Winter's Reckoning

William Faulkner Literary Competition, Honorable MentionForty-six-year-old Madeline Fairbanks has no use for ideas like separation of the races or men as the superior sex. There are many in her dying Southern Appalachian town who are upset by her socially progressive views, but for yearspartly due to her late husbands still-powerful influence, and partly due to her skill as a healer in a remote town with no doctor of its ownfolks have been willing to turn a blind eye to her transgressions. Even Maddies decision to take on a Black apprentice, Ren Morgan, goes largely unchallenged by her white neighbors, though its certainly grumbled about.But when a charismatic and power-hungry new reverend blows into town in 1917 and begins to preach about the importance of racial segregation, the long-idle local KKK chapter fires back into actionand places Maddie and her friends in Jamesvilles Black community squarely in their sights. Maddie had better stop intermingling with Black folks, discontinue her herbalistic witchcraft, and leave town immediately, they threaten, or theyll lynch Rens father, Daniel. Faced with this decision, Maddie is terrified . . . and torn. Will she bow to their demands and walk awayor will she fight to keep the home shes built in Jamesville and protect the future of the people she loves, both Black and white?