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[Ayana Willowsong]

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“Do I get to go outside? You said today! You promised!” Sarah sat up in the bed, looking from Rosar to Ayana excitedly. Her facial scars pulled her flesh in awkward directions as she tried to smile.

“On one condition.” Rosar sat on the edge of the bed, looking over the child’s still red, raw, and swollen face.

“That I’m good? I will be! I swear!” Sarah watched Rosar as he examined her burns. The child was scarcely recognizable as a young girl, anymore. Her hair was gone, burned away as the fire had consumed her flesh. Her face could only be called that because there were still two eyes and a mouth. The rest looked as though it had been melted away, and then inflated with the threatening infection.

Rosar laughed. “All right, then. TWO conditions. The second is that you wear something to cover your burns and protect you from the wind and sun. Now this isn’t permanent, but it is necessary to protect you and keep you from getting worse when you go outdoors. Your skin is still very fragile right now. Ayana has made something for you to help with this.”

Ayana nodded and unwrapped a paper parcel containing a white leather mask with colourful satin ribbons attached. “This mask will keep you safe until your skin can protect you again, Sarah. You won’t have to wear it forever.”

Sarah’s face brightened as she lifted the mask and ran the red, yellow, and purple ribbons through her fingers. “It’s perfect,” she declared breathlessly.

“Perfect?” Ayana tilted her head and watched as Sarah fitted the smooth white mask up against her face.

The expressionless masked girl looked up at Ayana, lifting the ribbons to to the rootworker’s hands—a silent plea to tie the mask in place. The dreamy blue eyes behind the mask, for the first time since this ordeal had begun, betrayed an imploring sorrow. “I don’t have a smile anymore. Maybe if other people can’t see that, they won’t be afraid.”

[Sarah]

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She sat still and quiet in the afternoon sun. Not a stitch of skin was exposed to the light. Long sleeves and white gloves covered her arms and hands. Her skirts covered her feet and brushed the tops of the grass. The flawless white mask hid what the clothes could not. There was nearly no part of the child left unmarred, unravaged by the fire.

Beside her on the bench sat Rosar, eyes closed, reveling in the sunshine, hands clasped upon his walking stick. It had been weeks since Sarah had seen the sun. Maybe a month. The windows of her room were draped with dark curtains to block the sun’s dangerous rays and keep her room darkened and serene.

Looking back now, it seemed like a year since the first child fell ill to the plague. Nearly that long since she, herself, had fallen ill. All she could remember in the recent history of her young life was washing linens, medicating the dying, helping the healers do their jobs, and becoming a healer herself, when they needed her to do so.

“Where did the butterflies go, Mister Rosar?”

Rosar, half drowsing in the warmth of the sun, tilted his head toward her without opening his eyes. “They’ve gone for the winter, Sarah. This cooler weather has ushered them to warmer places.”

“I miss chasing the butterflies.” Sarah sighed, watching a leaf drift languidly on the breeze. “It’s like summer got taken away from us.”

“They will be back, Sarah. Next year. And by then, you’ll be well enough to chase them again.” Rosar opened one eye and half-grinned at her from beneath his floppy red hat.

“I’m afraid I might be too old to chase them anymore.”

“You’re never too old to do something you love, Sarah.”

“The butterflies can fly away from here and forget the sadness. Why would they come back?”

Rosar opened his eyes, finally, and caught the girl’s gaze with his own. “They’ll return, Sarah, because they persevere. Just like we do. Just like you do.”

Sarah swallowed past the lump in her throat and looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears. They ran down her cheeks, warm and salty inside her mask. “I think I need to write a letter, Mister Rosar. Can I go back inside?

Rosar nodded. “Of course. Careful now, don’t stand up too quickly…”

He helped the girl up and watched silently as her slow and measured steps carried her back into the shadows of the theatre.
_________________
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
~William Blake