A Girl Called Owl

by Amy Wilson

  My father.

  He runs over to me, silver eyes shining. ‘But look!’ he says. ‘Your own storm, little Owl! You are kin! You are a new creature, in a world I thought incapable of change! Look, look down!’

  Beneath my feet, and spreading fast around us both, is a fine layer of frost.

  ‘So you have the basics,’ he says, nodding as he takes in my blue fingertips, the ice spreading up through my hair, making my scalp tight. ‘Now, come, take those boots off and be spirit. Come and play, little Owl!’

  He whisks away again, as Boreas comes careering back to the river. I sit and take off my boots, peeling off my socks and shaking my head at the madness of it all, while they howl at each other and throw handfuls of snow.

  ‘Look!’ Jack says, drawing Boreas to watch as I venture on to the ice, expecting my feet to sting with cold and feeling kind of amazed when they don’t. It feels like a marble floor, a little cool, a little slick, but perfectly manageable with bare feet. ‘Look at the little Owl! Is she not a wonderful creature? Look how small, how delicate her work!’

  I look down as Boreas comes closer. Fine swirls of ice are blooming with every footstep I take across the river, shining blue against the white. A shudder rolls down my spine and it’s not all to do with the cold. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and it’s really happening, right now, to me.

  ‘Child,’ Boreas says, coming closer, holding out his arms, throwing my hair back with his power. ‘Welcome.’

  I look back at him, feeling so uncertain and so elated at the same time, and he laughs with a bellow that sends a flurry of snow into my face.

  ‘Ah, Jokul,’ he cries. ‘She is wonderful! How did you find her?’

  ‘She appeared last night,’ Jack says, as they both watch me come towards them. I feel like a kid taking its first steps, the way they’re looking at me. I look down, focusing on the patterns spiralling away from my feet. ‘I think I shall take her under my wing . . .’

  I look up, my heart pounding, and Boreas stares more closely as I reach them, his wide blue eyes bright as a summer sky in his round, timeless face. ‘Spirit . . . and human?’ He speaks as if to himself, his brow furrowing. ‘Ah, Jokul . . .’ He sighs, a blast of cold air dancing with the still-falling snow. ‘The court will not like it. They already watch you closely.’

  Jack snorts, but Boreas’ eyes are full of doubt as he stares at me and I cannot hide; he seems to see straight to the heart of me.

  ‘I think there is trouble here,’ he says eventually. ‘You are a wonderful creature indeed, child, but you are stepping in places not meant for humans. You are seeing things few have seen before. I do not know how it works . . . Jokul, will you really encourage her? She should go home, be with her own kind.’

  ‘Her own kind cannot do these things!’ Jack retorts. ‘My friend, you are worrying overmuch.’

  Boreas gives another great sigh that catches me with yet another faceful of soft snow, and then he turns to the hills in the distance and runs towards them with great thundering steps, taking the sting of winter wind with him.

  ‘So what do you do with yourself, little Owl?’ Jack asks me, and I wonder if I like him calling me that. It’s halfway between an endearment and teasing, the way he says it.

  I shrug. ‘I go to school. Have friends. Occasionally freeze something . . .’

  His eyes brighten. ‘That is the interesting part!’

  ‘I quite liked the rest of it, actually,’ I retort without thinking.

  ‘You do not like to be like this?’ he asks, gesturing at my frost-covered skin. I look at it. It is kind of beautiful: a tracery of delicate veins that shimmer in the pale light of the moon, gathering intricately over my knuckles and down my fingers. Beautiful, but not human. Not normal at all.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m not used to it. I’m used to being a normal girl, doing all the normal things. Seeing my friends, doing my homework, drawing . . .’

  ‘Ah! To draw! Yes, that is a wonderful thing – to leave your mark behind as you go, yes. But can you touch – like this?’ He leaps up to the river path and reaches out to the nearest tree, a spindly old ash, and draws a line of frost over the top of one of its branches. ‘Can you do that?’

  He watches as I reach out tentatively. Calling upon it like this is very different. I haven’t actually tried to do it deliberately before. My frost isn’t like his; it comes and goes, it stutters and pulls at me, and as soon as it is there it disappears again, leaving me light-headed and dry-mouthed and a little ashamed.

