“You need to stop.”

I roll my eyes at her request. I can’t stop. Is she aware of how many people I’ve been able to help. How many families I’ve been able to save from mourning a brother, sister, parent.

“You know I can’t do that.”

My aunt walks towards the clinics table where I’m standing and takes a deep breath. “You’re harming these people.”

“I’m saving them,” I scoff.

Aunt Victoria shakes her head. “Haven’t you noticed all of the people dropping dead. They were healthy one minute then the next their families burying them six feet under.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m trying to stop it.”

“You don’t get it,” she whispers. Her eyes tear up. “You don’t understand where our families magic comes from. Using it, especially to save people who’s fate has already been written out has consequences. You cannot play god.”

“I’m not playing god,” I raise my voice. I walk around the table closer to my aunt and grab her hand gently. “If I can save these people from dying, save their families from the pain, why shouldn’t I?”

“Every life you help escape death he’ll choose another. You’re condemning other people to fates that weren’t originally there’s. Someone has to die. That’s how life works. It’s set in stone. You cannot change it no matter how hard you try.” Aunt Victoria takes a deep breath. “Our magic is dark, sweetheart. You’re mother and me were taught not to use it, our mother was taught the same. It isn’t like other people’s.”

None of this makes sense. I was suppose to be helping people, but here my aunt stands accusing me of killing more instead. Are the deaths that have been happening recently because of me?

My head has begun to throb at the thought.

“Promise me you won’t use it anymore.”

“I promise,” I whisper taking a shaky breath in. My eyes have becomes watery and I feel her place a gently kiss on my forehead. She mutters something to me before walking out but I don’t hear her. All I care about right now is getting to the bottom of this.

I refuse to stand by and watch more people die.

I have an impressive imagination. I put it to great use to manifest the most majestic fantastical realities for people. Limping Lenny can now leap castle walls, the Bristeltoe orphanage is kept by talking woodland creatures - now placing kids in homes more effectively than ever before. But this wonderful life has quickly become a nightmare when I recently discovered my blessings to the kindest people in Europe were curses all along.

No imagination is more visceral and rife with divergent outcomes as one plagued by fear. Just imagine something brushing your hand in a dark room… what twisted horror could it have been if the only good thing it could have been is impossible.

This is my state. Every leap Lenny takes with his new leg breaks an orphan’s leg. For each Bristletoe orphan housed, a child close to former patients of mine have fallen mute. I cannot bear to uncover which other cruelties I have haphazardly imposed by borrowing fortunes under the guise of “blessings.” I have helped so many people I don’t want to know!

I tremble as this reality besets me. Suddenly this study filled with mail could be incalculable records of bad, worse, and horrid news. My blood has stopped but my heart is racing. I will need to rectify this somehow. My family can be affected; I haven’t seen them in three fortnights. I am frozen and have no remedy to their predicament nor mine.

A bird hits my windowpane.

“Another gone, my lady.” The messenger scurried over to Adaline. Head resting on one of her hands she shooed him away, staring at the piles of scrolls lying on her table. How could this have happened? Just last week she had cured the baker’s son for a fair price, and now he had died. Of course, that could’ve been a mistake, but this same thing had happened to everyone she’d cured. She was getting all of the blame, and she hadn’t even meant to do anything! Adaline’s magical cures had ended last week in a tragic arson attempt. She had to promise the townspeople she wouldn’t use magic anymore. The one thing that brought her joy since Leroy. A pounding on Adaline’s window made her jump. She lazily walked over to the window and shoved it open. There he was, with what she assumed used to be flowers in his hand, and a stupid smile on his face. “I come bearing gifts,” he said, panting. “You know I have a door,” she answered coldly, before turning back to her table. She cleared her throat.

“_Dear Adaline of Corinth. _ We hate you. We wish harm upon you, and bad fortune with you. All the worst, __ The Thompkey’s.”

“And this isn’t even the half of it. Leave please.” The man just continued holding out the flowers. Adaline cut them and leaned close to him. “I don’t like lily’s.” The heartbroken look on his face almost made her regret it. “B-but… Adaline, please. I feel like I know you, we had a connection at some point, please.” Although it broke her heart, she answered “Leave.” He seemed ready to try again, but just bowed his head and slowly crawled out the window. She’d always loved that about him. Trying to be different, but he wasn’t trying at all. Adaline touched the door. “Goodbye, Leroy.”

“ Help me, please.” Came a small girl, looking up at me. There was a line behind her. I nodded, assuming today would be long and weary. I pressed my thumb to her forehead, feeling every ache of cancer through her body, fizzing around in one certain area like soda. Then in a moment, the area was quiet once more. “ Thank you, mister Swarvoski. I’m allowed back in my house again!” She happily skipped off in the direction of where her supposed house was. “.. Mr. Swarvoski?”

After a long dreary day, I had one last person awaiting my magic, at least, that’s what I had assumed. “ That first girl died.” The woman spoke. She had a hood on, yet he could see parts of her skin was decorated nicely with vitiligo. The woman began explaining that I had used too much magic on the little girl. On all of them. Too much magic is bad. “.. But you didnt know that. Now, they’re all dead, Swarvoski.” Suddenly, the woman was gone. And yet, I couldnt feel an ounce of remorse for my accidental murders.

Hands full of blessings, a heart brimming with grace. You’ve always found that your place in the world is that of a helper, a hero, a saviour. Yes, always, because your kind demeanour was accompanied by acts of wonder from a tender age. People would approach you in your cradle to find your touch and your tiny palms would gently buzz when coming into contact with their body, and release the soft, warm comfort of feathers gently caressing the skin. The ailments would release these bodies, and lives would be forever changed… forever… changed… As you look at your grey hands now, hard like stone, you can’t explain why. Weren’t you predestined to be the light of hope? Weren’t you chosen to uplift the heads hanging in despair? Was this all for nothing, was it all a lie? Why are all these poor people now turning just as bleak and rigid as your hands?

