Summary
Chapter 32
Back at school, Rasputin welcomes Michael. Leakey and Coot still tease him about Mina. In science class, Rasputin says they are moving on to the human body, and he opens up a poster of the insides of a man. He has them feel their heartbeats. Michael sees Leakey looking at him, and he knows he wants to be friends again.
At lunch, Michael plays football as hard as he can and does very well.
They have Miss Clarts for reading and writing next. Michael writes a story about a boy exploring abandoned houses who finds a tramp who happens to have wings growing from him. The boy feeds him and he becomes strong. He has a friend named Kara, and the man teaches them both how to fly. Miss Clarts has tears in her eyes; she tells Michael he has a real gift and he should keep practicing.
Right after this, though, the secretary comes in and tells Miss Clarts that they need to see Michael because his dad is on the phone.
Michael knows it is the baby. Dad says that he and Mum need to go talk to the doctors about a procedure. Michael will stay with Mina and her mother. Dad says that Michael is brave, but Michael trembles and knows he is not.
Chapter 33
At Mina’s, the two children paint pictures. Mina paints Skellig, and Michael asks what would happen if her mother saw. She shrugs and says it could be anything; William Blake always saw angels and spirits.
Mrs. McKee pulls out a book of Blake drawings and says it would be nice to see some of these beings. She then ruffles the children’s hair and says it is enough to have these angels here. Michael thinks of the baby, and then wishes he could see Mina’s wings again.
Mina whispers that she went to see Skellig again; she came for Michael first, but his dad said he was at school. Skellig asked her why Michael abandoned him for school, Mina said he did not abandon him and that he loves him. Michael whispers that he does indeed love him. Mina adds that she told Skellig that Michael was worried about the baby, and Skellig said Michael must keep coming to see him.
After a moment, Mina also confides that Skellig says he is going away soon but does not know when or why. Michael’s hands tremble. He grabs more paper and draws Skellig flapping across the sky.
Chapter 35
All evening, the children sit at the table and draw. Michael draws his family, Mina, Skellig, Ernie, and more. The more he draws, the freer he feels. He draws the baby over and over again, feeling their connection. He draws the world as the baby might see it, and then he draws Skellig there at the ward.
Mina looks at his drawings and marvels that he is getting bolder—he couldn’t have done these before. He shrugs and says it is practice.
Night falls and they wait for a phone call. Mrs. McKee and Mina sing, and Mina laughs that she will get Michael to join in someday soon.
Mina shows Michael an owl pellet and the bones of a small animal inside. She whispers that it is one she found near Skellig. They are both incredulous and wonder what he is.
Finally, Dad calls and says that the baby is fine and tomorrow they are going to operate on her heart. He is still talking, but Michael has dropped the phone in shock.
Chapter 36
Mina and Michael sit outside, waiting for Dad’s car headlights to shine into the dark. Michael asks what it means that Skellig eats living things and makes pellets like owls. Mina shrugs that she does not know—she does not know why her father died, nor why his sister is sick, but sometimes it is okay not to know everything. You have to see and you have to imagine.
They talk about what baby blackbirds must dream about. Michael holds his hand to his chest and thinks about his baby sister and her heart. He closes his eyes and feels Whisper’s claws, wishing he was alone like Skellig. Mina calls him brave.
Dad pulls up, and fear floods Michael.
Chapter 37
It is a long, seemingly endless night. Dad and Michael fight over whether or not Michael should go to school. Finally, they hug and cry. Dad says Michael can go with Mina and he will come and get him when the operation is over.
Mina and Michael go into her garden. She admonishes Whisper about scaring a bird. Michael isn’t sure what they are doing there, but she explains that the fledglings are starting their life outside the nest because they can’t fly. They are nearly alone and their parents have to bring them food. It is very dangerous for the fledglings. Their parents come back and forth all day and the next with food. Mina sighs that cats or crows might get them.
Dad comes out to say goodbye and looks at the fledglings with them. He says they are lovely, and he looks deep into Michael's eyes. He tells his son to keep believing.
Chapter 38
Mina’s mother brings tea and talks of the goddess Persephone and the life that springs up amid death. Michael wonders if this is just a myth, but she tells him to look around. Michael imagines Persephone working her way through the earth, struggling, and enduring.
Michael and Mina go for a walk. He feels like he is in a dream state. They arrive at the abandoned house, looking forward to seeing Skellig, but they can’t find him anywhere.
Michael is shaken—he cannot feel the baby’s heart anymore. He sees blackness, then nothing.
