The Owl Who Claimed Herself

No one likes hearing the truth, especially from a girl in pigtails.

I live in a small town you've never heard of, where the swampy hot summers are in no way made up for by the pitiful excuse of a winter. Even so, I've found things to love. The quiet, the stillness in the wood that surrounds our home, the soft sounds of the lazy brook bubbling along its path. The colorful menagerie of animals, especially the birds, flying high and free. But I've never quite come to love the people. Maybe that's cause they've never really understood me. Then again, it took me some time to figure out who I was in the first place.

I was maybe five when it started, or maybe that's just when I could finally speak it. At a party at old Mr. Tethersweed's house, I told him his heart was tired and would stop soon. He laughed it away.

Later, he would pull my mother aside and confide in her about the strange encounter. Telling her that no normal red-blooded American child should be so preoccupied with things such as death.

"Oh, that's just Cassie," my mom replied, trying to nervously laugh it away, her feathers a bit flustered.

Mom always reminds me of a mourning dove. Slight and simple, her muted beauty often lost to her own internal wishing that she was one of those white doves. The ones that everyone thinks of when you say 'dove’.

A mourning dove isn't white, it's grey, with a hidden blush creeping up its chest. Its wings several shades darker while tucked back in proper form. That's my mom. Trying to fit in, hoping that doing so will make her beautiful.

There was no nervous laughter two weeks later when Mr. Tethersweed died of a heart attack. Mrs. Tethersweed promptly marched up the steps of our front porch that day. After several pounds of her fist against the door, my mother opened it to be greeted by—

"How dare she!" Mrs. Tethersweed yelled in her face. "That thing, that child, is a demon."

She pointed directly at me. I yipped in fear, dodged behind a wall that hid me from her sight, and tunneled under a blanket.

Mrs. Tethersweed was like a yellow-rumped warbler. Always scavenging for any little piece of gossip throughout the town. Able to know anything, or convince people she knew things she didn’t. At the end of her day, she just sat on her porch with judgeful beady eyes as she watched the rest of us walk by.

My mom stood guard, blocking Mrs. Tethersweed from entering. The simple mourning dove against the judgy yellow warbler. The fight in the wild might have been nothing to mention, of no importance. But to me it meant everything.

"Please, Mrs. Tethersweed," my mom said in a soft calming voice. "She is no such thing."

"She murdered my Tim!"

"No, she didn't. She's just a child."

"She said his heart would stop, and it did! She killed him!"

I cowered under my blanket, balled up and scared, though I didn’t know what a blanket could have done to prevent Mrs. Tethersweed from whatever she was going to do. I heard the word exorcism tossed around a time or two. Mrs. Tethersweed's anger seemed to have a life of its own, as if it were trying to grab and pull me under.

I didn't know what I had done wrong. Mrs. Tethersweed seemed to think I was the crow, the eagle-eyed black bird. An omen of death circling her husband and other innocent prey. But I wasn't, I wasn't a bad bird. Was I? I didn't mean for Mr. Tethersweed to die, I just Knew he would. Did that make me a crow?

I’d just had a feeling. It was like when I finally understood a math problem, that spark of knowing, really Knowing. It brightened my whole self and I just spoke the words as they flowed from my mouth. I Knew his heart would stop like I knew two plus two equals four. So I said what I Knew and felt the truth in the words as they poured out of me.

I knew what I was speaking would happen.

But…had I made it happen? Or had I just Known it would happen?

I peeked around the corner and caught sight of Mrs. Tethersweed's face flushed with anger. Yet still, my mother stood in the doorway, blocking her path.

"She did it!" The angry warbler yelled. "She's to blame for my husband’s death!"

I pulled myself back to the safety of the wall and looked uncertainly at my hands. Could I make things happen? Was I the crow? If so, maybe I could use it for good? "Soon, my mother will win a million dollars," I whispered into the world. I didn't feel anything though, not like the Knowing lighting up my body I had before with Mr. Tethersweed's heart stopping.

I didn’t know if I wanted it to work even in the moment. Cause if it did, if my mother won a million dollars, then I really was responsible for the death. I didn't want that, I didn't want to be the crow. Luckily, no cash flow rained down on my mother. Anything I said only because I wanted it to come true, didn't.

