Wood Sprites

“Yes, I agree,” the vet said. “His anatomy is very birdlike. His bones are hollow and thin-walled but dense. These masses resemble a crop and gizzard, and these look like the air sacs that play an important part in respiration in birds. These bony hooks on the ribs support the anchorage of the muscles that move the wings. He has three toes in front and one in back, not five facing forward. These are claws on his toes, not nails. It’s just mind-blowing.

“That said,” the vet added, “he’s displaying a lot more understanding of his situation and surroundings than any animal I’ve worked with, and that includes gorillas. I believe he’s equal to human in intelligence. I don’t think he’s an elf, but what do I know about elves?”

“What does anyone know? We’ll just put him down as a black-winged elf.” Dr. Harmeling tapped the MRI of Crow Boy’s leg. “Some bastard deliberately broke this boy’s leg. All these knife cuts on the arm? This is clearly torture.”

“Setting bird bones is similar to a mammal but occasionally it’s harder to keep the thinner bones lined up. We’ll have to take X-rays after the cast is on to make sure nothing shifted after we set it.”

“Think we can give him anything for pain?” Dr. Harmeling asked. “We’ll need to get these leg muscles to relax to line the bones up.”

“There are some things that we use in birds that are also used with humans. What I tend to use with birds is inhalant anesthesia. It’s pretty safe. As you know, it is gotten out of the system by breathing, so you can wake the birds up pretty quickly.”

* * *

A police officer arrived armed with a machine translator. Apparently the New York City Police Department had to deal daily with people speaking one of the nearly seven thousand different languages on Earth. He was unruffled at the prospect of interviewing victims in Elvish.

The wings, though, freaked him out.

“He’s definitely half-bird,” Dr. Harmeling stated after he reassured them that the wings were attached via bones and muscles and not just some clever costume. “He’s not from Earth. They seem to be communicating in Elvish. At least, my staff has picked up a handful of words that they recognize from some videos.”

Crow Boy had his face set to an unemotional stare, but the nervous flutter of his wings showed his fear.

“And no one came in with them?” the officer asked.

“They were dropped off by a sports car. We checked the video, but all our cameras went haywire about ten minutes before they showed up. They’re still down.”

The twins had nuked the hospital’s security system while en route so the police couldn’t backtrack them to Yves.

“I’m police officer Jayden Cohen.” The man paused, waiting for the translating machine, which decided “laedin-caste Fire clan royal marine” was as close as it could get to “police officer.” His given name came out as “God will judge priest.” Obviously the translator wasn’t the most sophisticated piece of hardware. “What is your name?”

Crow Boy stared. His face stayed neutral but his quickly tracking eyes betrayed that he was trying to think of a safe answer and failing.

Louise hadn’t considered what they would tell the staff if a translator showed up.

Luckily, Jillian had. “He is Crow Warrior Boy of Wind.” Crow Boy’s eyes widened and he gave Jillian a panicked look, which she ignored. “I’m Sweet Lemon Scent on Wind and this is my twin sister, Flowering Lime Tree Swaying in Wind.”

The police frowned at the machine as it butchered their names to “Child Boy Fighter Crow, Candy Stink Lemon, and Tree Waving Limbs Madly Lime,” and after a moment of thought added “Facilitating Outcrossing.”

The police officer then eyed Jillian and Louise. He reached out and tugged one of the antenna out of Jillian’s hair. “What exactly are you?”

Jillian raised her arm — covered with a blood-soaked sleeve — to wipe at her eyes. Life lesson number five kicked in: adults will believe the stupidest things when you’re covered in blood. “Those that kidnapped us put those into our hair and then laughed at us and told us that if we took them off, they’d cut off one of our fingers. Please put it back.”

Louise acted out comforting Jillian. “We don’t understand. Why did they do that? What is that? What does it mean?”

Suspicion bled off of the officer’s face as the machine translated their lies.

“I don’t know, sweetheart, but you don’t have to be scared.” Officer Cohen produced an evidence bag and dropped the antenna into it. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.” He collected the other three antennae. “Are you elves? From Elfhome?”

Jillian used the time it took the machine to translate out the questions to launch into a series of distraction questions, just to muddle things. “This box that talks? Magic speaker voice thrower? Ham loaf? Pickle questions?”

Crow Boy looked confused as the machine faithfully attempted to put the garbled Elvish into some reasonable English translation.

“This box that talks? Fling voice orator magic? Bread of smoked pork? Questions preserved by anaerobic fermentation in brine?”