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Custos: Tyto alba/ White Guardian

I looked up and watched it swoop gracefully, like a vengeful angel through the black of night; faintly luminous and mad and graceful.

By Beth SarahPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 24 min read
Runner-Up in Return of the Night Owl Challenge
9
Custos: Tyto alba/ White Guardian
Photo by Adam King on Unsplash

My father sent me to Kingshill Academy for a September start when I was fifteen. The school made the headlines that term – not for any educational achievement or cornerstone of prestige – but rather because one particularly hostile December night, a teacher there perished in a fire in one of the old outbuildings. It has been twenty years and still not a soul – except perhaps a quiet, lingering suspicion on the part of Penny Sanderson – has any inkling of an idea that I had anything at all to do with it.

I was an odd adolescent – perhaps a little needy – and looking back now I suppose Dad didn’t know quite how else to deal with me. It was just the two of us after all, and his work required so much of him, he did not have the time to deal with a neurotic juvenile daughter.

I didn’t want to go; but I also understood well that trying to object when he had made his mind up would have been futile, so early that September, I packed my things and took the hundred mile drive with him into the Devonshire countryside.

It was a hot day – the tail-end of summer still dripping through the atmosphere - but Dad put the air conditioning on in his Audi. We didn’t speak much, rather I plugged in my earphones and gazed as in a trance at the world flashing past me through the passenger window – at the monotonous, grey motorway; and the fields and pylons and industrial estates beyond it, all blinking through my tunnel of vision rhythmically, lulling me into a state of indifference.

I did not feel anything strongly. I was nervous, but not anxious; sad, but not distraught; anticipant, but not excited. I had been through enough during my fifteen years so as not to be thrown by changes and upheavals. And changeable as life can be, I find this even now to be a beneficial quality to possess.

We eventually left the motorway and had somehow started weaving through the small lanes of Devon, narrow and snake-like, all lined with hedgerows and concealed between clusters of enormous, ancient-looking trees. A different world entirely to the one we had just left of concrete partitions and impatient commuters and service-station sandwiches. This felt like a fairy tale. Not like the ones you tell to children – the colourful, Disney-esque versions of antiquated stories – rather straight from the musty, brown, shrivelled pages of folk lore – of places that hold in them magic and mystery but seem always to shroud within their shadows something insidious and dark and unspeakable.

I remember vividly to this day the first moment Kingshill came into my vision. Amidst an ocean of green – neatly partitioned fields; hedgerows; grass verges; patches of woodland – it emerged on the periphery like a Titan – obnoxious, grey and somewhat beautiful – ornate and manicured – but anachronistically cold. Something trapped in a glitch in the fabric of time; that didn’t belong in the present - a world of boater hats and morning hymns; cricket and cross country. Yet there it stood, waiting for me.

The drive leading up to the school was so long it took several minutes before we joined the line of cars queuing to await further directions. Eventually, having unloaded my bags and cases on to a trolley subsequently wheeled away by a young man wearing what looked like a hotelier’s uniform, we were escorted to a room in the main building by a small, austere, bird-like woman who introduced herself as Miss Privitera. The girls amassed in this small hall must all have been new to the school. Varying in age from about eleven to sixteen they stood nervously with their parents, though a couple were completely alone, wide-eyed and fidgeting unconsciously on their own feet.

My father said little to me as we partook in a tour of the school, welcome sandwiches and tea on the back lawn, the signing of registration documents in a small office on the third floor of the building. When it was time for him to leave, he looked at me, a vague glimmer of ruefulness in his eyes.

‘Are you going to be alright here do you think?’ he enquired kindly, though both of us knew there could only be one answer.

I nodded stoically and he replied with an ‘’atta girl,’, kissed me tersely on the head and told me to call if I needed anything. We both knew I wouldn’t.

I wouldn’t say I had a bad relationship with him, or that he was a bad father. After my mother died five years prior, we had established a tacit agreement to remain somewhat detached from one other – I suppose it was a form of self-preservation – and it was mutual. I did not feel abandoned, or starved of affection. It was just the way it was.

And so off he walked, back to the car-park on the left hand side of the house, and off he drove, back up the long drive and out of sight and I took myself off to my dormitory and lay on my new bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, not feeling much of anything at all. The new-starters had arrived a few days before everyone else in order to get settled in, during which we were obliged to partake in a range of activities and excursions.

