Chapter 14

            The next day was Friday, October thirty-first, Halloween.  I stayed after World History to talk to Ms. Evy, to tell her about last night.  She sat there and listened silently and when I'd finished, out of nowhere, she gave me a big hug.  "Elizabeth, who else knows about this?" She asked.

            "Just Cara, why?" I replied.

            "Well, if your dreams are actually visions, then there's someone out there, looking for you, trying to hurt you.  I'm not trying to scare you, Elizabeth, it's just, if there's someone after you, you can't trust anyone.  Cara's fine, she's one of the few people I'd trust with my life, but don't tell anyone else.  Okay?" Ms. Evy told me.  I nodded, feeling pulled in two directions.

            "Ms. Evy, you're right about one thing." I said, walking towards the door, then turning and looking at her.

            "What's that, Elizabeth?"

            I pulled down the neck of my turtleneck, part of our fall and winter uniform, and peeled back the gauze.  Ms. Evy gasped and turned pale at the sight of my injury.  "Lophelian wants me to join him, or he wants me dead.  He said that not even the Twelfth Sibyl could stop him.  I have the funniest feeling that that's me."

            "Oh Lord no, God no.  It's impossible.  Elizabeth," She gasped again, crossing the room, grabbing my shoulders, and shaking me hard.  "Swear on your life you're not teasing me.  Did Lophelian call you the Twelfth Sibyl?"  I nodded dumbly.  "What exactly did he say?"

            "He said, 'Silly girl, I will not let you stop the ritual!  It's coming, and not even the Twelfth Sibyl can stop me!'" I mimicked, throwing my head back and doing that laugh he used to scare me.

            "Wow, have you ever thought of acting?" She asked, caught off guard.  "Anyways, you're sure that's exactly what he said to you?"  I nodded, quite confused.  "Well, there's no time to talk about it now, and it's Friday.  I must consult my books this weekend, then I'll explain it all on Monday."

            "Okay, wait, explain what?" I asked, catching her wrist as she slung her purse onto her shoulder.  "You know something, and I want to know, too.  Now tell me." I demanded.  "If we can't talk here, I know where we can, but you're not just going to interrogate me like some kind of criminal and then waltz out of here without sharing your half of the story."  She rubbed her wrist when I relinquished it and gave a deep dismal sigh. 

            "Where shall we go?" Ms. Evy asked.  I flashed her a quick smile, hugged her strongly, and ran out the door.  "Okay, I'll meet you there at noon." She called after me.  I ran as fast as I could, ducking classroom windows as I went to English.  I pencil tapped and twitched my way through it, itching to see Evy again.  Then I diligently worked on my Arts and Crafts project, trying to keep my mind off of the possible things she could tell me.  I rushed to the dining hall, through the line, punched in my number, and hurried to our table.  I sat down, ate fast, and bussed my tray in a record time of eight minutes.

            "You know, I'm not doing so well in English, so I think I should probably go study.  If anybody needs me, I'll be in the library." I lied in one breath.  Cara quirked an eyebrow at me, but she said nothing.  I walked quickly through the school, so as not to be suspected of trouble, and hurried through the library to the Mythology section.  Ms. Evy was there, pretending to be enthralled in a book.  "Great cover, captain obvious." I giggled, taking the book from her, called The Courting Rituals of the Ancient World, and closing it so she could see the cover.  "Now everyone will either think you're up to something, or you're obsessed with sex!"

            Ms. Evy giggled too, covering her mouth with one hand to stifle it.  "I was trying to be inconspicuous!"  She was nearly roaring with laughter now.  Ms. Apple walked by slowly, most likely glaring us to silence, but we just giggled harder.  "Perhaps we should sit down and look busy." Ms. Evy sighed, the mirth dieing from her eyes.  "We've much to talk about."  I nodded and followed her to a pair of short armchairs with a table in between.  She snagged up a few choice books of myths along the way so we'd have something to "study".

