The Farmhouse

I’ve never been scared of the dark. Growing up on a farm in the middle of Nebraska, I grew up with the stars and moon illuminating the night. Only the clouds would attempt to dampen the shimmering lights of the night sky, and even then, they never fully succeeded. Just blanketed the glistening stars.

I’ve never been scared of the dark. There are too many other senses to rationalize it. The hooting of the barn owls. The scuffle of little foragers gathering meals for their families. The rustle of wind through the oak trees. And beyond even sound, I can smell the farmland. The abrasive, sickly-sweet scent of fertilizer after ma lays it. The smell of horses, cows, barn cats and mice droppings. The pungent green smell of sprouting plants in the springtime. It was all so comforting.

I’ve never been scared of the dark. Who could be when the rest of the world is here to comfort you?

I wake up in the middle of the night often. Tonight, it’s for a drink of water to parch my dry throat. I shuffle down the shiplap stairs of the farm house. My ma is sleeping in her room, I can hear her turning and snoring lightly. I don’t bother turning on a hall light—I know every turn, every step in this house. Besides, with the windows open and the cool spring breeze billowing the curtains, the moonlight illuminates the way to the kitchen just enough that I don’t stub a toe. I walk there, tired, scrunched, fighting the chill the breeze is bringing to my bones.

Glasses are kept in the top cupboard by the fridge. I strain to reach one, my fingertips just barely grazing the edge of the closest glass. A sigh escaped my lips. I settled for climbing on the countertop, something ma normally scolds me for, to reach a glass. After finally securing one, I try to shimmy myself off the counter as quietly as possible. I don’t want to wake her. I land on my feet with a dull thump. I hear a stir from upstairs. Holding my breath, I still myself and strain to listen.

Silence.

It doesn’t register in my brain at first. I don’t hear Ma. I don’t hear the wind disrupting anything in the house. I don’t hear… anything. I push my fingers in my ears, rubbing and irritating them, wondering if it’s just a mishap of my body causing the silence. Holding my breath again to listen without the throb of my heart in my eardrums, I wait.

Silence. My blood begins to drain from my face, a dizzying sort of panic slowly taking over. Why is it quiet?

Hoot.

My heart jumps out of my chest, the glass shoots upward, out of my hand, it’s like everything in my body recoiled from a gun. The glass lands next to me, shattering, deafeningly loud. Ma has definitely woken now, and she’ll be mighty mad to see I broke something. I turn my head to look for the source of the hoot.

A barn owl is sitting on the window frame. Again, my heart catches, this time with excitement. Is it you, Miss Owl, who silenced the night for your grand appearance? I gingerly slide my foot to the side, away from the glass. Ma still hasn’t made a noise. Maybe she’s too tired to deal with me right now. I slide my other foot, shuffling as carefully as possible. I try to divide my weight between feet so the floorboards don’t creak as I move. I don’t want to scare the owl away. I can’t see her face yet, but I yearn to.

As the light streaming from the window behind me finally began to shine on the face of the barn owl, my body froze. The owl turned to me, staring at me. Human eyes. They darted across my face, absorbing each feature. They were bloodshot, irritated and burning eyes. They were human eyes. The owl had human eyes.

My body reacted in slow motion. “Mmm-ma!” I finally stuttered out, my voice strained and too high-pitched. “Ma, please!”

I twisted around to run, but my first step landed in a stray shard of glass that nestled in the soft middle arch of my foot. I crumpled as the pain shot up, hands instinctively going to cradle the injury. It felt warm and wet and it stung. I heard the wings of the owl open in a whoosh. Something was wrong with it. It had human eyes. I had to get away.

I forced myself back up again, crying out in pain the second I put weight on my bloody foot. I limped toward the broom closet, hands flailing to the doorknob. I tried to turn it, but the blood on my hands was too slippery. “Ma, please, help!” I called again. The owl was flapping around the kitchen, crashing into things and hooting. The hoots sounded weird, off, more like a screech at this proximity.

Ma’s footsteps cut through the chaos, and the kitchen light-switch flicked on. The owl shot out through the window. I cowered, shaking, arms over my head. I heard something, and after a moment without the owl, I realized it was my own sobs, rattling me. Ma gasped, rushing over to me. She touched my hand and I jolted, a small shriek escaping unintentionally.

“Darlin, what in the world happened?” she cooed, prying my hands off my head and urging my back up. I winced in pain, hunching over to avoid putting weight on my bloody foot. Ma took my hands in hers, turning them over and examining the blood. She inspected the rest of me, landing on my foot and gasping again. “Oh sweetheart, you’re hurt!”

She took me to the kitchen table, lifting me up and setting me on it, to tend to my wounds. After a scurry to the bathroom, she returned with washcloths, a pair of tweezers, a first-aid kit, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“I’m sorry, baby, but this is going to hurt something fierce. You squeeze this towel if it’s hurting too bad, and you yell out all you need, okay?”

I cried and shook while Ma worked on my foot. All the while, I looked out the window the owl came in through. The sounds of the outside were back again.

They didn’t comfort me like they used to.