Alandra was in the herbarium stirring a pot carefully while it simmered for one verse of the Sun Up song, when she heard the commotion.

  "No. NO. You cannot ask a child to go identify a body. No. Go ask at the blacksmith's guild. Her man was a swordsmith and was looking for work here in town. They'll be able to find him." The lead Healer, Sister Charna, had a loud voice, and was big and tall. People listened to her.

  "Idiot, and idiots to let him back here," she muttered, coming over to check the pot Alandra was stirring. "That's just right, there, now take it off the heat and let it cool over here," she said, helping the girl support the pot over to the wooden cooling board.

  "We'll decant it into pots once it cools down, but it will need a stronger arm than yours to keep whipping it while it cools, my dear." She nodded at a large man in green, who nodded back and walked over to take the stirring stick from Alandra.

  "Water and a bun," said the herbalist, and Alandra obediently washed her hands...you always wash your hands after working with herbs...and went to the other room where there were cool jugs of water . The cool water tasted very good after standing next the brazier and stirring, and so she had a second glass. There were buns in the basket there, and a nibble proved they were sausage buns! Yum! She liked a good sausage bun, and it definitely filled the hole within.

  "Looks like you're growing again, Alandra," said Kinra. "Your arms are too long for your sleeves."

  "I'll need to go to the chamberlain tomorrow," said Alandra. "I've rolled the sleeves down as far as they go."

  "I'll go with you," Kinra said. "I need more socks. My feet sweat so much that I have to change them twice a day, or I get icky stuff between them and then I have to do foot baths twice a day to get rid of it." She wrinkled her nose, showing what she thought of that.

  "If you girls need to see the chamberlain, you should go now," the herbalist said. "I know your schedule, and you won't have much time tomorrow to do it while he's in his office."

  "Thank you, Sister," they chorused, and took off their work apron and oversleeves and put them in the "needs washed" bin.

  As they crossed the Healer's courtyard, they heard the Healer talking to her second.

  "I expect him to use his head for something other than a hat rack! I certainly know her face after her coming here and throwing a fit three days running this week."

  "I think all the Healers on morning shift do," her second said, sighing. "A sad end, though."

  The senior Healer sighed.

  "We cannot save all of them, and the first thing they need is to admit they need help."

  The girls passed into the dimness of the cloister walk, and round it to where the chamberlain's office was. They were passed to one of his female assistants, and left with new clothing and a promise to turn in the old clothing.

  "I wouldn't want his job," Kinra said. "Everything we use that isn't food is his to keep in order. All our robes and our bedding, all the furniture, and...everything." Both girls shivered, and kept walking.

  "I suppose some people like that sort of thing, though," Alandra said thoughtfully. "He always seems busy, but not angry inside."

  "No, he's happy the way we're happy when we've done something hard," Kinra said. "I'm really starting to feel other people's emotions now. The Healers say this is the start of my Healing Gift starting to come out, now that I'm fourteen."

  "It may take a while for me, since I'm only ten, well, eleven at SunDark," Alandra said. "But I got my magic early, so maybe I'll get my healing sooner, too."

  "You might. I know it's completely different for elves...and that's about all I know...but I do know they live longer than humans do, so maybe they mature slower."

  Alandra groaned in frustration.

  "That's not what I want to hear! I so want to be able to do something!"

  "But we are doing something. When we're helping in the herbarium, making sachets or potions, that's not makework. People are actually going to use them. The weather's getting colder, and I heard the Healer saying that we might well have a stronger bout of the winter cough this year."

  "I've been making a lot of cough syrup and chest rubs," Alandra said. "That one I was working on with green smoke tree leaf oil was pretty strong. I may never have a stuffy nose again," she added, laughing.

  They put their new clothes away in their rooms and were carrying things back when the Master of Novices and Sister Namira saw them.

  "Ah, Alandra. We need to talk to you."

  "Here, let me have your things and I'll go turn them in," Kinra said.

  "Oh, thank you, Sister," said Alandra, turning to the adults in puzzlement.

  They took her into one of the quiet rooms near the cloister's dormitory.

  "Sit down, Alandra."

  She did so.

  "There is no good or easy way to say this, my dear," the Master of Novices said. "The woman who was your mother is dead."

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Alandra sat there a moment, stunned.

  "Dead? but....but how?"

  "She threw herself in the river, and in this cold weather...she did not suffer long."

  Alandra nodded, sitting there, thoughts and emotions swirling together.

  "I'm safe," she said.

  "Yes," said Namara.

  "I...think I'd like to go lie down now," Amara said. Namala looked at the master of Novices and nodded at him.

  Namara walked Alandra to the bedchamber they shared, and said,

  "I'll stay and knit," and Alandra nodded. Alandra sat down on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and rolled herself into a ball, just feeling, thoughts swirling, eyes occasionally weeping, but strangely silent.

  She stayed like that until the bell rang to end the afternoon work and call all to dinner. Then she stood up and went to the bathing rooms and washed her face, and went to dinner. She was silent through dinner, saying that she just didn't want to talk now, and though puzzled, her friends respected it. She did not sing during the evening service, but just stood and watched. She did not sit with her friends to read or do personal work in their hour of social time, but instead just went to bed.

