Terry Riley's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Riley left the park and headed downtown. The tomb sat behind him, the fake feathers still catching light in the hollow oak. He kept the real one from his pocket in his fist. Nine o'clock was close. The club sign would be lit by the time he turned the last corner. Half a block in, he felt it. Something above him, tracking. He did not look up right away. He stopped at a shop window and watched the glass. A shape crossed the reflection, low over the rooftops. Wings. He turned his head an inch. A horned owl sat on a ledge across the street, feathers pale in the streetlight, eyes yellow and steady. Not a prop. This one breathed. He crossed the street the wrong way, doubled back, cut through an alley. The owl kept up without hurry. It landed on a fire escape above him and clicked its beak once. He stopped. He said the name under his breath the way it had come to him before. "Tyto Albo." The owl did not move. But something in his chest loosened, the way it does when a friend walks into a room. He thought of the small brass thing he had seen at a market stall weeks ago, an owl stamped on green enamel with a Greek name he had not bothered to learn then. Athena. The word arrived like a hand on his shoulder. He stood in the alley and let it sit. A goddess, if that was the word, warning him. The real bird was hers. The fake feathers were the other man's theater. Two forces, and only one wanted him alive. Then the taste came back. Cold chili on his tongue from the shack by the park. Dry. Wrong. The music at the club had been wrong the same way — off notes, off timing, like it had been learned from something that did not know what music was for. He thought of the fourteen missing players. He thought of what a place takes from a person when it takes them. Souls, if he let himself say it. And a jazz club that fed people every night. The music was dry. The food carried the rest. He said it out loud. "It's in the food." The owl shifted on the rail above him. He did not walk to the club. He turned around. He had to see Frost before he ate or drank anything inside that room. Frost had known a fake feather by touch. Frost would know a plate that carried more than salt. Behind him, down the block, the blue neon of the club sign came on and threw its light across the wet street. Nine o'clock. Riley walked the other way. The owl lifted from the rail and followed him back toward the park, quiet as snow.