. Now she had to concentrate on writing one word after another, to make the story flow, the details make sense. Writing wasn’t easy anymore. She glanced up when Hamish spoke again.
"Helga, how could you let this happen? The latest volume is nothing less than a mess! Forty thousand bees attacking people in Texas, giant murder hornets invading Washington, and titanic swarms of locusts in Africa?” He raised his arms and shook his head. "All in the same year? What do you have against 2020?" He turned with his arms crossed behind his back, then stopped.
Helga knew he wanted to pace, but it wasn't possible in such a tight area. As had become his habit, he shuffled in a slow circle; his scrawny body bent at the shoulders, his arms wrapped protectively around his waist so as not to bump into anything. She saw the horror on his face when he looked her way, and she looked down.
The pen was again writing what it wanted.
She clenched it tighter and willed it to stop. She was surprised when it fought her control. It seemed to her it was getting stronger. You naughty pen, she thought with a small smile.
"What do you have crawling out of that cave, Helga?" Hamish's sharp voice caught her attention. He pointed a finger at her and wagged it angrily. “The one the humans found in Romania that hasn't been opened in 5.5 million years? You know supernatural and mythical creatures are to be avoided at all costs. Look what happened when you had that rock look like a sea monster in Scotland. You still haven't written that gaffe out of existence, have you?"
"No,” she answered. “I thought that one ‘water under the bridge', as the saying goes. Although ‘under the water’ is more accurate. Maybe I should start a new cliche.” She giggled, then chewed her lip when Hamish didn’t laugh. "It's not hurting anyone."
Hamish scowled. "Okay. But what about the twenty new mummies in Egypt? What do you have planned for those? I'm beginning to suspect you are writing a horror story and . . . and not telling us."
Helga cackled.
"Well, are you?"
She looked at him in surprise. She'd thought him joking, but he honestly seemed out of sorts. She lowered her shoulders and spoke softly to appear relaxed. “Of course not, Hamish."
"Then, what are you doing?"
She raised her hands in the air, then let them drop. She didn't know what to say. Her eyes flicked to the fireplace and the dancing flames. She watched them move while Hamish continued.
"I know your job is of utmost importance, Helga, and I’ve always respected you for that. You are a creator of worlds—a Divine Oracle. And even though you are a little unconventional, I trust you because your plans always work out, no matter how far-fetched they seem at first. The crones do not feel that way, but I do, and that's what matters when it comes roles in this partnership. It's my job to calm them down and make sure you live a peaceful life that is conducive to creating."
He paused and Helga glanced at him through the corner of her eye. Hamish's voice had been steadily growing in urgency with each word—the pace accelerating, the pitch rising, the volume increasing. That was until he'd stopped talking to stare into the rafters where the books towered above them. As if feeling her gaze, his eyes dropped to peer at her, and she looked away.
"Yours is to create Earth's materiality. Reality is based on what transpires in your last completed book. In the most basic definition, what you write, happens. Sure, the crones are involved with defining minute details, but it's your book! Your storyline! Your responsibility! Over the eons, I've learned to be patient and let the plot come to fruition at its own pace because I trust you.
"But I can't do it anymore, Helga! 2020 seems to have gone to shit and we are only half way through it!"
Helga jerked around. "Hamish!"
"Don't you Hamish me!" He scowled and took another step closer. His voice lowered. "You know why I'm here, Helga. Don't you?"
Helga hunkered lower. Yes, she knew why he’d come. To be honest, she was surprised the crones had waited so long to confront her. At least they’d sent him and not come themselves. She wondered where in the book's timeline Earth was. They’d reached the virus, she was sure, but how far into the pandemic were they?
“It’s not like this is the first time your writing has been on the dramatic side,” Hamish said, “so I wasn’t worried when all this—” He stopped, then shook his head. “Stuff started happening. When the crones voiced their concern in March, I told them not to worry because everything always makes sense in the end. In May, I did the same. Then in June I tried to rationalize the world-wide virus. But . . . But what do I tell them now, Helga?”
Helga cringed.
“How do I respond to the world burning down while we watch?” he finally wailed. "Can you explain your reasoning, so I have something to tell those old biddies?”
No, she could not. She'd not written any of 2020. It had been the pen. It had stepped in when she’d been unable to come up with anything herself—twitching in her palm until she’d released her grasp. Its long eloquent script had entranced her, and she’d been unable to look away as it wrote word after word on the yellow parchment.
