Yowel
Legacy Name: Yowel

The trainee held up his lantern to read the number on the door, reaching for the bolt with his free hand.

The head orderly of Floor Five gave the boy's fingers a slap. A vein in the older man's neck pulsed as images of the tragedy he'd just prevented flooded his mind. He watched a phantom trainee reduced to cinders and ashes before his very eyes.

"Should we prepare you a room, boy? Don't you know who they keep in there?"

After three weeks of listening to the cries of people beyond the help of the world's best doctors, the trainee didn't have many emotions left. He shrugged his shoulders and stared blankly at his boss.

"This is the room of Yowel, Boy. You must never allow the light to fall on her."

The fat pimple on the trainee's chin turned an angry shade of red as all other blood drained from his face.

*****

"It is always a pleasure to welcome such a distinguished guest to our halls, Doctor Tock." Rollins brandished a box of cigars. "A blend from overseas and in my opinion, there's none better on the market."

Rowan Tock waved away the offer. He wasn't fooled by his former classmate's jovial act. Rollins would rather set him on fire than allow him on the grounds but Rowan's invitation was written by the hand of the director. Nobody argued with the desires of Dr. Arnold.

Rollins selected a cigar, closing the lid with a snap. He took a good drag, making no effort to turn his head as he exhaled. "You were in Tropica, weren't you? You wasted a year of your life trying to prevent savages from spearing each other over some mystic mumbo-jumbo?"

"I would hardly call them savage. They have a system of irrigation much more sophisticated than ours and even their children can find any point on the island by the position of the sun or stars."

Rollins looked decidedly unimpressed as he took another drag. "They eat raw meat and walk bareheaded in the rain. They're hardly people one would invite for tea."

Tock fell silent. He knew from experience that Rollins was the sort who would argue it was cold outside despite a nasty sunburn.

"What was it that brought you back to Prospera? Something to do with your wife, I believe?"

Tock's fist came down on the table, causing Rollins to start. "Don't you speak of her, Rollins. I will tolerate your insistent unpleasantness against myself but you will not speak ill of Corie."

Rollins cleared his throat and set the machine on his desk with a scowl. A Recorder, the youths called it. An infernal contraption designed to give headaches. "This is what you're here for, Tock. Give me raving madmen and serial killers any day over this girl. If we were living a hundred years before, we could just burn her for a witch and have done."

Rollins watched enviously as Tock flipped a few switches and put on the bulky headset. Thaddeus Rollins was lucky if he could get the beastly thing to make any sounds at all.

*****

It is Midwinter's Day and this is the voice of Doctor Jackson Arnold, Director of Brookside Home for the Incurable. The record you are about to hear concerns a very peculiar child who came to us without a name.

Those pieces of her story I've managed to gather are not all from the most reliable witnesses. I've heard the accounts of the other two children rescued from the fire and from the nurse working at the facility forced to transfer her to my care.

The girl we call Yowel started life as Maude, though this is also a misnomer. It seems the headmistress of Sunny Acres Orphanage had a fondness for Maude or Claude, as befitted the gender of the child. It is a name I will not use in this record.

Yowel was found wandering the streets when she was about two. Her first decade of life must have been terribly unhappy for a child so fascinated by light. There were barely enough lamps kept lit to keep the children from going blind.

She was not ill-behaved or strongly outspoken. She ate very little and spoke even less. The only real complaint against her was her habit of sitting on the windowsill from sunrise to sunset, staring up at the sun with an unnatural attention span. Her interests shifted when stronger lamps were introduced to the room, courtesy of a generous donor. Sometimes she would frighten the other girls, waking them in the middle of the night as she stood over the dim flames she'd managed to kindle.

She mostly ignored the other children and they were more than happy to do likewise, at least before the arrival of Ronnie. It would seem the girl with red curls had been the outcast in too many places to shun one when she found herself among the average children. The two formed a friendship that was doomed to be short-lived.

It was when Yowel's body began to change that her need for light became a threat. The nurse tried all manner of drugs to bring down the fever that plagued young Yowel, despite her apparent good health. The other girls refused to get too near as her skin was hot enough to burn. One of the boys has informed me that Ronnie refused to abandon Yowel and wore winter mittens despite the heat of summer to protect her friend's feelings.

It was when Yowel's was around eleven that tragedy struck. There were thirty children asleep in their beds when the fire raced through the halls, consuming the dry wooden beams of a house that had stood for nearly a hundred years. The first ones to arrive at the scene claim they witnessed flames shooting from her body. Not one person would approach the girl, even when she lay scarred and shivering in the snow.

