This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No matter how much we wish, they were real.

Copyright © 2022 Allison Achibane

All rights reserved.

I rubbed my eyes and tried to get them to focus. They were blurry, and I still had an hour left before I was home. It had been my idea to go for a ride, James and Eric tagging along. The fluorescents of the bus stop buzzed impossibly loud, but I was the only one that seemed to notice.

We started this trip late afternoon. I needed out of the house with my parents hounding me about my future—again. The only reason I was allowed a motorcycle was with a promise. I swore I would focus on my studies. And I delivered, but all A’s from an undecided is meanless to my parents. So even though I made the Dean’s list my freshman year of college, they weren’t satisfied until it went towards a career.

I know what I wanted to do, looking towards Eric just as his head went back in a belly laugh at something James told him. The two of them never bothered with college, heading straight into the workforce. I wish I could be so lucky.

This was doing nothing for my stress. It was dark, and we should turn around and head back, but my brain still wasn’t straight. “Let’s keep going.”

My friends shrugged and pushed their helmets back on their skulls. Even with different circumstances, James and Eric understood me better than anyone. The cylinder of light from the bike’s headlights was all there was. The dark back roads of town didn’t have street lamps. With thick forest on either side, the lack of light didn’t disrupt the local wildlife’s sleep cycle—which was the point. It made the twisting roads dangerous at night and a thrill for those out seeking.

That wasn’t my aim, but focusing on keeping my body in my seat instead of the fast-moving pavement was an excellent distraction.

With barely any light, the slightest flash gets your attention. It was why -when white blurred my right side- I took my eyes off the road. It was less than a second, but anyone would tell you that’s too long. Still, I looked and saw nothing but darkness…until I turned my sights back to the road.

It was big and white, that was all I saw. It flew in front of me, across the road, and out of sight again. I was slowing to a stop, James, and Eric ahead of me and oblivious. I would catch up later, trying to figure out if I saw a ghost or not. When something heavy landed on my shoulder, ruining my balance and also making me jump.

My bike twisted under me, jerking to the side and flinging me off just before sliding across the road overturned. The shock of hitting the unyielding cement put me in shock because I felt nothing as I rolled. I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad; not feeling pain was good, but I wouldn’t know what I’d done until it was all over. And there was no way I wasn’t going to hurt after this wreck.

I finally came to a stop, my body skidding and rolling in a way that should have been agony. Something had to be broken; I just didn’t feel it yet. So I laid still, looking up at the winking diamonds above and wondering if I’d ever see my bike again after this.

Sounds were fuzzy and bounced around inside my helmet. Because at first, all I heard was bird sounds like cooing. It turned into voices as Eric and James yelled for me. I didn’t hear their feet, so their faces blocking the night sky view was a bit of a surprise. “Alex!!!”

James was in my face with only the plastic visor in between while Eric kept touching me. That I could feel. “Cut that out.”

“This is what they always do in the movies!” Eric cried while patting down my right leg.

When I pushed and sat up, they both gasped. “I feel fine.”

Signing in relief, James glared down at me. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “did you guys see anything?”

Eric was heading for my bike, and I was too scared to look. “I only saw you ‘eat it’.”

James helped me to my feet, and Eric helped my bike to its wheels. “You both only have some scrapes; you must have a guardian angel or something.”

My friends rode the way home behind me, keeping an eye. But I was fine. Confused, but okay. I should write it off as being super lucky and leave it alone. However, it was hard to swallow with never being so fortunate in my life. If James was right and I did have a guardian, it was newly acquired.

All of this bled into my dreams, playing the crash in my head over and over. I tried to see what knocked me over, but I saw white. Maybe it was a ghost after all?

With it summer break, I woke close to noon and stumbled out of my bed to the kitchen. I did feel sore, but there wasn’t even a bruise on me. My father hummed his disapproval, but it had nothing to do with my outward appearance and was nothing new. I grabbed a box of fruity cereal and ducked back up to my room.

I’d just shoved a handful of dry sweetness into my mouth when I stood before my bed. A massive lump was under my sheets. It looked like a helmet based on the size, but I was sure I’d stashed mine with my bike in the garage. The crash must have messed up my head, and I slept with it like a pillow.

But when I wrenched back the covers, it wasn’t a helmet; it was an egg.

“What the….” My hand shook as I reached out to touch the shell, only to pull it back to my chest as if burned when my fingertips felt the warm, hard surface.

