by Sarah Jackson
There’s a church in Trevarrack called St Andrew’s. It’s a typical parish church, a granite building with a squat tower, and a wooden lychgate. A line of trees are gathered along the north wall of the churchyard, which gives the feeling that the woods are pressing in. They peer over the wall as if watching the worship with interest, swallowing the fragile light from the windows and muffling the reedy voices of the dwindling congregation with their soft, shushing dark.
I shivered, and wondered again if I had made a mistake in coming back.
The bus stop where I was standing is opposite a triangle of lawn bordered by a war memorial, a bench, and a flower bed. Crowded around it are a handful of square stone cottages (including the holiday home I’d rented for the weekend) the Beehive pub, and the Costcutter. It all looked exactly the same.
“Kirsty? Kirsty Fall?!”
A Land Rover slowed on the road beside me and a face peered out, older, broader, and bearded.
“Hello, Mark,” I said, as neutrally as possible, but I felt my whole body tense, and took a step backwards. He laughed, the same old laugh, like a door slamming.
“Well I never. How you doing, girl? It’s been… how long’s it been?”
“Ten years.”
He grinned, his round face blotched pink under his ginger hair. “Ten years!” A tractor rounded the corner behind him. “Come over to the ‘Hive later and I’ll get some beers in.” He hesitated. “Please. I owe you one. I was a little shit back then.” The tractor honked. “All right, all right! Wanker,” he said and grinned again as he pulled away. As the tractor rumbled past me the wave of adrenaline crested into anger, and I found that my fists were clenched. I took a deep breath. Ten years. Let it go. You didn’t come back for them. You don’t need anything from them.
Once I’d dropped my bags and poked around the cottage I tried to settle with a book until it was time for dinner, but my thoughts slipped between the words on each page and crept out to the churchyard. After a while I gave up, and followed them.
As I passed under the lychgate I felt the afternoon tip into evening, the dusk pooling upwards like smoke into the thin daylight air. This place had nestled in my mind for years, occasionally rustling, stirring, stretching, calling me back to the smell of leaf mould, bitter yew bark, lichen, a trace of woodsmoke. I didn’t know if coming back here would bring me any answers, but it was all that was left to try. Whatever it was that I had seen here all those years ago, I still lived in its shadow; a darkness that no amount of distance, gin, or therapy had managed to dissolve.
Headstones on either side of the path leaned like a listening crowd as my boots crunched heavily on the gravel, loud as an invitation. My heart beat faster. I weighed the span of path ahead of me and behind me and stopped. This was the spot.
I had been following Vicky around the back of the church, where we planned to smoke the cigarettes she’d stolen from her mum’s handbag, using a lighter she’d found under the bench on the green. She’d just turned 13, but I was still only 12.
That evening, like this one, the sky was striped purple and dull orange as around me the graveyard sank into shades of blue. The church tower was square and black against the fading sky, the balding tree branches reaching over the wall like grasping fingers. I remembered the huge, hunched shape I had seen on the tower, and how it had lunged into the air above me, unfolding dark wings the size of sails and swooping out over the trees.
I know that I screamed, and so did Vicky. I remember her face pale in the gloom, her mouth a perfect dark ‘o.’ She screamed because I screamed. She didn’t see it. Or at least she always said that she didn’t see it.
Soon afterwards we stopped being friends, and then she had moved out of the village. A couple of years later someone dared her to pour a can of Coke over my head on the school bus and she did it. As I got off, sticky, dripping, miserable, she mouthed “sorry” to me through the window, and I thought about her shocked face in the churchyard then as well.
“Excuse me?”
I jumped, and followed the voice to the doorway of the church, where a woman was looking at me over her shoulder while she locked the heavy doors.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Just I’m closing up now.” She gave me a warm smile, and I noticed her dog collar. “Unless there’s anything you need?”
“No, I’m just out for a walk.”
She came up the path towards me, slipping the keys in her pocket. She was tall, and slim, with tousled hair. “I’m Helen. You must be Kirsty.”
“I…” was all I managed.
“Mark dropped in and said you’d arrived. News travels fast in Trevarrack! But then you know that already.” She held my gaze, still smiling, and I felt my cheeks colour, I hoped the dim light would hide it.
“Come and have a drink? I’m on my way over now,” she nodded towards the Beehive.
