three stories not about birds: owl 2017

I wrote this in spring 2020, because I read that if you write a story a week at the end of the year you have 52 stories and it's unlikely they'll all be completely without merit. It's unedited, and I do know which parts of it are clunky. I pasted together all four stories and put it on Kindle Direct Publishing, where it made about £4.50.

In March 2025 I'm off Amazon, so here you go.

Tabitha had had the fidgets all day. Her morning swim had been leisurely, and for an hour after that she had managed to concentrate on weeding around the raspberry canes, but since going back indoors she hadn’t been able to settle to anything. She’d prowled from room to room, picking up knitting and putting it down again, plinking six bars on the glossy white piano and walking away, opening her tall fridge to stare in and closing it again.

Sophie, the housekeeper, had been excellent at not showing irritation, but Tabitha knew she’d been in the way.

When the thunderstorm rolled in over the neighbouring linseed fields at half past six she felt relieved to have something to blame.

“It must have been the air pressure, Soph!” she called out, padding barefoot through the hall after changing back into her swimsuit.

“Maybe!” Sophie called back from the library.

Tabitha changed direction and peered round the doorframe. “I didn’t know you were in here, sorry.”

In response, Sophie raised an indoor watering can and patted the Benjamin fig that stood beside the bay window.

“Quite right. I would always forget this one if it was down to me.”

“I’ll come through and do the pool plants while you’re swimming, if that’s alright?” Sophie said.

“Of course.” Tabitha bounced on her heels. “God, I feel like my muscles are excited they’re going to exercise, do you ever get that?”

Sophie laughed, genuinely. “Can’t say I do. But it sounds good.”

They went through to the glass-roofed swimming pool in companionable quiet, and were greeted by a hammering rain that made Tabitha catch her breath. She checked her ears and throat for forgotten jewellery and walked down the ridged steps into the pool’s warmth.

She ducked her head under and the rain stopped. Everything stopped. She stayed under, spreading her toes wide on the tiles for balance against the currents she’d made. The water’s chemicals investigated her nose, eyes, ears, and flowed on.

Her heart took on the rhythm of the filter pump.

She came up, and the rain on the glass sounded louder than ever.

Tabitha forced her hair back sleek over her skull with both hands and looked around. Sophie was picking yellowing leaves off the giant philodendron that covered the inside of the south east corner, peering at them and dropping them in a red trug.

Outside, the birch and willow trees on her boundary were being rocked and shaken by the storm. The oldest trees were all on the other side of the property - the previous owners had developed towards the fields, so you could only see young trees from the pool.

Her legs still wanted to stretch, so she let them. She kicked up, launched forwards and swam a diagonal that bounced into a length, and then six more lengths.

Sophie strolled across to meet her at the end of the pool and crouched down. “It really looks like you needed that.”

“Ugh, so badly,” Tabitha agreed, snuffing water out of her nose. “How are the plants?”

“All good! The humidity’s great, obviously. A couple of them might be draining too slowly, I could repot them tonight or wait, up to you.”

“Is there anything that needs to be done tonight instead?”

“Nope. Everything’s whenever.” Sophie shrugged. “It’s just if you wanted a quiet swim…” She had to raise her voice for that last, because another burst of rain had swept across the roof. They both laughed.

“No, it’s nice having you in here. Repot away.” Tabitha gave two thumbs up and launched herself backwards away from the side, careful not to kick until she was out of splashing range.

She heard the door close, and then gave her attention entirely to the feeling of the backstroke working her shoulders and back. The sky was deep slate blue and so thick with storm clouds it seemed to hang only metres above the glass. The reflections of the room’s amber lamps were embedded in the clouds. Rain fell in incredible amounts, and cascaded off the roof so hard it jetted away from the windows. Tabitha swam under it all, warm and clean.

Sophie came back in with a sack of potting mix and a broadsheet newspaper.

