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CHAPTER THREE. hospital is where the heart is. ( paper crane no. 775. )
TO SOME PEOPLE, the harsh and unfamiliar stench of citrus-scented bleach at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries would tingle their nostrils and water their eyes. But to Mint, it smelt like home.
From the moment she was born, the inside of a hospital ward was all she knew and remembered. Her earliest memory was her three-year-old self hysterically crying in her father's arms as healers jabbed needles into her fragile skin, poking and prodding her like she was some kind of dough, frightened and confused as to why this was happening. (It got easier to deal with over the years; the sharp pricking slowly became senseless and old. Instead, it was like greeting an old friend).
The sudden blackouts; the heart palpitations from her heart either going too fast or too slow; the dizziness; the chest pain — whatever it was, she always ended up back at St Mungo's. The same stuffy corridors; the same hideous cream wallpaper that was slowly but surely peeling off; the same menus and lumpy mash potato she had every dinner with no fail. It was home.
Well, a home between homes.
The McKinney family were soon regulars at the wizarding hospital. Mint had her own designated bed and Kale had his own seat in the visitor's tearoom upstairs, where he always sat with a book and a cuppa. Even if you'd never seen them in person, everyone at St Mungo's knew who they were. They were like ghosts in the night: heard but never seen. Kale and Mint. Mint and Kale.
She'd spent many of her birthdays there — many of Kale's too — blowing out a single candle and spending countless wishes on a miracle. A miracle that would heal her heart and save her life, allowing her to leave the same four walls she had become accustomed to. Albeit, her father became hopeless after her seventh birthday and soon enough, so did Mint. She gave up wishing on a shooting star and on a candle upon a cake. Wishes weren't strong enough.
From birth, the girl underwent operation after operation as the healers desperately tried to figure out what the hell was causing her body grief. What was possibly leaving her so weak and fragile? A lot of results came back for the symptoms she demonstrated, but unfortunately, there was always something that mismatched. It was all too complicated.
It wasn't until after the accident of Mint that healers finally realised was killing the little girl. How could they have been so blind!
"Mr McKinney?" One of the Mungo healers called from the doorway of the children's ward. "A word, if I may?"
Kale McKinney's gentle eyes peered up from behind his copy of Winogrand's Wondrous Water Plants by Selina Sapworthy he was quietly reading to a sleepy ten-year-old Mint, who lay between the thin sheets of the creaky hospital bed, trying to escape the coldness of the winter night. A soft smile had crept on his face at the sight of his daughter's tranquil state, but as he noticed the thick stack of papers in the nurse's arms, his smile faded into a familiar frown.
