She walks in flowers: a swirl of spring perfumes, the soft flutter of pale petals. A gentle season walks with her scattering broom, meadowsweet, and oak blossom in its wake. She is beauty. She is love. But pure beauty can be callous and love embraces shadow as well as light. 

# 

Alan grabbed his camera and ran out into the bright sunshine of an unnaturally mild spring morning. Every year he tried to photograph the cherry blossom, really tried to capture its fleeting and fragile beauty, the fresh air no-scent of the blooms, the pink cloud mass of blossoms that looked like it should feel like silk candyfloss. He loved it, adored it, was obsessed by it, but could never do it justice. Every year, however, he tried. 

He was taking photographs of the trees in the park when he saw her: slim on the cusp of frail, a delicate heart-shaped face, apple blossom skin and angel blond hair–his dream girl. She didn’t look old enough to be labeled a woman. She was standing, head thrown back, arms raised, innocently immersing herself in the beauty of the blossom. She immediately became his new obsession. 

He took photographs with her in them, surreptitiously took photographs of her, followed her discreetly and eventually worked out where she lived. Now he could watch and photograph her at will. For a while it was enough, but only for a while. 

# 

Her beauty is timeless, as is she. She has existed since Mother Nature births her in a flurry of flowers, feathers, and blood, as humankind first experiences something they will later know as emotion. She is ephemeral as cherry blossom and as lasting as death. Rumours of her stalk pre-history and more recent millennia, emerging as myth and legend and fireside tales told when the night is dark. She is love and passion. She is loss. She is betrayal and hate and vengeance. She is a frenzy of flowers and contradictory emotions, the softness of feathers, the terror of beak and claws and, because she is born of nature, her soul is veined red. 

# 

The photographs of the girl, Alan still did not know her name, were all over his flat. They were good, but they were not enough. She was like the cherry blossom. The pictures were pretty and, in the case of the girl, arousing, but they did not capture the truth of the subject. The photos of the girl did not do justice to her beauty, delicacy, and vitality. He needed something more. 

Alan hung around outside her house, discreetly, of course. He didn’t want her noticing him. Not yet, anyway. He didn’t know how long he’d have to wait, but most mornings she went for a run, often just to the park and back, but sometimes she took a longer run in the direction of the downs. He hadn’t followed her on the longer run, but he’d watched her head off. This morning she came down the front steps of her house and headed towards the park. She was dressed in black lycra running shorts and a pale, tight-fitting pink vest top. He took it as a positive sign. Pink was his favourite colour. 

For all her regular activity, she wasn’t a fast runner. Alan was able to catch up with her, jog along beside her for a little way and make polite conversation. He found out that her name was Flora. He made a joke about the margarine, which didn’t go down well, and things felt off after that. It was because he wasn’t dressed in proper running clothes, but she became uncomfortable. She said goodbye and speeded up, joining with a group of other morning runners in the park. He would need to do something else. In the meantime, he went off to photograph the fading cherry blossom. 

Two afternoons later he was waiting outside her house on the off chance. If she came out, he intended to walk past casually, as if just passing by, and equally casually call out her name in greeting, one running buddy to another. When she did emerge, however, he was oddly hesitant and she had run off in the direction of the downs before he’d had a chance to respond. He followed her, but at a distance. 

Her route took her out of town and up on to the high green slopes of the downs. She might not have been fast, but she was a steady runner and Alan was soon struggling to keep her in sight. He thought he’d lost her, but came across her suddenly taking a rest break up by the mounds, hollows and old stones that were all that were left of some ancient, partially collapsed barrow tombs. She was perched on top of one of the smaller stones, stretching. As he came up behind her, as planned he called out her name in greeting, but an owl suddenly shrieked, the sudden noise surprised her and her name being shouted out by an almost total stranger startled her further. She turned and slipped, falling and off the stone. She lay splayed on the ground at its base. She must have struck her head on the way down because there was blood in her pale blond hair. It lay fanned out from her head like some exotic flower with a blood red centre. 

Alan panicked. His first thought was to run away. His second was to get Flora to a hospital, but they were a long way from anywhere and, as light as she was, Alan couldn’t imagine being able to carry her all the way off the downs and back into town. If he got her to the hospital, he’d then have to explain what had happened. He suspected he would get into trouble. Yes, he could always lie, but what if she came round and told a different version of the story, the one where an almost total stranger, who had been stalking her, accosted her in an isolated spot leaving her battered and bloody. 

If he left her where she had fallen there wouldn’t be those sorts of complications and, in the meantime he could have her to himself. He could be with her and photograph her, look after her a bit and when she came round, she would be grateful because he had looked after her. Thoughts of the many ways in which she might be grateful filled his head and kept him occupied for sometime.  

By the time he’d finished fantasizing it was already late afternoon on the uncertain border with evening and rain clouds were gathering overhead. Despite them, a fragile, pale full moon was about visible. Flora hadn’t moved. He half carried; half dragged her further into the centre of the stones. Because of his eagerness, he wasn’t as careful as he should have been. Her body left a smeared trail of blood that wouldn’t look good in the photographs. He arranged her limbs for artistic effect and then collected ivy strands, leaves and spring wildflowers with which he decorated her. Then he took photographs to capture the moment. 