For a long time I have been a doctor in this world, using my magic to heal people. But recently I have been come up to by reporters asking about why I would kill people! This was crazy! What was happening is when I healed them, in one year they died. Now this was not my intention. I was cursed a long time ago but they never told me what happened. They are talking jail! But they have no proof and I was moving anyway. I could be evil! I could stay as a doctor until they cought on, and I am still making money!

I once was a helpful wizard, flying through the night to heal the sick or ill. Until I realized how it was hurting humanity. I wouldn’t be around forever, to heal the sick and reunite family with their lost. I had to stop this, before the human race was destroyed.

Of course the humans cannot see me, zipping from house to house each night, but they had never felt pain, and I was scared to see what happened if I let them. I was sure the others would be mad, my fellow wizard friends, but I had to try, just on one person…

“OWWWW!” she screamed in agony. I had only given her one minute feeling the slightest bit of pain. “Make it stop make it stop!” the little girl told her parents. I swooped in - invisible of course - and used my magic to heal her.

Clearly that plan wouldn’t work. _What should I do? Should I tell the others? What would they think? _Questions pummeled my brain as I thought as fast as I could. I coouldn’t just let the people feel pain and frustration for the rest of time…

“Hailey Ross died today.” Sarah tells me, tying her apron around her waist.

Another one of my patients. I remember her. Bright girl, super sweet. I’m saddened by her death, even though I only knew her from years ago. My clients seem to be weak. Not in a bad way, but I’m an Herb Witch, and my purpose is to heal. They come to me sick, I heal them, then they die a decade later.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper my thoughts aloud, “I heal my patients fully.”

Sarah shakes her head. “It’s not your fault, Aubrey. Her lungs were weak, that’s all.”

I decide to believe my coworker. I take good care of my patients. And because of this logic, when I’m healing a young man and the Village Elders come along, take me away, and question me in a dark chamber, I’m confused.

Very confused.

“Do you have any idea how evil your business is?” A man with a dark mask and cloak on snaps at me in that room.

“My business? Evil?” I shout in disbelief, “I heal people for free! How is that evil?”

“We know everything.”

“What?”

“We know that you’re killing them.”

15 years ago, I came to this place, the quiet village of Darfald. I was a young mage, full of hopes and dreams. I had traveled for so long and was relieved to find a place to settle down and practice my craft. In the early years, that practice was slow: the village was a tight-knit community who remained wary of me and preferred their local doctor than the healing of a magic-user. Understandable, but deflating. Finally, my chance came. The doctor was out of town visiting family and a young boy, Marco, had fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. The family was in a panic, and the next nearest medical assistance was more than a quarter day by horse. The family came, reluctantly I imagine, to me. It was not a profoundly serious break, and my mending reset the bone. Marco only required a sling to rest his arm for a few days before he was back to climbing trees.

As you can imagine, my list of clientele increased dramatically nearly overnight. By the time the poor town doctor had returned from his trip, he was practically patientless. Some of the folks still visited him with minor sniffles to keep him occupied, and others maintained their belief that they did not need the healing power of magic, but preferred “the old fashioned way”. I was not bothered by this, my only desire was to help those who may seek me out. As time moved on, I continued to hone and perfect my skills. Within the breadth of the first year, I had advanced from broken bones and fevers to helping families safely deliver their babies and bring loved ones back from the brink of the most serious illnesses.

It’s almost funny, as I think on it now, to reflect on my magic and the upbringing that led me to this moment. My whole family, grandparents, parents, siblings and cousins had gifts for the blood. Not all of the gifts were the same, mind you. Some could control the blood, make it clot with a snap and a spoken word, or spill uncontrollably if they were so inclined. Others could take their own blood, or that of willing donors, to make tinctures and potions of a variety of uses. But my powers were not tied to blood. I could heal and mend and restore, but any part of the body, not specifically of or to blood. Discovering this, I felt myself as almost an outcast of my family. And while none of them openly shared the sentiment, or prompted me to feel such a way, I still felt as though I should leave. That I should learn what my own gift meant and leave the blood to the blood mages.

Only now, after 15 years, do I realize that my power is in the blood. Every bone I healed, every cold I cured, it all came from the blood. Or, at least, some latent property of the blood. But once that property was activated, it set something off in the body. Something not right. And those who were my regular clients seemed to be impacted the most. Marco, my first and most loyal patient, died in my arms at 23. Too far gone was he that even if my magic wasn’t what was killing him, it would not have saved him. A brain bleed, I should think. Soon after, others began to pass. Blood clots, weakness, lungs wasting away under the stress of taking a shallow breath. Death swept the village. Only those who had relied entirely on the doctor survived. And they blamed me. Of course they did and they had every right to do so. But I tried and I tried to explain that all I ever wanted to do was help. Never knowing that all I did was hurt. And now is the time to pay the price. I watch as the villagers I’ve spoken to over the last fifteen years descend upon my door. I echo their chants in my own mind “Blood for blood. Blood for blood”

New invention to mend my transgress Giving to harmonize Longing life to optimize Freeing others of their distress

Dedicated for kindness Wish for a trend to normalize No intention or want to monopolize Desire only for righteousness

I am at fault to the dimming of the brightness Unforeseen spoken lies Straining to see my demise Leading to a arise to divide us

Involuntarily blindness Compelled to apologize