The Imprint.

I press the doorbell, four, maybe five times. One last time and I’ll give up. I always make sure to stand back when I’m at the door of an elderly person’s house, you never want to be liable for giving them a heart attack. While I wait, I admire the dark oak panels of the door I have faced hundreds of times; the red brick alcove it sits in, the ceramic doorbell painted with miniature forget-me-nots and the wisteria hanging above it. In fact, I look in all directions to distract myself from the stained-glass owl perched in the door’s inlay. That owl was the most prominent monster in my childhood nightmares, with its fine beak and gaudy green eyes. It is hauntingly menacing for a front door feature. Today, it looks more alive than I remember, but perhaps that’s the caffeine kicking in.

I am about to turn and leave when the door clicks open.

“Darling! Come in”, my Grandpa grins.

“Jesus Gramps, were you leaving me out here to freeze?”

It’s a chilly March morning and I forgot my gloves.

“I was faffing about upstairs, can’t hear the bloody bell from up there.”

I dump a bag of food on the ‘welcome’ chair.

Granny is in hospital, she had a bowel operation yesterday – cancer – typical. We were both fretting about her so we decided to join forces and fret together. Besides, Grandpa has as much cooking prowess as a boiled lobster and wouldn’t survive two days alone. I notice he is a little jittery today, which is understandable but it’s strange not to be greeted by an embrace. He grabs my hand tightly in his. His hands are leathery, but full of blood, full of life.

“I want to show you something”.

I laugh at his sudden acceleration and then immediate deceleration when faced with the foot of the stairs. He lets go of my hand and ascends.

“It’s been the strangest of mornings!”

I follow him.

“How so?”

“I can’t explain it. I keep thinking Ann is here. I keep talking to her and then turning around to see I’m alone.”

“Aw well that’s bound to happen. It’s what you’re used to.”

“I know you think I’m senile but I do remember where she is. It’s that I’ve actually been hearing her, organising the bedroom cupboards or something. I’ve felt her too, brush past me.”

“Maybe you’ve got a wee ghostie problem?”

I’m not superstitious at all but you always consider the possibilities when someone reports strange activity. We arrive at his bedroom door, it’s shut. He pauses in front of it for effect. He could make opening the post dramatic. I suddenly think aloud –

“Have you heard from her today?”

“No, not since yesterday.”

A sudden pit wells in my stomach.

“But I’m visiting her at five. Are you ready?” he says.

“Sure.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting. Clothes strewn across the floor? Talcum powder on the walls? An un-made bed… at least? Everything is in its place. Granny’s perfume, Channel no.5, hits me with a pang of anxiety. He takes my hand again and leads me over to the window.

“There!”

“What?”

Frosty grass scatters the morning light onto the window in refracted shards.

“You tell me! What can you see?”

“I see that your windows need cleaning”

There’s a faint brown mark.

“They do! They do because…”

“Oh my god, I see it”

“Poor thing”

The mark is in the shape of a bird. An imprint. Amazing really: two defined wings, a head and a belly.

“It’s huge. What kind of bird do you think it was?”

“A falcon of some sort. Most likely a Kite. There’s a lot around here at the moment”

“That’s awful. God, that makes me feel quite sick. Would it have survived?”

“An impact like that for a small bird would have finished it off. But you know what? I think a big bird like that will have managed just fine. He’s probably perching in a tree right now, shaking off the shock”.

“Let’s hope so. It’s lucky it didn’t break the glass.”

“A miracle”, he ponders.

A walk is necessary after lunch or Grandpa will fall asleep until sunset and then stay up all night. He hates walking. Though his mind is active, he is a natural sloth and finds afternoon TV much more rewarding. The weather is in my favour, the sun is so brilliant that it’s hard for him to say no. We embark through the gate at the bottom of his garden, traverse a doll-sized bridge he built over the stream and walk along the field to meet up with the main river.

“I have never understood why you built a fence there”, I say, “surely if you had a stream at the end of your garden you’d want to include it in your boundary?”

“What use do I have for a stream?” he replies.

“Well, you know, it’s nice to look at and you’ve got easy access for washing your clothes…”

“We have a washing machine.”

“Sorry, I forget you live in modern times.”

He trips me up with his walking stick in revenge.

“It’s like this,” he says, “that stream is the only safe water source for the wildlife around here, and if I build a blooming great fence around it, they’re not going to be able to access it.”