The other girls soon seemed to relax – inevitably – into their new life of giggles, and whispers, and adolescent friendships. Their apprehension quickly melted into excitement while I remained in the same state of indifference I was in when I arrived and I suppose, thinking about it now, carried everywhere until my frequent visits to the art office began.

Though I was different from the others, I do not think I was standoffish or rude. I engaged when I was expected to; I was polite, dutiful. How my detachment was perceived by others I don’t know, but I preferred reading in my dormitory, or walking around the grounds with my sketchbook and iPod than joining in with twittering common room politics, contraband make-up dramas, movie-nights – that sort of thing. Many of the other girls in my year were flourishing into young women – with breasts and hips and long legs – while I seemed never to grow and my small, boyish frame and shoulder-length brown, choppy hair, it seemed to me, was a contrast to the others. Sometimes I did wonder what it would be like to have the long, curved legs, hourglass figure and goldilocks hair of girls like Penny Sanderson, but I never dwelled on the thought for long and was quite content with my life of lessons, homework, reading, wandering around the grounds alone, feeling as though I were a thousand miles from anywhere – in which I found a strange and profound sense of comfort.

I was something of a spectre during those first few months at Kingshill – present, but unsubstantial. I attended my lessons, ate my meals, engaged in polite conversation, completed my homework – and yet by the teachers and other girls alike remained largely unseen which suited me perfectly. It came as a surprise, then, when on an unseasonably cold morning in early November, Mr Taylor, my art teacher, requested to meet with me in his office after the lesson.

‘Thank you for staying behind, Adelaide.’ he said in a formal tone. ‘would you mind coming into my office for a quick chat? Nothing to be worried about, of course.’

I shook my head and followed him through a door behind the desk in his large studio. It led to a small, windowless office, in which there was a small couch, comprised of brown corduroy; a coffee-table on which sat a porcelain tea-pot painted daintily with flowers, and two matching cups; a plate of biscuits. Against my will I laughed slightly at the absurdity of this set belonging to unkempt Mr Taylor but I suppose in some way it was supposed to be poignant or ironic. Fortunately, I don’t think he noticed this.

‘Please, have a seat,’ he gestured vaguely to the sofa and I complied. ‘Tea?’

‘Um, yes – thank you,’ I replied, rather bemused by the whole situation.

Mr Taylor poured the tea into the two cups. If I had to guess his age, I would have said perhaps late-thirties but it was difficult to tell. He was a lot less polished than my other teachers at the school – with a mop of uncombed black hair on his head and a beard that made it look like he perpetually forgot to shave. He was an art teacher though after all – so no-one ever called him out for this – and he was undeniably younger and more handsome than the other grey-haired teachers at the school.

‘Why do you think I have invited you here?’

‘Um… I’m not sure, sir.’

‘Do you like Art, as a subject?’

‘Yes.’ I thought I might be in trouble. ‘To be honest, I love it. I draw – rather a lot actually -’

‘Mhm.’ He paused and seemed to study me carefully. ‘That’s what I thought.’

There was a pause in the conversation then.

‘I’m sorry sir – have I done something wrong?’

‘No. No, Adi, not in the least. Quite the opposite in fact. I shouldn’t really say this but I see such promise in you, such promise. Your work – I don’t know. You show such subtlety; such maturity. It’s very refreshing to see.’

I could feel the pink flood into my cheeks. Mr Taylor was eyeing me carefully and all of a sudden I found myself looking at him in a new way. He seemed suddenly so handsome. I became overwhelmed with the feeling that this man understood me; that I may have found an ally in this strange school; unexpected but quite welcome. I hated that I was blushing.

‘Thank you,’ I eventually managed to reply, dumbly.

He flashed me a kindly, knowing smile that turned everything within me into goo –

‘If it’s alright with you,’ he continued, ‘I’d like to work with you closely – one-on-one. As you know, Kingshill is a very prestigious school. We have a duty – when we recognise talent – to nurture it, so to speak.’

All I could do was nod. He sat down beside me and took a sip of tea; I mirrored the action, looking firmly at the dainty flowers on the pot.

‘Can we say the same time each week then?’ he continued, ‘same time, same place – I’ll work on a special project with you. There is a big competition coming up, and you are exactly the kind of - candidate – ‘ he seemed careful in his word selection there, ‘who should be entering’.

‘So what did you have in mind?’ I enquired in a forced, casual tone, willing myself to sound less embarrassed, less young.

‘Ah- an excellent question. Your work on expressionism today – I think we should take what you have done there and enhance it into a larger project. I don’t often see such promise in this studio – such – perceptiveness.’

