Christine Powers

Listen to Christine read her story

You watch the circle of squishy, soft humans from the boughs of an ancient oak tree, your gleaming red eyes unnoticeable in the bright daylight. Humans are strange, featherless creatures you usually ignore, but today this group caught your attention after rudely waking you from your slumber with their tittering, shrill cries. You stare down at them, their gnobbly, dull claws gripping sharp metal strips as thin and fine as a fish bone. These metal bones dip in and out of blindingly colorful scraps, pulling threads like spiders, binding them together into angular patterns, fractals spiraling out from their laps, and a thing of beauty unfurls like butterfly wings from a chrysalis.

You wonder how they do it, how their hands flutter and bounce like bees sipping from flowers, how they’re making a flower, and you shift closer on your branch, slowly, so slowly, letting the wind mask the bowing of the bough beneath you, but something still sees you, and you freeze.

Your gaze flicks from the circle of chattering humans, the patches of fur on their heads downy-soft and fluffy and unthreatening as a nest of baby birds, to their guardian, a squat, snarling creature with fangs and claws and outstretched wings not too unlike your own, with shining red eyes locked on your form.

You stare at each other, your own feathers and quills and wings ruffling up to answer the challenge. A warble builds in your throat. You barely dare to breathe, to blink, to show weakness in the face of this guardian beast. It, in turn, does not move, its rough grey skin creased around its wide open mouth, as though daring you to approach the herd it protects and find out just how sharp its long fangs really are.

You take another slow step forward and the tree groans in protest. Almost as one, the circle of humans turn their heads, eyes seeking your shadowy form, and the raw fear of prey digs its claws into your heart. You burst from the tree in a flurry of wings and limbs, fleeing from their scrutiny and their wretched stone guardian.

As you vanish behind the treeline, one of the humans makes noise, and although it means nothing to you, you hear it exclaim:

“Was that fucking Mothman?”

Christine’s prompts were: At a Creative Retreat, a Cryptid, a Gargoyle

Christine Powers lives in Minnesota and puts her theater degree to use working in local government. When she’s not working on her second novel, she spends her time playing tabletop roleplaying games, knitting and making sure the cats don’t eat the yarn.

Read more from Christine:

Frazzled Lit – ‘Ashes to Ashes‘