Quiet at that hour and in such brutal cold, the forest sounded only of his passage, but at least he could keep his eyes open. He found it easier to concentrate on Norah and remember the outlines of their deception, the jump through the ice, the phantom illness. She would be waiting for him, eager for news.
Such conspiratorial thoughts hastened his steps, kindled his own eagerness to see her, and he did not notice the first bird alight on the path, ankle-deep in the snow some thirty feet ahead. Only when a second crow and a third landed nearby did he sense anything unusual. The crows seemed to watch as he drew near. Black feathers and jet beaks, fathomless eyes. Sean walked not four feet from the one on the ground before it hopped and winged to the others in the low branches, croaking a warning. He stopped beneath a beech and watched them watching him. The perfect exhilaration of solitude shattered, and he began to want someone with him. From a hole in the canopy another bird appeared, and then a pair glided between the trees to join the gang. Three more snuck up behind him, trilling and rattling deep in their throats. More birds flew in from every direction and settled in the trees or strolled about in the snow like a mob of priests in their cassocks, hands locked behind their backs, plotting some misdeed. As long as he did not move, Sean thought, they did not see him or pay him any heed. Fixed to the spot, he watched the dark assembly. One of the larger birds jumped from a low branch to the path, cocked its head left, then right, considering what might be done about the trespasser. The crow cawed once and filled the woods with echoes. The leader's caw set off a chain of vocalizations, a raucous call and response, and as it grew louder, the sounds joined together, mixing from cacophony to harmony. In an almost human voice, they spoke his name: Sean, Sean, Sean.
Beyond the murder of crows, on the point where the path of escape rose and crested, stood Norah, diaphanous in white, the glasses gone, the ragged smile replaced by perfect teeth, her hair brilliant as a halo. Through the din of his name came her voice, a simple command in a language he did not understand, and at the order, the birds stopped as one. The outliers in the high branches took off first, and then the others in twos and threes, chattering among themselves, lifted away muttering and grumbling, and he watched until the big leader hunched his shoulders and beat the air beneath his wings to disappear from the woods. When Sean looked back down the path to find the girl, she had vanished. A ring of perspiration dampened his scarf, and his hands were hot and moist in his mittens. He took one step on the rise toward her house. There was nothing in the woods. No sign the encounter had ever happened, and he did his best along the way to erase the impression that it had.
Mrs. Quinn answered the door, her eyes dark with shadows, fluttering nervously as she ushered him in. Her hands shook when she took his coat and scarf, and it took several moments before she could find her voice. “She's much better this morning,” she said. “You kids gave me a fright. A fever and that cough, you'd have thought she would bring the house down.”
With a quick hand she smoothed Sean's cowlick, and stopped to look at him for a moment. “She's upstairs if you like, but don't get too close and don't wear her out.”
He was four steps up the stairway.
“And don't stay too long. She needs her rest.”
He tiptoed into Norah's room and waited for her acknowledgment. Propped up against the pillows, she lay like a queen in her velvet robes, the down comforter barely revealing the contours of her thin body. Beside her on the nightstand teetered a pile of paperback novels—Little Women, Black Beauty, Charlotte's Web, The Jungle Book—and on top of the books a box of pastel chalks. Spread across her lap, an open sketchbook. He was surprised to see her there, wondered if she could be in two places at once. Norah started to smile before lifting her gaze from the paper.
“What news do you have, my spy?”
“Are you still sick? You want me to get some chicken soup?”
She raised her eyebrows and crinkled her lips in puzzlement. In the cathedral of her bedroom, sunlight rushed through the openings between the slats of the drawn blinds, suffusing the space with a pale yellow. Bedazzled, he did not know what to do next.
“How do you do those tricks?” He edged to the foot of the bed. “Where did you learn that magic?”
“Not magic.” Bending to her drawing, she scribbled furiously, the pencil a blur in her hands. “Miracles and wonders. All part of the plan.”
Uncertain whether to believe her or not, he fidgeted with a crocheted loop that threatened to unravel from the bedspread. He remembered what day it was. “Do you think the groundhog saw his shadow this morning? If he sees his shadow on the second day of February, that means six more weeks of winter. No shadow, we get an early spring.”
“Hah! Superstition.”