“Alex! Go mow the lawn!!”

Given the angry irritation in my father’s tone, I had to assume he’d been calling me for a while. How was I supposed to leave this here? And where the hell did an egg this size come from??

My dad said a few other things to me, but it was all bubbles on the surface. Every thought was on the egg now hidden under my bed. On auto-pilot, I was pushing the mower around before I knew it. I didn’t even remember grabbing it, the buzz of the motor covering other sounds. But I still heard the hoot as if it was something on my shoulder. It wasn’t; the snow-colored bird sat on our fence in front of me—watching. It was…big. The heart shape of its face was framed with golden brown that dripped down its back over its wings.

Beady black eyes grounded me to a halt, the mower leaving me behind until it hit the fence. “Alex?! What are you doing?!”

My mother stomped past me and grabbed the mower back, keeping it from pushing the small fence over. I watched in a daze; it was like my brain wouldn’t connect like my wires were crossed. It explained why I saw big birds in the middle of the day. The mower should have chased it off, not brought in closer. As my mom cut the mower off, I looked for the bird, but it was long gone. It was as if my mom scared it off…or it was never there, to begin with.

“Where’s your head today?!” Mom roared. I didn’t know, shaking my head in response. Mom frowned, “it this about what we said last night? Honey, we’re so proud of you. We only want you to be prepared.”

This conversation was so repetitive I felt exhausted from the tiny exchange. Relief didn’t begin to cover it when my mom left it at that and went back inside. My foggy brain had me following her steps, watching as she disappeared back inside while struggling to comprehend what was going on around me.

“Are you alright?”

Doing a double-take, I found a girl leaning on the fence where the bird had been a moment ago. Her dark brown hair fell around her face until she flipped it behind her ears. My eyes caught the gleam of metal, both her ears filled with piercings. Studying her face, I knew I’d never seen her before. She was pretty; I would have noticed and remembered a girl like her in my neighborhood.

“Who are you?”

A smile slowly pulled on her thick, red lips, “it was a Barn Owl.”

“Huh?” Was it me or her? Stuff wasn’t making sense today.

Her smile turned into a grin, and she pushed off my fence, standing upright in all white. “The bird you saw. It was a Barn Owl. You should follow it.”

She pointed, and I looked, feeling stupid when all I saw was cloudless blue skies. “How the hell am I going to follow a bird?”

The pretty girl was silent, and when I looked back, she was gone. I was an idiot, and this girl was making fun of me. Staring at the spot in a trance, it was the vibrating of my pocket that broke me out of it. Eric was calling me.

“What’s up?”

Eric sighed into the phone, “Oh good; you’re breathing. I was worried….”

I chuckled, but it left me feeling uneasy still, “yeah, I’m alive…for now.”

“You feeling up for going out?”

Looking back at my house, I could see my dad and my mom watching me. They held onto one another like they were in mourning, and it made my blood run cold even in the heat. “Absolutely. Are we going for a ride?”

Eric clucked his tongue at me, “hell no. We’re going to a bar.”

I hated bars, “I don’t know….”

“It’s a new place, just opened, called….” Eric paused to remember the name, and for some reason, my heart rate picked up in anticipation, “a building or something?”

I calmed, feeling underwhelmed, “it sounds lame….”

“The Barn! That’s the name!”

Now, my heart was in my throat. I looked around reflexively for the girl and the bird simultaneously. “It sounds….stupid.”

Eric chuckled, “I heard they don’t card.”

Usually, that would have me excited. Nothing like breaking the law to give yourself a thrill. But today, it only made me more…anxious. “This feels like a bad idea.”

“Come on, Alex, follow along!”

“Huh?”

“Just follow the Owl!”

I felt nauseous. “What did you say?”

Eric was exasperated with me, “I said,” he growled, “follow us!”

I looked around again. No one was there, and Eric was still trying to talk me into it. His words were just like my father’s this morning, white noise that I couldn’t concentrate on enough to understand. “Alright, I’ll go,” I said, just to shut him up.

Nothing felt right, and I would attribute it to being in a crash, but I looked under my bed when I went upstairs to change. The egg was still there. There was only one explanation; I had brain damage. My little dump last night messed up my head, and my options were to tell my parents and see a doctor or ignore it and hope it goes away.

It wasn’t a hard choice for me, grabbing a pair of jeans and removing my sweat-covered t-shirt. Night had fallen by the time I changed, even though it didn’t take me that long. Whatever I did to my head made the concept of time harder to grasp.

