Emily West

,Emily West, in many ways, appeared to be a typical toddler. At two years and eleven months of age she had soft, golden curls that framed her obsidian eyes and her dancing, deep, midnight lashes. She had a glistening mouthful of pearl-drop teeth and a smile that demanded an audience. But Emily West was not a typical toddler.

Her parents had awoken in a panic the morning after her first birthday to find that her crib was empty and the doors of her window, wide open. Living twenty floors up in a low-crime town, it seemed unlikely that any human could have snatched her, but as Mavis West’s heart sank to the bottom of her chest, she called the police to report what she assumed was a kidnapping.

‘I can’t see how anyone could have taken her,’ Sargent Cambus insisted, ‘your building is the most secure place in town, our cameras would have noticed something…’

‘Look at them again, please!’ Mavis interrupted, her breath shaky and shallow as a puddle. ‘There’s no other way. No-one came into our apartment.’

‘Have you considered it was the father?’

‘The father?’ Mavis locked her cool blue eyes into her husband’s, who was visibly as anxious as she was. ‘It wasn’t the father!’ she cried, as tears began painting her cheekbones.

‘Alright, I’ll have another look, but … wait … I think you’d better come in here … there’s … just come in, please. You need you to see this.’

‘We’ll be right over.’ Mavis hung up the phone and launched into her husband’s open arms. ‘I think they’ve found something. We need to go down to the station.’

Weaving through the city streets had never felt more seamless, it was as though some supernatural force was guiding them, parting the cars, changing the lights; like something was wanting them to discover it. They were gifted a timely car-space immediately in front of the police station and like magic, were suddenly inside it. It may have been unnerving, had Mavis and Trevor been paying any attention. But their minds were focused on one thing and one thing only: their daughter. All other happenings, mere circumstance.

Sargent Cambus promptly greeted them and lead way to his private office. ‘I’m not sure how to explain this,’ he rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow, ‘or even what it means. But I saw an owl fly out of your daughter’s window.’

‘An owl?’ Trevor’s face paled. ‘What kind of owl?’

‘I’m a policeman, not a zoo-ologist… A barn owl, perhaps? Something typical. Here, have a look.’

Mavis and Trevor studied the screen as the policeman’s revelation proved truthful.

‘How did an owl get into our apartment and what does this have to do with our Emily?’ Mavis rose to her feet in a flurry. ‘This isn’t helpful. Keep looking! I’m filing a report for a missing person.’

Travis followed promptly behind her; head hanging, eyes troubled, teeth surveying his lips as if to eat them. ‘Why don’t we go for a drive,’ he suggested. ‘See if we can find her ourselves.’

It wasn’t like Mavis had much of a choice, she was incapable of sitting; merely waiting. But when they pulled up to the grove on the edge of their town her suspicions began to turn on her husband. There was an assuredness about him; a determination of motion; his feet seemed to know where they were walking.

Mavis drew silent and followed cautiously behind, scanning sticks for a means of protection. How well did she know her husband? Doubts fondled her mind. His parents? His siblings? He’d never known any relations. He’d grown up in foster home;, an orphan. He turned his dark eyes towards her, something sinister in them sparkled. She swallowed as he opened his mouth, ‘I can hear her.’

Sure enough, like wind through the trees, there trailed the soft murmurs of an infant. Within seconds, he unveiled her in a clearing.

‘My baby!’ Mavis cried, hugging Emily tight, before assessing the strange markings on her body. She was naked, yet warm, small scratches all over, a brown feather sprouting softly from her shoulder. In Emily’s smile, Mavis witnessed herself, but her eye’s, it was clear, where her father’s.

She looked up at her husband as she trembled in fear; uncertain of who or what she had married. She turned back to Emily; this strange little being he had birthed through her. She noticed, all around her, small mushrooms and moss and a flicker as something zoomed past her. A fairy caught her eye as it landed on a rock, it winked then quickly spiralled up again.

‘She’s a hybrid,’ Trevor offered. ‘Part human, part owl’

‘Are you?’ Mavis stared into Trevor.

After a long pause, he finally denied it. ‘But they’re telling me that I am a carrier.’

‘Who is telling you?’

‘The forest, the fay… I don’t know, I just hear it. Mavis, I have no clue what’s going on either. This is as new to me as it is to you, but something within me is connected.’ A tear glistened on his cheek as he dropped to his knees, placed his hands on his heart and listened. ‘Every year, once a year, she’ll return to this forest. She’s their queen. They tell me she’s protected.’

The fairy that had winked appeared with two new friends who waved their small wands around Emily. Her smile lit up like the moonlight as her white nightdress, again, chose to cloak her. She laughed with the laugh of an innocent, an heiress.

Emily West, Queen Owlette of the Forest.