“Oh of course,” I announce in an obvious tone… though it hadn’t occurred to me, aching embarrassment settles within. As if to rub salt in the wound, he continues:

“It’s awful the way we just storm in and claim the land as our own, cover it in bricks and mortar and nasty concrete. We’re squeezing nature out of our lives. The least I could do is let them have the stream”.

A dozen houses back onto the stream, only a handful have left it to nature.

“I’m surprised there isn’t a law about it or something.”

He cackles. “If they really cared they’d stop building on our green belt”.

Grandpa lives in an idyllic street on the outskirts of Cambridge. Behind his house, he has grassland, streams and woodlands that stretch deep into the city’s belly with remarkable resilience. As a little girl, I used to play in the river; catch fish in my net, build fairy houses in the woods, feed the ponies. It was a utopia of fond memories. Now, as we reach the pine-dressed river bank, everything seems a darker shade of green. I fight past the nostalgia of a place which was once alive with existence. I remind myself that right now I am cultivating future memories, so I might as well make them pleasant ones.

We whistle the opening theme tune to “The Vicar of Dibley” whilst fishing out logs from the river with Grandpa’s walking stick. I collect the little ones, so we can play Pooh sticks at the bridge further down. While I am dipping my hand into the glassy flow to grasp a particularly attractive-looking Pooh stick, I spot a string of emerald scales wriggle up the bank. The grass snake fires past my knees, across the path and towards the woodland, when it pauses, seemingly evaluating a potential threat. As I approach, it slinks off soundlessly into the matt of ground ivy. I am utterly distracted, I can only focus on the object lying beside its path. A sleek mountain of creamy oak coloured feathers. Tears shoot into my ducts involuntarily; I am only able to blink them feverishly out the way. I extend the back of my forefinger and stroke the down feathers, speckled with white and grey flecks. God, they’re soft. There’s this overwhelming feeling of wanting to protect this creature as I turn it on its back, revealing the snowy white face of a barn owl. Tears roll off my cheeks and collect on the owl’s plumage in tiny beaded jewels. Why do the beautiful ones always have to end tragically?

“Grandpa”, I call.

He moves over to where I am crouched. The silence is unbearable, I turn to him, catching the glint of sadness in his eyes.

“Do you think it was the one that flew into your window?”

“Yes”, is all he can respond.

“Then why is it out here?”

“The adrenaline must have got him back here, only for him to realise it was too much.”

We both look up at the towering pine tree above us.

“Quite a fall”.

“He wouldn’t have felt it”, Grandpa reassures me.

I wrap the owl up in my coat and we silently turn on our tracks.

“What are we going to do with it?” he asks.

“Give it a nice burial?”

His mind had settled on an even darker topic.

“She’ll be okay” I say. “She’s probably just invested in a tricky crossword”.

Grandpa slides the car keys off the hook. “Are you sure you don’t want a lift? It’s dark”, I ask.

“No, you look after the house – make sure there’s no more casualties.”

“I’ll try”, I say, transfixed by the shimmering white of the barn owl’s chest protruding from the shoe box. The door clicks shut. I fill the kettle with water, the bubbling soothes my agitated state, a white noise that blankets intrusive thoughts. The kettle clicks off and immediately there’s a slam at the window. My heart thuds. I am breathless as I wait for a face to appear there. A picture frame shatters to the ground, confirming my sanity and suggesting the presence is inside the house.

“Granny?” I whisper.

A rush of cold air behind my neck.

“Hello?” I feel foolish for speaking just as soon as I do. I reach for the phone and dial Mum’s number, tapping anxiously as it rings out.

“Hello, Mum – I think there’s something in Grandpa’s house. I heard a bang on the window, and then a picture fell and I just felt something behind me. I’m freaking out.”

“Don’t be silly!”

“I’m being deadly serious.”

“Then leave, come home – it’s not far.”

“But I’m supposed to make Grandpa dinner…”

“He’ll survive. I think you’re being a little dramatic.”

A cupboard bangs.

“Jesus Christ. Did you hear that?”

“No?”

The owl’s chest jolts gently. Rigor Mortis, I hope.

“I’ve got to go”. I hang up. Scrabbling to my feet as I take the shoebox outside.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, especially ghosts of owls - that’s ridiculous”, I say as I place it on the flagstones.