The flowers and vegetation hid the blood, but there was a surprising amount of it. Some of it puddled in the flat stone he’d rested her head on and then dripped down onto what had been the floor of the barrow, soaking into the dry, thirsty earth.  

The quantity of blood unnerved him and when he touched Flora, she seemed very cold. The earlier clench of panic took hold of him again and all he wanted to do was go home so he could get cleaned up and upload the photographs he had taken. They were exceptional and very precious, sacred even. 

# 

She has been woken. In truth, she is always present, a hint of barely scented breeze on the edges of existence that awakens formless feelings in others, but certain acts or offerings at certain times will summon her into consciousness. If woken with love, she is a swirl of spring fragrance and petals. Wake her with blood and the petals conceal a frenzied core of feathers, claws, and rage. If she wakes in the morning, there is hope the flowers and blossom will hold sway. If she wakes on the wrong side of midday, it is more likely to be feathers and claws. If she wakes while a full moon is in the sky, she is all and only about the hunt. She will not sleep then until the raw red flows. 

# 

Alan was anxious. He hadn’t seen Flora in town and there was talk of a woman’s body being discovered on the downs. He hoped it wasn’t Flora, but in his gut, he knew it was. Part of him wished they had taken longer to discover her body so that any evidence had had time to dissipate. Now every time he heard the wail of a police siren he jumped. 

In a noticeably brief time, he became so attuned to sirens that if he heard them in his sleep, he woke up. They came to obsess him to the extent that other noises no longer really registered. At night when no sirens sang, he slept through the screeching of hunting owls and the fleeting sound of light rain like falling petals. He was therefore bemused to wake up to find his pillow half covered in wilting blossom. He explained it to himself, as far as he could explain it, as something he had done in his sleep. Not that he’d ever known himself to sleepwalk, but times were unusual. 

Irrespective of the unexpected floral arrangement on his pillow, he continued to listen out for police sirens all the next day, flinching every time he thought he heard a distant wail. All other sounds faded into background noise, especially the barely audible sigh of petals on the breeze and the only slightly louder beat of feathered wings.  

The evening news on TV that night carried more details of the body on the downs. No mention was made of the cause of death other than the police were considering it to be suspicious. If the sound of beating wings grew louder, Alan didn’t notice it, at least, not until he fell asleep that night. 

In his dreams he was being chased by a large, dark bird. He ran faster and faster, but the bird was gaining on him. Each time he threw a glance over his shoulder its outline, wings outstretched, was closer. He could now tell it was an owl, a big one, with a still dark body, but a pale, heart-shaped face. It was flying directly above him, claws outstretched ready to plummet and lunge, but as it fell it turned into a bundle of pink flower petals that cascaded down on top of him. He woke, choking, to find petals in his mouth and throat and wilted flowers covering his head and shoulders. 

This time he couldn’t blame it on sleepwalking, but that meant he no longer had a rational explanation. He started to pay more attention to what was immediately around him. 

He didn’t hear it at first, but gradually it wormed its way into his consciousness: a faint rustling like leaves, or feathers, or falling flowers. The sound followed him everywhere: inside his flat, outside, wherever he went. 

All he could hear was the rustling. It blocked out everything else: conversation, the sounds of day-to-day living, even sirens. When he looked over his shoulder now it was to check for falling flowers, or, worse, the heavy beat of hunting wings. 

Another night. He couldn’t sleep. His anxiety was too great and even with all the doors and windows shut (and, where possible, locked) he was on constant watch for a rainfall of flowers or the echoing call of a hunting owl. He almost didn’t hear the sirens when they came for him. It was only the neon blue blooming and dying on his bedroom walls that alerted him. Somehow, he made it down the stairs, out of the back door, down the garden and over the garden wall into the fields beyond. Then he kept on running. 

He had no intention other than to run. It didn’t surprise him when he found himself running constantly upwards towards the downs and its high places. Once there, it seemed only natural that he should head towards the place where the nightmare had begun. 

There was still crime scene tape strung around all the stones. He pulled it down and sought sanctuary between the stones where he had laid her body. The remembered beauty of it gave him some brief comfort until he heard the call of the sirens growing ever louder. 

He could think of nowhere else to run, so he crawled further into what remained of the barrow to hide or give himself up to his fate at the hands of the law. It was then he heard the rustling again. 

At first, he thought it was the dawn wind in the trees, but it grew in volume until it roared with the rush of descent. He looked upwards to see a mass of pink and dark red blossom falling towards him like a heavy rainfall. At the last moment, the flowers parted, clouds pulling apart to allow the moon to emerge, to reveal the extended talons of a large owl topped with a sharp and wide-open beak. Any screams coming from him merged with the triumphant shriek of the owl as fresh blood flowed and sanctified the place once more. 

# 

The bone white full moon is a glorious sight: cold, luminous beauty silvering the world like a silent blessing. Somewhere in the shadows an owl is screeching. If you glance up you may just catch a glimpse of its silhouette as it briefly rides the face of the moon. Alternatively, you may sense a flurry of feather and claw as a shriek continues into the silence of sacrifice. You may, of course, just inhale a fleeting scent of an unknown spring. 

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