The first lightning was the sheet type, and Tabitha’s eyes were closed for it. The black behind her eyes flashed red, and jolted her out of her rhythm so she flailed and sniffed water. She straightened up, choking and treading, and just got enough breath back to say, “What was -” when the thunder followed.

Sophie was counting, of course. “A bit over four kilometres,” she said calmly, and carried on shaking a plant’s root mass free of earth.

“Have you ever been scared of storms?” Tabitha asked her, still treading, her heart still racing.

Sophie sat back on her heels and thought about that. “I think only when we were camping. Indoors I always feel safe, and if you’re outdoors caught in it you’ve got too much to think about to be really scared.”

“That’s fair.” Tabitha nodded. “Does this count as indoors?” She waved around at the glass roof panels, rivered with rain.

Sophie grinned. “It does. It’s withstood worse than this, no need to worry.” She turned back to the heap of earth and roots in front of her.

Tabitha swam over to the shallow steps and lay back on them, letting her legs float up, watching the rain on the roof. After a minute, her eyes found the focus to see her own reflection: a smear of woman in a one-piece swimsuit clinging cheerfully to the underneath of a storm cloud.

The cloud rolled over itself, folding under and travelling hard across the dense dark.

The doorbell rang, a brass note among the crashing weather, and Tabitha and Sophie both drew upright and turned. Sophie had a pair of shears in her right hand, a ball of earth and roots in her left.

“Are you -”

“No. Have you ordered -”

“No. Perhaps it's a neighbour?”

“Perhaps?” Sophie set the clump of plant back down in its pot, and tucked the scissors into a loop of her tunic. “I'll answer, shall I?”

“Please,” Tabitha said, and knee-waded up the rest of the steps as Sophie left. She shook some of the water off her arms and legs before picking a big towel up from a stack on the long white chair, dried her face and wrapped the towel around the rest of her.

The room's heaters hummed under the noise of rain. She couldn't hear anything from beyond the door. A streak of white caught the corner of her eye and she turned back towards the glass but nothing was there.

Sophie appeared in the doorway again, a complicated expression of deliberate cheerfulness around her eyes. She was followed, footstepless, by Tabitha’s sister, whose hair was plastered down to her face by rain.

“It’s Rachel!” Sophie said brightly.

Rachel gave a half-wave, dropped her shoulder bag on the tiles inside the doorway and flung herself across the remaining couple of metres towards Tabitha for a hug. “I’m so glad you’re already wet! I don’t have to not hug you!” Rachel said, as cold rain dripped from her hair and jacket onto Tabitha’s steamed skin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tabitha saw Sophie return to the plants. “Well, it’s lovely to see you.” Tabitha returned the hug with a powerful effort not to shiver. “Did you message me and I missed it? Or?”

Rachel released her and stepped back. “No, I don’t message while I’m driving. Um. I left Athena.”

“Oh, again?” Tabitha regretted that immediately but there was nothing to be done.

“Ha. Yes. Well, we gave it a good shot. Or I gave it a good shot.” Rachel pushed her hair back from her her face to show a greenish grey patch on her cheek.

“Oh, Rach!” Tabitha patted her sister on the shoulder and stepped round her to pick up a yellow dressing gown from the back of the long chair.

Sophie had left the plants again and passed them, brushing potting soil from her hands. She said, “Tea?” and left without waiting for agreement.

“Okay, you need a towel even more than I do, here, take that one.” Tabitha tightened the cord of her dressing gown around her, over the towel, and sat down on the edge of the long chair. Rachel picked up the next folded towel from the stack and let it hang from a corner, rubbing her face and hair.

She slipped her jacket off and dropped it with a clunk.

“Is that your phone?”

“Yes, I need a new one.” Rachel said, muffled by the towel. “So. Athena has been, um, drunk pretty much for a week.”

“From your birthday?” Tabitha said, her voice rising to be heard over a spate of rain.

