Owl

by M. Raiya

  I tried to harden my heart as he set his pack on the floor and sat down at the desk. I hadn’t gotten much of a sense of his family other than the fact his father thought I had rabies, but they hadn’t seemed like bad people. Certainly there was money, judging from the house’s proximity to the lakeshore. They’d seemed to care about him. Though my grandfather had seemed to care about me, and look how that had turned out.

  I had plenty of sorrow of my own without taking on whatever was bugging him. Maybe his family might be less than perfect, but he seemed like a nice guy and had a face and eyes to die for. He had friends. He also had a nice warm house and food in a refrigerator. I had a hole in a hollow tree with a dark, windy night of hunting in front of me.

  I reminded myself that I could do what all humans dreamed of—I could fly. Looking in at Vin, that didn’t help much.

  I opened my wings. There was nothing I could do here. Moping about in his maple wasn’t doing either of us any good. It was just too painful to see all I had lost sitting before me. Last night and today had taught me that after three years, I needed to finally let it go. Forget. Embrace my inner owl. This was it. No more—

  Holy shit!

  It wasn’t a pen I’d seen Vin straightening on his desk. It was a long, thin knife. It was in his hand now. His right hand. The blade rested against the soft white skin of his left forearm.

  I didn’t think. I launched. I hit the screen in the bottom half of the double-hung window. I thought it would offer a great deal of resistance, but it didn’t. I ripped through it the way I would pass through pine needles, quickly and unharmed.

  Vin screamed.

  I tried to slow, but I had too much speed. I smashed hard into the wall over his bed and dropped, stunned, onto Vin’s pillow.

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS nice, gazing up at Vin. His sky-blue eyes gazed back. His lips moved. I heard his voice. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t connect the two. For the first time in so long, I felt warm and safe.

  Slowly his lips and voice coalesced into words. “Are you okay? Poor guy, you smashed the wall so hard. Birds hit glass windows all the time, but I never heard of an owl coming through a screen. My dad will have a shit fit. Damn, it was like you—never mind.”

  He paused a moment. “What is it with owls lately? Look, I’m going to pick you up and bring you outside. Don’t attack me, please? Or throw up anything dead on me?”

  His hands touched me, lifted me, gathered me to his chest.

  Oh God! I nestled up like a cat beneath his chin.

  “You are so soft.” His voice reverberated in his chest. “So beautiful.”

  He carried me downstairs, through the living room and out onto the porch. Fresh night air surrounded me again, helped clear my head. I was in Vin’s arms. I’d just blown my cover for the second time. My grandfather was going to kill me. I needed to fly now and keep going for a year or two and never look back.

  Except I didn’t want a clear head. I wanted to be cuddled in Vin’s arms forever. I focused on every sensation so I could store it in my memory, this gift I never thought I’d have. I savored the touch of his skin, the beat of his heart, the gentleness of his hands. They would help me get through many cold rainstorms.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to put you on the picnic table, and when you feel up to it, you can just fly away. Don’t worry, I’ll watch from the porch to make sure the neighbor’s cats don’t bother you. There you go.”

  Too soon he put me down. I managed to get my feet beneath me, getting hold of the boards with my talons. The world came back into focus. And so did my mind. Oh, this was bad.

  Vin retreated slowly, hands open by his sides. “It’s okay, you’re all right,” he said.

  If only he knew, I thought.

  This was where I flew off into the night and he went back into the house and got back to his life. Except, Vin had been about to end his life.

  What had he been thinking? He had everything anybody could want all stretched out before him. Resentment bubbled up inside me. He had no right to feel sorry for himself, compared to what I was living with.

  He stood still, watching me. “I wish I could fly,” he breathed. He clenched his hands into fists. His focus, so intense, held me motionless.

  My resentment faded away. We all had our walls. Some of us let others put us inside them, others put themselves there. Wings aren’t everything they’re cracked up to be, I wanted to tell him.

