Ch. 2 - One for Sorrow, Two for Joy

I began my newfound and faithless life unburdened by the ever-amassing weight of divine judgement. No longer held captive by the tenets that once shackled my everyday life, I trod a far more interesting and liberating path through a once meager reality. Freeing as it was, English society held a singular disdain for the occult and taboo, I however, was far more open-minded. Though despised as it was to deal with self-proclaimed spirit healers, soothsayers, witches, warlocks and magicians, their frequent comings and goings at my office on Drury Lane seemed much like any other day; nothing more than mere clients to add in the ledger books. They became my navigators in those undiscovered black waters; teachers and guides for a newfound and most enthusiastic pupil. It was earnest at first, but it had not taken long for my boundless means to fuel grand ambitions.

I had not considered so many possibilities at the beginning. After leaving the misery and grinding mendacity of the church behind, it was on those cold stone steps of Saint Paul, that came an epiphany. There was an empty, dark light glowing that morning. The burning sun was naught but a dim and anemic shadow in a gray and billowing sky. Distant thunder rumbled and rolled across the far-flung countryside as a cold morning wind bit at the exposed skin of my cheeks. On most other days, I might have cursed that weather, thinking always of the haggard crawlers beneath the windows of my office, left to shiver and sop in unrelenting hardship, but on that day those thoughts didn't come.

I was greeted on that forlorn and frigid morning by a single crow perched upon the rusted wrought iron fence of the churchyard. Calm and inviting it was. It cawed at me, once, twice, thrice - a most kind and proper greeting as I strolled down those old timeworn steps. Similar in such, that Peter had denied Jesus thrice at the crowing of a rooster, now the thrice called cawing of a crow affirmed my rebirth. Thus, the satisfying face of irony offered me its most hearty greeting by way of corvid curiosity.

Unbothered by my passing it was. Peculiar, as crows and rooks were always timid and watchful, ever unwary and untrusting of strangers. That one, however, seemed more like a familiar acquaintance. Preening and grooming itself 'twixt each slow step I took closer to his roost. I had expected it to take flight as I came ever closer, but it remained stoic and vigil only offering the calmest of interests to my cautious approach. Such a deep black, smooth and silken, like ink spilled in water. Each step I took, it cocked its head, silent and unafraid, inspecting my person as though judging some unforeseen worthiness. It took flight as I reached to touch it. The abrupt fluttering of wings was a lightning bolt in my drifting, awestruck mind. A jagged, icy breath shocked its way into my lungs as I started out from my stupor. The biting fangs of the wind had ceased as I stood there, admiring the helical fall of but a single feather. Lightning cracked across the sky, striking a fierce white light through the cold gloom of that tired, and infirm morning glow as the feather came to rest in the brown, dried grass of the churchyard.

The deep, beleaguering chime of Saint George's bell rang through the pervasive rolling thunder. Each strike hung in the air, rattling my ears as the ringing ebbed like waves on the shore before it struck again. Startling though it was, there was a remarkable comfort in it. As I bent over, the kiss of the cold dew of that morning caressed my fingertips as I pinched the feather 'twixt thumb and forefinger, plucking it from the ground. I spun it back in forth in my grasp as I appreciated its simple and elegant beauty. Droning on, the warming rhythm of the church bell gonged like the steady, somber heartbeat of the earth.

One for sorrow.

The saying hung in my mind like dangled from a string, twirling about like the feather in my hand. It was the beginning of an old, superstitious nursery rhyme about crows. I recalled it as I thought of the old, black-veiled gypsy woman who would recite it as she comforted babes of the working women of her family. Always she sat at the stoops of the Drury Lane workhouses, whispers and rumors blanketing her dark and unsettling mystique. Those loquacious lots of the simple masses always talked of her being a spell weaver; a channeler of the mysterious and unseen things beyond.