“Exactly. So, there was a day of hey it’s okay this one day because it’s a party, and I didn’t notice the second day, because, well, I didn’t notice anything. It was a good party. But then a couple of days of ‘look, I’m still celebrating, I’m happy to be in your life, I love you, why are you being so -’” Rachel gestured something impossible and pulled the towel away from her face, now dry.

“I don’t need to know. You decided.” Tabitha looked up at her. “What do you need from me now?”

Rachel stiffened. “What?”

“Apart from a hot drink!” Tabitha said, baffled at her reaction and looking towards the door as Sophie reappeared. “Here’s tea, oh, good choice Sophie,” as she saw the colour in the glass teapot.

Sophie set her tray down on the tiled floor between the chair and the pool. “And ginger biscuits. There are chocolate ones in the pantry, too, and I think there’s some fruit cake that’s gluten-free?”

Rachel said distantly, “Ginger is fine, thanks.” She was still looking at Tabitha. “What do I need from you?”

“Yes?” Tabitha said uncertainly.

“To be here for me!”

“Yes, I am. With what?”

Rachel took a step back as though she had been shoved. Sophie reached a steadying hand towards her but was out of reach.

“Mind the pool,” Sophie said gently. “Please don’t slip.”

“I’m not an idiot.” Rachel snapped without looking across, and Sophie let her arm drop, moving backwards away from the crackling line between the sisters.

Tabitha stood up, her hands patting the room, soothing. Another sheet of lighting opened the sky above the glass roof, inky clouds still rolling over. The thunder came within a blink of the lightning, this time.

“Maybe I am an idiot.” Rachel said, sorrowfully. “Okay, maybe I am the kind of complete idiot who thinks her sister would react with some kind of human feeling instead of a payoff.” She spat the last word.

“Hey! I didn’t say anything about money!” Tabitha protested.

“It’s all you ever do say, Tab! You haven’t said you’re sorry or glad, you haven’t asked what happened, all you said was that I need a towel and tea.”

“Because you’re cold and wet!” Tabitha was really indignant, her back straight and her hands flexing. “You can’t mean you’d rather I just feel bad for you and not offer you anything!”

“Sometimes!”

There was a pause, and they glared at each other.

“Okay,” Tabitha said in a gentler voice. “So when -” and another crash of lightning and thunder, impossible to count apart, split her words. Rachel flinched, clutching at the hem of her shirt with both hands in fists, and then visibly forced her hunched shoulders down again as the thunder faded away.

“So when you left, what happened? Did she make promises again? Has she been calling, is that why you want a new phone?”

“No. She said I was overreacting, hypersensitive. That I shouldn’t have stopped taking my prescription and I’d been really uptight lately.”

“While drunk.” Tabitha sighed and sat back down on the centre of the long white chair. She patted the seat beside her and then when Rachel made no move to sit down, sighed again and leaned over to help herself to a cup of tea. She poured one for Rachel without asking, and pushed it towards the corner of the tray for her. “Rach, please sit down. Put the towel round you. Or have a dry one.”

Rachel remained on her feet, but wrapped the towel she was holding around her shoulders. “She drove off in her car and didn’t even scrape mine, it’s really amazing what she can still do in this state. And yes, she’s been calling.” She shivered. “I don’t know where she went.”

“Does she know where you went?” Sophie asked. Tabitha and Rachel both looked across at her, surprised. “I mean, do your phones share location to each other?”

Rachel looked at her jacket in its soggy heap on the floor. “It might? How would I check?”

“For god’s sake, Rach!” Tabitha said helplessly. “Sometimes I wonder what year you’re from.”

Rachel stiffened again. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, actually! We can’t all live in a cash bubble like you.”

“Oh look, you’re mentioning money again, do you really think -”

“We’re standing by your swimming pool, am I meant to pretend I don’t notice?”

“- think that’s the difference between us? That I made a lucky guess and now I have no problems?”

