Owl Feathers

A missing girl, an owl that shouldn't be there

Owl Feathers...

A young servant and her employer set out across the moors. It’s already dark but there’s a full moon rising so they can see ahead well enough. The girl needs frequent rests.

The moon is gulped down by clouds and some hours later, the girl’s employer makes his way back home alone.

There’s dirt under his fingernails.

A few months later, masons were carrying out some repairs to the exterior of St. Brigid’s church when one of the apprentices spotted something. “Here, what’s this?” He pointed to a gothic style D carved into a bricked-up archway next to the entrance to the crypt.

One of the masons came over and had a look. “It means something’s hidden behind the brickwork,” he said.

The apprentice felt a tremor of excitement. He was only fourteen and still had an imagination. “What do you think it is?”

The mason scratched his chin. “None of our concern is what it is,” he said. “That were sealed up by other masons for a reason, so it’s best left alone.”

But that was a hard thing to do, especially when the boy noticed the brickwork was cracked and the mortar crumbling. He scraped enough of it away to make a thin gap between the bricks then tried peering through. It was useless. The interior was pitch black and all he got for his trouble was some grit in the eye. As he blinked fiercely, a shape, no bigger than a flea, flew out of the gap and away.

It landed on the back of a mouse nibbling grain stored in a barn. As dusk settled, the mouse scurried outside into long grass. It was spotted by a barn owl that caught and killed it before settling on a tree branch opposite the Vicarage to swallow it whole.

Rain fell up on the moors. In one spot, where the peat sank in a deep depression, a hand, flesh wrinkle-cracked as an old glove, emerged, fingers bent and beckoning.

In her tree, eyes opening, the owl looked out towards the moors.

Next morning, the Reverend Hopwood, Vicar of St. Brigid’s found a feather on his bedspread. A barn owl’s according to his gardener. “Odd that,” said the gardener. “They don’t usually come into houses. I’d sleep with winder shut in future though. Just to be sure.”

That evening, as Reverend Hopwood sat in his study, drinking port and trying to read a book, sleet scratched at the windows and pictures came unbidden into his mind: the moon tearing free from a cloud…soft black earth…her eyes...the moon watching like a cold dead face…her face…

There was an even louder tapping at the window and when he drew back the curtains, he saw an owl perched on the outside sill. He rapped on the glass but it remained motionless, eyes reflecting whitely back at him. He jumped back...and dropped his book on the floor, startling himself awake.

He told himself it was a dream but when he looked across at the curtained window, he saw feathers on the carpet just below the sill.

Later, lying in bed, wanting to sleep but dreading his dreams, he heard another loud persistent tapping at his window but stayed where he was.

That Sunday, his congregation noticed that the Vicar seemed distracted. There were comments on his drawn, haggard appearance. There was speculation. There was talk of drink.

That night, the gardener was sitting with his friend Joe in The Old Abbey. The gardener took a long swig of his beer. “That lass,” he began, “he were over fond of her, if you get my meaning, and then suddenly, she’s gone.”

“What are you saying?” asked Joe.

“Just this,” replied the gardener. “He could barely keep his hands off her. Next thing, she’s putting on weight and getting sickly in the mornings. My wife reckons she might have been, well you know...”

“You mean with child.” Joe took a long swig of his beer, draining his mug. “Well,” he said. “Not the first time and I dare say it won’t be the last. You think he had her put away then?”

“Could be,” said the gardener. “All he’d need is to get the papers signed and it’s off to the asylum and no more to be said.”

“Ah well,” said Joe, “you can be sure of one thing though.”

“And what would that be?” asked the gardener.

Joe glanced at his now empty mug. “Be sure your sins will find you out,” he said then got up and walked towards the bar.

Outside, a full moon rose and, in her tree, the owl watched and waited.

Reverend Hopwood’s dreams got worse. He saw her face every time he closed his eyes and even the increasingly large draughts of laudanum he took nightly didn’t help. He kept finding feathers everywhere: on his study carpet, on his bedspread and then, one morning just before Christmas, on the altar of his church. He asked the gardener about poison and traps.

“I reckon he’s mad,” the gardener confided to his wife that Christmas morning as they made their way towards church.

“Either that,” said his wife, “or it’s the witch.”

Her husband laughed. “Not that old moonshine again!”