‘Thank you,’ I said again, somewhat awkwardly. Then drained the rest of my cup in silence.

‘It has been a real pleasure speaking with you this morning,’ he remarked, somewhat formally, when I started to indicate it was time to leave. Even then, this seemed odd to me, considering I had barely said a word.

Looking back now, it should not have come as a surprise to me that this project – this artistic collaboration failed to amount to anything during the next few weeks, despite my weekly – sometimes bi-weekly visits to Mr Taylor’s office. There can be no accounting, however, for the decisions and actions of a fifteen-year-old girl with an ever-growing infatuation.

I relaxed fairly quickly into the friendship, always ensuring that I had prepared ideas, observations – something about art I had read that week – and this seemed to impress Mr Taylor – Andrew – as he insisted on me calling him by about the third week. Of course, I was far too impressionable to understand any of this – and quickly, deeply in love.

It is clear to me now how rehearsed the whole thing was – a polished performance – but of course there was no way at the time I could have recognised this.

No-one knew about our meetings – an element of the whole thing I particularly enjoyed. My time spent with Andrew excepted, I managed to retain my status as a spectre in the school – which meant that nobody would have noticed my absences at peculiar times, nor I suppose any changes in my conduct and behaviour.

And so, two or three times a week, I would find myself sitting on the couch in that strange little office, drinking tea and engaging in conversations comprised of nonsense really – but that seemed to me to be deeply profound. Each week, each meeting, the proximity between us would shift. Andrew slowly got closer and it became a strange and exciting game of chicken – the accidental graze of a knee; touch of a hand reaching for the teapot.

It was early December when he kissed me. I knew it was coming, we both did, and I welcomed it heartily. Things were ticking along in their usual manner when I said something – I don’t remember what – that made Andrew laugh – really laugh. Following a mutual bout of hysterics, he became serious. Perilously close, on the strange little couch, in the strange little office, he gave me this look, this earnest look filled with longing and remorse. It was then – when things became suddenly grave – that he leant in and brushed his lips against my own. I had never kissed anyone before. He pulled away from me and looked at me nervously, searchingly. Overcome with a strong urge to reassure him, I surprised even myself by leaning in and returning the kiss. We lingered longer that time, shifting ourselves, with such care so as not to overstep a line that – in retrospect – had been crossed weeks beforehand.

The kissing – the tender, delicate, wary touches, continued – and our secret romance began to escalate. We started to write notes to one another, then full letters; creating aliases for ourselves in case they should be discovered – hiding them in strange, cryptic places; finding imaginative ways to let the other know where they were.

Lying in his arms, crunched together in an odd contortion on that sofa, one rainy Tuesday morning – he finally propositioned me in earnest.

‘Beautiful Adi,’ he whispered, pulling a strand of hair away from my cheek, ‘beautiful, smart, Adi.’ – bending his neck, he kissed me softly beside my eye.

‘Mhm?’ I responded in a daze.

‘I want to make love to you.’

He paused for a moment to let this statement settle on the atmosphere.

‘I’m sorry – I know I shouldn’t say that. I just want to be honest about how I feel. Do you ever think about it?’

In love as I believed myself to be, this startled me. We had never so much dared to touch on this idea, though of course it hung between us permanently and irrevocably.

‘You mean - ?’ I asked, in a sudden panic, an image emerging in my mind of fumbling helplessly on that couch, then and there. I sat bolt upright. He could see that he had unsettled me.

‘I don’t mean here,’ he whispered, lulling me back into submission with a series of light kisses on the back of my neck. ‘Is it something you have thought about?’

‘Of course,’ I replied, determined to sound nonchalant, like a woman might; desperate not to sound like a girl.

‘You know the old barn? Beyond the field?’

I nodded.

‘I go out there sometimes – for some space – for a place to feel truly alone. If you wanted to – we could meet there one evening. No-one would disturb us.’

My heart was pounding.

‘Sounds great,’ I replied, and before I knew it, we had arranged a meeting at the barn late in the evening the following Wednesday.

Having left the office and taking some time to settle into the idea, I began to find – almost to my surprise - that I was quite looking forward to it. We were in love, after all. Not a conventional kind of love, of course, but I had read enough from the literary canon to know that the best love never was.

And so, as I passed through the next few days in my usual ghost-like state, I actually began to feel excited about the prospect of myself and Andrew consummating our passion. My enjoyment of this prospect, however, was interrupted by an unexpected conversation with Penny Sanderson in the girls toilets on the Monday of that week.