“Uh…”
“They’ll come and find you eventually, you know. Let’s go together and get it over with.” She crooked her arm and I couldn’t think of anything else to do but slip mine through it.
When we walked into the pub a flicker passed over the faces of everyone there before the ripple died and the rhythm of their conversations continued. It looked the same, from the orange and brown paisley carpet to the dark wood bar, varnish slick with pools of condensation and ghostly cider rings. It still smelled of beer and disinfectant.
“Kirsty!” Mark bellowed and slapped the bar beside him. “What’ll you have? You too, vicar.”
“Um, gin and tonic.”
“White wine, please Mark,” Helen said. “I’m just going to say hello to Myra and Ralph. Come and join us, won’t you?”
I nodded, transfixed by her warm brown eyes. I watched her sit down beside Myra and Ralph Timms, who looked older and smaller and more papery than they had when I had last seen them, aged 18. A year or two before that Myra had accosted me one Saturday while I was waiting for the bus.
“Demon,” she’d hissed at me, out of nowhere.
“Sorry… what?” I’d taken my headphones out and she’d glared at me, pale blue eyes bulging, pupils like pinpricks.
“It was a demon that you saw. And it got into you. Turned you to sin.”
I’d just stared at her blankly, not taking in what she was saying.
“That thing you saw was from hell, it turned you away from Jesus. Made you a deviant.” She jabbed at me with her wrinkled finger.
I’d had no idea what to say, or what to do. I just put my headphones back in and stared at the ground, eyes welling with tears as she’d scuttled away.
“Here you go,” Mark said, as he set the gin and tonic down in front of me and raised his glass. “Cheers!”
“Thanks,” I said, and took a long sip, savouring the bitterness.
“Listen,” he said, leaning on the bar with his arms folded. “I feel real bad for pushing you around, you know, when we were kids. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
I stared at him for a long time and he shifted uncomfortably.
“All right,” I said, finally, because none of the things I wanted to say would form themselves into words. He nodded and we stood in silence for a moment with our drinks, then a question broke out of me.
“Why? Why me? What did I ever do to you?”
He frowned, and rubbed at his forehead with the ball of his hand.
“I dunno. I think…” He looked at me, ashamed, through his light eyelashes. “I think I was jealous.”
“Jealous!”
“Yeah. With all the fuss about the… thing. When the police came, and then you were in the paper, and on the news.” He shrugged. “You were the bird girl, you were special.”
“It was hell.”
“I know. But at first it was like you had this cool thing, and everyone wanted to hear the story. And I didn’t have anything. I just… wanted to take it away from you.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve, and I noticed three long, thick scars running over his forearm. “I know I can’t undo what I did, but I am trying to be a better man. I joined the church. It’s changed my life.” His eyes shone.
“That’s great Mark, I’m really happy to hear that,” I said mechanically, wondering about the scars. “Thanks for the drink.”
I walked over to where Helen was sitting with the Timms and sat down warily beside her, clutching my drink like a shield. Myra immediately started simpering.
“Oh don’t you look well Kirsty! We’re so pleased you’ve come home, aren’t we Ralph?” Her husband gave me a tobacco-stained smile.
“It’s not my home,” I said quickly, and some long-buried anger leaked into my voice.
Myra glanced nervously at Helen, who gave her a nod, and I realised what was about to happen.
“Kirsty,” she began, and I laughed and had to look away. “Kirsty, I said some awful things to you when you were younger. I know I can’t take them back, but I want you to know I’m truly sorry.”
All I could do was shake my head and watch the bubbles glitter in my gin as my heart hammered.
“We’ve learned a lot since Helen took over at the church. We all really hope you’ll stay,” she quavered.
I turned to Helen, but her relaxed smile didn’t falter.
“What’s going on?” I asked, starting to feel panic bite at my ribs.
“Nothing, Kirsty. We just want you to feel welcome,” she said softly. “They want you to know that you belong here as much as any of us. You always did.” She gently reached out and put her hand over my hand. “And that’s what all of us want, isn’t it? That’s what you haven’t found in the city. Somewhere to belong.”
I pulled my hand away and walked out.