With my egg safely swaddled in my bed, I took a final glance at my appearance. I ran a hand through my dark brown locks and stopped when I caught something shimmer in the bathroom light.

I had a white hair.

More than one, I had too many to count. I was barely nineteen, and this wasn’t a trick of the light. Great, I was going grey. But not grey; I was skipping straight to white. I hadn’t heard of anyone in my family going prematurely white. But there was also an egg in my bed; today was not the day to worry about weird stuff. Neither of my parents had said a word about it today, and they had seen me a lot. I had to assume the hairs were like the large egg; only I could see them.

When Eric and James said nothing, I knew my hair was fine. It was the same dark coloring it always was.

The Barn lived up to its name down to the hay we walked on. It crunched under my sneakers and added a sweetness to the air. Eric was right; this place didn’t card, giving Eric and James a frosty beer without question. I stuck with coke. My brain was damaged enough. I didn’t want to know what would happen if I added on.

A loft ran around the top of the bar, and bodies flittered around like mice above us. I took in the sights, ignoring the gnawing in my stomach. This place was exactly like a barn. Why would anyone want a barn atmosphere for a bar?

“Hey, look, a stage?” James pointed excitedly.

My nerves couldn’t handle much more, feeling like I would shake apart; live music would be the worst. I used my empty glass as an excuse to distance myself while my friends moved closer.

“Rough night?” The man working the bar had already taken my empty glass from me. I had been looking over the crowd yet still -somehow- missed the girl from earlier standing right next to me. “You look tired.”

“How would you know?” I spat back. “You don’t know me.”

“Do you really have to know someone to know they’re tired?” She replied cooly.

What could I say to that? Nothing, turning on my heel to face her completely. The white was replaced with black, but it fit her better, in my opinion. “Who are you?”

“Just your neighbor. But we’ve never met. I’m Ashe.” She flicked her hair behind her ears, showing off her metal again. Her hair looked different, too, but that might have been the lighting; the strange blue-colored lights made everything look grey. “Those are new.”

Ashe pointed to my head, the roots of my strands particularly. “You can see them?”

She smirked, “yeah, but they’re not back. They make you look mature.”

And if Ashe saw them, then they weren’t in my head. I wish I found that comforting, but it was closer to disappointing. But the smile Ashe wore was helping, my chest feeling warm and heavy. She placed a hand on it, and her lips spread wider like she could tell how she affected me. Then, Ashe’s hand pressed up, sliding until it rested on the back of my neck. I could feel her fingers touching the inch of hair at the top of my spine. The result was a tingle that went down to my toes.

It all felt nice—comforting. Then it shattered, the band starting their set. I caught Ashe’s smile fade just before the pain set in. My brain was on fire, and my skull cracked. It was too loud, buckling from the noise until I was almost on the ground. Ashe had a hand on my back, but it didn’t have the same reaction as a moment ago. My hands pressed to my ears to try and block out the noise, but it did nothing, the notes pounding my head like a jackhammer.

“Alex? You okay, buddy?”

The noise was messing with me; it sounded like my father was asking me. But when I got a bleary eye open, it was James. He had concern etched on his face but kept his distance.

“I think it’s too loud!” Ashe shouted over the music.

“Oh god, sorry!” Eric suddenly shouted.

They grabbed me, whoever it was, and pushed me around. The clean outside air hit my nose, and I shoved the hands all away to get further from the pounding on my brain. I still held my skull in my clutches, whatever good it did me, and took deep breaths to stop the vibrations in my body.

“I thought it would help. Alex always liked that song.” Eric whimpered.

“I’m fine,” I yelled back, but no one was listening.

“What were you thinking. We’re going to get kicked out,” James said with worry in his voice.

Eric huffed loudly, “I researched it, and the internet said….”

“Oh, cause you can believe everything you hear on the internet!” Ashe rolled sarcastically out of her lips.

“Can you guys stop talking like I’m not here!!” I yelled back, turning to glare at them. They gawked, the three dropping their jaws to the ground. “What? It’s annoying!!”

“You…your…neck!” James screamed.

I reached up but felt the back of my head. That didn’t make any sense, looking down to see my back. “What the….”

Slowly, my body turned, facing the others. My neck had turned my head halfway around. It didn’t hurt, but my mind was blank as I watched my body catch up. My feet awkwardly turned me around, and I watched the entire show until my feet faced forward with my head.

