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Author Note: Part One in the 'Perchance To Dream' series.
THE GHOSTS THAT TALK
The first time that Sibyl heard the gods whisper, she had only seen four summers. The voices guided her to a well long-thought dry, only Sibyl drew water from it to drink and took a full bucket back to her family. When she recalled her actions, her mother gasped and let out a string of heartfelt prayer. The gods had blessed them indeed. That day, Sibyl was taken to the nearest temple, where she talked to women with covered heads and bare feet, women who asked her questions. Sibyl told them about the whispers, and how she liked the whisperers smiling at her.
"They smile," one of the women agreed with a nod and haunted eyes. "But that is not all they do."
Sibyl's parents were given a purse of money and the promise of more. They hugged Sibyl and thanked the sisterhood with much gratefulness. They rushed away with barely a glance back towards their little daughter. Sibyl never saw them again.
Her life was full after that anyway, with the whispers and the teachings of the sisterhood. Sura looked after her, Sura whose hair was ink-black and whose eyes sparkled with whispers unsaid. She held Sibyl's hand and painted unknown words on her skin. It tickled and Sibyl laughed, a noise which made Sura smile too. Sibyl liked to watch Sura, the colours of her dress were pretty in the sun and the words on her arm were as interesting and mysterious as those adorning Sibyl.
Sibyl learned that she was blessed, that the whisperers – the gods – did not speak to everyone, that it was her duty to listen and interpret, to be their voice.
"Do you hear them?" she asked Sura one day.
"I would not live here otherwise," Sura replied. "It is my gift too."
Sibyl learned of former prophets and their prophecies, of rivers that had run red with blood and silver with fish, of deaths unprevented because the gods willed it, of miracles and pain. As she grew older, the whispers became louder. She watched as many people crowded the temple, with gifts and questions, wishing to know what the gods held forth for them. She watched as Sura answered, always with peace and smiles, even if her words were warnings. No one would dare strike a prophet.
"This will be your life soon," Sura told her one night, pressing a finger to the words still written on Sibyl's arm.
Sibyl did not know what the words meant. Sura told her that the day she understood their meaning would be the day that she alone spoke for the gods in that temple. It was how Sura had gained her position – the previous prophet had left once Sura had divined the meaning of the words that ran down her own arm, words that had not faded.
"What do your words mean?"
"Something unspoken."
It took Sibyl some time to realise that she and Sura alone in the sisterhood still heard the gods.
"Why do the others stay?"
"They heard the gods once, but the voices did not linger long with them. They were touched briefly and wish to continue serving in hope that they will hear the whispers again."
When Sibyl woke from her first nightmare, voices screaming in her head as blood flowed and life ended, she wished that one of those sisters held such a gift in her place.