Fetch!

Short Story Sunday: "I hoped with every fiber of my being that the world would reverse like an old VHS tape, and everything would go back to how it was before..." Human made. Enjoy<3

One of the most pure interactions we can have as humans, is to throw a ball for a dog who will fetch it. It’s the simplest, most rewarding, relationship in the world. There’s a dog who wants to play, preferably by way of chasing after their favorite ball. There’s a human who wants to be loved, preferably by way of being useful. The exchange is simple. Everyone is happy.

So when I looked after my brothers dog, that’s what we did most of the day: play fetch. His wife and he had just moved to this beautiful house deep in the woods of upstate New York, a welcome escape from my life in the city. Their Newfoundland puppy, Hoover, was a rascally young soul, quick with a face lick and constantly bidding for affection. Hoover and I enjoyed all the benefits of an Aunt-Nephew relationship: all of the love of family with none of the drama. So my weekend in the picturesque countryside, playing ball with my favorite boy, was bound to be a healing respite.

Hoover and I got into a groove in the mornings, we’d both eat and poop and get outside. I would stand on the edge of the porch and throw the red ball down the sloped backyard. Around the house weren’t many trees, but as you walked further out, the vegetation grew thicker and thicker. There were mostly pine and oak trees, but there were a few I’d never seen before. Crows barked in the treetops and vultures circled nearby, and if you looked really hard, you could see an eagles nest high in one of the tree tops of their yard. I’d heard about the squirrels, deer, and foxes roaming in their personal paradise, but the birds were something to behold; beasts from mythology swooping all around us.

Sitting outback playing with Hoover was the closest I’d felt to being a kid again. I’d throw the ball, and he’d go get it, and drop it at the bottom of the steps. I felt like playing was our job, and we were a hell of a team.

Until, I threw it to a different area this time. The ball landed in a small mess of trees close to the side of the house, and instead of running, Hoover walked cautiously toward the trees and stopping just short of them.

“Hoover, get your ball!” I tried to motivate him from the steps, but he sat down and stared at the ball expectantly. It was only four feet or so in front of him, but the stubborn moose wouldn’t budge.

I put my coffee down, and walked over to him in my pajamas and slippers, a fact that I would not be too happy about.

The red ball lay in the grass so close, I pointed at it and tried to encourage him. Nothing worked and I patted his head. He had just been trained on a new invisible fence, and thought, Ah right— maybe it landed outside of the boundary. That seemed strange given how close the trees were to the house, but I was at a loss. We had lost our rhythm and I needed to restore it.

I started toward the ball and Hoover let out a low growl. I had never heard him make such a sound, and was oddly offended. “What? You won’t get it, so I have to!” I laughed and shook my head. As I stepped forward, Hoover jumped to his feet and let out one bellowing bark. It rattled me. I told him, “No bark!” and stepped forward. The sound of the crows began to swell. I took another step, watching the treetops blacken with as the murders of crows gathered all around me.

Hoover started barking his head off, over and over, panicked. “Woah boy, calm down! It’s okay! Calm down!” I said as I leaned down to pick up the red ball.

It disappeared before my eyes, and the world went silent. A few inches away, I noticed a small pin. One that I had made when I was a child, I had long forgotten about it. It was a mess of tiny shells glued to a golden safety pin, I used to wear it on my school uniform, to show I was a mermaid both secretly and obviously. I hadn’t seen this pin since I outgrew those kinds of wild fantasies.

My hand stopped a few inches short of touching the pin, and I looked up. The crows remained but had gone completely silent. The world had gone silent along with them.

When I turned around, Hoover was gone. Almost everything else remained in the distance, the house and the barn. The driveway was gone, somehow. The street beyond it remained, but it was only dirt and the stop sign was no longer there. The air had shifted almost imperceptibly but I noticed, living in the city you developed an internal alarm for these things. The air was thicker now, stagnant and rotten like soup left out to sour.

“Hoover!” I called after him but I knew he wasn’t there. I knew I wasn’t there. I just didn’t know where in the hell I had gone. Or how.

Again I looked up at the tens of crows, all looking down on me, their collective eyes fixed upon my every move. Oddly enough, I did not feel fear under their gaze. I simply felt watched.

“Hello?” I asked the wind, timidly. Nothing responded. So I did the next logical thing, I walked out from between the little crowd of trees and the many crows back toward the house. I hoped with every fiber of my being that the world would reverse like an old VHS tape, and everything would go back to how it was before I walked out past Hoover’s warning. I couldn’t fathom why I didn’t listen.

