Fortunate Omens

My fingers fumbled with the clasp at the back of my neck, an awkwardness brought on by the flush at my cheeks and the fluttering in my stomach. The sapphire teardrop fell neatly between my collarbones, an unfamiliar weight.

‘What do you think?’ I asked, posing to lighten my shoulders.

‘You wear it like you were born into royalty!’ Logan exclaimed, watching the teardrop with eyes nearly the same colour, blue like the sky, blue like the ocean, blue that you could drown in. I entwined one of my hands with his while pulling out my iPhone with the other, the camera showing the teardrop flashing above the wide red V of my dress.

‘Oh, and it matches,’ I said, angling my phone before taking a quick selfie and putting it down on the table. It truly was a beautiful gift, but…

‘It must have cost a fortune…’

‘If you are going to be a famous writer one day, you need to dress the part. We can’t have Alice Hall known for her shabby dress when her words are so eloquent,’ Logans reply came as smooth as ever, his eyes never left mine.

Compliments … my worst enemy.

Fumbling with my glass and hoping it came across as nerves and not hesitation, I raised my glass to his in a toast, praying the wine would ease the ill weight.

*

I twisted and pulled the covers up as a ray of light pieced even into my dreams, cocooning myself away from the rolling of the world around me. Barely even two drinks… that was all it took to keep me in bed all morning. My teenage self would be disappointed.

Tap tap tap tap tap

The noise cut through my thoughts, and I froze, the kind that you do when you are little and your brain decides there is something in the dark, only it was not dark, and I was not little.

I threw off the covers and was on my feet, ready to face whatever was there despite being in my grandma undies.

Nothing…

Tap tap tap tap tap

I relaxed some, but still peeked my head around and into the living room. Normal, except through the large window that looked over the Yarra river and Melbourne’s bustling CBD, a lone crow sat, watching.

I hate birds…

The culprit of the noise, the crow twisted its head one way, and then the other, staring in like it owned the place. I shook my arms at it, but it hoped side to side to mimic the shaking of my arms, and twisted its head almost upside-down, flaunting a white scar like streak on its left eye as it studied me.

‘Go away!’ I yell, but as was the norm with crows, they loved to defy humans.

Tap tap tap tap tap

‘Ugh!’  I pulled the blinds down, but even then, the crows shadow rest over the room.

‘Weird thing…’ I said to myself as I switch on the coffee machine. I was not sure if it was the bird, last night’s drinks, or the blue sapphire teardrop from Logan, but I flinched every time I glanced at the shadow, like the crow was watching. Wrenching my thoughts away from the silly bird, they settled on Logan.

It’s too fast, so sudden… I have barely been seeing him a month...

Relevant thoughts, but relevant thoughts that did not stop me from hanging the teardrop on my shoulders.

*

The office was quiet, most people didn’t bother coming in, what with working from home being so convenient, but when friends wanted to grab a drink after work and the change of space helped the creative juices flow, there was nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone. That was the idea, anyway. I still stared at the computer, unable to put down more than a sentence at a time without leaning back with a sigh of frustration, distracted by my wandering thoughts of last night. A bunch of flowers brought me back to reality, a momentary unease on my collar bone dissipating as I looked past the flowers to see the familiar brown eyes and grey-haired temples.

‘Dad!’ I exclaimed, jumping up and hugging him over the cubicle wall. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, I am not allowed to see my favourite daughter while she is working hard?’ he said, smiling a little more abashedly as I placed my hands on my hips and tilted my head. I always got him with that one.

‘I am supposed to take your mother out for dinner this Friday and I was wondering if you had any suggestions. The family writer usually has a word or two to give.’

‘I wish …  the words are misbehaving today, I can barely write a sentence,’ I said, plumping back into my chair, and staring at the few marks of black in the sea of white.

Strong hands grabbed the back of the chair.

‘Dad, what…’

‘Been a while since we last did this!’

‘NO!’

I began to stand, but the chair moved so suddenly, even in his fifties he could still whirl me on a chair like I was five. We darted and spun through two of the rows of desks before pulling off a wheelie. Curled into my chair as my stomach ached from bellowing laughter, Dad’s was just as loud as wrinkles formed crows’ feet near his eyes.

My laughter faulted and I touched the sapphire teardrop as I looked at his aging face. I hadn’t noticed how deep the wrinkles were getting.

‘Who bought you that?’ Dad asked

‘Just … someone I am seeing.’

