Owloween
IX
HALLOWEEN
We sat around the kitchen table in the grey dawn like we were going to get out the Ouija board, or like we were the owls on the old maple trees. We spoke in low tones in fear of the owls hearing us and coming back. The light from the rising sun peered through the window.
-I think we need to talk about how to proceed, said Dr. Veggente.
-It is obvious we should bring in more firepower, said Prof. Klemm.
-I’m not so sure about that. I found their nest last night, whispered Dr. Veggente.
-Really? Where is it? asked Prof. Klemm.
-They are using a cave.
-Astonishing.
-I’ve seen it before, but really didn’t expect it with owls of this size.
-Excuse me, said Donovan, but don’t you think we should go find Captain Terrell?
I turned and looked at his face. The lines were creased and he looked much older in the burgeoning light. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just said it.
-Sorry Donovan, I said meekly, but I saw an owl take her away.
-Are you serious? Asked Prof. Klemm, shocked. He was moved.
Donovan’s head sagged. He paid no attention to Prof. Klemm. I think the reality of Donovan’s own feelings must have hit him in that moment like a blow to the head.
-It is a large hidden cave north of town, about a half mile north of the end of the dead zone from the explosion, said Dr. Veggente.
Prof. Klemm sighed.
-So they are all there? He asked.
-Yes, I believe so.
-Let’s go. said Donovan forcefully.
-Donovan, said Prof. Klemm, treating him like a child, clearly it would better to bring in more firepower.
-I agree with Donovan, said Dr. Veggente. We should go now before we involve anyone else.
-You can’t be serious, said Prof. Klemm.
-I heard the General, said Donovan, the military wants to eliminate the threat at all costs. What if Kristina is alive in that cave? What if other people are alive in there? Do we want the military to just blow the place up and kill people?
-I heard some sounds coming from the cave, said Dr. Veggente. Cannibalism. I want to understand how the owl hierarchy, not too mention how the sterile owls procreate to replace those that are cannibalized before the cave is eviscerated.
-Oliver, for god’s sake, who cares about the ‘scientific good’ right now? How did you find the cave? Said Prof. Klemm sternly.
Dr. Veggente gestured towards the trombone.
-I used a birdcall. Experimental of course. But I can safely say that it works.
-I don’t like this plan at all, said Prof. Klemm.
-Don’t you care about Kristina? said Donovan, pleading.
Prof. Klemm looked at the ceiling and then realized the heroism that was involved.
-Fine, he said.
-Need any help? The voice came from the living room. Grandpa Joseph stood there lighting a cigarette.
We agreed to call for reinforcements in case anything happened to us. We headed on our long walk to the cave. I tried to hide my urgency to see this grand parliament of owls. I had to see the home base but I didn’t want them to tell me I couldn’t go because I was too young and I thought that if they sensed I needed to see it desperately they would naturally not trust my desires.
On the way out of town, the site was horrific – bodies were strewn everywhere in the street. The morning fog was thick as smoke. The mangled bodies were torn in bloody heaps. Severed heads and torsos lie askew in previously peaceful front yards.
The five of us hiked out in the woods to the north of town. Dr. Veggente carried a machine gun over his shoulder, had a handgun at his side, a knife in his pocket and the trombone in his hand. Donovan carried the 50 caliber. Prof. Klemm had a machine gun slung over his shoulders as well, with two handguns on his belt, he carried a large bag of C4. They were strapped with bullets. And Grandpa Joseph lagged behind with me, carrying his shotgun. I had a trombone. We walked through the mist into the forest like musical Armageddon soldiers heading to the concert wasteland of hell.
We reached the dead zone from the carpet-bombing and stepped through the mush of the rain soaked soot in the fog. We wound through stumps of trees that had snapped like twigs, eviscerated in the bombing, and left a vegetation bone yard.
-Joseph, said Prof. Klemm, suddenly curious, why didn’t you evacuate town with all this going on?
-I wasn’t interested in leaving my home.
-Even after the bombing of this area here? You didn’t think it was a good idea to leave?
-I think these owls are more interested in claiming territory than a simple farmer that consistently provided them with meat over the years.
-Oh really?
-The owls are power mongers. They can sense they are on the brink of total power. Their lust is too great. This type of lust consumes even the most tempered being. You must create walls the lust cannot penetrate. But it has infected the owls. Like anyone or anything in that state - to challenge them with is to enter into your demise. Especially if you are their only obstacle. You ever play chess Professor?
