Four Arrows - Clare Rebecca McCarthy

Literary magical realism spanning three decades of queer history, where the power to heal comes at an impossible cost.

She can save a life. But every healing steals years of her own.

Kerry Cullinane learns at age five that she is a Healer bound to The Dark, a realm that claims her after every healing. Her abilities come with strict limits and heavy costs. She has only four chances to use this power, and the price of saving a life is time. Sometimes months. Sometimes years. Separated from her body, suspended in shadow, never knowing when she'll return.

And she's not alone in The Dark.

Kerry's story unfolds across three decades of American life. A childhood in a loving family, worlds apart from the uprising at Stonewall. A first love shadowed by a community's homophobia. And then the AIDS crisis-when tens of thousands are dying, and healing one person at a time feels hopeless.

What good is her gift when she can't save everyone? What remains of her when so much has been taken? And what will it cost her to finally reach out-not to heal, but to be seen?

Tender, unflinching, and quietly devastating, Four Arrows is a story of what isolates us, what binds us together, and the price of choosing connection over safety.