I tried a few times throughout my life. As if I needed to remind myself I wasn't making the things I Knew happen. I tried to will a kid in middle school to heal from her broken heart; for my mom to understand that Dad was never coming back.

But that's never how it worked.

Mrs. Tethersweed stood on our porch yelling for what felt like an hour before she finally went home.

Mom slowly, purposefully, closed and locked the door, each movement taking more strength and concentration than normal. I could feel that holding the wall between me and Mrs. Tethersweed had been draining.

Mom walked back with steady steps to where I was still crouched under a blanket. Mom entered the room, and I looked up worried. Was she angry at me? Would I be punished for bringing the yellow-rumped Tethersweed to our home? But my mother was not an angry spirit, only a tired one.

"Cassie," she said, her voice filled with sorrow as it so often was, but this time with a deep thread of fear stitched throughout.

"Yeah, Mom?" I asked, my face poking up to look at her from under the blanket.

She didn't say anything at first, just sat in her armchair with a deep sigh.

I crawled over to sit cross-legged on the floor near her.

"Why did you say that?" she asked. "That he would die."

"I didn't say he would die, I said his heart would stop," I corrected her.

"Cassie," mom chided in that not very harsh, but still disappointed way.

I slouched deeper, upset that I’d disappointed her. "I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders, staring at the carpet. "I just Knew."

"How?"

I shrugged again. "I just did."

She shook her head. "But…even if—" she cut herself off, as if not wanting to finish that sentence. "Why did you say it?"

"What do you mean?" I asked confused, cocking my head to the side.

"Even if you knew something, why would you say it?"

I blinked several times, not really understanding. I was young then, I didn't know the world yet. "Why wouldn't I say it?"

She sighed again and rested her head back. "Cassie, even if you Know something," emphasizing the word Know as I had, "it doesn't mean you should say it."

"Why not?"

She looked at me, and I could see her trying to formulate the best response. "Because doing so brings trouble to our door," she said point-blank. With no room for discussion.

"Ok Mom," I said softly in agreement, even though I still didn't understand why Knowing things brought trouble. I didn't want to be the crow. Why did sharing what I Knew make problems? If I wasn't causing the things to happen, which I wasn't, then what was the issue?

Still, I love my mother, and I tried not to share what I Knew after that.

Tried being the operative word. But I just…couldn't. I told Adam in kindergarten that he was going to have a problem with water. He nearly drowned at the public swimming pool a week later. I told a woman at the grocery store that she would have a baby in her tummy soon. She was announced pregnant two months later.

Again and again, mom sat me down after every incident and tried to get me to stop saying these things, even if they were good things!

I really wanted to. I wanted to fit in but I didn't know how, I couldn't seem to keep myself from sharing the truths I Knew.

After I told our priest that his two hearts would meet and it wouldn't be pretty, and then his wife found out about his mistress. That brought the 21st-century version of a pitchfork mob to our home. A bunch of red-faced, angry seagulls picked at my mom and me every chance they got.

I was eleven then and could feel the struggle my mother was having keeping up with all the trouble my Knowing, or more accurately me sharing my Knowing, was causing us. The pain and scorn in public circles, the threat of violence against us on the regular.

I was constantly shunned by my peers, but I think they were also a bit afraid of me. They didn't come close to hurting me with words or fists, but they avoided me, leaving plenty of space between us, as if they could catch the infection of Cassie Polaris.

My mom said she named me Cassie cause she thinks it sounded pretty. I think she named me Cassie after the Cassandra curse, I would learn about that later, in high school. Cassandra was a gifted prophet whose predictions always came true, but her curse was that no one would ever believe her, no matter what she said or who she spoke to.

That's how I felt. It wasn’t like my telling anyone actually did any good. No one believed me, and then after whatever it was happened, they blamed me. They treated me like the bad omen crow Mrs. Tethersweed had dubbed me.

After a particularly verbal pummeling by members of our church, I ran into the woods behind our house. I didn't want to bring trouble, I didn't want to be me. I wasn't the crow everyone said I was, but… but if not, then who was I?