-Yes.
-Well, then you know about a sacrifice.
-What do you mean?
-Sometimes you have to sacrifice a valuable piece as a distraction to gain the upper hand on your opponent.
-Okay.
-I think that was the army’s mistake. They should have created a diversion and then followed the owls with a more clandestine force back to this cave.
-What does that have to do with you?
-Well, the owls would have no interest in me. The real obstacle was in the town. Now, thanks to Dr. Veggente here, we know where they are and they don’t know we know where they are. We have superior knowledge. And I think we oughta use it.
-Isn’t that your farm over there?
-Yessir.
Suddenly Prof. Klemm took out his handgun and turned around, training it on Grandpa Joseph. Grandpa Joseph put his hands up instinctively and dropped his shotgun on the ground.
-What are you doing?! Exclaimed Dr. Veggente.
-Don’t you see what is happening?! He is the one who is training the owls to kill.
-What?
-You said yourself that the red-eyed owl had human contact. It is clearly the leader. Joseph is directing them!
-Lester!
-Oliver, think about it. He’s out on his farm. He hasn’t left town. The owls left him alone. They heard our whispers in the bathroom with the door and window shut. How do they not hear him out on his farm? Even if he had nothing to do with them. He would be breathing in his sleep!
-Lester, think about what you are doing for a second, said Dr. Veggente seemingly not so sure now. But he knew Prof. Klemm. Prof. Klemm had created this idea and didn’t have evidence it was true. But he had convinced himself it was.
A peal of an explosion ripped through the silent fog in the barren field. I reached towards Grandpa Joseph, but he was unharmed. Then I saw the blood as it squirted out of Prof. Klemm’s mouth. Grandpa Joseph and Dr. Veggente turned and saw Donovan holding his gun. It smoked. He just shot Prof. Klemm.
-We can’t be listening to these distractions. We have to go and get Kristina. Joseph, pick up the C4. Grandpa Joseph leaned over the bloodied body of Prof. Klemm, a shocked look on his face, and picked up the bag. Move, Donovan said, now training the gun on Dr. Veggente, Grandpa Joseph and me.
Dr. Veggente and Grandpa Joseph gave each other a glance and walked on though the matted soot. I looked back at Prof. Klemm lying on the ground. The blood mixed with the soot like tomato soup in chocolate. His arm was over his head still holding the gun, and the machine gun was on his chest. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had to leave a dead body lying on the ground like that in your life. But I can tell you there is no feeling like it. It seems barbaric, like you are doing something that is inhuman. Passing over the dead mangled bodies in the town also made me feel barbaric. I hope I never have that feeling again.
We reached the other side of the forest. The yellow and brown leaves fell in the slight breeze through the fog. We marched through the forest and towards the cave. Then I jumped about 10 feet in the air because I felt something brush against me.
It was Cedar.
-Hi Buffalo, she said.
-How’d you know we were out here, I said.
-I wanted to come out and see where the airplanes dropped the bombs.
We all stopped.
-Oh no, said Donovan, we can’t take her.
-She’ll be fine, I protested.
-Come on, Donovan, we’re all here now, said Grandpa Joseph.
Donovan looked at Cedar and then Grandpa Joseph and then Dr. Veggente. Cedar stared back at him through her hair.
-All right, he said, but she doesn’t go in the cave.
We moved on until we were about a couple hundred yards from the cave. Dr. Veggente suddenly stopped us with his finger up to his lips
-Quiet, he whispered.
Dr. Veggente motioned his head through the fog. An owl sentinel sat asleep on a branch. We all tempered our breath and stayed motionless.
-What do we do? Whispered Donovan.
Dr. Veggente slowly took out his trombone.
-Walk forward as quietly as possible. If he wakes up, hit the ground and lie as still as possible while I play. Buffalo, keep your trombone ready in case something happens to me.
We stepped silently past the looming owl. The owl barely flinched. He wasn’t able to stay awake through the day to keep a lookout after the eventful night.
We walked up to the boulders and rocks stacked below the mouth of the cave. It was the bluff and cliff we saw the night Cedar and I were out there with Dr. Veggente. But the crack in the cave was hidden from view. During the day, I noticed the blood stains on the rocks. With streams of old blood solidified in maroon designs. The mouth of the cave that was the nest loomed above us like a gaping abyss.