The sky was cloaked in a sheet of grey. The only sound was of pine tree tendrils rattling in the breeze. I approached the house, scared to go inside. Scared to do anything that might drag me further from my life, from my home.

When you move from the country to the city, your definition of home becomes broad. I thought home was in the sight of hills, and the movement of deer across open fields. I thought home was a collection of sounds, or a lack thereof. I thought home was in the physical stacking of things, of spread out farmhouses, of muddy trails you walk by memory rather than markers. I thought it was in the creatures, large and small.

But now, standing in a place that had most everything I thought of as home, it was clear how specific the ingredients must be to make “home”.

hoo. hoo.

The unmistakable sound of an owl cooed from within the house. It was the only animal I could hear, so I moved toward it. I followed the sound of the stair case, and there was no bird in the bedroom. I unlatched the little door that concealed a narrow staircase to the attic.

There in the dusty attic, sat a barn owl. I had never seen one in person, it had the most beautiful rust colored feathers all over it’s body that framed a white heart shaped face. It’s massive eyes took up most of it’s face. The creature outstretched it’s wings and bowed. Without thinking, I did the same; I stretched my arms out and did a curtsy in my muddy pajamas, looking like the princess of sleep, the patron saint of lost girls.

“Your name is.” a low voice came from the bird. What it said was a question, but they did not have inflection in their voice like humans do, so it sounded like a statement. I was completely confused, and waited— thinking maybe it already knew my name.

“Your name is.” The owl reiterated, this time frustration hung on it’s words.

“I am Winnie. Your name is?” I said back to the creature, feeling completely and utterly numb except for the pins and needles in my hands and feet. This could not be happening. This can’t be real, I thought.

“Sit.” The Owl commanded, and for whatever reason, I listened.

The creature hopped down from the cross beam, and walked toward me. It circled my body as I began to shake with something resembling fear. Though I was too confused to truly be afraid. Once the Owl had inspected me, it flapped it’s wings powerfully and returned the beam above me.

“You may ask.” It said, sounding bored.

“I, uh— I guess I should ask, where am I?” I said, ringing my hands and looking all around me. I remember my brother showing me their attic, it had been full of boxes and Christmas decorations. It was empty now, or I guess, it was empty here.

“No.” The owl said, “You may ask.”

Anger began to boil in my chest at the Owl’s response. My numbness began to fade into visceral, palpable panic.

“Where am I? Please, I need to get back to my world. Hoover— he’s all alone, he needs me. Where the hell am I?” I said.

“You will return. But first, you must ask.” The Owl said, it’s casual tone like a blade against my skin.

“Ask you what?” I said, not expecting any kind of clear answer from the beast.

“Hmm,” the Owl said as it sat in silent thought for a few moments, “Odd girl, you are. You see— if I knew what you were going to ask me, I would simply answer.”

“Well, then I can assure you, my question is— where am I and how do I get back?” I said as I stood up, and started pacing in a straight line.

“That was technically two questions, both questions that you are not meant to ask. Those questions will not bring you home. Try again.” The Owl said.

I paced quietly, trying not to contort my face but struggling not to. This was mad. I’d gone mad. Finally, my anger bubbled over, and I said, “I mean seriously, what the hell is this? Are you trying to tell me a riddle? God, now I know how Alice felt when she had to deal with that goddamned caterpillar. Except, she knew she was in another world! I am in mine, but different, but somehow the same. And you are like an owl in every way, except where I’m from, Owl’s are quietly condescending. For fuck sakes, you’re literally a talking owl straight from mythology! Can’t you help me!” I ran out of steam, and tears pooled in my eyes. “Please, help me.” I sighed, and fell to my knees.

“Hmm,” the Owl said again, looking me over. “You must ask.”

I sank deeper into the floor, and put my head in my hands. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes, and it was like falling from a high dive into the ink black recesses of my mind.

The first face I saw was Hoover, then the vision zoomed out. I could see my brother, his wife, they hugged Hoover. Then the picture zoomed out even further, I could see their home and the trees and the birds swarming all around. It was a busy yet peaceful picture. I could hear the wind-song of our hometown, punctuated by the rattling of tree branches and the call of the crows. Then my mind focused in on the crows, I could see them all nestled into the tree tops, the ones that I stood within when I was transported.

The crows in the vision suddenly became aware of me somehow, their focus shifted to me, and they let out one loud caw in unison. I came back into my body suddenly. I think I knew what to ask.

“What are they trying to tell me? The crows?” I asked.

