It’s not the smartest thing to steal and go back, but I wanted to learn more. Grandmother was going around Tamno, checking on ill people again. There were more and more of them that got the cough. It was slow and painful, and it only got worse. Two people died after weeks of torture. You endure it hoping it will get better, but it’s only getting worse. In the end, she told me they begged her just to take their lives, so they don’t have to take it anymore.

“Will it help if you give them some of your seeds?”

“They are not for the ill, only for the living. The ones who need to accept the facts they can’t change so they don’t have to live with regrets.”

“But why not for the sick?”

“You need to rage against this world, boy. Don’t let the beautiful songs of the birds and your mother’s hugs confuse you. This is a ruthless place and the moment you make peace with it is the moment your body will give up the fight. It’s unjust that you have to struggle for breath, but you can never accept the cruelty of this world.”

“I’ve never asked you where you get all these things from.”

“I’ve piled up things left from peasants and gods. Herbs from lands beyond our sea, idols from lands where the only seas are made of sands.” - she stopped for a moment, thinking whether she should continue - “Those seeds you ask about, I got from the sisters of the forest.”

“The sisters of th… The hags?!” - I yelled.

“Shhh, don’t yell that out loud!”

“Do you know them?”

“I know them, and I never did. It’s strange with them. They’re not people. Can you say you know the fire? You know what it is but is that fire the exact same one as yesterday?” - she pointed at the embers in the center of the house.

“You know what water is but is the water in the river the one you saw yesterday? It’s the same with the sisters. They’re forces of nature, something beyond us.”

“But if they gave you those, can’t they give you something more? Something to cure Tamno with?”

“Times were different. They curse with the same ease they help, and they haven’t been around for decades. I’m afraid nothing can help us with this, child.”

“Not even the dead god?”

My grandma stood silent for a moment, then shook her head from side to side - “I fear not.”

“Then why pray? Why do I repeat those words each night?”

“Because you need hope… you need hope for both of us.”

For the first time, I saw my grandmother defeated. Her stone stare cracked from the pressure of tears, and a single one trickled down her cheek. She made no effort to wipe it, just smiled at me and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

When she left to look after the sick, I got the seeds out from the place I had hidden them. Three of them still left. Three more nights of careless sleep. Three more nights deprived of pain, free of torture.

But I wouldn’t take them, I said to myself. It’s dying men that need peace, and I’m not one of them.