Owl

by M. Raiya

My world flipped again. The rush of love so overcame me that I had to press my forehead behind his ear and struggle for control for a moment. I still had major doubts about the elan coming out, but I was overwhelmed that he was thinking about me this way.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’ve decided.”

  As soon as I was able, I gestured with my head at his phone and nodded emphatically.

  “Yes?” he asked. “You want me to accept now?”

  I nodded three times.

  I felt the excitement growing in him as his dream began to solidify into truth. A musician. He was going to be a musician.

  “Okay,” he said. He pulled up the message again, typed “I’m in,” and then, with another look at me, pressed Send.

  The future is getting closer, I thought.

  Then he swallowed hard. “Now we’ve got to tell my parents.”

  I nodded. It would not be easy, but the decision was made, and how they reacted would only be the next in the series of choices that lay before him for the rest of his life. And he would not be alone.

  VIN WENT for a swim before we got back in the kayak. It was hot in the sun, and we’d put a lot of energy into playing with the stick, and making decisions. I splashed around in the shallows to cool off. I could swim if I had to, using my wings awkwardly like arms. Vin watched me in fascination as I floundered my way out to him in waist deep water, glad to have him catch me and hold me against his chest. He carried me back to shore.

  I sat on the log and preened while he gathered up our things.

  “Take your time,” he said. “I read about how important preening is.”

  Glad he didn’t think I was doing it because I was vain. It was really amazing how much care feathers needed. On the other hand, it was amazing that things as delicate as hollow feathers could let me fly. I had nightmares about oil spills sometimes.

  After another few minutes, I fluffed everything back into place and took my spot under the edge of the brown towel. There was a lot of boat traffic now. It was a perfect Saturday afternoon—clear blue sky, light wind, temperature in the eighties. I lay low and watched the white-winged sailboats breezing across the lake with grace. Ironic how the people on board gazed at the gulls overhead and wished they could fly, while an owl on a kayak wished he could feel a tiller or wheel in his hand again and sense the quivering tension on a sheet as I hauled in a sail or taste the spray from a wave that crashed over the bow on a rough day…. Damn.

  Just being on the water again was wonderful. It was choppy now, both from waves created by the wind and from the wake of the motorboats zooming by. I had no use for them at all.

  What had happened to Sea Foam after I’d—

  I bit that thought off in a hurry.

  But it was replaced by the image of Vin sitting on the foredeck, eyes closed, face turned to the sun, his dark hair blowing back. Oh yeah, he’d love sailing.

  Or Vin down below, lying in my berth, bare chested in the warm night air—

  Holy shit, where had that thought come from? I banished it, but my mind went back to the image of the cottage on the headland. The only thing missing was Sea Foam moored out front. My beautiful ice-green boat….

  The sound of an engine suddenly became louder. I peeked out. There was a fancy black motorboat coming toward us, low and sleek, built for speed. Its huge inboard motor churned up a wake like this lake was too small for it. It really needed to veer off now.

  The operator was a blond dude with a weightlifter’s build. He raised his right hand in greeting to Vin and cut the engine at the same time.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Vin said under his breath. I sensed him wave back, unwillingly.

  “Vincent Thatcher!” the dude called in a voice that was deeply full of himself. “Look at you, all kayaked out. How are you, man? Long time no see.”

  Around the edge of the towel, I saw Vin reach up and catch hold of the sleek black side of the motorboat, keeping the boats at arm’s length from each other.

  “Hey, Anton. I’m okay. You here visiting your folks?”

  “Hell, man, I’m back for the summer. Flew in from LA yesterday. College is out, and I am going to do nothing but tan and pump iron until September. And maybe toss back a few beers with the old crowd. Oh, wait, you aren’t twenty-one yet, are you? Not a problem. I can buy.”

  Was this guy for real? I wished I could see him, but now that he was beside us, I could only see the side of his damn boat.

  Vin laughed. “You know me. I’m too boring for your crowd.”

