Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 107: She tested the quality, thinking they might have been set aside in favor of others, but the quality was good.
She tested the quality, thinking they might have been set aside in favor of others, but the quality was good. Kasca couldn’t help but wonder what that meant for the previous owner. She knew from the signage that they looked for replacements and additional healers to help before the owner succumbed. She would have thought that many of the basic supplies were used before then in an effort to stave off illness.
There was some sign of use as the drawers, jars and bottles clearly weren’t full, but there was not the emptiness she would have expected if the healer here tried everything before succumbing.
‘They died early,’ she concluded.
Kasca set the thought aside. She worked through the workroom and when she had a good feeling about the ingredients, she went to the front room to see what remained of the ready made items. She tried to put thoughts about the previous owner away. They would do her no good at the moment.
As Kasca reached the first set of shelves, prepared to rummage through the stocked items, a knocking on her front door startled her. Kasca’s heart leapt into her throat at the sound. The banking continued, insistent and sharp. She moved forward quickly wondering if she needed her paperwork to prove she had the right to be here.
Her skirts swished beneath the apron and she reminded herself that she could send a runner to the seller should the need arise. He knew show she was as did the magistrate. The thought gave her some courage as she opened the door.
“I’m sorry I am not open for business at the moment,” she said. Kasca blinked. The person on her doorstep was in livery. She wracked her brains trying to place it. By his sigil she could tell the man worked for some lord or other rather than a king or one of the higher ranking nobility. There was no gold in the badge to mark the lord as close to royalty.
‘Still a lord is high enough.’
“I beg the intrusion Mistress Healer but my lord’s son has taken ill,” he said. We fear it is the red death.”
Kasca hadn’t heard the term red death but thought it might be a local term for the current disease spreading. She stepped back and opened the door wider. “What are the symptoms?”
“Hectic red patches on the face and neck, fever and the inability to keep any food or drink down,” he told her promptly. The list sounded as though he memorized it.
Kasca blinked expecting the symptoms of the rampaging illness. Instead it sounded like the Holston Flux. ‘They might not call it that here.’
“I will have to examine the child to be certain but there are a few basic supplies I need to get in case,” she told him. “Wait here.”
He nodded as though he expected the answer. Kaska moved to the back workroom and retrieved the travel bag she found when conducting an inventory of supplies. She took out the bag and came up with a few ingredients that would help the Halston Flux, if that was what it was.
‘I’ll need to brew a potion if it is.’
Kasca didn’t know if there were any ready made remedies in the front but she also knew she wouldn’t trust them. She didn’t know the skill of the healer before her but she knew that there was no magic. She would have to brew a fresh batch and infuse it herself if that was what was called for.
Ten til Midnight 