Callie woke the next morning with blurry vision in both eyes. When she looked across the small bedroom to the other twin bed, she couldn’t focus on her sister. She blinked rapidly and sighed, frustrated.
“How does that happen overnight?” she asked herself. It had happened once or twice before, but never so instantly. Contacts get build-up and go blurry, needing to be discarded. She tossed them out, opened the single shared desk between the beds, opened the second drawer, her drawer, and picked up her last packet of new lenses.
But when she put them in, they were blurry as well. She blinked her eyes several times, went into the bathroom, and washed the contacts with cleaner before rinsing them with saline. She put them in and took them out again.
How could a new set of lenses be blurry too? She looked in the mirror seeing that her eyes were now red with irritation. She had no more contacts, so she crossed into the living area and grabbed her purse from its position on the coat rack.
“Do they go bad on their own?” she wondered aloud, feeling a sense of helplessness creep in. She sighed and opened her purse, pulling out her glasses case.
But her glasses were also blurry.
“What is going on?” she asked out loud, panic rising in her chest. She took them off and looked them over. Maybe they were dirty. But they weren’t. She could clearly see that they were clean.
She could clearly see.
How could she clearly see?
She put the glasses back on and took them off several times, each time confirming the inexplicable truth. No question about it, she could see far better without her glasses. Heart pounding, still in her pajamas, she opened the front door, and stepped out into the cold morning air.
She could see everything! She could see everything better than she’d ever been able to see before with glasses. She could read the mailbox from the front steps. She could see individual pine needles rather than just masses of green. It wasn’t just that she could see as well without glasses as she had yesterday. She could see better than she’d ever been able to see in her life.
Callie went back inside, pulled her chemistry textbook from her backpack, and opened it. She could read it. Without glasses. Without contacts.
“What’s going on?” Amanda asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning as she opened the humming refrigerator and grabbed the carton of milk.
“I don’t need glasses anymore,” Callie said, her voice a mix of excitement and bewilderment.
“What?” Amanda blinked, trying to wake up fully.
“I’m not wearing contacts, but I can see everything. Like. Everything.”
Amanda grabbed two bowls, spoons, and the box of cornflakes, setting them on the table, along with the milk. Preparing to sit down, she stopped mid-way to her chair. “Wait! You’re wearing the necklace,” Amanda observed, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Callie felt it, lying comfortably against her collarbone.
“Take it off,” Amanda suggested.
“Wh—? Oh,” Callie said, reaching back, unclasping the necklace. As soon as she did, the world blurred.
“Holy shit,” she said.
She reconnected the clasp, let the necklace drop and sighed. “It’s changing my vision,” she said, her voice tinged with awe and fear.
Amanda gaped at her. Callie stared back.
“What the actual f—?” Amanda asked, wide-eyed.
“Amanda!” Mom called from her bedroom. “Language.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Amanda said, then mouthed the same thing to Callie again, eyes still wide.
Callie shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said, a nervous laugh escaping her lips.
“An owl gave you a magic necklace belonging to our ancestor that it’s been saving for eighty-five years,” Amanda said. “Literally.”
“Barred owls live like ten years, maybe twelve,” Callie said, her mind spinning.
“So, it’s an owl conspiracy? That’s even weirder,” Amanda said, her voice tinged with a mix of sarcasm and disbelief.
“For real,” Callie said, shaking her head in wonder.
“So, you can see better at night, and you can see, like, better all the time?” Amanda asked.
“Yes,” Callie said, nodding.
“I’d say don’t lose that necklace,” Amanda said, a grin spreading across her face despite the bizarre situation.
“I’d show you,” Callie said, “but I don’t think it works on you.”
“Plus, I have perfect vision,” Amanda said, smirking.
“True,” Callie said. “And color acuity.”
“Wait, has that gotten better too?” Amanda asked, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.
“I don’t know,” Callie said, her voice trailing off as she considered the possibility.
Amanda tapped on her mobile phone and scrolled the screen. “Here,” she said. “Try this.”
Callie had seen them before. Color vision tests. Circles with numbers supposedly in them. Usually, she got about half of them right. Some of them, she was convinced, were straight lies. There was nothing to see. But this time, she saw them all.
“Well, sis, I think you’re going to be able to see sunsets now,” Amanda said after showing her an online color test, a note of envy in her voice.
Callie immediately wondered what this would mean for deer hunting. She knew she had better-than-average ability to detect camouflaged creatures. Would that change negatively? If so, she could always remove the necklace and go back to glasses while hunting, although she’d prefer contacts if they could buy more of them.