“That…was….” James stammered.

“Awesome!!” Eric finished.

The two didn’t look right; they were excited and happy. I just turned my head over ninety degrees. It should have snapped or hurt, but I felt nothing. My friends thought it was cool I could turn my head, but they should have felt like I did—freaked out!

Ashe grabbed my shoulders before I could say or do anything more. I looked into her honey eyes, splashed with green from apprehension. “An Owl.” She murmured, and I got it quickly.

That was what attacked me last night, why I crashed, and why I was now acting…owlish. “I need to show you guys something.”

For some reason, no one questioned Ashe joining us. The four of us stood in my bedroom, staring down at the egg…my egg. “If you laid this…where did it come from?”

James was looking me up and down with a grin, and it was the last of my concerns. “Don’t you guys get it?”

“No. Do you?”

Crap, I hoped they understood. I didn’t. I was laying eggs, turning white, and turning my head. It was like I was turning into an owl, but how was that possible?

Suddenly, James and Eric looked to Ashe and turned for my door. “Well, we’ll give you two some space.”

“What?” Ashe didn’t move or look offended. Guess I did enough for both of us, rushing after the pair and following them down my stairs. “I show you two an egg and my neck, and you want to leave?!”

“Look,” James stopped just short of the door and grabbed my shoulders like Ashe had before, “she gets this stuff more than we do. She can help you; just listen to what she says.”

Ashe stood at my window when I got back, looking out at the moon. “Pretty, isn’t it? You never really think about it until you can’t see it anymore. Or it’s been a while since you’ve seen it.”

“Seen what?”

“The moon,” Ashe stated plainly, turning to face me. “You should be thankful to see it.”

I growled as I crossed the room, shutting my blinds harshly in her nose. “I’m thankful for a lot of things. But one of them is not cryptic girls and weird crap happening to me!”

“Weird?” She ignored the jab at her, softly brushing her fingers over the egg in my bed. “It’s not weird; it’s luck. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“Nothing about this would be considered good or healthy. The guys said you could help me? So please do it! Fix me!!!”

“It’s not that simple.” Ashe took my silence as I glared at her, chewing her words in her mouth for a moment longer. “You have to relax and accept.”

“Accept what?!”

She tipped around my bed, coming to stand before me. I held my breath, unable to release it like I needed, as she jumped up and pressed her lips to mine. They were soft and warm, but that’s all I got from the small, simple exchange. Even if I wanted more, I was frozen, unable to obtain an understanding of the moment and what Ashe was to me.

It took me a moment, my eyes closed, and wanted to stay that way, to find Ashe again. She was slowly backing up to my window. “Accept who you are. And your future.”

She sounded like my parents, but it still held less weight. Instead of her words pressing on me, it was like Ashe took some of it with her. My shoulders felt lighter first, moving down to my feet while walking backward before me. She hit my window with the backs of her legs and flipped out it. A strangled scream caught in my throat, and I stumbled quickly towards her. A fall from my window wouldn’t kill, but it would hurt a lot.

I was too slow; Ashe was long gone when I reached the window. I looked down, expecting a broken leg or arm, but instead saw white. I fell back as the Barn Owl flew past, arching up towards the sky.

“Follow the Barn Owl,” Ashe whispered in my ear, and I turned even knowing she was gone.

The owl was waiting, hovering before me as I stared out the window. I scrambled to my feet and stumbled until the cool grass tickled my feet. The owl took off as soon as my eyes locked with its again. I passed the houses on my street, ones I had seen all my life. They looked darker than I remembered. It made the tree at the center stand out. And not just because it wasn’t supposed to be there but because it was lit up with Christmas lights.

In its bubble, I watched the owl land safely on a branch of the bright wood. It wasn’t until I stood on the roots that I realized the tree wasn’t lit with electric lights but hundreds of fireflies. They danced on the breeze and floated up from the ground. There were so many; it was like it was daylight while still the middle of the night.

“Is this what you want?” Ashe stood before me in all grey, the skirt of the dress she wore dragging the ground. “You want to do what everyone else tells you to do?”

“You don’t know me….”

“This isn’t about me; it’s about you. What do you want, Alex?!”

“I want….” She was right. Ashe didn’t know me at all, and yet, she still saw right through me.

It was clear on her face that Ashe got me again, grinning from ear to ear at me. “Then wake up and fight.”

“My parents…”

“They mean well, but they’re not the ones that will live the life you create. That’s for Alex to decide. So make your choice now before it’s too late.”

