Pegasus and the Flame (4 page)

Paelen wasn’t about to tell them how old he was or that he hadn’t been pushed out any window. He especially couldn’t tell them about the bridle or from whom he’d taken it. Instead he shrugged. ‘I cannot remember.’

‘That’s a very convenient memory of yours,’ suggested Officer Jacobs. ‘You say this was a gift, but you won’t say who gave it to you.’

He next turned his attention to the beautifully tooled winged sandals. Fine, colourful feathers adorned the tiny wings and beautiful cut diamonds, sapphires and rubies had been sewn into the soft leather.

‘What can you tell me about these? They also look very valuable.’ Officer Jacobs winked at the doctor before he chuckled, “Or do you want to tell us that Mercury, messenger of the Gods gave them to you?’

‘That is correct,’ Paelen simply answered.

‘What’s correct?’ Officer Jacobs said, suddenly confused.

‘They were a gift from Mercury.’ Paelen dropped his eyes and felt his throat tighten. ‘He gave them to me before he died.’

Officer Jacobs frowned and shook his head. ‘What? Who died? Paelen, tell me, who gave you these sandals before they died?’

Paelen felt the conversation turning in the wrong direction. ‘No one. I told you, they were a gift.’

‘No, you just said someone died. I know it wasn’t Mercury. So who was it? Where are they now?’

‘I was wrong,’ Paelen said defensively. ‘Mercury did not die. The Nirads are not invading Olympus and there is no war. Everyone is fine and happy.’

‘Nirads? Olympus?’ Officer Jacobs repeated. ‘What are you talking about?’

Paelen realized he’d said too much. ‘I … I don’t remember. My head hurts.’

He was grateful when Doctor Bernstein stepped forward. ‘I think that’s enough for now, Officer. This young man has obviously been through a terrible ordeal. It’s best if we let him rest.’

The police officer kept his sharp eyes on Paelen, but finally nodded. ‘All right, we’ll leave it there for the moment.’ He started to put the bridle, sandals and toga back in the hospital bag. ‘But in the meantime, I think I’ll hold on to these until we can figure out who they belong to.’

Paelen started to panic. He’d fought very hard to get that bridle from Pegasus and didn’t want this man to take it from him. Throwing back the covers, he tried to climb from the bed but found the heavy casts on his legs stopping him. ‘Please, those are mine. You cannot take them.’

‘Paelen, calm down.’ Doctor Bernstein gently pushed Paelen back against the pillows. ‘You can’t walk. Both your legs are broken, as are most of your ribs. You need rest. Officer Jacobs won’t be taking your things far. He’ll just keep them safe until we can figure out who they belong to.’

‘But they belong to me!’ Paelen insisted.

‘Doctor?’

A nurse had entered the room. She was holding a patient chart in her shaking hands. The colour had drained from her face and she appeared to be very frightened as she studied Paelen. With a tremble in her voice, she said, ‘The blood tests on your patient just came back.’

The nurse handed over the chart as though it were burning her hands. Without waiting for a response, her eyes shot to Paelen a final time before she raced out of the room.

Shocked by her odd behaviour, Doctor Bernstein opened the chart and read the test results. His expression changed as his eyes darted from the chart to Paelen and then back to the chart again.

‘What is it?’ Officer Jacobs asked.

Saying nothing, Doctor Bernstein shuffled through the papers and checked and re-checked the results. When he finished, he closed the chart and concentrated on Paelen.

‘Who or should I say,
what
the hell are you?’

Emily was still on the roof with Pegasus.

Sometime during the seemingly endless night the storm ended just as abruptly as it had begun. The rain stopped and the skies cleared. With the city cast in total darkness from the power outage, for the first time in her life, Emily was able to see stars sparkling in the midnight sky over New York City. She peered up Broadway and listened to the eerie silence. There was some traffic on the wide road, but not much. Only the occasional sounds of a car horn or police siren shattered the overwhelming stillness.

Pegasus was standing close beside her as she looked down to the world below. Her hand was absently stroking the stallion’s muscled neck.

‘It looks so strange down there,’ she said softly. ‘It feels like we’re the only ones left alive in the whole city.’