  ‘It’s a worthy start.’ Jack nods. ‘Now, can you run, little Owl? Can you keep up with me?’

  He sprints up the path towards the canal, frost spreading as he goes, and I follow, through the snow and over the frigid ground. And, honestly, I was never really into the whole sports thing but this – running with the elements full in my face and my hair standing on end with ice, watching Jack Frost coat everything in sight with sparkling white, and the frozen river glowing blue-white beneath the full moon . . . this rush in my blood is something that I wouldn’t change for all the world. It grows as we go, so that it is no longer a stuttering, nervous thing. It’s powerful and magical, and it’s more than that because it’s me; it’s everything I have within me, everything I never imagined I could be.

  Saturday morning is a bit of a write-off and I guess I’m happy with that. Mum’s gone out on a trek with some friends, to soak up the winter spirit in the deepest glens, or something, and normally I’d see Mallory but she hasn’t got in touch with me so I’m trying my best to sleep it all off while thoughts and memories of yesterday crash over me, mingling with my dreams.

  By the time I open the curtains in my room it’s nearly noon. Pale sunlight makes shadows sharp on the pavements and any signs of my frost adventures with Jack last night have long since burned away. I watch for a while, doodling in my art book: spiral eyes of exhausted owls who scatter autumn leaves with their wings while shadows loom in the corners.

  And that’s when I see it.

  A small, pale figure standing in the shadows opposite, staring up at me; only the size of a small child, but clearly not a child at all. It’s completely hairless, its bony limbs too long for its body, its grey skin glinting in the daylight. Large, lamp-like eyes look straight at me. I force myself to keep on looking, though it sends a shiver over my skin. And then it grins, revealing those wicked sharp teeth I thought I’d imagined. I flinch away despite myself, and, when I look again, it’s gone.

  ‘But it was something,’ I tell myself fiercely, dimly aware that the temperature of the room has dropped by a couple of degrees; that there is now frost on the inside of the windowpane.

  ‘It was, it was,’ clacks the wooden owl on the bedpost.

  I turn in shock and bend down to study it more closely. It blinks, making me start. Mum carved it into the bedpost when I was a kid and scared of the dark. It’s supposed to be my guardian. And now it’s speaking to me. Or my mind is playing tricks on me. Either way, there’s definitely something weird going on, with carved creatures talking to me and fairy creatures following me.

  ‘OK,’ I say to myself, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘So there’s Jack. And Boreas. And Alberic, who wants me to be sensible. And there’s a whole Fay Court of Mother Earth. And these things watching me. Are they from the court? Are they keeping an eye on me, making sure I behave? What do they want?’

  I look at the owl, demanding an answer, but it’s silent.

  There must be a reason they’re watching me. And if I’m powerless to do anything about Jack, or anything else, then perhaps I can at least do something about that – before they turn me into a gibbering wreck.

  I spend most of the day at the window, pretending to do homework, waiting to see another one of the creatures. Mum drags me out to the kitchen for dinner when she gets home. She’s brought vegan pasties back from the wilds, and she asks after Mallory. It makes me squirm a bit. I can’t remember the last time we didn’t speak fo
r this long, but I say something about her spending time with her mum and try to put it to the back of my mind. I’ll fix it when I know how. After that, our conversation is muted and I can tell she’s itching to get back to work in the studio; she’s got that distracted glaze in her eye.

  ‘Are you all right, my love?’ she asks, as I finish drying dishes and fling the towel on to the hook. ‘You seem down. We were going to have that talk – shall I leave my work for now?’

  ‘I’m just tired,’ I say with a smile. ‘I was going to read for a bit and have an early night. Can we talk another time?’

  She looks at me appraisingly. ‘It’ll keep.’ She nods. ‘Go safely there in your dreams.’ She smiles, reaching forward and giving me a quick hug. I lean into her for a second, taking comfort in her warmth, and when I pull back I do feel a bit better, a bit more like I can deal with this, whatever it might be. She did, after all.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  I watch out of the window till my eyes ache and I’m seeing monsters everywhere. I watch as cars pull in, pull out again, as my neighbours welcome guests with wide smiles, as two arch-backed cats have a stand-off in the middle of the road. And then I see it, deep in the shadows, its lamp-like eyes glowing.