Capt. Terrell appeared at the mouth of the cave. She was naked. Her mouth was covered in blood. Her eyes pierced us with intensity. Caked blood had streamed out of the puncture woods under her collarbone where the owl pierced her with its talons. Her pale white skin glowed in the dark fog and grey rock of the cliff wall. Her red hair matched the remaining fall leaves.
-Kristina! You’re alive! Shouted Donovan and he scrambled up the boulders frantically to the mouth of the cave. She stood stoically wavering on the rocks like a statue. The rocks fell off and clattered at Grandpa Joseph and Dr. Veggente’s feat.
As Donovan reached Kristina, he embraced her.
-I love you, he said.
-I love you too, she whispered. She bent over, her hair hung down and covered her marble face like neon seaweed in the monochrome fog. Then she lurched up. And penetrated Donovan’s heart with the bowed force of a human rib. The rib sliced through his body, poked out his back, and blood streamed down his navy uniform. She smiled maniacally as he fell back over on the boulders, and landed in the dirt at Dr. Veggente and Grandpa Joseph’s feet.
-You don’t wake the master, she said.
That got our attention. Dr. Veggente and Grandpa Joseph looked up at her. Her face was seething. Her breath heaved in gasps.
-The master?
-Yes. I am the protector.
-Kristina, what are you the protector of? asked Dr. Veggente slowly.
-I am the protector of the great owl and you are at the foot of his domain.
-Kristina, said Dr. Veggente again slowly, why are you the protector? He slowly reached inside his shirt and brought out the crystal locket tied around his neck.
-The master sent his minion to visit me during the phases of the moon and revealed my worth. He revealed my purpose. I am here to protect him. We have eaten the others. I am awake when the sun is up. I protect them now. In the light. And I sleep at night after they bring me food.
Dr. Veggente crawled carefully up the rocks. I pondered cults devoted to owls, the spell cast in indigenous cultures, and owls appearing before the doomed. I thought about Owl worshiping humans who have seen owls at night, their yellow eyes mesmerizing a human who stares into the eyes. The transfixed murmurings of the possessed. Owl charms above their door to ward off the evil shaman. I was captivated. They let her live. She was the head of human order in the town and they used her. According to Dr. Veggente, the advanced behavior of these communal owls had been documented previously in the codified texts of ancient cultures. But they weren’t believed. Not even by Dr. Veggente himself. The tales were dismissed as portents of foreboding evil. They were stories invented for entertainment or morality.
-Don’t come any closer, Dr. Veggente, she said, her eyes watching him like a wary wild cat.
-Kristina, you are under a spell, said Dr. Veggente as he crept up the rocks. You are not their protector. They will kill you when they are hungry. They have used you.
-I am one of them. They spared my life to be with them. I will always be with them. I am their spy. I am one of them.
-You are not one of them.
-I have seen the master. He is the great god, and he is spectacular.
-You are not one of them.
-Stop! she shrieked.
He stopped and reached forward casting the light glare of the locket into her eyes. But he was too far away. He couldn’t maneuver its intensity to achieve its effects.
-Kristina, I want to come closer.
-You are not allowed.
-I promise, I bring you no harm.
-You are not able to fly; you are a bearer of death. You are human.
-Kristina, he said, creeping closer again, you are human, you cannot fly either.
-The master taught me how to fly. He showed me that it was all in his mind. He showed me are clothes are nothing but garish adornments. They are meaningless for flight. Owls fly with their mind. And he showed me how.
-You cannot fly, Kristina, he said, nearly close enough to break her trance.
-I can fly.
-No, Kristina, if you let me closer, I will explain why.
-I can fly.
-Kristina, you cannot fly, and as he reached up to shine the light of the crystal in her eyes. She suddenly snapped her body straight to attention.
-I CAN FLY! She shrieked suddenly. She spread her arms and looked to the sky. She took a deep breath. The wounds under her collarbones opened. Blood poured out.
-Kristina, no! Shouted Dr. Veggente.
She leapt off the rocks with her arms opened like a bird and seemed to hover briefly in the air. Then she plummeted to the ground below. Her head caved in on the boulders. Her body was mangled and broken, her white skin in clumps, covered by her red hair.
