The Counting of Bells

A children's skipping-rhyme from the eastern Vale, counting the stages of Verdigris Lung — sung bright and quick, and meaning something that would whiten a grown salvor's hair.

(A rope-skipping rhyme, sung quick and bright by children who do not know what it counts. Grown salvors of Old Work have been seen to go pale at it.)

One bell, a cough — you notice the taste, a green kind of copper, nothing to waste.

Two bell, a shiver — your hands not your own, you drop what you're counting, you drop what you're shown.

Three bell, forgetting — what day? what town? you set down the lamp and the lamp stays down.

Four bell, a stranger — you know the room, but whose is the face by the light of the room?

Five bell, unspeaking — the fire's still lit, but nobody's home to be warmed up by it.

Six bell — hush now. Don't sing six. Six is the vault that never let go. Six is the salvor the deep didn't show, and the children skip home before they know.

(Mothers in the eastern hamlets stop the rhyme at five, and cuff the child who sings the sixth verse. The wise work aired, work dry, come up often, and count their own coughs in the dark, and pray they have miscounted.)