The Friday Tree by Sophia Hillan

gently, and Brigid cried out.
    “Gently, Sister,” said the white-coated man and his voice, though low, was reproving. “The child is in some discomfort.”
    “Of course, Doctor,” said the blue woman – was she a nun? – but her grip stayed hard.
    Brigid thought for a second of Isobel, then the stone-faced nuns in school, then she thought of nothing, because the doctor was pushing her head towards her chest and the pain was exquisite. It was a white light that screamed through her, and it said: “Mama!”
    The blue woman said: “You can’t see your mama yet,” and the doctor, looking away from her with his medicine-smelling hands still on her burning head, said across her: “Lumbar puncture, Sister, straight away. With luck it may be viral.”
    They went through the curtains and disappeared. Perhaps, Brigid thought, this is another dream. There are so many. This may stop and I will be at home in my own bed. She kept her eyes closed to help this happen, but opened them suddenly as harsh light again intruded, the yellow flowers swishing away from her and two men in shorter white coats lifting her, not ungently, on to a trolley. The pain seared through her once again, and she could feel the hot wetness on her face.
    “Poor lassie,” said one of the men, and he stroked her arm, which made the tears worse.
    Then, she was in a grey, cold room. One of the men put a white blanket on her, and turned her, slowly, on to her side.
    She heard a soft padding behind her. “Hello, Brigid,” said a voice, but Brigid hurt too much to answer. “I’m going to put a little pinprick in your back now,” said the voice, “and it may hurt for a moment. Just hold still, like a good girl.”
    Brigid felt a cold that was different, and inhaled a sharp brightness, but she felt no new pain. The whole place, everywhere around her was already so full of it that there was no room for any more. When the voice said, “There, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” Brigid did not even try to speak. Then there was silence, and someone, two someones, brought her back through the grey spaces to the room with the yellow flowers, and she was able to close her eyes again in semi-darkness.
    When next she woke the doctor was standing above her. He had papers in his hands.
    “Well, Brigid,” he said. “You’re a lucky little girl. You have what is called meningitis, but it is viral, and the pain will soon go. Meanwhile, look!”
    A miracle happened. The doctor swept back the curtain, and above her stood her parents. She looked for Francis, but he was not there. “Where is Francis?” she said.
    “Hello, Brigid,” said her mother.
    “Hello, girlie,” said her father.
    “Where is Francis?” asked Brigid again.
    “He’s at school,” said her mother, “but he will come, now that we know it’s not as serious as . . . it looked.”
    “Will you take me home?” asked Brigid. “I want to go home.”
    Her parents looked at each other.
    “When the doctor lets you, we will,” said her father.
    Then Brigid closed her eyes, and when she opened them no one was there.
    She drifted in and out of sleep in the yellow-flowered cocoon. Sometimes it was darker, sometimes lighter, but she did not leave it again until the day there came a young blue person, with a hat not stiff and square like the first one, but pleasantly rounded on soft curls.
    “Come on, now, Missy,” said the young person, “let’s get you up,” and very gently she slipped Brigid out of the bed and set her on her feet.
    To Brigid, her legs seemed to belong to someone else. They were impossibly long and white, and her slippers were very far away. She swayed and buckled, but the blue person said: “Hold on to me. Once you can walk, you might even get home.”
    Brigid tried. She moved one foot and it bent, then the other, and it gave way. The wall tried to come over to her. There was bright spinning in her head. She tried again. She told her foot to move. She told the other one and,