The Pinenut Wood

Montac walked the woods trying to find his way home, but began crying when he couldn’t. He called out to his mother, apologizing for saying mean things, and promising to go to school if she would come and take him home.

Lord Mallard, his stuffed duck, was squeezed tightly to his chest, as Montac’s tears dripped down his chin and soaked into the duck.

“Whooo?”

Montac sniffed, hearing the voice suddenly from his left. In a tree only a few feet away from him, was a barn owl. The two stared at each other.

“Who are you?”

Montac started, this time his eyes widened with shock. That bird had spoken.

It stared back with glimmering black eyes, its face sunken in with a sharp, downward pointing beak. The feathers of its wings were a mottled brown and white and its chest was white, speckled with brown spots.

“Can you talk?” The owls head tilted too far sideways as it spoke, its voice making Montac jump.

“I can talk!” Montac blurted.

“Oh good!” said the owl, “I thought you might be deaf, and while I am amazing at sign language, it is really hard to do with wings.” The owl straightened out its head and stretched its neck toward Montac.

“Birds can’t do sign language.” Montac argued, but his voice lacked any confidence as he stood squeezing Lord Mallard tightly.

The owl tilted its head again, “See, and I had no idea I was speaking to a young ornithologist!”

Montac stared at the owl, his dilemma forgotten, “A what?”

“A scientist who studies birds, though you're not the youngest I’ve met,” said the owl, distractedly preening beneath one of its wings, “the youngest ornithologist I have ever met was still in diapers and spoke only in sign language.”

The owl lowered its wing, turning its eyes back on Montac, “What’s your name?”

Montac let his hands fall to his sides, Lord Mallard still gripped tightly, “Montac, and I’m not an onithopolis.”

“Ornithologist.” The owl sighed, the breath causing its whole body to slack a little bit. “You do go to school, don’t you?”

Montac laughed a little, still unsure about the owl, but feeling safer now that someone else was there.

“Yes, but I’m not an ornithologist.” The owl seemed stunned, tilting its head and hopping to a lower branch in the tree, closing the distance between itself and Montac.

“Did you just say ornithologist correctly?”, asked the owl, and while the bird couldn’t smile, Montac could hear the pleasure in its voice. “Of course you did, because you go to school where they teach those sorts of things.”

Montac scrunched up his face in a mix of anger and displeasure.

“I don’t like school.”

The owl began preening beneath its wing again, “Is that so? And why not?”

Montac considered for a moment before answering. It was odd enough to be talking to an owl, but cartoons and television depicted talking animals all the time, there had to be some truth to their existence then, right?

“Because the other children made fun of me for bringing Lord Mallard to school,” Montac held up the stuffed duck, his hand gripped tightly about its neck, “then they took him away and threw him in a puddle.”

“Well, well!” said the owl rising to attention, then lowered its head and draped a wing across its chest in a bow. “I had no idea I was in the presence of nobility. Good afternoon Lord Mallard and welcome to the Pinenut Wood, home of the Dryad of the Pinewood, Lady Oreiades. It is nice to have you and your fine gentleman here in our wood.”

Montac laughed lightly, tucking a hand under Lord Mallard and making him bow his head. Montac looked up at the owl, hugging the duck back to his chest.

“What is your name Mr. Owl?”

The barn owl suddenly opened its wings and launched itself across the woods a distance, alighting on the branch of another tree. The owl looked back at Montac as he ran after it.

“Wait, wait please!” Montac called, his voice panicked.

This time the owl seemed to be looking in the woods they had come from carefully. Somewhat distractedly, the owl said “You may call me Tyto Alba, prince of the night skies and child of the great moon goddess Artemis.”

Montac breathed heavily, looking up at the owl again.

“Your mom’s name is Artemis and she is the moon?”

This brought the owl’s gaze back down to the boy. “Yes, young Montac, and she birthed all of the beautiful owls of the world to be wise and to hunt beneath her pale glow. What about your mother Montac, is she a goddess?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but the owl once again took flight. It sailed between the branches of the trees and Montac called, “Tyto, wait!”, as he chased after the owl.

Finally the owl alighted another branch and settled to wait for the boy to catch up, watching the woods behind the child carefully. When Montac caught up to the owl, he was winded and rested his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

“Tyto, why do you keep flying away?” he heaved through heavy breaths.

The owl looked down, cocking its head to the side, “I am sorry, does it seem like I am trying to fly away from you?”

Montac nodded, gulping breaths of air.

“Well I promise you that isn’t my intention young Montac, you see, as you are a visitor here in the lands of the Pinenut Wood, I just wanted to take you to my home to offer you my hospitality. However, since you are so out of breath, we’ll take a break and you can tell me about your mother.”

