The weekend passed in a haze of napping, snacking, sleeping, and trying to stay awake long enough to enjoy at least a little of her time off. Marilyn woke Monday morning in her own bed, hardly remembering when she managed to get herself home, with considerable doubts she’d make it through a full work day.

One step at a time, Marilyn told herself. She was almost through it. Getting dressed, she briefly considered fashioning a sign to pin to her button-up: It’s fine, my antlers are shedding. The way those cafe workers had reacted to her when they learned what was happening, the outright reverence, wasn’t what she wanted, but it would certainly beat dodging stares. She waved off the thought.

With a deep steadying breath, Marilyn stepped out into the world. She made it to the crosswalk less than half a block away before her first encounter.

“Sorry!” The older woman she’d caught staring, open-mouthed, looked away. “I’m so sorry.” She pushed the crosswalk button and waited for the light to change. Her own antlers were grown to an unusual size- not like Marilyn’s, but certainly above average.

“It’s okay. They’re just shedding.” She projected her voice in case anyone else was listening.

“I haven’t seen that since my great grandmother some sixty years ago.”

Excited to hear someone else had been through this, Marilyn started to ask more, but the woman went on first:

“Have the healers done all they can, dear?”

Her heart fluttered. “What do you mean?”

“It’s Foxborough Fade, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been to the healers,” Marilyn said, struggling to maintain her polite and positive tone. “It was nothing but good news.”

“I’m sorry. I’m upsetting you. Goddess forgive me for prying, but have you been sleeping too much? They used to call it the dreamer’s disease.”

The light had long since changed, but Marilyn had forgotten about getting to work altogether. “They gave me a clean bill of health,” she reiterated weakly.

The woman took out a notepad and pen, her grandmother’s torn and bleeding antlers flashing through her mind. The younger generations never knew how bad it used to be. Before the right adjustments had been to the healing spells, before the Fade went from fatal to treatable in a single afternoon. It was too negative to discuss. “I hope I’m scaring you for no good reason.” She started writing. “The healers aren’t always as good at their jobs when it comes to people with bigger antlers. I know a clinic that will actually help you.”

“But I was making progress.” Marilyn watched the woman tear a page from her notepad and offer it. “I’m doing so well.”

“Do you feel well?”

Blinking through tears, Marilyn accepted the paper.

“You don’t even need an appointment.” The woman took one of Marilyn’s hands in both of hers and inwardly prayed for mercy. “Stagmother be with you.” Before Marilyn could gather herself enough to say anything else, she was gone.

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The short walk back to her apartment seemed to span a lifetime. Marilyn took out her phone, hesitated, and finally called Healer Fenton as she unlocked her door. The dance with reception and the wait for Fenton to pick up gave her time to get inside, take off her shoes, and lie down on her bloodstained bed.

“Good morning, Marilyn,” Fenton greeted her. “I hope we have more good news today.”

Though she told herself to begin with a formal greeting, Marilyn blurted out, “Am I sick?”

Fenton assured her, “I know it’s been hard. It won’t be too much longer now. You’re so close to getting through it.”

“So the scan came back completely clean?”

“What’s brought this—”

“I don’t have Foxborough Fade?”

Fenton cleared her throat; she wondered if Marilyn had gone to another healer, wondered who had undermined her hard work to help this young woman. “It’s only in the beginning stages,” she answered evenly.

Marilyn hung up the phone. Her emotions emptied out of her entirely, too big for her to contain. She called Penn.

“Mariiiiiiiiiiii!”

“Are you free today? Can I ask a favor?” In a moment of surreal detachment from herself, she noticed that her voice didn’t even sound upset.

“Oh heck yes. Great timing. I have a surprise for you! Are you coming to me, or am I coming to you?”

“Pick me up?”

“I’m on my way.”

Marilyn closed her eyes and waited.

***

Her remaining antler gradually grew warm as she lay there. The goddess drew as near as she was able in her separate realm. She dared not send her comfort yet, tinged as it was with fury, but simply made herself a presence amidst Marilyn’s suffering. For her part, Marilyn had yet to consciously reach the pain welling up inside of her, but the sense of not being alone did make its way through.

Penn knocked on her door.

Getting out of bed for the second time proved far more difficult than the first. Each protest from her body now came with a secondary shock of fear now that she knew, finally and for certain, that there was something wrong with her. When she opened her door, she met Penn’s enthusiastic grin with a distraught grimace.

“Oh, Marilyn,” Penn whispered, dropping their good cheer. They moved to her side, sliding her arm across their shoulders and holding her up. “We need to get you to a healer.”

Marilyn pressed the paper the old woman had given her into Penn’s hand. “Can you take me here?”

“You don’t want to go to the one you’ve been seeing?”

The first emotion to return to her, anger, greatly pleased the goddess. “She lied to me. Take me here. They might actually help me.”

Penn didn’t argue. They shuffled her along to their car, helped her into the front passenger seat, and glanced at the backseat. It hardly seemed like the time for gifts. They didn’t mention it.

Once Penn got the car on the road, they asked, “Can you tell me what’s happening?”

“Foxborough Fade,” she whispered.

“That’s… that’s great. Right? Any healer can fix that.”

“Any healer that actually wants to.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. “I think I need to change the subject.”

“Okay. Yeah, sure. Have you eaten today?”

“No.”

“There’s a cinnamon bun in the glove compartment.”

Marilyn laughed, “Of course there is,” and the affection she felt for Penn in that moment brought tears to her eyes. She took them up on the offer and nibbled appreciatively on the cinnamon bun. Resting against the window once more, she asked Penn, “Do you think it’s okay to think some negative thoughts right now?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you get a pass today.”

“I have this feeling like something awful is coming. I don’t know. Maybe that’s just one of the symptoms of Foxborough Fade.”

“Everything’s going to be okay now,” Penn comforted her. “You’re doing the right thing going to a new clinic. They’ll heal you, and you can come back to my place to recover. I have a new tea blend I think you’re really going to like. It’s peppermint with dehydrated blueberries.”

“I’m so sorry,” Marilyn muttered, already half asleep.

“For what?”

“Everything. Your antlers… they’ve grown… I know it’s my fault.”

Penn wasn’t entirely sure she was still awake at this point. “Everything I’ve ever thought because of you has made me a better person. I don’t care if it was positive or negative.” A thrill of fear ran through them as they said this, as though the wrong person might somehow overhear, but even Marilyn had missed it. If only to defy their own timidity, they said again, “I don’t care.”