Soren closed his eyes and remembered. It all came back. The awful moment. “You’re right,” Soren said quietly. “You’re absolutely right. I was shoved.”
“Yes, and I sensed he might do the same to Eglantine. Your parents came back, of course, and they were devastated to find you gone. They gave Kludd strict instructions to mind Eglantine the next time they went hunting. But I knew what was coming. I was frantic when they went on another hunting expedition. I thought I’d have to get help. My friend Hilda worked for some Grass Owls in a tree in another part of the forest. They’re a lovely family. I thought maybe they would give me some help. So I sneaked off when Kludd was asleep. Sound asleep, I thought. Well, do you know that by the time I came back Eglantine was gone as well.”
“Gone? Where? What did he say?”
“Oh, it makes me tremble to even think of it. He said, ‘You breathe a word of this, P., and you’ll get what’s coming to you.’ Well, I couldn’t imagine what he thought that was. So I said, ‘Young fellow, that is no way to talk to your elders even though I am a servant.’ And then…oh, this is the hardest…he screeched, ‘You know, P., I’ve suddenly developed a taste for snake,’ and he swooped down on me.”
“Good Glaux!”
“Oh, don’t swear, dear boy. It doesn’t become one of your station.”
“Mrs. P., what did you do?”
“I went down a hole. I waited as long as I could for your parents to return, but I didn’t hear anything except that awful Kludd. Well, there was a back way out of this hole and I thought if I wanted to survive I’d better leave. Imagine—I couldn’t even give notice to your parents. After all these years, not even to give notice. It really is not a proper way to depart.”
“I don’t think you had much choice, Mrs. P.”
“No, I suppose I didn’t.”
“Come with me. I’ve made some friends. We are on our
way to Hoolemere.”
“Hoolemere!” There was a hiss of excitement in Mrs.
Plithiver’s small voice.
“You’ve heard of it and the Great Ga’Hoole Tree?”
“Oh, yes, my dear. It is just this side of Yonder!”
Soren blinked. He felt a wonderful quiver in his gizzard.
“She is NOT for dinner!” Soren glared at Twilight. He had just lit down on the branch that led into the hollow. Mrs. Plithiver was nestled in the feathers just behind his head and between his shoulders. “I want to make that perfectly clear. This is my dear friend, Mrs. Plithiver.”
“Mrs. Plithiver!” Gylfie hopped forward on a branch. “The Mrs. Plithiver? I am honored. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Gylfie.”
“Oh, a little Elf Owl, I believe.” Mrs. Plithiver coiled up and raised her head in a greeting. It wavered slightly above Gylfie’s head and she could sense her diminutive size. “I am enchanted. Oh, my goodness, you’re almost as small as me.” Mrs. Plithiver giggled a bit. Laughter in snakes has a slight hiccuppy sound.
“And this is Twilight,” Soren said.
“Charmed,” Mrs. Plithiver said.
“Likewise,” replied Twilight. “Not used to servants, ma’am. Grew up on my own, more or less. Orphan school of tough learning. Not as polished as these two.”
“Oh, good manners cannot really be learned, young’un. They are bred.”
Twilight looked confused and stepped back a bit.
“Mrs. P., don’t worry,” Soren said. “I have explained to everyone how I come from a non-snake-eating family, and I expect this rule to be followed.” Twilight and Gylfie nodded solemnly.
“Oh, good. I am sure we shall all get along fine.”
“Mrs. P. wants to go with us. She can ride between my shoulders.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do for references, of course, if I can find another position,” Mrs. P. worried.
“What about me?” Soren said.
“Well, yes, I suppose they’ll take the word of a youngster, even though I was actually with your family for much longer than you were. Alas!” She sighed deeply.
“Don’t go getting emotional on us, ma’am. We got flying to do.” Twilight spoke firmly but not unkindly.
“Of course, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. P. gave a little shiver that coursed up her body as if she were trying to shake all such bleak thoughts away. It was almost as if she were shedding her skin.
Then Twilight, perhaps feeling he had been too abrupt with her, added, “I can take you for a spell myself, Mrs. P. I’m bigger than you, Soren. She won’t add much weight.”
