Meet Fiona
Fiona is the healer, the marsh woman, and the heart of What the Cardinal Flower Protects, my sequel to Where the Watermint Grows. She protects the marsh outside of Sedgewick. Her proclivities are the reason the Amaranth Accord sent someone to collect her.
I wanted to explore a Hand who wasn't hiding what she is. In Watermint, Voss stayed in the background. He was quiet about it, procedural... almost apologetic. Fiona traded her old name away to save her sister. In the interim, she spent decades becoming the beloved healer of Sedgewick. While the Bargain cost her most of the memories of her old life, it didn't touch her desire to help others.
The gap between what the Accord expected of her, to fade from the memory of those around her, and what she became is the whole premise of this adventure.
When she is considering something, she crosses her arms in front of her. She does the same when she is about to say something direct, which is often. Her appearance came to me before I locked in much else about her personality. The flouncing black curls, her dove-grey eyes looking at me from under thick lashes, her whole stained apron over a dress hiked up against mash muck, all of it was so vivid.
In her downtime, she is crafting remedies to sell in Sedgewick for her own upkeep or reading. She remembers people, not just names, but all of the small accumulations she gleans from random conversations. Someone mentions they like sweets, and weeks later Fiona presents them with a little cake. She has been stripped of her history, but insists on preserving everyone else's.
Fiona was once named Aoife. She had a sister, Niamh, who was frail as a child. The word "sister" still catches in her breath, even though the memory attached to it is gone. The smell of lavender makes her smile every time, although she couldn't tell you why. Niamh loved lavender.
In a way, the cardinal flowers planted outside every door in Sedgewick are Niamh's doing, too. Somewhere in a memory she no longer has, her sister told her stories growing up of cardinal flowers and how they warded off the dangers in the fens. She may not remember, but she knows it's true, and she has spent years ensuring the whole town believes it. Niamh would be proud of her legacy.
I enjoy writing characters who act on impulses they don't understand. Does anyone have a favorite like that? Something you've read or run?
Currently in development. I'll post more soon!