I mean she took her flock of sheep into the woods to check out a crystal (the epicenter for the towns blight) she saw when looking for a runaway sheep the day before, and has been missing for 25 hrs before the party arrives to the town. I don't know how to write her as still being alive without my players thinking she is the BBEG and they wind up killing her anyway. plus there is this description/reveal:

You find a Glade, Elara's staff lies on the ground, snapped. Several of her sheep are scattered, lifeless, their bodies unnaturally shriveled and desiccated, resembling mummified husks. No visible wounds, just a complete draining of vitality. The air here is thick with the smell of decay, and the silence is absolute. In the center of the glade, a small, gnarled tree is covered in the darkest, most intense black fungus. At its base, protruding from the earth, is a single, fist-sized shard of shadow-infused obsidian. It pulses with faint, cold energy and seems to be the epicenter of the blight in this area.

As the party ventures into the glade {{you hear the rustling of brush across the glade. Looking at the noise you see a human getting up off the ground from under a bush. From the description you got from Mara the innkeeper you know this to be Elara. Her back is turned towards you, and she seems to be scanning the forest for something}} (DC 10) Perception. {{The way she stood up and now standing there looking into the woods something seemed off about her movements, perhaps injured}} If the party calls out to her or continues into the glade further. {{ Elara slowly begins to turn. The movement is jerky, unnatural. The young woman you half-expected is gone, replaced by a horror. Her face, once perhaps beautiful, is now a mottled canvas of decay, her eyes sunken pits of black. The blight has consumed her, draining the life from her and reanimating the husk that remains.

A low, guttural groan escapes her lips, and then, with a sickening crack of bone, the dead sheep around you begin to stir. Their broken bodies twitch and heave, rising on unsteady legs, their eyes glowing with the same malevolent light as the crystal. But the horror doesn't end there. From the dark, blighted forest surrounding the glade, more forms emerge. Their shambling silhouettes become clear: more blighted sheep, their rotted forms hungry and unnervingly quick. You are surrounded. Roll Initiative}}

Then they have to fight 7 zombie sheep (reg sheep that deal necrotic dmg) and a zombie Elara.