I'd never been awake this late. Not really. The other times I opened my eyes at night, it was just for a second, to turn over and go back to sleep. Not this time. This time the garden was calling me differently, and I didn't know how to say no.
At night the garden doesn't smell the same. It's the same lawn, the same path to the oak as always, but everything arrives slower and stronger at the same time, as if the smells during the day had to wait in line and at night they finally all got to come out together. The crickets made a sound that doesn't exist during the day. The moon left everything in a color that's neither day nor fully dark. I walked to the Ancient Oak without making a sound, unusual for me, ears more raised than normal and my nose working triple time.
I knew Nut lived up there, I already knew that. What I didn't know was that she shared the tree with someone else.
'You don't usually come around at this hour,' said a voice from a high branch, not startled in the slightest, as if it had spent the whole night waiting for someone to walk underneath so it could say exactly that.
I looked up and there it was: something large, feathered, very still, with eyes so wide open they seemed like they'd never need to blink. I didn't know what it was. It didn't smell like the birds I know — the ones that get scared and fly off the moment I get close — and it didn't move like any of them either. It stared right at me, turning its head much further than seems physically reasonable to me, and waited for me to say something. Since I didn't, it went on.
'They call me Professor Hoot,' it said, with a calm I'd never seen in anyone in the village, not even Linda on her best days. 'And judging by that face, I'd guess this is the first time you've seen one of mine. I'm an owl, Max. We live up here, in the high branches, and at night we do what you all do during the day: live, just with the lights switched.'
I didn't quite know what to do with that information. An animal living the opposite schedule from me, in the very same tree, and nobody had ever told me. Nut hadn't said anything either, though thinking about it, Nut sleeps at night just like I do, so maybe they'd never even crossed paths.
'Night isn't just the day with less light,' the Professor went on, seeing I was still standing there, processing. 'It's a whole other world that happens underneath the one you know. Most dogs only see the absence of sun. You came to look. That already sets you apart from most.'
I didn't fully understand what he meant, but for a moment — a whole moment, which for me is already a lot — I stood there thinking about it. About how there were probably things happening all the time that I never noticed, because I'm always busy with the usual: running, smelling, eating, sleeping, starting again. About how up there, every night, someone is awake watching the village sleep. It felt like an enormous idea to have all by myself, standing there, at that hour.
Then a moth flew right past my nose.
I'm sorry, Professor Hoot. I really did try.
I jumped after the moth, circling around the base of the tree, tripping over a root, recovering, chasing the bug's clumsy flight as if my whole life depended on it. By the time I looked back up, out of breath, with the Professor's idea nearly lost among the leaves, he was still there, watching me with what I'd swear was patience, maybe even a bit of amusement.
'Come back whenever you like,' he said, before I left. 'Ideas know how to wait too. Moths, apparently, don't.'
I don't know if I'll ever fully understand what he told me tonight. But I'm left with two things that are clear: there's an owl living in our tree, one named Professor Hoot who watches over the whole village while we all sleep, and for some reason, he wants me to learn to look too. For a little while. Until the next moth comes along.
— Max 🐾
🐾 Tuesday, Linda narrates: what Max didn't tell her about the Ancient Oak, and why she already knew this was bound to happen sooner or later.