Fifteen

Murmuring apologies, Grace had slipped under Genevieve’s blankets and pulled hers over them both. Being naked and pressed up against a stranger was embarrassing but it was too cold to do anything else and the woman had been shivering pitifully since she woke. It was at least warmer this way.

“You don’t have to apologize for helping us both stay warm.” The other woman sounded almost amused. “How did we get here?”

“There was a-a car accident and…” She debated how much to share but Genevieve rolled under the blankets to face her.

“My car? They didn’t wreck my car!”

It struck her as somehow hilarious. The woman was naked and freezing in a pit, but she was upset about her car. Grace broke into hysterical laughter. She tried to compose herself but it took longer than it should have. 

“I-I’m sorry.”

“No, I understand. It’s funny. But I’m alive, I know my brother is alive, and Remiel… I can feel it.”

“And you love that car. Remi and Eli were telling me. Eli said you didn’t take it well when they told you you couldn’t drive anymore.”

“You have a couple of incidents at the wheel and they get so upset.” Genevieve huffed but it seemed good natured.

“What happened? You had seizures while driving?”

“Seizures isn’t the right word for it. Do you-have you ever heard of a sibylline trance? It’s difficult to move, the Sibyl speaks, or usually sings, but she doesn’t bother with things like driving and I can see the car going off the road but I can’t stop it.”

“The Sibyl?”

“I’m sorry that things are getting so weird so quickly. I’ve been told I’m a lot of creepy trouble in a fragile package.” 

“I don’t-I don’t understand.” Grace’s stomach rumbled. “Do you think they’ll feed us?”

“If there isn’t food down here already we’ll have to wait for nightfall, I think. They sleep in the day, I’m almost sure.”

“What are they? Why did they-why are they doing this?”

“If they have a name it’s one I’ve never learned. The first time I saw them it was more… it was more that the Sibyl saw them and knew what they were meant to be. I was brought because they need me and you were brought because I can’t be alone.”

Everything was surreal but she asked anyway, “What were they meant to be?”

A vaguely familiar voice came down to them. “They flock to where the Sibyl is born. They’re meant to watch over her so that she lives to adulthood and in exchange she creates more of them.”

“That is so creepy.” She shuddered and Genevieve covered her face and started to laugh. 

“They can listen through the glass. I wanted to protect them but they’ve learned how to use it better than I can.”

“What do you mean? It sounds like they recorded people…” 

“It’s how they communicate with people.” The same voice came down to them again. “Mesny said that they remember and repeat. He was baffled that they did it that way but in his research the original creators didn’t want them to have their own voices.”

“Who is Mesny?” Grace peeked up at the lip of the hole. “That name sounds familiar.”

“Dara Mesny was my father. He was a monster but I loved him. He owned a vineyard…” 

“Oh! I think my family knew yours. We own Lucroy Vineyards. What was your brand?”

“I didn’t have a brand.” Genevieve grinned at her. “My mother tried to hide my brother and I from our father, she took us from the hospital and gave us away.”

Grace stared at her remembering the story from years ago.

“He found my brother and murdered my mother, but I wasn’t found until I was twenty-seven. I grew up poor in an abusive household. When I finally met him, I kept seeing these flashes of our similarities and he could be so charming when he wanted to be. It was hard to remember what he was, what I knew he was going to do. Sometimes he felt so much like a father…”

“I read a story in our college paper, your family hired a bunch of students to come out and take pictures.”

“Yes. I still have them. One of the few good memories. Vicki, I think, was the one who interviewed me. Father was so angry with me for allowing it. He told me that the Sibyl wasn’t required to answer. We needed to hear it. He was not pleased when I repeated it to him later.”

“I feel like you’re speaking some other language. It was like that when your brother was speaking to Mrs…” The name suddenly escaped her.

“Germain. I can imagine. You’ve never had to consider a world with witches, Sibyls, stone creatures or anything else. A Sibyl… with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.”

“My Sybil has been returned. She is more beautiful than I could have hoped and powerful.” A man’s voice came down and Genevieve flinched.

“Please don’t use his voice.”

There was a pause and Grace was opening her mouth to ask whose voice it was when another spoke, “She’s untrained, Father, but you've seen how inventive she is. Do you have to bring her here? Let her show you her gifts on her terms.”

“Bas… He tried to protect me, but he couldn’t. Not from our father. If our mother hadn’t hidden me I might have become the horror that he wanted so badly.”

“NO!” The shout echoed down and they clung together.

“Do you know how she’s tried to protect herself? My Sybil has been using stones! I had always wondered why the Bathim were made as they are and only a Sibyl can create more. My beautiful Sybil said she reaches inside these rocks and draws out their properties. I may let her make one or two of you just to see how she does it.”

Genevieve pushed away with a pensive look on her face, “You think that if I hadn’t been hidden I could have drawn on you to protect me? None of us would have had to endure-”

“YES!” It sounded like a chorus.

“Mother had no way of knowing. She just wanted to keep my father from creating the monster he so desperately wanted me to be. She tried to give me a chance to be something else.”

There was a pause and a voice that might have been Bas asked, “Do you have any idea how we suffered apart?” 

“Who suffered?” Grace rubbed her eyes, “Are they keeping us in this hole because your father hurt them?”

“No, Grace. They’re afraid. They need me to help them and they’re afraid of… Eli needs to be the one explaining these things to you. Please trust me that these creatures, Bathim, they said my father called them, they mean us no harm.”

“Genevieve, we’re freezing in a hole with no food, no clothes, and you need medical attention.”

“Meaning us no harm doesn’t mean that they can’t cause it, it’s true, but without trust everything falls apart. Hearts must soften.”

She dropped her voice, “What do we do? How can we get out of here?”

“It’s out of our hands. I’ll help them if I can, it’s important to the Sibyl, but I hope someone listens to what she said and things turn out well. If no one listens…”