Also for your enjoyment and in honor of the upcoming holiday a short story I wrote for my Honors English class this time last year. To understand it's true effect you have to imagine that it's someone's cursive handwriting. For all you fontsy people I used mistral, but because that's almost illegible I included a transcript in calibiri. (default.) I got extra credit for it.
The Cry of the Owl
The snow shone in the moonlight as I heard the distant hoot of a lone owl. It was a melancholy sound. I couldn’t help but wonder at its strange sad beauty. I pondered this as I sat bundled against the cold winter night. My horse’s breath was a white mist in the dark night. I shivered as the wind strengthened, cutting through my clothing like a knife. It was a haunting night, and I longed to reach home, and the relative warmth of my fire.
“Come now, we’re almost there,” I said to my horse. I could just make out the shadow of my small dwelling. It was dark, for I lived alone. Well almost alone. I had my old, reliable mare, Mist, and my dog, Scruff. As I stepped down off the cart Scruff barked from the back, huddled in thick fur blankets. I unhitched Mist, and led her to the small outbuilding that served as a stable. It was shared a wall with the cabin, and several slits had been cut there, so as to keep the animals warm. Assuming one had more than one animal. Then I took Scruff off the back of the cart, and set him gently on the ground. His tail wagged, but his mouth stayed firmly closed, he needed all the heat he could get. I gathered some firewood from the backside of the cabin, and walked up the few steps to the door. I pulled out a small skeleton key and quickly unlocked it and went inside.
It was neat albeit sparse. There was a small bed with a dark grey and blue quilt, and a pillow. A small dresser stood at the bed’s foot. There was a pile of neatly folded furs in one corner, purchased from trappers, and a small bed made of the same. A large fireplace took up most of the wall. A small table set with a sturdy wooden plate, a fork and a spoon, as well as a comfortable looking chair occupied the wall to the left. To the right the wall was entirely covered in shelves, of which about half was covered in cooking utensils, dried food, and drying meat, the other half filled by many worn books.
The warmth of the fire was welcome as I cooked my small meal. Rabbit stew, for me, a warm, raw rabbit for Scruff. I sat at the table and ate my food. When I finished I selected a volume from the bookshelf, and sat down on the bed opposite the window, table, and door. I was startled to see a small pair of yellow eyes looking in through the window. “I’m just imagining it,” I told myself when I looked more closely at the window, and found nothing. But then I noticed something strange, a small white owl feather. I hadn’t been imagining it, but it had only been a bird. I wished I gotten a closer look at it. I loved owls, and hadn’t seen one in the flesh for years.
It was too late however, and too cold for me to feel it worth venturing outside. So I prepared for bed. I was almost asleep when I heard what sounded like breathing. I tried to tell myself that it was just the wind, but as is prone to happen in such situations, the feeling only worsened. So I relit the lamp that was hooked to the wall beside my bed. The room was empty, but I saw a flash of yellow outside my window. I stood up frightened now, and made sure the door was locked. It was, and I stoked the fire as I sat trying to rid myself of the foreboding I felt.
As I sat, I caught in my peripheral vision a glimpse of those yellow eyes, but again, when I looked closer they vanished. Shaken, I decided to pull out a book and read from it. I chose one of the happier ones, with few things to frighten one. Then a scratching noise began. “It’s only the owl from earlier,” I whispered to myself, wishing I felt convinced. But I knew from years of living in this forest that owls almost never, if not never, do something like that. Then I heard it, a bone chilling howl. The wolves were out tonight. Scruff became restless, but I felt better knowing they were out there. They were familiar and they would probably scare away any attacker. However, the scratching became only more frantic, and it grew in intensity. Now I was truly terrified. Then, much to my surprise I heard a hoot. “Hoo-hoo,” It was thr owl! I opened the window, because the wolves were growing nearer and I didn’t want Scruff getting out. The owl whooshed in, and I slammed the window shut, determined that I would stay warm, and partly get to have an owl in my home at close quarters. I went to bed, as the owl, and Scruff calmed down. I blew out the lantern and I was asleep.
“Hoo- hoo,” went the owl, just loud enough that I could hear it. It was still dark outside, and it felt like the middle of the night. I was understandably aggravated, “Why did the owl wake me up?” I wondered irritably. I sat up and found the room was cold. So I quietly got up and stoked the fire, hoping to keep the cabin warm until morning. Just before I turned to go back to bed, “BAAAA-AANG!!!!!” The door was open and cold gushed into my small cabin despite the large fire now in the fireplace. I heard a chilling voice from the darkness, “Who is it that lives alone, walking the cold paths of winter? Who is it that hunts the wolves, the owls, the predators? Who is it that lives for the chase? Who is it that kills the summer, and brings winter back in glorious waves? I tell you now it is Jack Frost that king of the winter winds, blizzards and snow.” The voice said in its ice creaking, crashing, snowflake falling, winter winds calling, voice. The voice laughed manically, and I shivered as I felt even my heart go cold. “It is I Jack Frost!” As he said this I saw him. The embodiment of winter, his skin was thick, but flexible ice, and inside super cooled water. He was cloaked in snow, and frost. His eyes were icy, cold. “You have interfered with my hunt, human child. I have chosen this owl, pure white as the snow with eyes as yellow as the harvest moon, summoning me forth. His voice feels to me like the winter wind, beckoning me on. It is him I hunt. Not you. You are insignificant. If the cold doesn’t kill you, your own body will fail soon enough. Now let me through, to finish what I started before you were born.”
“N-n-noo.” I said stuttering, shaking with terror, but I was enough myself to realize somehow in the depths of my conscious, that this struggle was about more than the life of an owl. “I won’t let you.” My voice was growing stronger, fiercer. “You can’t.”
“Oh I can’t, can’t I? We shall see about that. Move aside!” he said moving closer,
“No. You won’t get that owl!” I was growing stronger every second, the heat flowing back into my limbs. Then in a sudden move, I lunged to the left, for a poker hot from being left in the flame, which was miraculously, staunchly burning on. Not a second later I leaped forward poker in hand. Jack Frost was still frozen in surprise. The hot poker burned through the outer ice layer, allowing the super cooled water that made up his core to flow forth and freeze. He cackled as he said his last words before being incased in ice. “I won’t die you know, The ice will thaw one day, and I will be restored to my former glory. You see I can’t……… be… killed………” And then it was over. I don’t know for how long.
I leave this record in the hope that someone will find this, and step forward when Jack comes again. For he must never, never catch that owl, the true king of winter
Signed,
Thomas Green
January 8, 1493
This story has inspired a novel idea that would be steampunk, and about a secret society. I really do like this story quite a bit.
P.S. I've revised the story a little bit but nothing major, just before posting it.
P.S. I've revised the story a little bit but nothing major, just before posting it.
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