The Watcher

The cool autumn breeze ruffles her soft amber feathers as the watcher surveys her domain. Others of her kind seek the warmth and familiarity of hay lofts or the forest. She prefers it here in the cemetery. It’s peaceful and quiet aside from the occasional sobs of mourners. The mice are plentiful, fat and juicy, and she sleeps well most days under a blue sky. It is rare that she encounters a human sadly trailing its way across the grounds before sinking before a granite slab and weeping. Most nights and even days really, the cemetery stands empty aside from its watcher.

She shifts her feet in the small crevice she’s claimed for herself, just inside the overhang of a mausoleum roof. Stray feathers and dust litter the floor. A stray pellet or two. She mostly keeps her home clean. It is only her after all. She can barely remember her last clutch of eggs. Only one of the four hatched, producing a sickly little thing that didn’t make it but a few days. Her mate is long gone as well, lost to a speeding car. So now it is just her and this cemetery. Or at least it is until the woman in black appears.

The watcher shuffles closer to the edge of her crevice, pale face only just visible in the moonlight. Humans can be dangerous. The woman wears a black coat, face hidden by long brown hair left untied to fall in streamers around her shoulders. She drifts as if unmoored, swaying slightly as she makes her way across the damp ground. The watcher hears nothing but a faint intake of breath. The woman reaches her destination, but there is no sinking. She produces a folded blanket from her pocket and shakes it out before sitting on the ground before a plain grey stone. It is much smaller than its neighbors. The woman sweeps her hair back and over one shoulder. The face that is revealed is nearly as white as the watcher’s own.

“Hello darling.” A soft voice. A kind voice if the watcher believed humans were capable of such things. A sad voice certainly. “How was your day? Is it cold where you are? Are you cold?”

The watcher shifts even closer, talons curling over the edge. She has never witnessed a human behaving in such a manner. The woman speaks again.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. Thinking about you. Here.” A muffled sob then she quickly composes herself. “I sat in the nursery all night. Thomas doesn’t understand. He tries, I think, but he didn’t know you as long as I did. As well as I did.”

The watcher briefly thinks of a nest, four small eggs, one opened. A pink screeching thing that was formed wrong. A cold morning. The screeching silenced. She listens intently.

“I suppose it’s silly, talking to you like this. I don’t know where you are now or if you can hear me. I just...” The woman trails off, lowers her head. Whispers so low the watcher is forced to leave her hiding place to get closer. To hear the words she isn’t sure of. Thankfully the woman speaks again as the watcher alights on a distant stone.

“I just need to know if you forgive me. Should I blame myself? You were my first after all. I tried so hard to do all the right things. The doctor says I mustn’t blame myself. But in the night?” Another sob cut short. Whispers again.

“In the night, I do.” A sudden wail so loud the watcher is spooked into view, fleeing to the top of the mausoleum instead of her safe crevice. The woman throws her head back and they lock eyes, one a pale face of feathers, the other glistening with tears. The breeze between them, turning chill as the night sets in.

“Have you ever been a mother?” The woman asks. The watcher stares back. That depends, she thinks, on what being a mother means.

The woman sighs, scrubbing her face with both hands to hide the evidence of her tears. She stands slowly as if awakening from a dream, folds up her blanket, tucks it back in her coat pocket. She turns a final time to gaze up at the watcher. They exchange a look of loss. Of almost motherhood snatched away. Or maybe a look of nothing at all.

The woman leaves the cemetery. The watcher flies off in search of food. And the breeze keeps blowing.