His wife glared at him. “Don’t you be so sure! My old Grandma told me that her Grandma told her that there was a witch in these parts. Leastways, a woman were accused and hung and they walled up her body somewhere inside the church. I’ll tell you something else, it was whispered she weren’t no witch at all. She was with child and the local priest was the father. Story goes, he claimed she bewitched him. Not the first time that’s happened and it won’t be the last.”

As the Reverend Hopwood stood up in the pulpit to begin his sermon, he froze. Perched on the baptismal font at the back of the church was an owl. He stuttered, pointed and finally managed to say, “Can someone please remove that bird from my church?”

The congregation turned to look but all they saw was a baptismal font. “No bird there Vicar,” said the gardener.

“What do you mean?” the Vicar began. “It’s as plain as...” but then his voice trailed off. The owl was gone. He stumbled through his sermon but no one was listening. They were all staring at a feather dancing in the unfelt breeze just above his head.

That night as he sat in his study drinking laudanum laced port, there were two light but rapid taps at the window. Too loud for rain. He took another swig of his port-sipping was a distant memory- and listened.

Two more taps: pause: then two more but much louder this time. Lifting the glass to his lips, he saw it was empty. The glass itself was fine crystal and looking through it, he could see the flames in his fireplace stretching out into rainbow plaited logs.

Tap…taptap. .taptap…That noise was getting louder. He wondered for a minute if it was his own heartbeat but no, it was coming from the other side of the window.

He stood up (watched himself stand up) and drew back the curtains. An owl was perched on the outside sill. It tapped on the glass with its beak so he tapped back. It was a barn owl. Its wing feathers were dark but lighter honey coloured (like her hair) at the edges and the dark feathers were patterned with tiny eyes. The owl’s eyes were deep (feels like I’m falling) black and didn’t reflect any light back at him. Its breast feathers were white. It plucked a single feather from its breast. The feather caught a breeze and began dancing. He watched and suddenly wanted to catch it so raised the window.

The owl was gone (didn’t see it fly away) but it didn’t matter. He climbed over the ledge, reaching out all the time for a feather that he couldn’t quite catch. Always just beyond his fingertips, it led him through the garden, out of the side gate and over the road into the churchyard. The feather suddenly twirled straight up into the sky and grew into a cloud whose edges were silvered with moonlight.

It began to snow. The snowflakes (each one’s as big as a florin) glinted blue and gold in the moonlight and fell in patterns he was sure he could trace with his fingertip and sure enough, he could and he made a line of blue (always blue why not green?) and if he joined the lines he could make those patterns into solid shapes: but then one shape was the belt Father used (it stings) beat him with while Mother looked on saying big boys don’t cry: it grew into a cross and Jesus was hanging there all sweat and blood looking down at him.

The snow whirled into a blizzard and he was cold and lost but saw a light and ran towards that: it danced away just always out of reach and now the snow was knee deep. The trees thickened and he fought his way through low branches that whipped his face until it bled.

The light was there again, hovering just out of reach. He wanted to cry out, to pray, to beg forgiveness but then he saw Jesus who looked at him and knew he wasn’t really sorry: not really sorry: just scared.

The snow has shrunk to tiny flakes that fell dancing before they gradually settled in mid-air. They outlined shoulders, the tops of heads and an outstretched arm until finally, two more figures took solid shape and form. One was a woman he’d never seen before. The other was her. As she took a step towards him, his jaw unlocked.

Over in The Old Abbey, officially closed but defiantly open, the gardener looked up from his beer. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Joe slurred happily.

“Sounded like a scream to me,” said the gardener.

Joe drained his mug. “Vixen I expect.”

They found Reverend Hopwood next morning in the churchyard, frozen solid, which was odd, considering what a mild winter it had been. Even odder was the melting snow that masked his face.

Everywhere else was dry and clear.

That Spring, up on the moors, a shepherd finally found one of his lost sheep. She’d not long dropped a lamb. It was still steaming, sticky with mucus and lying in a depression in the peat. A hand was protruding out of the ground by its head, fingers reaching out in a caress.

The shepherd ran back to the village and came back with some men, the gardener among them. They dug down and found the well-preserved body of the missing housekeeper. She’d been strangled and a post mortem revealed, she was at least four months pregnant as well.