"Well those are rain clouds over there, ain't they?" the older man asked the girl, pointing into the night sky. The girl rested her chin on her hand, following his gaze.

"Naw," she said, settling back after a moment, "Looks like smoke to me."

The winged man had been listening to their conversation lazily, but as his sister settled back, a light caught his attention. In the darkness, past the front of the pickup, beyond the orange glow of the storm lamp, there was an owl.

He'd seen owls before, he'd even seen this kind--but this one was weird, somehow. Wrong. It sat unblinking on the rotten fence posts just past the pickup's nose, its white, round dish of a face turned towards him.

He leaned forward. His sister was saying his name beside him--"Hawk?" she was asking, but he could barely hear her. The owl seemed to be giving off its own blue light, which gilded the rotten fence and the tangles of grass and rose in mists from its head. Maybe it was staring at him, but...its eyes seemed bottomless, pupiless, empty, highlighted by only a smudge of blue light.