  “No way,” Anton said. “There’s never been anything dull about you. You’re a senior, right? Damn, you grew up hot. What say you climb up here and we tie your boat to the back and go see the lake?”

  “I don’t think so,” Vin said. “I’m into peace and quiet. But I’m glad you’re doing well. Have a great summer, okay?”

  “Hey,” Anton said in a lower voice. “I’m serious, man. I saw on your Facebook you’re single. I was thinking about that night. You want to give it another shot?”

  Holy fucking shit, Vin and this guy had—I didn’t even want to think it.

  Vin started to say something, but Anton spoke over him. “Vincent, I have stuff with me. Way better than what I gave you before. You want, I can take you places again. You remember, right?”

  I thought Vin was going to stop breathing for a second. Then he laughed a little shakily. “Anton. I have forgotten. Believe me.” Firmly, he pushed off. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Ah, Vincent, you know where I live,” Anton called after us.

  Vin didn’t answer. The engine roared, and Anton took off, causing a wake that almost threw me off the bow. Vin had to grip the sides of the kayak to balance us. For a second I thought we were going over, and I really didn’t want to do that. But Vin got us under control. In the distance, I heard Anton laughing. Vin’s hearing wasn’t that keen.

  “You okay?” he asked, leaning forward to check me and cover me up at the same time. I nodded, narrowing my eyes at the black boat blasting off into the distance. The roar of its engine was the loudest thing on the lake.

  Then Vin put paddle down across the edges of the kayak and leaned both hands on it. He bowed his head. I just looked at him over the edge of the towel. Finally, he raised his eyes to mine.

  “Sorry you had to hear that,” he said. His face was red.

  My heart went out to him.

  “Damn,” he said. “Yeah, so that was the guy I mentioned. When I was a freshman and he was a senior. God, I was so stupid.”

  He had nothing on me where doing stupid things were concerned. I wished I could tell him.

  “I hope this didn’t lower your opinion of me.” He sighed.

  Oh, how I wanted to nip his ear. Instead I sent him a reassuring glance and then watched the black boat disappear behind a point of land, my eyes narrowing again. I rarely thought about the magic power latent within me. It had little relevance to my daily life, since it took so much energy to use. But with all the calories from the roast beef still in me, I could lock up that engine with just a tweak of my mind and not feel the strain. Hell, I could put a hole in the bottom of that sleek hide.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Vin said. “I know that look. You leave him well enough alone, okay? I’m the only one you drop dead squirrels on or rip their bedroom screen, got it?”

  I looked back at Vin fondly. He had no idea what else I could do. But even without the calorie issue, there were reasons for using magic, and reasons for not using it. And petty revenge was not a qualifier. Still, if that bastard came our way again, he was going to find a big dump of owl messy stuff in the middle of his captain’s chair.

  “DO YOU have a place you call home?” Vin asked me as we neared his house. It was getting dark, and the lights were on inside. “I mean, now? Where you used to sleep?”

  Before his pillow, he didn’t add. I nodded cautiously.

  “Is it someplace I could see? I mean, walk to?”

&nbs
p; I guessed I could point out my hole from the edge of the swamp if he really wanted to see it. I nodded again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Tomorrow. I need something to look forward to.”

  I understood.

  As we approached we could see his parents sitting on the porch in the twilight. Vin paddled close to shore and slowed down.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’d better take off here so they don’t see you. But you’ll stay close, right?”

  I would stay close. I wished I could walk up to them with him, holding his hand as he got ready to tell him that his future was not going to be what they envisioned. But the most I could do was reach down, pluck out one of my breast feathers, and offer it to him. I knew he still had the one that had ripped off when I’d crashed through his screen, but this was different. This was on purpose.

  “Oh wow,” he said, taking it gently. “Thank you. I wish I could give you—wait.” He slipped off his class ring. “Here.”

  I looked at him in shock.

