Two and Twenty Dark Tales by Georgia McBride

Author:Georgia McBride [Month9Books]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Short stories, Teen, Love, Paranormal, Angels, Mother Goose, Nursery Rhymes, Crows, Dark Retellings, Spiders, Witches
ISBN: 9780985029401
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Published: 2012-10-16T23:25:53+00:00

One for Sorrow

Karen Mahoney

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret,

Never to be told.

– Mother Goose

THE first night the crow raps on my window with its hard beak, I have only just climbed into bed.

Tap-tap-tap.

Three times and then it waits, politely, staring in at me with hooded eyes.

Blink. Tap-tap-tap.

I don’t open the window that first night, but it returns the next. And then again the next.

On the third night, I relent.

I slide open the window, just enough for the crow to slip beneath, and it hops inside. The cold air freezes my breath into ghosts as I struggle to close the window again, while my visitor watches from the cracked wooden sill beside me.

Claws click as it shuffles to the edge and scans my room with those beady eyes.

Shivering, I jump back into bed and pull the comforter right up to my chin. The crow spreads its inky wings and flutters onto one of the carved bedposts by my feet.

We regard each other, the crow and I.

What does it want? If this was a dream it would be able to speak, and I could find out why it was here. We could have a conversation, and maybe it would even teach me the language of crows.

But the crow is just a bird and it doesn’t speak. It doesn’t even squawk. It only perches at the end of my bed, blinking occasionally, watching me until I fall asleep.

***

The next morning, the crow has disappeared.

It was a dream, after all. The window is shut fast, and my bedroom door is closed. There is no way in or out for a creature without human hands.

Disappointment nips at my heart. Something magical has been taken away from me. If it was just a dream, then maybe that means magic doesn’t exist—despite what my mother used to say.

But no matter the stories of my childhood, I know the truth: you can dream about magic, but dreams themselves aren’t real magic.

That’s when I find the black feather on the floor by the window.

So… not a dream, then.

My heart soars. I hold the feather reverently and twirl it between my fingers. I sniff it and it smells of licorice and the night sky. Winter sunlight from the window gleams cobalt blue along its fine edges, and I find myself wondering about the crow. Where did it come from? How could it leave my bedroom before I’d woken up? Where did it go, when it wasn’t tapping at my window or perched at the foot of my bed?

It was a mystery.

It was magic.

I wait for the crow to come back the next night, but I fall asleep despite the strong coffee I forced myself to drink before going to bed. I wake suddenly in the morning, still bone tired and dying to use the bathroom. I search the window ledge outside my frosty window, hoping for signs of the crow. Clues. Another feather, perhaps, or a four-taloned footprint. Anything.

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