  I move as stealthily as I can from the window, getting up from the desk slowly and sneaking out of the bedroom door. The light’s still on upstairs and I creep through the rest of the flat, letting myself out with a soft click on the front door and legging it down the steps to the main entrance, where I hesitate, door cranked open, until I see the creature again. It scrabbles up on to a low wall, its eyes fixed on my window, and then scuttles down and off along the road, keeping to the shadows. I grit my teeth and sneak through the front garden and over the road, following when it turns into one of the back streets towards the common, steeling myself for discovery at any second.

  ‘Hey!’ comes a whisper, just as we get to the field, making me jump out of my skin. ‘What are you doing?’

  I turn to see Alberic coming towards me and flap at him, hissing at him to be quiet before the creature spots us. He’s quick on his feet and looks like he’s been running, his hair tousled, breath tight.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I whisper, pulling him into the shadows with me.

  ‘Nothing. I felt bad. I shouldn’t have left you with Jack last night.’ He shrugs. ‘But what are you doing now?’

  ‘I’m following one of the creatures!’

  ‘What?’ His eyes bore into me.

  ‘Look, over there!’ I point at the little figure, now halfway up the massive oak tree, its glittering skin lit by the moon. ‘I was right; they are following me. I’ve decided to follow back, to find out why they keep spying on me!’

  ‘That’s not a very good idea!’ he whispers, and even in the dark I can make out the scowl on his face.

  ‘Why not? I’m not making it up, Alberic. Look! What is that, even?’ I point at the inhuman figure as it scuttles through the branches.

  ‘It looks like a goblin, one of the court’s servants. I guess they’re more curious than I thought they’d be – elementals don’t normally have children. Maybe they have been watching you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like being spied on. I want to know what they’re saying about me,’ I tell him, shuffling forward as the creature begins to leap from tree to tree ahead of us. In the distance looms the Old Druid Wood, where Mallory and I used to go ‘camping’ for an afternoon, our bags packed with crisps and apples and torches. ‘You can either help me or go away; I’m fed up with sitting at home worrying about everything, not knowing what’s going on.’

  Alberic swears under his breath.

  ‘What is it?’ I demand, my eyes focused on the small figure still darting ahead. ‘Why are you so worried?’

  ‘I’m not worried. It’s late, and you’re chasing ideas with no basis!’

  ‘So don’t come! It’s fine, really. Just leave me to my lunacy, and I’ll catch up with you at school . . .’ I wink at him and scurry on, deeper into the little copse and towards the woodland, the goblin always just within sight. After a moment and with a low huff, Alberic follows me and I am glad of it, though I’d never say that to him.

  My chest is tight, my skin feels a size too small for me. I’m aware that there’s ice in the creases of my wrists and elbows and knees, that my hair is crusted with frost. I crouch, ignoring it while Alberic’s breath steams in the air next to me. We found them. In a little clearing in the middle of the wood, where the trees are tight-knit and thrust their roots out to trip careless feet, suddenly the pale figure of the court servant was joined by two other, taller figures, whose features I can’t make out in the darkness.

  ‘. . . We should just make our move, this is tedious, and I’ll be out of my season before much longer . . .’ A man’s voice, low and barbed with impatience. It sounds too deep to be that of the creature we followed.

  ‘This is the long game, my dear friend,’ replies a woman’s soft voice. ‘We must know all we can before we go any further. We need the sympathy of the whole court on our side.’

  ‘The goblins aren’t bringing anything useful, and unless she’s very stupid she’s going to spot one at some point. I don’t know why you insist upon them. She’s . . .’ There’s a shifting of feet in the clearing and I try to peer through, but Alberic is in the way and seemingly oblivious, caught up in it himself. He shuffles back as I get closer, thrusting me further into a gnarly old bush. I miss whatever the man was going to say about me as I try to struggle out without making any noise. I glare at Alberic in a ‘What are you doing?’ outraged sort of way and he indicates the clearing, gesturing impatiently to his ears, and then his eyes, and putting a finger over his lips to shut me up. Not that I was going to say anything. I turn away from him and try to pick up their voices again.

