---CLAUDE---

The air was still in my house but the walls seemed to stretch. But there was a pleasant flavor wafting near the fireplace in the kitchen. I peeked and saw onion soup bubbling in cream. There were even bits of meat in there.

I found my mother where she always was now. On the bedside near my sister’s pale and burning body.

It hurt to look, yet I was comforted that Annette was still breathing. She was still with us. Even though the sweat plastered her dark hair to her forehead and cheeks, even though the pink of her cheeks and lips had been taken by this sickness, even though her eyes strained to flutter open, she was still fighting.

“My brave girl,” my mother whispered. “My sweet brave Annette, won’t you hold on for me?” She wiped the sweat off her face with a towel and applied warm water to her arms and chest.

I stood on the doorframe of her room. She hadn’t noticed me yet, and I wanted her to finish caring for Annette before I disturbed her. When I knocked, she turned to me, eyes hopeful.

I shook my head and showed her the napkin with the dried flowers. “This was the last she gave me. They all needed remedies for themselves.”

She nodded and smiled. She stood and kissed the napkin with the flowers, and then kissed my cheek. I felt her heart sink through her smile. Still, she said cheerfully, “My good friend, Gabriella. I should send her some loaves if we can bake them.”

My mother hurried to our kitchen downstairs where she would add the flowers to boiling water. I walked closer to Annette, her chest heaving with an unnatural sound. It was like a cat’s purr deep in her back and belly. I imagined this sickness clawing at her lungs and fur tickling her throat so that she would cough. The flowers would not be enough.

“She told me to be brave too, you know,” I whispered to her. Ma forbade me to touch her for fear that the sickness might latch onto me. If all her prayers failed, she meant for me to inherit the responsibility of caring for this land under lord Bahram and his bully of a son, Harlan Bahram. “Every day, my bravery seems to slip by. May I borrow yours?”

I wanted to kiss her soft cheeks, and so hovered there for a while. When I heard Ma returning upstairs, I went back to the doorframe.

“She gripped my hand when I was sleeping,” my mother told me as she spoonfed Annette some soup. “I could be imagining it, but it made me remember the nights when she waddled into my room and gripped my hand to wake me.”

The bowl was barely half full. Every day, Annette had less of an appetite. I hoped that she could finish this one. It was then I saw yellow petals floating on top that I realized I was wrong; she didn’t add it to boiling water. She added it to supper.

Ma knew that the herbal remedy would not even be close to effective with so few petals, so she just added it to the soup for us three. Perhaps she hoped we would build resistance to the fever.

I felt hot around my eyes. I excused myself and headed out of our farmhouse. I needed something to do. I hated feeling powerless. I stomped on my boots and walked on the empty field, looking at the dry wheat whipping in the wind. The light was low on the horizon, clouds rumbled above. Rain would be good, but with this weather, I just hope the crops won’t drown.

There were buckets nearby for collecting milk. I placed them just outside the porch for collecting and storing rainwater. And then, without a thought, I walked through the brittle harvest. The wheat scratched my skin and face, almost biting me. They used to be soft and ticklish, you could almost taste the good harvest. I timed my frustration just right, bellowing as a loud thunder boomed.

I let the field consume me, wishing that I could become one of them. Or the grass from the meadows beyond. Emotionless. Far away from here. Content to sway with the breeze. Sleeping under a blanket of snow. Anything but hopelessness and helplessness. Anything but looking at Annette’s sickly pallor and hearing her coughs and my mother’s weeping.

I wondered how my brothers were doing. What could they have done? How are they now being trapped in separate walled cities, unable even to make contact with each other? I looked to the clouds for answers, and as another wind swept the land, I thought for a moment I heard my father’s voice.

The feverflukes.

There could be yet flowers like them on the outskirts of Rothfield! I stood up, the idea giving me a sudden surge of strength and what felt like a spark of something bright in my heart. I grabbed my jacket from where I left it on the porch, hands grabbing anything that made sense as I thought of a plan.

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Lord Bahram forbade all of the townspeople to go outside the Rothfield borders: this farm being one of them. Night guards patrolled these areas, but there wasn’t anyone assigned to this part yet. I could go out now and be back before anyone notices.

But then there were other dangers beyond. Outlaws and thieves, common people and farm folk like myself who once had homes and families but now scoured the land hunting, looting, and killing for food.

Ma begged me to not step a foot outside the farm for fear that whatever sickness struck my sister would strike me too.

Then there was the chance that there would be no more wildflowers in the meadows, and I put myself in danger for nothing.

