In the night there is a certain silence; a vacant hum under which everything is neatly muffled, all the sounds buried low amongst the mushrooms and the pill bugs and the white rot that leaks from decaying branches.

And then, rising from the stillness comes the owl’s great stutter. The sound hangs there, an entity in itself, and then it dissipates in the way that stars fade out at dawn, little by little, blink by blink, starting first at the edges until all at once they are gone.

Another owl answers, its voice farther away, tucked somewhere around the creek-bend. It’s almost as if they are laughing, their calls formed deep in their throats, great coo-coo-coo-ahh‘s and single screeches that crisscross the forest like arrows.

And, underneath this, another kind of silence forms, the kind that is stirred-up and trembling. There, beneath the gray-filtered ferns, the mice and moles pause carefully in their burrows, their small hearts moving fast in their chests, their bellies warm against the dirt.

The owls increase their bellows, somewhere between a yelp and a song, the forest a dark swath beneath them, their wings gliding and silent in the way of snowfall. And then they move on, two shadows against the cedars, flying farther up the creek; farther and farther and farther, until they reach the place where the sound no longer travels.