Magpie: One is for Sorrow
Prologue
Sherlock watched the magpie as it dropped from branch to branch, moving down the large oak tree. Then, in a flash of white, black and iridescent blue-green, it swooped down to the lawn. After a moment to settle its feathers, it hopped along, turning its head inquisitively, listening and looking at the lawn.
"You're way too optimistic." Had he said that out loud? Sherlock couldn't be sure. In the state he was in right now, conversations tended to happen in his head. In any case, the bird ignored him. It was too late in the year to catch an early worm; the winter solstice was tomorrow, and the ground was hard frozen, the grass white with frost. Then he shook his head. Too slow. His brain was still so fogged by the last two weeks that he was making basic mistakes like that. He knew that magpies didn't eat worms; if it was foraging on the lawn, it would be looking for beetles. Corvidae Pica Pica, the magpie was an omnivore. At this time of the year, a large proportion of its diet would be carrion, small mammals killed by the cold, or road kill- rabbits and pheasants. Magpies weren't choosy, but they didn't bother with worms.
He'd come out here, to the far end of the Hartswood Manor garden to sit on a wooden bench. Behind him the bare limbed trees of a shelter belt planting cast shadows onto the lawn. The sun was so low in the horizon even at midday that it gave no warmth. The cold matched his glacial mood.
Unbidden, out of the dim recesses of his Mind Palace came a fragment of memory- a small boy watching a similar bird, whilst trying desperately to avoid crying. He'd run to the woods to escape a tongue lashing from his father, for yet again messing something up. He couldn't remember what it was that provoked the verbal assault. But he could remember the bird's harsh chirring call grating and rasping against his senses, already set on edge by the confrontation.
Frank Wallace handed him a tail feather. "This one's from its mate. Sammy had to kill it with an air rifle yesterday."
"Why?" Sammy was the underkeeper. Sherlock didn't like him much. He never had time to answer questions, and once told him that he "didn't have time to waste talking to morons who wouldn't look him in the eye". Sensibly, Sherlock avoided Sammy, but sought the company of Frank. Frank Wallace was much better with questions, and he didn't mind that Sherlock wouldn't look at him.
The Scotsman answered his question. "Caught it stealing eggs in the partridge huts; magpies are thieves. Now this male's hanging about wanting to know why its call isn't being answered."
Sherlock examined the tail feather. Not quite as long as a pheasant's, but nearly; broader, more like a flight feather. It shaded from a light brown at the base by the quill through a shiny emerald green into a vibrant bright blue before ending at the very tip in the darkest shade of indigo. It was the most beautiful feather he'd ever seen, and the urge to cry disappeared at the sight of it.
The bird was still chattering, its raspy cry echoing through Parham's North Woods.
"Why does it sound so cross?"
"Because it's alone now."
"But there are lots of other magpies around. Why does it care about the one that is gone?"
"Magpies mate for life. This one will mourn- that's what he's doing now. When he realises that his mate is truly gone, he will try to find another. If he doesn't succeed, then he's most likely to be dead of grief by the end of the winter. That's what the rhyme says anyway."
"What rhyme?"
Frank sat down on the stump beside Sherlock. "It's an old one; been around for years:
"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.
Eight for heaven,
Nine for hell;
And ten for the devil's own sell."
"What does it mean?"
The gamekeeper smiled. "Whatever you want it to mean, Sherlock."
Looking at the solitary bird hopping about on the frosted grass of Hartswood Manor, he thought he might finally understand what that magpie so long ago had been complaining about. To comprehend truly what it means to be alone, one had first to experience what it meant to be not alone. He was surrounded by people now, and yet Sherlock had never felt so alone.
One is for sorrow.
