"Hold on, Sister!" Orion whispered as he wrapped his wings around her soaked and trembling shoulders. Her breathing was labored and fast, but it was at least a sign that she was still fighting for life.
"What's wrong with her?" Lyra asked, a sob rising in her throat.
"It's from diving in that ice cold water," Orion explained, "She wasn't supposed to do that. It's put her into shock!"
"What's shock?" Bonnie asked anxiously.
"It means her heart isn't beating right," Orion explained in a strained voice that indicated he was struggling not to panic, "And can't pump blood to the rest of your body."
"Will the sun heal her heart?" Bonnie asked hopefully.
Orion grimaced and held Sister a bit tighter.
"We've got to get her someplace warm right away," he told them.
From the darkness of the park, Vernita crept past them, her arms crossed as if for comfort from the near tragedy she had just witnessed, but a defiant, bitter expression on her face.
"Guess you think you're some sort of hero now?" she mocked them.
Lyra jumped to her feet.
"Please! Our sister needs help!' she begged, "Do you know someplace we can take her?"
Vernita sneered.
"Yeah, sure," she replied, "There's a great monster hospital just down the street, right behind the Osco. I assume you got good insurance?"
"Is the little girl okay?" Orion asked softly.
"Like you care!" Vernita spat.
"My sister's almost killed herself trying to save her!" Orion protested incredulously, "Of course we care!"
"Baby girl wouldn't have fallen in the lake if this dumb freak hadn't stole her in the first place," Vernita countered,"She ain't exactly innocent here!"
Orion sighed in frustration, looking down at Sister's pale, trembling face.
"Well, you be the real hero then," he challenged her, "Tell me where I can take her to get her warm at least."
Vernita rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"When I'm cold but I don't wanna go home," she said, " I ride the L."
"The L?" Lyra asked.
"The L, fool!" Vernita repeated as if she were dense, "The trains. They're all heated. Even the platforms are, at least in the neighborhoods where some asshole hasn't tried to tear the heaters down and sell 'em for scrap. Everyone knows that."
"Maybe the three of us can hold our human forms long enough," Orion reasoned out loud, "But how can we possibly take Sister on the train?"
Vernita shrugged again.
"That's your problem, Hero," she told him, "But she sure wouldn't be the freakiest thing I ever saw on there! Good luck with that!" With that disingenuous farewell, she huffed away.
"Come on," Orion ordered, lifting Sister as he stood purposefully and headed toward the noisy elevated tracks he could see between the buildings.
"Ori?" Lyra protested, "How are we going to…"
"I don't know!" he responded shortly, "We'll figure it out when we get there."
Despite the fact that they could see where they were headed in the distance, it seemed to get further and further away as they walked. The first few blocks were part of the park, and they were fortunate in that they didn't encounter anyone. At one point, however, they had to cross the street.
"Help me, Lyra," Orion directed and they precariously placed a barely conscious Sister on her own feet, with each of them holding one of her arms on their shoulder for support.
"We've gotta change back into humans," Orion told them uncertainly and Lyra looked crestfallen.
"It's easy!" Bonnie encouraged them, popping almost effortlessly into a small, pigtailed girl, "See?"
Gritting her teeth, Lyra closed her eyes and focused her efforts. Slowly, and painfully, she began to transform. With a sudden cry of both pain and triumph, her wings shriveled like a deflated balloon and disappeared into the tattered back of her hoodie.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked down at the wiggling fingers on her free arm.
"I did it!" she cried excitedly, "I really did it!"
"You did!" Bonnie shouted excitedly, "Now you, Ori!"
Anxiously, Ori took a breath. It wouldn't be hard, he told himself. He had held his human form at night for well over an hour before. And Lyra had just done it herself for the first time. If she could do it, so could he! He squeezed Sister's torso tightly. He had to do it, for her sake. The transformation was more painful than normal and more 'wobbly' for lack of a better word. But in just a few seconds, he had regained his human form.
"You did it! You did it too!" Bonnie sang happily.
"Come on!" Orion ordered, "I did it, but I'm not sure how long I can hold it."
Or how long Sister can hold on, he thought to himself dismally.
Fortunately, they only came upon one sleepy-eyed driver as they made their way across the street, who glanced up as they passed. But three children carrying a gargoyle through the crosswalk in the middle of the night didn't seem to register with him, even though he did give a tired nod at Bonnie when she waved at him. They chose an alleyway that seemed deserted and took them two blocks closer to the train tracks.
But suddenly, they heard a familiar voice, echoing against the brick walls.