Despite the cold, buckets of water were thrown over her body before hospital workers would dare to approach. The ward she was placed in tried the usual methods with no success. Her body burned through even the most powerful drugs at an alarming rate and the mildest shock allowed her to blow up half a building. She was locked inside an iron box with only a few holes on the bottom to allow the air in. This is how she came to us and we are ordered to keep her in darkness at all times.

I believe we do this child wrong, that these strange abilities could be put to use for good. Yowel will not speak to me but there is a man of ingenuity who does not limit his thoughts to the viewpoints of Science alone, one I believe capable of coaxing her full story from Yowel.

*****

Tock jumped as Rollins slapped the button to end the recording. "Arnold's going soft. I don't care how many awards the man's won. The girl is dangerous. You should see the way she carries on if one little line of light gets through the door. Yowls like a cat put out in the cold. It's how she earned her name, you know."

Tock studied the photo in the girl's file. She must have been pretty before the fire marked her. She still had lovely chestnut hair and wide hazel eyes.

"This is why Dr. Arnold asked for me, Rollins. You were always one to eat the carrot while offering the stick."

Rollins sneered as he took up his hat and waved Tock from the room. "I hope you like the taste of burnt carrots, Tick Tock."

*****

Dr. Arnold dismissed Rollins immediately, accompanying Tock to the fifth floor. He placed a hand on Rowan's shoulder as they paused before Door 507.

"You're taking a great risk on the feelings of an old man, Rowan."

"When you picked me over Rollins for the Artica study, I said I would walk through fire for you. Now you know why a man should be very careful in his choice of words."

Rowan's feigned cheer gave way to fear as the heavy door clanged shut behind him, leaving him in total darkness. He pulled the talisman from his neck, feeling the pattern on the surface of the carved block of rowan. He still wasn't quite sure he shared his wife's belief in protective magic, but he felt better to be wearing the tailsman all the same.

*****

Yowel hunched in the corner, huddling as close to the ground as the thin mattress would allow. Nothing good came from doctors. They stabbed her with needles full of foul liquids that forced her into the darkness so that she could not see the beautiful lights of the world when they took her from her little room. She had measured the walls with her hands the day of her arrival and would sometimes pace the simple square out of sheer boredom.

She ate better than she had at the orphanage and she was allowed warm basins of water once a week to keep herself clean. Her current home was certainly an improvement over the last place where everything smelled of sweat. The only thing she missed from the asylum was the little barred window that would let in the occasional ray of light.

She could not understand how, but the stranger's hand created light. The circle trembled slightly where it struck the floor. She fell to her knees, bathing her face in the wonderful orb as the shaman inside her head hummed his pleasure.

Just as suddenly, the light was gone. A small groan of longing escaped her.

"I won't call you Yowel and I doubt very much you care for Maude. What is your real name, child?"

A small click brought the light back. She reached up the wall, trying to capture it. Her fingers followed the swirling motes of dust until they found the body of the flashlight. The warmth of the man's hand caused her to flinch away as he did the same. He had the magic of light and yet he reacted to her heat. How strange.

She lunged for the light stick, wrapping her hands around the tube before it could hit the ground. The prize was hers! She put the light in her mouth, sighing with pleasure as her skin took on a subtle glow.

She met the stranger's eyes for just a moment before the shaman's voice began its usual tirade of unpleasant suggestions. "My parents called me Sunny because I was the light of their life. It's why the shaman used light to curse me, instead of water or wind. One little insult by my father was all it took to earn me a curse that will never go away." She dropped the glorious light stick in the stranger's hand. "I won't let you hurt this one, Shaman. He's a good man!"

Rowan wanted to comfort the girl somehow but experience had taught him caution. "I'll be back to see you soon, Sunny. I want you to know that I don't think you're mad. I know all about curses and I want to help you."

He barely got the door closed before the shaman's fury released what little light he'd managed to drink, scorching the far wall of the cell and leaving Sunny lying in a stinking cloud of smoke.

*****

Doris was working on a complicated knitting pattern when Rowan walked in the front door. She smiled and set her yarn aside, taking his jacket and shoving a cup of tea into his hands.

We had a good day, Mr. Tock. My Corie got through her whole bowl of broth and little Nora sang the whole book of nursery rhymes for us."

Rowan smiled. "That must have been some performance."

"Oh, yes. Our Little Miss insists that when she isn't helping you make the world feel better, she will perform for it."

"She'll sing for royalty, no doubt. Is she asleep?"

"Went down just ten minutes ago. She insisted on two bedtime stories tonight. Miss Corie has been sitting up worrying for you, though I told her such thoughts were nonsense."