“Oh, aren’t you both dear,” Mrs. P. said.
“I’m afraid I can’t offer any such service,” said Gylfie. “I don’t think I weigh much more than Mrs. Plithiver. Although I would welcome her charming conversation.”
“Oh, how sweet. And I have heard that Elf Owls are wonderful conversationalists.” Twilight blinked and muttered something about little owls and big words. “But quite frankly, dear, serving snakes are not encouraged to engage in idle conversation with owls of your station.”
“Mrs. P.,” Soren said, stepping forward. “Please stop all that.”
“All what, dear boy?”
“All this stuff about serving and stations. We are all the same now. There are no stations, no nests, no hollows. We’re all orphans. We’ve all seen horrible things. The world is different now. And part of that difference is that there is no difference between any of us.”
“Oh, no, dear boy. There shall always be servants. Don’t say that. I come from a long tradition of service. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a most noble calling.” Soren realized it would be useless to argue with her.
And so the little band of owls, with the blind snake perched between Soren’s shoulders, lifted into flight. The moon still rode high, although a halo of mist seemed to surround it.
“Oh, this is glorious, Soren. I am in the Yonder. Who would have believed it? Oh, my goodness, you are a magnificent flier.” Mrs. Plithiver’s small voice rang out in sheer ecstasy.
“Hang on, Mrs. P., I have to make a banking turn.” Soren really didn’t need to make such a turn, but he wanted to show Mrs. P. how gently he could carve the night sky with his wing and angle himself in a new direction. He soon made another one so that he could fall back in with the group.
“Oh, Yonder! Yonder!” Mrs. P. exclaimed again and again. “I am in the Yonder!” Her joy whipped out through the night with a singing hiss that to Soren made the stars shimmer even brighter.
Twilight was right. There was nothing like desert flying. The night was not really black but a deep, dark blue. The sky, moonless, tingled with stars. And although the air was chilly, from time to time heat from the desert sands below rolled up in great waves into the night, turning rough air smooth. The three owls would soar for endless minutes on the soft desert drafts, angling their tail feathers and primaries, carving great arcs in the darkness of the blue, inscribing imaginary figures with their wing tips or perhaps tracing the starry pictures of the constellations.
Twilight did know a lot. He told them the names of the constellations—the Great Glaux, whose one wing pointed toward a star that never moved. There was another one called the Little Raccoon, and then on summer nights, he said, the Big Raccoon rose in the sky and appeared to be dancing, so some called it the Dancing Raccoon. Still another was called the Great Crow because it spread its wings in the early autumn skies. But on this night, they flew under the bright and starry wings of the Great Glaux.
For the first time, Soren realized that his body had really changed. He was a fully fledged owl. It was the utter quiet with which he flew that first made him aware of this change. The last of his plummels had finally sprouted. These soft, fine feathers lay over the surface of his flight feathers, silencing them as he flew.
“I think we’re getting near,” Gylfie said.
The three owls began a long glide downward. They were now skimming above the sand, just a bit higher than the prickly cactuses. “Don’t worry,” Gylfie said.
“The needles don’t hurt. We’re too light.”
Gylfie had landed and so had Twilight. But just before landing, Soren heard something—a rapid beating sound. It was a heartbeat. And not that of a snake. In his gizzard Soren knew what it was, a mouse, and his mouth began to water. “Hang on, Mrs. P.! Going in for mouse!”
“Oh, goody!” she cried, and coiled herself tighter into the deep ruff of feathers between his shoulders.
Soren quickly flapped his wings in a series of powerful upstrokes and gained some height. He cocked his head one way, then the other. The heartbeat seemed to pulse across his face. He knew where this creature was and, without even thinking, began a rapid downward spiral.
Within a second, he had the mouse in his talons and had sunk his beak in, just as he had seen his father do when he killed a mouse at the base of their fir tree.
“Good work.” Twilight drifted down beside him. “No one can beat you Barn Owls for picking up a mouse’s heartbeat.” This was the first compliment that Twilight had ever given him.
