Eastern Screech Owl

(Otus asio)

That night Mother slept beside me in the small bed. She’d been so relieved and grateful to hear of my decision, so proud of me for putting my family first. Mrs. Harrington told her about Isabella, using the most alarming language she could find, claiming that even though we were “no longer family,” she would hate to see me bring my mother disgrace. But Mother was so pleased with me for deciding to marry that once I assured her the friendship was over she didn’t bring it up again. Her approval felt warm and comfortable and affectionate and safe, and it was reassuring to go to sleep with her close-by. I hadn’t slept next to her since I was a child, since those lonely nights when Father was first away at war, and I’d forgotten just how soothing it was to have her near.

But my dreams were anything but soothing. I dreamed of Isabella. She wore the oriole dress even though she wasn’t working. It was night, and the park glowed like a sparkler with dancing, spinning lights. Isabella pulled me through the whirling mess of rides, laughing that nuthatch laugh of hers, and lured me onto the roller coaster. I’d made a point of staying off that frightful contraption all summer, but now somehow Isabella strapped me in beside her and I couldn’t move. We lurched forward and then her laugh became a shriek. The sound was light and joyful in the beginning, and so close it could have been coming from my own mouth as we climbed the first hill. Then we paused at the top and my heart stopped beating for what felt like an eternity while we waited for the plunge. Finally, we inched over the precipice and the world dropped away beneath me. Isabella’s close, happy shriek became a scream, and when I looked over, she was gone, and a gray-and-white-patterned screech owl perched on the bar where her hands had rested a moment before. The small, stocky owl looked at me with yellow eyes and then lifted up on its great wings and silently flew off. In the distance, I heard it calling in that descending whinny that gave it its name. The roller coaster vanished, and I was looking for her, trying to follow the muffled screeching that was so filled with pain and fear. The lights swirled around me as I stumbled aimlessly into the night.

Mother shook me awake.

“Fire, Garnet. Wake up. Fire!”

I opened my eyes into even deeper darkness than the sleep I’d left behind.

But this darkness was heavy and filled my lungs. Stung my eyes.

I coughed.

“Come on,” Mother said. She grabbed the sleeve of my nightdress and yanked me out of bed, then fell to her knees and pulled me down with her. The air near the floor was clearer.

Muffled screams came through the darkness. Not birdcalls but human screams. Flames rumbled somewhere far off. Glass shattered. Wood splintered in some other world.

Here, near the floor, it was quiet.

“Wait,” I said, coughing. I reached up and grabbed the blue jay handkerchief from the night table. I ripped it in two and dunked both halves in my water glass. “Your mouth,” I said, handing one to Mother.

She felt for it in the dark and took it. With the wet cloth over my mouth and nose I could breathe a little easier. “The door’s here,” I said through the cloth as I crawled like a three-legged dog across the floor. Mother followed; I could feel her close behind me.

I traced the route through the small bedroom by memory, and when we reached the door, I knelt and put my hand up to grope for the knob.

“Ah!” I cried. The metal burned like a skillet.

“Oh, Garnet,” Mother murmured. “It’s too close. I hope the Harringtons got out. Can we go another way?”

I clutched my hand to my chest. It screamed. I tried to think over the throbbing of my skin. “Yes.” I scrambled back toward the bed and past it. Toward the dimly glowing rectangle on the opposite wall.

“The window?” she said when we reached it. “But we’re too far up.”

“No. The veranda. Trust me.” The drapes were already pulled back and the window was open—even mother slept immodestly in the August heat. I stood up and stuck my head out into the night. The air was clearer there and my lungs sucked it in. I bunched up my nightdress and hauled one leg over the sill, and then the other. My feet hit hot shingles. Hot, but not skillet hot. The roof of the veranda. I turned and helped Mother out.

Here, the sounds weren’t as muffled by smoke. The screams were close. The flames were close. The breaking building cried out with pops and cracks and moans. I led Mother to the edge.

“It’s too far down,” she said. And it was. Farther than I’d thought. Fifteen feet? Twenty? I’d forgotten about the staircase down from the veranda to the ground. We were nearly two stories up, not one. But there wasn’t any other way.

“We have to,” I said.

“They’ll come for us. The firemen.”

“We can’t wait.”

“They’ll come,” she insisted.

“No, I have an idea.” I sat down on the hot shingles and reached with my feet, swinging right and left. Then, yes! They hit wood. The support column. We could climb down. I turned to motion for Mother to come.

Then, with a sudden pop, the roof we perched on tilted dangerously. I gripped the edge with my knees and my hands, the burned one sending a wave of pain up my arm. Mother dropped to all fours and clung to the shingles like a cat in a tree.

“It’s under us,” she said.

We couldn’t climb down—we’d be climbing into the blaze.

“We have to jump,” I told her.

“They’ll come,” she said.

“I’ll go first.”

She looked at me with wide eyes for one, long moment. Then she inched toward me. At my side, she gripped my arm and met my eyes. She nodded once. “Courage, Garnet,” she said.

My father’s voice echoed in my head: Fly, Gigi, fly!

I looked down, and down, and down. The ground stretched out safe and solid beneath me, but I knew its solidness might kill me. And if I had the courage to jump out of a burning building, I also had the courage to speak the truth. If I was going to die in the next minute, there was something I had to say to my mother first.

“I can’t marry Teddy, Mother,” I said into her panicked eyes. “I need to go to college.”

Then I jumped.