1 Hunger Fever

Hunger Fever has killed everyone I ever loved.

The disease caused such rapid weight loss in its victims that they looked starved by the time they died, thus the name. It was said that it burned away all your energy leaving nothing but bones.

Somehow, I had survived. The villagers said it was because I was a witch. While I knew a bit of kitchen magic, I was by no means strong enough to cure anyone, although I had prayed to any God or Goddess who would listen for that ability.

I had tried every medicinal plant I knew. I had spent more waking hours than I cared count making tinctures and poultices, trying desperately to cure my family, but the fever burned them all. In the end, we simply did not have enough food to stave off the hunger.

My two youngest sisters had gone first. Anise and Alyssa's little bodies hadn't had the strength to hold out for very long. We had buried them underneath the old oak tree.

My mother had gone next. She had been secretly giving her food to us instead of eating. I think that she didn't have the heart to watch any more of her children die.

Father had tried, Lord help him, he had tried, to keep it together and help us survive. But Mother passing had taken his spark from him. He died a month after she did. By that time things were desperate. It was early March when Father passed, and we had run through our food supply completely. The villagers in town wouldn't trade will us - or come near us, for that matter. My brothers and I were starving. Even though we had saved food from our harvest diligently, Hunger Fever lived up to its name. Although we had been eating like horses since the first signs of sickness, our bodies were wasting away. My two older brothers Kristoph and Klause were losing teeth. My hair was coming out in clumps. When they died, I hadn't had the strength to bury them. I had dragged their bodies out of our cabin home and sat them up against the oak tree, then crawled back inside the cabin to die.

That night, while I lay crying on the floor, my fever broke. I felt it like a wave of cool water crashing over me.

I slept without dreaming. When I awoke, snowberries had appeared overnight, as if my magic. I gorged myself on them for weeks.

When I finally gained enough strength to bury my brothers, I laid them to rest next to the rest of my family. Six graves, where there used to be none. I mourned them all deeply, but it was springtime, and if I wanted to survive the next winter, I needed to plant the fields. I had no food reserves left, so in between planting I hunted small game and foraged for the sweet roots and berries that grew all around the forest. My mother had taught me much of the secrets of these woods, she had shown me where to go for fish, how to set a trap for a rabbit, which plants were safe to eat and which weren't. Mother was very skilled with a bow, and she often used to come back from her hunts with a deer draped over her strong shoulders. I wasn't nearly as good, but I had felt her hands guiding me the day I shot my first buck. I was so proud, and I knew she would be too.

Father had been a farmer and a warrior. He told me that he was raised on a farm, and one day a man who said he was king of this land had come through on a horse that gleamed with shining armor, promising glory and fame to any man who would join him in battle. As a young man with 6 brothers, Father had yearned to set himself apart and make his own name. So he set off with this king, and ended up fighting in his army for fifteen years. During this time, he said he learned that there was no glory in war, only blood and death. He finally came back to his home to discover that his brothers had all gone different ways. Some had traveled to far lands, some had settled down and had families, some had died of sickness. One had been killed by a bear. Father came back to his family home to find it empty. So he had settled in, and did the only other thing he knew how to do; he farmed the land.

When my brothers were big enough to pick up a sword, they had begged Father to teach them. At first he did so reluctantly, but when they showed promise, the training sessions became a family ritual. When I began to show interest, Father taught me too. He said that a woman should know how to defend herself and her family just like a man. By the time I was twelve, I could beat my older brothers when we fenced. Over and over again I could disarm them with the sword. It was only when Father and I sparred that I sometimes would lose. He was so strong and battle-tested, but even so, he ended up disarmed just as often as I did. Father said that I had a gift of it. I knew he was proud. My younger sisters were still too small to learn, but I'm sure he would have taught them if there were time.

In my solitude that spring, I practiced every day. I wanted to gain back all the strength I had lost from the fever. At first, I could barely even lift the sword. Going through the forms was agony. As the weeks turned to months and I grew stronger, the evenings when I practiced made me feel connected to my lost family. It staved off the loneliness and kept my mind occupied.

As spring turned to summer, then fall, I resumed the patterns of daily life. In the morning I hunted or foraged, in the afternoon I tended the crops of wheat and barley, and the evenings were for practicing. It was only at night, when the cabin was empty and the wind blew through the trees, that the loss of my family haunted me.

Winter was blessedly mild that year. Snow was never more than knee high, and the river where I drew water never froze completely. Some of the villagers would even nod politely when we passed each other on the road. They still wouldn't trade with me, fearing that the fever would follow them home. All in all, I was content.

When spring came again, I did as I had done the year before. The days and nights blended together. The only differentiation was when a highwayman came.