  He flushed a little. “Obviously you can’t wear it, even around your neck on a cord because you might get it caught on something and break your neck, but maybe you could keep it in your place. Or in my room. Wherever. I don’t know. I mean—”

  I reached out with my right leg and gently hooked it with a talon. The blue stone sparkled in the dancing light reflecting off the water and made me think of his beautiful eyes. Then I closed my foot tightly. I bowed my head.

  “Well, okay,” he said. “Um, yeah.”

  I met his eyes for a long moment, then spread my wings and flew to shore.

  Swiftly, I detoured through the pines to the swamp. It was already dark in the shade, and bleak compared to the brightness of the water I’d just left. I went to my hole, dropped in, laid the ring down, and carefully covered it with some dry leaves. It made me feel good, knowing it was there. Then I returned to the house. Vin was just walking slowly to his parents on the porch, the kayak flipped upside down and the paddle and his life jacket stowed beneath it. I could tell he’d taken his time. The brown towel was around his neck, and he was clinging to it with clenched hands. I flew into my maple, making just enough of a fuss about it so that he’d see me. I landed on the end of a limb so that I could see the porch. With the outside lights on, I doubted his parents could see me unless they stared.

  “Have a nice paddle?” Vin’s father asked as Vin walked up the steps as confidently as he could.

  “It was great,” he said.

  “All day?” his mother asked. “I hope you put on lots of sunscreen.”

  “I did.” Vin hefted his dry sack.

  “There’s some stew left in the fridge.”

  Vin hesitated on the steps.

  His parents were sitting on a wicker couch together, a laptop closed on the low table before them, two glasses of wine and a bottle next to it. They seemed relaxed. His mother’s blond hair was down, and she was dressed in one of her usual L.L. Bean weekend polos and shorts outfits, feet in expensively casual leather sandals. His father’s hair looked damp from a shower, and he wore khakis and a dark red shirt, as well as his ever-present deck shoes.

  Vin walked up the steps and took a seat on the edge of the railing facing them.

  “We need to talk,” he said, and I let out the breath I was holding. He was going to do it. I was so proud.

  The great horned owl came out of nowhere and had her talons in my back before I heard a sound.

  I let out a horrible cry as terror and pain slammed into me. She knocked me off my perch, and I struggled in the air, but she had me, and there was no breaking free. She was a big, strong female. Wings laboring, she started to gain height, angling across the yard and toward a tall pine on the shore, carrying me with her. Once we got there, she would hold me down with one foot and break my neck with the other if I was lucky, or she would start to eat me alive if I wasn’t. I knew in an instant this wasn’t one of the great horns I knew about—this was a stranger. She’d probably heard me hooting like a fool yesterday and had been watching my dead tree ever since, waiting for her chance.

  I’d just done my last foolish thing.

  My heart broke that Vin was seeing this.

  Then something thin, black, and rectangular came flying out of the dark. It hit the great horned smack in the head and ricocheted off her skull. She gave a deep cry of pain and lost her hold of the air. In a struggling ball of feathers, we both fell and slammed into the ground. I wrenched free of her—she was limp and stunned. I tried to get into the air, but pain was knotting my wing muscles into a spasm that made me almost faint. My vision pulsed in and out. I saw Vin’s phone lying on the ground nearby, screen shattered in a million cracks. Damn, that had been a lucky throw.

  I saw Vin racing toward me.

  The next thing I knew, I was in his arms and he was screaming something about driving to the vet’s. I pulsed in an out of awareness a few more times, cradled in his arms in the back seat of a moving car. “It’s all my fault,” he kept saying over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

  I think I managed to nip his finger a little, but I’m not sure. He knew my nips meant kisses, didn’t he? I hoped so. Because I hadn’t really known that until just now.

  I heard his mother say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.” And I thought that maybe my death would mean something after all. It was the first nice thing I’d heard her say to him. Then I remembered him saying that his parents always came through for him when he needed them. This must be one of those times.

  Then I was on a cold metal table, and a man in a white coat was holding me with a pair of very thick gloves. He stared at me, moved me around, and made the pain even worse for what felt like a long time.

