We defy augury.

If you couldn’t tell, Edna loved birds—from swan-decked socks to bedazzled cardinal cardigan to hummingbird hairpin. So, when she heard of the future-telling birds in the market, she couldn’t leave Hong Kong without trying it.

The set-up was simple. Holding your hand in his own knotty paw, the old seer freed one of hundreds of tiny sparrows from a rickety cage in his stall, and you looked into his milky eyes, while it flitted to a rooftop across the alley and plucked one of hundreds of paper scraps.

Now, the sparrow alit impatiently on her shoulder as she re-read her fortune:

Remain calm. Revolution at hand. Allies rewarded.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demands as sparrows blot out the sky. But the fortune-teller is fighting off a swarm trying to shave off flecks of hair and scalp; others swim through his beard to get at his throat.

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