“Even for one not brought up in the orphan school of tough learning?”
“Not very gracious, Soren!” Mrs. P. hissed softly in his ear. Soren immediately regretted what he had said. “Manners, child!”
“Sorry, Twilight, that wasn’t very gracious of me. Thank you for the compliment.”
“Gracious!” a voice squeaked. “You call that gracious? And I’ll thank you to take your disgusting talons out of my home.”
Soren stepped back and pulled his talons, which were now clutching the mouse, from the sand. From a hole near the base of the cactus from which he had just stepped back, a small face emerged. It was a face not unlike Gylfie’s but larger, with brownish feathers and big yellow eyes with a swag of short white feathers above them.
“What in the name of Glaux…?” Soren began to whisper.
“This is wrong. ALL wrong…” Twilight gasped.
“Speotyto cunicularia!” Gylfie whispered, then added, “very rare.”
“Oh, for Glaux’s sake, you and your big words,” rasped Twilight.
But at that same moment, there was a terrible shriek and the owl-like thing that had emerged from the hole shrunk back. Then they heard a soft exhalation of air. Twilight stepped up to the hole and peered down. “I think it’s fainted.”
“What is IT?” Soren asked, completely forgetting the succulent mouse he still clasped in his talons.
“A Burrowing Owl,” Gylfie said. “Very rare. But I remember my parents talking about it. It nests in the old burrows of ground animals.”
“Oh, Glaux!” both Twilight and Soren said at once, and made gagging noises.
“They don’t!” Twilight said, his voice drenched in disbelief. “Well, learn something new every day, even me…well, more like every other day. Met an owl who won’t eat snakes—oh, pardon me, Mrs. Plithiver.”
“No need to apologize,” she said quickly. “Soren’s family was exceptional in that way. Such elegance they had!” she said wistfully.
“Anyhow, as I was saying,” Twilight continued, “then another who lives in holes—not trees. What’s the world coming to?”
“I don’t think not eating snakes and living in holes of ground animals are quite the same thing. Besides, you said you lived with foxes,” Soren said huffily.
“Above foxes, not in their den. Lived in an old cactus hollow. Their den was beneath it.”
A rustling noise came from the hole. The three owls stepped a bit closer. A beak poked out. “Is he still there?”
“Who?” asked Gylfie. “We’re all still here.”
“The one with the white face. The ghost owl.”
Twilight and Gylfie spun their heads toward Soren.
“Me?”
That was when Soren realized that he had not only fledged the rest of his flight feathers but his face feathers as well. Like all Barn Owls, his face had turned pure white and was rimmed with tan feathers. His belly and the underneath parts of his wings were the same pure white, while the top of his wings, his back, and his head were a mixture of tans and browns delicately speckled with darker feathers. And unlike almost any other owls, his eyes had not turned yellow but were deepest black, which made his face seem even whiter.
“I’m not a ghost,” Soren spoke. “I’m a Barn Owl. We all have white faces.” Soren felt a strange mixture of pride and terrible sadness. He wished his parents could see him now. He must look a lot like his father. And Eglantine—what would she look like? If she resembled her mother, her face would be white but with a more distinct and darker rim, particularly on the lower part. She might have a few more speckles and they would be darker. She would almost be ready to fly.
“Are you sure?” The owl was creeping a bit farther out of the hole.
“Am I sure what?”
“Are you sure you’re not a ghost?”
“Why would I want to pretend to be a ghost? Are you sure you live in that hole?” Soren replied.
“Of course I do. We’ve always lived in holes. My parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my great-great-grandparents. And what’s with the snake on your head and all this talk about not eating snakes?”
“This is Mrs. Plithiver. She has been with my family a very long time. And,” Soren paused dramatically, “we don’t eat snake. We not only find it unappetizing but wrong, and my friends here have agreed—not to touch snake. I want to make that perfectly clear. Or you’ll be a ghost before you know it!” Soren said, raising his voice.
“Perfectly clear,” the Burrowing Owl answered in a quavery voice, and dipped his head toward Mrs. Plithiver. “Pleased to eat ya. I mean, meet ya.”
