I knew it would all go downhill. I always knew. Early winter chased away the leaves and buried them under copious amounts of snow, rotting them and returning them to the earth. I was 16, adventurous - exploring a forest full of dappled shade and nude trees, shivering in the snow that covered their branches like clothing. Most of the flowers around this year were white, or red, or pink. My mother being a botanist meant that I knew all of their names, from the average snowdrops to lily of the valley, growing up the trees and over my head, its pink-tipped petals drooping lazily as I stumbled over roots and rocks. My heart clenched as I tripped and fell on top of some Daphne, a beautiful starry petalled purple-tinted plant that was very rare in this part of the woods. As I rose I sighed, crushing some paper daisies and fairy primrose. I picked some winter roses and gently tucked the stems into my pocket, careful not to ruin them so I could give them to my mother later. I knew that things would go bad when I stumbled across an owl. In broad daylight.
My father was rather superstitious, and from a young age he read me "The Alchemist" over and over until eventually the story stuck in my head and I could rehearse the lines in conversation. Omens and other such things became a large part of my life, even though I tended not to believe in the meanings of most of them. Owls, for example, are a bad omen. Apparently they are only a bad omen when seen during the day. Dreaming of a lizard is supposed to signify that you have a secret enemy, but as a child I hardly ever believed any of these things.
As I gazed at the owl, my breath caught in my throat. It was beautiful. Its coat was a blend of brown and blond feathers, and its eyes were midnight blue. It didn't seem to notice me as I approached it slowly, falling to my knees in front of it and covering my light blue jeans in dirt. By then it must've heard me, because it turned its small head towards me and stared at me with eyes that were both completely empty but, paradoxically, captured the entire universe. Its heart-shaped face, white and speckled with age, tilted slightly as it stared at me. Now that I was closer to it I noticed that its feathers had black streaks over them in various places. Dazed, I reached out for the bird, expecting it to fly away. It didn't. I lifted it off of the ground, half expecting it to claw my eyes out as I raised it up, but it only blinked at me...
I ended up taking it home. Turns out he had a broken wing and was pretty much completely blind. The vet let us keep him, rather than hand him over to a wildlife center. We named him Percy. Generic owl name, I know, but whatever. Percy had a condition known as capsular cataract, which produces unique flecks caused by fibrin or blood pigment clots, which explained the stars in his eyes. A few nights after I found Percy, my father nearly turned the house upside-down, screaming bloody murder about a white moth at his window. My mother rolled her eyes at him and kept watering the plants whilst I went to go see what all the fuss was about. A white moth trying to enter a house is a bad omen. It means someone in the household will die. I brushed it off, trying not to act freaked out as I went back to preparing dinner for the family. I fed Percy and then fed myself, quickly retiring to my small room in the attic to read a book, bringing Percy with me. He perched on my shoulder as I lost myself in words, dreaming up fantasy lands that would only ever exist in my mind. Suddenly, Percy pulled me out of my thoughts, tugging my hair out of the tight bun I had it in. I groaned silently and looked up at him, wondering what he wanted. My breath caught in my throat and my blood turned cold as I looked at the wall, which I had previously managed to cover in posters so I wouldn't have to see the ugly duck egg colour my mother had painted it. I yelled for my father.
There were moths covering my wall. All of them white. The wall came alive with a million shimmering wings, all fluttering in unison.
Those things only happened a few months ago. Lying here in the hospital bed with a fatal cancer that they never picked up on before, only days away from consuming my health and swallowing me whole, sending me back to the void where I came from, has made me realize that my downfall started years before I stumbled across Percy. I guess Percy just made everything fall into place, a broken owl to break a home. I never listened to the omens, never believed that the old things people spoke of had actual power. I wish I had. As I felt the life slowly draining from my body, a small smile crept onto my lips. Three butterflies landed at the foot of my bed, one a vibrant, baby blue, and the other two a pure white.
