My abilities blossomed after Ariston and I married. No one but he knew I was a seer.
I did not need to claim fame or glory. I continued to cast the Oracle’s symbols in the privacy of my rooms, where life settled in around me. I began to see how a day’s events would play out. I could tell Ariston what patients he would see that day and what ailed them. But still I could not see how to protect Wadjet’s symbols through time. I feared I would fail her.
After a year of daily training I could stretch my mind’s eye as far as a week, and after two years I could see one month into the future.
That is when I saw what I needed to do.
I will admit I was nervous, but it was finally time to delve into the world of dreaming. I wasn’t sure how to tell Ariston of my intent, so I waited until after we had made love the next night. I shared my plan while we lay in each other’s arms.
“You want to go on a dream quest at Mount Starius?” He looked at me as if I had transformed into Medusa with snakes for my hair. “Now?”
I nodded and waited for his full displeasure. The idea was mad, I knew. Last month I had discovered I was with child; after nearly two years of marriage we had finally conceived. Going on a journey was the last thing I should be doing.
“It’s not far.” I tried to assure him. “You can come with me.”
“Of course I’ll come with you!” he all but shouted. “I’m not about to let my pregnant wife go traipsing around the mountainside alone like some Gilgamesh!”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t be traipsing.”
“That’s not the point!”
“Mount Starius lies right outside the city. It’s not far!” My voice rose to meet his and I tried to calm down. We were both sitting up, glaring at each other.
“Why Mount Starius? Why not go to the temple of Apollo, where we can pay for a tent?”
“I don’t want a tent. I want a cave.”
“What in heaven’s name is wrong with a tent?”
“Because I need to be alone and not have all of Daphne outside.”
I had read about Mount Starius in my research. In antiquity it was considered a sacred place, its hidden caves used for dream questing for over a thousand years. And I had already seen us there. Twice I had dreamed about the cave, first in the book depository and again just the night before. Finally the dream made sense.
“Ariston, I must go. I’ve foreseen it.”
“So everything you foresee you must blindly trust and follow?” he asked, exasperated.
I took his hands and tried to help him understand. “I have not yet solved the Oracle’s riddle. She said that when I am with child, I will understand what I need to do to accomplish what she has asked of me. My fear of failing her casts a gloom over my happiness. Even with you. But I have seen a clear path to that cave. I know I will find answers there. Now is the time.”
Ariston grew still and stared at me. I could see I was reaching him.
“I must go this month. You, of all people, know I did not ask for this gift. It is my burden and I need you to help me. At Mount Starius I will understand what to do.”
“But why now?” he beseeched. “You have your whole life to discover the answer.”
“I cannot control what I see any more than I can control time. Please help me.” I kissed his hand. A shadow passed over his face and he looked as if he was going to object again, but I reminded him, “You were tasked to help me.” Wadjet had not called him out by name but she had called upon my husband to aid me.
His expression softened and he kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m the one who translated it, remember?” he teased. But I could tell I had won.
* * *
We departed a week later, explaining to his family that we were going on a pilgrimage to pray for the baby’s birth.
When I told Aella and Illias of our trip, of course they wanted to come with us. Aella said she would bring the servants and her cosmetae. I dissuaded her and promised we would be back soon. But my heart was touched by the gesture. Even after my marriage to Ariston, Aella and Illias continued to watch over me and dote on me like a daughter.
At Mount Starius I found the isolated cave I had dreamed of, and we made camp outside its opening. It felt strange arriving at the present from a future I had already foreseen.
Ariston wrapped a blanket around me, enveloping me in its warmth. “May the answers find you,” he said. “Dream well.”
Then he kissed me with such tenderness, as if I were leaving for a faraway journey. I knew it wasn’t possible to love him more.
“Thank you,” I said. He saw the lines of concern etched upon my face.
“Do not worry,” he said softly. “Whatever you see, we will face together.”
I looked up into his eyes in surprise. He too understood the gravity of my mission and had the same fear I did—that I would be forever altered by what I saw. I kissed him again, and steeled my courage.
* * *
When I entered the cave, the darkness greeted me with heavy silence.
I took off my sandals and walked forward, feeling answers waiting for me beneath the sleeping stones. I spread out my pallet, lit a candle, and settled in to dream.
As I lay there, never had I been more aware of time and all its trappings. Every small working of my body—thirst, hunger, physical discomfort—railed against me. Dreaming with purpose meant leaving the briars of daily life and entering the fallow lands of the mind. Dream questing is a Herculean task.
My time in the cave was the most difficult of my life.
For the first day I thought only of water, swallowing the dry air until my throat ached. By the second day my stomach clenched and clawed for food, and by the third my skin itched everywhere as my limbs twitched from their desire to move. I was hot and cold all at once; my body had become a stranger. I wanted nothing more than to end my suffering as I drifted in and out of consciousness. But I could not.
To divine is to imagine the world rightly, to see past the illusion that we are separate from the entire fabric of reality. Here I was attempting to have a waking dream of the future—all because an ancient oracle had seen me do so. The only problem was I had no idea how to accomplish such a feat. In all my research, I had read how to quiet the mind, to still the body, and to banish all doubt so the dream would come. But beyond that was a mystery. Waking dreams are not the usual dreams of sleep, but something far more potent.
I floated in a temporal realm for days, until the silence, the waiting, no longer existed. Then, without warning, the string of my thoughts snapped like a severed thread and my mind opened.
With incredible clarity, I saw the Oracle’s symbols pass from hand to hand as they traveled through the future, and I saw those hands as one unbroken chain: those hands became my own, those stories became my story, and it is this tale that I will share with you now.
As you read my account of the future, you will ask how I came to know it. The best explanation I can offer is that time and memory go hand in hand. Without our memories, time would not exist. What we perceive as the world is really memory in motion. The visions I had in the cave were memories yet to happen. And any memory that has yet to happen is a prophecy.
But prophecies can be dangerous. The greatest prophecies have been hunted by kings and coveted for their power to bestow knowledge that does not yet exist. I won’t deny I feared what would happen if I were to commit my vision to paper, and I did not do so after we returned home. Instead, I waited.
When I emerged from the cave after seven days, Ariston rose to his feet, visibly relieved. He could tell I was altered, but he did not ask what I had seen. There was so much I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t yet. The knowledge I now possessed was too great. In that moment I didn’t know if I could ever share what I had seen. So we simply embraced and he took me home.
For several days I lived in a daze; everyone thought I was fatigued from our travels. Aella came to our home to care for me and ordered me to rest, barely letting me out of bed.
One day, after I’d begun to recover, I took out my father’s parchment and reed pen from Alexandria. I now understood why I had brought them with me. The time had come to use them.
I began to write with the greatest speed, committing my words to paper as though my pen were flying on the wings of Nike, for I have foreseen that I will not survive my child’s birth.