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Because it was otten from Cherise and Eamon And yetnot her at all

Not until she smiled, and shattered my heart into a o weak "Oh, my God" I didn’t knohat to say, how to feel There was this stor in its pressure, and I wanted to laugh and cry and screaratitude and supplication But I wasn’t Ashan, and I didn’t I braced myself with both hands on the back of a pew and stared at her until my eyes burned

She didn’t speak

"Inize ht? I didn’t even knohat to ask

Venna said, "The old Oracle was dying after the Demon wounded her The Mother y that was lost I didn’t knoould be Imara" Venna sounded very quiet, very s at me How could it not help? I sed "Can shecan she hear h And she knows"

"Knohat?" I felt a bizarreup inside, overwhel," Venna said soberly "She knows you still love her"

There was so her, babbling out everything I felt Soother

But that look, that smilethose were pure love

"It’s why you could do what you did on the beach, when you made the Earth obey you," Venna said "And how you can touch people’s h her, you touch the Earth You’ve got all three channels now Earth, Fire, Weather You’re like Lewis"

She didn’t look particularly happy about it I near her feet Her eyes shifted color to a molten bronze

I didn’t need words to understand that look, and it chilled me

If Venna noticed, she didn’tas disturbed as I’d ever seen her "This isn’t going to work"

"What? What do youabout I, but no; Venna looked too calm, too still

"She’s new," Venna said, and rested her hands, palhs "She hasn’t come into her full power yet And that means she can’t help Ashan-even if she wants to"

I doubted sincerely that what Io by the description of help

"So that’s it?" I asked "We just give up?"

Venna threw me an all-too-human look of exasperation "No," she said "We take him to another Oracle, that’s all I’ll-take him out of here"

I didn’t watch how she did it, but I heard Ashan scraone, and the door shut behind thehter, the Oracle

"Can you hear me?" I asked "Imara?"

Her eyes sloirled back to that lovely shade of gold, but she didn’t san to di out one by one While I could still see her, I said, "Please say so Please, baby I need to know that you’re okay"

She was just a diold eyes in the dark, when she whispered, "Hang in there, Moone

I sat down hard on the pew, put hter Not to the Earth, whoever that was

I prayed to God, whose chapel it was Who’d built this glittering, beautiful, hurtful world with all its et h the rest of this, because I didn’t think I could do it by myself

I don’t know if He answered, exactly, but after a few minutes I felt a kind of peace inside, a stillness, and an acceptance

My child wasn’t suffering, and she wasn’t totally beyond h

I scrubbed ot up, and went to find Venna

Venna had Ashan-actually, he was on his knees, and she had one hand on his shoulder It didn’t look like restraint, exactly, but I was sure it was He looked worse in the hts on the concrete stairs-bleached, gri in those blue eyes

He’d killed otten his way, she’d have been co in there in the chapel, elevated to some level I couldn’t understand In a very real way, he’d still taken her away; Imara the Oracle wasn’t Imara at all, not the way I’d known her

You never knew her at all, some cold part of hter Remember?

That was the point I didn’t reo before I could see that put right

"So," I said "Where now?"

I’d expected her to hesitate, but instead, Venna promptly said, "Seacasket"

"Pardon?"

"It’s in New Jersey"

I hadn’t forgotten geography New Jersey was a long way froo," Venna said "I can drive when you get tired"

Yeah, like I was going to let a kid behind the wheel of that car Even a ," I said, and pointed a thu him all the way to the East Coast"

Ashan shot to his feet, running like a rabbit for the rocks, not the stairs "Hey!"

He slaered back, and whirled to face us Venna had broken his nose, and it was streaood look for hiain with just as much force