Minnow had expected to get some help with gathering the food, so when she was the only one pulling at the heavy, fish-filled nets in the lagoon, she was more than a little annoyed. It was nice that they were lighter in the water, but they were big and without help, Minnow found herself tangled with the fish more than once. Slower than her ego wanted to believe, the girl pulled the nets to the remnants of the dock, which was further away than it otherwise would have been, and found Flint there waiting to help her pull it free from the water. Too out of breath to demand answers, she let the volcano ker hold the ropes steady while she climbed onto the dock, and then joined him in hoisting the bounty into the air.

Whether the weather had been a curse or a boon was debatable. It had meant fighting and damage and a loss of stored foods, but what Lorraine had brought about, Gwythr had seen fit to ease by filling the nets with fish, as Minnow had hoped would happen. Even with two ker, the trek back to the community with so much fish was long and arduous, especially as they came closer and had refugees grabbing at them as though the fish had come straight from the water fully cooked.

The hands recoiled when they felt the slimy skin in the nets and faces turned to disgust, while Minnow’s turned to smug satisfaction. “Over there,” she grunted to Flint, and nodded toward the central hub of the community where the fire had been a few days ago. Pyre found herself outplaced by other fire aja who were looking with interest at the pit but doing nothing to get the cooking fire going. Before they could reunite at the fire pit, Birch pulled Minnow aside and into the mouth of a small hut.

“We have another problem,” the matriarch said as she put her hand on Minnow’s head, before breathing a short sigh of relief. “People are sick, really sick, Minnow. I need you and Pyre to find Lore and get some medicine for this.” Birch’s grip on her daughter had changed so that she had both of Minnow’s shoulders in her grasp and was shaking her like a little kid who hadn’t followed directions. Whether it was intended or not, the girl took the action to mean she couldn’t mess this up. “You’ll go alone, as soon as you’re ready. You don’t seem sick, and the rest of us will take care of the ill until you get back.”

The grip released once Minnow nodded her understanding. With no explanation to Flint or anyone else, she shoved her way through the crowd and jumped onto Pyre’s back. The lack of warning startled the burning bone aja into a fit of bucking until Minnow’s heels propelled her into the depths of the swamp. Wind rushed through Minnow’s ears and hair and blew Pyre’s flames, which thankfully were cool, into her face. The roar of the wind drowned out her mother’s parting directions to hurry and take care. The pair raced, splashing through the puddles and ponds and sending steam flying behind them from where the fiery fetlocks contacted the water. The leapt onto the higher, solid ground and jumped over felled trees from the storm. It was only when they were far beyond sight of the community that they pulled up.

With tears in her eyes and snot on her face from worrying about what family members were sick and what would happen to them, Minnow looked around her frantically. In her rush to follow her mother’s directions, she’d forgotten a few key items. The first was food in case this took too long. The second was something to trade for the medicine from Lore, who was notoriously stingy. The third was the fact that she had no idea where to even find the medicine woman. She’d spent most of her life exploring the swamp surrounding her home and had never seen the woman or her house. In fact, until this moment, she had believed Lore to be an old mother’s tale to scare tads into staying nearby. The belief that it was just a story had made Minnow brazen and bold, and had increased her popularity with the younger tads, but now she wasn’t so certain.

Lore was a swamp witch, or so the story went. She worked with the plants in the forest and lived completely alone. Completely. Alone. No family, no relatives, nobody. It was completely unnatural for any ker to live like that, or so the swampies believed, and that fact along had made her different and other and strange. Ker who lived alone were mad and dangerous and so the story frightened tads. It hadn’t seemed possible to Minnow that there existed a woman who lived like that and so she hadn’t believed. The boogeyman was a lot scarier if you suddenly discovered that the stories were true.

Uncertain which way to start, Minnow chose to follow the path of the sun and let Pyre pick a path through the swamp that way. She had a vague idea of where the other communities were, and hoped that by avoiding them, she’d eventually stumble on the hermit’s cabin. But as darkness fell, Minnow reviewed her surroundings and came to the conclusion that they were very very lost. Pyre’s path hadn’t exactly been a straight line, and there were no lights to guide her toward a community. Her stomach was rumbling while Pyre nipped at the greenery all around them and Minnow whimpered softly as she lay down across the aja’s back.

No sooner had her eyes closed in sad exhaustion but a song like that of a bird floated between the trees. A smell of spiced seafood soup accompanied the sound. Minnow assume it was a dream, but within minutes, Pyre saw floating lights and bounced until her ker sat up to look. A small boat drifted close, hanging with lanterns and steered by an extremely old ker. The mud in the swamp kept the ker who lived here looking far younger than they were, but this woman looked as old as anyone in the other kingdoms, if not older.

“Welcome, child. I am Lore, and it seems that you are in some distress. How can I help?”

If it weren’t for Pyre’s steady balance and ability to step under the shifting weight, Minnow might have fainted right there and landed face first on the soft ground. Instead, she steadied herself with her hands on the aja’s neck and nodded meekly. “I’m Minnow, daughter of Birch. I- I mean, we need some medicine. Please help us? We don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.

Without another word, the old woman nodded slowly and turned her boat to lead the distressed ker and her tired aja to the isolated cabin in the darkest heart of the swamp.