A Girl Called Owl

by Amy Wilson

  ‘Not always,’ I say tiredly, knowing I should say more to explain it and not having the words. I focus on Alberic instead. ‘Why are you here?’ I demand.

  ‘He says you’re going to be a wraith!’ Mallory exclaims, her eyes wide with horror, turning from the pictures. ‘Owl, you’ve been sick for days, and he says if we don’t sort this out you might just . . . disappear!’

  ‘Days?’

  ‘Well, two days . . .’

  ‘Then who’s been doing the work? I need to get out there!’ I start scrambling up from the bed but Alberic puts a hand on my arm.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘Why not? It’s what I promised!’ I want it. I need it. My hands are shaking with the need for it. I sit on them but my blood is restless and I know I can’t just sit here like this for long.

  ‘You haven’t been looking after yourself,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I should have warned you properly before. I tried . . . I wasn’t sure what to say . . .’

  ‘You’ll be a wraith!’ Mallory insists. ‘He says if you carry on like this you’ll never be the same!’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, looking out of the window again. It’s sunset and there’s not a sign of frost out there. ‘Did winter stop because I didn’t do it?’

  ‘No,’ he says with a withering look. ‘Winter isn’t constant like that, you know that much. It’s a mild spell . . .’

  ‘So I should get back out there.’

  ‘No,’ says Mallory. ‘It’s changing you, Owl. It’s like . . . you’ve embraced the part of you that’s Jack Frost, which nobody blames you for doing . . . but it’s sort of, uh, showing. We know things are different now, but we still want you to be you.’

  ‘I am me!’

  ‘But if you’re to live in this human world, you must retain your humanity,’ Alberic says. ‘Balancing the two is difficult. You’re failing.’

  ‘Oh, and you’re so successful, walking around so normal with your glinty eyes and your extreme height, and all the wind and the leaves . . .’

  ‘I never said I was normal,’ he says. ‘Being half human and half fay isn’t easy. But I’ve had a lifetime to learn balance. There are dangers . . .’

  ‘What dangers?’

  ‘You’ll fall between,’ he says. ‘No longer existing in this world, or in the other. You’ll be a wraith, like Mallory says – without a human body, able to see and hear everything, but invisible, voiceless.’

  A chill prickles over my shoulders.

  ‘It’s easy to get caught up in the magic of it all,’ Alberic explains. ‘Being Jack’s daughter you’re half elemental, so even among fay your power will be strong. Probably making it even more difficult to manage.’

  ‘I’m managing fine,’ I say. ‘I’m not a wraith!’

  ‘But if you forget to look after your human side then you will be,’ Alberic says.

  ‘So what do we do?’ Mallory asks.

  ‘We get Jack back,’ Alberic says. ‘He’s the only one who can teach Owl how to use what he gave her with caution. And when he’s back she won’t feel so obliged to do his work all the time.’

  ‘I am still here!’ I snap.

  ‘Barely,’ Alberic retorts.

  ‘I don’t want him back! He won’t come, anyway. He doesn’t accept that I’m his daughter – and he’s been banished, thanks to the Queen and your father! Why does he hate him so much, anyway? What was this grudge? How can it possibly have led to all this?’

  He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It goes back a long way. Probably to do with power. The Earl is in his power for a short time, compared to Jack. And then, you know, Jack’s kind of famous! Who ever heard of the Earl of October?’ He smiles, but it’s a funny self-mocking thing and when I meet his eye I can see how hard it is for him to talk about his father. I try to focus on what he’s said and think about how quickly the leaves turn brown and fall from the trees in autumn. Is that the Earl’s problem? That winter comes too soon, steps on his toes? ‘Jack’ll come back,’ Alberic says. ‘He can fight the banishment, we just need to go to his domain and explain things to him. How did your mum get to him? Was there something in that old storybook you mentioned? Do you have it? I can get to my father’s place any time, but I don’t know Jack’s world . . .’

  ‘I’ve already tried it.’ I fold my arms. ‘It didn’t work.’

  ‘You have the spell, then,’ he says. ‘It’ll work now, I know how to cast it.’

  ‘And who is going to go on this trip?’ asks Mallory. ‘Just you two?’

