To my mind, the changing of the seasons has always been the best time of the year.

Here in Vernia, the spring comes on suddenly. Winter is deep and cold and silent, and every night new snow falls to replace the melt from the day before. Then one day, as the nights retreat and the midwinter festivals fade into warm memory, the last snows fall and the sun comes out, and plants begin to burst through the earth.

The Power came to me one spring morning at the changing of the seasons, when the first crops were being sown and the last stores of winter food were being used. I lay under an oak tree on the very edge of the Deepwood forest, looking up at the flush of green buds that were just about to unfold into life for another year. A green haze of fresh growth coloured the woods around me; new leaves about to burst from the trees, sweet summer grasses and warmly scented herbs rising from the winter-scoured dirt.

I lay on my back, my gaze filled with the gently moving branches, my mind full of the promise of the year to come, and my belly full of a generous breakfast. My father had sent me out to take the day to myself, for this was the midweek rest day, and all was quiet in the village. I had no plans; all was peace.

But fate had plans for me.

I became aware of his presence when I heard a shuffling footstep off to my right, from the direction of the forest. My eyes had been half closing, but they snapped open then. There was something about that footstep that put me on is the alert. The village lands of Vernia are generally safe and peaceful, but the world is large, and even at my young age I had learned to listen to my instincts.

I sat up, brushing last year’s leaf litter from the back of my day dress and plucking a twig from my hair. The footsteps continued to approach, shuffling, out of sync. One step dragged, the other thudded. Thick evergreen bushes barred my view of the forest in that direction. Beyond the bushes, tall oaks and noble pines stretched away in the direction of Dark Mountain’s foothills.

Then I heard him breathing. Long, ragged breaths, punctuated by whining gasps. My fear changed to concern. This was sounding less like someone who represented a threat. Rather, it sounded like someone who might need help. A forester, perhaps, who had become injured or had taken ill out in the woods? But it was the rest day; what forester would be out in the Deepwood on the midweek?

I stood, planting my feet firmly and facing the direction of the approaching sounds. A glance to my left showed me the roofs of the village of Warm Dale, the place of my birth. They were perhaps a mile off, down a long, steady grassy slope and then through the brown fields that surrounded the village.

A mile off. I could sprint it if I had to. Whoever was approaching me, he did not sound fast. If it turned out that he was a threat, I could simply flee.

My good boots firmly set against the earth and the practical brown cloth of my day dress were good clothing to be wearing in case of danger. Nothing to get in the way of running, or of working.

I controlled my breath and did not move away. I would see who approached. They might need my help. If they were a danger, I repeated to myself, I could simply run.

He came through the thick wall of evergreen hedge with a crash, holding the Power in his right hand.

I screamed.

“Easy, easy, girl,” he croaked. His voice was as inhuman as his face and figure. I knew of goblins, of course I did. I had heard stories of them. But nothing prepared me for the sight of one in the flesh. He was green, his skin the colour of holly leaves and the texture of a toad’s hide. Eyes as yellow as a cat’s glowed from his narrow, pointed face. His teeth were sharp, and nearly as yellow as his eyes, and his tongue lolled red as flame from his mouth as he panted like a dog, rattling great rasping breaths in and out as he staggered to a standstill.

He was dressed in black, a simple robe that fell to his ankles, cinched at the waist with a belt of brown leather, and secured at the collar with a bronze brooch in the shape of a pointing hand. His hood was thrown back, revealing lank black hair that was tucked back into the robe to keep it out of his eyes.

He held up his left hand toward me, palm outward, in an effort to calm me. In his right, he held an orb of glowing blue light.

The Power.

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Mists swirled around the orb, the color of the sky on a spring morning. Within the mists, something deep glowed a darker blue, and within those depths, there was a light that pulsed and flickered with an irregular flash.

I could feel the power radiating from the orb. Attracted to that power and repelled by its inherent danger at the same time, I stood transfixed, unable to flee or approach.

“I’ll not hurt you, girl,” he said, stopping where he stood. “Please, don’t run, don’t scream, don’t be afraid. I’ll not hurt you.”

His words brought me back to earth. Indeed, he did not look like he could have won a fight with a gnat in his current state. He’d dropped his left hand and placed it against his side, and then, his eyes fixed on me, he sank to his knees in the dirt.

