“We gain nothing for the present by looking to the past,” Calkina muttered.
Maria stood up and grabbed the woman’s bony elbow.
“How many?”
A shadow flickered in Calkina’s eyes. “A tizzy more than when the sun last set.”
Maria sighed. Fairies gathered in tizzies of seven. Seven more since yesterday. “But so many voices…” Maria cocked her head. “It seems like the numbers have grown, not dwindled.”
“Aye…” Calkina sighed, “Those who cannot help someone will wash their hands of them to convince themselves that nothing more can be done."
Maria winced. Of course, more had been brought to the storeroom. Yet no one else had volunteered to help.
“Come…” Calkina beckoned, “we will answer the voices together.”
Maria followed the dark-cloaked woman, holding the basket of wet rags in her arms. Calkina moved quietly, opening small vials from within her cloak, applying compresses, and checking fevers.
“Do you hear what they are saying in the great council?” Maria asked.
Calkina did not speak. Maria knew the old woman didn’t care, but she had to tell someone, and she no longer had mother. “They are putting an end to travel through the mountain passages since the dragon has not moved from her stead.”
“Mm….” Calkina murmured, taking a fresh cloth from Maria and bandaging it around a man's festering side, blistered over in yellow pustules. The man groaned. Maria looked away quickly, but Calkina kept working, unbothered by the sight. After a moment, Maria recovered and continued speaking.
“We will be alone again next to the crystal sea.” Calkina still did not answer, so she kept talking. “Some say we will abandon Gwendolin in search of a new land.”
Calkina’s jaw tensed briefly. She stood up. “What do you see?” she asked, gesturing into the storeroom.
Maria’s eyes took in the scene. There were so many suffering, close to death. “I see a graveyard.” She whispered.
Calkina whipped around, pointing a finger at her face, the whites of her eyes flashing with fury. “Then you are not looking hard enough…. for that is all that our council sees too.” Calkina ripped the basket from Maria’s hands. “Why waste your time on treating them if you already see them as dead? A graveyard is no place for the living.” The old woman turned her back on Maria, a new energy in her step.
Maria felt her heart drop. She hadn’t expected her words to drive such a reaction. Surely, the keeper knew she was trying to help. She picked up her skirts, running after her. “Please… my mother…”
Calkina turned around.
“I’m sorry. You must distract yourself from her death somewhere else.” The words were like an arrow in Maria’s gut. Calkina seemed to sense this and sighed, biting her lip. “When you came to me after the fire, I thought you were different. But you have let fear and grief take dominion in your heart.” She turned and smiled sadly at Maria, the corners of her eyes wrinkling. “That is not the way of a keeper.”
The smoke hangs so heavy in the once mighty kingdom of Gwendolin you can no longer see the sun. Just days following a fiery dragon's devastating visit, the aftermath is felt deeply by all. Among them is sixteen-year-old Maria Stogart, daughter of a councilman, who finds solace in helping the village’s unconventional doctor, known as the Keeper, Calkina. But tensions rise between Maria and her father as she tends to the sick and he tends to their people’s rising questions. What will be done to repair the dragon's damage, and who will they turn to for help?
Emily Hoisington is a self-proclaimed "word enthusiast", currently working on her debut YA contemporary fiction trilogy. She believes stories are powerful and it's her desire through hers to make readers laugh, cry, feel understood, and walk away feeling like they just got a warm hug, closer to that thing we all need more of— hope. You can usually find Emily getting lost in the mountains or in the pages of a good book by the beach.