"I'm just a poor, wayfarin' stranger,
A-travelin' through this world of woe!
But there's no sickness, toil, or danger,
In that bright land, to which I go!"
"It's the Siren!" Bonnie exclaimed, "Where is he?"
Before Orion could stop her, she bolted ahead down the alley.
"Bonnie, no!" Orion cried, struggling to hold Sister up under his diminished human strength. He and Lyra hurried to follow the little girl as she disappeared around a corner onto the main street.
"Bonnie, wait!" Lyra cried, but as they hobbled around the corner, they found their little sister had stopped right in front of a bus stop shelter with a video advertising board on the side.
"I found him!" she declared triumphantly, "There he is!"
"Bonnie, that's not…" Orion said in exasperation, then, "Oh!"
Indeed, as the screen changed from an advertisement for car batteries to a personal injury attorney, they all showed the same image of Siren, wandering through each video like a lost vagrant.
"I know dark clouds will gather o'er me,
I know my pathway's rough and steep;
But golden fields lie out before me,
Where weary eyes no more shall weep.
I'm going there to see my mother,
She said she'd meet me when I come;
I'm just a going over Jordan,
I'm just a going over home."
"He said there's no sickness!" Bonnie exclaimed, "Oh, let's take Sister there!"
Orion watched the digital billboard skeptically. He suspected that the destination in Siren's song was precisely where he did NOT want Sister to end up that night.
"Hush, Bonnie," Lyra told her sternly, "Listen! Siren's trying to tell us something!"
"And on that cold and lonely journey,
An angel's wings will keep you warm.
A stone arch marks the fairy garden,
To give you shelter from the storm.
A warm light waits inside to calm you,
Where faith and charity are found,
All who would love and serve a stranger,
Are home upon that sacred ground."
"Ooooh! A fairy garden?" Bonnie squealed as Siren vanished from the screen and was replaced with an advertisement for a brand of vaping cartridges.
"What does that mean?" Lyra asked, trying hard not to crumble under her half of Sister.
Orion didn't know, and wasn't even sure it had to mean anything in particular, but suddenly Bonnie cried out,
"An arch! I see the arch!"
They looked over toward where she pointed and observed a stone building with a yard enclosed by a stone wall. A decorative archway opened to the sidewalk outside, bidding welcome to any who would enter.
"It's worth a look, Ori," Lyra pleaded, "I'm not sure how much further I can carry her as a human."
Orion reluctantly let the girls lead them toward the arch, which he quickly realized led into a church yard. The doorway had a heavy, iron gate, but it was pinned open by a cement block, and had been so long that layers of withered vine were wrapped around the bars.
"Hello?" Bonnie called through the gate into the emptiness, and Orion didn't blame her. Despite the silent stillness, there was something about the aura of that courtyard that insisted there was something living and sentient inside.
"It IS a fairy garden!" Bonnie exclaimed as they beheld strings of twinkle lights illuminating a display of painted stones, wind chimes, and whimsical sculptures of animals, saints, and…
"An angel!" Bonnie cried, racing toward the center where someone had lovingly assembled a Marian altar. An iron statue of the blessed Virgin stood surrounded by lit votive candles, with a crown of stars above her head.
"That's not an angel," Lyra corrected her, "She's just a girl."
"But she has wings like us!" Bonnie insisted, pressing her finger to a broach on the Virgin's breast. Orion had to admit, the broach and the way the statue's cloak was draped across her shoulders looked a great deal like two dactyl claws clasping together a caped set of gargoyle wings.
"She's pretty!" Bonnie observed, "She looks like Sister!"
Orion couldn't argue with that either. If she had a hood to cover her wild hair, Sister would indeed look a great deal like the statue. But this thought turned him quickly back to his purpose.
"Come on," he urged them, "We have to get Sister someplace warm."
They made their way across the courtyard, where they were met with an astounding sight. A great pin oak tree, nearly as tall as the church itself and mature with widespread boughs, sheltered most of the far side of the garden. Twinkle lights illuminated its branches and all the space beneath like a Christmas tree, and many of the branches were laden with carefully placed coats, blankets, hats, mittens, and handmade scarves, in assorted sizes and colors.
"Who are these for, Ori?" Lyra asked in amazement.
"They're for us, of course!" Bonnie cried, leaping up onto a large stone block to reach a pair of pink, furry earmuffs. And although she couldn't read them herself, the words engraved on the marble block she stood on proved her correct.
"Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."
"Quick, Ori!" Lyra urged, yanking down a long women's coat of quilted down, "We'll put Sister in this coat and it will cover most of her! If we put a hat and a muffler around her face, and a blanket over her legs, no one will see her!"