  ‘I never said I was going to go!’ I say. ‘It’s a hare-brained idea. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘But is it?’ Mallory asks. ‘If Alberic’s right about the danger you’re in, then I think you should go, Owl. You need Jack’s help.’

  I crouch down and haul the book out from under the bed, blowing the dust off the cover and ignoring Alberic’s outraged look. He virtually snatches it from me, leafing through the ancient pages with reverence.

  ‘I should be able to get myself through,’ he says eventually in a subdued voice. ‘Maybe I should go alone . . .’

  ‘Shouldn’t we all go?’ Mallory asks.

  ‘You won’t be able to,’ Alberic says. ‘When Isolde went through there was . . .’ He clears his throat. ‘There was a particular force at work. I can’t recreate that. I can get myself through, and Owl will get through if she’s accepted her elemental side – which I think we can all agree she has done.’

  ‘What are you hiding?’ I demand. ‘What’s this thing that’s going to convince him to come back? It won’t be me; I already tried. And now . . . now we don’t need him anyway! I can do this!’ Ice begins to spread over my scalp and I breathe deeply, trying to hold it back, curling my hands into fists as frost sweeps over my skin.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ Alberic says in a firm voice, seeing everything. ‘And Jack has to come back anyway, to clear his name.’

  ‘Clear his name?’

  ‘Your . . . existence . . . wasn’t only down to Jack and your mum,’ he says, his eyes still on the book. A blush of colour rushes up his neck. ‘The Earl gave his power to the spell when Isolde read it out, enabling her to get through to Jack’s world. My father wanted to create you, so that he’d have something over Jack . . .’

  The room seems to get smaller, darker. Mallory’s warm hand reaches for mine. Alberic closes the book and keeps his head low. The owls screech; they knew it all along. The Earl engineered it so that I would be born, to my father’s shame. That’s what he was talking with the Queen about that day in the forest: this is the trap they set for Jack.

  I am the trap.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alberic says, his voice soft. ‘I thought you should know. I thought it would help you understand. They’ve waited a long time for this to play out. A long time in human years, that is, to them it’s nothing—’

  ‘Go,’ I whisper, pulling myself away from Mallory. ‘Go and help Mum, or something. I need a moment.’

  ‘But, Owl . . .’ Mallory begins.

  ‘Go! ’ it comes out as a sibilant hiss, the room instantly plummeting in temperature. Mallory’s breath puffs out like steam as she shuffles away from me, getting clumsily to her feet.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Alberic says, rising from the chair. ‘You need help, Owl.’

  ‘I said GO!’ I breathe, unsurprised when a flurry of fine ice crystals escape my mouth. Alberic shies away. ‘I just need a moment.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he says, coming towards me, his copper eyes blazing. ‘Have your moment, but don’t think I’m going anywhere until this is sorted. You’re a danger, and not only to yourself.’

  With that he sweeps over to the door, shoving Mallory before him, a brisk wind curling in his wake, ice crystals spinning in the air.

  There was an owl in Mum’s story. She was the creature of wisdom; the one who told her that she would forever keep a part of this magical world with her, something to hold on to when everything e
lse was gone.

  She meant me. My mother knew it somehow, even named me after her. But did that owl know I was only a pawn in the Earl’s game? That one day I would be used against my father?

  The owls in the bedroom rustle and flutter on their pages around me, whispering of winter worlds and isolated souls who do not know the truth. ‘He does not know it all, Owl! This is not his doing,’ they murmur.

  ‘He doesn’t know that it was all the Earl’s doing? That I’m just part of some . . . evil plan? Did you know?’ I glare at the wooden owl but it refuses to stir, and the flocks that adorn my walls are suddenly silent. I look at them anew. The earliest are done in crayon, framed by Mum, the latter ones in charcoal, the details more vivid. Every single one now seems so naive and hopeful. The owl did nothing to help my father against the Earl that day at the court, though she must have known.

  I grab the dusty old suitcase from the top of my wardrobe and pull it down, heaving it on to my bed, opening the leather straps. Then I turn to the walls. I’m so tired of it all. It shouldn’t be possible, not any of it, and yet it is and there they are, my own drawings rustling and snapping their feathered wings, clacking their sharp beaks like living, breathing creatures.

