The Ungifted One

By Linda J. Dunn

A few months later, Peg boarded a great boat to journey far away, to a special place where she could learn everything she would need to know about being a healer.

She had great talent, everyone said. A rare gift and especially so in one so young and without relatives who were healers. Peg would become a famous healer someday. Everyone was certain of it.

A year later, Mary's other sister, Ann, strode into the house and complained that it was cold. They had no wood with which to build a fire, but Ann stared at that hearth until a warm fire glowed in a place where no fire could possibly exist.

Their mother fainted dead away and when they revived her, she muttered something about needing to consult the village elders. Within a period of days that felt like years to Mary, a league of wizards descended upon their home. Girls are supposed to become witches, not wizards, and are usually limited to the lesser gifts; yet Ann passed all the wizard's tests so perfectly that all agreed she must go far, far away to study with the best and wisest of the wizards.

Her sister had a rare gift and especially so in one so young and without relatives who were also wizards. She would become famous someday.

Everyone was certain of it.

With no sisters remaining to discover hidden gifts, Mary waited for the following year to bring a great discovery of her own unknown talent. When spring faded into summer and then fall with winter bringing no sudden knowledge or discovery, she determined to find her gift for herself.

Mary sat with the village seamstress and watched her sew a fine dress for the bailiff's wife. When she tried her own hand with needle and thread, she pricked her finger and bled upon the expensive cloth.

She visited the innkeeper's wife next and helped with the cooking. Alas, she dozed off while watching the stew and neglected to stir it. They sent her away and suggested she search for her gift elsewhere.

Mary visited Agnes next, the woman who specialized in extracting blue dye from the leaves of the woad plant and then dyeing the wool in its raw form. At the end of the day, Mary's hands were blue and so were the floors and the walls of Agnes' home. The wool, alas, dyed an ugly shade of green the likes of which had never been seen before by any member of the craft.

Over the course of the next year, Mary spent one day each with the hatmaker, the glovemaker, the brewster, the village alewife, a spinner, a pastry cook, a soapmaker, and on and on. She left a path of disaster at each of the village shops such that she could not buy an apprenticeship nor persuade anyone to consider testing her for an undiscovered gift. At the end of her year, Mary finally accepted the sad truth that her sisters had been blessed with great gifts whereas she had none.

Mary returned home, saddened beyond measure at her failures. Although her mother tried to console her by pointing out how many difficulties her sisters were facing in their studies and how the world needed people who were ordinary; Mary could only see that her sisters were special people with wonderful gifts and she was an ungifted person.

She remained alone all her life, always unhappy and always filled with the thought that life was unfair to give her sisters so much and herself nothing.

Each evening, spring through fall, she would stand in her garden and bemoan her fate. She would look out at the peas, beans, cabbage, lettuce, leeks, and spinach, which grew taller, healthier, and larger in her garden than anywhere else in the kingdom. Later, if she felt particularly disappointed with her lot in life, she would sit beneath the apple trees, which were thickly laden with fruit in the fall and unaffected by any of the many diseases which troubled other orchards. Then, before retiring for the evening, she would pause in her herb garden and admire all the different plants she had coaxed to grow which no other had managed to transplant from their native soil to their own gardens.

Finally, filled with bitterness at lacking a talent for anything, she would retire inside with a cup of tea brewed from her own harvest.

Life was so unfair to bless her sisters with such great talents and leave her ungifted.

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