Gently, they wrapped Sister's wings under her arms and slipped on the oversized coat. Lyra was right. With a stocking cap over her ears and the horns on her ridge, and a heavy woolen scarf to cover the rest of her face, it would be easy to sneak her onto the platform and the train, as long as no one thought to look down!
Orion and Lyra lifted Sister back to her feet and were pleased to see that she seemed to be gaining some consciousness back. Her fretful, forced panting had calmed to a much slower, easier rhythm and att least she supported some of her own weight, rather than hanging limply as she had done before.
"Don't worry, Sister," Lyra whispered, "We'll get you some place warm and you'll be fine!"
The siblings made their way through the gate on the opposite side of the courtyard and were surprised to walk right out to a concrete staircase with a blue sign that read 'CTA'. Above them loomed the tracks of the elevated train, bathed in misty orange light.
"We've found a station!" Lyra exclaimed happily and they scrambled into a creaky old elevator that smelled suspiciously of ammonia. Lyra wrinkled her nose at the stench and was thankful she was only suffering through her weaker, human nose.
"Ori, look!" she shouted suddenly.
Almost dropping Sister in surprise, he squirmed sideways so he could see whatever it was Lyra was pointing at on the map of the CTA system.
"It says 'Loyola'!" Lyra cried, her face lit up as if Christmas had just come.
"That's where Uncle Alex is!" Bonnie added gleefully.
"We can take the train right there!" Orion realized, wondering why he hadn't thought of this sooner and feeling more than a little foolish.
A moment later, they had settled Sister on a bench under a heat lamp.
"We're almost there!" Lyra said in a whispered squeal.
Orion's heart raced. After all they'd been through, this seemed almost too good to be true. They just had to wait for a train with a red light on the engine and in a few hours, Alexander would have them on their way home. Probably for months of extra chores and rookery duty, Orion realized, but he hardly cared at this point. He just wanted to be home with his clan again! Even maintaining his human form no longer seemed a challenge to him. Surely he could hold the magic for a short ride on a practically abandoned train!
The content siblings huddled together under the shelter of the heat lamp and even Sister's erratic breathing had calmed as if she were merely asleep.
"Wait until we get to see Adelpha again!" Bonnie said happily.
"Yeah. I can't wait. Because when she finds out what I did, she's going to utterly destroy me," Orion replied, anxiously hoping his tween sarcasm was, in fact, an exaggeration.
"It wasn't all your fault, Ori," Lyra pointed out practically, "And I bet she'll be really proud of how you saved us from the gangsters!"
"Twice!" Bonnie added with a wide smile. Orion looked a little comforted by his sisters' loyalty.
"You did a lot to help with Bonnie," he told Lyra, "She'll be really proud of you!"
"Thanks," Lyra replied, looking a bit bashful, "And don't worry, Ori. You took really good care of us and…Adelpha loves you. She won't be mad."
"I helped too!" Bonnie interrupted excitedly, "I went all the way to Egypt! And I saw a tomb. And I found the emerald necklace too! But I couldn't bring it because the bad guys chased me and then the police came and I got to be the junior deputy!"
Orion and Lyra glanced at each other as they tried to make sense of this hyperactive narration.
"There wasn't a necklace, Bonnie," Orion admitted sheepishly, "It was just a symbol the whole time. The 'emerald necklace' is what they call the city's park system, because the parks are like beads connected by the boulevards. We figured that out when we were looking for you in the park."
Bonnie gaped at them with an open mouth.
"Are… you…serious?" she demanded, her little face scrunched in anger.
"I'm afraid so," Lyra told her, "We read about it on one of those park history signs."
Bonnie's eyes went as wide as saucers.
"You mean I went all the way to Egypt for nothing!?" she squealed, then fell dramatically backward on the bench.
Lyra and Orion shared a questioning look and even Sister raised her head for a brief moment before leaning against Orion's shoulder in exhaustion.
As they waited for the red line train, only a single security guard patrolled the platform. He eyed them curiously from a deck near the turnstiles. Children alone on a train this late at night was unusual, but he seemed to decide it was best not to interfere. Orion wondered if he assumed the figure under the heavy, adult coat was their mother.
"Just try to keep her claws covered as much as possible," Orion cautioned them in a whisper after the guard had passed them with a scrutinizing look, "People will wonder why she's blue!"
Bonnie sat back up thoughtfully.
"Just tell them she's cold," she suggested with a shrug and they had to share a small, genuine, and finally, hopeful laugh.