“I’m almost finished,” he croaked, then gasped in another heaving breath. “But this Power must be passed on. You are here just in time. If I had died without passing the Power to a new Keeper, the potential might have been lost for all time. What… what is your name, child?”

I had not thought of myself as a child for at least six years, but I decided to let it pass. Despite his horrid appearance, I was beginning to feel more than a little sympathy for the creature. I did not doubt the truth of what he said; he was rapidly approaching the end of his life.

“What is your name?” he asked.

I crossed my arms and looked down on him. “Madeleine,” I answered. “Madeleine of Warm Vale village.”

“Ah,” he sighed, and a smile came onto his face. The sensation of present power from the orb had abated a little, and I stood my ground, more able to handle the feeling than I had once been.

“Listen to me now, Madeleine of Warm Vale village,” he said. “Do you know what this is that I carry?”

I began to shake my head, bu then stopped. It was not true that I did not know. I could tell what it was just by looking at it.

“You carry a Power orb, like in the old legends,” I replied. “I have heard of them, but I didn’t think they were in the world anymore.”

He nodded, hung his head for a moment, then raised his face to look at me. He met my eyes, and I carefully did not look away. “Madeleine,” he said, “is there anyone in this world who you truly, truly hate?”

I thought about it for a long moment. His question was in terrible earnest, and I felt the weight of it. Did I truly hate anyone? There were people in the village who I got on with less than others. There was Jared, a boy a few years younger than me who had done his best to torment me when I was small, and still had unkind words for me whenever our paths crossed.

But hatred? True hatred? “No,” I said. “There is no one who I truly hate.”

“Thanks be to the great Greenskull,” he intoned, as if it were a prayer. “Then all is not lost. Come here, Madeleine, take this from me. My end comes. Take this Power before I die, and it dies with me.”

I looked at the swirling Power in his hand. In the old legends, orbs of Power had granted the users a wide range of abilities, but such things were just tales nowadays. The age of heroes and the age of magicians were so long ago as to be little more than cautionary stories for children.

“What will it do?” I asked. “What powers does it give?”

“Who can tell, Madeleine?” he said, his voice growing weak. “These things give power to the keeper according to the keeper’s character; I cannot guess what it will do for you. Would that we had a year together, then I could teach you all of these things, and you could make an informed decision. But hear this; if you take this Power from me with a pure heart, and look out into the world with good intentions, there will be no bad result. I can see in your eyes that you are a good soul. Come, take this from me. Take it now, and go blessedly into the world. Please, I feel my end approaching. Come!”

I hesitated for one moment longer, then looked into his pleading eyes and made my decision. I would do as he asked.

Three steps brought me to him, and I crouched, reaching out a hand toward the Power. He raised the swirling blue globe and touched my hand with it, and in that moment, the orb passed from him to me.

The Power flowed into me as the goblin gave a sigh of absolute relief and toppled backward, his eyes closing as he fell.

I stood, swayed, and stepped back, my whole body rushing with the absorption of the Power. I was immersed in the Power, saturated, every fibre of my being crackling with deep blue energy. The colour of the Power filled my mind, blinded me. I fell backward even as he had done, collapsing to the ground under the weight of the onslaught. The sensation was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. I felt infinitesimally small and incalculably huge at the same time, caught at the exquisite tipping point of the contradiction.

The Power; it flowed through me, it became me, and then like a retreating tide it slipped away and left me gasping and beached on a new shore.

I lay, looking up at the branches of the oak tree, for a long time.

When I finally rose, feeling more myself again, I looked at where the goblin had lain.

He was gone.

There was no trace of his body or his robes, only the prints of his feet in the dirt where he had knelt. And one other thing, catching the sun dully as it peeped out from the disturbed earth.

I walked slowly to it and picked it up, dusting off the dirt as I did so. The brooch that had secured the collar of his cloak, cast from bronze and beautifully crafted in the shape of an elegant hand, the forefinger pointing, the other three fingers and the thumb clenched into a fist.

Without knowing exactly why I did it, I pinned the brooch to the heavy, workaday cloth of my day dress, fixing in place at my left shoulder.

The Power in me had subsided. It felt more bearable, yet there was no denying its presence. I knew that I had changed. I had become something different, something new, something I had not been before.

I had become the Keeper.

Turning my back to the forest, I began to walk slowly the direction of the village. The time had come to explore my new abilities.