My mother told me that owls in trees wailed the windswept night before her father died.

I was ten when she first said it; her voice soft, but not gentle, as if she feared the words might wake something.

We were lighting candles for All Souls’ Eve, the shadows dancing across the walls. She didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. But I never forgot.

Years later, after her funeral, I returned to the old house. She’d left it to me; crumbling at the corners, eaten by ivy, surrounded by woods. The trees pressed close, their skeletal branches scratching the windows like they wanted in. The air felt still. Not peaceful, but expectant.

That first night, the wind rose.

I awoke to it whining through the cracks like something lost, and then I heard them: the owls. At first, just one, low and mournful. Then another. Then another. Dozens, it seemed. Not hooting, but wailing; long, keening cries that twisted through the trees.

Sleep was no longer an option.

I pulled on a coat and stepped out into the moon-lit yard. The cold bit like fangs, and the wind dragged fallen leaves in dizzying spirals. The owls lined the trees; too many to count, all facing the house, all silent now, their huge, unblinking eyes glowing faintly. Watching me.

Suddenly, I remembered something else my mother had said, long ago and half-laughed off: “The owls know when death is near. They don’t mourn it; they announce it.”

The front door creaked open behind me. But I hadn’t left it open.

Inside, the house was darker than it should’ve been. The candles I’d lit before bed were snuffed. The air had changed; colder, yes, but also … older. I heard creaking on the floorboards upstairs; slow, deliberate, as if someone was retracing memories. I told myself it was the wind, or an old pipe, or my grief playing games.

But the owls outside had begun to wail again. And this time, they sounded like they were saying goodbye.

The End