‘Adelaide, isn’t it?’ she asked, having entered through the door behind me. There was no-one else there. I was very surprised that she was speaking to me; and rather perturbed that my spectre-dom seemed to have failed me.

‘Yes. Penny?’

‘Yes.’ She seemed a little awkward.

‘Look, I know this is none of my business, but I noticed you speaking with Mr Taylor last week. You looked quite… cosy.’

I shot her a look that must have betrayed both surprise and extreme antagonism. Realising I may exposed myself, I tried to fumble together a reasonable response.

‘I’m not quite sure what you are insinuating, but I’m working on a project with him at the moment. He thinks I have a lot of potential.’

I was disquieted by how ludicrous it sounded to say this aloud and the world I had built around myself those past months started to crumble at the edges.

‘I know it’s none of my business - ’ said Penny, dripping with confidence, maturity, femininity. I hated her for talking like a woman. Looking like a woman. Sounding like a woman. I caught a glimpse of my boyish features in the full length mirror.

‘ – it’s just,’ she continued, ‘everyone knows that Mr Taylor has seen potential in quite a few of the girls here over the years. I just wanted to warn you about what you might be getting yourself into.’

‘Well I appreciate that,’ I replied bitterly, ‘but like I said, it is just an art project.’

As she walked out my head was spinning and I grappled inside my head to stop my fantasy from crumbling around me.

Still rather shaken by Penny’s ambiguous revelation, and unsure about what I had heard about Andrew, when Wednesday night materialised, I felt a sickly apprehension about our arranged meeting – out in the barn. I was suddenly lost; in a free-fall. I had been so certain, so certain that what was happening somehow. Now a shadow of doubt had been cast over my mind that I couldn’t seem to escape from, no matter how hard I tried to rationalise.

And yet I knew, that if there was something real between us, I would be putting that at severe risk if I didn’t show up that night. Andrew was a man – a real man. If he felt I was acting like a kid, he might change his mind – or get cold feet perhaps. And so, as planned, at about nine-thirty I put on my coat and leather boots and started making my way, through the grounds; across the field – to the old barn, the prearranged location of our rendezvous.

My stomach grew tighter the farther I walked away from the school; the closer I became to the barn. I felt so conflicted. Why in this moment did I have to make such a choice? What if it hurt? What if I got into trouble? Then again, what if this was the real thing – real love – I couldn’t risk that could I? Why not just enjoy it then? – and yet I couldn’t shake the slight low notes of poison that seemed to be flecked across my tongue, this vague but persistent, bitter sense of foreboding. As I agonised over this, the decision was made for me: I had reached the door of the barn, a wooden door, slightly ajar.

It was a perfect twilight and two things hit me in that moment – the first was the magisterial sight of the sun slowly retreating behind Kingshill when I turned around to look at it before turning to the door. It was jarring – everything a strange, hazy green in that dusky moment – the colossal school casting a gargantuan shadow – spilling out across the grass and trees – beautiful and unspeakably ugly in equal measure.

I was snapped out of my reverie in this moment by the second thing to catch my attention – a strange smell emerging from the crack between the barn and the door. A distinctive, sickly scent that I recognised from a camping trip I had taken with my older, cooler cousin Sammy that summer. At first this confused me, then my suspicions were confirmed when I pushed through the door – curiosity suddenly overtaking any nerves – and saw Andrew lying flat on a blanket he had laid on the hay smoking what looked like a rather over-filled cigarette – the source of that undeniable smell.

He smiled lazily when he became aware of my presence – kind of slowly and stupidly.

‘Come here babe,’ he asserted quietly.

I felt further out of my depth than ever in that moment – like a small child who didn’t quite understand her parents’ expectations when they reprimanded her. But I knew that I was there now – my fate was sealed – and so I crawled shyly onto the blanket beside him.

We had kissed a thousand times, of course, during our numerous meetings in his office – but immediately this was different. The usual hesitancy had vanished completely and as soon as I got within a metre of him, he pounced on me like a lion, thrusting his tongue violently through my teeth, grabbing my body forcefully – pushing himself against me. He didn’t seem to notice me tense against him.

‘Oh, yes babe. I’ve been waiting for this for weeks now. You feel so fucking good.’

His breath reeked of weed; he had transformed into a desperate predator that had been devoid of meat for weeks. I felt sick. I felt panic rising through my body as he kissed and licked and touched me.

