Sharp Knife

​She sat at her grindstone, slowly and carefully pulling and sharpening her knife. When it sang, she knew it was sharp. Nose to the grindstone, she thought. That’s an interesting idea. Maybe next time.
She held the knife up and watched the blade gleam in the flickering candlelight.
She got up from her worktable and turned off the music. Rossini’s “Thieving Magpies.” She loved the exuberance of the music, the playfulness of the birds before death.
She selected her victims with care.  Alone, vulnerable, each with a secret in her past. It was the secrets that bound them.
Her last kill was perfect.  Quick. Out. Away. She had thought of Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” before killing. A sense of doom. And, Grieg’s “Morning Song” when she was done. A perfectly blooming morning after blood and death. She was already planning her next kill.
It was the birds who saw her
And circled
And called
And told