I shook my head. It doesn’t matter, I have to take the risk. Even when there was no reward waiting for me. At least I did something before Rothfield would be ravaged by something worse before it closed itself off.

I passed the fields of wheat, rye, oats, and barley on my left, passed the farm buildings and animal shelters on my right; ducks, pigs, goats, and of course, sheep made sounds after me. It was only then, that I felt and saw what was on my hand: my staff. I grimaced. They must have thought that I would let them out. I hurried off towards the fence as some of them squealed and snorted and bleated. Then, when I turned around to check if my mother spotted me outside the cottage, I saw a thick white cloud bobbing fast towards me on the path.

“No! Go, shoo, home!” I said, voice barely above a whisper. I raised my staff and pretended to hit her. “Home with you now!”

But this sheep knew I would never harm her. She bobbed steadily towards me, sliding and settling herself between my legs. I looked down at her and sighed.

Belle was her name, and she had a limp when she was born. One of her legs was shorter than the others. I knew that she would be bullied by the rest if she did not grow strong, so we kept her in a separate makeshift wooden pen. Ma, Annette, and I took turns caring for her. When we let the whole sheep out to graze, I softly nudged away the ones that nipped at her legs and ears until they knew well enough not to bother her. Ever since then, Belle was closer to us, and we were closer to her than the rest of the flock.

I nudged her with my leg one last time to make her go home, but she wouldn’t budge, so I looked at her soft beady eyes, and said, “Fine, then. I suppose you can come in handy.” I raised my staff and poked the ground with each step, her head bobbing and shaking as she followed me. She was a classic Petalfolk sheep, a breed of sheep useful in finding medicinal flowers.

Back when feverflukes sprouted everywhere, we would just let them snack on those flowers along with their main diet of grass. Now people began using them like pigs sniffing for truffles.

The animals weighed heavy on my heart, too. If we closed off and couldn’t pay our taxes, if the food was short, the animals could all be slaughtered and their meat preserved. They would likely be taken to a more high-ranking noble as payment to absorb little Rothfield into its fold and prolong days of survival. The high walls would be built to protect the townsfolk, hoping to shut themselves off from sickness and war. Half of the preserved meat will go to the noble families and half of it will go to the common people as we endure.

And if the food ran out… well, I heard that one walled city had already fallen on the inside when all the peasants and lower-ranking knights revolted and stormed the castle, killing the entire noble family for mismanagement of food.

I hope it scared people like Bahram. At first, we thought that meant the lords would learn a lesson to not abuse their power. But of course, their kind only knew to preserve themselves further. Once word reached the golden families that desperate, hungry people could topple them, they only employed more knights and raised inner brick walls that divided them from the populace.

---RYNE---

“What a brilliant blood-red sky!” Woodrow yawned, stretching his hands out to the air. He dusted himself off, specks and patches of earth scattered easily to the ground. Even deep earth rejected us.

It had rained. I had to take shelter under the apple tree while I waited for twilight. One moment it was gloomy and cold, then when the lightning tore through the clouds and released the torrent, the sky thinned enough to cast a shade of deep red.

If the clouds were thick enough, sometimes twilight was safe for my brothers to emerge. They woke early tonight. Once I heard the knocks and soft digging from underground, I shoveled them out, thankful that the rain made the earth soft.

Once I finished helping Wilbur up, Woodrow pointed to the coffins. “Should we carry those now, or…”

“Quiet, I hear something.” Wilbur held out a hand.

In the distance, there was a bleating. A sheep. We hid behind the apple tree, Woodrow climbing to the top. A shadow emerged from the distance, holding a staff in the air. Indistinct murmurs followed, too high to be an adult man. When he came closer to the meadows, we saw that he was a boy. Small but firm, he guided the sheep and let it graze on the dried grassland.

“Perfect,” Woodrow whispered. “Why on earth would he let out a sheep at this hour? Is he mad? Can the sickness turn people mad?” Woodrow arched back to ask Wilbur, but the branch he was sitting on was soft and rustled the leaves. The sheep’s ears caught the noise and it slowly walked towards us, sniffing the air.

“Woodrow, shut up,” Wilbur and I both mouthed.

The sheep continued on its way, eyes alert to the tree. Slowly inching towards us. The boy followed, looked at the tree atop the mound, and whistled. The sheep turned back and bleated once more, and gaily hopped onto the main grassy areas out of the main dirt path.

Wilbur whispered close to my ear. “It’s a petalfolk sheep. He’s searching for feverfluke flowers in the field.”

“That’s dangerous,” I said.

“He’s risking it,” Wilbur answered.