After a fitful night I woke up late, drank some coffee, and ate some flavourless cereal. I decided to go to the woods, and kept my head down as I passed through the village. As I passed the church I glanced over the wall and saw Mark dragging a white and red side of beef out from the back of his Land Rover. He hefted the glistening carcass onto his shoulder, and carried it into the church.
When I climbed over the stile from the road and onto the path through the woods, the past and the present started mingling more peacefully. The trees were still coated in shaggy lichen and wreathed with ivy and glossy holly branches. Most of the leaves had turned and fallen already, and I enjoyed their rattle and crunch under my boots, and the smell of the mould rising below.
Being among the trees – the same I’d climbed as a girl – I felt something like home. This is where I came to escape the bullying, and the silences in our house, and to drown out the uncertainty which had since burrowed deep into me and infected every area of my life. What had I seen?
I noticed a shadow on the ground, encircling me, and looked up. Above me hung a large round structure, silent and dark against the gauzy grey sky. I knew at once what it was.
Scrambling into the tree’s lower branches, my body was stiff and heavy, and I lost my footing more than once. When I had hauled myself to the place where the trunk forked I crouched on a branch and looked straight down into the nest, empty except for a few leaves collected in its downy heart.
It was round and shallow like an acorn cup. The outside was dense with twigs and whole branches, the inside was full of springy moss, lichen, and grey feathers. I knelt on the rim, which crunched under my knees but felt firm, and carefully climbed inside. I sat for a moment in the centre, then lay down, curled like a fern bud inside the great nest.
I could smell earthy moss and lanolin, from sheep’s wool which must have been woven through it. There was a faint trace of the creature itself. Something acrid, like vomit. Ancient droppings. As I lay there listening to the wind in the leaves and the creak in the branches, the nest swaying softly, feather filaments tickling my face, my mind was blank. I breathed in the woods. I breathed out myself.
Some hours later I arrived back at the cottage, stiff, sore, and cold. I sat down at the kitchen table, shook the twigs and the feathers out of my hair, and wept.
Evening arrived with a knock at the door.
“Kirsty, can I come in?” Helen said, and I shrugged. She followed me inside, closing the door behind her. I pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured myself a glass.
“Want some?”
“Oh no, not for me thanks. I’m on duty,” she said and pointed to the cassock she was wearing under her jacket. “I’m giving a service. That’s why I came, actually. We’d love you to join us.”
“Since when does St Andrew’s hold services on a Saturday night?”
“It’s a special service. Please come. I think you’ll enjoy it.” She smiled, and I felt my heart twist a little. I didn’t trust her, but I wanted to. I wanted her to sweep me along like a river.
“I saw the nest. In the woods,” I said.
She laughed. “I thought you might. Come to the service and everything will make sense, I promise, more than if I just try to explain everything now.”
The pub was closed and quiet, and the windows of every house were dark as we passed by. When we entered the church I looked up, and gasped. It was not the chilly grey space I had sat in every Sunday, swinging my legs and shifting on the hard wooden pew as the vicar droned. Now the nave was bathed in rosy candlelight, and on every wall hung colourful painted banners and pennants. Holly branches gleamed from every pillar, and twisted oak branches arched above us, seeming to grow out from the walls. The ancient wooden roof, which had always reminded me of the hull of some great ship, was now painted a deep navy blue and sparkling with silver stars. Above the altar was painted a huge golden moon which shimmered with the candle flames. The church smelled of bonfires, and of cinnamon, and something else I couldn’t identify, something sweet and gamey.
People were crammed in every pew, and as we walked towards the chancel each face turned towards us, flushed with anticipation. I saw that the tall Victorian painting behind the altar had been covered with an enormous fabric hanging embroidered with oak, ivy, and holly leaves in a twisting design. In the centre, surrounded by a spiked halo of orange, yellow, and gold thread, was a figure with a human body in a pale shift, and wings spread like an angel. But its head was too large and too round, and it wore a heart-shaped white face, round black eyes, and a pointed beak.
The altar below it, I noticed, was covered with meat. The carcass that Mark had been carrying had been hacked apart, and sat in bloody chunks on the altar cloth, pink and red slabs with white fat streaks. The half-ribcage lay open like a fleshy shell.