            We sat down and now, with her composure back in place, Ms. Evy looked grave.  "The Twelfth Sibyl is the last of a long line of prophets, according to most mythological records." She began.  "Almost every civilization of man ever known has a story with so many similarities, that it's very difficult to take into account as merely a myth.  I believe they all speak of the same event, different versions of the same tale.  This event is the existence, and destruction of a great island civilization."

            "Atlantis, I know, I'm practically an expert on it, remember?" I finished, bored.

            "Yes, I expected this much, but what is a piece of rare knowledge is how Atlantis died.  Everyone knows that the island exploded and was overrun by lava from the center of the island being an unknown volcano erupting.  What people don't know is that Aristotle isn't the first story of Atlantis in history.  There are stories in Mesopotamia and Babylonia that predate the Greek philosopher's story.  It's said that the story was written down by one of the scribes, but a woman who spoke many languages, but couldn't write the Mesopotamian pictographs, yet, dictated it.  She had an advanced knowledge of medicine, engineering, mathematics, history, and geography." Ms. Evy said solemnly.

            "An Atlantean?" I guessed.

            "Yes, she was a survivor.  When the scribes presented her to their council, the rulers of the time, she introduced herself as Sibala, which was written down as Sibyl.  She was the first.  She inquired the council if they had opened their iron mine yet.  The council asked her what was iron, and what was a mine.  Sibala promised gold and silver in massive amounts if they promised not to build a mine in Babylonia." Ms. Evy sighed.  "That's why they built the tower, to have a place to put the stone and rock from the mine."

            "How did Sibala know?" I asked, deep down, already knowing the answer.

            "She had a vision of the tower falling and Babylonians speaking in tongues."

            "Why did that happen?" I wondered aloud.  "I mean, I know the bible says…"

            "The bible says that God cursed the people, but that is not what every other country in the world says.  The others say that a strange poison was in the mine, causing people to hallucinate, making them unable to communicate with each other.  The council ordered the tower to be torn down and the stones placed over the mine.  Many people died because those effected with hallucinations, were basically poisoned.  Sibala tried to warn them, but instead, it sparked their curiosity and doomed them."

            "What about Atlantis, though." I prodded.

            "Well, Atlantis was so advanced because they had a strange mystical power caused by chemicals in their main source of food; fish.  Nearly every Atlantean had the power of ESP.  They used it to see where to mine, fish, plant, and build their homes and cities.  Because many Atlanteans dreamed the future, Atlantis was able to prepare for hurricanes, floods, famines, outbreaks of disease; all the things that devastated other civilizations and slowed down their advancement.  Sometimes, in the case of famines and disease, they could prevent it altogether." She explained.

            "Because Atlantis could avoid disaster, most lived much longer that the rest of man, even at it's peak, with a life expectancy of about two hundred years."

            "Two hundred years!" I exclaimed.

            "Yes, but that's not the end of it.  They lived very healthy lives and instead of deteriorating at around the age of seventy, they were quite fit right up until 190 years.  They could still have children until the age of 150, for women, and 170, for men.  This made it a civilization overflowing the island, like a river jumping it's banks.  With such massive amounts of people, a huge famine was right around the corner for Atlantis."

            "What did they do?" I asked, enthralled.

            "They didn't kill people, if that's what you're thinking.  They sent relatively young, childless adults off the island, not banished, merely relocated.  These couples were sent to Europe, Africa, South America, and North America: all sea-bound countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean.  Once there, they were to build one village secluded from the other cultures and build a family.  Once their children reached the ripe age of fifteen, they were sent back to Atlantis to learn the ways of their people."

            "Like being sent off to school." I said, my heart going out to those ancient teens.

            "The children remained amongst the elders, their teachers, ate the local fish to receive their gifts, until they turned twenty and were matched up and sent home to build their families.  This was the way for hundreds of years, thus thinning the population of the island of Atlantis and virtually taking over the world.  It also made it possible for Atlantis to grow richer through trade with other countries.  Now, not many people believe this because the say it would have taken years at sea to reach Atlantis from the other continents.  I don't believe they traveled by sea at all."

            "How'd they do it?" I asked.

