I am here with my granddaughter. I’ve stopped the bleeding. Artemis’ arrow is in her leg.
I’ve created a tourniquet but she’s lost so much blood! She needs help and I’m the only one here!
I hear a familiar sound above me.
Madelyn’s super wheelchair comes flying from the tunnel, and she heads right towards us.
“Mon dieu, Zhoy!” she leaps off the wheelchair and lands next to her. And suddenly she has legs! “Mon dieu, mon dieu, mon dieu,” she can’t stop saying it. “This is all my fault! How are you feeling, Zhoy?”
“Perfect, perfect,” Joy says through gritted teeth.
Madelyn looks at me. “Should we take the arrow out? I can destroy it, but what if it is touching an…” she can’t find the word.
“An artery?” I say.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
With a soft sound Justin appears on the deck. He runs to Joy. “Holy shit,” he says. “I almost didn’t fall back asleep. Joy! Let me look at you!”
He touches her. “How many out of ten?”
“Nine,” she says. “Nine and a half.” She is still gritting her teeth. She’s sweating and in pain and she isn’t crying.
“She’s pale,” he says.
“She lost a lot of blood,” I update him. “I wrapped a tourniquet.”
“Good thinking!”
“Justin, shall we take the arrow out? Can we create something that fixes her blood vessels?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he’s beside himself with worry. “We need a doctor. We need...Oh!”
A woman in a nurse’s uniform appears next to him.
“No no no!” Joy rolls her eyes.
“She’s a nurse. She’s a dream. Let’s go! Sandra, can you help?”
Sandra sits on her knees next to Joy. “Oh, my. I’m uh, more about delivering babies. But let’s see.”
As she examines Joy’s wounds, I remember the name. Sandra is the dreamer that Justin goes to, the one Joy calls “Dad’s girlfriend”. Sandra Ortiz, I think. Wait a minute, wasn’t there a Sandra Ortiz in Justin’s secondary school?
“Okay,” Sandra looks up. “The arrow clearly missed your arteries, which are here and here.” She looks up at Justin, “You can take the arrow out, right, sweetie?”
Madelyn doesn’t wait. She waves her hand above the arrow, but it doesn’t disappear. She does it again, and it doesn’t disappear. She makes a face, then a ‘crack’ is heard in Joy’s legs. Madelyn reaches down and with a hand on each side of the arrow, pulls one side out one way and the other side out the other way.
Joy screams. The bleeding continues. The arrow is no longer in her leg.
Sandra opens my tourniquet, moves it, and ties it again, blocking the wound.
Sandra stands and looks at Justin. “That is the most I can do. It needs to heal. It needs time. You need antibiotics.” Justin looks down at the last word. “And you need a doctor.”
“I don’t have a doctor! I can make one up but he wouldn’t have any real knowledge!”
She whispers, “Then you better hope she doesn’t get infected. Maybe you need to find a doctor?”
He nods.
Justin looks up at the sound of a jetpack.
Charlie rises above the deck with a jetpack on his back. His stomach is still tied to Master Mind, which is hanging listless two meters below him at the other end of the rope. “Joy! Are you okay?” he says.
(To be continued…)
—Told by Grampa Walt