‘Must be serious,’ Dad muttered, his voice taking on the defensive stance of a father. ‘I need to up my game it seems.’

The weight settled on my shoulders again at the thought of things getting serious. It must have shown as Dad pulled me in and kissed my forehead.

‘Text me an address, I will leave you to it. Love you lots.’

‘Love you, Dad,’ I replied pondering the blank document before me as the roots of an idea began to emerge.

Tap tap tap tap tap – my fingers clattered on the keyboard.

Dinner suggestions for Husbands wanting to spoil their Wives

A perfect title.

I grabbed the handle of my mug but jumped up as the handle cracked and it crashed all over my desk, shattering.

I stared at the broken handle, then down at the fragments of the mug which had once read: I have the worlds greatest Dad!

My shoulders slumped as I feared to tell him of the accident.

*

‘He bought you a necklace!’ Cass said as I unwrapped the scarf from around my shoulders to reveal the sapphire. I would have kept it on, but the café was too warm to avoid it.

‘Is he insane, it has only been a month! Tell her Marci.’

Marci, with her brown eyes that matched her complexion, shook her head.

‘I think it is romantic.’

‘Romantic is flowers!’ Cass said. ‘Alice, surely you cannot be taking old mate seriously! He is so desperate.’

Her eyes bore down on me.

‘Well… I.’

‘I mean, have you even slept with him yet!?’

That managed to bring out a laugh.

‘Cass, do you even know me?’

‘Ahh, so that is why he is buying you expensive things.’

I wanted to scream at her, but the burdening unease that pressed down drew the fight from me. Cass was partially right, surely this was too good to be true.

‘Leave off it, Cass.’ Marci said when I did not speak up, brown eyes also stopping on the sapphire. ‘Alice only attracts quality, that is why she is spoilt and you get stood up…’

The two of them broke out into a shrill, but I was lost in my thoughts. Logan was quality … he has only ever been a gentleman.

Tap tap taptap tap – The noise came from right over my shoulder, jolting me in my seat as I turned to see a crow, white feathers sticking out awkwardly over its left eye, watching me through the window. Cass, surprisingly, was just as moved.

‘Ugh, a bad omen has decided to stop by.’

‘What do you mean?’ Marci asked.

‘Crows are a cause of bad luck, sickness, and death. Plus, they are so ugly!’

‘Just superstitions,’ I replied, but not quite accepting my own words as I looked at the streak of white on the crow.

The feeling of weight didn’t leave as the crow kept watching me.

*

Tears rolled down my face as I stared out the apartment window, overlooking the evening lights of Melbourne’s urban sprawl. If one had looked in from the outside, the raindrops on the window would have prevented anyone from seeing the tears on my cheeks. I was happy about that, even on the twenty-fifth floor, I didn’t want anyone to think that I was a bubbling mess… I too often was for people to know about it.

‘How bad?’ I asked into the phone, overcoming the emotions from the news.

‘Doctors will know tomorrow; his leg was shattered badly as the car crashed over him,’ Mums voice came back through.

‘Okay.’

‘Your father is going to be okay sweetie, he is a strong soldier, he always finds a way to bounce back.’

‘He does,’ I said, touching the sapphire tear drop, the only one that I would ever let people see.

‘He is in safe hands; Doctor James Corvid has a good reputation for…’

I did not hear anything else Mum had to say, all I heard was the sound of the phone hitting the floor.

Tap tap tap taptap.

*

I normally hated trying to sleep in hospitals because of the uncomfortable beds, bustling nurses, and unprecedented beeps that let you know that people were still alive, but not this time, this time they helped me focus. I was so tired that I could feel deep rings underneath my eyes, but If I slept, I might dream of the Crow. If I slept, then Doctor Corvid could come into the room when I was not looking. I could not let the Crow near Dad. Every time something bad happened, there was always the Crow, watching. I stretched my neck and feel a tickle at my shoulder, pulling my attention away from Dad and to the door. The weight on my shoulders sometimes lined up with something happening, I had figured that out in the week that I had been by his bed after two surgeries and the long recovery. The itch was accurate as a knock echoed through the room. I braced, ready to escape the Doctor, but the adrenaline quickly left and I slumped under the fatigue as it was just a nurse and Mum who entered.

Mum put a warm hand on my shoulder, and I leant into her, she made me want to collapse into sleep, but I could not do it.

The Crow…

‘Alice, the nurse says that there is a man outside looking for you,’ She shook me as she said it, and I realised that I had been dozing.

