Page 39 of Charmed

“It is not that I don’t want to help, it is because I can’t control it,” she blurted out.

“Can’t control what? Yourself from kissing that big oaf?” asked Elric in disgust.

“Father, stop calling him that,” Lira scowled at the elf. “Stone is our guest and we need to treat him with respect.”

“That’s right,” agreed Zann. “At least until he’s family. Then you can call him an oaf the way you do to me and my brothers.”

“Enough with all this nonsensical jibber-jabber,” snapped Elric. “Persimmon, use the orb to tell us what we need to know. Do it now. It is your destiny to step in and take over the skills of your late mother.”

“Yes, Father,” Persimmon found herself saying, only because she wanted to please the man and hopefully make him like her. She wasn’t sure why this was so important to her, but it was. She’d always hoped to have a relationship with her father. One like he had with Lira. She wanted to feel close to him. And she longed to feel loved. It was something she’d wanted ever since she was a child. Now that her mother was gone, it was even more important to her than ever.

Persimmon plucked the orb from her pouch, feeling her nerves shaking from the stress. Holding it up to her face, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. What was she doing? She couldn’t go through with this. Nay, she didn’t want to deceive all these nice people. Persimmon couldn’t fool them since they’d all been so kind to her. They were family. Her family. A family whom she respected and trusted. Didn’t they deserve the same from her?

“Open your damned eyes and tell us what you see. You’ll never see a thing that way!” scoffed the elf. “You need to gaze into the orb if you are going to scry. Or have you been lying to us and you really can’t use it?”

Her eyes slowly opened.

“Don’t let him upset you, Persimmon,” mumbled Stone. “It’s not worth it. Take your time. You can scry, can’t you?” he asked the latter part softly, sounding as if he had doubt.

Her eyes slowly lowered to the cold gazing orb in her hand. It didn’t surprise her to see nothing but a dark surface. She couldn’t even see those confusing colorful swirls like she’d seen before. Nay, she had no power to scry and no right to pretend that she did.

As much as she wanted to look into the orb and tell her father that he needed to return the gemstones to Stone or something bad would happen, she couldn’t do it. Her sense of being a moral person outweighed any feelings of acceptance she could possibly get from Elric. Stone was right. She shouldn’t let his Elric’s ill feelings for her upset her, even if she didn’t know from where they came.

Her eyes slowly lifted to see her father’s disapproving glare. Medea walked up behind her and stretched her neck to look into the crystal, seeming ever so hopeful to learn how to scry from Persimmon. The rest of them waited with curiosity and anticipation on their brows.

“Persimmon?” came Stone’s deep voice. “Say something, please, sweetheart. Can you scry to help us or not?”

It was no use. The crystal was still dark and her mind was closed off completely. She couldn’t even get a vision in her thoughts. She quickly returned the orb to her pouch and pulled closed the ties.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hearing the quaver of her own voice. “I am sorry, but I’m not able to help any of you. And the last thing I wanted was to disappoint you.” She took off at a run for the castle, not waiting to hear her father’s comments, and not wanting to look at any of her new friends since she had failed to help them when they’d really needed her. They were all counting on her, and sadly, she had let them down.

“Persimmon, get back here,” ground out her father.

“Sister, wait. What’s wrong?” called out Lira.

Persimmon felt strong emotions bubbling up inside her. Struggling to hold back her tears, she needed to get away from everyone and just wanted to hide. She ran over the cobbled stones of the courtyard. Since she didn’t want to be trapped inside the keep, so she looked for perhaps a garden instead to hide in. Hopefully there she would find solace and not have to face the others after the horrible episode that just transpired.

Not finding a garden of any kind, she ran toward what she first thought was a small pond. She stopped suddenly, almost losing her balance when she realized it wasn’t a pond at all, but instead a huge hole in the ground. It was a pit of some sort that looked to her to be an enormous oubliette.

“Oh!” Her arms swam through the air as she struggled to keep her balance and not fall into it.

“Careful, Persimmon.” Medea appeared in front of her, having used her power to transport to get there in the blink of an eye. She reached out and steadied Persimmon to keep her from falling into the pit.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing to the hole.

“It is a pit that was used to catch a dragon,” Medea said without blinking an eye.

“A dragon?” That alarmed her. She quickly scanned the sky.

“The dragon is not here now, don’t worry. It was from my homeland.”

“So, you’re not originally from Mura either?” Persimmon reached up and wiped away a tear from her cheek.

“Nay, I’m not. But that’s not important. The only thing that matters is why aren’t you able to scry?”

Her heart jumped. “What do you mean?” Persimmon sniffled and wiped away another stray tear. “Why would you say that?”

“Admit it. You want us all to believe you can see the future in the orb but you can’t, can you?”