“No! Everyone calls me Bethanie.” She managed to grind out the last few words with less intensity than she started. Only her mother had ever called her Beth, and that was a name she never wanted to hear again for as long as she lived.
He chuckled, enjoying the look of annoyance on her face that he had put there. Seemed he could push some of her buttons. He liked that she had more spirit in her than vinegar. She was one of those, he decided, that you had to take time getting to know. Not one who would spill her life story in the first twenty minutes of meeting them. Still waters run deep and shallow waters run off with the next good-looking guy they can find. “Have you got a middle name, Miss Hutchinson?”
“No.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, Bethanie,” he enunciated her name for emphasis as he answered her previous question, “but the president of the school's not about to embarrass himself by calling off the closure so soon. That would accomplish nothing but stirring up a hornet's nest of angry, wealthy parents. But one thing's for sure, we'll find out soon enough if it was a student doing it all. Now that everyone's been sent home, if the attacks continue, that will tell us something about who's doing it.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, taking her attention away from him. She looked out the window behind her and worried for the safety of her owls. “I need to check on my owls now.”
“A storm is coming. You're going nowhere.”
“Barn owls can't fly in the rain,” she insisted. “Their feathers aren't waterproof. So now is the perfect time to check on them. They'll be hiding from the rain inside the box.”
Shadow seemed to think this through for a moment, then looked at her pointedly. “No. You're waiting here until the storm passes. Only a dumb ass goes outside in lightning. And then only once.”
Bethanie glared at him. Who did he think he was? She was used to coming and going as she pleased. And now, he thought he was going to stop her? “I don't have to check with you for all my comings and goings.”
“Look,” he pointed straight at her, “whatever happens to you from here on out until the school opens is my business. And you're right, you don't have to check with me, because you're not going anywhere.”
She glared at him even harder now.
Shadow smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. “Consider me your personal bodyguard. I don't need to remind you why. Two young women are missing. And until this,” Shadow paused for the right word, “whatever this is, is stopped, you're my responsibility. That means you do nothing without me right there with you.” Without waiting for a reply, he got up from the table and removed a bottle of beer from the fridge then purposefully strode over to his stereo cabinet, setting one of his favorite albums in the record player.
Bethanie did not know what kind of music she had expected to hear, but the beautiful strains of cello accompanied by a piano was not it, she thought as she too left the table and sat in one of the soft leather arm chairs flanking the fireplace.
Shadow adjusted the volume so that he could hear Bethanie’s soft voice then relaxed into the leather chair opposite her, setting the amber bottle of ale on the side table. He placed his hands behind his head, stretching his long, muscular legs out in front of him. “Tell me about your owls. What are you doing with them?”
“Doing with them?” Bethanie repeated. Then she realized that she was actually flattered by his interest in her work, and she relaxed a little. “Most of what I do is sift through their regurgitated pellets that they make into nests.”
“They sleep on their own pellets?” Shadow asked, pulling a face.
“Yes,” she nodded, feeling delighted to finally be able to tell him something that he did not know, “and lay their eggs on top of them. Most people think that all birds build their nests from sticks and twigs. But not barn owls.” She shook her head. “And it makes sense because most of what they eat, they swallow whole, fur and all.”
“And what is it you do with the pellets exactly?” he asked, genuine interest wrinkling his brow.
“I dissect them.” She tucked her feet underneath her, making herself more comfortable in the chair. “I count how many of each known species of rodent the owls are consuming in a given time period. That way, I can compare those figures in a graph with what would be expected in the population. Assume that one of the numbers, let's say, of brown field mice, is low. We can then track that information over time, to rule out any normal fluctuations in population, and then be able to tell if the numbers are decreasing. If they are too low or too high than expected, that tells us that there may be a problem with the health of the ecosystem.”
“If there's a problem, then what?”
“Then the biology department takes over. My field is Animal Science.”
“I see.” Owl girl, he thought to himself, grinning at her over the top of his beer as he took a sip. “Why do they live in nesting boxes? Why not the barn as their name suggests?”
“The barn owl earned their name because they take up residency in abandoned buildings overlooking meadows, and that just so happens to be mostly barns. But they've been known to move into abandoned farmhouses as well, anywhere they can find a cozy corner to hide. If we were to say, place the owls inside one of your barns, for example, they would never get any peace because of the unpredictable noise of the farm equipment. We place them in nesting boxes on tops of poles because it's a safe, controlled environment for them near a place that can provide them a plentiful food supply if they are to procreate.”
Shadow looked at the wristwatch on his left arm and said, “I've got to go out tomorrow and check on the fields. The grass is getting too high. You can come with me.”
Although Bethanie had grown up accustomed to being ordered around by the men in her family, she had lived far away from it for three years now and had grown to like it that way. But for a moment, she considered relenting to this tyranny. She did need to check on her owls. Then remembering her anger at him just moments before, she came to her senses and stomped upstairs to her room.
