The Skinner Co. Network
DDoP - 3 - The Night Owl
Bill’s scrawls refer to The Night Owl as a cousin of The Confused Stranger, likely due to some of the legends’ shared traits.
3. The Night Owl Those scrolls refer to the Night Owl as a cousin of the Confused Ranger, likely due to some of the legend's shared traits. Yet this tale, recounted a half dozen times in his notes, at least turns up occasional supposed witnesses. Conveniently, they are never the one narrating the story, but there's a dead grandmother or cousin away on an extended hunting expedition hoods where they'd seen it. The tellings all follow generally the same structure. A restless sleeper weakens in the darkest hour. Perhaps due to a snoring spouse, a heavy conscience or the heat, and putting on their shoes, they head into the night to walk off their troubles. Outside, the rest of Tekamak is in their beds. The breezes picked up and the frogs are croaking a chorus in the marshy bay to the south of town. One foot follows another, and soon the rambler has fallen into that state of not being asleep, but also not quite being awake, and they turn back towards their door, their steps growing heavy. There's sometimes a hoop that's regarded in the victim's exhaustion, since it's often there's no warning. Simply the approach of an owl's eerily silent wings, and then a pinch of their shoulders. Looking down, the earth drops away beneath their feet. Looking up, there is a great white visage, an owl peering down with enormous golden eyes, and wings as broad as the hamlet schoolhouse. Is this perhaps a dream? They wonder in their grogginess, yet still they climb. And finally, when released at the lake's edge, they are entirely awake, at least until they know dashed on the rocks lurking in the shallows. Bill, discounting the supposed witnesses, wonders in the margins if perhaps there is a connection to the high rock promontory, though, where looks the town to the west. Which would make a tempting target for a midnight stroll and tend to declare your head with drive-ins the heat. It only takes one sleepy misstep, he notes, and it would be sent tumbling into the jagged stones below. But then, what should we make of reports of strips of flesh missing from the bodies?