The Purge of Owls

by Cesca Waterfield

In the few months since we’d moved to rural Virginia, every kind of challenge and obstacle had come our way. But it wasn’t until a visit from the Ladies Prayer Circle that I found out my mother’s decorating may have opened the door to Satan. They arrived with casseroles. 

Mom had been trying so hard to be both small-town and respectable—it was only a matter of time before someone decided she’d gone too far. She had a voice that carried. In a town where casseroles were currency, she was always trying to shrink herself, as if erasure might be mistaken for belonging. 

Addie Eula Shivers was a religious woman, the wife of a preacher named Carter. I had heard she could speak in tongues, and both she and Carter regularly went days without food and drank only water because fasting, they said, brought them closer to the suffering of Jesus.

My father had met the couple at the church they led. Dad had been taking the family to visit a number of churches in the area hoping to find one that fit his spiritual Goldilocks criteria: not too hot, not too cold, but just right. We had only gone to Carter and Addie’s church once, but lately she had been calling my mother on the phone several times a week. I knew when she called to leave the room for mom to receive whatever spiritual counsel Addie delivered. If I answered the phone, mom had me hold the handset while she picked up in another room. They didn’t speak until I hung up.

One night Addie came over with a group of five other women in her prayer circle. They filled the couch and Lazy Boy and talked. Within minutes, they began to pray. At the center of the constellation of women, Mom sat eyes closed, shoulders squared. Addie stood, her hands resting lightly atop Mom’s head. Two other women followed suit, their palms barely touching her. The prayer asked for guidance from God. 

“Lord, guide our sister through the tribulations of marriage,” Addie prayed. “Grant her wisdom to navigate a new chapter in this town with her children. May she feel Your presence in every step she takes.” 

Nolie Vanlandingham hadn’t set her pocketbook down since she’d arrived. With her head bowed, her bag squatted atop her knees like a military mortar storage box as she sat on the couch with her feet turned in shyly. 

With prayer delivered, Mom gave everyone root beer and said, “Let me show you around.” The house tour began. Our new curtains framed the river view like a living painting, the water’s surface reflecting the last blush of twilight.

“Beautiful,” Kat Burnside murmured, “a blessing from God Himself.” Nolie walked with her hands clasped before her, the handles of her handbag looped over her wrists. 

The group filed after mom into the kitchen, a procession of curiosity and quiet judgment. They exclaimed over the microwave. “Land sakes!” Belle Covington said, her voice like a tiny rusty hinge. “Such marvels in these modern times.”

“Truly, the Lord provides,” added Mrs. Elliott. Mom stood by, a gracious host tethered to the rituals of hospitality, her smile a permanent fixture, though she occasionally smoothed her slacks, which betrayed a flutter of nerves. 

Suddenly, Addie halted mid-sentence, her gaze affixed to something beyond the sink in the bay window. Light chatter snapped off like a light switch. Making her way to the bay window, Addie stepped delicately, as if a minefield was hidden among the linoleum pansies. She picked up a ceramic sugar bowl painted with an owl that had been sitting next to a potted cactus. She turned toward the group gravely. The sugar bowl sat cradled on her open palm while her other hand, its finger extended, anchored it in place. The gesture was solemn, as if she had just plucked a demon from mom’s shoulder.

“Owls,” Addie itoned, her voice laced with a foreboding that drew a collective lean-in from the group, “are creatures of the night. Harbingers” — she paused — ”that could usher the devil right into your home.”  

Brenda Lee let out a gasp as her hand flew to her mouth. Mom smiled tightly. Harbinger of the devil? she seemed to be thinking. More like harbinger of me hiding the good china next time. “I had no idea,” Mom said. Addie’s gaze swept from the owl in her hand to Mom’s eyes. “Do you have more of these creatures?”

“Yes. I’ve been collecting owls for a few years now.”

“Show me.” Addie’s command left no room for argument. Mom led the way, with the flock trailing behind. They exited the kitchen and paused in the great room where a small curio cabinet displayed a neat row of owl figurines.

“Bring me a box,” Addie said, turning to face one of her prayer companions. The woman nodded and hurried off, returning moments later with a cardboard box salvaged from her car. “You must get rid of these,” Addie’s voice was firm, but not unkind, as if she understood the gravity of what she asked.