Shadow shrugged to himself, taking another long sip from the ale in his right hand. At least talking to her had been fun while it lasted.
On Tuesday morning after breakfast, just as promised, Shadow walked with Bethanie over to the field where her owls lived and hunted. Shadow kneeled down on one knee in the grass he had just topped off with the tractor, cursing as he pulled crabgrass from the ground. Bethanie's owls could not hunt in grass that was too high to see their prey nor too low to allow the prey no place to hide. Since this field was currently being rested in between grazings by the school's Angus cattle, he could let it get higher than normal for the owls.
“Why do you go to so much trouble with your grass?” Bethanie asked. “Why not just spray weed killer on the crabgrass? Is it worth it if the school has to practically bend over backwards to earn organic status?”
“It's worth it. Poison would not only kill off the crabgrass, but it would also damage the rodent population that your owls depend upon. Plus, I don't want herbicides making it impossible for my other grasses to get nutrition from the soil, slowly killing it as well.”
“The chemicals prevent the other grasses from feeding off the soil?”
He squatted down next to Mother Earth, pushing back the top layer of new growth to show Bethanie the healthy litter layer. “Not only does it eventually rob the plant life, but a few years back, our native frog species, the Northern Cricket Frog, came near to extinction. Widespread and unregulated pesticide use here on campus was responsible. Luckily, the biology department looked into it in time to turn things around, but had to take matters into their own hands because at the time, no one cared. No one saw the problem with losing a few noisy frogs. But that wasn't the worst part. Some of the frogs had to be rescued so they could reestablish their numbers. It was discovered then that some had actually changed their sex. Gone from male to female.”
Bethanie's eyes went round in shock.
“The chemical Atrizine
had been so heavily used at the time to prevent crabgrass, that it altered the DNA of the frogs.”
“I knew they could be dangerous, but think about what that means for us if it can do that to frogs.”
Shadow nodded. “That's why the school decided to try and earn the organic status.”
One of Bethanie's favorite sounds at night was the frogs. Their croaking was one of the only night sounds that did not frighten her. It was so peaceful. And how horrific to think that they were nearly decimated. She squatted down next to Shadow to get a better look at the grass that she saw with a whole new appreciation now. But her eyes wandered to the muscles in Shadow's strong thigh as it lightly brushed hers.
“That's where your owls' dinner hides,” Shadow said, continuing the Herbology lesson. “Underneath here,” he pointed to the layer of dead grass known as the litter layer, “lives a treasure trove of voles. And if they're ingesting pesticides, so are your owls.”
This was not news to her, but she was surprised to learn that the two of them, she and Shadow, seemingly so different, had actually been working in harmony all this time. And she had never even known. She wanted to raise healthy owls, and he wanted to raise healthy crops. “It's amazing,” she said as she watched in fascination at the vole that had appeared before their very eyes. Poking his head out of a hiding hole, he spotted them and disappeared as fast as he had come.
“What's amazing?” Shadow asked.
She turned towards him, still kneeling next to him. This close to him, her body felt very strange. Warmth spread throughout her, pooling in her belly. She even felt a little lightheaded but thought that it must be all of the excitement of yesterday catching up with her.
Shadow noticed the change in her, the hesitation in her breath and the softening of her eyes as she looked up at him. A part of him wanted to reach out and reassure this n'ya that she was safe with him, but something held him back. “Let's go check on those chicks of yours like I promised.”
When they arrived at the spot where her hand-made nesting box sat atop the pole, Bethanie stopped, pointing to the sky to where the male barn owl, responsible for the majority of the hunting, swooped down over the field. In mid-flight, he snatched up his prey, using his powerful talons and remarkably grabbed the mouse from the ground with its beak mid-flight and carried it back to its nest.
Once they were sure the male had satisfactorily delivered lunch to his bride, the two of them cautiously approached the pole.
“Shadow, look!” Bethanie exclaimed at the top after Shadow secured a ladder to the pole, allowing them both to climb up at once. “They've all hatched.”
“Now to give your children proper names...” Bethanie began.
“Names?” Shadow said, liking the way his own name sounded on her lips. “You're going to give them names?” he asked incredulous and slightly amused but giving no indication other than a slight flicker in his expression.
“I've given their parents names. Why shouldn't I give their babies names too?” Bethanie said without apology as she continued, introducing Shadow to the owlets, each of whom were clearly like family to her. “This is Mike and Carol,” she began, introducing the parents first. “And this will be Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Alice, and last but not least, Tiger.”
“You obviously watched too much television as a kid,” Shadow stated matter-of-factly.
“Actually, I was never allowed to watch TV. I'm making up for lost time,” she said with an impish grin. “It makes them seem more like real friends.”
Shadow obviously did not share in her enthusiasm for television. “It's a complete waste of time.”
“Not if it's all you've got,” Bethanie snapped. “Besides, how would you know if you've never watched it?”