  If he ended his life now, it would be a loss to the world. I could see it so clearly in him. Why did we sensitive ones suffer so much at what the insensitive ones failed to notice? Memory again. I forced it down. But not before I’d seen my grandfather’s hand pushing me away.

  Damn the consequences. I was going to be there for Vin if no one else was. Swiftly, I collected myself and flew off to the pine by the driveway. I wasn’t going any farther than that.

  For a long moment, Vin stared after me. How ironic that he should see me as a symbol of freedom when I was the most imprisoned person he’d probably ever met.

  After a while, shoulders slumping, Vin went into the house. Instantly, I flew back into the maple. I watched the lights go out as he made his way upstairs again. After he entered his room, he stood motionless, looking around. Then I saw him pick up a feather I’d lost on his bed. It broke my heart to see him finger it and then bring it lightly to his cheek. Still carrying it, he went to his desk, sat down, and touched the edge of the ripped screen. For a moment I tensed, hoping he wasn’t going to shut the glass.

  He didn’t. His gaze went to the knife where he’d dropped it on the desk next to his laptop when I’d burst in. I watched, waiting, hoping, but his hand went inexorably toward it again. The look of despair on his face showed me that my interlude had just been that—an interlude.

  Now.

  For the second time, I swooped in the window.

  Vin yelled and leaped back, knocking over his chair.

  This time I was in perfect control. I grabbed the knife with the talons of my right foot, turned in the air with the skills I’d mastered after countless hours of hunting, and flew back out. I had intended to drop the knife symbolically in the lake, but at the last moment, realized that wouldn’t be very bright because someone could step on it and get cut, and it was so dark that he wouldn’t see me do it anyway. So I veered back into the woods and let it fall out there. It didn’t matter, though—he’d run out of his bedroom. I heard him slam the door of the bathroom. I flew around that way, but the window was closed and blocked by a heavy curtain. I didn’t blame him. He must be totally freaked.

  I didn’t know what else I could do. At least I’d interrupted him twice and hopefully given him something to think about. I had no idea what he’d make of it, but I’d done my best. Braining myself on the bathroom window wasn’t going to help him any. I knew I could blast my way through the glass with my magic if I had to, but that would be wrong on so many levels I couldn’t even consider it. If he took his life in there, it was beyond my control to prevent.

  I settled in the maple, close to the trunk so he would have to shine a flashlight right at me to see me. I saw that his phone was still on his desk, so he was really alone in the bathroom. I shifted anxiously. Then I tried to let the memory of his gentle hands fill my mind. No, I couldn’t leave those hands, no matter what the cost to me was going to be.

  Yeah, I’d hang on to my humanness awhile longer. Hopefully.

  VIN’S PARENTS came home an hour later. I felt a huge surge of relief as they parked the car in the garage and went through an inside door into the kitchen. A lower limb on my maple gave me a good view inside that room. It was immaculate and modern, and it had the latest chrome appliances and an oak table that looked like no one had ever eaten on its polished surface. I waited for them to call a greeting to their son upstairs and hopefully go up to see what had upset him. I refused to consider the idea that he was bleeding and dead on the bathroom floor.

  But all they did was p
ut their briefcases down, take out a pair of matching laptops, and sit at the table. From what I could hear, something had gone wrong with their investment portfolio. I had never been great at math in school, and economics baffled me.

  Vin had gotten his blue eyes from his mother and his dark hair from his father. She was delicate, he was rugged, and Vin was a perfect blend of both. But for all they seemed to care, they were childless. My mind tried to find explanations. Maybe they honestly didn’t think Vin was home—he could have told them he was spending the night at a friend’s. Or maybe they weren’t his parents, and he was merely renting a room in the house. It was possible. But it was far more likely that their lack of awareness of their son was partly why he cried on the steps, kayaked in unsafe conditions, and kept a fucking knife on his desk.

  All was silent in the bathroom upstairs.