“Oh, you call it a lucky guess, like you’re so cool and humble, flipping a company for gajillions could have happened to any girl -”

“I’ve never pretended it was anything but luck, don’t you put your bitter bullshit on me.”

Rachel flung her arms out, the shawl-wrapped towel falling wetly to the tiles behind her. “Bitter! I’m uptight and bitter now, marvellous.”

Tabitha stood up, her hand out flat in a mimed threat. “Drink your tea, Rach.”

“Take your meds and shut up, Rach.” Rachel quoted, suddenly bleak.

“I’m not saying that. Drink your tea because you’re cold and wet, and then we can go sort out a spare bed for you, and I’ll lend you pyjamas.” Tabitha rubbed her hands over her face, then looked at the backs of them, drying out from the pool chemicals. “You know, all day I’ve had too much energy and now I’ve got absolutely none.”

“I’m so sorry for you!”

“Unlike you, I’m not asking for that?” Tabitha said, too quickly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sophie flinch properly at that, but Rachel seemed to take it in her stride. “Look, no, we can’t talk sensibly about anything right now, apparently, let’s just get you dry and fed and wait for this stupid storm to pass. It can’t be helping.”

Rachel took a pace towards her, her shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. “What happened to you? We come from the same place, why did you get so -”

“Can we just not?”

“- materialistic? It’s like you can’t feel anything outside of comfort, what do you -”

“Can we seriously not do this, it won’t solve -”

“See! There you are again! Not all conversations have to solve something! We’re not in a business meeting!”

“We’re not really in a conversation either!” Tabitha squatted to pick up Rachel’s cup of tea from the tray, and Rachel slapped it out of her hand as she rose. The smash echoed across every hard surface of the room, louder than the rain still drumming on glass.

Tabitha regained her balance and stepped in towards her sister, close enough that her extra fraction of height began to matter. “Don’t break my stuff.”

“Don’t get in my face.”

“Alright,” Tabitha said, not moving. “Where shall I stand while I’m being here for you?”

Rachel shoved her, not hard, her hand flat against the front of Tabitha’s shoulder. Tabitha was too securely planted, her bare feet set sturdily on the floor, and Rachel only pushed herself off balance. Tabitha grinned at that without meaning to, the pure slapstick of it, and Rachel punched her harder in the same place. But Rachel was still off centre and Tabitha was still braced.

Rachel’s shoes skidded again and she flailed, a side step landing her on the dropped wet towel. From the side, Sophie said, “Don’t!” helplessly and Tabitha lunged to catch her sister, both arms out, but Rachel slapped her away even while staggering and she twisted, diagonal, didn’t have time to break her fall with her hands and landed straight on the tiles, her head bouncing once with a truly horrible sound.

Rachel sat down hard on the wet towel, clutching her left knee with both hands.

Thunder rolled again. Nobody had noticed its lightning.

“Oh no oh no oh no,” Rachel said, low and horrified. “Tab. Tabby. Tab, move.” She let go of her knee and launched forwards across the tiles towards Tabitha’s face.

Sophie said, “Don’t move her!” and knelt down on the other side of her. “Tabitha, can you hear us?”

Tabitha lay on her back, eyes slackly closed, breathing.

“We have to turn her sideways,” Rachel said, reaching across for her shoulder.

Sophie pushed her hand away. “No, don’t move her, it was the back of her head that landed, she could have damaged her neck. Spine.”

“Are you a first aider?”

“No. I mean, years ago?”

“Fuck. Me too. Airways breathing circulation well, she’s breathing, are you sure she shouldn’t be on her side?”

“I know you don’t move back injuries. Don’t move her. I’ll find the house phone.” Sophie scrambled to her feet, rubber soles squeaking in the wet.

“Who will you call?” Rachel looked up at her.

“Ambulance, of course.” Sophie was already out of the doorway to the rest of the house.

