After a long, harsh winter, spring always comes.

But some winters feel like they’ll never end. Especially when you’re in the thick of it. The muted colors and frigid temperatures can only be tolerated for so long. It feels like you should be seeing signs of spring any day now, but they never come. The cold persists, and you grow numb waiting.

Marcy Cutler, a young woman of 17 years, anxiously waited for spring to arrive. She’d never been a fan of the cold, although she could see its use. The cold allowed for the earth to rest and reset, and the snowpack allowed for a healthier summer.

She understood it, but she still didn’t enjoy it.

The dry, icy air made her dark curls frizz and chilled her to the bone, no matter how many layers she wore. Worst of all, it kept her stuck indoors. Not that she did much anyways. Most of her days were spent indoors regardless of the weather. She just hated the reminder that she had such little control over her own life.

Marcy earned her keep at the local inn in the town of Chapelwood. It wasn’t so bad. It provided a stable routine and gave her a place to sleep on top of regular wages. She got to meet all sorts of people from all over the country who passed through their little town. What she loved the most about the job, though, was that it gave her a chance to practice her abilities in secret.

Marcy was a healer, and a promising one at that. Her home village of Windsong had been full of healers like her and her family. Those without access to the ability would come from all over to be cured of lifelong ailments. In a way, she was used to greeting travelers in both her past and present.

Healers were not limited to her home village, though. There had been established healing communities all over the kingdom. Many healers had even lived nomadic lives, traveling to the injured and afflicted when the journey was too strenuous for those who needed their healing. The healers blessed many lives with their gifts.

But those days were long gone.

Marcy supposed she would’ve enjoyed the lifestyle of a healing nomad, had the world been different, but such is life. Nothing is fun when it’s forced, and Marcy’s travels were not of her choosing. She’d been bouncing between homes on her own for many years, never getting too close to anyone or staying too long in one place, dodging detection and suspicion wherever she went.

When Marcy was 13, by order of his royal majesty, all healers were to be captured on sight and brought to the king. He’d claimed that they had stolen the power of the gods for their own selfish benefits and must be brought to justice. It wasn’t true, of course, but as the seeds of doubt settled into the people’s minds, they were no longer sure what to believe.

The king’s rulings had been quite mild up until that particular decree. It was the beginning of a long string of questionable rulings that led to the dark days they’d been living through.

As things within the kingdom became more and more unstable as the years passed, many now feared retaliation for even the slightest infraction. Fear, like a contagious disease, had snaked its way through the land, with no cure to be found.

As for the healers, many had successfully lived in hiding at first, but the king was relentless and became craftier in his pursuit, recruiting skilled bounty hunters to herd the remaining healers.

Nobody knew what became of the healers after capture. All that was known was that once they were captured, they were not seen or heard from again.

After 4 years in this manner, Marcy was convinced she was one of the last healers: a thought that made her feel more alone than ever.

Still, she held tight to a sliver of hope that things would get better eventually, although that sliver grew thinner every day. She tried her best to focus on the small pleasures of life to help her get through the long days: like the tavern that served up some of the best brisket that she’d ever had, the feral cats that followed her around town and kept her entertained with their antics, and, of course, the library.

Whenever she was feeling particularly melancholy, she would visit the Chapelwood library and get lost in a book. Books could fill her emptiness and create feelings she’d long forgotten, if but for a moment.

Libraries have their own healing abilities, though not as obvious as Marcy’s. She could feel it the moment she stepped through the double doors and inhaled that familiar old-book smell that only a library could provide.

Marcy chose a book and plopped down into her regular cushioned corner. Hidden behind the towering bookshelves, she opened a metaphorical gateway into another realm. Today she planned to mentally escape into one of her favorite novels. In this story, the protagonist was able to overcome multiple trials with the support of loved ones. It made Marcy feel nostalgic and hopeful…and maybe a little envious.

After spending a much-needed rest within the pages of her book, she gazed out the window, slowly returned to the present, and realized that it had grown dark while she’d been reading. She jumped up and re-shelved the book.

“Flesh rot! I can’t believe I’m late again,” she mumbled to herself as she rushed out the doors.

The muddy road slowed her down as her boots made a sickening squelching noise with each step. The weather was in a period of indecisiveness. Just as the snow melted, another storm would hit, dragging them back into second, third, fourth winter. The false hope of fake spring was nauseating, and Marcy tried her best to avoid it.

She’d been in town long enough to know the quickest way from point A to point B, so she took a sharp turn and headed for the darkness between buildings. Her shortcut led her through tightened alleyways that she barely managed to squeeze through, but it shaved just enough time off her walk for it to be worth it.

Marcy burst through the old oak door of the inn and shuffled behind the front counter. As she was tidying the area and checking the guest list, Mr. Porter, the innkeeper, popped his head around the corner.

“You’re late,” he grunted.

A stout, hairy man, Mr. Porter didn’t seem to care much for anything other than money. Luckily for Marcy, he wasn’t stupid. He noticed the correlation between his inn’s latest success and Marcy’s arrival, although he didn’t know exactly why, nor was he bothered enough to find out. He was simply set on keeping her there.

“Don’t do it again.” The chastisement was half-hearted as he disappeared around the corner again.

The Chowder Inn, named for Mrs. Porter’s favorite dish, was one of three inns in Chapelwood. The town was quite small and didn’t attract many visitors on its own. However, it was the only rest stop between two popular locations that were surrounded by nothing but forest for miles. Many travelers had no choice but to stay the night and stock up on supplies before continuing on their journey.

While not the best inn in Marcy’s opinion, The Chowder had recently gained a reputation as the place to get good quality sleep. This baffled the few employees the inn kept. They were well aware that their stingy boss had stuffed the mattresses with old used rags. It only saved a few copper coins opposed to proper mattress fill, but that was enough temptation for Mr. Porter.

Despite the crummy mattresses, business was booming, and for only one reason. Every night Marcy wandered the halls, using her gift to heal the aches and wariness of the travelers who stayed at The Chowder. The next morning, the guests felt so refreshed that word quickly spread about the comfort of the inn, ensuring that Marcy was busier than ever with the increase in business.

Marcy had the graveyard shift and slept in the room (well, closet, really) directly behind the front counter. Her first paycheck went straight to refilling her own mattress with comfortable wool, determined to make her little space feel as comfortable and homey as possible.

But as much as she decorated the room and made it her own, the emergency “go bag” in the corner served as a constant reminder that she was not home, nor was she safe.

Before she was allowed to retire for the night, there was much that needed doing, including getting the guests settled in, stocking supplies, and delivering meals. Before the sun came up, she was back in action, serving breakfast, checking out guests, and dressing the room down for the next shift.

Once she was finished with her morning duties, she could finally enjoy some free time until nightfall, when the whole mundane routine would start all over again. It had been the same every day for months now, and, as far as she could hope, it would continue that way until something changed the world she was stuck in. Only then could she finally be free to do as she wished with her life.