            "There is a common structure, very minute, but still there, in the structures of Stonehenge, the pyramids, not at Giza, but the older ones in Egypt, the pyramids in Central and South America, and the Cahokia mounds in Illinois.  The general shape, the number of stairs in the pyramids, where certain stones are placed to indicate lunar and solar eclipses.  These were built by Atlanteans as a sort of landing pad, so to speak.  Atlantis had the technology of air travel.  At night, once a year, Atlanteans would go to the sacred, secret places and the ships would come for them when no one would see."

            "So the had planes?" I asked.

            "Well, yes and no.  They could travel through the air, but not on planes.  Not even the most highly distinguished experts know how they truly did it, but I suspect they used portals.  The fluctuation of matter leaves gaps here and there all the time, and Atlanteans simply charted these fluctuations so they could schedule their rips.  With the gaps between matter, they tore a small hole in the space-time continuum and walked through nothingness until they reached where they were going.  I suppose it was much like digging a hole to China." Ms. Evy chuckled.

            "Okay, but what about the rest of the time?" I asked.

            "It was too dangerous to stay in the nothing too long, so any more often than once a year was just too risky, but the rest of the time, they did fly."

            "But you said…"

            "No, they did not have planes, they had something far more efficient than that.  They had dragons."

            "Dragons?" I breathed.

            "Yes, my dear, dragons.  Real live dragons.  They flew swiftly, silently, and so fast, the most the world ever saw of them was their shadows." Evy laughed.

            "Okay, I'm going to ask more about that later, but what about Lophelian?" I asked, suddenly exhausted.

            "Well, Lophelian was an Atlantean, but he was very different from the rest.  He developed an allergy to fish at a very young age, therefore, what little psychic abilities he gained were very weak.  Without that, his only purpose in life was to walk through the nothingness to transport goods between the colonies.  Lophelian lived like this for a hundred years or so, and spending so much time in the dark began to change him.  When he was in the nothingness, his psychic abilities were amplified ten fold and he could hear what people all over the world were thinking."

            "So that's where he takes me, the nothingness between matter and listens to my thoughts where he's strongest." I concluded.  Ms. Evy nodded and continued with her story.

            "They call it the Etherealm.  Anyway, Lophelian wanted revenge against the people he envied so much, and to get it, he would end up killing everyone.  He took things into the nothingness and left them there instead of delivering them to trade.  He built his home in the nothingness and listened to the world think, devising his plan for world domination.  First, he crippled Atlantis, financially, and the economy fell in a matter of months."

            "How sad." I sighed.

            Ms. Evy nodded in agreement and said, "It was.  Lophelian thought that this would happen too quickly for anyone to escape.  Then, when the thousand-year commemoration came about and everyone slipped back to the island, he destroyed it.  From all over the world Atlanteans went home, leaving few not at the celebration, thus making it possible for the whole civilization to end.  He walked into the nothingness and pushed and prodded various things until a volcano blew most of the island to bits and covering what was left in a tidal wave."

            "All over the world the rumblings and shiftings were felt, many of which causing some of history's greatest disasters of all time.  The destruction of Pompeii, the parting of the Red Sea, and then the closing of it, just to name a few.  The destruction was complete for Atlantis, or so it seems."

            "All of it, gone?" I mourned.

            "Well, you've never seen it, have you?" She teased.

            "No, but I sort of wished the ruins were still under the ocean somewhere, waiting for me to find them, or that maybe, just maybe, it was still thriving somewhere."

            "Oh but it is, Elizabeth, it is.  I'm getting to that." She soothed, gently patting my hand.  "No one saw it coming because Lophelian did all his planning in the Etherealm, except one girl."

            "The First Sibyl?" I guessed.

            "No, the Second.  Sibala married and had a daughter named Sita.  This girl, barely four, was more intelligent than most Atlantean elders of 190 years.  For her entire life, she slept only two hours at a time because she had horrible night terrors.  She dreamt of death, flood, famine, destruction, specifically of Atlantis."

            "How?" I gasped.