“Wait, do you have to? Won’t they -” Rachel let the rest of the complaint drop away and stared back down at her sister’s face. She leaned in close enough to feel Tabitha’s breath and caught hold of the eyelashes of her left eye between finger and thumb.

She lifted Tabitha’s eye open. It didn’t move, and the pupil didn’t waver.

“Fuuuuuck,” Rachel breathed, and let the eyelid drop again, pulling her hand back as Sophie reappeared in the doorway, the house phone handset against her cheek.

“Twenty three, four, nineteen eighty five. I know she has a local doctor but I don’t know if she’s ever had hospital records - no, of course you will, I see. Yes, I’m back beside her now. She’s breathing. Slowly.”

There was a pause and Sophie listened. Rachel leaned closer across Tabitha’s body but couldn’t hear above the now steady rain on the glass.

“I can’t tell, we’re still in the swimming pool room, it’s warm and humid, I’m sorry.” Sophie listened again and reached for one of Tabitha’s hands, straightening the curled fingers without lifting her arm. She leaned down to peer at her unpainted nails. “No.”

Rachel burst out, “No, she hasn’t stopped breathing, we were here the whole time.”

“That’s her sister,” Sophie said neutrally to the phone. “Next of kin.”

“Oh no oh no oh no,” Rachel said again, faster. She sat back and drew her knees up in front of her, hugging her shins. “No I didn’t, you saw I didn’t.”

Sophie made a flat-hand gesture and widened her eyes in warning. The voice on the phone said something else. “No, she’s upset, just an ambulance will be fine.”

Rachel said, her voice rising, “They want to send police?”

Sophie repeated the flat hand gesture.

“She really did fall, but we’ll understand if you have to dispatch - Rachel, please shush?”

Rachel was howling.

“She’s very upset.” Sophie said to the phone. “Do you mind if I - of course, I’ll just set the phone down here.” She placed the handset carefully on its back next to Tabitha’s head, without disconnecting the call, and stepped over her body towards Rachel. “No, you didn’t push her, she slipped, it could have been either of you, I was watching. Please, please don’t complicate things.”

Rachel stared up at Sophie, her eyes wide. “I’m not complicating.”

“I know we don’t really know each other, I don’t mean to attack you. Please don’t let the police, if they send them, use any of the time that the paramedics should be using.”

“They are sending police!”

Sophie folded both her hands together to stop herself gesturing in annoyance. “They may well do that for falls anyway, but your reaction probably -”

“I’m not overreacting!” Rachel’s voice rose again, but not quite a howl.

One more sheet of lightning flashed overhead and Rachel hugged her knees tighter against her body, hunching her shoulders forwards and down.

The thunder followed.

Sophie said, “Two kilometres,” gazing abstractedly out into the dark.

“What?”

“It’s moving away. Finally. This was a big one.”

Rachel stared up at her in disbelief. “We really don’t know each other. Did she put ‘must be ice fucking cold’ on your job advert?”

“No, it’s at the top of my CV.” Sophie sat down beside Rachel on the wet floor, pulling her own knees up to mirror Rachel’s body language. “I don’t panic when I’m worried. A head injury is not something I’m trained or fit to deal with, so we’ve phoned for the people who are and now we can only watch her for changes.”

“Do you think she can hear us?”

“No way of knowing.”

“But do you think she can?”

“I really don’t know.”

“For the love of!” Rachel scrambled to her feet. “You’re really made for each other, you know that?” She stepped over her sister’s bare legs towards the long white chair, picked up the next towel on the stack and draped it over Tabitha’s lower body.

“Perhaps you’d like some of the tea now?” Sophie offered, not standing up from the floor.

“Now it’s not about accepting it from her, you mean?”

Sophie shrugged.

Rachel sat down on the long chair and poured tea carefully into the cup Tabitha had started drinking from. “It does smell good.”

Sophie nodded. “White, with jasmine. A good compromise tea. Have a biscuit, too.”

