Chapter Text
Marcia sees his hat first - it's bright red, a striking difference to the untouched snow around it. Her first thought is that it must've been blown there by the freezing winds, but it doesn't look like a stray hat should, she thinks. Something is different and-
Oh shit, she thinks, as she runs back down the stairs. Someone is wearing that hat. She can see a glimpse of them now that she's looking, of their blonde hair and pale skin. It's no wonder she didn't notice them before.
She half-throws herself off the path (Enchanted, so the snow never has to be removed), towards the snow pile where the person is buried, and starts digging. She wishes again that she had thought to bring gloves today. She'd been so sure she'd be home before the worst of the storm arrived. The person - the child, a young boy, she realises as she brushes snow from his face - isn't buried deep, but his lips are a terrifying blueish colour and his heartbeat, when she Listens, is faint. The child is nearly dead.
She leans over him, breathing in and in and in until her chest feels close to bursting. She holds it, gathering her Magyk, then breathes out and out and out, slowly, steadily, and the pink mist of the Revive covers the child's face, blocking him from view just for a moment. She doesn't wait for the spell to finish - it will be much easier to keep him alive if he isn't still in the snow, so she picks the boy up as well as she can, half tossing him over her shoulder, and walks quickly back towards the tower.
Marcia paces her living room, phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear as she flips through a dust manual on first-aid that she retrieved from the back of a cupboard. She's done everything right, she's sure, but this child needs a hospital. Rereading and re-checking the gauze and the blankets is helping her keep her cool, so to speak.
And oh, of course there was gauze and those sterile squares you put on wounds involved, because the boy has a head injury, which started bleeding somewhere between the courtyard and her rooms, and got all over her shirt. Not that she cares about the shirt, it's just clothes, and she's a Wizard and can clean it as quickly as blinking once she's got this child to a medical professional, but still.
"999, what is your emergency?" the operator asks.
"I need an ambulance," she snaps, dropping the book on the table and flipping the phone to her other ear. It's another several impatient laps of the room before someone finally answers again.
"Ambulance service," the operator says, "is the patient breathing?"
"Yes," she says, and begins to explain how she found a child outside in the cold, and he's hit his head and it doesn't look bad but she's worried and the streets are blocked by snow so she can't get him to a hospital herself and she doesn't even know who he is and-
"Ma'am," says the woman on the other end of the phone, "I'm afraid this doesn't sound like a medical emergency," and fuck, in her efforts to convince herself she wasn't going to have a dead child on her hands, she's managed to convince emergency services too, "but I'd be happy to transfer you to the police. They might be more able to help you."
"Shit," she swears, "wait, let me-" but the call is already being transferred. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration, and when she turns to continue pacing she is met with startlingly green eyes from the boy on the sofa, who is watching her warily. He pushes himself up onto his elbows and she hastily shoves him back down.
"Don't move," she says, and it comes out snappier than she meant it because she's just so stressed, "you hit your head. Just wait until I can get someone to come and help you, it shouldn't be long- oh, hello, yes I found a child outside- in the snow, yes, and he hit his head somehow and...his name?"
"To see if he's been reported missing, ma'am," says the man on the phone, "we've been getting lots of reports in the past few hours, lots of parents calling. His parents might be looking for him."
Right. Of course. "What's your name?" she asks the child. He blinks at her silently.
"I don't know." he says.
He- okay. He doesn't know. "He doesn't know." she tells the operator.
There's a pause, then he says, "Alright, ma'am, we'll uh...we'll see if we can send someone to pick him up. Where are you right now?"
He sounds hesitant, and she knows exactly why - the streets are piled with snow the likes the Castle hasn't seen in decades, and it's still snowing. The streets are nigh impossible to drive or walk or anything. Her shoes were soaked through and ruined in the brief walk to the manuscriptorium. How they'll get someone here to take the child is beyond her, but it isn't her problem.
