The Forgotten Kindness
Chapter 13 of 7 Gifts & 7 Letters
The Shepherd's Hills rose before Elias like slumbering giants, their rounded contours softened by distance but growing more distinct with each mile. Three days had passed since his encounter with the Keeper of Names, days spent following the silver compass's now-steady guidance deeper into increasingly remote landscapes. Villages grew smaller and farther apart, eventually giving way to scattered homesteads and solitary shepherds' huts perched on hillsides.
As Elias climbed higher into the hills, the air changed—cooler, clearer, carrying the scent of wild herbs crushed beneath his boots. Sheep grazed on distant slopes, white dots against the green, their occasional bleating carried on the wind. The isolation of this place struck him forcefully after the constant activity of Varlind. Here, silence was the natural state, sound the temporary intrusion.
The wooden box grew warmer against his side as he ascended, responding to proximity to its third intended recipient somewhere in these hills. Yet unlike with Lucinda and Darian, Elias felt little certainty about whom exactly he sought. The memory of Caedmon remained frustratingly incomplete—a fragment of kindness from his childhood, a loaf of bread shared during famine, a face recalled more in impression than detail.
"How do I find gratitude for someone I barely remember?" he asked the empty hillside, receiving only the whisper of wind through highland grasses in response.
That evening, camped in the shelter of a limestone outcropping, Elias opened the wooden box and withdrew the third parchment. It had transformed further during his journey—the scattered seed pattern now resolved into clearer images of bread, hands, a shepherd's crook. The golden feather pen gleamed expectantly in the firelight, waiting for him to begin the third letter.
Elias placed the parchment on a flat stone before him, the pen warm in his hand. "Dear Caedmon," he began in his mind, but no words appeared on the page.
"I am grateful for your generosity during the famine year." Still nothing.
The pen remained stubbornly dry against the parchment, as resistant to superficial sentiment as it had been with his previous letters. But where his struggles with writing to Lucinda and Darian had come from emotional complexity—too many feelings rather than too few—this resistance stemmed from the opposite problem. How could he access genuine gratitude for a kindness so distant it existed primarily as an outline in his memory?
Elias set the pen down with a sigh, staring into the small fire he had built. The challenge was different this time. With Lucinda and Darian, he had needed to overcome resentment and rivalry to find the appreciation beneath. With Caedmon, there was no negative emotion to work through—only the faintness of recollection, the uncertainty about whether his gratitude could be authentic when the memory itself was so tenuous.
As the fire burned lower, Elias closed his eyes, focusing not on trying to remember Caedmon more clearly but on the impact of what little he did recall. The shepherd had appeared during their greatest need, shared food without being asked, and disappeared without demanding recognition. The act itself had been simple—the sharing of resources—but contained within it was a profound statement about the nature of human connection.
"The best kindnesses often are," the leather worker in Westhollow had said. "We remember the feeling more than the particulars."
What feeling remained from that distant encounter? Elias searched his heart and found not just the memory of hunger satisfied, but something deeper—the understanding that generosity could exist without expectation of return, that abundance unshared was no abundance at all.
The realization struck him with unexpected force. Perhaps the incompleteness of his memory was itself significant. Caedmon had not given to be remembered or praised, but simply because giving was the right response to another's need. The shepherd hadn't required Elias's family to carry the weight of elaborate gratitude or ongoing obligation—he had given freely and continued on his way, leaving them lighter rather than burdened by debt.
With this understanding, Elias picked up the golden pen once more. This time, when he touched it to the parchment, golden ink flowed with surprising ease:
"I am grateful for your generosity without expectation. When my family had little, you shared what you had without requiring acknowledgment or return. Your giving was complete in itself, asking nothing beyond acceptance. In this, you taught me that true generosity liberates both giver and receiver, creating connection without creating debt. What remains in my memory, more than the details of your face or the exact words exchanged, is the feeling of a kindness offered simply because it was needed."
The pen moved more smoothly now, the resistance dissolved by genuine appreciation that transcended the gaps in his memory:
"I am grateful for the dignity you preserved in your giving. You offered bread to my father with the respect of one person to another, not the pity of the fortunate toward the unfortunate. You treated our temporary lack not as a failure but as a circumstance that might visit anyone in their journey. In doing so, you demonstrated that receiving help need not diminish one's standing or worth. This lesson has shaped how I understand both giving and receiving throughout my life."
The golden ink glowed warmly in the firelight, the pattern on the parchment deepening as Elias continued:
"I am grateful for the hope you planted in scarcity. The famine year had narrowed our vision to mere survival, each day a calculation of diminishing resources. Your unexpected arrival with food reminded us that the future remains unwritten, that help can arrive from unexpected quarters. This hope sustained us through the remaining months of scarcity, not just physically through the food you shared, but spiritually through the reminder that darkness eventually yields to light."
As Elias paused, considering whether the letter was complete, the pen tugged gently in his hand—the familiar signal that the fourth part remained, the recognition of these qualities within himself. This had emerged naturally with Lucinda, with more difficulty for Darian, but now presented a unique challenge. How could he claim these qualities—generosity without expectation, dignity in giving, hope planted in scarcity—when he had been living in emotional isolation for so long?
Yet as he searched himself honestly, Elias realized that while he had withdrawn from many connections in Alden Village, he had not abandoned all giving. The extra hours spent helping elderly villagers with minor repairs to their homes. The quiet word of encouragement to young quarrymen struggling with difficult cuts. Small acts, perhaps, but offered without expectation of recognition or return.
"In acknowledging these gifts in you," he wrote, the pen flowing once more, "I recognize seeds planted long ago that have grown within me despite years of withdrawal. When I share without requiring acknowledgment, when I offer help that preserves another's dignity, when I bring unexpected hope to someone facing scarcity—in these moments, your influence continues. Though memory fades, impact endures, and simple bread shared decades ago continues to nourish through actions I barely recognized as connected to that distant day."
As the final words formed on the parchment, the golden ink shimmered with inner light that cast Elias's shadow long against the hillside. The letter complete, he carefully returned it to the wooden box, noticing that the silver compass now glowed with renewed purpose, pointing more specifically to a valley visible in the distance.
Above him, the changing sky had transformed further. The band of blue had widened to occupy more than half the visible heavens, and at its edges, where it met the persistent gray, colors emerged that had been absent for generations—the gold and purple of sunset, painting the western horizon as the sun descended toward distant mountains.
Elias watched the display with quiet wonder. Two letters had brought partial restoration; this third, written to a kindness half-forgotten, had deepened the transformation. Tomorrow he would follow the compass to its destination, to the elderly shepherd who had no idea that an act of sharing during famine had rippled through decades to become part of this strange, beautiful unfolding.
For now, Elias settled into his bedroll, the wooden box beside him, the completed letter safe within. Sleep came easily, accompanied by dreams not of hunger but of abundance—fields heavy with grain, tables laden with bread, hands opened in giving that asked nothing in return.🦉