“Are you treating me like a kid because she does or because you think I’m acting like one?” Rachel asked, and popped a ginger biscuit whole into her mouth.

“No, I’m much worse at children. You’re coming down from an adrenalin thing, that’s all.”

There was a pause, except for the rain.

Rachel’s jacket rustled on the floor, and began to ring. Rachel spilled half of her cup of tea across her leg as her hand flinched, and stared at her jacket, wide-eyed again.

“Would that be Athena?”

Rachel nodded. “It goes to answer phone after three - there.”

The jacket lay still again. Rachel rubbed ineffectively at the tea spill with her sleeve, not putting the cup down. Sophie leaned over to look into Tabitha’s unconscious face and then beyond her at the display screen of the house phone. “Wow, only four minutes.”

“If it helps, I’m not having fun either.”

Sophie made a rocking gesture with her right hand. “It helps a bit, I’ll be honest.”

The rain and the room’s heaters filled another pause.

Rachel yelped, the rest of her tea leaping out of the cup as she flung her hands up in front of her face. “What was that?”

“What?”

“Something white, up against the glass.”

Sophie twisted to look where Rachel was pointing. “Is it still there?”

“No, it was flying, I think.”

“Goodness knows, then. A bin bag. An owl.” Sophie turned her back on the outside again, straightening up.

“An owl. I bet it was. I’m so glad I live in a city. It’s so stressful out here.” Rachel put the empty cup down on the floor between her foot and the tray. She rubbed both her hands over her face.

A brass note rang out through the room. Rachel leapt to her feet. “My heart seriously can’t take this! What was that?”

“Door,” said Sophie, also standing up. “The front door.” She was still on the far side of Tabitha’s unmoving body.

“Okay, I’ll get it.”

“I can,” Sophie offered.

“I’m not staying here with her and whatever creepy shit,” Rachel called back over her shoulder, disappearing through the doorway to the rest of the house.

Sophie stooped to pick up the phone from beside Tabitha’s head. The call to emergency dispatch was still open, a time counter ticking.

Rachel’s jacket began to shiver again, but stopped after only two notes of its ring. Sophie looked down at it, puzzled, and shook her head.

“Hello?” she said into the house phone. “Thank you very much, do you need to stay on the line now they’re here?”

“I’m afraid they’ll be another twelve minutes,” said the dispatcher pleasantly. “You have a storm in your area and the lane they wanted to take has been blocked.”

“Oh.” Sophie looked across at the door. “Then perhaps that’s the police who just -”

“I didn’t dispatch police. I can. Can you speak freely?”

“Yes, yes of course, there’s no need. She was just upset. She’s gone to answer the front door.”

“The sister has?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause on the line, and a mouse and keyboard clicked faintly. “The paramedics are not with you yet. Can I assume there’s been no change to Tabitha’s condition?”

Sophie looked down, almost startled to find her employer still there at her feet. “Yes, no change. She’s breathing slowly. Ra - the sister put a dry towel over her legs.”

The dispatcher said, “Well, our team will be with you in around ten minutes. I do apologise for the delay.”

“No, no,” Sophie said with reflex calmness. “It’s the storm, it can’t be helped.”

If the dispatcher answered, Sophie didn’t hear it. She held the phone against her shoulder and looked at the doorway.

A spate of rain blew hard against the glass and then there was quiet, the storm’s edge passing over. Sophie could suddenly hear the hum of the pool’s filters again, and the sounds of the room’s heaters and the extractor fan at the far end, among the tall plants. She slid the phone, still connected, into the pocket of her tunic, where it bumped against the shears.

She stepped carefully around Tabitha to pick up Rachel’s jacket, still rain soaked, and lay it neatly across the foot of the long chair. She picked up the empty cup and tea tray and set them on the seat, but left the pieces of broken cup where they lay on the floor.

She paused, listening to the house’s quiet, and sat down again cross-legged, her back to Tabitha, her face to the doorway.