  They’ve done me no favours, in spite of all their fuss.

  The framed ones are the easiest; I whisk them from their hooks, throw them into the suitcase, satisfied when they clatter against each other, glass cracking. The owls within the charcoal pictures watch me with wide eyes as I peel them from the walls. My fingers are shaking, my skin is covered in ice, and yet not one of them rips as I pull them down, haphazardly rolling the larger ones, shoving them all into the suitcase. They’ve been there so long, some of them, that they leave their own imprint on the wall, even after they’ve been torn down. Pale squares framed in dark lines.

  ‘Does that make you feel better?’ asks the owl on the bedpost, after I’ve closed the suitcase and thrust it clumsily back up on to the wardrobe.

  ‘No,’ I whisper, my feet crunching over ice as I make for the window. I look back at the room, my breath catching in my throat at the layer of frost over every surface. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  I had intended to leave through the window. The branches of the ash tree in the front garden knock against the glass, reminding me that it’s time to go out into the world, lose myself in Jack’s work.

  ‘Owls are birds of prey,’ says the wooden owl. ‘They do not flee. They fight.’

  I sink down on to the windowsill, putting my knuckles up against my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut.

  All I wanted was a father.

  Warm hands pull me away from the windowsill. Alberic, steadying me as I stumble, watching as I struggle not to fall apart.

  ‘I’m so angry,’ I whisper.

  ‘I know,’ he says, after a long pause. ‘I know what that feels like.’

  ‘Do you?’ I pull away, look up at him.

  ‘I’ll never know my mother,’ he says, a little twist in his mouth. ‘I’ll never fit, in the court or at school.’

  ‘What happened to your mother?’

  ‘She wasn’t like yours,’ he says, his jaw clenching. ‘She couldn’t accept what had happened, what I was. She was afraid of me and it . . . she was . . . The Earl saw what was happening and took me away from her.’

  ‘She let you go?’

  ‘He says she was relieved.’ He shrugs. ‘I’ll never know now. She died.’

  I stare at him, my heart pounding. His copper eyes are on fire and I want to know more. I want to know how he felt, what his life was like with his mother and then with his father, in the court. Had he known what he was before he walked into that place with the Earl? Was he afraid? Does he think of her often? Alberic looks away after a moment and I bite my lip.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ I manage eventually.

  He takes a deep breath, shakes his head. ‘Anyway. Now you know. So are you ready?’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘To do this . . .’

  ‘No! I’m not going, Alberic. This is what I am now. I don’t want to change. It’s not so bad. I’ll get better at balancing things. If you can do it then so can I.’

  ‘I’ve had all my life to learn! While you were listening to bedtime stories safely tucked up here, I was up in the branches of the Green Man, painting his leaves red; I was being lectured by the Lady on harmony; playing hide-and-seek with the tree-sprites, learning how cruel they can be – and how kind . . .’

  ‘And now what? It’s too late for me? I just have to run to him to beg for help? Can’t you teach me?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s too late for that. You’ve already gone deeper than I ever have. They always told me, if you stop listening to your human body that’s it, there is no return. This is what they meant, Owl. One more night out like that and you might be lost forever.’

  I stare at him. He stares back; he’s not going to change his mind. But neither am I. I’m tired of being lectured, tired of doing all I can and still it’s never enough. I crave the bitter night air, the clarity of starlight on darkened streets, and I’m about to open the window behind me when Mum’s voice breaks in, the warmth and normality of it like a shock against my tired, frustrated mind.

  ‘Dinner!’

  Alberic is so quiet over dinner. He keeps looking at Mum with these haunted eyes as she buzzes around the kitchen, bangles tinkling, bringing little dishes of olives, parmesan, tomatoes; lighting candles, talking about her work with Mallory and asking him questions about school, family. He murmurs the briefest answers, looking away whenever she looks at him. I wonder if he even remembers his own mother.

  He and Mallory keep exchanging glances. When I dust my cutlery with ice I can see how they notice, how they flinch. Even Mum starts watching me more closely after a while, picking up on the tension at the table. And then it’s too much. I make my excuses and dash to my room, my head buzzing, only to be followed by both of them minutes later.

