The Short Life of Sparrows

THE
SHORT
LIFE

Of

SPARROWS

BY

Emm Cole

This book is entirely fictional.

All names, places, and incidents are

based solely on imagination
.

Copyright 2014
by Emm Cole

Any use of this publication must be done with the written consent of the author.
 

To David,

You are my constant,

always and forever.

1

CALLI

A
Seer is not meant to keep her joy. I’ve been told this since I was five. On the eve before my eighteenth birthday, Aunt Lil reminds me of that which I can’t forget. Lil’s knobby fingers waver as she fits me for my Awakening dress. I hold my arms upward. The yellow fabric shimmers as she marks the delicate silk and lace with chalk.

“Don’t fidget, Calli,” Lil says, eyeing me as she holds a pin in between her teeth.

Most Seers choose something black or inexpensive, hoping to show the Coven Mistresses that they’re ready for their burden. Not me. I searched for the most stylish and showy cloth from the peddler carts. Lil didn’t say I should pick something else, only that I must pay the extra ten in silver if I insisted on it. At my Awakening, I want my freedom in those last moments—to be just a girl dancing on her name day—without caring about anything except for how beautiful my new dress is.

It won’t take long for the moon to bleed me dry of wishful thoughts. Awakenings are presented as celebrations, but underneath the music and the gifts is the silent ticking of the first dream that’s coming for me. The laughter and well-wishes are such a lie.

Last summer I watched as my cousin Daphne prepared for her Awakening. She chose colors for ribbons to cover the chairs and pastries to line the banquet tables. She and I were unable to sleep the night before her special day, trying to decide how we would roll our hair and guessing who would ask us to dance. I watched at her celebration as she was presented to the Coven Mistresses. We gave Daphne room near the fire to twirl and dance in her blue skirt. Turning beside her, I clapped for my cousin, giddy from stolen sips of Desertberry wine. I was thoroughly convinced of the elegance and excitement until midnight came. I didn’t welcome my jealousy at her nearly perfect night—and even today I feel guilt for ever thinking there was anything to envy.

As the full moon peaked in the sky, the drums and flutes faded. We huddled under the stars, wondering what her first vision was to be. Daphne hid her nerves quite well, shuffling into the middle of the circle we’d formed around her. She closed her black eyelashes tight under the silvery light. The horrific grip of Daphne’s dream was difficult to witness. The more weighted the dream, the more physically taxing it is on a Seer’s body. I could hardly stomach it.  She shook with the possession of a future event that seemed far too strong for her tiny frame.

Her arms and legs twisted with the pain of what fate showed her. The Coven Mistresses smiled and whispered to each other, pleased that the earth would share something of such substance with her. Murdoch and the Elders nodded too, as if in agreement that she’d seen something of great value.

Daphne twitched and dug her fingers at her dress until her lace sleeves were fuzzy tatters. The sweat pooled on her chest and neck. An anguished, heavy cry kept lurching from her lips. Her pinned curls fell in a loose mess around her paled face. It was right as the vision let her go that she retched all over the front of her gown. Even as I led her away, even as I tried to wash her face of the humiliation, she said nothing.

I still haven’t a clue what Daphne saw. She refuses to tell me what her Awakening dream was. That’s all I know about Awakenings. One moment you’re bursting with anticipation at having the biggest celebration of your life. The next is having dark and confusing images plague your mind. The earth shares the worst of the future with every Seer as she bridges into womanhood, but without comfort or explanation.

I bet you’re wondering—how is it that we’re so lucky? When I was little I clung to all of the stories I was told about our curse, without the slightest idea I could question them. There are many versions of why our women have our nightmares. My favorite was the one about a fallen angel who loved an Ordinary man. Even after she was cast to earth, she sang the angel’s language to her babies—teaching them the words to do various enchantments. So it goes that the angels were infuriated by her further insolence and by her half-mortal children calling upon these powers. Her daughters were all cursed to see the burdens of Ordinaries in their sleep, to remind the fallen angel of her rebellion—to cause her the ultimate pain of watching her posterity suffer.

That’s the beautiful and haunting version—like a fairy tale that soothed me as a little girl. I truly believed I was some holy result of an ancient seraph with wings. How self-serving and placating. Now that I’m older, I’m more inclined to believe a different version—the one where our own people were the reason for our downfall.

The other popular legend includes a woman of our coven falling for an Ordinary too. Only this time, the wrath she brought upon herself was from one of our men—a Nightblood who felt he’d been betrayed. As the council formed to address her possible crimes, this Nightblood raged when he realized all of the Seers were coming to her defense. He thrust her head down into the bonfire, sealing a curse on every Seer who reached the age of courting—using his former lover’s very screams to seal a magic that has yet to be undone. The leader of the coven shouted for the Nightblood to stop, but he was surrounded by many of his male counterparts who shielded their grief-stricken friend from punishment. Another curse was uttered, one to remind every Seer and every Nightblood of the consequences of using our power in moments of passion. To this day, for every chant we utter, a Seer’s skin will drain of the lively color that flushes her cheeks. Most of my fellow Seers don’t care, and they wear the mask of death with pride.

While most Seers would give anything to be rid of the dreams, the convenience of never having to work for anything trumps the strangeness of ashen faces. And the Nightbloods? Their veins twist to black, protruding from their skin and branching outward with every spell they do. It doesn’t even seem like a curse, not when Seers are throwing themselves at a Nightblood who’s marked in the dark blood of his doings.