  Well, dammit, I had to do something. Soon. Eventually, somebody was going to shut Vin’s bedroom window, and I wasn’t going to be able to get in without being noticed. And I couldn’t leave him alone. I just couldn’t.

  Hurriedly, I flew down to the lake, perched on a rock at the water’s edge, had a long drink, and took care of messy business. Once that was done, I flew back up to the maple and studied the situation. Vin’s parents were still at the kitchen table. Vin hadn’t come out of the bathroom. Now was my chance. But where could I hide? Vin’s bed was too low for me to fit under very easily. His closet door was ajar, but I was afraid of being shut in there, even though I knew I could probably turn a doorknob if I had to. It was just too many layers between me and freedom. Yeah, I could use magic to blast my way out if had to, but that took time and energy and noise, and the last thing I wanted was for a human to know what I could do.

  The blue sweatshirt was still hanging out on the floor, in the corner at the foot of the bed. That looked like my best bet.

  I studied the window. If I got shut in…. Well, I could seize the bedside lamp and smash it through the glass, though that would mark me as being a not-normal owl almost as obviously as using magic would. I hesitated a moment longer, knowing that I was making another decision that could change my life in a not good way, and then dropped from the limb to the windowsill, slipped through the screen, and into the room.

  Swiftly, I flew into the corner between Vin’s desk and the wall. I burrowed under the sweatshirt. I didn’t have much of a sense of smell—hearing was my forte—but I could smell enough to know that I was surrounded by something of his. That helped calm my racing heart. Damn, I was being stupid.

  Moments after I was settled, footsteps came up the stairs. Vin’s mother. “I think the letter’s here somewhere,” she was saying.

  Check on your son, I sent to her as hard as I could. But she wasn’t very telepathic. She went into her office, and I heard her pulling out a file drawer. After a moment she closed it and went back downstairs.

  “I’m going to email the bastard tonight,” Vin’s father said.

  Quietly, the bathroom door finally opened. Footsteps crossed the hall. Vin came in. I peeked through a fold in the shirt. He looked exhausted—his eyes were red, his face was pale, and his hair was a mess. But he was alive, and I’d take that. Unless he’d just swallowed a bottle of pills, I thought with a chill.

  Vin flicked on his light and stood in the doorway, looking around apprehensively. Clearly, he’d seen too many owls for one week.

  After a few moments, Vin crossed to the window and pulled it closed. The sound of wood on the wooden sill had a note of finality that chilled me. I reminded myself that I could break out if I had to. But aside from not wanting to shower broken glass everywhere, I knew that getting even a simple scratch could be catastrophic for me, since I had no access to antibiotics, or even a good way to clean a wound. I’d seen an owl die from a rabbit bite once, which is why I never went for anything bigger than a squirrel, which I knew I could dispatch with my talons in an instant. To say nothing of the fact that Watership Down had been my favorite book.

  Vin stood still for a long time. I couldn’t see him from where I was hiding, but I could hear his slow, steady breathing. He was probably staring out into the darkness.

  What was bothering him so much? Girlfriend trouble? I didn’t think he had one, though maybe the lack was the problem. Besides, if he was in a relationship with someone, it would seem to me that that person would have known he was in distress and been here, trying to help. Not that I was any kind of expert on relationships.

  Hell. Was he gay? If he was, that could be contributing to it. He could be feeling that it might be easier to die than try to explain it to people who wouldn’t want to take the time to listen. I could relate to that for sure. Once, I’d had that problem myself. So long ago…. At least coming out to my family was something I’d never have to deal with now. Or any of the drama that went with relationships. I was not remotely attracted to real owls—my feelings were still human.

  Why was I thinking about that now? I banished the thought in a hurry. God, I could be stupid sometimes.

  Vin had been standing still too long. He might have gotten a pair of scissors out of the bathroom. He might silently slit his wrists and be bleeding to death right now.

  I erupted out from beneath the sweatshirt.

  Vin whirled, saw me, yelled, and ran out of the room again.