Mom’s hands trembled slightly as she reached for the nearest owl — a glossy creature with wings spread as though in flight — and placed it gently into the box. The curio cabinet held other owl figurines: one wore a tiny top hat, another clutched an oak branch in its claws, and a third I had made not so long ago entirely of dried macaroni. From the box, the creatures of the night stared back at us with vacant, unblinking eyes. The procession moved into the library, where two ceramic owls perched like small sentinels on the shelf of my mother’s art books.

As Addie lowered them into the box, I blurted, “But mom, you really like those!” The group looked down at me like I’d suggested we replace holy water with Grape Kool-Aid. 

I couldn’t believe my mother was listening to these women. She had seen the chapel where Addie often fell to the floor “slain in the Spirit.” A chapel decorated by Addie herself, it had a unique charm — or something like that. Its floral arrangements were covered in so much glitter, the altar looked like Preacher Carter had blessed it with the help of a preschool craft box. 

Almost every woman here answered every question with the unwavering conviction of a prophet who possessed the one and only invitation to eternal bliss. 

Not Nolie, who I was beginning to like. Nolie, barricaded behind her handbag which looked like it could hold a small poodle, didn’t nod like a soldier at each proclamation from Addie. Her expression flickered between alarm and the look of someone who had walked into the wrong room and was hoping no one noticed. She was more like my mother, and maybe like me. We could form a girl band like the Go-Go’s, I thought to myself. Call ourselves The Melancholies, or maybe The Sylvia Plaths. For our album cover, we’d pose in front of a bell jar, holding wilted flowers. Our first single, “Anxious Polka,” would have topped the charts, I just knew it. 

Or what about Virginia Woolf and the Millstones?

The caravan trailed down the hall to my parents’ room. As Mom reluctantly handed over her favorite owl— a plump ceramic specimen with large doleful eyes — Addie began to hum a low, ominous tune. The other women joined in, their voices rising in an off-key chant. It sounded less like a hymn and more like something from a Monty Python movie.

In the laundry room, hanging on the wall, was a yarn owl I had made in Bible School. My chest tightened as it joined the other owls in the box. With the second of my projects discarded, I feared my artistic vision was now suspect. 

From the kitchen countertop, owl salt and pepper shakers, a bud vase, a hand towel, the tea cozy, and the object that had caught Addie’s attention, the owl that started it all, the painted sugar bowl. Its feathers seemed to ruffle under Addie’s touch. Its wide eyes stared up as it settled into the cardboard nest.

With the box filled, we returned to the living room. The women circled Mom once more, their heads bowed. Addie’s voice rose in a clear invocation, seeking forgiveness on behalf of my mother.

“Lord, we ask for Your mercy. Forgive this home for unknowingly harboring symbols of darkness.”

“Forgive us,” the chorus of women echoed, their hands on Mom’s shoulders. Eyes closed, Mom leaned into the support of the women who surrounded her, her expression a mixture of vulnerability and trust, hoping, perhaps, for absolution.

At the door, Addie embraced Mom. “Things will start to look up now — the darkness has been lifted.”

The women filed out into the night. Nolie, still clutching her block-like purse, paused to take mom’s hand and looked tenderly into her eyes. As their tires crunched down the gravel driveway, Mom stood motionless, her figure backlit by the porch light. Her blue eyes were wide, her hair was somehow swept up from her face lending her a disheveled grace.

As weeks passed, mom couldn’t bring herself to throw the box of owls away. But neither would she return creatures of the night to shelves in our home. So they remained in the box at the bottom of the linen closet. “Maybe we should just get rid of them,” I suggested one day.

“Maybe.” 

But the box remained untouched, a silent testament to the Great Owl Purge. Sometimes, late at night, I swore I could hear faint hooting from the closet, and I prayed an exorcism of our bed linens would not be necessary. As time passed, I realized the owls were just more witnesses to faith that had lost its footing. If they ever come back out, I hope they’ll forgive us.

 

Cesca Waterfield grew up in South Alabama and Virginia, where she fell in love with the music of cicadas and the lilt of regional accents. Her writing has appeared in The Comstock Review, Scalawag, Mystery Tribune, LUMINA and more. She also documents oral histories, including The Helicopter War: An Oral History of Vietnam Aviators, archived in the U.S. Army Aviation Museum. She can’t resist a backroad or an old oyster house. She once lost an entire day to an antique shop owl exhibit and still isn’t over it. Find her on Instagram @saltcherrychorus.