In front of both the village chief's house and Gara's home, a crowd of villagers had gathered. Word had spread quickly about the worsening condition of the chief's granddaughter.
"For months now, Rima's only survived thanks to the miss healer's water," one villager explained to Wina, the newcomer. "But it can't cure her. It only keeps the poison from spreading."
"Didn't the chief ever take her to a county healer?" Wina asked.
"He spent everything on treatment for his son and daughter-in-law. They still died in the end. When Rima was contaminated too, he no longer had enough to bring her to the county. He bought medicine from a town healer a few times, but… it never worked."
Healer in the county was expensive, too expensive. That was why the village couldn't hire a healer of their own. They could only rely on a newbie Liner who happened to have healing ability to keep the clinic running.
