《Magpie People》2 - LUCK

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Following Otho feels like something she has done before or will do again or has dreamt and then forgotten.

It may just be the oddness of the day, but she watches herself slip away (slip is such a cavernous word, one that speaks of water and accidents) from the mourning assembly and thinks that she cannot remember what it was like to know what to do. He isn't moving slowly - she saw him turn left, out of the cemetery that sits in the grounds of this estate, but he's out of sight when she rounds the corner. It's a bit like hide-and-seek, or tag, or some other game she used to play in the school fields. Those kinds of games scared her a little. The way that people would chase her until she was caught, even if she told them to stop, which she often did. It'd be fun, exhilarating, until the reality of not escaping dawned on her and there'd be a moment of panic, a need to be out of reach.

Emmeline remembers her grandmother telling her that this manor house, and the gardens (a vast expanse of green too bright not to have been paid for and trees so neatly beautiful that she wonders if they're real at all) within which the church and graveyard sit, were where Adelaide had won a prestigious award. She should probably remember the name. She'd never really been very curious about Adelaide's career though, much to the confusion of her parents. They'd been delighted to secure her tutorage with such a successful musician, even more delighted than Emmeline having an interest in something so... respectable. But the truth of it was that Adelaide's manner had impressed on her; her kindness that seemed to be without end, without cause. Emmeline had felt a desire to know her, not professionally but as a person. She wanted to play the piano with the same fervour, the same delicate, fiery earnestness. Music was honest, and she heard love in everything Adelaide played. It was beautiful. Even the critics agreed.

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She is preoccupied by these thoughts so much so that she almost misses him. Otho is sat on the second of a weather-marred set of steps, the old, stone kind that Cinderella might have lost a slipper on. He looks as though he has fallen and landed there, a glove halfway out of his pocket and his pose not entirely natural. He's the sort of boy that doesn't seem as though he is supposed to exist outside of photographs. He had an air of melancholy about him long before the tragedy struck him down. Emmeline pauses, then sits not-quite-beside him, a step above. The two of them look out at the grounds, the maze in front of them. Between two hedges there is a sliver of a view, a glimpse into it. She hopes there is something at the centre.

Otho exhales sharply, and she cannot tell if he meant to do it or not. Some people breathe in a way that is intended to attract attention - she wrote a poem about it once. It wasn't a very good one. He's crying and it's like he's never not been; quiet and ceaseless, silver in the light caught between day and dusk. He reminds her of a jigsaw. She shifts a little closer and shakes out the umbrella before holding it over their heads. Perhaps his eyes dart to her, but she isn't sure, is busy staring out at the darkness of the maze and feeling rain on her cheeks or maybe she's crying - there is a thick knot at the base of her throat, trapping her tongue in place. Emmeline can't finish a thought without getting sick of it so she recites an Emily Dickinson poem in her head instead and doesn't think, doesn't think, doesn't think. The act of 'not' doing a thing is more difficult than it sounds.

The quiet drapes them both in something sacred. Sound sort of vanishes, the constant drumming on the umbrella, the overflow of the fountain, the rush of blood; all are lost in muteness. A magpie lands in front of them. Of course it does.

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'One for sorrow.'

She startles at the voice, the same miserable, beautiful voice as before. She really hadn't expected him to say anything. Maybe she imagined it? Otho doesn't look at her, hypnotised by the bird, or maybe he's not seeing anything. Emmeline scrapes a reply from the back of her mind, although she can't tell if he'll hear her. 'Or luck.' It comes out a whisper, the way things she's not brave enough to say often do. She, too, watches the magpie, not wanting to meet his eyes. Meet his eyes. She likes that. Do you have to meet every part of a person? That sounds intimate. She really likes that. She wishes someone wanted to meet her eyes, hands, body, mind. She pushes the desire away.

'What?'

These words between them are so small, so absent, but they're taking visible effort from both of them. Help, she thinks, a prayer. She doesn't know what to do.

'Older versions of the rhyme, the magpie one, they have one for luck. Not sorrow.' As she says it, she abruptly has no idea where she learnt it. Did she make it up? Did she lie? She can't tell. Maybe.

He makes a sound that might be an acknowledgement. She shifts her attention to him. He really is beautiful in his grief. It's raw, human. Poetry. Tragedy. Awful, magnificent. Something is wrong with her, she knows.

'You look so sad,' she says, completely by accident. Nothing in her works how she wants it to.

'I am,' He says. He presses one finger into the gap between two knuckles on his other hand. 'I don't feel very lucky.'

She observes the gesture and wants to copy it. The honesty he has spoken with is not lost on her. She knows, feels in her stomach, that this is a moment that it is important she gets right. That could mean something. She regrets being so... her. This is absurd. What is she doing?

'I can't stand this,' she hears burst from her, is horrified, cannot stop. 'I can't- her being gone, I'm so sorry, the funeral was awful and I hate her being dead,'

He flinches, stares at her.

'I don't know how to grieve properly, I can't do anything-' Her breath runs out. She feels like air. 'Otho,' She says, helplessly, 'Oh God. I'm so sorry. How are you-' She means to say coping- 'Living?'

'I don't think I am.'

She snaps to herself, out of the dream she was in where her words don't have consequences. She said all that. Oxygen in her lungs, rain-soaked hair. When did she stand up?

He's looking at her again, hands shaking. Hers are too. She's crying.

'No.' She agrees with him. 'Or if I am, I'm going about it all wrong.' Why is she saying this? These are the thoughts she doesn't give voice to. It's bitter, tastes like blood on her tongue. Truth.

At last, inevitably, they face each other properly. He's so... engaging, in the focused, coincidental way he's always been, but sorrow dulls his edges. It's probably wrong to keep admiring the way mourning sits under his skin but she can't help it. He's a painting. Seconds that might have been minutes pass, taut overhead in the clouds. Something about extended eye contact with him (so clinical) makes her feel transcendent; a girl in a film, there to be watched, but she can watch in return. A two-way mirror. It occurs to her that he isn't a stranger, even though she barely knows him. The knife cuts both ways. Bizarrely, she almost smiles. Instead, she picks up the umbrella again and gives it to him. Gifts pass between them: for the first time, she has a poem hanging from her fingertips. He has her umbrella. They both, wholly inexplicably, have a sense of company. At least for a moment, the loneliness wrapped around each of them loosens. Something begins.

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