“Hmm,” the Owl said as it extended it’s wingspan and flapped toward me, sending a glittering stream of purple energy toward me. I gasped at the sight, and accidentally breathed in the gaseous magic. I could feel it enter me, thick and vibrating. The feeling moved all over my body, reach from my toes to my fingers to the very top of my head. I coughed and coughed.

The vibrations subsided rather quickly, and my ears suddenly popped. The air thinned. The foul stench was gone.

“Ahh,” the great Owl said, “now go. Ask them.”

I looked around at the empty attic, feeling defeated. My question hadn’t been answered. I wasn’t home, nothing had changed.

“What do you mean?” I asked, not expecting an answer. My expectations were correct.

The Owl flew up into the air, and began spinning and spinning, moving faster and faster. The house began to shake violently as deep purple energy burst from the creature in every direction. I could hear the very foundation of the home crack, as the window glass splintered and the walls threatened to collapse. I ran quickly as I could down the wooden staircase, each step snapped behind me before disintegrating into dust. I ran out the back door into the yard, the place where my day had begun, and I turned around from the lawn to watch the house fold in on itself and dissolve.

Everything that was familiar to me crumbled into blackness, it’s depth was unknowable. Tears streamed from my eyes.

“Winnie.” A small voice called from behind me. I turned to see the only thing still existing in the vacuous place was the ring of trees and the crows that had gathered within them.

“Who said that?” I asked the wind, and to my surprise, a crow answered.

“Winnie, we have watched over your family for generations.” the little crow said as it hopped toward me. “You have gone far away, but you must know that we have followed. We look after you, no matter the distance.”

The crow did not speak in words like the owl had, but rather— it made it’s natural sounds, and I could understand them fully.

The crow continued, “We have transported you to the other side of the veil so you may gain this special power. You were always meant for a larger world than this small town, and we want you to know we will be by your side everywhere you may go. Now, you will be able to speak with us. When you are uncertain, when you feel lost, when you feel removed from your home— call to us, and we shall come. We will remind you of who you are. We will remind you of home.” It said and hopped back to the rest of the murder.

I could see now that the crows had made a circle on the ground of various little shiny objects: my grandmothers old brooches, my collection of zoo coins that I’d been looking for many years ago, little Hello Kitty and Barbie watches, candle holders, empty picture frames, and even pens that I was certain I had simply lost in the couch cushions. There was even a little dog tag that said Hoover, it had come off his collar as a puppy and no one had found it.

“What is all this?”

“We are your life keepers,” another crow said in a sweet, high pitched voice. “Sometimes you lose things that mean a lot to you, and we hold on to them. In this way, we can create for you a powerful transportation device. You can access home so long as we are around.”

The little group of objects represented me in my entirety. I had forgotten who I was. The little crow with the high pitched voice picked up my little mermaid pin, the one I made when I was certain of other worlds, when I was certain I had gifts that other people couldn’t understand. It dropped the pin at my feet, and I bent down to pick it up.

“This is who you are.” the little crow said with finality, and we bowed to each other. The gesture came as naturally as breathing, for some reason.

“Who am I?” I asked.

“You are a daughter of the sky, meant for greater heights than others. You were born to fly.” The crow said, and I felt my body begin to rise.

A gentle feeling began in my back, like a soft vibration somewhere deep in my body, a place I had never accessed before. I began kept floating, higher and higher. Then I could feel them, they peaked out from behind my shoulders and just kept growing. They were black wings, glowing a deep purple.

I was flying.

I flew to the center of the circle, and the wind picked up, spinning me like a tornado, faster and faster. The ink black swirled with me, gaining light, then I began to slow. I could hear the birds. I could hear the mighty wind through the trees. And finally, I could hear Hoover.

He barked and barked as I landed on my feet in the very place where I had vanished. His ball was by my feet and I picked it up. I walked over to the big moose of a puppy, and gave him a hug. He licked my face obsessively, and I whispered to him, “It’s okay, buddy, I’m okay. I’m right here.”

And we went back to playing fetch, my wings had naturally curled into my body and out of sight. I was wearing my silly pajamas, and had completely ruined my slippers. My coffee was still hot. The house was fine, the driveway and street were paved. And I turned to see the crows had all gone off, foraging and flying and doing crow things again. The world was restored.

And I was the kind of girl who believed in magic again, could feel it pulsing within me. I believed that “home” was not such a simple concept. I was destined for great things, but that didn’t mean I had to sacrifice all that I love, I simply had to let myself fly.