  “Well, these punctures and tears are deep,” he finally said. “I can clean them, but even with antibiotics, there’s going to be a high risk of infection. David, get me the antibiotic wash and some gauze, please. We must move quickly here. Birds in particular can go into cardiac arrest and die when overstressed. The sooner he gets to rehab, the better. Barbara, make some calls please, and get that set up. We’ll need an emergency pickup as soon as they can get here. You folks can head home now—you did a great job getting him here so fast.”

  “Wait,” I heard Vin say. “Rehab? Tonight? Can’t I take care of him?”

  “Sorry, no. He needs experts. And it’s not legal for you to keep him, anyway. I’ll give you a phone number so you can keep track of him if you want to, but he’s going down to the southern part of the state to the raptor specialists. You can wait in the waiting room until I’ve finished if you like.”

  I struggled and flopped myself over. The vet—a kindly looking old man—tried to hold me down without hurting me. I locked eyes with Vin, terrified at being left alone.

  Through his tears, Vin nodded. “We got this,” he said.

  I gazed at him with all the love I had in me, love that was bursting out with no dam to stop it any longer.

  Then he went out, panic set in, and all went dark.

  Chapter Seven

  I WOKE in a plastic carrier meant, I assumed, for a small dog. I lay on a white pad, and it had blood spots on it. I was alone. A dark blue towel hung over the outside of the front bars, making it dim. It was quiet. Nearby, in another room, I could hear a cat meowing. A dog snored.

  Cautiously, I moved. Blinding pain lanced out from my back the moment I tried to spread my wings. Fuck. Carefully, I crouched down. My back felt like it was on fire.

  But the fact that I was still alive suggested that I didn’t have any internal damage. Otherwise, the vet would have assured I never woke up. Now the worry would be infection. Later, the worry would become if I could fly or not. If I couldn’t, I would be in a cage the rest of my life.

  Which, at the moment anyway, had a certain appeal. That attack had changed something deep inside me. I had never been so scared before, not even when the bullies had charged me. The knowledge that I had been about to be eaten alive by a predator bigger than myself
chilled me to my very core. What would it have been like to feel parts of me—vital parts—being ripped out and eaten before my eyes? She would have turned me belly up and…. How long would it have been before I passed out? Before I would have died?

  I envied real birds who, with their limited memories, would have soon forgotten surviving such an experience. This was going to scar me for life, in many ways.

  And now I knew what it felt like to become prey. How could I ever do that to something else again? I’d never really thought about it from the mice and squirrel’s perspective. And I’d thought it was fun to terrify muskrats? God, what had been wrong with me?

  No, a cage was feeling pretty good right now. I had no desire to be free ever again. Not with great horned owls out there.

  Footsteps approached. A hand moved the towel covering away, and the vet with the kindly face peered in at me for a moment, and then the towel came back.

  I heard voices from the other side of the door.

  “Yes, your buddy is doing fine. His ride is here.”

  “Can I see him?” Vin asked.

  I froze at the sound of his voice. I could only imagine what I looked like.

  “No, Vin. He’s not like a pet. Wild birds can die so easily from fear, and he’s obviously extremely stressed right now. The best thing for him is to keep him as isolated as possible.”

  Vin didn’t answer. I could only imagine how he looked too.

  “He was lucky you found him,” the vet said quietly. “You saved his life. Any idea what happened to the other owl?”

  “It flew away when I ran over,” Vin said.

  “Sounds like it tackled something a little too big for it. It’s unusual for a great horned to tackle a barred owl, but it happens, if they can sneak up and get a good hold on it.”

  I was glad Vin didn’t mention throwing his phone. Technically, he could get in trouble for injuring the great horned owl. He should have let nature take its course.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll get the best care possible. He’ll have all the dead mice he can eat, and some of them will be stuffed with antibiotics. You can keep updated on his progress. And maybe you can watch him eventually be released, if all goes well.”