  Oh, this was going so well. My instincts were to go to cover, so I flew up and landed on the top of his closet door, hesitated for a moment, and then dropped inside to perch on the wooden railing his shirts hung from. If I got shut in, well, I had magic that could get me out. I didn’t let myself think about what my grandfather would do to me.

  Vin’s parents had finally remembered their son. It sounded like they collided with him on the stairs.

  “Vin, what’s the matter?” His mother sounded more annoyed than alarmed.

  I suspected him to shout the obvious, “There’s an owl in my room!” But he didn’t. He said, “I had a nightmare.”

  Huh, I thought. Did he honestly think he’d dreamed me?

  “What?” His father sounded even more annoyed than his mother had. “Honestly, Vin. You’re a senior in high school. You need to get over this.”

  “It was—really real.” Vin cleared his throat. “You guys got home late.”

  “It’s barely ten,” his mother said. I thought this would be where she made sure he’d had dinner, which he hadn’t. But her mind evidently didn’t go there. “We’ve got a financial crisis to deal with. Jack, did you get those figures from Paul yet?”

  I imagined Vin’s father checking his phone. “Dammit, no. Am I going to have to drive over there?”

  “Yeah, if we’re going to act before midnight,” she said, and their voices grew softer as they went back downstairs.

  I was afraid Vin was going to lock himself in the bathroom again, but he slowly came back toward his room. I took a firmer hold on the closet bar, heart racing. This was it.

  He came in, flicked on the light, and closed the door to the hallway. I could hear his breathing, fast and sharp. For a long moment, he stood still, probably looking around. Then he went to the window and opened it, letting in the sound of spring peepers from my swamp and the wash of waves on the shore. He wanted to make sure I had an escape route.

  He went to the corner where I’d been hiding. I heard him lift the sweatshirt. He was still holding it close when he slowly eased open the closet door.

  Light fell on me. I sat still, blinking, trying to look harmless. He stared up at me. I wondered if he meant to try to bundle me up in the shirt and throw it and me out the window. That’s probably what I would have done if I’d been him. But he just moved slightly so that he wasn’t between me and the way out. That was good, because I didn’t want to get bundled. He kept staring at me.

  I gazed back at him, unable to believe it was really happening.

  After a long time, he said, very quietly, “Hi?”

  I blinked.

  He gestured at the window. “It’s open.”r />
  I didn’t move, even though I really had no idea what my plan was. Totally winging it. I would have laughed if I could have. I’d always fallen back on puns and humor when stressed.

  “Um, are you okay? I mean, does your head hurt? Are you injured? Should I take you to a vet or a wildlife rehabilitator or something?”

  Heaven forbid, I thought.

  “You don’t have rabies, do you? My dad’s paranoid about that. Damn, I probably should get out of here and call the cops or something. And get tested since I touched you. I mean, you’re acting pretty weird.”

  I would agree with that.

  “Like you understand a word I’m saying.” Vin gave a low laugh. So few people had the ability to laugh at themselves.

  I wondered if I dared let him know that I did understand. God, I was in dangerous water now. Getting my grandfather even madder at me was the best way to ensure the elan stayed put the rest of my life. I could feel my dream of being free of it slipping further away. And yet, I’d been on the brink of going over owl all the way a few hours ago. I had nothing to lose.

  Besides, I couldn’t leave Vin now, not when I’d just taken a knife away from him. I had no way of letting anyone else know he was at risk for suicide. The only thing I could do was to stay with him. And there was no way a real, wild owl would do that. So….

  Vin backed away and sat down sideways at his desk chair, never taking his eyes off me. For a long moment, I didn’t move. The ball was in my court, I knew. He was giving me time. He must have a niggling feeling deep down that there was something else going on. How much was he connecting about what I’d done with his knife?

  Last chance, I thought, looking out the window into the darkness that seemed so much darker than it ever had. If I stayed, both our lives would change. There could be consequences from my grandfather for him as well. I was making that choice for him. Did I have that right? How much were my personal feelings influencing what would be best for Vin?