Halloween Countdown 2018, Day 12

[eldritchhobbit]

Today I have a great story for you: “Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch” by Darcie Little Badger from Strange Horizons.

Here’s a teaser:

When Nina first met Owl-with-a-capital-O, harbinger of death, destruction, and despair, He resembled Athene cunicularia, a wee burrower. Owl perched on a twig outside her bedroom window as Nina toiled over seventh grade geometry homework. Between questions eleven and twelve, she glanced outside; yellow eyes met brown.

Owl tilted His head, as if puzzled.

That night, Nina fell asleep on a pile of pencil shavings and graphing paper. She dreamed that somebody replaced her nerves with puppet strings. The unseen puppeteer resisted every move she made, and Nina was still ensnared when sunlight tickled her eyes open. For weeks, her actions lagged, leaden, as if cement thickened in her marrow, her skull, and her heart-bearing chest.

Read the complete story here.

Listen to the story on the Strange Horizons podcast here.

(Source.)