Chapter 22: A New Broom

The Oracle watching from across the room, Elsa gently stroked Tetra's hair, sympathizing with her for the time she had waited for Link to return.

"What's taking him so long?" Elsa asked. "If it was me out there, I would hurry as fast as I could and return in merely a week."

"Link has other problems," explained the Oracle. "There are more crises he must solve than just Tetra's condition."

"I see." Elsa nodded in recognition, still stroking Tetra's locks of golden hair. She felt her forehead. "She's so hot. Her fever just won't go away. I hope Link returns soon."


The sky was no longer dark and hazy for Maple. It no longer rained down icy droplets and poisonous fumes that clouded her judgment. Everything was clear to her now. In some ways she was a monster, but in others there was some good in her. She understood now that the Phantom was not merely a vent for her to take her aggression on. He truly was the source of her corruption, he and his Poes, and this took some of the blame away from her.

But these people would never forgive her. They would never forget. In their eyes she was still the monster she had once been –the one who filled their lives with torment.

The sky darkened once again as Maple gazed into the no longer hopeful horizon. Shadowy bodies arose and consumed the sky, no longer just in her mind. The Poes marched to the gates of the city, preparing to thrust them open. Maple saw that there were many of them –more than ever before. She saw that there was no one to confront them now, that she was the only one with strength enough to defend them.

No, Maple thought. This town will not support me. They loath me. They wish me dead. I am the last person they would ask to lead them.

But there are so many Poes, her vacillating thoughts continued. And if I do not act, this town will perish.

She watched for a time as the town's callow soldiers lined up, shaking and unready, to defend their town. Soon the battle began, and swords clashed against nebulous darkness, but all did not look well. The Poes vastly outnumbered the unskilled soldiers, and Maple knew that it was only a matter of time before their defeat. She looked nervously for the Phantom's presence, and when she saw no sign of him, first she sighed, and then she wondered.

Maple continued through the masked stretch of alleyways, forlorn and helpless. She heard the darkened skies erupt in thunder, but she felt no rain. She walked on, watching the sky light up in forked streams of light, hearing the world explode and crackle, and she remembered a day from long ago.

Soon she saw a lone tree growing in sangfroid within a tiny patch of grass. She drew closer and felt the ground shake as a stroke of lightning crashed into the ground. Her eyes glowed as she saw the tree rip open and the ground rumble and quake. When the light cleared, she walked curiously to the broken tree, the trunk still slightly lit in flames, like a candle. She saw that part of the wood had been cut in the middle, and she pulled a plank-like piece of pulp from the center.

For a moment she didn't know what to do, but then her lips curled into a smile, and her dark hair flew wildly in the wind.

The rest of the day she spent carving the wood into a new shape, scalping it with care. She gathered wiry bristles from a bush and attached them to the tip of the stick. She chipped the wood away all day long, pausing momentarily each minute to inspect her creation. Then she would smile and continue.

When she was finally done, the sun had set. She held her prize in the air and it gleamed. She lowered it to her feet and took out her wand. Maple muttered a few words and the stick glimmered a brief, golden light. She allowed the stick to hover in the air. A stroke of lightning lit up the sky, reflecting white off of Maple's content eyes. She had found her broom.

Maple took off, ripping against the wind, in the direction of the cacophony of the battle. She quickly learned that the army had already been wounded greatly, and that they were holding on merely due to their optimism and hard work. The people of the village saw Maple in the sky; they pointed and shouted unkind words, warning her not to intervene. But she could not listen to them.

She landed with her broom in no-man's land, in the gap between the two armies. For a moment everyone stopped and watched as she stepped off of her broom. Both sides were wondering who she would attack. She withdrew her wand, and everyone stared. Before she attacked, she shouted into the sky, making sure everyone in the vicinity could hear her and relay the words to everyone else.

"Hear me, all. For a long time you have wondered where my loyalties lie, and whether I have any at all. You have all feared me, watching and hoping I would never return. But I am not the same person who left this village those years ago. Just one boy and his affection for another made me realize the source of my pain -the origin of my affliction. Everything had been misdirected, but now I will correct my mistake." Now she seemed to be speaking to no one in particular. Perhaps it was just herself. "I no longer care how everyone sees me. I no longer worry of the image everyone forces upon me. Some of it is deserved, and all of it is expected. But I will not sit idly as an army destroys my home –my original home. I now understand what I must do, and I know nothing will get in the way. Do what you want, but I know that I will fight, and I know what I am fighting for. I have crafted myself a new broom, a new outlook on life, and I will use it to dispense everything I can on my enemies. The Phantom may not be here to witness this event, but he will learn of my return, and he will regret the day he changed my life forever."

Maple held out her wand and it glowed with a light more radiant than a thousand suns. The ball of energy released and it collided into the army of Poes, ripping them apart, sending everything aflame. Maple turned to her army, and they stared wide-eyed with a mixture of fear and relief. She turned back to her broom and knew that she would never let her emotions alter her judgment again; the broom that she had created was an unequivocal indicator of that.