Omen

Samuel heard the first screech when he was sitting in front of his fireplace, idly whittling at a branch from the firewood pile. He had always had a hard time sleeping, ever since he was a young boy. He had found his ways to pass the time while the rest of the village was asleep.

The screech - though distant - had startled him, causing his arm to jerk and the knife to cut off a larger chunk of wood than he had intended. He set the branch and knife down and stood from his chair, bones creaking in protest. He took the lantern from the table next to him. Just as he opened the door to step out into the night, the second screech came.

He looked up at the sky, but he couldn’t see anything except the stars.

Samuel started walking towards the center of the village, holding the lantern aloft to light the way.

He had only walked past three homes before the screech came once more. It was louder this time - closer.

A door opened nearby and a woman exited her home. She was dressed in a nightgown and cap, though she also had a cloak hastily thrown on over it all. She held a baby to her chest.

“Samuel,” the woman said, stepping closer to him to be in the light.

“Miss Sarah,” Samuel greeted with a nod.

Sarah looked up at the sky. “Have you seen it yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Samuel told her. The two of them kept walking slowly towards the center of town, their eyes darting towards the sky every few seconds. “Were you awake?” he asked.

“Just finished feeding the baby,” Sarah explained, gently bouncing the infant in her arms.

Samuel nodded in understanding and then whipped his head to the side as he saw a flash of white in his periphery. “Did you see that?” he asked in a whisper.

“No,” Sarah whispered back.

The fourth screech came then, even louder. A streak of white crossed the sky above Samuel and Sarah.

“There!” Sarah exclaimed, pointing at it.

She and Samuel stood still and kept their eyes on the bird as it started circling the village, each circle slightly smaller than the last.

Both of them were old enough to remember the last time the owl appeared three years ago.

The screeches were coming closer together, louder as the owl circled closer to the roofs of the small village. More doors opened, villagers exiting their homes after being roused from their sleep by the cries. Everyone kept their eyes on the white underbelly of the owl flying overhead.

The bird’s circles became tighter, no longer circling the village as a whole but rather a particular home. The villagers walked through the streets, trying to figure out which house the owl was honing in on.

Finally, the owl was circling just one house. Sarah, Samuel, and the rest of them stopped in the street in front of it. None of them said anything.

The owl dipped lower and flapped its wings as it settled on the peak of the roof. It stared down at the villagers with large, dark eyes. Though the light from the lanterns didn’t reach far, the owl’s white, heart-shaped face seemed oddly illuminated in the night. The owl was quiet and still as it watched them.

“Miss Edith,” someone said. It was a realization that echoed through the small crowd. The owl was there for Miss Edith.

The door to the house creaked open. A frail, stooped woman stood in the doorway, and the crowd went silent again as they watched her shuffle outside.

“Do we know who it is yet?” Miss Edith asked the crowd in her wobbly voice, looking at the sky as all of them had done when they’d left their own homes that night. When nobody said anything, Miss Edith asked, “Well?”

“It’s not her,” Sarah whispered to Samuel. It was something that each of the villagers was beginning to realize.

Someone stepped forward to take Miss Edith by the elbow, guiding her away from the house. She continued looking around, not realizing that the owl was perched on her own home. Everyone else stared at the door.

It was a minute before Pastor Joshua stepped forward. He, like most of the gathered villagers, was in his nightclothes, but he still had the poise one associated with a man of the cloth. He approached the open door, took a deep breath, and entered.

The rest of the villagers waited in silence. Several of them stared up at the owl on the roof, unnerved by its unblinking gaze and white, mask-like face.

After a minute of silence, a scream came from inside the house, and then sobbing.

“It must be Thomas,” Samuel whispered to Sarah.

Sure enough, Pastor Joshua came out of the house, struggling to carry the limp body of a man. Samuel and several of the other men in the village rushed forward to help, and together they laid the body on the stone road.

Mary, Thomas’ wife, clutched the doorway to keep herself upright as she sobbed. A young child came up behind her, holding onto Mary’s nightgown as he peered around her at what had happened.

Miss Edith continued to look up at the sky, unaware of the commotion behind her.

Once Thomas’ body was laid out on the road, the villagers stepped back from it. Pastor Joshua held Mary back when she tried to run to her husband’s body.

The owl, which had been silent since perching on the roof, glided down and settled on Thomas’ chest. It tilted its head as it peered down at his lifeless face. Then it hopped forward and took a lock of the man’s curly hair in its beak. It tugged until the hair pulled free and then, with the lock of hair still clutched in its beak, the owl pushed itself into flight.

The villagers watched the ghostly white underside of the owl as it flew off into the distance, until they could see it no more.

Pastor Joshua released Mary, letting her rush to kneel over Thomas’ body as she continued to sob. The rest of them continued to look at the spot in the sky where they had last been able to see the owl, wondering, as they did every time, where it had gone.