The bird of Manhatten

Chapter 27 - in which the next year is shown in a time lapse

The next year
Newsboys Lodge House, Manhattan, New York City
No one's P.O.V.

In the following year Mags grows weaker and weaker.

Halfway through it she isn't able to stand or walk by herself anymore.
And she becomes scared.
So scared.
Scared that she'd be a burden to the others. Scared of being locked away in the Refuge again. Scared that the boys will get tired of her and leave her. Scared of what might come. Scared of what might happen. Scared of what she knows what will happen. Scared of the pain.
That horrible pain.
The pain in her head that slowly spreads through her whole body making her every waken second almost unbearable. The pain that that keeps her up at night. The pain that forbids her to even breath without it. The pain that made even her waken moments to nightmares.
She cries at night when she thinks the others asleep. Quietly. Scared to wake someone up.

She becomes even thinner, for she doesn't eat anymore.
She says, she's not hungry. She says, she just wants to sleep... but she can't. The pain keeps her awake night after night.

The others are worried.
They don't know, what to do.
The want to get a doctor... but Mags doesn't what anyone to spend money for her. Not Denton, not Medda and especially not Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs.
So, they just stay with her any possible moment.
Trying to get her thoughts away from the pain.
Trying to distract her from the fact she is tired and hasn't slept at all in the last week.

She grows pale.
Her cheeks sink in.
The sparks in her eyes die away.
Her, always present, smile now seems forced.
She's mostly laying in her bed now. Too weak to even sit.
One of the boys is always by her side.
Mostly Jack.
Often Skittery.
The others take turns.

Tumblers crying when he thinks of Mags.
When he has nightmares, he now comes to Skittery.
He used to sometimes sleep in Mags' bed too, but now... now he doesn't dare to anymore. He's afraid to keep her from the little sleep she might get.

Spot Colon often comes over for a visit.
He just sits by her bed, talking to her. He tells her of what happens outside in the world, how the headlines are. With her he pretends nothing is wrong. Pretends it is no anomaly that she is laying there in her bed, pale as a ghost, in pain. He tries to make her laugh like. Tries, like the others, to distract her from her current state.

Davey and Sarah come over every evening after school.
They bring books, and read to Mags, or play games with her while which she can lay. They played things like tic-tac-toe (without the turn, of course), basically treating her like a little kid, what Mags noticed but didn't mind at all. In fact, she was just happy to have company and being distracted.
The book Mags likes the most is "The adventures of Sherlock Holmes".

Medda pays her visits mostly without Mags' knowing.
Sure, she says "hi" most times but often she just talks to Jack.
They talk about getting a doctor anyway.
Medda would pay anything but also is very worried about what the doctor might do. She says it could be that he'd send her back to the H.F.H.G "for her own good". None is willing to risk that but they also don't want to risk... what might happen to Mags.
Jack eventually decides to talk to Denton about it.

Denton seems to have similar misgivings as Jack and Medda. But he seems more willing to risk it by getting poor Magpie to a doctor. Jack askes for some time to think, what Denton grants him of course.
At the lodge house he sits down next to Mags' bed. She looks up at him and smiles weakly.
"Hey.", he says quietly, for loud noises made the pain even worse. "We decided ta get you a doctor."
Mags shakes her head. Slightly, but determined.
"But that could help you."
Again, a shake of her head.
"Why do you fight against getting' a doc so much?"
"Not worth the money.", she whispers.
"What?! No! You'se worth all da money in a woild."
"Won't do anythin'."
"How can ya say that? You'll get better."
She shakes her head again.
And that's when they all have to realise that it won't get better.
That she was heading towards the end.
And that there was nothing anyone could do.

That is when begins to write.
The pencil would fly over the paper like it was the last thing she'd ever do.
Many and many pieces of paper she filled with words and tears, never showing them to anyone but her magpies and keeping them in her box under the bed.