Somewhere a mile off, a crow landed on a length of thread, and a single sweet note rose from the plucking. It traveled up the thread until it reached the Thread Boy, and as if summoned by the sound, a nearby cloud split open into a tumult of hail. Hailstones fell, fat as grapes. They bounced off the tightened threads, plink, plink, until the Thread Boy was wrapped in the most beautiful music, and he wept, and dropped the shears, unused. And he would not lift them again—not for anything.