I tripped over a root emerging from the ground and cried. I was in a small little break between trees and the sun was setting. I looked up, the shape of the branches making some kind of abstract art out of the star-studded sky.

"Why am I like this?" I asked aloud to no one. "Why can't I be quiet?" I stood, my little hands in fists. Tears in my eyes.

Speaking the truth had brought shame on my mother and isolated me from everyone. I'd never even had a single friend. I was alone, just me and mom.

"I hate this!" I shouted, stamping my foot into the dirt. "I want to be quiet!" I yelled into the evening sky.

A soft hoot filled the space where my yell had just echoed. I turned and sitting on a branch a few feet away was a brown night owl. Some people use the term barn owl, but that name was just too commonplace for a girl like her.

She had a heart-shaped face of pure white with two tiny ink-black eyes set deep and close together. Her stare captured me and I couldn't look away. She looked at me with such hidden wisdom I felt that if I could give the right offering, she would tell me a million secrets of worlds long forgotten. But I had no such offering to give, nor did anyone, not human anyway.

She hooted again, soft and low, ruffling her golden feathers before returning to her silent stillness.

I wondered how the owl was so silent? How had she become so wise? She must trust someone with her secrets, mustn’t she? An understanding happened then. I didn't need to trust someone else with my Knowing, I just had to share it with someone, and why couldn't that someone be…me?

What if—my heart rate grew as an idea that might lead to freedom crept up on me all at once—what if I just wrote everything down? What if I never spoke my Knowings again and instead wrote them, silent, like the owl. Keeping my Knowings just for me?

As if she was waiting for me to have that realization, without a sound she lifted off and flew into the night sky. I watched her fly away, her shape quickly lost to the darkness, her silent form taking her wherever was next. Though I didn't know it then, she would never stray too far. My owl would always visit me from time to time, as if checking in on me.

My mother is a mourning dove, Mrs. Tethersweed is a warbler, and I will be the owl. I will be silent and watchful. I will Know, but not speak. I will write everything down and keep my knowledge locked deep inside of me.

That night, I stumbled my way home. I hadn't gone far on my little legs, but I had changed. The lesson of the owl, the wise and silent bird, had given me a gift that helped me to survive the next several years. I did not tell anyone my Knowings after that, but it still demanded to be let out. So when a Knowing happened, I would grab whatever writing tool I had nearby, be it my newly ever-present notebook or just my iPhone, I wrote down the truth. As long as I could write it down, it seemed to satisfy whatever the power inside me needed.

I wrote down that Ally's heart would be broken, that Mrs. Hawthorne's heart would stop, that Josh's heart would always beat alone, that mom's best friend would meet her true love soon. Everything I wrote came true.

Sometimes I tried again for making something true, but it never worked like that. Only if the Knowing happened would it be true.

I made it through middle school by reminding myself of the silent, wise owl. I Knew, but was silent. I filled pages and pages of journals with my Knowings. And things got better. People seemed to forget I was ever an omen bearing crow as a child. I actually made friends. It was tentative, as I had never had any practice with socialization with kids my own age so it was, to put it bluntly, rough as hell, but I did it. They may have scorned me when they thought I was a crow, but the silent wise owl was welcome.

My owl stopped by a few times throughout the years. She'd land on a windowsill in my algebra class or fly overhead as I was walking home from school. She was always there making sure everything was ok. Whenever I saw her I felt safe. She was a reminder that as long as I stayed the owl, nothing bad would happen.

By high school I even had a best friend. Angela, she was a robin for sure. She had a beautiful voice and sang with it often. She was almost always the lead in the school musical each fall and shined as the main soloist in the choir. She moved here after I met my owl, so maybe that was a reason we were able to grow so close. She didn't know who I really was. She didn't know about the drawer full of journals with my Knowings written in them.

I told everyone I was a writer, that I was writing a fictional story, that's why I was always writing things down. People would ooo and ahh over that. So I started really doing that too so I had answers when they asked who's my main character? What's the plot? How many love interests does she have? I found I really liked creating worlds, other worlds. Worlds where no one threatened my mom and me for being who I was.

