The Crying Owl

I

It watched her from the window. Massive green and yellow eyes, slanted in judgement. Greyish brown feathers surrounded its face, hidden in the night. Curved, earlike tufts jutted out like horns from the top on both sides of its head. It watched her with condemnation.

Hoo-h’HOO, it cried. Don’t do it.

Onyx closed her eyes and pushed it away, trying to ignore the lurker and the man on top of her. He grunted and thrusted, bouncing her head with his every move. Sweat dripped onto her face and brought her back to the moment. Ew, she thought. Doing everything she could to keep her eyes from meeting his, she looked out the window.

Hoo-h’HOO, it howled again, and her eyes caught sight of it. It was perched on the fence outside, wide eyes stunned in disappointment.

Onyx snapped her head back to the room, not wanting to make eye contact.

“That’s right,” he yelled out, squinting his face as if she had responded with pleasure. She caught his gaze and squinted her eyes shut, feeling sick to her stomach. “Fuck yeah,” he let out. “Flip over.” The man didn’t wait for her to move, but pulled out and slid a hand under her back, grabbing her hips with his other and flipping her to a position on all fours. He jammed himself inside her and let out a howl.

Hoo-h’HOO, it cried from the fence again. Facing directly toward the window now, Onyx couldn’t look away. It begged her to with its skeptical gaze. She let her head fall down, getting onto her forearms and counting the seconds until it was over.

“Right there!” His voice broke into her ear again. He squeezed her hips with both hands and plunged her violently, breathing heavily and splashing sweat on her back. She clamped her eyes shut. “Uh-huh. Oh yeah. That’s right. Fucking right,” he yelled, letting out a girlish moan as his body began shaking. Letting out a long, hot breath, he fell on top of her. Ew, she thought again.

Rolling to the side to escape his massive weight, she slumped to the bathroom and cleaned herself up. She rinsed off her face and dried down all the moisture on her body. Looking in the mirror, she swiped a hand over her smooth, black hair and wiped underneath her eyes. The dark circles that were there didn’t disappear, so she gave herself an impassive shrug and returned to the room.

“That’ll be three-hundred dollars,” she said, pulling on her pants and grabbing her shirt off the ground.

“What the fuck?” he mumbled, fumbling around for his wallet. “Here.” He handed her three, crisp hundred dollar bills.

Hoo-h’HOO, rang from the window again. Go.

Onyx grabbed the bills from the man and slipped her shirt on. She made her way to the window to grab her purse and caught one last sight of the being on the fence.

Hoo-h’HOO, it cried, before it turned it head with ease and took off into the night. She grabbed her purse and shoved the money in, then turned and left the room without another word.

II

Flinging up from her bed, Olive grabbed at the covers around her panting. Sweat had caked the sheets around her and stuck her shirt and hair to her skin. She looked to the clock: 11:00 AM. Another nightmare, she thought, laying back down to catch her breath. The cry from the owl stuck in her head, and she decided to get moving for the day.

Grabbing her phone, she began scrolling through her messages. Two or three notifications from friends and one missed call from her grandmother. Shit, she thought, that was today. She tapped the recall button and heard the phone ring twice before her grandmother’s brassy voice answer on the other line.

“Olive,” she answered, her deep-toned voice full of condemnation. “Where are you?”

“I’m sorry, enisi,” Olive returned, referring to her grandmother in their native Cherokee language. “I had a long night and woke up late.”

Her grandmother’s voice was concerned. “You know what I have told you, unisi,” she said, using her Native American term for granddaughter, “about what goes on in the night. That is when the tsigili are out. You had better not be up to any nonsense, unisi. They will find you and punish you. They will tell your Enisi Onyx everything.”

Olive’s eyebrows pulled together dubiously. Her grandmother always had some way of calling her bullshit. She didn’t know anything, Olive reassured herself, and neither did the tsigili.

Her Grandmother Onyx had told Olive stories about the tsigili as they were known by ancient Cherokee. They were shapeshifters who would disguise themselves as owls in the night and forebode warning wherever they went. Olive’s grandmother had always told scary stories to her and the other grandchildren, joking that she was a tsigili and nothing could get past her.

Ha, Olive let out a nervous laugh, telling herself that her grandmother was just fibbing. “You know I would never do anything my enisi wouldn’t approve of.” Besides, if her grandmother knew why she was doing it, she would have to understand. A girl needs money. And work was hard to come by on the reservation when your last name was Nightbird. It was the name of the witch. The owl. No one on the res would hire her. But people outside the reservation did want her, but for other reasons.

A text chimed in from her phone and Olive gasped, remembering she had a date. “Shoot, I have a lunch meeting! I’ll come by and help you tomorrow, enisi. I’m sorry about today,” she said, hearing one last word from the other line before she hung up and headed to the bathroom to get ready.

