The Seer

She shrinks back against the wall, the eerie opaque blue of her eyes seeming to glow as they are cast in shadow. She cannot see in the normal sense, but she can sense, and she knows enough to recognize the presence of the being before her. Genies, after all, have a very characteristic aura.

Her body is tight as a live wire, her claw-like nails digging into the rotting wood at her back as she listens to the ragged, hissing voice of the entity. She listens to what he offers, and her head tilts to the right slightly, as though studying his words from a different angle.

When she finally makes a move to answer, the sound that wrenches from her lips is barely there, a quiet hiss of wry laughter.

“You claim that you can solve all things, and yet can you heal the rifts in my heart? Can you fix everything that has been denied me, the birthdays missed, the weddings, the deaths? One of your kind already tore me from my world, trapped me here! Why should I trust you?”

The genie snorts, and the girl can sense the air before her beginning to ripple more aggressively, the hair on her arms standing up in reaction. The whole room feels electric.

“It’s not my job to convince you to trust me,” the genie finally drawls. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve fulfilled my duty.”

In the face of a supernatural being’s disdain, the girl simply holds up a hand, her face averted. There is a single wrinkle on her brow, furrowing the skin between her eyes, blank as dusty marbles.

When she speaks again, her voice is quiet. “Then what can you do for me? My problem is a rupture of the soul. In the absence of needles, can you at least take me home?”

The spirit regards her coldly for a moment, and then lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

“Will that fix your broken heart?” he finally quips sardonically. Even to the girl’s ears, though, it sounds like a surrender.

She huffs, rolls her blank eyes, stands up straight. For the first time in a long while, a sense of vibrancy and life begins to creep back into her frame.

She brushes past the genie, wordlessly making her way towards the entrance of the room.

The genie, for his part, rolls his eyes skywards, but does the girl the service of opening the door before she can walk into it.