The girl in the photo on the wall blinked. Just as Helena knew it would, just like the Portrait Prophets could.

“They blink once for yes, twice for no. And that is all our great Prophets show.”

The ethereal voices of the village Highers drifted around her in a ghostly memory. She’d known about them all her life but had never been this close before. It felt almost surreal.

Helena’s little heart pounded behind her ribcage, as if it were trying to burst through. Her breath escaped in quick, shallow gasps.

Inside her head, thoughts raced against each other, like whitewater over fractured rocks.

So many questions, so many possibilities. And yet her mind focused only on gold.

Even just a handful would be enough. Surely the Prophet would know. Surely it could help.

Her last hope thrust upon a photo frame. 

What shall I even ask the Prophet? She dared not speculate what would happen if she were caught here. Helena swallowed and darted her eyes away from the distant, ominous gallows. The loop swayed faintly in a silent wind. Perhaps death would be kinder than what followed.

Is it even stealing if I return it to the temple?

She toyed with the thought, forcing a weakened self-justification on her actions.

A noise came from outside. Helena whirled her head around, stifling a gasp. She waited, her mouth dry, her eyes straining.

Nothing. Just the cabin settling. Her gaze returned to the photo. The Prophet’s long hair sat delicately over its shoulders; a gentle curl wove between strands. Every feature of the face painted with the same dated haze – all except the eyes.

They followed. They burrowed. They waited. Alive.

The Portrait Prophets knew many things, as they had done for centuries prior. They knew of things yet to come, which was why the town worshipped them with such fear and reverence. None dared doubt them, and Helena knew their power all too well.

Once a year, and in the hope of applying its wisdom to a fulfilling life, the townsfolk were allowed to ask a single question to the Prophets: just one. The Highers, the self-proclaimed disciples of the Eldrich Prophets, guarded the temple like it was a tomb of a god. 

One question was never enough. 

Helena’s family had never asked properly; they didn’t do it right, in her eyes. They’d asked about harvest, about time. About crops and weather.

But never about gold. Never about riches.

The girl thought about her father’s dwindling farm, about the drought, the famine. She remembered how the Highers had come to the door. They had shouted, threatened even. Her father had begged for more time. They had looked at Helena with strange eyes. Helena hoped her father wouldn’t have to sell her this time. 

Everything rested on finding gold.

She licked her lips. The eyes from the photo immediately centred, almost as if it could hear Helena’s thoughts – even before Helena could. Her chest quivered as she inhaled deeply. 

“O eyes of our present and future,” she paused, making sure she had recalled the introduction correctly.

“Cast thine eyes over my shallow mind. Grant wisdom, guidance, clarity.” She paused, waiting for the Prophet to respond. The lifeless face remained still, though the eyes quivered slightly, straining under an unblinking stare. Then the Prophet bowed.

The little girl glanced to the window again, a flurry of movement catching her eyes. A figure, disappeared behind a darkened door. Helena crouched lower.

“O Wise One; do you know of riches?” A pause. Then, a single blink from the girl in the photo. 

“Yes” Helena repeated, nodding her head enthusiastically. 

“O Wise One, do you know how to make one rich?” The girl in the photo blinked once again. The girl’s heart leapt. She imagined her father’s tears of joy, her mother spinning her around with glee.

“O Wise One. Will we be rich?” she asked, her voice hesitant and breathy with quiet excitement. A deep cramp twisted in Helena’s gut. 

This time, however, the photo looked different. She watched as the eyes of the Prophet became glassy. The mouth twitched, turning downwards.

The eyes blinked twice. 

The distant thoughts of her family’s joy were whittled out to a whisper, like a candle snuffed out by a sharp gust.

“Why not?” Helena roared at the photo. The face gazed blankly back at her, though the eyes looked beyond.

Helena’s chest tightened, eyes watering. A lump formed in the back of her throat. Her breathing quickened as a slow panic crept in. She thought of the men, dragging her away. Screaming, kicking and reaching out for her father’s hand to pull her back; him growing smaller, hands stuck to his side. 

“Please. Help us” she begged now, her voice breaking. Without gold, hope was gone. She would be gone.

“Can you help us… can you help… me?” 

The eyes in the photograph refocused to the little girl in front of it. A single tear crept down the Prophet’s porcelain cheek.

It blinked twice.

“No…” Helena whispered back. She shook her head as her stomach lurched. She brought a shaking hand to her mouth as tears escaped her eyes. Her shoulders shuddered with each sob.

And then a vicious anger possessed her.

Helena grabbed the frame with both hands and hauled it from the wall. She shook it. Violently. She shrieked, animalistic and incoherent. Waves of fury and bitter tears intertwining.

All at once, she heard it. A single, piercing sound – one which caused her to freeze in her tracks. She looked to the frame to see a crack now thinly spread across the glass. Her eyes widened, her breath returning to quick, shallow pants.

The Prophet was gone. Missing from within the frame. The portrait was now white and blank, void of any life. Her hands suddenly felt wet and warm. She glanced quickly to them and screamed with revulsion. 

Blood seeped out from the corners of the frame, trickling onto her trembling hands and staining them with a deep red. She let the frame slip from her grasp. 

It smashed, and from inside it, a sinister, whispered scream rang out. It stung her ears.

In blind panic, Helena bundled out of the grimy cabin. She stumbled towards a small well, just off the dusty road ahead. She needed water, in any form, to cleanse.

But no matter how much she scrubbed, the water couldn’t wash her. 

Her hands were stained, tainted by the blackened blood of a Prophet. 

She was marked now. A sign of deceit; a sign of an enemy. 

One by one, heads appeared from behind open doors whilst hope faded quickly from her failing heart. Despair crept in now.

 The people of the village slunk out of their houses and onto the dirt road. They shuffled towards her, arms slowly outstretching in a twisted point.

“Murderer… murderer” the voices groaned together, eyes wide, mouths open. They barged their way forward. Helena screamed. She searched for words, for a sound – for anything to plead her innocence. Nothing.

They would soon take her. Even her family would join in – hands reaching, grabbing, pulling.

Lifting her. 

They would let the deep well consume her. 

And then, they’d pick out a frame for her photograph to sit in.

Soon, and like many others before, she’d blink once for yes and twice for no…