Soren gave a long rasping sound.
“I’m sure it was just a slip of the tongue, Soren,” Mrs. P. said diplomatically.
“So what happened to your parents?” Twilight asked abruptly.
The Burrowing Owl hesitated and then sighed. “I don’t like to speak about it.”
“Were you snatched?”
Again there was a long silence. And then finally the story spilled out in jagged chunks between gasps and sobs. Soren listened. At one point he heard Twilight mutter, “This is one hysterical owl.” Gylfie told him to shut up.
The Burrowing Owl was named Digger and he had not been snatched, but his two brothers had been. From the description of the owls who did the snatching, it must have been Jatt and Jutt. The most horrific part of the story, however, was the fight that Jatt and Jutt had over the youngest, Digger’s brother Flick. “He was plump, a chubby little fellow, and they…they…they ate him!”
Digger crumpled into the sand in a swoon. “Come on, now,” Twilight said briskly, and nudged the poor owl. “You can’t keep passing out. Buck up.”
Gylfie and Soren looked at each other in disbelief. Soren thought if he heard Twilight say “buck up” one more time, he might just attack. But it was Gylfie who bristled up and suddenly seemed twice her normal size. “His brother’s been eaten by another owl and you say ‘buck up’? Twilight, for Glaux’s sake, show some sensitivity.”
“Sensitivity gets you nowhere in the desert. If he keeps passing out like this, why, if the moon was full, he’d get moon blinked in no time.”
A shudder passed through Gylfie and Soren at the mere mention of those words. Digger began to stir. He dragged himself to his feet.
“How did you get away?” Soren asked.
“I ran.”
“Ran?” Soren and Twilight both spoke at once. This, indeed, was a very strange owl.
“Well, I hadn’t really learned how to fly yet, but we Burrowing Owls are good at running.” Soren looked at Digger’s legs. Unlike most owls, Digger’s legs barely had any feathers and were exceedingly long. “I ran as far and as fast as I could. You see, our parents were out hunting when all this happened, and these two owls were in such a tussle over Flick. Cunny, the next oldest brother, had already been snatched, and this other owl had flown off with him, although he kept yelling back to the other tw
o not to eat Flick. His voice was odd, softer than the other two owls, a kind of tingg-tingg sound. I never heard anything like it.”
“Grimble,” Soren and Gylfie said at once.
“So what happened?” Twilight asked. “Did your parents come back and find you?”
“Well, the problem is that I’m lost. I ran farther and faster than I ever thought I could and I have been trying to find my way back ever since. Once I came to a burrow that looked just like the one that I had lived in with my parents, but there was no sign of them. So it must have been the wrong burrow.” Digger said this in a quavering voice and then added, “Mustn’t it?”
Soren, Gylfie, and Twilight remained silent.
“I mean,” Digger continued, “they would never just leave. They would think something had happened and they would go out and search for us. One of them would search and the other would stay behind. You know, in case we returned or…” His voice died away and was swallowed in the cool breeze of the desert night.
Deep in his gizzard, Soren felt the Burrowing Owl’s anguish. “Digger,” he said, “they might have come back and seen the…the”—he took a deep breath—“the blood and the feathers of your brother on the ground. They might have thought that you had all been murdered. They didn’t really leave you, Digger. They probably thought you were all dead.”
“Oh,” Digger said quietly. And then, “How awful. My parents think I am dead! We all are dead! How terrible. I must find them, then. I must show them that I am alive. I am their son. Why, I can even fly now.” But instead of flying he began to stride off with great purpose into the desert.
“Well, why aren’t you flying?” Twilight called after him.
Digger spun his head around. “Oh, there’s a burrow right over here. I just want to take a look.”
“Oh, great Glaux,” sighed Gylfie. “He’s going to walk all the way across this desert, poking into every burrow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Desert Battle
They flew for another night, skirting the edges of the Desert of Kuneer. Nowhere had they found any signs of Gylfie’s family, not even in the old cactus where they had all lived together before the snatching.