I was a junior in high school when everything changed. I was on the right track. I'd found a way to be normal. I was the wise owl and I could be silent through anything, my Knowing hidden away where it wouldn't hurt anyone. I was looking at colleges with a focus on creative writing, I had good grades, everything was good, it was all perfectly good, and then October 15, 2019 happened.

There was just a half-hour more of my last class of the day, chemistry, not a fav of mine. The teacher was talking about molecules, neutrons, electrons, and protons. I was doodling in the notebook I was supposed to be taking notes in, when a Knowing flooded over me.

I gasped aloud, as if someone had punched me. Everyone stopped, including the teacher.

"Cassie, what are you doing?" He asked, looking at me disdainfully for interrupting.

I clutched my stomach as a Knowing unlike anything before overwhelmed me.

"I'm gonna be sick," I said and ran out of the classroom, a round of laughter trailing me as I went, a hand covering my mouth, truly afraid I was gonna vomit before I could reach my destination. I skidded on my knees and threw the toilet seat up, seconds before heaving out the remains of my hamburger and fries dipped in ranch dressing for lunch.

My body convulsed several times, the sludge bubbling up my throat.

"Cassie, are you okay?" a female teacher was checking on me. I bet Mr. Betcher asked her to.

"Yeah," I squeaked clearly lying. "I'm fine."

"I'll get you some water," she said at once, disbelieving me. She left me alone, and I sat there frozen.

The Knowing for the first time in my life terrified me. I Knew millions of lives would fall from the sky from a virus. I felt their heartbeats stop, I felt them drop from the sky and thud six feet down into the cold dirt. In fact, I think the Knowing was still going as I knelt there on the bathroom tile. Just more and more death was coming.

I went home in a daze.

"Hey, Mom," I said softly.

"Oh hey, honey, how was school?" she asked as she was finishing up some dishes.

"Mom…?" I sat on one of the kitchen barstools.

"Hmmm?" she asked mostly unconcerned.

"Why did my Knowing hurt people?"

She stopped what she was doing, and gently put the dish she was drying down. "Why do you ask?"

"Because…" I hadn't told my mom about the journals or about the owl. She hadn’t asked how I’d 'gotten better', I think she was just glad all that was behind us. Except it wasn't behind us, it never was; I’d just hid it.

"It happened again," I decided to tell her a piece of the truth.

"It did?" She asked shakily, her hands doing busy work with the dishtowel. I watched her carefully, my mom ever the mourning dove. I didn't, still don't, want to hurt or break her. She's so fragile, my mother, not so much in health, but in spirit. Like her flame is a thin, little streak, just trying to survive.

"Yeah," I answer her. "I don't know what to do," I admit. The feeling of millions of deaths coming, a virus ripping through the population…I didn't want it. I didn't want it to happen. All those lives…lost. Maybe if people knew it was coming, if they knew a virus was coming we could…do something? Something to protect ourselves, to stop the deaths, or at least some of the deaths.

I'd never tried to stop a Knowing from happening—well once. I knew Angela, the robin, she wasn't going to get into the top school she was applying to. She was a year older than me and I tried to convince her to write a longer essay, to spend more time on it, but she thought she was a shoo-in, so she didn't.

"What did you…Know?" my mom asked trying to find her way through a topic I knew she'd rather not be discussing.

"Death."

She traces a pattern on the kitchen counter. "Mm—hmm."

"Millions."

She looks up, her eyes wide with fear.

I nod my head in answer to the 'really’? question in her eyes. "So many lives, Mom," I urge her, "they're all gonna die."

We sat in the kitchen, silently, for a while.

"Do I tell someone?" I asked. I'd been the owl for so long I didn't know how to be anything else.

"I don't know."

"Who would I tell?"

"I don't know."

"I don't know what to do," I begged. "Just tell me what to do, Mom, please."

"I can't." She looked up, before swallowing and looking away. "I can't tell you what to do sweetheart. But I can tell you this." She took a deep breath. "I will support you either way you choose." She let the words hang for a moment.

"Thank you," I whispered, letting her loving support sink in and doing my best not to dissolve into a puddle of tears right then and there.

She nodded, turned, and left the room. After another moment, and grabbing a water and granola bar from the pantry, I retreated into my own room.

