Flash Fiction Friday
A tiny story to read
Hi, welcome to my latest post featuring one of my flash fictions. Although at just over 1100 words not everyone would agree that is is a flash. It was shortlisted in the Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition so maybe it’s really a short story. But I’m sharing it here anyway!
Each Flash Fiction Friday post also includes the inspiration for the story and a prompt to get you writing too.
With love,
The Significance of Owls
The night the owl first came, Greta was woken by a burning in her hands. The room was icy but her palms smouldered and glowed red in the dark. She sleepy-eye stumbled to the bathroom and held them in a sink of cold water until the heat faded away.
Before she climbed back in bed, she looked out at her new garden. She still couldn’t quite believe it. Thanks to great Aunty Eileen, who she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl, she now had her very own garden and her very own home. A shame it was so far north but maybe she’d learn to love Scotland and the cold. Or maybe she’d sell it and go back down south. Or abroad. She could do whatever she liked now. She’d go to the hospice in the week and thank Aunty Eileen, see if she wanted her to bring anything from the cottage to help her feel more at home.
Greta couldn’t wait to get out in the garden and start growing flowers and food. Looking at the overgrown wilderness, she knew she could transform it even though she had no experience of gardening. I mean how hard could it be? An owl sat on the wall at the far end, big eyes glinting in the moonlight. How exciting. She’d never seen one in the wild before.
‘Good night, owl,’ she said. It was best to acknowledge owls or they’d bring you sorrow. Or was that magpies? She wasn’t sure now. Either way it was a silly superstition.
In the morning, Greta took her cup of tea into the garden where the weak spring sunshine illuminated the scale of the work ahead of her. There was no sign of the owl, but a couple of wood pigeons were pecking around. Greta smiled. This was more like it. No more noisy neighbours, no more traffic fumes, no more Eric telling her what to do, what to think, what to wear.
That night Greta was woken by flames in her belly. She pulled the quilt back and looked at the fireball broiling beneath her skin. What the hell was going on now? She reached towards her stomach but flinched away from the heat. She reached out for the glass of water on the bedside table and saw a framed photo of Aunty Eileen next to it. How had that got there? It definitely wasn’t there earlier. She grabbed the water and gulped it down. With each swallow the fireball’s glow dimmed until it went out. When she rolled over to go back to sleep, the owl was looking in at her from the apple tree outside the window.
The next night, Greta was woken by flames in her head. She staggered to the mirror. Her eyes blazed red, her brain felt as if it was bubbling and melting, and she could smell singed hair. The owl was perched on the laundry basket by the bathroom door, its eyes red just like hers. How had it got inside? With a hoot, the owl flew past her and out the open window that had been shut when she went to bed. Greta flung herself in a cold shower. Shivering and miserable, she stayed under the water until she was certain her head was no longer on fire. Huddled back in bed, she watched the dark sky start to turn light before she slept again.
Late the next afternoon, Greta woke groggy but determined to figure out what was going on. She Googled the significance of owls and only ended up more confused. The best friends of witches, the grower of peaches, the foreteller of storms, the carrier of souls of the newly departed into the underworld. Bringer of good luck, bad luck, fortune, death, wisdom, and doom.
None of the mythologies mentioned burning body parts. Maybe Aunty Eileen’s books might help. Greta went to the little room off the kitchen where floor to ceiling shelves were filled with jars of dried herbs and oils, cooking pots, pans and bowls. But mostly with big old books. Greta pulled one from the shelf. It had Aunty Eileen’s name handwritten on the first page at the bottom of a list of other women’s names, but the rest of the book appeared to be in an ancient language. Greta sighed. She was way too tired to try and figure it out now.
Greta was woken by flames in the garden, the crackle and hiss of the apple tree as it burned bright and hot. The owl was flying above it, hooting and shrieking, its eyes always on hers as it circled around and around.
Flinging back the covers, Greta checked her body for signs of flames, but she was cool all over. She went to the window and hurled books and bottles and brushes at the owl. All of them missed and fell into the flames. She ran down the stairs and out into the garden, screeching and howling. When the owl swooped down beside her, she tried to grab it, but it wheeled away, its wing tip brushing against her ear. It circled above and swooped again, the tip of its other wing brushing her other ear. Then it landed on the ground beneath the tree. Locked eyes with her.
Greta stilled. Voices murmured inside her head and in the flames. Whispered on the wind. She smiled at the owl and nodded. She knew now. The flaming apple tree fizzled out and the owl flew up into its branches, which showed no signs of being burnt. It was as if the fire had never been.
The next morning, Greta drove to the hospice and told the carers she was taking her aunt home. She tucked the tiny, wizened old woman into the back seat and went home. Aunty Eileen was silent all the way.
When they arrived, Greta carried her upstairs and laid her in the unmade bed.
‘Thank you,’ Aunty Eileen said. ‘I knew the first time I saw you, when you were a wee bairn.’
Greta nodded and smiled. ‘I had no idea. Until now.’
Aunty Eileen gripped Greta’s hand, ‘Don’t let them take me away. The instructions are in the black book in the bedside table. The owl is called Oak. He’s yours now. He’ll teach you everything.’ Then she closed her eyes.
Greta sat at her side watching, waiting, until her aunt’s breathing stilled. With her final exhale, Oak flew in through the broken window and landed at her side. He briefly rested his head on hers then turned to Greta. His black eyes flared red just once and Greta felt her own flicker in return. She held out her arm and he hopped on to it and together they went downstairs.
Inspiration
The inspiration for this story came from two things. In 2021, I did a course with the author, Zoe Gilbert, about using folk tales in new fiction and one of the writing prompts was to write a story that had an animal in it. Unusually for me, the story came to me through the title and the line “the significance of owls” kept playing in my mind while I thought about how to find a story.
Not long before starting this course, I woke in the middle of the night as I had intensely hot hands. They weren’t glowing red, thankfully! But as the idea of this owl visiting someone to bring a message started to develop, I found when I started writing the first line that my hot hands appeared. I figured out after several drafts, that the owl was letting the protagonist know that she needed to burn the bridges to who she used to be, in order to find out who she really is.
Writing Prompt
Write a story, or scene in a story you are already working on that has a bird in it. Is it bringing the protagonist a message, or do they perceive it to be? What are the superstitions surrounding the bird that appears? How can they be brought into the story and what do they mean to your character if they are?
Happy writing!
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I did a writing course with Zoe Gilbert too! I loved her book Folk. I like the way this story starts so relatably - stumbling sleepy eyed to the bathroom - then brings us gently full circle, through the fear of the otherworldly and back to a place where that is normal, accepted, even celebrated.
I love this story, Amanda! Just spooky enough to hook the reader and keep us in the palm of your hand.