The Birds of Willowvale.

The ferry docked with force, wrenching me from my daze as the last shreds of sunlight flirted across the horizon. The other passengers hurriedly scooped up their luggage and teetered towards the gangplank. It was almost dark now, the inky water lazily lapping beneath my feet. I gathered my bags and followed suit. 

Willowvale was perfect, except for the screaming birds.

The sea front was deserted, as it usually was. The other passengers had fanned towards cars and disappeared almost immediately. A portly man in a charcoal newsboy cap much too small for his head was puffing the last of a cigarette. Harry Bennett, my usual driver.

“Mr. Lewis!”

I recoiled slightly at the volume of his boisterous voice.

“Harry! Sorry mate, Missed the earlier ferry. Hope the missus won’t get too cross with you.”

He guffawed, slapped me across the shoulder with such force it almost knocked me off my feet. He was a good head shorter than I, but almost twice the width. His unkempt moustache twitched as he laughed.

I followed him to his Vauxhall the colour of a tea stain. As we walked we were bathed in the sound of wings overhead. Large flock of birds swooped into the trees away from the shoreline, screeching and wailing. They were about the size of magpies, their feathers a shimmering oil slick colour – dashes of violet and navy throughout the black.

“They been bad this week?” I asked as my eyes followed the birds across the dim sky.

“Not so. Think we’ve got a nest building in the tree near ours, though.” Harry muttered, fumbling with car keys.

My bearings were still lightly off kilter from the boat, I managed to hold my balance long enough to collapse into the back seat as Harry loaded my luggage into the trunk. He grunted and shuffled into the driver’s seat. The sound of the sea and the birds was sliced off as the door slammed shut. The headlights flickered on and the Vauxhall groaned into motion. Not ten minutes later, we had pulled up outside my tidy cottage which had been my residence for almost half a year today.

 “Ah! Here we go. Home sweet home for ya, ay?”

It was a simple home. Just the one level, the small bedroom around the back as to catch the morning light through the window. Harry had helped himself to a cup of tea in the kitchen, and drank it in a shot. He glanced at his watch and hastily announced his leave.

“Gotta get back to the missus, mate. I’ll be ‘round Monday morning ay?”

I bid Harry farewell and watched him drive off. The cottage was surrounded in trees, a beautiful silence entombing me as I stood on the steps sipping tea. A silence that wouldn’t last very long.

You see, the birds here. They scream, they scream like humans. It’s quite a shock when you first arrive; heaven knows it took me quite some time to get adjusted. No one knows why. We just get used to it. It’s worth it, you see. Willowvale is an amazing town. Everyone is friendly and well kept. The neighbors are never irritating, the post is never late. The houses are immaculate, the streets are clean. It’s a small colony just off the Scottish coast, and I had expatriated here six months ago from Central London as Head of the Educational Development plan. An Australian that worked for us temporarily said that screaming birds were not unheard of in his part of the world, and that helped many of the locals accept that it was just an obscure coincidence of nature that these birds sounded like people. Not every single bird screams, mind. We have sparrows and jays and pigeons and they are all somewhat quiet. Just the oil slick ones. But not all the time, either. It’s a piercing scream, when they do, though. The kind of sound that that rattles your mind until it aches. But after two days or so, it melts into the atmosphere. 

On my bedside table was a small alarm clock, and glass jar of cotton wool, for the morning. I placed my spectacles next to them, and cocooned in the duvet, sleep took me.

I awoke to the screams. As usual.

After getting the windows sealed last week, they weren’t as loud in the house. I yawned as I shoved fingerfuls of cotton wool into my ears. As I had just returned from a visit to the mainland my pantry was less than well stocked, so a breakfast at the pub not only sounded delicious, but was my only option, save for doing groceries.

A quarter hour stroll from my cottage brought me to the town centre. A path had been cleared through a thicket of trees, many of which held nested birds. Through the cotton I could hear a soft wailing, the sound of a woman crying with passionate abandon. It was curious, how these bird calls sounded so similar to the human voice. Zoologists that have visited Willowvale have started studies on them, but supposedly it is not an uncommon thing. When I visited home for the first time I spoke to my father about them.

“Humans are too self centered.” He muttered, chewing on the butt end of a soggy cigar. His eyebrows would knit together as he spoke, a sourly disappointed look so intense he seemed as if studying his own upper lip.

“We think that everything in nature is about us, or related to us. When a cat rubs itself against your leg, you assume it’s trying to show affection, to show love. It is an animal! Animals do not know love. It is simply marking its territory. It’s nature.”

I didn’t usually agree with my father, particularly about the fact that animals cannot or do not love. I was certain that Butterscotch, my bulldog back home, certainly loved me, to the point where she would groom me with her fat tongue as she would her own pups. But I suppose he had merit in his opinion – some things cannot be explained, regardless of how peculiar.