Tucking the feather into the ribbon of my top hat, I drew in a slow and delicious breath of that icy air. I tightened my waistcoat as one drop of rain tapped upon my shoulder, then another. Settling on my new course, I strolled through the roar of stormy rains, untroubling and untroubled by whatever misery it had meant to bring. I had my inspiration—my newfound purpose, and I had my first peak in which to plant my flag. At each strike of the church's bell, I continued the rhyme as I strolled through those forlorn, stormy streets.

Two for joy.

Three for a girl.

Four for a boy...

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The old, beggarly gypsy woman was as always at her haunt, crumpled and bent, leaning against the dilapidated threshold of a dirty and decaying building, quietly rotting away at the corner of Drury and Long Acre. Her veiled head hung low as she pulled her black rags tight against herself, trying in vain to seek a meager ward from the freezing storm. She was drenched, head to foot and shivering as she curled there in the doorway, paying no mind to my gentle approach. I had never spoken to her nor paid her any form of attention for that matter, as she was like all the other crawlers, an ambiguous face. Yet another anonymous shadow cast upon the dark horizon of the stormy moonlit seas of misery.

"Pardon, ma'am," I called through the roaring of the rain and thunder.

Coarse coughs interrupted her contemptuous silence as she pulled her rags tighter, only peering up a moment to take me in. "You are the one from that office," her voice was raked out like the scraping of dirt beneath wood planks.

"I am, ma'am."

She rubbed her feeble hands together before tucking them back inside of her soaking rags as she looked toward the direction of my office. "And what do you want with me?"

I gestured toward my office away in the distance. "I wish to offer you a place out of this rain and cold, and the pleasure of your company, ma'am."

She scoffed and shook her head. "You folk hardly give us a glance. What is it you want?"

I scanned the rain-soaked street. Shadows and blurred silhouettes dotted each corner and crevice, one destitute soul after the other, each seeking what little shelter was to be had from the storm. She was after all, correct, for we hardly paid them any mind. It was simply the way of things, and there was naught I could do to change that.

I relented to her indifference, understanding she knew I had other motives beyond simply offering a charitable shelter. "Is it true what the others say about you?"

Another cough shattered the cadence of the rain as she choked out a light laugh. "They're always afraid. Always afraid until they want their fortunes told. I'm not a fortune teller."

"What are you?"

She shook her head as she curled into her rags. "An old, tired woman who only wishes to be left in peace."

"I think you're more than that."

Her dark eyes shot up to meet mine. "Leave me be!"

The cackles and cawing of a crow cut through the din of the morning storm. It carried on the air uninterrupted and unblemished by the ruckus. Creases and fissures in her brow curled and deepened as she tilted her head at the sound. Taking me in, she fixed her gaze at the feather in my hat.

"One for sorrow," she said, shifting her weight on her perch before freeing her wrinkled, twisted hands from her drenched wrappings. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at that feather.

I didn't understand, but the sound and feather in my hat had roused something in her. An interest, or perhaps a fear. Whatever it was, broke her free from that stark indifference and the callous disregard for her meager situation and my irritating presence. her iciness melted away to a far more agreeable woman.

I offered her my hand as I bent low, a thin stream of rainwater cutting my vision before me as I gave her a gentle smile. "Two for Joy," I replied.

Her icy hand grasped mine, feeble and thin was her grip, but she managed to pull herself up. She hadn't returned her own smile, only deeper sternness sunk into her already sunken face. "You've no idea what you're asking me."

"I'm asking how many crows you see with me, ma'am."

She rubbed her hands again before looking to the sky. "Everyone wants to know, until they know."

I offered her my arm, and her pale, bony hand hooked around it as she pulled her feeble frame toward mine. An odd heat wormed its way about us. I couldn't deduce if it was from some internal zeal she managed to disguise, or the curious and prying eyes of those sodden silhouettes hunkered in the nooks and recesses of the street, but it followed us as we made our way down Drury Lane. Two crows, awash and storm ridden, en route to a homely nest.

Two for joy.