As she approached the mirror, Olive saw her grandma’s piercing, hazel eyes scrutinizing her in her head. She gazed at her own reflection and recollected how similar they were to her own. Green mixed with brown, a yellow-orange hue lining her pupil in the center.

Ugh, she sighed, and began getting dolled up.

III

It was a different room this time. Dark and forgettable. Something lurked outside the window. A large, brown-grey bird seemed to always follow her on these voyages. It was always in the worst moments it would find her. It had a way of penetrating her when she was most broken.

Hoo-h’HOO, it cried. Not again, enisi. Onyx flinched, feeling as if she had read the creature’s mind. She shook her head, returning her focus back to the room.

“What’s wrong?” the man asked. “Did I do it too tight?”

Ugh, she always hated when they tried to act like they cared.

Shaking her head again to insinuate she was okay, the man went back to work. He tied up both her arms to either side of the bedpost and approached her, whispering uninspiring seductive remarks in her ear.

“You want it, don’t you?” he pried. She didn’t, but she smiled anyways. “I’m gonna’ give it to you good. Hope your little ass is ready.” He pulled her up under the armpits and sat her smack down on his lap with accurateness. She let out a soft cry as it punctured her gut, which only seemed to egg him on. “Oh, you like that, don’t you?” She didn’t, and he continued.

Unable to move her arms, he continued to pick her up and down, slamming himself inside her.

Hoo-h’HOO, came again from outside.

She squeezed her eyes shut, bouncing up and down as the man breathed heavily on her neck. Ew, she thought, a shiver running through her from the spot it hit her skin. He seemed to like this and sped up, his breath deepening and only strengthening her heebie-jeebies.

H’HOO, rang even louder this time, and she looked to the ceiling, praying for the moment it would end.

The man obviously thought she was rolling back in pleasure, and let out a gratifying yell. She could tell he was going to be a quick one.

Hoo-h’HOO, the owl cried again, as he let loose.

“Woohoo,” he hollered, gripping her for strength. His body pulled down on her tied up arms, making her feel like she was undergoing torture by dismemberment.

“Ouch,” she complained, pushing him back with her foot. He fell down on his back on the bed laughing. When he didn’t move, she interjected his fit. “Could you, uh … untie me, please?”

He looked at her and laughed again. “Oh, my bad.” He untied her with the grace of a brute, letting her fall to the ground naked without a second glance.

Hoo-h’HOO, the creature cried from the window.

Onyx rubbed her aching wrists as she looked up to meet its gaze. Yellow-lined pupils looked back at her with sadness. She jumped to her feet and made her way to the bathroom, his laughing still ringing from the other room.

Returning to grab her money before taking off, she held out a hand. “Four hundred dollars,” she said.

“FOUR hundred?” he exclaimed. “You said three.”

“Bondage is an extra hundred,” she asserted, shaking her hand as if to say, Pay up. He reached in his bag and forked it over, and without a word, she turned to leave.

Hoo-h’HOO, the bird howled one last weeping cry as she walked out the door.

IV

Her arms flailed in the air as she jolted upright, flinging the covers from on top of her. Sweat dribbled down her body as she felt around in a panic. She gripped her wrists in her other hand one by one. Letting out a deep breath, she closed her eyes and leaned back, safe from her nightmare.

Remembering her obligations to her grandmother, Olive’s eyes flashed to the clock. Seeing that she still had time, she ran to the bathroom and got ready as quickly as possible.

Her Grandmother Onyx had been a longtime volunteer at the women’s home. Olive had begun working with her there recently, on her grandmother’s request. Her grandmother had told her stories of women all over who struggled with similar problems to her own. Her Elisa Onyx didn’t know that she shared those problems, though. It wasn’t just her that felt she had to make a living the way she did. These women, at least, had escaped that life. Maybe today would change some things.

Rubbing her sore wrists as she walked into the women’s home, she caught eyes with her grandmother. The woman sat at the far end of the room, but her eyes were locked on Olive’s as if she knew that she would be entering at that time.

“Good morning, enisi,” Olive strided over, giving her grandmother a sweet kiss on the cheek.

Enisi Onyx eyed Olive as she walked over, noticing every one of her unisi’s movements. The way the girl rubbed her wrists on her way over, then tried to keep them from her view as she leaned in to greet her.

“What happened to you, unisi?” she snapped, grabbing Olive’s hand and looking at her wrists. Right at the point where they met her hand, there were red markings that looked as if she had been tied up with a rope. This is why you brought her here, she thought.

She thought back, of the days when she had gone to incredible lengths to pay the bills. Back in the days when her enisi had kept a watchful eye on her in the night. Enisi Onyx could still see her enisi’s eyes peering back at her, cloaked in the tree. That was who she would introduce her unisi to today.

“I have to tell you a story, unisi,” the old woman spoke. “We have more in common than you think.”