Not many people were about town today, being a Sunday, but the pub still had a good sprinkling of friendly faces. The barmaid, Milly, greeted me with a grin so wide it took over most of her face.

“Morning, Morgan! Back already?”

“You expect me to survive that long without seeing your pretty face?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. I was always fond of Milly, and I appreciated her fondness for me. I ordered a plate of the pubs finest and settled in near the window to read the paper. It was filled with photos of the locals, the football club, the community centre being built, the updated ferry timetable. Even an interest article about a little girl that lived near the church that was able to juggle five oranges at once. Her mother must be so proud. There was hardly ever any bad news in the paper; it was a new colony after all. My father would say that good news does not make for good reading. But we hardly had a cemetery, let alone an obituary. Thankfully, nothing that bad ever happened in Willowvale.

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. After my breakfast and a bout of shopping, I decided to make the most of the sunlight and go for a walk down on the waterfront. The birds were quieter closer to the water, as they didn’t usually nest in exposed trees.

As I came round a bend in the path, my mind wandering, I noticed a flash of orange and white. It was a fox sniffing at something at the base of a tree. Curiousity overcame me and I slowly approached. Despite my efforts to be as inconspicuous as possible, the fox locked eyes with me for a moment before disappearing into the thicket. There was a small rustling where its concentration had one lay. A small nest, with a motionless baby bird curled up inside.

I could hear my father’s voice warning about disease, but my compassion got the better of me and I gently scooped up the nest. The entwined twigs started to fall apart in my hands, the chick quietly still. There was no sign of any parental birds in the tree. In fact, it was surprisingly quiet for this time of day.

Back at my cottage, I put the kettle on for myself and had managed to makeshift a temporary home for the bird that I couldn’t tell was living or dead. I had boiled some stones I had collected from the garden, wrapping them in a tea towel and placing that in the bottom of a biscuit tin, with the remains of the nest and the baby bird on top. I did not have seed, but I did have the crust of a custard tart, which I crumbled just in front of the chick’s tiny beak, if it should still be living.

There wasn’t much else I could do, save for disturbing the zoologist on a Sunday evening. I helped myself to my own custard tart, and with a cup of tea sat in my armchair, putting the biscuit tin on the coffee table. I had a twenty page report to finish reading before the board meeting in the morning, and due to my vacations back in England I hadn’t the time to start. The air in my lungs escaped through my lips as I sank deeper into the cushions and held the report up to my eyes. Just as I had managed to absorb the first few words, the telephone rang.

“Hello? Oh, Hullo Harry. No, it’s no problem, don’t worry. Nine o’clock will be fine, sure. I’m just finishing the report now. Cheers mate, see you tomorrow.”

 

The report taunted me as I put the phone down. I enjoyed my job, I truly did, however the paperwork was always a chore. The bureaucratic establishment of a new educational system was a painfully arduous task to implement, but the salary was handsome and after it would be put in place I would be assuming the duties as board director of all schools in the colony, and that was a position sought after by many.

Regardless of my efforts to concentrate on the report, I was gratefully distracted when I heard a rustling coming from the biscuit tin. A smile crept across my face involuntarily as I watched the chick fumble about in the tea towel, its squinting eyes open, inspecting new surroundings.

“You had me worried, you know.”

I observed with an embarrassingly maternal gaze as the chick slowly nudged the tart crumbs with the top of its beak. Its feathers were a charcoal grey, not quite black yet, I assume the colour intensifies as they age. It had a small amount of violet and blue running through the down on its back. I wondered if it was abandoned, or taken from its mother. Did the wind from the sea knock the nest to the ground? Perhaps the fox was just an opportunist, and I some accidental savior.

Content that my new guest was alive, I returned to the report. When I finally managed to turn the last page over, my tea had gone cold and it was dark. My eyelids were falling shut and my legs were heavy. I drowsily tidied, and retired to bed.

The telephone awoke me from my slumber.

I fumbled for my spectacles. Was it morning already? Was I late? No, no. It was still dark out. Hardly two hours after I had gone to bed. Anyone telephoning me at this time of night, it must be an emergency. Perhaps a call from home? I worried after my father’s health. I flicked on the light switch and my eyes burned from the brightness. I stumbled to the living area, the phones shrill ring beating into my temples. I snatched up the receiver.

“Hello? Hello?”

The dial tone hummed monotonously in my ear.

I paused for a moment, still half asleep. The ringing had not stopped. I put the receiver down, yet it continued to ring. The noise was not coming from this telephone, and I had only one in the cottage. The ringing was piercing. Was I dreaming? Where was the noise coming from if not the telephone?

In my drowsy stupor, my gaze fell on the biscuit tin.

I felt as if I had been bathed in ice water.