Montac’s face became sullen and he sighed, “I made my mom angry. She sent me to my room and I climbed out of my window to run away.”

The owl tilted its head, watching with piercing black eyes as it asked its next question, “So have you come to live in the Pinenut Wood then Montac? Will you and Lord Mallard be making the Pinenut wood your new fiefdom?”

Montac sat down next to the tree the owl sat in, leaning his back against the large trunk and wrapping his arms around his knees. Lord Mallard still hung in Montac’s tight grip. As he stared at the ground, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“I thought I wanted to run away, but then I just missed my mom and now I can’t find my way home.”

The owl stared deep into the woods, his voice taking on a severe tone.

“Montac, do you still intend to make the Pinenut Wood your home?”

Tears escaped Montac’s eyes immediately and he rested his forehead on his knees, his words were half-sob, as he spoke.

“I want to go home, but I’m lost.”

“Well then Montac, what say you and I have a race? If you beat me, then you can go home, but if you don’t, then you will stay in the Pinenut Wood forever as the child of the Lady Oreiades.”

Montac got to his feet and dusted off his pants, raising his swollen eyes to the owl and rubbing his tear stained cheeks with the back of his hand.

“But Tyto, you can fly and I can’t. I can’t win a race against you and I don’t want a different mom, I want MY mom.”

The owl preened its chest, speaking to Montac matter-of-factly, “Young Montac, you don’t seem to understand. YOU came into the Pinenut Wood looking to live here, then you got lost in the domain of the Lady Oreiades, so by right you already belong to her.”

Montac’s eyes grew wide as tears began to well.

“Luckily,” the owl continued, turning his beady eyes on the boy, “you met me and I don’t want you to bring Lord Mallard before our sweet lady, as I hope to one day woo her, and a gentleman of his caliber might steal her away from me. So, to benefit us both, I am offering you one chance to break the rules by beating me in a race. Do you accept my challenge or not?”

Montac imagined his mom at home calling for him, crying because he was gone, and a new determination came over his small face. He nodded at the owl, “Where are we…?”

Before he could finish the owl launched itself from the branch and began to fly. Montac started after the bird, his legs pumping with all the might he could muster.

“Wait, Tyto! Where are we racing to? You didn’t count the start!”

The owl laughed, carefree as it swooped between branches ahead of the boy, “Come come Montac! How am I to beat such a swift boy as you without a head start?”

Montac felt the heat of anger rise in his chest, Tyto was cheating! He ran harder, branches and leaves from the underbrush whipping his legs and arms, but the bird continued to laugh.

Montac, running with all his might, watched as the bird got further and further ahead and his heart began to sink in his chest. Fear drove him on, branches whipping his body as he tried desperately to keep the owl in sight.

Then he tripped. Tumbling, he fell through a thorny bush and collapsed face first in the dirt. His heart ached as he realized he had lost the race and tears rose in his eyes again as he lay there fighting back the urge to sob.

“Montac!” His mother’s worried voice made him lift his head and look up to see her running toward him. “Montac!”

He pushed himself up from the ground and looked back at the bush he had tumbled through, sitting at the edge of his backyard before his mother’s arms closed around him and he wept into her chest.

“Troublesome pooka, you know the wolves that had been tracking that boy are going to be quite upset that their meal escaped them.” The voice belonged to Lady Oreiades.

The dryad had stepped from the tree the owl perched in. It watched mother and child reunited in embrace and puffed its feathers up.

Lady Oreiades was a beauty, with hair the brown of oak bark, a dress of spider’s silk and leaves draped about her blissfully curved body as she rested a delicate hand on the tree staring up at him with eyes as blue as a summer sky. Her features were sharp and beautiful as nature itself and the tapered points of her ears rose from her brown tresses.

The owl looked at her admiringly.

“Those slavering hounds will have to find another meal, the boy didn’t deserve to be feasted upon by the likes of them. The spring was wet and the summer has been mild, they'll find other game.”

The Lady Oreiades stared up at the owl, her admiration for it matching its for her.

“Your compassion for the boy is more important to you than our rules then? Those items and creatures lost in the Pinenut Wood belong to me by right. You letting him escape is a slight against me you know?” Her tone was teasing, but the owl reacted by tilting its head, its eyes softening.

“My Lady, while I may trade in lies and fictions, could you truly believe I could be capable of committing any slight against you? Besides, he brought the noble duck with him and I couldn’t chance Lord Mallard stealing your affection from me.”

Lady Oreiades laughed, a laugh like the wind and the babbling of brooks, and held out a hand for the owl to perch on. The owl landed carefully on her hand and the two returned toward the woods.

“Now, my little pooka, it's impossible for anyone to steal my affection for you.”