It began with the children.

One frigid afternoon, shortly before Yule, Afton awoke from a light doze to a frantic hammering on the door. Her healer's instincts flared instantly to life as she shot to her feet and ran to the door, throwing off the bar and wrenching it open in one smooth movement. Her heart, already hammering from the abrupt awakening, beat even faster as she beheld her good-sister, Edwina, clutching the motionless form of her three-month old son.

"Afton…help me!" Edwina panted, desperately trying to catch her breath. Clearly, she had run the entire distance from her cottage to Afton's. Afton ushered her in and barred the door behind her, then gently took baby Christopher from her arms. He burned with fever so hot she could feel it through his thick swaddling clothes. She rushed to the bed where she could lay him down and unwind his wrappings. She checked his pulse and color; he was red in the face and began to cry weakly as his skin was bared to the slightly drafty air of the cottage. "At least he's not blue, thanks be to the Goddess," Afton thought to herself. Despite that thought, she felt a cold weight settle in the pit of her stomach when she noted the red streaks on his tiny legs and the spreading scarlet rash on his skin.

She rewound his wrappings and began asking questions. When had he last eaten? When was his last soiled clout? Had he been sleeping more, or less, than usual? With each answer, Afton became more and more frightened. The babe had refused the breast since the day before and had not messed or wet since morning. His sleep was fitful, broken by bouts of weak coughing and fitful crying. Then, the fever had set in and risen with shocking rapidity.

Afton pressed Edwina down to sit on the edge of the bed and put the child in her arms for comfort. Then she stood still, mentally reviewing the symptoms and checking them against a memory trained from years of treating childhood maladies. A thought occurred to her and she knelt on the floor, taking the babe's tiny head in the palm of her left hand. She probed his neck gently for a moment, feeling the hard, swollen nodules under her fingertips. There was but one final thing she needed to confirm her fears. "Hold him tightly, Edwina," she commanded, prying his tiny jaws open with the thumb and fingers of her right hand. She peered down his throat, hoping she would not see what she feared. But the white coating on his tongue was visible even in the dim late-afternoon light.

She rose. "Edwina, it's…" she paused, taking a steadying breath. "It's scarlatina." Afton heard her good-sister's sharp indrawn breath and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "This is something I know how to treat, Edwina."

"Will he live?" Edwina pleaded, head lowered over her child. Afton could see the tears that dripped on the baby's wrappings and searched for words that would comfort, yet be truthful.

"I'll do everything I can. I swear to it." She moved with purpose towards the herb shed attached to her cottage thankful that she had continued the habit of keeping it tidy and well-stocked, even though the rest of her home had suffered from neglect since Guy's departure. "Lay him on the bed, Edwina, and fetch fresh water. We're also going to need milk. Yours, if possible. There's a clean crock you can use if we can't get him to take the breast." She glanced over her shoulder and noticed her good-sister's rosy blush. "This is no time to be modest, 'Wina. I'll show you what to do. Now go." Her authoritative tone propelled the taller woman into motion and Afton continued into the shed, satisfied that Edwina would do what was necessary.

From that moment on, Afton and Edwina worked tirelessly around the clock to save young Christopher's life. They dosed him with medicine, drop by tiny drop, and coaxed him to accept milk, first squeezed into his mouth from a clean rag then, blessedly, from his mother's breast. While they nursed the baby through the worst of the fever, several other mothers called at the cottage to report that their children, too, were suffering from what was being called "the morbid sore throat." Afton sent them away with packets of medicine and instructions, but could not leave her nephew's side for even a moment.

Finally, on the fourth morning since Edwina's frantic race for the cottage, Afton felt confident enough to declare that he would survive. Edwina burst into tears of thanksgiving and fatigue and it was only when Afton took her good-sister into her arms that she realized that Edwina, too, was burning with fever.

She had barely settled Edwina in the bed and dosed her with fever brew when there was a sharp knock at the door. She hurried over and opened it, expecting Edwina's husband Chris. But it was Margaret, the miller's wife, carrying her three-year-old daughter. Afton reached out her arms for the child, steeling herself against the heat of the fever she anticipated. But the child was still and cold. "Oh, Goddess…oh, please, no…" Afton murmured, feeling for a pulse. But there was none. The child was dead.

Incoherent with grief and fear, the story tumbled from Margaret's lips. While Afton and Edwina had struggled to save young Christopher, more children had fallen ill. Nearly every family in the village had at least one sick child and in some cases, entire families were stricken by the "scarlet" fever. Margaret's little girl had come down with it three days earlier but had only seemed mildly ill. Then the fever had set in and the child had begun shaking and gasping for breath, her little body wracked with uncontrollable spasms. "I sent for the priest," Margaret said. "'Twas clear she had a demon in her, poor lamb. Friar William prayed over her and…gave her the Last Rites. After that, she calmed but…it wasn't a quarter of an hour more and she was…gone. He said…he said she wasn't strong enough to fight the evil that had taken her and that…she's with God now." The young mother beseeched Afton with her eyes, willing her to agree.

But that was the one thing Afton could not do. Exhaustion and fear, combined with the long weeks of depression and despair over Guy, had made her reckless beyond caring. Through the roaring anger in her ears, she heard herself cry, "Why didn't you bring her to me, Margaret? By the Goddess, I could have saved her. That fat fool cost your daughter her life!" Immediately, her hands flew to her mouth, as though trying to cage the words that had already taken their perilous flight.

Margaret crossed herself and reached for her daughter's body. Her eyes were wide and frightened. "I…I brought her to you to lay out for her…for her burial. But…I can see you have your hands full. I'll just…I'll go now." Clasping the child to her breast, she turned and fled.

Edwina, having overhead the entire confrontation, rose weakly from the bed. "Oh, Afton. What have you done?"