Chapter 39
Michael comes to and murmurs for Mina not to call Dr. Death. She assures him she will not. He is distressed because he can only feel his heartbeat, not his sister’s. This makes him think she is dead, though Mina tries to tell him that he does not know that.
She helps him up and they look for Skellig. As they do, Mina confides that William Blake used to faint sometimes because the soul could leap out of the body and then leap back in. Sometimes it happened when a person had fear or pain—or even too much joy.
Michael’s body feels heavy and his mouth dry. They walk back to Mina’s house, and Michael wideners if Skellig has gone away forever.
Chapter 40
Mina’s mother opens a pomegranate and they share it. Michael dreams of Skellig lying about, and the children watch the blackbird parents feed their young. Michael is still worried because the baby's heart is not with his.
Mrs. Dando cycles by with more work and comments for Michael. Miss Clarts has a note saying for Michael to write a story like the one he wrote last time.
Michael closes his eyes and wants to imagine nothing. Skellig is gone, the baby is dead, and the world is cold and terrible. Dad drives up, parks, and comes over to Michael. He says, “It’s over, son” (156).
Chapter 41
Michael is wrong: the baby is not dead, and she is snoring peacefully. Dad and Michael stand with Mum looking at her. Mum says there was a moment when they thought they lost her, but she made it. A nurse enters and smiles that the baby has a heart of fire.
The family wonders what to name her. Michael suggests Persephone, but his parents say that that is a mouthful. Dad looks down at her and admires her smiling, angelic face.
Suddenly, Mum starts to say something, stops, and then proceeds. She says she was lying there last night, barely sleeping, watching the baby, and dreamt—though it seemed like she was awake—that a filthy, ancient man with matted hair was in the room. She wanted to scream at him and protect the baby, but she saw his eyes and how tender he was. She realized he was not there to harm the baby, but rather to help her. He reached down and picked up the baby; they looked into each other’s eyes, and it was like they were dancing and they both had wings. The man put the baby down, looked at Mum, and left.
Mum continues that she slept peacefully and was not worried anymore in the morning when they took the baby away. She smiles at Michael and says it must have been because of him asking about shoulder blades.
The baby twitches and Dad wonders what she’s seeing. Michael whispers to himself that it is Skellig.
On the way out, Michael sees Dr. MacNabola. He runs over to him and asks if he remembers his friend with arthritis, and says that he is getting better. The doctor exclaims that that is splendid. Michael asks sincerely if love can help a person get better. The Doctor pauses, and then quotes two lines of poetry.
Michael asks if that is William Blake, and the surprised Doctor says there is an educated man before him. He smiles sincerely for the first time and looks at Michael. He says that he hopes he and Michael's friend will never have to meet.
Michael rushes back to Dad, who asks what that was about. Michael says nothing, and Dad calls him a “mystery man.”
On the way home, the two are jubilant. They sing and laugh, and Michael shows Dad his hooting. They decide to order 27 and 53.
Chapter 42
Mina and Michael are walking after dusk, carrying the remnants of 27 and 53. Michael tells Mina about what his Mum saw; Mina says that is extraordinary, and that Skellig would always be there for them. She fills him in on how the fledglings got stronger with the worms and kept jumping up higher out of harm’s way.
The two children enter the abandoned house. Skellig is not there, but they sit down against the wall near the windowsill. Michael asks if Mina can feel the baby’s heartbeat next to his. She concentrates, and after a moment, she smiles that she can. She begins to sing a William Blake song and Michael joins in, to her delight.
Suddenly there is a rush of air and something large blocks the sky. It is Skellig, and he gasps for breath as his wings settle down. His voice is strained but he is happy to see them. They give him the food and he calls them a pair of angels.
Michael says that Skellig went to his sister. Skellig smiles and replies that she is a pretty little thing. Michael says he made her strong, and Skellig only says that she is glittering with life and gave him strength.
He touches the children’s faces and says he is exhausted but is getting stronger now. Michael knows he is going away, but Skellig will only say “Somewhere” when Michael asks where he is going. Michael asks what he is, and Skellig says, “something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel” (167).
The three form a circle, hold hands, and look into each other’s eyes as they dance. It ends, and they come back down to earth. Skellig thanks them for 27 and 53 and for giving him life again.
The children walk to the door and Skellig gazes back at them. They step out into the night.
Chapter 43
At school, Michael is brilliant on the football field. Leakey compliments him and they laugh and wrestle. They collapse, and Leakey says it seems like Michael has been miles and miles away. He wonders if Michael will tell him about it, and Michael says that, one day, he will tell him everything.
Chapter 44
Day after day, Dad and Michael work on the house. They visit Mum and the baby in the hospital. The baby is getting stronger; her bandages are getting smaller; she smiles, wriggles, and sticks her tongue out. Michael and Dad eat a lot of Chinese takeout, and Michael tries different food.