At the base of the cave on the boulders, Dr. Veggente and Grandpa Joseph shouldered their weapons and walked on the blood stained stones. We crawled up the rocky crags towards the black mouth of the cave.
-Stay behind us, said Grandpa Joseph.
When we reached the cave entrance Dr. Veggente examined the reddish hue of the rock. Swathes of blood covered the entrance leaving splotches of crimson and burgundy. The black entrance opened like a mouth. It was like we stood on the tongue of a dying man who was bleeding. We paused briefly outside and gave each other a look. I made sure to keep Cedar close behind me. Everything was silent. We walked in.
We gasped.
The skulls and blood were innumerable. Fresh new flesh brought from the night before lay on top of old bones – the human remains in the soldier uniforms on top of cattle and deer. Copious piles of bones littered the cave. Skulls of moose and bear. And human. Human heads were discarded in disordered piles. Human pelvic bones were shattered against the rocks. The smell was putrid. Like the intensified pungent sweet stink of a rotten flower. It was nauseating. It circumnavigated my thoughts. I was woozy. Even in this horrific house of slaughter, I couldn’t help my desires to be in the trance, to see the deep reason behind the massacre. At that moment I knew how Capt. Terrell felt when she entered this sacred place. I would be at the owl’s mercy if they cast a spell.
The smooth walls of the cave rounded towards a jagged ceiling that punctured the ground like icicles. An archway led through the bones and carcasses to the back of the cave. Then I saw them – normal sized owls perched on random stalagmites, pouting and bleeding. The blood dripped down the stalagmites.
-My god, whispered Dr. Veggente.
The poor owls could barely keep their heads up as they watched us intrude. They sagged with squashed emotion. They were completely incapacitated. Dr. Veggente eyes started to tear up. He loved owls so much and the tragedy was nearly unbearable to witness. They were the root of the sound of the painful screams, fed on to an inch of their lives.
Stepping over bones though the pellets and over to the other side of the cave – my hand slid across the smooth dirty wall for support. But I stepped back when I saw a gruesome sign – in one of the massive owl pellets the skull and wing bones of another great horned owl – the definitive sign of cannibalism. I felt like I stood in the grotto of the damned at the foot of the mind of the devil. Cedar grabbed tightly to my arm. He hair splayed across my shoulder and elbow.
Grandpa Joseph motioned for us to look higher on the cave walls. Large owls stood in the crevasses like statues of saints in a gothic church. Dozens and dozens of large owls were on little platforms in depressions in the cave wall. The numerous pedestals and pillars surrounded the cavernous chamber. Their heads hung down in their wings as they slept. The thin films of their eyelid were translucent over the dull sleeping eyes.
I noticed one that was higher than the others. The owl with the white ears. The one with the red eyes. Dr. Veggente motioned up towards it too. It was larger than the others. But we all knew that we had to kill it. According to Dr. Veggente, when this owl died, the others would turn independent and might stop killing humans. But first, as a duty to our fellow living beings, we had to get the poor cannibalized owls out of the cave.
-Joseph, Dr. Veggente whispered. Dr. Veggente watched the owls slightly shift their position after he spoke. They were in a heavy sleep.
-Yes? Grandpa Joseph asked quietly when he felt safe the owls wouldn’t wake.
-Do you think you can climb those rocks over there? The owl with the white ears is the lead. Cut off the head and you kill the snake. Joseph nodded his head in agreement and took a large bowie knife out of his belt. Cedar and I helped Dr. Veggente carry the normal owls out of the cave. We woke them and let them fly off. The owls barely seemed to regard us and were limp in our arms. I stared in their eyes but didn’t receive any of the potency I desired that existed in the large owl with the red eyes. When we sat them down at the mouth of the cave, they walked down the boulders and flew away through the sagging branches of the woods unsteadily, gaining confidence as they flew. I watched in amazement each time, knowing the trauma they had suffered, some too weak to fly long periods, instead swooping down to the ground and leaving through the brush. But when I reached for the last one, it started to shudder as I walked towards the mouth of the cave.
Blood ran out of its yellow eyes, like cherry juice in lemonade. Then blood poured out of its mouth. Its beak moved to one side of its head as its head grew in size. A crease opened in the forehead. The top of the owl’s head split open with a loud squishing sound and a bloodied white mass protruded out the top like a flower breaking through a bulb. The owl’s feathers and skin peeled off and exposed a blood and mucus covered egg inside the shredded owl.
