The first thing Marilyn became aware of was her own breathing. An involuntary long, slow breath seemed to carry wakefulness to her lungs, where it spread down to her twitching fingers and toes. She took a few more before her eyes fluttered open. White sheets. A twin-sized bed, but different— it was bizarrely long. Marilyn realized her head lay not at the top, but about two thirds up, leaving more than enough space for her remaining antler to not hit the mint green wall behind her.

To her right, a window looked out over a modest garden and pond. It answered questions her bleary mind had yet to ask: she was on the ground floor, it was early evening, and Marilyn did not recognize anything about this place. To her left, a young woman sat at what polite distance she could in the small room, studying a chart. She felt Marilyn’s eyes on her and perked up.

“Hello, Marilyn. My name is Gretchen. I’m here to help take care of you. Do you know where you are?”

“This must be the clinic.” Her voice cracked and stuttered. She cleared her throat. “I can’t remember the name.”

“Pine Valley Healing Clinic. Your friend carried you inside yesterday afternoon. Do you remember that?”

Marilyn sat up and looked outside again. “No. Yesterday? I’ve been asleep for… what, thirty hours? But I never called in to work! I need to borrow—”

“It’s all right. Penn told us that would be the first thing you’d worry about. They called in for you. They just left a little while ago to get some things for you, but they’ll be back soon. How are you feeling, Marilyn?”

Frightened. Confused. Still tired, impossibly, but a little better than before. “I think I’m awake now. Have you worked on me yet? Or the other healers?”

Gretchen pulled her chair up to Marilyn’s bedside. “We have. My colleagues do the healing, and they got to you as soon as you arrived. I specialize in performing and interpreting health scan spells. I’ve received your medical history. Penn informed us that you had mentioned your last healer lying to you, but they didn’t know why.”

“I don’t know either. It makes no sense. She seemed so kind and supportive, like she really cared about me.” Marilyn took a breath to slow down. “She was the first healer to actually believe me when I told her what I’ve been through. I can’t understand it. Did you speak to her?”

“We haven’t yet. We’re going to be speaking to all of the healers who’ve seen you.”

Eyes widening, Marilyn stammered, “Why?”

“I have information you deserve to know, but it’s greatly upsetting. Do you want to hear it now, or do you want to wait?”

“Now,” Marilyn snapped. She almost apologized, but the compassion in Gretchen’s eyes told her that it wasn’t needed.

“None of the scans prior to your visit with Healer Fenton have results. Given your advanced stage of Foxborough Fade, this is impossible. It should have been showing up for years. I’m sorry to tell you that I’ve seen this before. Do you know much about healing magic?”

“No.”

“Scanning is a relatively simple spell, but it takes a lot of energy. If an unscrupulous healer thinks they know what the problem is, they’ll perform a fake scan. All lights and sounds, nothing else. They give their diagnosis based on their guess. The reason I’m familiar with this behavior is because we mostly treat patients with large antlers. Healers will take one look and assume that the patient is the problem. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that,” she added, her voice softened by the shame with which she regarded her fellow healers.

“But Fenton actually did the scan. She must have, because she knew what was wrong. Why in the name of the goddess would she tell me I was perfectly healthy?”

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“I can’t say for certain why she lied. I don’t think speculation would be responsible on my part. For what it’s worth, it’s unlikely she would have known that the other healers also lied, so she probably believed you had only just gotten sick.”

“That’s what she told me. It was just the beginning stage. Why would that matter?”

“Because,” Gretchen answered at length, resting her hand on Marilyn’s bed in a comforting gesture, “Foxborough Fade is extremely easy to treat in the beginning.”

“But not at the advanced stage,” Marilyn inferred.

“I’m sorry.”

Distantly, Marilyn wondered if they had set a quieting spell on her room— there were no footsteps, no voices, no sounds whatsoever from the rest of the building. Nothing more from Gretchen, either. Only her slow breathing.

Marilyn asked, “Am I dying?”

“At this stage, it is terminal, yes.”

“How long do I have?”

“It’s a matter of weeks at best,” Gretchen told her. “More likely days.”

Once again, Marilyn’s emotions spilled out of her, this time taking her thoughts with them. The silence burrowed into her and became total. She turned to stare out the window with little awareness of her own actions.

“Would you like me to stay?” Gretchen asked. With no answer, she tried, “Do you want to be alone?” Marilyn nodded, and Gretchen obliged her, letting her know on the way out, “We’re right here if you need anything at all. Just press the button on your bedside.”

Hours passed. As though sleeping without dreaming, but dreadfully awake, Marilyn sat frozen in her deathbed. Absent words or feelings, she consisted of only a small collection of knowledge (how to breathe, what is death, the need to eat, how dark it had gotten outside) disconnected from any kind of reaction to it. She wasn’t entirely sure she was even blinking anymore.

This was the same state Penn found her in when they arrived just after midnight. They’d hoped she would be resting, but couldn’t help feeling glad she was still awake. Not just awake. Still alive. The healers had told Penn everything.

Though they hadn’t made a sound, Marilyn sensed Penn and broke out of her six hour stupor. Their whole face looked swollen with grief. It couldn’t have been clearer that they’d been crying, and for a long time at that.

Penn worked up a smile and held out Marilyn’s lost antler. “I never got to give you your gift.” They took a seat at her bedside and placed her antler next to her with aching tenderness.

Visibly shaking, Marilyn took it in both hands and studied the changes. Penn had carved her antler into an instrument. A flute with fives holes and scrimshaw filigree, plants, and animals covering its entire surface. The detail and finesse took her breath away.

“Can I…?” Penn held out a hand. Marilyn gave them the flute, and they played her a simple little tune.

“Penn,” she gasped. Her sense of self came rushing back to her in one breath. “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s you.” Running a careful finger over the carvings, Penn said, “I put everything I felt about you into this. What a wonderful friend you are. How beautiful you make the world seem. How kind, talented, and precious you are to me.” Tears streamed down their face, the way one cries when they’ve been at it so long, they hardly notice anymore. Penn handed the flute back.

When she clutched it to her chest, a sense of wholeness overcame her, swiftly followed by warmth. Both her remaining antler and the detached one were warming. Marilyn looked to Penn in confusion, and she knew, on an instinctual level she didn’t understand, everything that they were feeling.

“Penn, I… I feel exactly the same way.” She sensed, too, that they believed her. Before she could explain what was happening to her, Marilyn recognized another emotion: guilt. Penn felt guilty about something having to do with her mothers.

She asked, “Has anyone told my moms yet? Are they coming?” The feeling intensified.

“I’ve been trying all day. They’re not home and they’re not answering calls.”

“The camping trip.”

“I can’t believe I forgot! They must be out of range. How long did they say, a week?”

Marilyn and Penn shared a stricken look as the reality of the situation became clear. She might very well be dead by the time her mothers returned.

“I can go get them,” Penn offered. “Bring them to you. They always go to that pond, right?”

“Weiss Pond,” she confirmed, her voice hollow.

“It’s not that big. I can find them.”

“You might not make it back in time.” She looked out the window again. “I wonder if they can sense that something is wrong. I wonder if they're worried and don't know why.”

“I’ll find them,” Penn repeated insistently.

“Okay. They deserve to say goodbye, or at least some chance they might get to say goodbye. I know you might not make it back in time. I accept that. Please, go find them.”

“I will.”

Penn held Marilyn’s gaze far too long for comfort, willing her to feel what they didn’t know she already felt as clear as day. She said it out loud. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”