Mina anxiously awaits the baby. She and Michael go to the attic one more time. They find three small white feathers next to a scratched note: ”Thank you. S.” They watch the owls, beautiful and savage.
Chapter 44
The builders come on Saturday to inspect the garage. One of them, Mr. Batley, recommends they tear it down and start from scratch, and Dad agrees.
Dad and Michael clean out the garage. They are covered in dirt, dust, and bugs, but they finally finish their project and everything gets hauled away.
Michael looks into the garage and sees the takeout containers, dead bugs, and bottles. He whispers goodbye to Skellig, while Mr. Batley remarks that there must have been a vagrant there at some point.
The builders knock the structure down as Dad and Michael watch. They plan what they’d like to do in the garden for the baby.
Chapter 45
On a bright and beautiful Sunday, the baby comes home. Michael slips one of the feathers from Skellig under the mattress. He looks outside and dreams of what the garden will be.
The car pulls up and Michael trembles. Mum brings his sister in and he nervously welcomes them home. Mum smiles at him while he holds his sister up high. She gurgles and touches his face. She smells milky. salty. and mysterious, and her dark eyes look into his own—to where his dreams are.
The family sits there, unsure what to say. They smile eventually, laugh, and cry.
A gentle knock sounds. It is Mina, shy and quiet like Michael’s never seen her before. She politely says hello to his parents and leans down to see the baby. She gasps and calls her beautiful and extraordinary.
After a moment, she takes out something and says she brought a picture that the baby might like. When she unrolls it, they see an image of Skellig. Mum catches her breath and looks like she wants to say something, but doesn’t. She tells Mina it is lovely.
Mina bids the family goodbye, and Michael watches her walk away. Whisper follows her. When she bends to pet him, Michael thinks he can see the outline of wings.
Inside, Mum and Dad are talking about names. Michael says Persephone again, and Dad says it is a mouthful. In the end, they call her Joy.
Analysis
By the end of the novel, much of what was troubling to Michael has been sorted out: Skellig has improved, his baby sister lives, he has a better relationship with his friends, and the house is coming along. Almond is careful, though, to not make things too perfect or unrealistic. Skellig improves but is gone; the baby, now named Joy, will still have to be monitored closely; and Michael will have to balance Mina and his schoolfriends. Skellig is neither bleak nor excessively optimistic; as Elizabeth O’Reilly writes, “Almond…enchants and captivates his young readers but also ‘stretches’ them, both emotionally and intellectually: life is not an easy ride, but an adventure, a path of learning and self-discovery that inspires and challenges you to find your own potential.”
Almond leaves the reader with a multitude of unanswered questions about Skellig. It is clear that Michael and Mina’s ministrations have helped Skellig, but Skellig also says that the baby helped him. We still do not know who or what Skellig is, though he gives Michael a charmingly ambiguous answer: “Something like you, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel” (167).
Critic Susan Louise Stewart sees the figure of Skellig as something else: “a convergence of ideas associated with Christianity—angels and heaven—and ideas associated with the science of evolution.” Even the name “Skellig,” which she notes Almond created with immense care, has ambiguous meaning. Kerry Skellig is a region in Ireland with the remnants of a 6th-century monastery, but on that same island is the oldest set of footprints of an amphibian walking onto a land surface in the world; thus, religion and evolution exist harmoniously together. The word “skell” can mean numerous things as well, such as a shortening of the word “skeleton.” The Oxford English Dictionary also notes that a skell is a “homeless person or derelict, especially one who sleeps in the subway.”
Ambiguity also features in the baby’s healing. Did Skellig heal her? Was Mum dreaming, or did Skellig really manifest himself to her? Almond’s choice not to answer these questions explicitly is his way of suggesting that the extraordinary in life—that which resists closure or pat answers—is what makes life magical and worth living. Stewart writes, “[the baby] is alive because of science (heart surgery), but she is also alive because of hope and faith and Skellig. She represents a perfect and sustainable blend and balance.”
At the end of the novel, one of the things that Michael feared—the garage being torn down—happens, but it is not the melancholy event he thought it would be. Skellig was always associated with the garage: both were rundown, full of or actual discarded things, decrepit, ailing, and seemingly irreverent. Skellig started to heal once he left the garage, and at the end of the novel when he leaves the children after he regains his full strength and purpose, the garage has no need to stand there anymore. The family can rebuild, just as Michael is rebuilding himself thanks to the learning experiences he has undergone with Skellig, Mina, the birds, and the baby.
