Lost in the Woods: Mysterious Stories from the Pennsylvania Mountains (The Family That Reads Together Series) by Moore Robin

Author:Moore, Robin [Moore, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-01-13T05:00:00+00:00

Meanwhile, Grandpa continued his treatments. Even though the doctor was able to stop the hemorrhaging, he was not sure of the long-terms effects of the treatments. He explained that the process was still quite new and was not as successful as they would like it to be. My grandfather’s vision did not improve. But it did not grow worse. Grandpa said that it looked as though he was looking at everything through a thick ground fog.

Snowball was a little late in taking to the air. For most of the month of May, he was a walker. He must have hiked every square inch of our porch railing and even hopped up onto the eve once or twice. Then, one evening, when we were resting on the porch after suppertime, he fluttered down from the railing and landed on the grass a dozen feet away. It wasn’t a long flight, just a few seconds. But we knew that Snowball was on his way.

In the days that followed, the owl tumbled and toppled and banged into trees during his attempts at flight. But he kept on trying. By the end of May, he could make short, wobbly glides and awkward, feet-first landings.

Meanwhile, his appearance was changing. He was no longer completely white. The wing and tail feathers were beginning to show their bold black stripes. His talons were becoming massive, almost dinosaur-like. And I could tell by the way he tore into the road kills that his beak had become an efficient tool. He was almost a foot tall by then.

But it was his eyes which changed the most. They became large yellow orbs, like a cat’s eye marble, with an impossibly black pupil, dead center.

I realized with a little sadness that he would be hunting on his own soon. Then he would no longer need us.

Snowball did hunt. Many times that summer I watched him glide down silently, snatching up field mice or garter snakes in the open fields. But he still came to the porch every evening, for a taste of road kill.

For us, it was like a delightful meeting each summer evening. We would wait on the porch, searching the woods for the fluttering of his white wings in the gathering darkness. At night, his mellow hooting filled the clearing behind my grandfather’s house.

“You know,” Grandpa said one night as we sat in the dark on the porch, “I think there might be some advantages to being blind.”

I had never heard him talk like that before.

“Take right now, for instance,” he said quietly, “We can’t see much. But do you notice how the night sounds seem so alive? And the feel of the night air on your face--I’m noticing that kinda thing more now. They’re little things, you know, things that sighted people miss.”

I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I just knew that in the midst of my excitement about the owl, I had not been dealing with the fact that my grandfather was losing his fight with the darkness.

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