Looking at the stallion, Emily still couldn’t believe her eyes. Even touching him didn’t seem to help. It was just so hard to accept that the real Pegasus was actually here in New York City, standing beside her on the roof of her apartment building.

But as the sun started to rise, she was finally able to see him clearly. The rain had washed most of the mud away, and returned his colour to white. Walking around his side, she saw his left wing was hanging at an odd angle. Without knowing anything about horses, or birds for that matter, she immediately knew the wing was badly broken.

Further down his back, she was shocked to discover a terrible burn she hadn’t noticed before. She could see the singed hair and open, weeping wound.

‘Were you struck by lightning?’

Pegasus turned his head back to her. As Emily looked into his dark, intelligent eyes, she felt perhaps he
could
understand her. But he gave no response.

‘Well, it must have been the lightning, considering how bad it was last night.’ She sighed before she continued, ‘You poor thing, that must have really hurt.’

As the light increased, further inspection of the horse’s body revealed that what Emily had first thought was simply mud from the rose patch covering his body, turned out to be blood. A lot of it. Working her way around the stallion, Emily quickly discovered that most of Pegasus’s wounds were not caused by the lightning strike or thorn cuts from the rose bushes.

‘You’ve been in a fight!’ she cried as she inspected deep gashes cutting into the stallion’s back and legs. ‘With who? Who’d want to hurt you?’

Pegasus gave no answer. Instead, he opened his unbroken wing, inviting her to peer beneath. As Emily did, she gasped. Hidden under the fold of the wing was the exposed end of a broken spear. The other end went deep into Pegasus’s rear flank.

‘You’ve been stabbed!’

With trembling hands, Emily felt around the spear wound.

‘It goes in so deep,’ she said. ‘I have to do something. Maybe call a vet.’

Pegasus whinnied and shook his head wildly. Emily didn’t need to speak his language to know he didn’t want her contacting anyone else.

‘But you’re hurt!’ she insisted. ‘And I don’t know what to do to help you.’

Once again, Pegasus snorted, pawed the tarmac roof and shook his head. He then turned back to her and nuzzled her hand. Emily stroked his soft muzzle and rested her forehead against him. It had been an endless night and exhaustion was taking hold.

‘You need help, Pegasus,’ she said softly. ‘More help than I can give you.’

To the east, the sun finally climbed over the top of a tall building. It shone golden light on the rooftop garden and felt wonderful on Emily’s tired face. It also made her realize that anyone in a building taller than hers would now be able to see Pegasus on the roof.

‘We’ve got to get you under cover,’ she warned. ‘If anyone sees you, they might call someone who’ll take you away.’

Pegasus quickly shook his head, snorted and started pawing the tarmac roof with his sharp hoof again.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen,’ Emily promised. ‘We’ll just have to find somewhere to hide you until that wing heals.’

Her first thought had been to take Pegasus down to her apartment. Then her father could come and help figure things out. But that thought was quickly dismissed. Even though the freight elevator made it up to the roof, it wasn’t working with the power off. The stairs were not an option either. If she were to hide Pegasus, it would have to be up here.

Then her eyes landed on her mother’s large garden shed. ‘That will have to do. I know it’s probably not what you are used to, but for now, it’s all we’ve got.’

With Pegasus patiently watching, Emily quickly emptied the shed of all the garden furniture and potting supplies. When she finished, she was surprised by how much room there was inside.

‘Well, it’s not fancy,’ she said as brushed dirt off her hands and invited Pegasus in. ‘But at least it will keep you hidden until we figure this out. Is that all right with you?’

Pegasus stepped forward and entered the shed.

With the immediate problem solved, Emily put her hands on her hips and looked at the stallion. ‘Next, we should get those wounds of yours cleaned. We can’t let them get infected. So if you stay here, I’ll go down to my apartment and get some water and clean cloths.’

As she drew away, the stallion began to follow her. Emily shook her head and smiled. ‘You have to stay here, Pegasus. You won’t make it down the stairs and the elevator isn’t working. I promise I’ll be right back.’

Back in her apartment, Emily raced into the bathroom. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and received quite a shock. She was a mess. Rose leaves and petals were tangled in her hair and her face and arms were covered in dried mud and blood from the thorns. But most shocking of all was the huge black eye. As she prodded the tender area, she found the entire right side of her face was bruised and painfully swollen from where Pegasus’s wing had struck her.