  Namala came in and found her already in bed, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, reaching out with her empathy. What she found raised her eyebrows: sorrow, yes, but regret that her mother would never have the chance to make their relationship better;and anger that she did what she did. She realized that this was all of a piece with not talking to someone for years that had been her best friend, and with her sudden abandonment of Alandra the moment that things didn't go her way. There was no blame of self. The pain was sorrow for what could have been, and what might have been, and now would never be. And it was not the soul-tearing pain that the abandonment had been. In some respects, reflected Namala, her mother died to her two months ago. This is just the door closing. Threaded through it all was deep gratitude. Alandra knew she was safe and loved here. She had been afraid that her mother would take her away from the future that she had seen, and now, there was relief that there was no chance of that. Gradually, the churning of emotion and thought settled down into sleep, and Namala went to bed herself.

  Surprising both of them, Alandra did not dream. She arose clear-eyed, and still silent. But she sang the morning hymns with the other Novices, and exchanged morning greetings with them. She was still quieter than usual that day in class and in her workshop time, but she was left alone to think. Namala checked on her before lunch.

  "Are you all right?" she said, taking the girl's hands in hers. The eyes turned up to her were full of emotions, and Alandra said:

  "It's kind of like I ate a really massive meal on a feast day and needed to just go lie down and let my stomach work through it, but for my feelings and thoughts. But around that, I'm all right. Just...still digesting."

  She'd never heard it put quite that way, but it was clear that she was working through it, and so Namara nodded and let her be.

  The following day was their usual time to talk, and Namara said:

  "I have some more news for you. Your father, Joram, unbound their marriage just before your mother died."

  Alandra's jaw dropped.

  "That's why she did it, then," she blurted.

  Namala waited.

  "She got every other woman in the town mad at her, and then there was me and this, and then Dad had enough--I thought he'd never stand up and say "Enough" to her--so there was no one."

  "She did it to herself, you know."

  "Oh, I know," Alandra said. "I'm...sorry for her. ‘Cause she didn't have to do that. Except I guess in her mind she did. That's where the sickness was."

  "Yes," said Namara. "That's where the sickness was. How are you feeling?"

  "I'm...not happy, but...I feel better. I know she won't just, you know, show up one day when I'm doing my shift to fetch and carry for the Healers this Winter, and that's something I was really worried about. And I'm sad, but it's a strange sort of sad. I'm sad cause...cause now she can't choose different."

  "And that is a good sort of feeling to have about someone who dies of their sickness like this," Namara said. "You can remember the good things about her as well as the bad, and eventually the pain goes down to the occasional little twinge when something reminds you of your grief."

  "I know it does go away, ‘cause the howling hole in me isn't near as bad as it used to be. I think that being here where I have the chance to do good things and be with the Goddess helps fill it up. Sometimes I dream about Her."

  "That's a good thing!!" Namara said.

  "In the first dream, She just came to me and laid Her hand on my heart, and She said to me without words that everything would be all right, and when I woke up I was sore, but I wasn't...it didn't hurt like it had," Alandra finished, frowning slightly as she tried to explain it.

  "And then last night She came and I just felt like...like all mothers on Earth are really just trying to be Her because I knew She was my mother now, and I never would lose Her ever."

  There was the echo of the Divine glow in her eyes when she looked at Namara.

  "And I just knew that I was...good. And that grief is like working through a mess. It looks bad when you start, but if you keep at it and don't throw anything else on the pile, you'll get it all sorted out and folded and put away properly. So I've kind of been quietly...working on the mess."

  Namara had a thought, and said:

  "Alandra, do you mind if I do a deeper scan?"

  "No," Alandra said with a little shrug. She had no secrets from Sister Namara.

  Namara put her hand on her head and looked deeply, as only Healers can.

  "That's what's going on!" she said in enlightenment. "Your Healing Gift is active and working on you."

  "It does that?" Alandra asked. "I...don't often see Healers sick or seriously hurt, though..."

  "Oh,yes. It's a gift from the gods so we can take care of others," Namira said, slightly distracted. "It must be the Elven blood, to have it awake this early. I'll have to talk to Sister Charna and figure out how best to train you. In the interim, continue working on and healing up your mess." The last was said tenderly, and they smiled at each other.

  "Well, don't we always say that the Gods do what man cannot?" said Sister Charna. "It does prove the Priestess portion of her triple calling."

  "It makes me feel better about her withdrawal into silence," said Sister Namara to her. "So, how do we go about training a Healing gift like this?

  Well, using pure healing magic is just a matter of degree. I'll give her the opportunity all Healers have to overextend, which will hurt and teach her not to do it again better than any lecture ever could."

  They both laughed a little at this. Experience was one teacher everyone paid attention to.

  "Then," Charna continued, "I'll teach her a lot of the smaller more delicate magics to get her used to using it a trickle at a time. It's easy, especially for those of us with a lot of Mana, to just flood an injury with Healing energy, but it goes farther if one can use it delicately, a little here, a little there."

  "That makes sense," Namara said. "I think she'll respond well to that."

  "She has a very good and precise way about her in the herbarium," Charna praised.

  "Her mother had her faults, but when Alandra left she was bidding fair to get a cooking blessing, if the Goddess hadn't had other plans. She also knits, and can sew a fair seam, nothing fancy. That makes a good foundation for an herbalist."

  "It's unusual, but she's unusual. In good ways."

  "We just need to make sure that she still has chances to have fun."