Three’s a Charm

We know the repetition of three is significant—in stories, in landscaping, in interior design.

A charmed intention.

The power is so appealing we often aren’t aware of it. I think that’s the point.

When this threesome began on Facebook, I couldn’t help seeing it.

Deborah, an online author friend, posted a photograph of a broken pencil that appeared in her garden. It’s fenced, so it’s unlikely that someone climbed over to place it and then climbed out. Hers is a big-city neighborhood with apartment buildings, so who would have known that she was a writer needing a nudge?

She attributed it to Snape, a frequently visiting crow, known to be a collector. Okay. But we know wildlife pirates like shiny stuff.

Why not a dime?

A foil gum wrapper?

A paperclip?

But Snape snatched a pencil? 

She interpreted it as a message to remember her purpose—writing. As a writer, I understand assigning a meaning.

So I sent her my paperweight with a yellow pencil and a loud and clear message. (To be fair, I’m like Snape, with a tendency to collect stuff, shiny or not.) Anyway, who doesn’t love a present? To be even more fair, that constant reminder to write had gotten me to finish my next book, Library Girl. Its charmed presence on her desk might work wonders with her. 

I assumed that was the end of the story. Nope.

Last week on my morning walk, I found a yellow pencil on the sidewalk. If I’d gone a different way, I would have missed it. But I didn’t. I could have, but I didn’t. I ended up on this street. It wasn’t near a school or bus stop or even where any children live.

And I’d wager it was the only street in our small town with a yellow pencil on the sidewalk.

No messenger crow on the coast where Deborah lives flew to the heartland, searching for another writer prone to dilly-dallying, to drop a treasure.  

Yet some vibration delivered three yellow pencils.

To writers.

If that’s not a charm, I don’t know what is.