  ‘Don’t you think you should go home?’ I ask peevishly, staring at them from under my hat.

  ‘No,’ says Mallory, lighting candles.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You’re doing this,’ she says. ‘Alberic, get the book, let’s get started.’

  ‘Mallory!’

  ‘I’m not losing you too,’ she says. Her voice wobbles but she refuses to look at me, just keeps darting around with the matches.

  ‘Oh, Mall . . .’

  ‘Just do it, Owl,’ she says fiercely, sitting next to me on the bed, her eyes sparkling. ‘At least try!’

  I look from her to Alberic, as he joins us on the bed. He pulls the book on to his lap and reaches for my hand, and even if I don’t think it’s going to work I find I can’t say no. He doesn’t hesitate, his eyes blaze as he starts to read the incantation, his voice deep and melodic. The words get slower as he goes and the buzzing in my head seems to intensify. Suddenly a shudder of something silver bright goes through me and I feel myself falling, falling, my stomach lurching, then there’s the sharp tang of crisp outdoor air in my nostrils, hard earth beneath my feet.

  Winter cuts sharp and true across my face as I open my eyes to see, all around me, the world my mother described so many times, soothing me to sleep with the magic in her voice. I realize I’m in exactly the same place she came to, all that time ago: ‘in the clearing between the trees that towered out in every direction: black with bark and white with frost.’

  And my father found her here, as she turned and turned again, waiting for something to become familiar.

  ‘Nothing was familiar.’

  The air aches with the bleakness of winter and when I look up I half expect to see Jack there, his dark hair thick with frost. I turn, and turn again, hoping to see him and hoping not to. And all around me is only the stark silence of looming, skeletal trees beneath a pearl-bright sky.

  ‘Owl?’

  Alberic. His voice is fractured, grating against the silence. It sounds like he’s been calling for h
ours. I turn again, eyes searching for him between the narrow trunks of the trees.

  ‘Alberic?’

  There’s a scuffling sound and he emerges, breath steaming in the air. He’s different here: taller, broader, his hair a flame against the black and white.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says, his voice uncertain as he comes towards me. His copper eyes glint as he looks me up and down. His footsteps are unsteady. ‘This place . . . distorts things. I feel like I’ve been here for days already.’ The shadow of a smile flickers at his lips. ‘I haven’t been, have I?’

  ‘No,’ I say, reaching out as he stumbles. ‘But time passes differently here, I think. Mum always said . . . Have you been wandering for days?’ Between his hair and his eyes he’s pale with cold, and there’s something haunted in his face, something that suggests he’s been where he should never have been. No matter how angry I am with him it’s painful to see. ‘Go back, Alberic. You don’t look like you belong here.’

  ‘You do,’ he says, pulling away from me and leaning up against one of the trees. ‘You look like a part of it all already.’

  ‘Perhaps I am,’ I say, looking down at myself. My skin is the colour of the purest just-laid frost, it gleams in the pale sunlight that filters through the wooded glade. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Find Jack . . .’ His eyes are full of doubts. ‘Will you? I’ve got you this far, but now that we’re here, I can’t . . . I’m not sure what comes next. I couldn’t even find my way out of this glade.’ He looks up; the trees reach their brittle branches way up high into the sky, bending only slightly in the breeze. ‘It’s not like anywhere I’ve been before, Owl, it pulls at me—’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I say, reaching for him again. I tuck my hand through his arm and pull him forward through trees that start to whisper around us, as a pale wind moves through them. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Is what me?’ he asks, still looking upward.

  ‘The wind.’

  ‘Oh! Might be. Who knows?’

  ‘Alberic, snap out of it!’ I say. It’s like pulling a dead weight, like all the will has gone out of him. We reach the edge of the glade, finally, pushing our way through the tightly packed trees as roots twist in the ground, reaching for our feet. It must be some kind of defence, to stop interlopers getting through to whatever else is out there. I get the feeling that without me Alberic really would have just wandered forever. I didn’t realize. Mum’s stories were all about the magic and the beauty. They didn’t give enough idea of the danger.