It was late at night when the Oracle finally returned to the village of Din.

Her first footstep was silent on the cobblestones, but despite her silence, she stopped.

The entire town was asleep. She could sense this, both in her bones and in the absence of light in the windows of the thatched cottages. They would not notice her. They could not even hear the coming of her soft shoes and yet she paused. They will know I am here, something within her seemed to say. They are so hungry for me that the moment I arrive, they will wake from their beds. They will come shouting into the streets.

The Oracle flipped her hood over her eyes. She tried to mask her magic as she walked through the town. She tried to commune with the sleeping minds, saying, Shh… I am not here… go back to sleep…

She felt as if she kept a terrible wave at bay. A madness. A hunger. Like the skin of a drum, it wobbled back and forth inside of her, something that might sound at any moment. The people craved what she could give them, and yet she had come here to do something else entirely. She needed to keep them at bay until she had done her spell.  

As she walked through the town, the green glass statues of the other Oracles gleamed. It was a strange sensation for the Oracle, as if she’d wandered into the land of the dead. The other statues were her people: Oracles who had gone before, Oracles whom the town had worshipped. They stood with their books or their lutes or their juggling balls. Each one had used art to bring a sense of magic to the people, to part the veil that existed between heaven and earth. In the dusty streets, it had meant everything.

For many years now, no Oracle had come. The people were desperate for a magic that could lift them from themselves, set them briefly free. Now at last, an Oracle had come. Now, she was here, but she had come to do things differently.

The Oracle sat down on the edge of the village fountain. She drew a book from her pouch, and she began to write.

When you are the Oracle, she wrote, people believe you are God. They believe you are the feeling you inspire within them.

She looked up with a friendly smirk. But you are not.

In the distance, a sheep bleated. The night flowed with a cold wind. The Oracle blew briefly into her hands to warm her fingers.  

When you are the Oracle, you are an ordinary mind. An ordinary body. An ordinary soul, but like an instrument, you have learned to play the cosmos.

When you are the Oracle, you understand that you are different from no one; you are merely the soul who learned.

When you are the Oracle, people expect you to gift them the divine as a temporary thing, and for many years it has been this way, but it is not the way forward.  

The Oracle finished her message. She tore the page from her book, and she walked to the center of town. She nailed the message to a post in the town square, and then she turned to complete her magic.

She shut her eyes, and she summoned the center of every statue towards herself. For a brief moment, she inhabited each one, became them. Then she shattered them gently, like an old woman crumbling the shell of an egg.

The broken pieces spread. The green glass of the statues floated in the air like shards of snow. They hovered, everywhere, twinkling. The Oracle walked through them like a woman walking through a forest filled with butterflies. She headed towards the edge of town. The green shards of glass would remain this way until dawn.

In the morning, the people would wake. They would walk outside their homes and they would be devastated to see their idols destroyed, reduced to gems that sparked in the early morning light. But that was when the magic would complete itself, and the green glass would wrap around the wrists of each villager like jewelry. They would carry this bracelet with them as they found her notice in the center of the town. They would read her words.

As she climbed the first hill away from the village, the Oracle looked over her shoulder, and she smiled slyly at the town. There was love in the slyness, and it sparkled in her eyes. She recalled the last line of her message, as she walked across the heather and into the world.

You will now, each of you, become the Oracle.

The Oracle is not the divine; the divine flows through her.

When you are the Oracle, you will understand.