Blythe's Wheelbarrow

Chapter 4

They staggered through street performers juggling knives, a group of buskers playing accordions and tamborines, a pompous lady walking her corgi (who gave Blythe a disgusted look as they passed) and a bunch of traders packing up their market stalls. The sky was turning a dark dusky rose colour, and it was getting chilly. Blythe didn't talk at all as they made their slow journey towards the local hospital, just shivered from the cold. It took a while until they finally arrived at their destination. The hospital was a small red building with an eery looking cross at the top of it (it used to be an old chapel), with stained glass windows and large heavy oak doors. The shadow, cast by the setting sun, loomed above the two children in a menacing fashion. Now he was here, Theodoric wasn't sure what to do. Leave Blythe at the door and return home? Go in with her and have to stand the nightmarish, deathly stench of the dying? The hospitals at the current time were not the most hygenic.

But looking back at Blythe, Theodoric realised he'd have to go in with her. The blood on her face was drying into a crusty scab, but she was still in awful condition. They walked in.

They were immediately greeted by an officious nurse wearing a dirty white apron. She looked like quite the quidnunc, Theodoric thought as she glanced Blythe up and down in a busybody way without even flinching. The nurse sniffed rudely and snatched Blythe's arm from around Theodoric's neck. She nodded at him.

“Return home tomorrow to check how she's going.” she ordered flatly. “If she's alive, that is.”

Theodoric didn't even have time to answer. He made the slightest eye contant with Blythe, whose eyes were dull and hazy and didn't even seem to acknowledge him, then was suddenly brushed away hastily by the rude nurse. Hardly the persiflage, Theodoric thought in odious amazement, as the doors were slammed shut behind him.

Half of him wanted to stay at the hospital, and the other half of him felt ill at the idea of spending the night in such a spooky place. In the end, after debating to himself for a while, he trudged slowly back home replaying the events of the day in his head. Tomorrow, he could return to Blythe and they'd look for her sister. Surely she'd be the key to uncovering Blythe's amnesia!

It was dark when Theodoric got back to the Vandenberghe residence, a small stone semidetached house squashed in a busy avenue. He climbed up the tree outside of their house and snuck through his slightly open bedroom window in order to avoid answering any questions from his uncle. Then, hardly believing how much his life had changed in a few mere hours, he eventually dropped off into a light dreamless sleep.