The Bird That Would Not Be a Sparrow
One borrowed knife. Two opinions. An ordinary object, for once, with nothing hidden inside it.
Keep your place in the story.
Book One · Chapter Seven. Open only when you are ready. This permission also reveals other material up to the same chapter.
Return to the collectionNot every object is evidence.
In Chapter Seven, Finch is carving a wooden bird. Jamie objects to its shape; a man in a hammock supplies another opinion. Grey passes while they argue over the beak.
Nothing needs deciphering here. A borrowed knife, a rough shape and the liberty to be ridiculous give the moment its value.
Give the carving your own name
Your choice is just for this page. There is no vote tally.
One more cut
The bird would not stand on the chest. Its maker put a shaving under one side and found that it would then stand only while the ship held still.
A hand reached from the hammock above him.
“Give it here.”
He passed it up. The man in the hammock examined the flat underneath, turned the bird towards the light and handed it back without advice.
“Well?”
“Looks much better from up here.”
There was nothing useful to say to that. The maker scraped a little more from the base. The deck rose under his boots; he waited for it to settle before touching the blade to the wood again.
By supper the bird stood. Someone knocked the chest on the way past and it fell on its face.
The maker put it upright, a little farther from the edge.
New companion fiction, inspired by the carving scene. It supplies no later fate, hidden message or missing plot explanation.
Story source & editorial note
Based on The Guns of Wyrmouth, Chapter Seven, the brief carving scene near the fore hatch.. This folio is a companion to the novel, not an archival document. The object drawing and “One more cut” are newly made companion material, not a recovered illustration or deleted chapter.