‘Great,’ she muttered to herself. ‘What are you going to tell Dad about that?’

She decided to worry about that later. Instead she opened the medicine cabinet. It was still filled with all the medicated creams they’d used to treat her mother’s sores when her illness had confined her to bed. Neither she nor her father had had the heart to throw them out. For once, she was grateful.

Grabbing all she could, Emily then went into the kitchen. There she gathered together clean dish towels, disinfectant soap and one of the large pots of collected water.

As she packed the items into bags, she noticed a pool of water on the tile floor in front of the refrigerator. Without power, the freezer section was starting to defrost. Pulling open the door, she saw two tubs of ice cream mixed in with the thawing bags of frozen vegetables. She suddenly felt very hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day.

Emily reached for one of the tubs, grabbed a spoon and put it in her bag of supplies for the roof. She then thought to take some carrots, fresh green beans and a few apples for Pegasus.

She caught hold of the flashlight and headed back up to the roof.

The sun was steadily climbing higher in the sky. But as she stepped out on the roof, Emily still found the city was unnervingly quiet. It was Wednesday. Usually the garbage trucks were out early making all the noise they possibly could. But not today. With the blackout, Emily figured they would have the day off. She also assumed her school would be closed. Even if it wasn’t, she wasn’t going in. Pegasus needed her, school didn’t.

‘I’m back,’ she called as she walked up to the garden shed. Part of her expected to find nothing there; as though everything that had happened the previous night had been some kind of strange dream. But as she approached, she heard the sound of hooves moving on the shed floorboards.

Pegasus poked his white head out and nickered softly to her.

‘Told you I wouldn’t be long,’ Emily said as she started to unpack the bags. ‘OK, I’ve got some water here, a bit of disinfectant soap and some medicated creams we used to treat my mom’s bedsores. The package says it’s good for burns too. So I thought it might help you.’

Pegasus peered into the bags as she unpacked them. Emily giggled as his long mane tickled her face. He soon found the tub of ice cream and pulled it out of the bag.

‘Hey, that’s for me,’ Emily complained as she tried to reach for the tub. ‘I’ve got some apples and vegetables for you.’

But the stallion ignored her. Putting the tub on the ground, Pegasus used his hoof to hold it still while his sharp teeth tore off the top. His long tongue started to lick the melting chocolate ice cream.

‘I don’t know if you should be eating that,’ Emily warned. ‘Chocolate isn’t good for dogs, maybe it’s the same for horses.’

Pegasus stopped and looked at Emily. The expression on his face gave her the impression that he didn’t much care for being called a horse.

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Emily said. ‘I just don’t want you to get sick. You’ve got enough problems already.’

Pegasus stared at her a moment longer before going back to the ice cream.

‘Fine, suit yourself,’ she said as she unfolded a deck chair and sat down to eat the fruit and vegetables that Pegasus had refused.

As the morning passed, Emily did her best to clean and treat Pegasus’s many wounds. While working on his neck, her cellphone went off.

‘Hi Dad,’ she said, reading his name on the screen.

‘Hey Kiddo, you all right?’

Emily looked at the cuts on her arms, then over to Pegasus. ‘Sure, everything’s fine. You wouldn’t believe what happened last night! There was this big crash on our roof—’

Before Emily could say more, Pegasus nudged her and pounded the floor with his hoof. He shook his head and snorted. Emily looked at him and knew he didn’t want her to tell her dad about him.

‘What happened?’ her father repeated. ‘Emily, did something happen?’

‘Um, no Dad. It was just the garden shed. The wind blew it over. But there are no problems here at all apart from the power being out. What about you?’

Her father sighed. ‘I’ve been held up a bit, so I’m going to be late getting home. I’m at Belleview Hospital at the moment, trying to do a report on this kid that fell out a window. Things have gone from weird to really, really weird.’

Emily was looking at Pegasus. He was still staring at her intently, as though he was listening to her every word.

‘Em, you still there?’ her father called.

‘Sure, Dad,’ she answered quickly. ‘Sorry. What’s so weird about the kid?’

‘I can’t get into it right now. I’ll tell you when I get home later. Should be sometime before dinner. Just take it easy today.’