The Songbird

Chapter 2: Bad Omens

She sat at the river banks once again, gazing at a rippling reflection that could never be hers.

And yet, if not hers, then to whom did it belong?

She saw her face in the water, looked with disbelief at how her skin gleamed like bronze and how her eyes glittered like dark stars. She was clad in every jewel she'd ever found and swathed in green silk, finer than any she'd seen in the Blue Alley.

The sight of it was a mockery of everything she could never have, and Mina felt both hurt and anger flood her veins.

"Don't tempt me," she ordered, striking the surface of the water with her hand and ruining the perfect image. The water frenzied at the act, her reflection breaking apart like blue glass and scattering about in the tide. Yet, as the water calmed, she watched another image take its place. This time, it was the faceless shape of a shadow, its black tendrils smoking the surrounding water.

"You," Mina whispered, backing away from the water.

"Me," the shadow confirmed.

While she did not fear the entity to the extent she once did, the sight of the shadow had an unfailing record of filling her with unease. She beheld him with her eyes, watching the swirling shapes of his empty face try to give her an expression.

"Did you like the image I gave you?" The shadow asked in that low, coaxing voice.

"Not particularly."

"Why? Is that not what you dream of?"

"No," Mina said. "Such things are nice, but not what I desire for myself."

"Then what, pray tell, does Mina Blackwell want most in this world?"

She thought for a minute on his inquiry, imagining how she came home each day to an empty house, nothing and no one for comfort save herself. She thought of singing up on that fountain, separated from the other street performers. She thought of Lorenzo's hatred of her and the cloth of her parents forever stitched with hers. She saw empty spaces and empty gazes, longing desperately for them to be filled and fill her in return, to know a human beyond a face, and to be known just as much.

She wanted all of these things and more, but those sentiments would make her wealthier than The King himself. So instead of answering, she gave the shadow a resigned gaze that she hoped was answer enough.

He looked back for a moment, seeming to think, then spoke once more.

"I think I understand, little one."

"Not so little, anymore," she reminded him, and if a shadow could smile, he certainly seemed to try.

"Maybe not, but I can give you what you seek," he offered, but she pinned him with unguarded suspicion. The shadow always promised her something or someone who could help, sentiments she knew to be impossible for a shape to give.

He extended his hand out of the water, shadows swirling from his fingertips as he reached for her.

"No," she said to him. "Pull me in or chase me down as you always do, but I know you can't give me what I want."

"You always say so, always running from me like a child. Yet as you just reminded me, you're not a child any longer. Do you never wonder, just once, what might happen if you took my hand instead? If you turned to me instead of fleeing?"

He wiggled his fingers as if to beckon her.

Mina thought back to all the times the shadow had come to her before, always persuading and insistent from as far back as she could recall. Sometimes he endeared himself to her, and others he chased after her as she ran. She couldn't deny that she wondered where he always sought to take her, but something told her to resist his words, to not give in. He could drag her along if she wished, but they both knew nothing would come from it if she didn't go willingly.