“Do you think mom knows?” Callie asked quietly.
“She never had the necklace, right? How would she know?”
Callie shrugged, finished her cereal, and then beat Amanda to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Amanda sat behind her, resting her butt on the clawfoot tub and waiting her turn.
“Why would a necklace give you better vision? And better night vision?” she mused.
“You’re asking me? You’re the smart one,” Callie said.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Amanda said.
“What?”
“You’re just as smart as anyone I know,” Amanda said. “It’s just some things I’m good at are more obvious to people.”
“I don’t get the grades you get though,” Callie said.
“That’s because I actually do homework rather than sitting in the woods all afternoon every day of my life. It’s not an issue of ability. It’s an issue of willingness to do the work.”
“Think I’m lazy?” Callie glared over her shoulder.
“That’s the very last thing I would accuse you of,” Amanda said. “You’re just selective about what matters most to you.”
“I guess that’s true of everyone,” Callie said.
They rode together in the pickup mostly in silence, interrupted only by the occasional wild theory about what the necklace might be, but in each case, nothing could explain what was going on, and they eventually fell silent for the last ten miles of the ride into school.
District School held three hundred thirteen children ages 4-19, from pre-K to high school seniors, all in one building, with twenty-four teachers, a dozen ed techs, and several other staff including Principal Hayward who also acted as the district superintendent. Split roles weren’t uncommon. For instance, Mr. Humphries acted both as guidance counselor and as AP English teacher for the upper classes.
Callie was enjoying sitting in the back row of her chemistry class with no glasses and no contacts, seeing the board better than she had her whole life, not that she really wanted to be in class. She wanted to be back in the woods where she was comfortable. For one thing, the smells of the forest were reliable, whereas in this classroom, a cacophony of scents overwhelmed her. Derrick smelled of pancake syrup. Millicent smelled of cigarettes. Sarah smelled pleasantly like pine shavings, but Tammy smelled like too much perfume, something by Chanel that Callie couldn’t even afford and wouldn’t wear if she could.
Aaron smelled like sweat, like he always smelled, but it was especially strong today. She wondered how often he took showers and when the last one might have been. Peter, sitting three rows over, had taken a shower this morning, but he had also used his sister’s shampoo: strawberry essence.
What the heck? Why all the smells? Just a weird day, she thought. She calculated in her head, wondering if her period was coming, as her senses were always heightened just before it arrived, but that was two weeks away.
Callie had study hall for second period and decided to wander over to see Mr. Humphries, just in case there had been any feedback about her essays sent to the eleven different college programs a month prior. She didn’t expect there to be any news, but Mr. Humphries was a kind man who always smelled pleasant in a way that reminded her a little bit of her father. Woodsy and masculine, with a hint of pipe tobacco always lingering in his beard. She could take that over the myriad of Eau de High School scents assaulting her.
She crossed the main hallway, wondering why Caroline and Jack were whispering so loudly about their plans for a party on New Year’s Eve but decided to ignore that, put her head down and walked quickly toward his office while wondering why everyone seemed to be shouting.
Callie wondered if, perhaps, she was getting ill, and she stopped at Mr. Humphries’ door to breathe deeply and control her heart rate. To her surprise, she was able to silence the noise assaulting her senses and found that she could tune in or out what she wanted to hear, see, or smell. She sought out the smell of Mr. Humphries, but she knew he couldn’t be in his office. His smell was stale. He was gone.
In his place was something familiar and new at the same time. What was it?
Just then, the door opened and a short stout woman with horn-rimmed glasses greeted her.
“Callie!” she said, her voice warm and inviting. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Callie had no idea who the woman was. “You have?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
“Of course, dear,” she said. “Come in, come in. Shut the door behind you and kick on that white noise box, will you? Can’t have people listening in to guidance, can we?”
“Who? Who are you?” Callie asked, confusion evident on her face.
“You can call me Mrs. Scribner. You were expecting me, as well?”
Callie looked her over. Mrs. Scribner had to be in her fifties. She had white and black hair, but no apparent gray. Every other strand was white, and the way her hair was cut it cascaded over her shoulders as if her hair were a hood. She had a slightly hooked nose and wore a large white and gray stitched sweater over a black skirt and blouse.
Callie felt her hand touch the pendant, without realizing she had reached for it.
“You did get the gift! Great. It looks very pretty on you. It’s going to be very helpful for you,” Mrs. Scribner said.
Callie eyed the old woman again and suddenly realized that she did not look entirely unlike a barred owl.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.