            "I honestly don't know, but it was her purpose to warn the world, and she did.  Slowly but surely, Atlanteans fled the island, even though the elders claimed it was the fantasy of a harmless child, not a prophecy.  When Lophelian made his move to destroy Atlantis, a small group of believers made a dangerous rip to overthrow him.  They failed, unfortunately, but when they tried to rip out, they were trapped forever.  So, if it makes you feel better, Atlantis does live on somewhere, all around us." Ms. Evy concluded.

            "But what about the rest of them?" I asked.

            "Most of them died, but a fortunate thousand or so mounted their dragons, took to the sky, and were never seen again.  I suspect the aliens everyone runs into, the ones that leave crop circles and mysterious lights in the sky, is them, watching over us, watching for Lophelian."

            "Really?"

            "I believe so, yes." She sighed.

            "Wow, what a story!" I breathed, leaning back in my chair.  "If none of this is in the history books, how do you know it?"

            "Every now and then, after a series of disasters in Europe, some lunatic

pops out of nowhere, spouting junk about the end of the world.  He's not just some nut out of his tree, these people that appear out of nowhere, they're Atlanteans who pushed through the Etherealm into the real world."

            "So you've met an Atlantean?" I exclaimed, suspicion picking at my brain.

            "No, Elizabeth.  I made my rip in the early 1600s, when I was nearly twenty."

            "But that would mean, you're about four hundred years old!  That's just not possible!  Even after all you've told me, and I believe you, that's not possible.  How can this be?" I whispered, baffled.

            "I don't know, Liz, I really don't.  I should have died long ago, yet I live on.  Once I ripped through, I lost all contact with the others.  The elders would know, but by now, even the babies of my clan have died, by now even my grandchildren have reached old age and near death as we speak." Ms. Evy sighed sorrowfully.

            "Grandchildren?" I asked.

            "Yes, I truly hope Finius, my husband, raised the little ones, Devi and Shiva well.  When I last saw them, Devi had just turned four, and Shiva three.  Now my children are dead, their children nearly dead, whom I have never met, and my great grandchildren reaching mid-life."

            "Why did you leave them if you miss them so much?" I asked.

            "The plan was that they would come with me, but they never made it out.  One of my closest friends betrayed me at the last moment and stole Finius, Devi, and Shiva away from me.  I will never forgive Sulaki for taking them from me."

            "I'm so sorry Ms., um…" I began, but drifted off when I realized Evy might not be her real name.

            "My true name is much like the one you're familiar with; it's Evysulis." She filled in.

            "Okay, I'll stick with Evy." I laughed.  She laughed along with me, some of the tension draining away.  When she finished, I asked her a question, the answer to which I desperately wanted.  "Evy, why didn't Lophelian die, and why is he after me?"

            "Lophelian lives on in the Etherealm, but don't worry, whoever is left of my family is safe from him, for he lives on a different plane than they do.  I myself have not seen him, but, obviously, he's still there.  I used to think the same dark magic he used to move the world to destruction, he used to prolong his own cursed existence, but from what you tell me, he's simply a vampire.  Though I suspect he does not have eternal youth, making him a horror to the eyes.  As to the second question, you already know the answer.  You are the Twelfth Sibyl, and only you can stop the ritual." Evy replied.

            "Yes, I know, but how did I become the Twelfth Sibyl if my mother is perfectly normal, and I'm not Atlantean." I replied.

            "Come with me." She responded, lifting herself out of her chair and leading me through the library.  Evy led me back to the mythology section and scanned the shelf of books nearest to her.

            "What are you looking for?" I asked.

            "Aha, here it is.  Ancient World Prophets, just the book I was looking for." She beamed.  Her fingers nearly tore the pages as she raced through the book, searching for something.  She stopped and looked up at me, and I leaned over the side of the book to see.  It showed a tree, a family tree so to speak, leading back to 69 B.C.

            "This goes back way past B.C., Liz, it goes back to the First.  This chart shows every Sibyl so far to have walked this earth.  Most of these people died unnatural deaths; snake bites, mutiny, stabbings, suicide, beheading, stigmata, and burned at the stake." Evy said, pointing to each name as she listed off their cause of death.

