The Bay

I woke to the sound of whistling. The wind was swirling ominously that night; like it was brewing something scandalous. It reminded me of what I imagined demons sounding like when they laughed. A chill shot up my spine and I shuddered. I pulled the shroud that I was lying on around me. It was summer, but the night air was cool, and the creepy wind wasn’t helping me regulate my body temperature. I reached next to me for the lantern I had placed there and fumbled around for the matchbox. I struck the match. The flame grew. It swelled largely as it was struck, and behind the flame, I could have sworn I saw something scampering across the ground. A sudden movement. I lit the lantern and closed the latch. The room grew with light as I moved it around, and I stood up from the ground, crunching bits of dirt under my feet as I did so. I could still taste rum on the insides of my mouth and on the sides of my lips as I licked them. The back of my throat was dry as sandpaper. Perhaps a night of solitude ‘away from the town’ wasn’t such a great idea after all. What was that saying, again? You can leave the town but you can’t leave the problem? Or something like that.

When would I learn?

Margorie had left me, it was really as simple as that. She wasn’t coming back. She’d made that very clear when she decided to run off with Deidre, the shop assistant at Dreams Made in Heaven - a boutique that sold dream catchers and crystals and angel figurines and gave ‘healing massages’ in the back room. But oh, how I longed for her touch. She was all I had before. And the shack, I guess I had that. Maybe that’s why I had decided to return here - to feel in possession of something again. The beach shack that my father had left in my possession after his untimely passing was in the middle of nowhere, about 25 kilometres north of a small town called Wilson’s Bay. ‘The Bay’ - as it was known by the locals - stretched around the ocean like the bottom of a half-moon, with rows of tiny houses nestled between the reem of golden sand that led to the ocean, and the green forest that stretched up Mount Simon. The shack was at the most eastern point of the dome, right at the tip of the water, but furthest away from any kind of civilisation. It was hard to not feel at ease in a place like The Bay, especially during the day. The sounds of the ocean were comforting. The waves were kind and lapped up at the sides of the rocks in the rockpool not far from the shack like a playful puppy dog. The salt formed crust on most windows, and imprinted creases and cracks on doors like fingerprints. Any pieces of metal were often rusted, but to me, that was all a part of the charm.

Tonight was different, though. It was different the moment I decided to jump in my car and head here. My heart was aching, my head was racing. I just wanted - peace. When I arrived, I felt like a sailor lost at sea. It was hard to know what I should do. The salt air felt calming, but the aching had not faded, and as I sat in my father’s old green velvet chair, I couldn’t help but to burst into tears. The pain was too much, so I tried to find something that might ease the pain. I scrambled around the kitchen until I remembered that I once found my father’s rum underneath the rusty sink. I shook open the cabinet and there it was; resting behind the drainpipe. As I grabbed onto the bottle, my hand became covered in dust. This was some old rum. I wondered how long it had been in there for. A part of me almost wanted to keep it as an artifact, as a memory of my father. Then I remembered the pain in my chest, and I quickly opened the lid and took a swig. The combination of the salt around the rim and the burn in my throat was comforting. The thought of my father putting his lips around the bottleneck and taking a swig was also strangely comforting. As the rum went down my esophagus and into my belly it was as if my father was sending me a message. It’s okay, let yourself feel this. You will be okay. I sat back down in the chair and kept drinking. Eventually, my senses faded and I could not keep my eyes open.

The next thing I remember was the whistling, the movement, and me rising to my feet only to nearly fall back down again. I was still drunk. There were two doors that led into the shack, the back door was facing the ocean and the front door was facing the forest. I’m sure I had locked both of them before falling asleep...or had I? The rum had really made everything very blurry. The house had electricity but I hadn’t been up here to check on any bills in months. Not since she left. I must have realised this in my drunken stupor and somehow made sure to keep a lantern next to me, but the doors were an entirely different question. The lantern was quite dim and I could barely see anything at all, but I made it to the back door of the house, and it was open.

Terror shot through me like a lightning bolt as I tried not to wet my pants. Was someone in the house? Could that sudden movement have been a person?

“Wh-who’s there?” I yelled? “Is someone in the house?” - immediately I felt incredibly stupid. Why was I yelling out at a potential serial killer? The back door was in the laundry room and there was a broom leaning up against the wall. I picked it up, somehow thinking that this wooden stick might make a good weapon.

As I tiptoed through the house, creeping along the wooden floor, I made my way towards the front of the house. The front door was definitely locked. Perhaps I had just forgotten to lock the back door. Being so remote out here it’s barely necessary to do so, but obviously, these things can’t be too taken for granted. Suddenly, there was a loud bang that shook the whole house. It was coming from the laundry room. My heart was nearly leaping out of my chest at this point, but as I made my way back to the room, I felt something wet and slippery under my feet. The floor was wet! Where had all of this water come from? When I entered the room, the door was closing, as if someone had just run out of there. As I looked down at the floor, I realised the wetness had come from human footprints. Had this person just come from the ocean?

I edged further towards the opening to see if I could catch a glimpse of whoever or whatever had been there. All I could see as I looked outside was a shadow leaping over the fence towards the ocean. What on earth? I thought to myself. The sound of the insects was overbearing, cicadas and crickets chatting and chirping together. I could also hear an owl, hooting in the dark of the night, which was making this entire experience feel sinister. Hoo hoo, hoo hoo, and then louder, hoo hoo, hoo hoo. I wondered why the owl was nested so near to the ocean, it was rare to hear them out this way.

Then, before I knew it, there it was. A shadow, behind the fence, standing there with an owl perched on its arm. I heard it again - hoo hoo, hoo hoo. The shadow which looked like a man was standing there with what appeared to be a wide-brimmed hat on his head. He appeared to be facing me but was standing incredibly still. The man took a step towards the garden and all of a sudden the shadow transformed and merged with the owl until it formed one giant, shadow owl. He swooped towards me and I screamed, falling backward into the door.

At the same time, I shot up from the green velvet chair I'd fallen asleep in. There was sunlight coming in through the window, and birds chirping. It had just been a dream. As I woke to the sound of the crashing waves on the rocks, I looked out to the sea. The sunrise was coming through the sky in pastel pinks and purples, and bright oranges and yellows. For a second, the clouds reminded me of the shape of the owl. Only this time, it wasn't fear I felt, but warmth.

I turned to the empty bottle of rum on the floor, and then I heard it again - the whistling. The rum bottle tinkered across the floor as if being forced by a gust of wind. My father was here. He had been here all along. Had he been the owl?

Still to this day, whenever I see a barn owl, I am reminded of my father, and that night in The Bay.