I turned to Helen but before she could speak a hissing screech echoed around the cavernous space and the congregation leapt to their feet and shouted “She comes!” There was an awful scraping, clattering sound, and another shriek, louder than before. All the faces in the crowd were turned towards the door at the base of the bell tower, which was open, and decorated with an arch of branches covered in flame-coloured autumn leaves.
Mark’s voice sounded like a drum as he began to sing. I couldn’t make out the words except “welcome, angel of the woods”. Below the notes the scraping sound continued, and I finally recognised it as the clattering of enormous talons on cold stone steps.
I recall the sensation of something fitting into place, deep inside. I could almost hear the click, like a plastic toy snapping together or a puzzle piece slotting into place. In that moment everything in my life aligned for the first time since I was 12, like the vertebrae on one of those chiropodist’s models. Click, click, click. The missing piece at the base of my spine.
Helen seized my hand and beamed wildly at me, her eyes full of passionate delight.
“Do you see?!”
“Yes,” I shouted over the singing. “I understand.”
She kept hold of my hand as the song reached its crescendo, and the scraping claws drew closer and another screech tore through the church. My heart was pounding, and I watched the bell tower door with the same fevered anticipation as my neighbours. First the shadows flickered, then there was a blur of white feathers, and a huge, dark grey talon skidded clumsily on the top step.
Finally the owl’s dark-eyed, moon face appeared and filled the whole door frame. It stepped through and raised its huge white head, black eyes the size of dinner plates glittering like jet in the candlelight, surveying us. The song ended, and we stood in awed silence as the enormous bird briefly extended its wings, and refolded them against its speckled back. It clattered over the flagstones towards the altar and started tearing at the meat.
Helen dropped my hand and walked to the pulpit, the villagers sat down again. Myra gestured to a space in the front pew and I sat down beside her and Ralph. As the giant owl shredded and gulped the raw meat from the altar, throwing its head back and shuddering horribly, Helen began to speak.
“Welcome everyone, to our holy nest, where we have been blessed by the presence not only of our velvet-winged seraphim, our true guide through the wood and under the stars.” The congregation murmured in echo “through the wood and under the stars”.
“But also of her prophet,” Helen continued and reached her hand towards me, though everyone was already looking in my direction. “Our wronged daughter, the one that the Angel chose first among us to witness her light in the darkness. She tried to bring that light to us, but she was cruelly shunned.” I heard a sniffle and realised that Myra was crying beside me. “But now, she has come home. Home, to stay. And we will -” She was interrupted by a deafening cry from the owl as it turned away from the altar and took a few awkward steps towards the congregation, bloody claws clicking on the stone tiles.
It swung its gigantic pale head from side to side with an eerie gliding motion, and seemed to look directly at me with its terrible, black, shining eyes. A shiver ran through my whole body and I was on my feet and running out of the church.
As I burst into the cool night air of the churchyard my head was spinning with visions of the beautiful, awful creature that had haunted me for all these years. I started towards the gate, then noticed that I wasn’t alone; two small, pale shadows were standing by the wood-side wall. Children, with their backs to me, presumably waiting for their parents. As my eyes adjusted I could see they were engrossed, peering down at something which one poked with a stick. I took a step towards them and their heads snapped around, all the way around, revealing black eyes and white, heart-shaped faces.
“Kirsty, come back!” Helen called to me, framed in an arch of tangerine light, the chorus of voices swelling behind her.
My plan was to run up to the main road, try to hitch a lift into town maybe, get on the first train back to the city. But I followed my feet here instead. It won’t be long until they find me, if they’re even looking. Maybe they’ll just wait until cold or hunger or loneliness brings me back to them.
For now though, I feel safe, cradled in tickling feathers and soft moss, listening to the rattle of the last autumn leaves. This feels like home, for now.
Author’s note: This story was inspired by reports of the Owlman of Mawnan Smith, near where I grew up in Cornwall.
Sarah Jackson writes gently unsettling stories. Her short fiction has been published by Wyldblood Magazine, Ghost Orchid Press, and Tales From Between. She is a member of SFWA and Codex writers group, and co-editor of Fantastic Other magazine. She lives in east London UK and has a green tricycle called Ivy. Her website is sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io.
Andy Graber is a self-taught artist who also likes to write very short poems.
He attempts to add a lot of mystery and hidden beauty to most of his drawings.
His drawings can be interpreted however the viewer chooses.
