Return of the Night Owl:

Lore says when you hear the screech of an owl in the abyss of night. Curiosity will surely leave you headless.

Witches will ride a broomstick across a blood moon. The moons garish pigment, work of witchcraft. A ritual of sucking out the blood of infants like a leech. On this special night witches have the ability to morph into owl’s themselves.

Do not circle, around an old hallow oak tree with a sleeping owl, or death will surely follow. As the children sing, ashes, ashes we all fall down

All the merrymaking and glee made the old birds head do a three sixty. That geezer of a bird wrung his very own neck from all the noisemaking. His blood rained down on the gawking children’s cheeks.

Angrily the fairies spitefully kidnapped the children of Omelette city . As punishment for destroying their circle.

While their feathered guardian slept; In a fortnight, the towns children went missing from their beds. In their place changelings slumber.

Repeating the phrase,” yesteryears, noonday’s be like a bird of darkness shrieks and hoots in the bay of the moonlight.”

Now the township did not take kindly to the switch, as generations spend the next few centuries recovering from the trickery. Every parent wore an expression like an owl in an ivy bush-

Witchcraft was not hidden from town gossip. In fact, most nimble witches would steal a nest of owl eggs or two.

Trading to peddlers the cure for ailments;

from eyesight to hangovers.

Every peice of soot from the chard yolk does the body good. In exchange for herbs and paints.

Now little Alba Rose who couldn’t be more than three. This wide eyed curious girl grew up in the middle of Omelette city.

Her mother grew the reddest; yet largest rosebush along side their tiny hubble of a home. The Rosen family roses were known widely throughout the land for being enormous.

Little did they know, every night before the family laid their heads to rest. Her father Forest went into the woods. He had a way with animals, and he did not kill for sport. Instead he gave a little whistle and if he spotted a decrepit owl ask “May I take away your pain, and hang you up by a wing. To keep evil spirits from knocking down our door.”

However as with all things, the down side to protecting his family, he gazed into the hallow of owls nest one too many times.

With each passing year, he became more like the loathsome birds he unburdened with a timely end.

A darkness of the mind that couldn’t magically cured. Alba Rose grew up on owl bone broth, a recipe her mother learned from the town crone. Many feared the old woman, walking on egg shells around her, but not Odessa a brave hearted soul.

Alba Rose did not fear the nocturnal birds, despite the gloomy reputation.

She held onto a faint memory of barn owl feathered mobile hanging over her crib, dancing in the light of the full moon. As the sound of a fairy gnawing at the wicker weaved bassinet, made her stir.

A familiar screech caused the troublemaker to scatter out the cracked window ledge as Alba began to cry. In the dark, a pair of rounded eyes flickered like a oil lamp. Her fresh eyes mesmerized by the creature in the shadows.

Alba was the only child, that had not been switched with a changeling in the night.

Her peers found her knitted owl beaked shawl, and striking red overalls odd. The way her storytelling hopped all over, in the sheer volume of her excitement screeching as she waved her hands about utterly annoying.

As Alba Rose grew so did her imagination and determination. The days of summer passed by, as she played out in the fields Alba Rose was caked in dirt, upon returning home.

Her mother was not happy with the amount of scrubbing her hands would have endeavor to remove the stains, and make the clothes suitable again.

Forest was the more lax in his scolding. “You need to keep your clothes pristine, like a barn owl keeps its wings from whistling on the breeze, go bathe young lady. The water won’t heat itself!”

As she grew in years, her adventurous spirit remained untamed! She couldn’t keep her feet on the ground as she cartwheeled across grass, chasing away butterflies from milkweed.

Her mother would gasp, if she could see Alba Rose soaring through mid air in back flip off the edge of the knoll.

At dusk, the storm clouds electrified the sky.

Alba Rose helped her father carry in chords of wood to feed to the cast iron stove. When she bent down, to grab a few starters. The whole pile scattered on the side of the household. Ouch, something bite me! She examined the mark, but wasn’t sure type of insect or mammal was the culprit.

She helped stoke the fire and as she warmed up by the fire Odessa read her favorite poems aloud.

Dreams of haunted houses , and cyclops attacking flooded in. She felt a chill, from the moisture outside. As she burrows deeper into her quilt. Alba Rose tossed and turned to stay sleep. However felt an inkling arise inside her like she caught a second wind, immediately wide awake. As she sat up stretching her legs, and arms. In a panic she began to shriek, the moment she noticed her putty nose was hard as a beak.

Alba Rose’s fingerprints became barbs of feathers.

I got to get out of here! Father will hang me on the door for sure! Her fight or flight instinct kicked in. As she felt the pull of the distant moon beckon like a tailwind!