A man…

‘Logan?’ I asked.

‘He didn’t say his name, but he had blue eyes,’ the nurse confirmed.

My hand instinctively went to the necklace. Logan, outside… but could I go outside? I glanced at the clock, 8:30pm… surely the Crow would asleep.

I trudged along the hospital corridors with arms wrapped around myself, trying to ease the burden. Not sure if it was because of Logan, or the Crow, always watching, and one slip up now could make Dad worse. There was a nurse holding the arm of a patient, she too hugged herself and was hunched as if under some great weight on her left side. Her dark eyes darted and never seemed to stop while she bit her nails down to the flesh. The nurse pulled the patients her hand away from her mouth, but it went straight back, as if nothing had happened. Again and again, she did this and I stepped past quickly, the darting eyes sticking with me the most, they looked too much like my own.

As if on cue, the doors opened to the carpark and my own eyes darted from rooftop to lamppost to billboard, and then scanned around at the rooftops again. It was dark, my eyes scanned again and saw nothing.

Surely crows go to sleep at night…

The Crow is always watching…

‘Alice!’ I was called by the smooth voice.

Logan.

He was waiting under the nearby streetlamp, bundled up against the cold that I hadn’t yet noticed.

As I neared, he pulled me into his embrace, but I barely felt him felt him there, barely felt the warmth of his body. The only that mattered was that I watched for the Crow.

One wrong move and Dad dies…

The Crow is always watching…

‘You are wearing the necklace,’ he said, smiling, letting me go.

I frowned, touching the teardrop.

‘Yes…’

He looked stricken, as if he finally saw into my eyes.

‘Are … are you okay?’

‘Are you really asking that? My father is in hospital, and the first thing you care about is if I am wearing the necklace that you bought me.’

His face softened, blue eyes drawing me in.

‘Alice, I haven’t heard from you since I gave you the necklace… I thought that I might have scared you off.’

‘You … you didn’t,’ I replied.

You did…

His hand reached out for mine, and I wanted it, wanted the safety of it … wanted to stop having to…

Tap…tap…tap…

‘STAY AWAY!’ I shrieked, turning, and running into the hospital, it didn’t count if I didn’t see the Crow. It couldn’t follow me.

Dad couldn’t die!

*

Hi, this is Logan, sorry I missed your call. Leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Beep.

‘Voicemail again…’ I mumbled. ‘Now I am the one getting stood up.’

I pushed the thought, with the phone, into my pocket as I swung through the door, a smile breaking out onto my face. Dad was eating breakfast and complaining to Mum about the small baguette that they had given him, always being one for plain old jam on sliced bread.

‘You won’t have to worry about it another day,’ Mum was fussing. ‘We are allowed to take you home right after you finish eating, so would you hurry up, I too would like something better to eat, not to mention a coffee that is something better than the paint stripper they give you here.’

Yes … proper coffee would be good.

I did wince at the ease at which I could push his wheelchair as we exited out of the hospital doors, but that was the only thing on my mind as the sun shone through the high-rises and down onto my face. The overwhelming weight I had felt had melted away when the doctors had told us that Dad was through the worst and truly on his way to recovery. I still checked the sky, and while I saw a dozen pigeons, there was no sign of the crow. I couldn’t help the slight feeling of embarrassment even as I dropped Mum and Dad home, before returning to my apartment.

I spread open the windows, letting the breeze disturb the dust that had settled in the time spent at the hospital. The coffee machine greeted me with its customary grinding as it returned to life. I undid Logans teardrop necklace and placed it on the bench, it felt wrong wearing it after scaring him away.

I hit the button to the TV, the background noise helped battle the scream of the milk frothing.

‘Police have apprehended a man for drugging and kidnapping four women in the last month…’

I spilled the milk over the floor as I saw Logan being shoved by police into a van. I froze, the same kind that you do when you are little, but this time I retreated, unable to process as I moved to the linen cupboard for a hand towel that could clean the mess. Logan … my handsome suitor. Vile weight fell on my shoulders for the first time since Doctor Corvid discharged Dad.

The necklace…

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap taptaptap.

Racing back into the kitchen, there the Crow with the white scar celebrated out on the balcony railing. Jumping to the left, right, and then left again, dancing as it held the blue sapphire teardrop in its beak. It studied me with its black eye for a moment, before leaping out and into the updraft, floating up and away on the wind. Free.

‘Thank you, Crow…’