I peer into the darkness, adrenaline fuelling a far-off fantasy. The warmly lit kitchen looks no place for paranormal whisperings. Like a slick of silver, I catch a shape slice through the air. A trick of light? A bat is behind me? Again. Another crash from inside. I look down at the box, expecting the owl to have come alive. It lays untouched by life. As I raise my head, another pair of eyes meet mine – they are a keen yellow with the desperation of a sinking ship. It ‘twoos’ softly but unmistakably.

Unalarmed and grateful for something tangible, I speak to the eyes: “You knew?”

I pick up the shoe box and foolishly offer the eyes a look. They stare and blink with irritation. They coo again. Another pair of eyes blink open a little further off, by my estimation, the apple tree.

“My god”

Eyes blink open from all directions, accompanied by a twit and twooing that crescendos into a symphony of mourning. I am dumbfounded.

“Have him back, I don’t want him.”

I shove the shoe box across the floor. Yellow-eyes doesn’t flinch. He flashes forward and perches on a patio chair. Surveying me closely with his sorrowful eyes, I can finally see the true injustice of the stained-glass owl and my recurring nightmare. With what seems like a nod of mutual understanding, the owl lifts himself into the air and melts into the night. The souls of judgement follow him, forming a chilling beat as the flashes of their white wings paint the sky.

“It’s not my fault”, I shout at them.

I look down at the barn owl one last time, my body collapses into grief. There is something bigger going on that I don’t understand. Before I can comprehend my response and clearly compelled by their performance, I run after them. Jumping over the stream, stumbling through the field, ducking under the tree branches; I am so utterly determined with no objective other than to follow them until dawn, if that’s what it takes.

The owls adopt shelter in the canopy of the evergreen woods. Their calls die out as I slow to a trembling walk, dizzied by the glare of their eyes in the shrouded sky. The lapse of their wing beats reveals a sound I shan’t ever forget. A noise so restrained in its pitch, so low and spectral that it can barely be considered a sound, simply an exhalation of air through a tight spot. It makes me want to bolt, but through some unearthly anthrozoological bond, the hypnotic eyes persuade me to stay. I am drawn to the place I found the barn owl despite the penetrating groan breaching my inner psyche. I shine my phone-torch up the length of the pine, it is met by an astonished silence and three white faces. Synchronised, they bob side to side, up and down, then duck away. I inhale pure putrid fear and as the moment dawns, I exhale a sigh of relief. The reality of this nightmarish plight is that this is a tragedy not a horror. Owlets – three of them. Motherless.

My phone rings – Mum.

“Hi” I breathe.

“Where are you? Did you find out what the sound was?”

“No… well, I have some idea.”

“I’m at Grandpa’s house, can you let me in?”, she questions.

“I’m in the woods at the back. Can you come and find me, and bring a big box? There’s something I need to do.”

Mum and I sit motionless in the kitchen. A cardboard box on the table, not a shoe box, an old microwave box. Within, the owlets rest in a silence that feels strangely self-aware.

“Just imagine – “, Mum starts. I hush her. We wait for five minutes, maybe ten.

She starts again “Just imagine being orphaned like that. Nobody to tell you your mother’s gone.”

“It’d be awful”, I say. Mum goes quiet. “They’ll be back any minute Mum, you’re not going to be an orphan.”

She smiles weakly – “I know”.

“That’s it, the noise has gone. The thing in the house has gone.”

“Maybe because I’m here. They know not to mess with me,” she jokes.

“I think it’s because they’re here”, I gesture to the box.

“Really?”

“Yeh, you know how they say that ghosts usually stay in our realm because they have unfinished business. Well maybe the owlets were the barn owl’s unfinished business.”

“How philosophical.”

“Owls have souls too. I’ve seen it.” I go over to the sink and wet a cloth. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I sit in the comforting darkness of my grandparent’s room. The evergreens stand guard over the scant wilderness. My eyes refocus on the owl’s imprint. Death in art. I muse over the possibility of such an impact shaking the soul from the body, just as the dust was shook from the feathers. I crack the window open and listen for a twit or a twoo. The silence is fitting. I wipe the window pane from the outside, it feels regrettably cathartic. A SLAM shatters my thoughts. I twist my head in horror, searching the room for the returning spectre.

“Granny?”, I whisper.

“Evie”, Mum calls from below “Grandpa’s home. The operation was a success!”