The Sock Drawer Oracle
Lissa slammed the bedroom door behind her and hurled her lavender backpack across the room. It slid to the edge of her bed, balancing precariously for a moment before the momentum of the textbooks sent it to the floor. She leaned back against the poster-covered door, teen boy bands and actors under twenty taped over the faded rainbow and unicorns her mom painted years earlier. Her hand fumbled with the lock as she tried to catch her breath, racing home from the bus and sprinting up the stairs causing her lungs to burn.
He knew her name. Patrick Masters knew her name.
Slow down. You've got to form the question before you touch it or it won't work. Slow down.
Lissa's internal talk allowed enough time for her lungs to quit threatening to seize up. Her hands began sweating, so she rubbed them carefully against the pale blue of her jean shorts and paced from her door to the bed.
Okay, you've only loved him since second grade. How could you not be freaking out right now? He suddenly knows your name and you're going to be on the dance committee together.
She replayed the end of the day over and over again. Her delight that Patrick showed up to the first committee meeting. Her shock when he said, exactly, "Later, Lisa" after the bell rang. Lisa was close enough to Lissa as long as you ignored her name being short for Melissa. If he called her Betty, she'd beg her parents to have her name legally changed. The name wasn't nearly as important as the fact that he knew she existed.
Lissa's pacing stalled out and she stepped up to her dresser. Her hands hovered over the top, palms just above the only cleared space on the otherwise cluttered area. The surface was littered with perfume bottles, spilled nail polish, half a million bobby pins, a broken yo-yo, four makeup kits, a fossilized licorice rope, a camp canoe trophy, old birthday cards, and two stuffed cartoon characters. But centered at the front was a completely cleared rectangle of white washed, shabby chic wood.
According to Amanda, who sat behind her in geography, shabby chic is so three years ago and only poor people and cat ladies would dare own it. It had been three years since the only time Amanda had been invited to Lissa's house for a sleepover. Amanda left before midnight and Lissa had overheard from Amanda's mom when she picked her up that Amanda had never managed to sleep away from home a single night yet. Lissa's bedroom set might be out of fashion, might, but she was able to sleep over at her friends' houses and go away to camp every summer. Suck it, Amanda.
Taking a steadying breath, Lissa focused on her question and pressed her palms lightly to the wood.
"Will Patrick Masters kiss me at the formal?"
The phone rang downstairs, the muffled noise fading into the background as Lissa's hands slipped down the front of the dresser. She pulled open the top drawer and carefully retrieved a black sphere roughly twice the size of a baseball. The girl lifted it over her head, both arms fully extended, and shook it three times. Lissa lowered the orb and turned it over in her hands.
OUTLOOK UNCLEAR
Lissa stared at the prefab message in dismay. This was the best it had to offer? She chucked the toy back into the drawer. It rolled between her zombie squirrel socks and the purple toe socks she absolutely had to have but never wore. She slammed the drawer shut. She'd been so sure the plastic ball would give her some confirmation, something more to obsess over when she called Karlie later to dissect every shred of the 15 second interaction that surely would lead to marriage and babies.
“I just want to know about my first kiss!”
Lissa slapped her hands on the dresser in frustration, sending Doc Doberman’s fuzzy form to the floor. She shrieked her outrage to the empty room. Why did life have to be so difficult?
She was so lost in her personal agony, Lissa didn't notice the soft purple glow around the edges of her sock drawer. Her first thought was the fortune telling toy had cracked, leaking out into the dresser. Her mom would kill her if she ruined any furniture. She paused as she reached out to open the drawer. Wait, if the goo inside was glowing, was it dangerous?
Lissa watched the drawer and sniffed twice. There was no smoke, no burning smell. She couldn't just leave it spilling, or worse, glowing. Mom would notice that. Resolved to prevent a parental meltdown, she opened the drawer.
Instantly the room was enveloped in a silver mist, the air cool and damp. The purple light radiated from the entirety of the opening, but nothing was visible. No zombie squirrels, no broken toy, no light source. Not even the wood of the bottom of the drawer. Lissa shivered, half from the sudden temperature drop, half from shock.
“In days of old, you would have had to present a worthy offering just to be allowed in my presence. Now I am reduced to in-dwelling visits at your whim.”
The disembodied voice, a woman, reminded Lissa of the actresses in the Shakespeare productions her mom dragged her to with annoying regularity. Dramatic and cultured. Kind of full of themselves.
“Yet for all the passage of time and changes in the world certain things do not change. The young man you desire is unworthy. You will regret the moment your paths entwine if you pursue him. Antiope’s history would be happier than your own.”
“Uh, what?”
A heavy sigh came from the voice.
“There is malice, aggression and a need to control in him. He would take that which you would not freely give, then so much more. He hides his true face from the world.”
Oh. Lissa's dad would say he's like a gift wrapped pile of shit. Her heart sank.
“Thank you?” Lissa wasn't sure what to say to a voice coming from a bright light in the top of her dresser, especially one with an uncomfortable prediction about her crush of the last six years.
“Mm. Should you have a need in the future, I will be available. Within reason. I shall take my leave of you now with two parting thoughts.”
“Oh, okay.” Lissa wondered if she should take notes, but she didn't think she could move at the moment.
“First, the beginning of your love affairs will be better served if you wait until the full bloom of June's heat.”
Lissa nodded dumbly. What did that even mean?
“And second, this globe of false prophesy should be removed from your chambers with haste.”
“Is it evil,” Lissa wondered with growing interest.
“Of course not! It is ridiculous and makes a mockery of thousands of years of our history.”
“There are more of, well,” Lissa faltered, “of, um, you?”
“Perhaps. I will not return until the device is gone.”
The mist dissipated and the purple light winked out. Lissa’s eyes scanned the ordinary contents of the drawer. She rifled through dozens of pairs of socks, shaking the diary hidden in back, but nothing unexpected was revealed.
Lissa scooped up the false fortune telling ball and examined it closely. It looked exactly the same as it ever did. She glanced at the stuffed dog on her floor, then up to the clear space of white wood. There were a smattering of water drops, like when her mom setup the humidifier to full blast as soon as anyone in the house coughed.
Lissa was down the stairs in less time than it took to fumble with her bedroom door lock. The round toy sunk to the bottom of the garbage can in the garage. Lissa was extra careful when she closed the lid, as though needing to be sure the object was secured inside.
On her way back up to her room, Lissa wondered if maybe this wasn't something she should tell Karlie.
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