I laid on my bed and stared at the white-speckled ceiling. I wanted to tell someone. Someone needed to know, but who? And why would they believe me? It wasn’t like I had any credentials or anything. Maybe show them my notebooks? They were all dated, but honestly tracking all the people down and having them say 'yes, that had indeed happened' was low in likelihood.

I rolled over, opened my granola bar, grabbed my iPhone from my pocket, and began to scroll on Twitter. A Knowing gripped me about a name I passed, Thomas Elway. I switched to my notepad app to write down that he has a change in jobs coming and paused. The question 'who do I tell' echoing in my head.

A tapping sound made me look up, and my owl was outside my window. Her eyes met mine, and I felt our connection as I always did when she stopped by. But this time it felt more important, there was more gravity to her visit that time than all the others. Her face was swiveled so I could see the intensity of her stare. Are you me? She seemed to dare. Are you an owl, really? Or are you something else?

My grip tightened on my phone. I never wanted to be silent, not really, I never wanted to be wise, I just wanted to survive. But if I wasn't the owl, then who was I?

My owl dipped her head low, met my eyes once more, and then took off. I sprinted to the window and watched her fly away, knowing that it would be the last time I saw her.

"Thank you," I called softly after her. Being the owl had helped me survive my childhood, it had helped me lose the stigma of being the crow. But I wasn’t a child anymore and I certainly was never the crow.

Shakily, I exed out of my notepad app and went back to Twitter. In 280 characters or less, I typed out my Knowing for Thomas Elway.

My finger hesitated over the send button.

I was not the owl.

I hit publish.

I am the canary.

I've been Tweeting for about a week now: A virus is coming! Please protect yourself!

The day after my first Tweet Angela asked me, "Why are you writing such weird stuff on Twitter?"

"Because it's true."

"What are you talking about? How could you know that? What," she snickered, "do you see the future?"

"Not exactly," I answered completely serious. My level gaze and tone wiping away her teasing smile.

"Cassie, you can't see the future."

"It's not exactly a seeing, it's a Knowing. I just Know it will happen. The same way I Knew you weren't going to get into your top school."

Angela stopped dead in her tracks. "How did you know that?" she hissed. "I just got the rej—the letter only yesterday," her voice low, looking at me like I'm freak, like I'm dangerous. She was my friend, my only friend.

At that moment, I could've gone back to being the owl. I could've laughed it off, pretended I was just joking. That of course I can't Know the future. But a small chirping sound made me look out the window at Angela's back. On the window sill was a tiny yellow canary. He chirped again as if to say, you've got this, before flitting away. I gripped my textbooks tighter to my chest in resolution and turned my attention back to Angela.

"Yes. I. Can." I said firmly, knowing it was most likely the end of our friendship. Then again, Angela was never friends with me, she was friends with the fake me, with the owl mask I wore to fool the world. But I was done with lying. Done with pretending I'm someone I'm not.

I walked away from her with my head held high, heading to my class. It still hurt though. I wish she could've accepted me.

Now, every night I scroll through Twitter and wait for a Knowing to happen. Then I tell that person what I Know. My predictions continue to come true again and again, like they always have, only this time with others as witness, not just the pages of my notebook. Anger is reignited in the leaders of our small southern town. Parents demanded my mother revoke my Twitter privileges and some went so far as to demand I be prohibited from using the internet at all.

My mother staunchly refuses them. Just as she had with Mrs. Tethersweed the warbler, she stands in the doorway, blocking me from the angry gulls trying to pick me apart. Perhaps her mourning dove spirit is stronger than I ever gave her credit for. After all, it's not just any dove that can keep the gulls at bay.

When they leave though, the weight of fear and pain is as fresh on her face as it is in my heart. We decide it might be better for both of us to stay home a bit more. I Know we will all be staying home a lot more soon, so getting a head start isn’t all that bad.

Mom worked with the school and was able to get me permission to finish my junior year online. The admissions people were more than willing to help as they want me as far away from them as possible. As if, if they don’t see me, don't have to be confronted by me every day, then they don’t have to think about me, and then I won’t exist.

But I do exist.

I'm done being quiet for the benefit of others' comfort. I know who I am. I am the canary crying my warning to the people of danger, of life, of what is to come.