Fear gripped my heart, “too late? Too late for what?”

The worst that would happen is I’d work at a cubical every day and not have to spin my chair, just my head. But the look on Ashe’s face…how her smile dropped with her eyes. When she looked back at me, they were grey instead of brown. “Before it’s too late to live, Alex.” I blinked, and Ashe was on top of me, her breath wafting over my cheeks. “Wake up,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes to the sensation, feeling like Ashe was kissing me again. But when I opened them again, the tree was gone. All of it was gone, looking up at a grey ceiling with brown water stains. My lungs were empty and I dragged in a deep breath. It was like breaking the surface of the water after being under too long. My head spun from the sudden surge of oxygen.

“Oh my God….” My mother cried, weeping. I found her on her knees a foot from me and my dad was at her side.

Doctors and nurses were there too and they all looked at me with confusion. No one was saying anything, silence answering my unasked questions. “Where am I?”

It was a stupid question; it was pretty obvious I was in a hospital. I blamed the lack of oxygen in my brain. What I should have asked was why I was there. But for some reason, that seemed obvious too.

“I crashed, didn’t I?”

The crutches pinched my underarms as I wobbled in practice. James raced around the front of his car to help me but I pushed him back.

“This is the place,” Eric said cautiously.

I could tell what was on their minds. “Guys, I’m alright.”

They hung back, watching as I worked up the short set of stairs and entered the small building. It smelled like dust and bleach, a strange combination.

“Can I he…” she stopped mid-sentence and I chuckled at her.

“You must be Ashe?”

“Ashely…technically.” Ashe moved around the counter of the strange business, crossing protective arms over her chest. She wore black and white checked sneakers and grey scrubs. “What are you doing here?”

I glanced at her arm and saw the black ink etched into her skin. I focused on it, trying to figure out the image. “I came to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For how my parents treated you…”

She sighed heavily, “they meant well…”

“And I’m sorry for killing your bird.”

Ashe’s mouth popped open and then turned to a frown, tears pooling in her eyes and making them shimmer. “It…was a barn owl, not a bird. And it wasn’t your fault.”

Jumping a little, I took a deep breath to calm my heart back down. The doctor told me to take it easy, my first time up and out in over a week. After a month asleep, no one could keep me from doing something besides resting. But I had to keep my stress down, and the mention of a barn owl had my dreams flashing in my head—and my heart racing.

“It wasn’t your fault either. No matter what my dad said.”

Ashe dropped her head, staring at the floor, “I was the one who let Owlivia out. She never would have been on that road…if I’d been better at my job.”

“How old are you?” I asked, looming over her with my height.

She stood up straight and puffed out her chest. “Seventeen.”

“Ah.” I paused, worried how my following words would be taken. “Thank you for never giving up on me.”

A flush slowly spread across Ashe’s cheeks, a shade of pink that made her eyes look green. “Did they…tell you…everything?”

“You mean did they tell me how you came to my room every day and talked to me? Helped James and Eric sneak in with a radio to try and shock me awake?” I stepped closer, and Ashe didn’t step back. “How you kissed me to try and wake me up? And then snuck back in after being banned by my parents?” Ashe’s flush had drained away now, her face pale with worry. “I’m alive because of you.”

A sob ripped from her throat, and Ashe turned away, “they pulled your plug; I tried to stop them. We all did. I thought you were dead but James told me….”

We grew silent, watching one another and I took it for as long as I could stand it. “What's on your arm?” Tears fell down into her smile, lifting her limb to show me. It was an owl surrounded by flowers. The skin was still pink from the fresh ink. “Owlivia?”

Ashe pointed to a bare spot, “this was for you but you lived.”

I could tell, she was overjoyed about that, and I knew it had nothing to do with sparing her skin.

Stepping back, I turned on my crutch; my shattered femur was starting to ache. “I’ll come again. Help out with your birds.”

“Owls! This is an owl preservation, not a bird sanctuary!”

“Right. I’ll come after classes start too. I declared my major, business. Gonna open my own bike shop.”

She huffed, “good for you. I’ll be waiting for you to grow up!”

Just before disappearing out the door, I a hot Ashe a grin. “I’ll be waiting for you to grow up too.”

Ashe turned pink again. And it wouldn’t be the last time I’d do it to her either. Not by a long shot. I’d never leave the girl that saved my life behind.

I’m going to keep following the Barn Owl.