"Thanks, Doris. You'd better get some sleep yourself."

Rowan tread softly on the stairs, hoping Doris' words would prove wrong. Corie offered him a smile as he paused at the base of the bed. He hurried to help her sit up, placing a pillow at her back.

"She's exactly what we've been hoping for, Cor. A genuine symbiotic."

Corie's trembling hand rested on his. "What about the girl, Rowan? I won't have you risking her life to save mine."

"She's strong." He leaned down to kiss her pale cheek. "Have faith in me love. This is the cure for you both."

*****

"This is...quite unusual, Rowan. I know you've formed a bond with this girl in the past few weeks but are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm convinced I can cure her, Jack. I can make her as safe as you or I, but she must be allowed access to light."

Jack allowed no hint of his inner delight to show on his face. "What about your family?"

"I'm sending Nora to stay with my mother for a few days. Corie insisted on staying with me and I won't deny her that. Not now."

Jack shook his head as he signed his name to the adoption papers. "I'm starting to wonder if I should have a cell prepared for you, Rowan."

Rowan chuckled lightly. In the back of his mind, he was wondering the same.

*****

Sunny was enchanted by the bedroom straight out of a fairy story.

The room was filled with a soft golden glow that was warm and inviting. The chairs were upholstered in pleasing shades of lilac and the heavy velvet curtains were a purple so dark they were almost black. The four-poster bed was hung with wispy violet cloths that must have been spun by the hands of an elf or a thousand forest sprites.

Rowan had brought her home on a rainy day, taking every precaution while allowing her a view of the countryside. Even the shaman could get little use out of carriage lanterns blurred by pouring rain, despite his surly efforts to reach them.

The big blue house was exactly how Sunny had imagined it. Rowan had told her delightful stories those handful of times he'd returned with the light stick. She loved to hear of the silly little girl who named all her stuffed ponies after different animals and the old housekeeper who had a wise saying for every finger and toe she'd been born with.

Sunny kept her hands at her sides as she moved forward to see more of the fairy room. She did not want to burn so much as the string on one golden tassel.

The shaman was making her knees tremble with his frustration. He wanted to destroy anything that made her happy. It was all he ever wanted to do. He was a spiteful, evil man, incapable of forgiveness.

Sunny thought she knew every emotion the shaman was capable of, from his amusement at her suffering to his unbearable rages. As her eyes fell on the woman in the bed, she had her first taste of the shaman's fear.

The sick woman was hardly frightening. She looked on Sunny with such kindness that the girl wanted to take those frail hands in her own and offer what comfort she could.

The shaman screamed a denial, making her head ache as he demanded she move away. Strong hands closed around her wrists, curling her fingers around the sick woman's hands.

The shaman's doomed cry came from her lips. She tried to reach for the globes of light on the wall, to absorb their energy and free herself from pain. She could not feel the familiar, tingling warmth of light magic and for the first time in ten years the only voice in her head was her own.

She watched in a stupor as a man made of particles of light took shape and battled a horrible creature made of shadow until both dissolved to nothing. Thousands of miles away, a man in a dirty cloth wrap fell to the floor of his cave and died.

Corie fell into a deep sleep, her brow smooth and free of pain lines. Rowan carried Sunny to another room, laying her on a mattress stuffed with down. She looked at him with wide eyes.

"I don't understand. What happened to me?"

Rowan fiddled with his charm for a moment, pulling it free. "This was given to me by a good shaman, the kind that brings rain and blesses babies so they will grow up healthy and strong. Not all shamans are bad, Sunny. The problem is, most people in Prospera don't believe in them. If you had been found by the Ukom people, they could have easily cured you. I went to them hoping to find help for my wife. I saw them do things no man or woman should be capable of doing. I realized how wrong I'd been about so many things in the world."

He fell silent for a moment, turning the carving in the light and tracing the symbol on its face with a finger. "A bad shaman can't come into contact with one who is ill and near to death. Their evil and the disease work to consume one another."

Sunny looked down at the scars on her hands. "The shaman tried to kill me but he couldn't. I could hear him when he left. He was confused and very angry."

"I was wearing this, that first time I came to visit you. I held it between our hands when the shaman was freed. With the protection of this charm, he could not return to you and was forced to fight for his life, a fight he could not win. There is one less bad spirit in the world because of you, Sunny."

He slipped the string over her chin and kissed her brow. "You're part of our family now. I have a little girl who will be very excited to meet her big sister."

Sunny thought of exploring the enchanted house with an imaginary herd of ponies and a bouncy little girl and smiled. The loss of light magic was hardly noticeable in light of what she had gained.

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