Henrietta DeLuna (Henri)

Henrietta DeLuna was born to parents Dehlia and Warren DeLuna in the year 1767.

Twenty years prior to her birth, her father Warren decided to take a leap of faith and open up a mine after hearing rumors of glimmer becoming the “next big thing”. While things haven’t progressed how he thought they would, smaller veins of glimmer have been struck through the years- enough to provide his family with a humble home and everything they need to survive.

In her younger years, she spent time alongside her father, learning valuable skills of the trade, but things changed as she got old enough to develop other interests. Soon she was daydreaming of a different life for herself. One where she would travel to faraway lands with names she couldn’t pronounce. She longed to meet new people, see new things, and find her purpose in the world.

When Henri was 16 years old, her mother and father announced that they were expecting another baby. In 1791, they welcomed a healthy baby boy into the world. Ollie and Henri formed an inseparable bond, which would prove to make his death in 1792 nearly insufferable for her.

She was left in charge of him one summer afternoon and she decided to put him down for a nap in her bed so they could sleep together. When she woke up an hour later, he was not in the bed next to her. With adrenaline and sheer panic flowing through her veins, she tore through the house looking for him under blankets, behind furniture, and in the cabinets. With him nowhere to be found, her search moved outside. Henri looked in all his usual playing spots hoping he would be there to greet her with a mischievous grin. Seconds felt like an eternity as she frantically ran from one spot to the next searching for her brother when out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. She pulled his lifeless body out of a water trough and wrapped him up in his blanket that he had dropped nearby. She sat in the same spot cradling him until dusk when her parents found her.

Two years passed and though she would never stop longing to have her brother with her, Henri still found little ways to move forward. She continued to dream of a life somewhere new and had a newfound passion for trying to heal people. She spent many hours a day combing through a worn-out copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Medicinal Herbs by Rosemary Johnson- trying out tinctures and pastes on injured miners. Early one morning, she was awoken by the sound of her father speaking to her mother. Henri quietly snuck to her door, pressed her ear to it, managing to catch snippets of their conversation. “The mayor” ...” sick” ...”no chance, unless” ...” Way of mercy”. She heard her father’s footsteps approaching her door as she swiftly jumped back into her bed. He walked to her bed and shook her awake. It wasn’t a secret that the mayor was dying but it seemed that he took a turn for the worst overnight. His time was running out and in a desperate attempt to save his life, he decided to reach out to a group of monks nearby. Most townsfolk were weary of them on account of the strange masks that some of the monks wore. Henri had never seen them before but had heard claims of their abilities to heal people.

Most of the town seemed to be awake and gathered around the mayor’s house, trying to get a glimpse of the monks through his windows. Henri pushed her way to the front, managing to find a spot with a perfect view into the bedroom. She saw three monks in masks bent over his bed, chanting inaudibly. An aura began to form around him, and a look of peace washed over his face. The monk closest to his head began to shake and suddenly collapsed. It was almost as if his own life went into the mayor because just as the monk hit the floor, he sat straight up and gasped for air. The crowd, witnessing this all, began to scream out- some in awe and others in terror. Henri was being pushed around and could no longer see inside but to her dismay, all three monks walked out of the house alongside the mayor.

Without so much as a word, they took their leave.

In that moment, with the chaos of the crowd around her and the monks getting farther away, something pulled at Henri. She looked around at the faces in the crowd- faces she had seen for quite literally her entire life. Then she looked back at the figures in the distance getting smaller and smaller. They were her way out of this town, a way to travel, and a way to have purpose again. In the time it took her process all this, about five minutes had passed. At this point, her father had found her and put his hands around her face. “Did you see that? The mayor is cured!” He exclaimed in disbelief. She looked back at him with an intense look, grabbed his hands, and said “I have to go with them. Tell mom I love her.”

Henri didn’t leave him any chance to protest as she was already running after the monks. She did, admittedly, look back once and saw her father standing in the same spot she’d left him. Somehow, she managed to catch up to the trio and somehow managed to tell them, between huffs and puffs, that she would like to join the monastery. Thus began Henrietta DeLuna’s life-changing journey.

Six Months Later

Henri quickly adapted to her new way of life, and all her responsibilities. One day, Abbott Drunum approached her to tell her a new group of novices would be arriving that afternoon. She would be assigned the task of showing one of them to their sleeping quarters and giving them a tour of the monastery. The young novice was a girl around her age named Anya. Henri showed her around and just as she was shown on her own tour as a novice, Anya was brought to Abbott Drunum’s office door. His office was off strictly off limits unless he personally invited you in.

As Henri helped Anya get settled into her new room, they got to talking. She found out that Anya was to join the monastery as a form of punishment after her parents discovered she was stealing things. Anya made sure to disclose that the items would certainly not be missed. Some of her most prized possessions included a garden gnome, a pavers block from the main square, and a trash can from the local library. Henri very quickly picked up on Anya’s playful and mischievous personality. Anya began to ask Henri questions about her life and if she had any siblings. Henri hadn’t spoken a word to anyone about the death of her baby brother since the day she left town. Panicked at the thought of her brother never being talked about again, but not willing to have to relive the details, she decides to lie and say he is away at school.

A couple of months later, Henri and Anya were asked by Abbott Drunum to take a letter to his office. Giddy with the excitement of being trusted enough to handle such a task, the two friends hurried along. When they got into the office, Anya closed the door behind them and jokingly sat down in Abbott Drunum’s chair and kicked her feet up onto his desk. Henri tried to encourage her to stick to the original task and leave. Anya would not have it and began to snoop around his shelves at all the small trinkets. As Henri goes to grab Anya’s arm to force her out of the office, a box catches her attention. The small, wooden box has the same exact engravings on the top as her baby brother’s beloved music box that he was buried with. Overwhelmed by emotion, she picks it up and opens it just to hear the familiar song one last time. The space around her vanishes as she feels herself getting sucked into darkness.