Light in the Black

kuga

"And this spirit... You are certain she is no harm?"

Bunny nodded as North regarded him and Jack with concern. When they had reached Seraphina's hidden castle in the highlands of Scotland, the Guardians and Jack's siblings had long since gathered throughout the evening, waiting for their arrival. Jack had felt slightly guilty. He and Bunny had gotten so caught up in their race they had added an entire hour to their travel time, determined to get ahead of one another or throw the other off of the trail.

Mother Nature had been the only one without an obvious air of concerned tension around her as everyone listened to what had happened at the Bennett household. To the others, though, an unfamiliar spirit was troubling news, especially one that had been potentially under the radar for months. And dealing with things that seemed to connect from an era that most of them there had never been around for was a terrifying prospect.

"Any ideas, shiela?" Bunny enquired, turning to where Seraphina stood in thought, her eyes scanning her many books in her vast library.

The whole situation felt a little deja vu to Jack. Seven years ago, they were standing in the exact same positions, hoping his mother would know the miraculous reason behind everything happening. He could only imagine how many times throughout her long existence that she had been called upon for a similar scenario. Now her vast knowledge was being called to once more, and it would hopefully put an end to more issues than one.

"What was the name she mentioned again?"

"Yersinia," Jack answered, watching as Seraphina's eyes widened. "Said she had to... Burn her away? Like before during the Black Death?"

"The Black Death..." Seraphina trailed off, turning to a nearby shelf and merely grazing her fingers against the bindings of the old books. "I haven't heard the name Yersinia since the Black Death..."

"But what do these two girls have to do with the bubonic plague?" Tooth questioned. "I don't remember there ever being a spirit that could turn herself into a moonbeam by fire or any other form of being named Yersinia."

"Because Manny focused your lot on providing children with a sense of normalcy they were losing in their childhoods," Seraphina explained, still not looking at her guests. "Your jobs were helping keep the social system from breaking down even further. Yersinia was the embodiment of illness, a vile being that, just like Pitch, grew tired of being a myth only feared by those who had the damned fate of meeting their end by her doing. The Black Death was her greatest success. For almost five full years all mortals in the world feared her, and she grew incredibly powerful. Even more powerful than my father in his height during the Dark Ages."

"And that girl did the dirty work of taking her down," Bunny guessed.

"Our first child together," Seraphina confessed. "And the only one until Jack. Her name was Johanna Aegle, the Spirit of Fire."

"But surely the only child of Man in Moon and Mother Nature would have been known before now, yes?" North challenged.

"We never spoke of her during the plague to allow her to sneak around unnoticed past Yersinia." Mother Nature frowned, pulling an old, tattered book from the shelf and gently opening it as she walked over to the group. "Yersinia was rash and violent, but she was just as smart and calculated. Any word between the spirits that traveled on the winds somehow made its way back to Yersinia. If we had sent the Guardians of Childhood after her, there would've been no chance. Johanna eventually succeeded, burning away enough of Yersinia's energy to put her to sleep so that she would never cause trouble on her own ever again. Then our daughter disappeared, and not even Manny could locate her."

On the page she settled on was a faded portrait of two women, one dressed in all white with fire at her call, the other in all black with rage in her eyes and the images that often portrayed death surrounding her, encased in absolute darkness. Both women held a fierce drive in the stance they were memorialized in, truly encapsulating a fight of the lives of everything the world had ever known, and neither were ready to back down. Jack locked onto the intense, driven flames glowing in Johanna's blue eyes, finding them similar to the way she held her gaze when speaking of Yersinia near the end of their meeting.

"She seemed convinced Yersinia was the one causing the Coronavirus," Jack finally spoke up, tearing his eyes away from the page to look at his mother, who glanced up at him with concern. "She said she was finally learning what had been changed in the illness this time around, literally burned it out of Sophie's body."

"Every mortal soul she cures with her fire diminishes a certain portion of Yersinia's power," Mother Nature relayed, closing the book and holding it closely to her chest. "It worked the first time around. I have no doubt that Johanna is determined to make it work a second time."

"So..." Daisy hesitated, but an encouraged look from Alex pushed her to continue. "This Yersinia is causing this virus? She's killing all these people?"

"And causing as much chaos as she can along the way." Mother Nature turned to regard Jack and Bunny with a stern look. "Go to Madrid. An outbreak sprang up overnight there. Find Johanna and get as much information from her about Yersinia as you can. It must've escaped our sights for this long because Yersinia's strength is in finding distractions for others. She's distracted all of us by going for children with no mercy in her outbreaks."

Bunny nodded, appearing just as determined in his stance as Jack felt.

"She will not be fighting her alone this time."