Magpies Don’t Lie

I count magpies as we scour the mountainside looking for the little girl who went missing.

(Not just a little girl. My niece. Seven years old. This is where we always hike together on Saturdays when my sister has to work. This is our place. But I can’t think about that.)

The whole town turns out to join the search party, our breath puffing clouds of condensation as the temperature sinks, dragging our hope down with it. I methodically pick my way through the brush and weeds, swinging my flashlight to and fro, looking for some sign of the little girl’s fate. A footprint in mud. A button from her sweater. Anything. Two magpies on a branch seems like a good sign. Two for joy.

(She loved hiking with me. I taught her how to identify poison ivy, how to look for signs of animals. I taught her to always stay on the trail. I taught her the rhyme about magpies. I can’t remember what I told her about predators.)

When a third magpie joins, I remember it's for a girl. I hear the search dogs rustling through the brush in the distance. I’m certain we’ll find her while the light’s still good. Then I curse myself for thinking it, sure I’ve jinxed the whole operation. I hear the raspy chitter-chatter and look up as I move further into the woods. Four more mean a secret never to be told.

(We saw seven magpies the last time we hiked together. She paused on the trail, triumphantly pointing. Then her hand dropped. She told me she had a secret she could never tell. She told me she wanted to stay in the forest forever. I slung my arm over her shoulders and hugged her. I told her I loved the forest too.)

My sister waits at the foot of the trail while we look for her only child. She is too distraught to help in the search, shaking under a blanket a neighbor draped over her shoulders. Her cries echo off the trees, scaring away most of the wildlife. But the magpies are stubborn in their mission. When an eighth reveals itself, I will it to be the last. Eight magpies for a wish.

(I wish. I wish. I wish. I wish we’d find her. I wish I’d heard her. I wish I understood what she was really saying when she said didn’t like my sister’s new boyfriend. I wish.)

I try to close myself off to any signs of the magpies and focus on looking for a little girl’s (my niece’s) shoe or the cry of a frightened, exhausted child (my sister’s only child) just wanting to go home. But instead I hear that telltale harsh call warning me that there will be more magpies before the day is done. They reveal themselves in quick succession. Nine, ten, eleven. Eleven is good. Eleven means health.

(We’ll find my niece healthy and whole. No permanent damage done. I’ll carry my guilt forever, but it won’t be as heavy as it could be.)

Then I see the damaged moss. The puce growth marred by a small foot. There’s some red fibers on a tree branch. She was (is) wearing a red sweater. I report my location and my findings in my walkie-talkie and move forward, focusing on the eleven magpies. I stop and brace myself on a tree as I hear the call again, not quite the same. It’s another magpie. (Please don’t let there be one more.) When I open my eyes, I drop to my knees in the mud and the filth under the tree where they perch: twelve and the dreaded thirteenth.