So no, I can’t actually speak as to why we are a cursed people, but we certainly are. Even still there are those who suggest we put someone to the flame—to see if it will shatter this infection of a curse that keeps Seers from their sleep. But Murdoch always ends the conversation with a hand in the air to quiet our coven. As he puts it, our souls may be consumed by shadows, but that doesn’t mean we have to behave as monsters.

My coven likes to say we were born
enchanted
, but that’s just pretty speak for dysfunctional with a touch of magic. I flinch when Lil accidentally pricks my hipbone with one of her pins, and she chides me for moving.

It doesn’t matter whether the nightmares are approaching because of an impassioned angel or a scorned and sadistic Nightblood. The nightmares about Ordinary people are waiting to steal my rest from me. When your existence is to see splattered blood and lurking evils in your head—there’s only so much to be excited about. So instead I focus on the layered silky skirt that Lil is making me, and how it’ll be covered in lacy sheer scallops when it’s finished. No. A Seer dreams of all kinds of endings, but never a happy one for herself.

2

ISAIAH

T
here are three things in my bag—an extra shirt, a knife, and the piece of paper that tells me where I’m to go. I travel light, because there’s not any of my past worth carrying with me. I’m an Ordinary, but the Ordinaries have never cared much for the responsibility associated with orphans. Being a likely bastard who was left naked and screaming on the seat of a pastor’s carriage indicated that I was the result of some unmarried woman’s sin. That was eighteen years ago, and the only thing I’ve been granted since is the name Isaiah and scraps of necessities that nobody wanted.

The muggy stench of waste in a poorhouse never becomes bearable. Neither does sleeping with a knife in your grip. The other Ordinaries in the poorhouse have as little as I do, and when you have little—you don’t bother with asking before taking. The only thing that is ever shared in such cramped quarters is misplaced anger. My nose has a slight crook in it from such generosity.

When I found the wrinkled paper in the back doorway yesterday, it felt like maybe God had briefly glanced in my miserable direction. It was just there, stuck to the heel of my boot like a tumbleweed that was glad to be tangled and out of the wind’s angry pull.

Hired Hand Wanted
:

Must be willing to board for the duration of the summer months.

Discretion and ability to adhere to rules is a must.

Upon interview, potential hires will be given details about pay and duties.

None of this seemed strange. It was the last sentence that made me think I’d be the only Ordinary brazen enough to apply.

Aspen Coven ~ Northwesterly Road ~ Foot of Blackridge Mountain

Please bring the job advertisement with you, or admittance will be denied.

A red seal pressed the left corner of the paper, the shape of a sophisticated
L
. The oddest part about the job advertisement is that I’d always been made to believe that witches never associated with Ordinaries. There are whispers that those who get too close to the coven wall are never seen again. What use would they have for an Ordinary if they can spell magic as they please? It’s suspect for obvious reasons, but I’m desperate enough to inquire anyhow.

“You’re a lunatic,” a freckled, toothless man had slurred yesterday when I told him he could have my bed. “They’re probably cannibals,” he said as I’d taken my leave. “They’ll likely chop you to bits and use your bones to flavor their soup. Whatever happens there, you’ll never come back. Nobody ever does.”

Well, what would it matter when there’s no one to miss me? Without references, employment is almost unattainable. Besides, there are worse things than the prospect of death. Like sleeping in a room full of people who’d cut you open for two pieces of silver. Like smelling of piss, because you’re surrounded by those who relieve themselves on the side of your bedpost instead of looking for a pot. I could use work and a regular meal, and I’d take it even from unnatural beings. If it meant my food came without flies in it and my clothes didn’t have a chicken coop odor anymore, I’d probably be a stableman for the devil himself.

As I readjust the strap of my bag on my shoulder, I can feel the steepening incline of the narrowing roadway. The trees bend down over the dusty path, and I almost have to crouch to avoid my hat catching in the branches. The branches might as well be rearing snakes—the way the foliage coils over me. My shirt hugs my sweaty skin, and although the sun beats down through the gaps of snarled trees, I shiver.

Other than stopping at a stream to wash my face and satisfy my thirst, I’ve walked at a steady pace up the northern road all day. Wild thoughts gnaw at my brain. If I had anything to live for I might have turned back by now. They speak in evil tongues and cast binding enchantments. The men supposedly drink the blood of creatures with wings and skin lambs alive rather than waiting for the wool to spell a winter coat.
Or so I’ve heard
. Their woman are said to be able to tell the future misfortunes of Ordinaries too—to know all wars and diseases to come.

A gurgling fills my ribs, and I’m forced to eat the last of the biscuit that crumbled in my pocket. Hiking upward, I feel some relief at the trail widening again. I stop at the top of the hill, surprised to see I’m about to descend into an open green field. A wall as black and smooth as obsidian cuts across the wildflowers and high grass. It’s a handsome view. If the twisting stony mountain beyond the wall didn’t sway so inexplicably to one side, I’d dare to say my fears are unfounded.

I pull the battered piece of paper out of the sack, trying to iron the creases from it on my knee. With a deep breath, I trudge down the hillside. A polished metal door reflects blinding light ahead of me, something that I’m positive wasn’t there moments before.
It was just a continuous black wall, wasn’t it?
Stepping carefully through the tall grass, I don’t want to be responsible for altering a thing. I feel as if I’ve been scribbled into a dream—a perfect landscape—and one that will turn to a nightmare should I disturb even a flower.