"The Wizard Tower," she says, "top floor."
He breathes in sharply - not an uncommon reaction when people realise just who they are speaking to. "Madam Marcia Overstrand?" he asks, and she confirms it. "Oh, well that's excellent!" he says.
She narrows her eyes, even though he can't see her. "And why is that?"
"You're registered as an emergency foster carer, aren't you?"
She is. But she had made it very clear that she would not be taking children under fourteen, no matter what. Other people might not have been allowed to make that decision, but she was the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and really, there was no way they could refuse her. "I couldn't possibly-" she begins, and he cuts her off.
"I'll just contact social services to let them know about the boy, and someone will come and collect him in a few days, once the snow has melted." he says.
"Don't you dare," she says, but she hasn't even finished her sentence before he hangs up on her.
She stares at the phone, dumbfounded. The boy on the sofa is watching her. "Am I staying here?" he asks, eyes wide.
"No." she says, because he isn't, there has to be someone else. And he is still injured. He can't even remember who he is, he definitely needs to go to the hospital. She walks another lap of the room before she rings again, asking, again, for an ambulance. The same voice as before answers, asking if the patient is breathing.
"Yes, he's breathing," she snaps, "and he's hit his head and he was freezing in the-"
"Oh it's you again." says the woman, and hangs up.
Marcia throws her phone at the wall.
The boy laughs. "What did they say?"
Marcia picks her phone back up and makes a face at the newly shattered screen. "That you're staying here tonight." Even though I really wish you weren't, she doesn't say, because that's not the kind of thing you're supposed to tell children with amnesia and a head injury. Probably.
She shoves her broken phone in her pocket and turns back to the boy. "I need to check if you have a concussion." she says, and he blinks at her slowly.
"Okay," he says, then, "what's a concussion?"
"It's-" she's not sure how to explain it to a child. She's not sure how to explain anything to a child, because this isn't supposed to be her job. "When you hit your head, sometimes it can make you... sick. So I need to check."
"I don't feel sick," he says after a suspiciously long pause, "only a little bit, anyway."
Only a- right. Right, okay, fine. Only a little bit sick. She crouches down, and holds a finger in front of his face. "Does your head hurt?" she asks. He stares at her like he doesn't understand what she said. Which he might not have, if he has a concussion, which should be the hospital's problem, not hers.
She so, so wishes the Wizard Tower still had a sick bay. It was removed when the new hospital was build, over a hundred years ago. Apparently it was never all that good anyway, for normal injuries. She still wishes there was someone in the tower right now who knew anything medical. "Your head," she repeats, "does it hurt?"
"Oh," he says. "Uh. Yes. Kind of? Who are you?"
"Marcia," she replies, "Overstrand. I'm the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Are you dizzy?"
"Dad's talked about you!" he says, "He said you were rude but you're really nice. I'm not dizzy, I think. I'm not moving though. It gets worse when you move, right?"
She doesn't know what to say to that. Except- "Your dad? Do you know his name? I might be able to find him."
"Um." says the boy, fidgeting. He's getting bored of her poking around his head, and his responses are getting even slower. "No."
Shit. Fuck. "Do you know what he looks like?"
"Like me! Everyone says I look like him. And my brothers, I think."
So that narrows it down to oh, only every blonde family with at least three boys in the entire Castle. Except actually, fair hair isn't very common here. And he is a wizard.
She really hopes she's wrong.
She can't worry about it now anyway. The boy is all but falling asleep on the sofa. She pulls the blanket back over him, then adds a second one for good measure. He mumbles something and curls up, and within seconds he's asleep. Marcia breathes a sigh of relief, and hurries to her office to fetch her laptop and work phone. She does not remember Silas Heap's phone number, nor does she want to, but she does know his email.
She logs into her account, incorrectly typing her password twice before she finally gets in, and takes a picture of the boy with the phone. She sends it to herself and types up a very quick email: the picture, and the subject line "is this yours?"