-Put it down, Cedar whispered forcefully through her teeth and ran over to me. We looked for Dr. Veggente.
He was watching Grandpa Joseph as he climbed up next to the red-eyed owl. Grandpa Joseph hung from the rocks, dangling by his left hand as he held the knife high in the air.
A loud bellowed hoot exploded from an ancillary chamber in the cave. I set the egg on the ground and backed towards the cave wall near the entrance, protecting Cedar, to look into the chamber where the hoot came from.
Then we did something stupid. We peered around the corner. The sight was frightening. A humungous owl with its head dangling down into its dirty pleated chest was waking from its slumber. A large luminous orb glowed in its chest. I sucked in my breath and covered my face with a dirtied bloody hand. What I saw was so large and intense I couldn’t stare. A huge mountain of feathers at least 30 feet high. The muscles rippled through the feathers – a mass of owl creation. The owl was 2 or 3 times larger than the minions that had besieged town. It must have been the original mutant giant – 10 times the size of a normal owl. Grandpa Joseph was going for the wrong owl!
The owl’s back was turned and suddenly its head rotated almost 180 degrees and it opened its eyes and looked right at us. His eyes were orange red flaming eyes, like his top minion. Then the owl turned its full body towards Cedar and me. I could feel my mind being cast in a spell and felt myself backing into the cave. The voice I heard was deep and resonant – pulling me like gravity towards it -
The invasion is a mistake and they must suffer. Sooth and Grow. Nature’s nourishment is the meat and bones of souls. The invasion is unscrupulous and they will suffer. The ineffectual culture is collapsing as we rise like clouds into the minds of the obsequious. The invasion is foolish and they will suffer. Join the feast of souls…
The trance felt glorious and lasted even less than a split second. I found out later that Cedar spit at the bird as soon as it turned. That must have diverted his attention. She wasn’t feeling the same effects as me. More large owl minions were in positions in the wall of the ancillary chamber. I noticed them immediately, like some living owl museum, as I backed away. The great muscled owl burst from the chamber like a raving zealot and devoured the remains of the dead carcass of the owl that sacrificed itself in birth at its feet. A loud hoot erupted through the entire cave.
Grandpa Joseph was in the talons of the great red-eyed minion in the main cave wall. They tumbled to the floor of the cave in a heap. Feathers ripped off the minion as they crumpled on the ground. The owl lost his grip. Then the owl, bleeding and hurt, lurched forward at him. They tumbled into the bones and blood.
Grandpa Joseph wrenched himself free. The owl reached with his talons. But Grandpa Joseph dodged him. The owl pecked its beak at Grandpa Joseph.
Grandpa Joseph backed up to the cave wall, and as the owl pecked forward once more, Grandpa Joseph plunged the knife into its neck. The blood burst like a fountain out of its throat as the large owl let a loud hoot bellow as it poured down his pleated chest. Then it bleated a muffled cry and struggled forward as Grandpa Joseph dodged across some bones towards us. The owl could no longer control its movements. Its wings slid across the stone and splayed across the great floor. His turgid muscles relaxed as his chest heaved in queasy undulations. Then blood poured from its red eyes as it died.
The other minions began to wake.
-That should have worked, whispered Dr. Veggente, not yet fully aware of the massive owl on the rampage coming out of the ancillary chamber.
-Run! I shouted.
Dr. Veggente stood in shock as Cedar and I ran towards the mouth of cave with the owl following close behind. The massive owl, its orb glowing in its chest turned its head towards Grandpa Joseph. The death of the prized minion had an obscene effect on him. The owl spread its wings throughout the gaping expanse of the cave and hooted. The hoot was a mixture of anguish and anger. Its most trusted minion was slaughtered at the hands of this human. And the human was going to die. Cedar and I ran out of the cave, holding each other’s hands. I dropped the trombone on the rocks; it clinked and bounced to the ground, dented and mangled –
-No! I shouted. At that moment I thought I was doomed, that survival wasn’t going to happen.
Grandpa Joseph sprinted for the mouth of the cave and slid out underneath its wing just as the muscled great owl reached for him with its massive open beak.
The great owl burst out of the mouth of the cave after him. The doorway was too small for its incredible body. The rocks from the its sides blew open and the great owl exploded outside and stood on the top of the boulders at the same place as Captain Terrell moments before and let out a hoot.