  ‘. . . We’ll need all the evidence we can find. It’s no small thing we’re attempting here. And before you start yowling again, remember we’re in this together. We set the trap and now there’s no escape; we have everything we need to destroy him. It’s just a matter of timing. We want the same thing, after all – to be rid of Jack and his trespass upon our seasons with his infernal frost. She is key to all of it. Now, then, what have you for us today, Sparling?’

  ‘She is keen-eyed, my Queen,’ comes a thin whisper. ‘And she has a guardian. I could not work out which; I caught a sense of it from the window. She has been active with Jokul, out at night playing with their art. She is trusting. Humans are.’

  ‘Well, that will go in our favour, at least,’ says the Queen. ‘You see, dear friend? Your own project may well bear fruit! How does he fare?’

  ‘I believe it is going well,’ replies the man. ‘I wonder if we should ask . . .’

  Suddenly, after all his warnings to me about keeping quiet, Alberic loses his balance and treads heavily, snapping the brittle, frozen twigs beneath our feet. A sudden bloom of silence seems to stretch around us. Alberic looks at me, panic written all over his face. ‘Run!’ he hisses, rushing towards me, grabbing me by the arm and pulling, through whipping branches and over the frozen ground until we are back out on the old common. He doesn’t stop there, either; his feet fly, and mine are forced to follow, stumbling, breath like fire in my lungs, until we’re safe in the well-lit suburban streets around the park.

  ‘What happened?’ I demand when we finally stop. I pull away from him and lean up against a fence, heart pounding.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says with a wince, bending to recover his breath. ‘My foot went numb, and I knew they’d have heard me crashing about. I didn’t want us to get caught.’

  ‘But they were just about to say something important, I know they were!’ I sigh and try to let go of the frustration; it wasn’t really his fault. ‘Who were they? One of them was a queen!’

  ‘The Queen of May,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure what she’s trying to achieve with all this, but she’s a schemer, and she’s not a fan of Jack. Spring versus winter, I suppose.’
<
br />   ‘Who was the man with her?’ I shudder at the memory of his harsh, uncaring voice.

  ‘Don’t know,’ says Alberic, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the fence. ‘I’ve no idea what they’re all doing.’

  ‘Well, they’re trying to get rid of Jack! I’ll have to warn him.’

  ‘Do you really have to?’ he asks. ‘What’s he done for you, Owl? How do you know it wouldn’t all be better without him?’

  ‘Do you think it would be? What’s he done that’s so wrong anyway?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s too wild. Some say he’s forgotten why he does what he does; he’s destructive.’

  ‘But he’s Jack Frost! How can you get rid of him? Isn’t he just being what he should be, doing his work?’

  ‘I’m not getting involved,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘And if I were you, I’d stay out of it.’

  I watch him walk away, slope-shouldered but still tall, and somehow incongruous against the pale dawn, his tawny hair like a burning challenge to winter itself.

  FABLES & EARTH SPIRITS

  The Queen of May

  It was a paradise, and she was entranced by it. The sky was endless blue, and the air rang with the chatter of small, bright birds. Green fields stretched out in every direction, tiny flowers of every colour nestled like stars within their folds. The girl’s heart soared to see such a place, and then the mistress of it all appeared before her and she was caught by the desolation in those green eyes, by the yearning that gleamed there.

  ‘What creature are you, to come before me thus?’ the lady hissed, porcelain skin flushed red with rage as she looked her up and down. ‘How do you DARE to appear here without invitation?’

  ‘I am . . . I am just—’

  ‘STOP stammering! Thou art like a frightened child.’ The lady thrust her hands out as if the girl’s presence caused her pain, her blossom-pink hair swirling about her face. She took a deep breath: the world around them seemed to dim and contract, and then all blazed forth once more, green and bountiful. New life was everywhere here, from the buds on the trees to the baby rabbits that bounced around them. Small figures giggled in the shade of rose bushes and for a moment the girl wondered if they were children, but they were not. Their skin was palest grey, their little teeth serrated – they were nothing human at all.