            I read the chart over and over again, shocked, and strangely honored.  The top of the tree was Sibyl, or Sibala, then Sitala, or Sita, then Lu Tung-Pin, Cleopatra, Jehanne Darc, Fr. Laurence of Rome, Pocahontas, Marie Antoinette, Ezekiel Karsh, H.G. Wells, and Eva Braun, and then the bottom blank had a large inked question mark.  "Some of these names I recognize, some I don't."

            "Well this one, Lu Tung-Pin is so old, he's thought of as a mere myth, but he was a Chinese warrior who had a vision of his men being slaughtered while the emperor slept, and woke up in time to prevent it.  He was a national hero and became the emperor's bodyguard.  He was stabbed with a Samurai sword when he stepped in front of the emperor to protect him at the age of seventeen." Evy explained.

            "Tough break."

            "And this one is, and you must know Cleopatra and Pocahontas, and of course Marie Antoinette; all dead before they hit forty.  Poison made of cobra's venom, pneumonia, and beheaded by her country.  You probably don't know the rest of them."

            "Nope.  Who's Jehanne Darc?"

            "Jehanne Darc is the given name of the medieval French woman we know as Joan of Arc.  She was burned at the stake."

            "Joan of Arc, wow!"
            "Father Laurence of Rome was a priest who prophesized an outbreak of the plague in 1690.  He later developed stigmata and died in his bed of blood loss."

            "Lophelian?" I guessed.

            "I believe so, Liz.  Ezekiel Karsh was a soldier in the German army in the same unit as Adolph Hitler during World War 1.  He woke up one night screaming that Adolph was a monster; he needed to be destroyed before he killed thousands of people.  Hitler rolled over and shot him in the back of the head and swore Karsh was a stupid Jew and the whole lot of them needed to be exterminated like the bugs they were."

            "Jesus!" I swore.  "H.G. Wells was a writer, wasn't he?"

            "Yes, indeed he was, he had visions of the future, and wrote them into The Time Machine." Evy explained. 

            "What about Eva Braun?"

            "Eva Braun was her maiden name.  Her married name was Eva Hitler geb Braun."

            "Hitler, who would marry him?"

            "A very scared woman, Liz.  He promised her protection from his gang-raping troops if she agreed to marry him and be his right hand.  He used her visions to keep afloat in the war for as long as he did and to kill as many non-Germans as possible.  She decided he couldn't be stopped as long as she kept helping him, so she committed suicide with his gun.  Once she was gone, he knew there was no winning and he shot himself a little while after her."

            "Wow, that's really very sad.  What about this?" I asked, tapping my finger against the question mark on the bottom line.

            "Hold on, there's an inscription here." Evy replied, running her fingers along fine print at the bottom of the chart.  She furrowed her brows a moment, and then read, "The Twelfth Sibyl is prophesized to surface in the twenty-second century by Eva Braun, Fr. Laurence of Rome, Jehanne Darc, and Cleopatra.  That's exactly right if it's you, Elizabeth."

            "How, I'm not related to any of these people, I don't think.  I mean, I know for sure I'm not Chinese, or French, or, come to think of it, German."

            "Well, if you're the Twelfth Sibyl, then you must be related to one of them, and if you're related to one of them, you're related to all of them." Evy replied.  "I guess if you have doubts, you could use a computer to research your family tree.  Ms. Apple's the only one with a computer here in the library, but the lab is just down the hall.  The computer's record every click you make, so, if you don't want Ms. Harper on your back, stay after class someday and use my laptop.  It's not much, but it's enough to work on."

            "Okay, how 'bout now?" I asked, shuffling my feet nervously.  Ms. Evy opened her mouth to reply and the bell rang for the end of lunch.  "I better go, I don't want to be late, and I don't want anyone getting suspicious about me." I chuckled, hitching my books against my hip before I dropped them.

            "Hey Liz," She said softly.  "Take these before you go to bed, they'll help you sleep without dreaming." Evy whispered, pressing a tiny bottle of pills into my free hand and pushing my fist closed.  I nodded gravely and clenched my hand around the bottle.  She stood silently and watched me shuffle off and when I reached the library door, she called, "Be careful, Elizabeth.  Be careful and be safe."