The Onion Girl by Charles De Lint Page A

Jilly’s injuries and what had happened in her studio. It was hard to hear about little elfish men with tattooed hands and enormous earth spirit mamas when she knew that all of Jilly’s faerie paintings had been destroyed. Perhaps even by the same person who had put Jilly in the hospital in the first place.
    â€œWhat kind of an animal would I be?” Jilly asked and Wendy sat up with a guilty start. And the context of that odd little question was … It took her a moment to make the connection.
    â€œYou mean as in Jack’s animal people?” she said.
    â€œI’m not saying I am one of them,” Jilly said. “But if I was, what kind do you think I would be?”
    This was more like the old Jilly, Wendy thought.
    â€œProbably a monkey,” she said. “Or a cat. Or a crow, since you’re so
enamored with them these days. Maybe a black monkey-cat with crow wings. What do you think I’d be?”
    â€œOh, definitely a hummingbird.”
    â€œA hummingbird?”
    â€œDon’t pull that face,” Jilly said. “Joe says that they’re considered to be one of the creator animal spirits, and you’re a born poet and storyteller, so that fits. They’re very powerful and beautiful, and harbingers of joy—all stuff that you do.”
    It was odd how other people saw you, Wendy thought. She didn’t feel like any of those things herself.
    â€œI don’t care,” she said. “I’d rather be a mouse or a mole. Something small and unassuming that lives in a cozy little burrow.” Then she smiled. “Or I could be a mouse with hummingbird wings to go with your winged monkey-cat, though you’d have to promise not to eat me.”
    â€œBut I could chase you sometimes, just in fun.”
    Wendy smiled. “Only until I ask you to stop, and then you’d have to stop right away.”
    â€œOh, I’d love to draw the pair of them,” Jilly began. “Buzzing around in the air like … like …”
    Her voice trailed off and her gaze went down to her hands.
    â€œYou’ll be able to draw again,” Wendy said.
    â€œBut what if I can’t?”
    Wendy thought of those ruined paintings that Sophie and Mona had put away in the basement of Jilly’s building. Bad enough that they were all destroyed, but the thought of Jilly never being able to bring all her magical characters back to life again in other paintings was too depressing to contemplate.
    â€œYou have to,” Wendy said. “You just can’t not get better.”
    â€œMaybe I don’t have a choice.”
    Wendy shook her head. “I hate it when you talk like that. It’s so not you. Where’s the fierce and positive musketeer who never lets anything keep her down?”
    â€œShe turned into the Broken Girl,” Jilly said. “Who, whenever she finally does get out of here, is going to be the seriously Broke Girl because I don’t know how I’m even going to start paying for all of this.”
    â€œYour health insurance is covering it,” Wendy told her.
    Jilly gave her a puzzled look. “I don’t have health insurance.”

    â€œYou do, actually. The professor first got it for you when you were in university and he’s been keeping your policy up-to-date ever since.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œYou just never knew because you never get sick.”
    â€œI can’t believe how good he is to me,” Jilly said. “Why’s everybody so good to me?”
    â€œBecause like attracts like,” Wendy told her. “I’ve never met anybody who does as much for other people as you do.”
    Except as she spoke, the ruined paintings came to mind again and she felt her chest tighten. No, like didn’t always attract like because there was no way Jilly could have done something so bad to someone to make them retaliate in that way.
    â€œYou’re making me blush,” Jilly