Love, Empathy, and Caregiving Theme Analysis

I slipped my hand under the covers and touched her. I could feel her heart beating fast. I could feel the thin rattle of her breath, and her chest rising and falling. I felt how hot it was in there, how soft her bones were, how tiny she was. There was a dribble of spit and milk on her neck. I wondered if she was going to die.

I dreamed that the baby was in the blackbird’s nest in Mina’s garden. The blackbird fed her on flies and spiders and she got stronger and stronger until she flew out of the tree and over the rooftops and onto the garage roof.

“Sometimes they’ll attack intruders. But they saw you were with me. They knew you were okay.”

She pointed to the back wall, a gaping hole where some plaster and bricks had fallen in.

“That’s the nest,” she said. “There’s chicks in there. Don’t go near. They’ll defend them to the death.”

“There’s something I could show you as well,” I said. “Like you showed me the owls.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s true or if it’s a dream.”

“That’s all right. Truth and dreams are always getting muddled.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “The garage is going to bloody collapse. You’re ill with bloody arthritis. You don’t eat properly. I wake up and think of you and there’s other things I need to think about. The baby’s ill and we hope she won’t die but she might. She really might.”

I was with the baby. We were tucked up together in the blackbird’s nest. Her body was covered in feathers and she was soft and warm. The blackbird was on the house roof, flapping its wings, squawking. Dr. MacNabola and Dr. Death were beneath us in the garden. They had a table filled with knives and scissors and saws. Dr. Death had a great syringe in his fist.

“Bring her down!” he yelled. “We’ll make her good as new!”

The baby squeaked and squealed in fright. She stood at the edge of the nest, flapping her wings, trying for the first time to fly. I saw the great bare patches on her skin: She didn’t have enough feathers yet, her wings weren’t strong enough yet.

Mina kissed his pale cracked cheek. She stretched her arms once more around his back. Her eyes burned with astonishment and joy.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He winced with pain.

“My name is Skellig,” he said.

She unfastened the buttons on his jacket. She began to pull his jacket down over his shoulders.

“No,” he squeaked.

“Trust me,” she whispered.

He didn’t move. She slid the sleeves down over his arms, took the jacket right off him. We saw what both of us had dreamed we might see. Beneath his jacket were wings that grew out through rips in his shirt. When they were released, the wings began to unfurl from his shoulder blades.

I closed my eyes. I remembered the sound of the baby’s breathing, her beating heart. I held them in my mind, went on listening to them. I touched my heart and felt the baby’s heart beating beside my own. […] I stayed dead silent, and concentrated on keeping the baby safe.

I felt Skellig and Mina’s hearts beating along with my own. […] All I knew were the hands in mine, the faces turning through the light and the dark, and for a moment I saw ghostly wings at Mina’s back, I felt the feathers and delicate bones rising from my own shoulders, and I was lifted from the floor with Skellig and Mina.

“This is how they start their life outside the nest,” [Mina] said. “They can’t fly. Their parents still have to feed them. But they’re nearly all alone. All they can do is walk and hide in the shadows and wait for their food.”

[…]

“First day out,” whispered Mina. “Think Whisper’s had at least one of them already.”

“And then he reached right down with both hands and lifted her up. She was wide awake. They stared and stared into each other’s eyes. He started slowly to turn around…”

“Like they were dancing,” I said.

“That’s right, like they were dancing.

[…]

“And the strangest thing of all was, there were wings on the baby’s back. Not solid wings. Transparent, ghostly, hardly visible, but there they were.”

“Can love help a person get better?” I asked.

[Dr. MacNabola] raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips, tapped his chin. One of the students took a notebook and pencil from her pocket.

“You went to my sister,” I said. […] “You made her strong.”

“That one’s glittering with life,” [Skellig said]. “Heart like fire. It was her that gave the strength to me.”

[…]

“But worn out now,” he said. “Exhausted.”

Then he reached out and touched Mina’s face, then mine.

“But I’m getting strong, thanks to the angels and the owls.”

Then the owls flew back in and came to us. They laid something on the floor in front of us. A dead mouse, a tiny dead baby bird. Blood was still trickling through the ripped fur, through the young feathers. […]

“Savages,” I whispered.

“Killers,” said Mina. “Extraordinary presents, eh?”

“They think we’re something like them,” I said.

“Perhaps we are,” said Mina.