‘Yes, sweetheart – touch me,’

Without notice, he grabbed my hand and thrust it toward his crotch over his trousers. I felt so humiliated and as this feeling swelled, so did a lump in my throat – but I willed myself not to cry. Only a child would cry. Suck it up Adi, what did you think was going to happen?

He was in the middle of sucking mercilessly on my thin neck when we heard the first rustle. A strange, almost frantic crunching noise from somewhere in the rafters above us. My heart was pounding. Andrew stopped for a moment. He looked annoyed and glanced up to where it sounded like the noise had come from.

There was a moment of absolute silence. Nothing.

So he rolled over started again on my neck, touching me over my clothes with even more force than before.

Fortunately, after just a couple of moments the rustling noise started again, this time louder and more persistent. Clearly put out, Andrew pushed me aside this time and, grunting angrily, relit his joint and started up the wooden ladder that lay against the wall on the left hand side of the barn, leading up to the rafters. I watched silently as he reached the top of the ladder and peered into a crevice high up in the wall of the barn. He frowned, peering irritated through the gap.

‘Can you see anything?’ I asked.

‘Not a fucking thing.’ He muttered, taking a large drag on his spliff then removing it with his left hand from his mouth. His stance suggested that he was preparing to come back down the ladder when the noise started again. Andrew jolted, then looked up once more at the crevice in the wall. Unexpectedly, he started to laugh.

‘It’s an owl.’ he was laughing heartily now; a brash, arrogant laugh. ‘Just a stupid fuckin’ barn owl.’

My stomach dropped as he started making his way back down the top rung of the ladder when suddenly the most unexpected, heinous noise emerged from the crevice – a shrill, demonic shriek that rang out twice, loudly. When you think of the call of an owl, you may assume that it should be a gentle hoo but the barn owl, white and proud and regal emits a violent war-cry – startling and otherworldly; angry and incriminating.

I jumped at the noise and Andrew leapt – down from the ladder, having jolted and lost his footing on the second rung from the top of the ladder.

I watched in bemusement as he fell – as though in slow motion at first – then suddenly, in the flash of a second, slammed hard to the ground. He let out a groan akin to the shriek of the barn owl. He landed in the hay, but had fallen so far that I knew it must have done some damage.

Crumpled at a strange angle, he hoisted up the upper half of his body and called to me with bile, ‘I’ve broken my leg. Go and get help you stupid fucking bitch. I’ll make up a reason why we were out here together – an art project or something.’

His breathing sounded deep and laboured through the pain.

I stood there watching, detached and bemused, unmoving.

This trance lasted for a moment, until I became aware of something to my right. A peculiar smell floating into my nostril, and, as I turned to look, little spectres of wispy white dancing up from the hay in obtuse swirling patterns. For a split second he and I were as confused as one another upon noticing this phenomenon until the realisation plunged over both of us in synchrony. The joint. The joint that had been hanging between his lips when he climbed the ladder must have fallen out of his mouth with the shock of the owl’s shriek and into the hay below.

For a second we looked at one another, dead in the eye, both feeling with potency how far the power between us had shifted. Suddenly I saw fear in his. Tangible fear. He looked at his leg, slumped at a most unnatural angle; and at the smoke rising slowly and patiently a few feet away from him in the hay.

‘Please,’ his voice waivered. ‘Please Adi, I love you. I love you, OK. Please go and get help so that we can be together for real. You want to be with me, don’t you?’

I said nothing, still staring into his desperate eyes. Then slowly, I nodded, backing toward the door.

‘Hurry, please hurry,’ I heard him call after me as I walked through the barn door and out into the crisp December night.

Without a thought in my head, I closed the door of the barn behind me, and locked it from the outside with a wooden lock that pulled down from one of the doors onto a hinge on the other.

As I walked – very slowly – back across the field and toward school – I heard the barn owl leave it’s home in the rafters. I looked up and watched it swoop gracefully, like a vengeful angel through the black of night; faintly luminous and mad and graceful. It must have sensed danger because once again it let out that terrible, haunting cry – and as it soared past me, I thanked it silently, smiling to myself as I ambled leisurely back in the direction of the dorms. When I finally got back I crashed immediately into bed, and slept that night more soundly than I had since I had arrived at Kingshill in September.

Short Story
9

About the Creator

Beth Sarah

We've been scribbled in the margins of a story that is patently absurd

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  • Dean F. Hardyabout a year ago

    Immediate grab in the first paragraph. Not trying any dirty tricks on the reader. Enjoyed this.

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