In The Owl Light Yvonne (pronounced y-von-ie since her ma could not pronounce the French translation but liked the way it looked in the book of names) was a solitary girl. She stayed pretty much to herself, content to spend her days and life in the small but tidy cabin up at Twisted Ravine that her family had lived in for over five generations. The Lenores had always been an odd bunch, especially the women who were supposed to be blessed with Second Sight or physic abilities in every first born daughter. Yvonne had been the first born child and daughter but all her siblings, two brothers and one sister, had died at birth so she virtually was an only child. Now, she was the only one of that tribe of Lenores left since her ma and pa had passed on already. Pa Lenore had been a trapper and a moonshiner and Ma had grown a wide variety of vegetables and herbs as well as a small hen stash so even though the Lenores did not till the land, they lived off it none-the-less. Yvonne had kept to their solitary ways. Though a comely young thing, she had paid no beau a passing glance but preferred the company of her dogs and cats and the Ravine's multitude of wild life. Yvonne, like her ma, made up herbal medicines and brews to cure common illnesses and she would if the case seemed to be really relevant try to do a "seeing" into a situation and inform the “querient “what was going on. These actions earned her a few pennies for the crockery jar and some staples of flour, beans and occasionally, real ground coffee. In hard times, the mint plants and mulberry bushes leaves provided enough dried tea to keep her warm on the cold Tennessee nights. When the Fall came to Twisted Ravine, the black walnut trees, the chestnut trees, birch, beech and oak went ablaze in chorus of golden brown and burnt orange. It was also the season of the bobcat and the owl. Yvonne could hear the cry of the short-stubbed tailed cat as it prowled through the dense woods at night. By October, the pickings were getting leaner and the cat seemed to prowl closer and closer to the cabin. Yvonne worried some about the chickens but then, of course, there was Danny and Boy, the two mongrel curs that kept watch at night and decorated her rough board porch during the day. Life was peaceful until the screech owl showed up on that Saturday night. She was sitting in front of the low burning fire when she heard his first screech. Her heart tightened as she knew that he was harbinger of death of someone close to her but then she seemed quite baffled as there was not really anyone close to her anymore since her parents had died and she had broke contact with her kin in the area. He kept screeching so she grabbed a handful of precious salt and threw it into the fire. It was a costly sacrifice but immediately the owl shut up and then within minutes she heard the whispered beat of his wings as he left the branch of the leaning pine at the side of the cabin and flew into the dark almost moonless night. She returned to the patching of the frayed sections of her great-granny's crazy quilt when Danny and Boy started raising a horrible ruckus outside the front door. She knew by their baying that it was not some wandering varmint out there that would soon leave. Alarmed, she got up from the cherry wood rocker and reached for her pa's 30-30 hanging in its rack over the fireplace and shouldering it with the barrel pointed down, she stepped to the door and by that time, the dogs were going plain crazy. When she opened the door, Marmy, the orange mama cat, rushed inside and Yvonne knew that something was really wrong. Marmy, unlike her many kittens (none now) hated the cabin and preferred the dark secluded corners of the coal and wood shed. As she stepped out onto the porch, she saw him. A solitary figure of a man standing in the front yard, weaving unsteadily, and glaring with terrified eyes as the bristled dogs, snarling and growling from their places on the porch. Yvonne swung the shotgun up horizontal and said in a low mumble, "Hesh, you two." Both dogs immediately sat down on their haunches and stopped their noise but continued to stare with unfriendly intentions as the wobbly stranger in the yard. "Whatcha want, mister?" Yvonne called out from her place. "Whatcha doing up heah?" The man swung his vision from the dogs to the young woman standing between them and then said in a odd accented voice but very refined, "Miss, I need help. I'm hurt. Some kind of wild cat attacked me at the creek a little way down the mountain from here. I think I got too close to one of her cubs. Can yooooooooou help meeeeeeeeee?" he pleaded as she saw him sink to his knees and fainted dead away in the yard. Well, two weeks passed and Yvonne nursed the stranger who for many of those days never awakened from unconsciousness. His wounds were deep lacerations across his chest and shoulders plus he had lost a lot of blood in his trek to find help. She washed him, dressed in one of her pa's old bed shirts, clean and frayed, and bandaged the wounds after applying the herbal ointment to the scarlet welts of wounds, one so severe she had to stitch it closed as it laid right over his heart. She fought his fever, fed him warm broth and shoved the homemade licorice sedative down his throat with a spoon. He slept, healed and with in time, he awakened, free of fever, infection and on the mend. His name was Danube Flaven and he was a botanist from New Hampshire. He told her that he had come to the Smokies to study the many different kinds of flora that grew wild in the woods of evergreens and many other trees. He had been camping by the little creek when a bobcat cub had smelled the scent of his cooking stew and wandered into the camp unafraid. At the sight of the man, the cub had squealed in fear and before Danube knew it, the mama cat was on top of him. He believed that only by "playing dead" she had ceased and left him, taking her frightened cub with her. He had not known how long he had wandered up the raw stones sides of the natural ravine until he had seen the dim lights of her cabin. Two weeks passed into three and then, four when finally, Danube was well enough to leave Yvonne's care. They both seemed reluctant to part as something strange had happened to the well-educated young man and the soft-spoken shy hill girl. They had fallen in love but life was life and they both had to return to their normal parts of it eventually. Danube told Yvonne that he would be leaving and going back down the mountain to Cartersville to catch a homebound train at the rail station. Yvonne was grieving inside as for the first time in her life, she desired the company of another human but she was too proud and too introverted to plead with Danube to stay. His consistent reassurances that he would return to her as soon as he settled things at home with his university and his family did little to ease her fears. Her intuitive powers were flooding her with warning signals. She chose to ignore them. Three days before Danube was due to leave, the screech owl appeared again on the pine limb. The salt tossed in the fire did not silence him as he screeched all the way through the night until the sun rose in the morning. The next night he came back and again could not be silenced. By this time, Yvonne was truly alarmed and she pleaded with Danube not to leave. When she gave her explanation of why, he kissed her gently on the tip of her nose and told she was just being superstitious. By the third night, the owl returned again and called his dismal foreboding warnings but Danube would not be put aside from his decision. When the dawn came and the owl and Danube left, he also left a weeping Yvonne with words of deep love and sincere promises of return and then set off on his trek down to Cartersville to catch the noon train. All day, Yvonne sat in the old wicker rocker on the porch, intermittingly weeping and praying but her every "special" instinct told her it was useless. What would be, would be. At dusk, the owl returned to the tree limb but he remained silent this time. The bird and the girl stared at each in baleful but knowing looks as twilight or known in the mountains as "owl light" drifted into the dark. The owl left at midnight as the full moon crested in the ebony black sky and Yvonne knew her lover was dead. It was not until a month later when one of the locals came for a reading that she told Yvonne about the terrible train wreck at the base of the mountain about twenty miles from Cartersville. It seems that some of the ancient track had disintegrated with age and when the train hit it on that last deadly turn down the steep mountain, it had de-railed the whole thing. The engine and ten cars and caboose had pummeled off the sheer side and crashed in a burning inferno at the bottom of the ravine. Everyone on board had been killed, including Danube Flavin! The story passed down that Yvonne was the absolute last of that branch of the Lenores as she never married or left the cabin at Twisted Ravine until she welcomed another screech owl to the pine tree limb and they found her dead in the wicker rocker three days later, her eyes closed and a peaceful, loving smile on her wrinkled face.