"I'm going to pull them out of it, I promise." She looked down to where the pen was writing and gripped it tightly, stopping the pen from continuing its swirling scroll. With a scowl, she considered how she was going to finish the sentence it had been working on. How do you end a paragraph about flash floods in a positive way? Obviously, she'd have to dry everything out. Maybe handle the hornets and locusts while she was at it. Although, she thought, I don't particularly like bugs. Maybe the flood could kill them all. The hornets, locusts, flies, bees—all stinging and annoying things.
“Can you tell me how you are fixing this? You know, I hate to say it, but I’m losing my faith. I only see a bad future ahead of us . . . Helga!"
His sharp tone brought her head up. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"
His arms dropped to his side as his shoulders drooped. He stepped closer and appeared to study her closely. "My dear, what is going on with you? You are not yourself lately. The last few decades you've seemed . . . off."
She looked into his eyes and saw real concern. She was glad it was him bringing this issue to her attention and not one of the crones. They'd all been jealous when she'd ascended to head oracle, and they hadn’t hid their resentment well over the eons. Not that she was unsympathetic to their feelings. While she’d been given the ability to create a world, they'd been stuck with trivialities like making sure the insects she designed had six legs and spiders had eight. Little did they know how much effort her job took.
Her eyes filled with tears and she brushed them away. "The future just doesn’t want to come out anymore. I can feel it hiding behind tedious thoughts and banal dreams in the back of my head. I try, and I try, but lately, writing is like plucking glass from a wound. It stings and bleeds, and there's no reward for removing the shards because there's always another one hiding from view, stopping the injury from healing, hurting me. Writing seems to have no purpose other than to make me miserable. I can't jot the thoughts down before another one pops up, interrupting the flow. They get all jumbled together and just don't want to make sense. They aren't any good."
“So, you have writer's block? Is that all?”
Helga leaned back and dropped her arms on the armrests. "Is that all?" she whispered. Her hands clenched the rich red fabric while she decided how to respond. No one understood how writing hurt. How much of her blood it took to keep the world alive. She was tired of working so hard. "Writing is not as easy as it looks, Hamish."
Hamish waved his hand in her direction. "Come on, Helga. You broke apart Pangea to create the continents. You got bored with that experiment and created, then killed off, the dinosaurs. You replaced them with humans, and then came up with the platypus. The platypus! Next came cars and then airplanes. Why is this any different? If you want excitement, come up with something new."
"Just write something new," she muttered. "I've been trying."
"Have you?" he snapped, flapping a hand in the air. "Because it seems to me it's not you writing this horrid year, but a demented pen!" He scowled at her. "Maybe we need to retire your pen and find you a suitable replacement that's not possessed by some desire to destroy the world."
Her pen was a part of her, an extension of everything she felt, of who she was. It had been her constant companion since she’d become the Divine Oracle. Without it, she’d be more alone than she already was. Her chest tightened at the thought. He's going to take my pen away if he doesn't believe me. "No, Hamish. It's been me. All me.” She met his gaze and softened her voice. “The pen only finishes my thoughts, it doesn’t develop any on its own. I swear.”
Scritch, scratch, scritch.
"I've just had a bad year, Hamish."
"We all have bad years, my dear. But most of us can't destroy worlds when it happens. You've got to get it together."
"Okay. I will." Her eyes slid from him to the chair across from her. "You know we have another problem, don't you? What am I to do once this volume is finished?"
"What do you mean?"
"Where will I put the next book? Do you see a space to put it?"
"Of course I do." He spun in a slow circle. "Well, there has to be somewhere we haven't tried." His eyes scanned the piles, staring intently into the dark crevices created by the flickering light before he returned his gaze to her. He shuffled forward a step, slid between her feet and the chair opposite her, careful to avoid touching the towering books, and stood in front of the fireplace.
Helga watched as he turned and shuffled back past her and to the door. He spent a few minutes attempting to stretch his old fail body to its full height as if trying to peek over the books that soared above him. He finally gave up and made his way back to her chair.
"This has never happened before. There's always been space for the next volume. I don't know what this means—"
Helga saw his eyes glance at her lap a second before he lunged forward.
"It's writing again, Helga! Stop it before it does something even worse!" His hand wrapped around the quill, but it continued to scratch out words in red blood.
Her blood. The blood of the Divine Oracle.
But not her thoughts. 2020 had not been hers.
"Helga!" Hamish cried, "I can't stop it!"
Diving forward, she grasped the pen and pulled it back. It fought her, making the muscles in her hand ache. Then it went still.
Her eyes widened as she read what it had written. She looked at Hamish as a ribbon of fear rose up her chest. "I can fix that?" she whispered, not sure if she could.
Hamish groaned. "Oh dear god . . ."
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