>>5851459Little Addison, who has been whining in his usual manner, has particular cause this morning. At first it appears a rash, all up and down his abdomen and leg, but as his mother frantically removes his clothes for a better look, you recognizes that the blisters and scabs beginning to form around the edges are not the result of scratching or chafing under clothes…
They are the beginnings of scales.
“You were saying?” growls Adolf… But then casts his gaze around. “Hey, where did you go?”
Your concentration broken, your fork slips through your fingers, and you fall through your chair to the floor. You stare at the afflicted child for a moment, and then stand to your feet.
“I need to go,” you say, but nobody in the house hears you.
Focused upon the Addison and his burgeoning pox, they do not spend long looking for you. Not possessed of a magical sense, they do not see or hear you as you stand and leave.
The next few weeks take on an increasingly personal dimension as your dancing, singing, and ritual rites become your paramount focus. Your father’s family succumb are isolated in their home until the vector by which the disease reached them can be ascertained… And, though it does not spread easily between people with casual contact, it CAN spread. Washing their clothes together, sharing dishes… It can happen. You’ve SEEN it happen.
The cure cannot wait.
“We’ll save them,” Costella promises, with confidence she frankly has no basis for but which nevertheless brings you comfort, giving your hand a squeeze.
You seek special dispensation for your father’s family to be first among those who will accompany you and Costella to perform the rite, out on Old Maple Hill. There, in the parcel of land around the ancient maple where the spriggan who taught you this holy ritual holds court, there is enough nature to make it really work to its utmost—to allow Costella to guide the energies of nature and life into the souls and bodies of the afflicted, rather than the impurities and filth of even quite-civilized metropolitan living. Your tutelage has been paying off, as has Costella’s enhanced intelligence and her spiritual attunement to you—her pronunciation is perfect, her movements precise without being stiff, and you can even SENSE that her mind and spirit are as they must be to enact the ritual.
There is just one problem.