The great owl was frightening in the day. The fog masked some of his blemishes, but it looked like it hadn’t left the cave in years. Unseemly Black splotches pockmarked across his feathers. His frayed feathers were grotesque, unused and oily. His beak was sallow and ugly. He opened his mouth to screech again. The sound was terrifying and wild.
Grandpa Joseph scrambled down the boulders towards us as fast as he could. Pebbles dropped and ricocheted past our ears as he stumbled down. I thought he was going to die.
Just then the sound of the trombone filtered out of the cave. G-A-G-A. Dr. Veggente stifled his nerves and gathered his courage and blew. All the owls in the cave began to hoot in unison. The great owl’s mind entered a lull and it turned back into the cave for an instant. Its eyes intensified. And then it saw Dr. Veggente. Its massive bloodthirsty head on the verge of attack. Its hoot was ghastly. The great owl was going to use all its force at its disposal to tear Dr. Veggente apart.
A sound of a crashing explosion punctuated Dr. Veggente’s intensifying music. The owl fell forward and crashed through the archway, its head blown to pieces. The massive body crashed in the bones. The remnants of its brains splattered throughout the cave. Its headless lifeless body rolled in the soiled human remains.
And that’s when I realized that I threw a grenade at the owl. Cedar and I sat on the ground next to Grandpa Joseph and Donovan’s dead body, bleeding and exhausted, with a grenade pin in my hand.
Dr. Veggente picked up the bag of C4 Grandpa Joseph left in the center of the cave. Lit the inside and ran through the bones and flesh and blood. I saw him run across the back of the great owl, and the bones of its great wings now spread. It lay on the ground, a pulp of red entrails and blood where its head used to be.
Dr. Veggente dove out of the cave and scrambled wildly down the rocks.
-Run!!! Run!! And that’s when I realized what he did.
I picked Cedar off of the ground. We ran into the red and orange leaves of the forest as the cave exploded.
The hail of stones and blood landed on the boulders and ground around the cave.
We crashed down next to a tree, exhausted, and surveyed the damage. We sat for a few minutes without talking. The forest was quiet. Grandpa Joseph sucked in a deep breath. I kissed Cedar. We caressed our wounds. Then Grandpa Joseph reached into his front pocket and took out a cigarette. Dr. Veggente reached into his pocket for his pipe. They had a smoke.
Epilogue
That was how we rid the town of the mutant owls. We still saw one every now and then in the forest for the next few months afterwards. But now sightings are as rare as sightings of Bigfoot. They call the large owl Molga. But I know that Molga is dead. Cedar likes to think of the owls we liberated. She imagines them soaring over the trees, beholden to no one. She imagines them flying over the meadow looking for mice under the moon. Cedar likes to think that they are all happy raising owlets. She wrote a poem about it that I liked. It rhymes so I’m warning you straight off. But I liked it, so I’m going to put it here:
Down through the meadow
And among the thieves
And past the red moon
The owl wanders through fear
And over the truth
The nest is plush and smooth
Love rises to the sky
Well, some people say you can still see the apparition of the great owl on a foggy day, soaring through the clouds, trapped between this life and the next, searching for its next meal.
They will search for a meal of a bear or a moose. Occasionally a cow goes missing without a trace. But people go missing everyday. People disappear from their families and some people turn up in strange places not knowing their names.
If the ground at night is frightening, it might be looming above. Some say that the human life is not worth living in fear. Others say that humans are at fault for their own demise. Scientists doing work on the mutant owls seem to have come to the conclusion that it might have something to do with chemicals, like how frogs are popping up missing a leg or fish with three eyes. I don’t know a lot about that. I know that Grandpa Joseph had a lot to say about fear afterwards.
He wrote it down once on the back of a receipt a few weeks after everything happened. I copied it on to my computer. I thought it was an interesting take on what we just saw and experienced together. It said, ‘if fear penetrates the soul, on a cloudy night in the rain, the relics of past conquests will conjure the gods. The structure will be solidified and power will manifest its obscenities. Then when the darkest of times settles on the earth, the glow will guide the benevolence to become what they abhor.’
Sometimes a light will follow a straight path across the sky. Some say they are satellites, others airplanes, but some people believe it is the mark of an evil shaman who flies by night. Beware of its spell.
