Noctua et fur

I felt it go, just as I turned around. My sleeve caught it, just above the elbow. It caught the corner of the display case, and I felt it go. I spun around to catch it, but I knew it was hopeless. The glass case was already falling and there was nothing I could do.

The crash shattered the silence, a sudden and disastrous sound rebounding in the hallway and through the still, dark house, sending shards of glass skidding across the tiles, big triangles and tiny slivers, radiating out in all directions, stopped only by the skirting boards and the foot of the carpeted stairs.

I stood stock still until the silence returned. Nothing stirred in the tall building. I knew the place was empty, but somehow I still felt reassured that no voices came, no doors had been flung open, no lights had suddenly been flicked on, no footsteps thumped on the floorboards overhead. I was still alone.

I looked down at the mess. Broken glass was everywhere. The black metal rods of the frame were snapped and bent, only one pane of glass was roughly intact. The barn owl had come apart from his log and was lying face down on the tiles, wings folded against his body, taloned feet open like hands facing the ceiling. Bits of foliage were strewn about him here and there. An owl lying prone. He looked rather ridiculous, as if he had walked downstairs and tripped on the log and faceplanted, or possibly come home drunk and just passed out on the hall floor. I looked at him and was reminded of the logic puzzles we used to play – “An owl lies dead in a hallway, surrounded by broken glass. How did it die?” They’d never get this one.

I tugged at the wrists of my gloves and took a deep breath. There was no point cleaning any of it up. Even if I could bin all of it, which was impossible given that it was broken glass and I didn’t want to turn any lights on, the owl would still be missing from the table, and that was that. There wouldn’t be any prints on it, anyway, so no worries there.

I moved into the front room to my right, turning the brass doorknob slowly, and grateful to be stepping from hard tile onto soft carpet. I looked around in the semi-darkness, illuminated only by the soft streetlight filtering in from outside. A big room with a bay window and a dark Victorian fireplace. A mantelpiece, with African carvings and a small clock. TV, sofa, armchairs, coffee table, and in the corner a baby grand piano. Bookcase in the alcove by the fireplace. Books, DVDs. Nothing much here.

But hang on – some pictures. Always worth checking out. One painting and two smaller drawings. The painting said nothing to me, a winter landscape with colours muted in the dimness, and no artist that I recognised. Russian impressionist, maybe. The other two were line drawings, pen and ink, one a horse, the other a gazelle. I stepped up to them for a closer look, eyes straining to make out details. Very fine drawings, elegant and fluid. Signed at the bottom right. Pissarro. I thought so. Something about the style. Beautiful line work. Probably just prints, though. But peering very closely, these didn’t look like prints to me. They were small, sketches, probably not beyond the pocket of someone like this if they were originals. I hesitated. Glass clip frames, always a pain if clambering about, but they’d go in the bag fine. Worth a go. If they’re prints, chuck them.

I took the pictures off their hooks and placed them carefully in my black shoulder bag. Time to move on.

Suddenly, voices in the porch. Before I had time to react, a key in the lock. Immediately the panic chemicals hit me with full force. I ducked down instinctively behind the sofa, blood racing violently in my ears, the panic rising as the adrenaline kicked in fully, heart thumping, muscles and vision tightening, making myself as small as possible like a child playing hide and seek, my body crunched up on the carpet, fighting down the urge to break out and run, the urge to vanish, the urge to vomit.

“Oh, no!” A cry of distress from the hallway - a woman’s voice.

“What? Oh…” A younger voice, male.

“Ollie’s been smashed. Oh no. Bugger it. Careful, there’s glass everywhere.”

“Okay.”

Crunching footsteps. Just don’t breathe.

“It must have been Marcie. Stupid cat. Oh no. Look at all this.”

“I’ll get the dustpan.”

“No, no, leave it. I’m too tired. We’ll do it in the morning. Damn it. Marcie? Marcie?”

“Okay. I’ll put the kettle on. Want a drink?”

“No thanks, I’m going to go straight to bed. Honestly, what a day.”

“Yeah, too much. Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight. Sleep well.”

“You too.”

Weary footsteps on the stairs. More crunching down the hallway. Then the sounds of a distant kettle, a teaspoon in a mug.

And me, lying behind a strange sofa in the dark with my pulse through the roof, breathing carpet, trying to calm my nerves, and preparing for the long wait for silence and darkness to settle on the house once again.