“I didn't say that. I had a typical childhood. Saturday morning cartoons and all. But you grow up.”
“It's just harmless entertainment.” Bethanie said, feeling slightly resentful of his criticisms of something she loved and began climbing down. “And something that I was deprived of as a child,” Bethanie said with a light toss of her hair once she had reached the bottom of the pole. At least that's what her roommate, Maggie, had always told her.
“Did it ever occur to you that there is more to it than that? That the powers that be don't want us paying attention to what's going on under our very noses? So they lull us to sleep with inanity, so-called reality television, assuring that no one will be paying any attention to what they’re up to,” Shadow said with a raise of his brow.
Bethanie had never given a thought to anything like that before; her own life had been so full of unhappiness that she found the portrayal of families on television to be idyllic, almost fairytale-like. But, she had to admit, there could be some truth to what he said. Since her parents had forgone television for religious reasons, she had never considered that there could be other reasons for not watching.
Quickly dismissing Shadow’s speech, she thought about what she would write in her field journal when they returned to the cabin. She made a quick jot in the margin of her notebook as to the number of eggs and the number of hatchlings she had just found. Her workload would increase now with a new family to observe, but she would love every minute of it. She would prove herself to the Barn Owl Conservatory.
Chapter 4
That night, Shadow could not sleep when he heard a voice coming from the guest bedroom, the room Bethanie was in. She must be talking in her sleep, he thought, but wanted to check it out to make sure. He got out of bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, more than he normally slept in, but with a lady in the house, he thought he should step up his game a little. Before he knocked, he found the door already open. Bethanie was sitting up in the window seat, staring out of the window at a perfect, full, harvest moon.
He froze mid-stride across the room shocked by what he saw when Bethanie turned her head towards him, the light from the moon spilling into the room and lighting up her face. Her pupils were huge. Dark and round, resembling the eyes of her beloved barn owls. He placed a hand on her shoulder to try and wake her, assuming that she was caught in the throws of a nightmare. But when she let out a raspy hiss, the warning call of her owls, he knew this was no dream.
“It's killing them,” she whispered. “I could see it killing them. It's killed Carol's owlets.”
He placed a finger on the pulse of her throat. Even as his own heart was racing, hers was as well. Suddenly, she snapped out of whatever had a hold of her and her eyes were human again.
“Cannibalism is not that far fetched. It happens in the animal world more than we might like to think,” Shadow said the next morning when they arrived at the owl's nest.
The parents sat, forlornly looking out the four-inch diameter hole of the nest. Their eyes were wide in the dim light of the box, and Bethanie's heart sank, breaking for them and their loss. This was the kind of loss she was all too familiar with, the death of a family member.
Shadow blinked, rubbing eyes that burned, still raw from lack of sleep. After spending a terrifying night in at Bethanie’s beside after she had sweetly asked him in her softest voice to stay with her, which he had done, sitting on the edge of her bed, talking to her about the only thing he could think of, wheat grass. She had finally fallen drifted off before dawn. And when she awoke this morning had no recollection of what she had said or seen the previous night until Shadow had filled her in, in an effort to prepare her for the worst.
This morning at the nest, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement not to discuss anymore what had happened last night, as well as an unspoken truce between them. And that was fine with Shadow. He felt a growing sense of protectiveness towards her, including preventing her from being alone and scared to death.
“Cannibalism,” she whispered, as if tasting the word and not liking what came up. The idea did not surprise her, disturbed her yes, but did not surprise. What did disturb her however was his blunt acceptance of the fact. She knew her owls better than that. She
had spent the past year and a half studying them.
“Especially among siblings with ready access,” he added.
That was more than she could bear. She had seen with her own eyes, the affection between these owl siblings. Oftentimes, using the infrared nighttime vision cameras mounted nearby, she had observed the older siblings feeding the begging younger siblings while the parents were away hunting under the cover of night. “I just don't believe it.” She crossed her arms in front of herself. With her own siblings however, things had been very different. Her two brothers, both of whom were older than she, had displayed their own willingness to attack her and feed off of her remains on many occasions. Most particularly, using their ill-found fame from their father's murder to turn that infamy into opportunity for themselves. Meanwhile, they left Bethanie to starve on her own. Her oldest brother, Peter, had both secured for himself a lofty position in their church, the same one to which she was no longer welcome.
But her own barn owls, she could not believe would do such a thing. No, she was not ignorant of the facts of life, nor of the circle of life, but she had seen much too much compassion from these older sibling towards the younger ones, witnessed them hunting for them and feeding them while their parents were away. Such compassion as she had never received from her own siblings. But, here it was, the evidence right in front of her, the inexplicable death of an entire brood. “They were a family. Why would God let something like this happen? It's just not right,” she cried, swiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her sleeve. “You know what?” She looked up at Shadow with a pathetic look on her face that nearly broke his heart. “This is just like Smoky all over again.”
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