And then below him were the tantalizing Mirror Lakes that had transfixed the band in a kind of deadly stupor on their first journey to Ga’Hoole. Great Glaux. He blinked at the dazzling sparkle of the lakes beneath him, but those lakes abruptly shattered into thousands of pieces.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Plithiver,” he heard himself say. Without even banking, he did a steep dive toward the lakes. He blinked. A dazzling white brightness nearly blinded him. Dread crept around the edges of his gizzard. The radiant brilliance of the shards reminded him of something. Something terrible. What was it? No time to wonder. The fog was drifting back over the lake. Only it wasn’t fog. It was smoke—but there was one small clear space above the lake. He would dive for it now. “I’ll take these lakes—piece by piece. Yes, Mrs. Plithiver, piece by piece by piece.”
Soren woke up suddenly and clamped his beak tight. Great Glaux! It was a dream! I was talking in my sleep! He looked across at his hollowmates and hoped his babbling hadn’t woken them up. But they all seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Soren went back to sleep and would not remember this dream for a long, long time—until it was almost too late!
CHAPTER SIX
So Close!
And in another hollow, another Barn Owl dreamed another dream.
Yes, just like the old fir tree, Eglantine thought. Just like home. And look, there’s moss draped across the opening, the same way Mum did it, to keep out the cold wind, or the sunlight if it was too strong. She crept closer on the branch. Did she dare peek through? Why, Great Glaux! Even this branch I am standing on is the same. Then she heard a soft hiss and a slithering sound. Why, that’s exactly the sound Mrs. Plithiver makes when she’s tongue-vacuuming and sucking up all the vermin. I’d know that sound anywhere! Eglantine’s gizzard was about to burst with excitement. This is more than a dream, she thought. Oh, Glaux, don’t let it end! If I peek in, will I see Mum and Da and Mrs. P.? Will everything be like before? Eglantine edged in close to the moss curtain. Behind it, she saw a shape bustling about. The whiteness of a Barn Owl’s face shone through the green strands of moss. Is it really you, Mum? She was about to poke her beak through the curtain and ask. Then a breeze stirred the moss. It riffled through her pinfeathers, a cool current of air. This was no dream about a breeze. She really felt it.
“Wind shift,” a voice outside her hollow said. It was Ezylryb.
“Oh, no!” moaned Eglantine, and woke up. “I was so close! So close, this time.”
“So close?” said Primrose, coming into their hollow. “So close to what? Eglantine, don’t tell me you’ve been sleeping all this time? Glaux, it’s not even near morning. How will you ever sleep during the day when we are supposed to?”
Eglantine blinked. “Oh, I will.” I have to, she thought. She was absolutely desperate to get back to her dream hollow.
“Verrry interesting!” Otulissa pored over the fragment that the band had brought back from the island off the Broken Talon peninsula.
“Is it from the book?” Soren asked.
“Definitely,” Otulissa replied.
“Can you read it?” Gylfie asked.
“Just barely. There’s one word that looks like ‘quadrant.’”
“Quadrant?” Gylfie said. “That’s a navigational term.”
“I know,” said Otulissa. “I can’t imagine why it would show up in a book on fleckasia.”
“You know,” Soren said, “I’ve seen Ezylryb fix up old books, especially ones where the pages have faded. He takes Ga’Hoole nut oil and soaks it into the page. The writing becomes a lot clearer.”
“Worth a try.” Otulissa looked up. “If only to prove that Dewlap is a traitor and not in the least shattered or having a nervous breakdown.”
Soren looked at Gylfie and the same thought went through both their minds. She’s still blaming Dewlap for Strix Struma’s death. Soren wondered if bringing this fragment back had been such a good idea after all. If Otulissa was only using it to get back at Dewlap, it seemed kind of stupid—even wrong—to him. The parliament would never decide to turn her out. It wasn’t the Ga’Hoole way. Boron and Barran, the monarchs of the tree, had said as much: Turn an owl out, and it becomes your enemy. If Dewlap was not a traitor before, she would certainly become one if she were banished.
Instead, Dewlap would be relieved of her responsibilities. She would be quietly retired. Already she had been removed from the parliament. That was the supreme dishonor. No owl in the history of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree had ever been removed from the parliament. But Soren knew it was useless to talk to Otulissa about this. She was bound and determined to have her vengeance on Dewlap for the death of her beloved Strix Struma. She had sworn to do so. She had, indeed, changed. He had seen that immediately after the last battle of the siege in which Strix Struma had been killed. He had gone to check on Otulissa in her hollow. She was bent over a piece of paper, writing and drawing something. When he had asked what it was, she had said it was an invasion plan. Even though Strix Struma had been killed, the Guardians of Ga’Hoole had won the last battle. Yet, somehow the leaders of the so-called Pure Ones, Kludd and his terrifying mate Nyra, whose face shone white as a baleful moon, had escaped. Otulissa’s words came back to him:
“They aren’t finished with us, Soren. And we can’t wait for them to come back and finish.”
“What do you mean?” he had asked.
“I mean, Soren, that we can’t fight defensively. We have to go after them.”
The fury in Otulissa’s eyes had made Soren’s gizzard roil.
“I’ve changed,” she had said softly. But her voice, Soren remembered, was deadly.
The invasion might wait, but for Otulissa the vengeance was to begin here, right here in the tree, with Dewlap as its target.
A silence fell on the group. They all sensed the pent-up violence in Otulissa, who was normally a reflective, highly intellectual owl. It unnerved them.
“Well,” said Gylfie a little too brightly, “isn’t it almost time for Trader Mags to arrive? Let’s go wait for her.”
“Why would I want any of that ostentatious stuff she’s always strutting about with?”
Aaah, that’s the old Otulissa, Soren thought thankfully.
“But I guess there’s nothing else to do. I’ll go,” Otulissa said grudgingly.
Madame Plonk, whose ethereal voice sang them to sleep each morning and roused them in the evening with the accompaniment of the grass harp was, as always, first in line to survey goods brought in by Trader Mags and her assistant, Bubbles, a rather scatterbrained young magpie.
“Oh, Madame Plonk, as gorgeous as ever,” Mags addressed the large and lovely Snowy. “What have we here to show off the glorious whiteness of your silken plumage?” Mags cast a sweeping, beady-eyed glance over her goods. “Ah, yes. A crimson, ermine-trimmed cape—well, part of a cape.”
Trader Mags then swiveled her head toward Primrose, who was examining a drop of amber. “Hold it up to the moonlight, dear. It’s got a bug in it. Little, tiny beetle. They say it’s a good-luck charm. Not heavy at all. Even a Pygmy like you can fly with it.”
“Fool’s iron! That’s what I call it.” Bubo the blacksmith had come up. “But pretty.” He nodded toward the amber drop.
It is lovely, Primrose thought. She didn’t much believe in good-luck charms, but most of the jewelry and pretty things that Madame Plonk sold were too heavy for a small owl like herself. She had some awfully pretty turquoise chips that she had found in a stream on a search-and-rescue mission once.
“Would you take some turquoise chips for the amber, Trader Mags?” Primrose asked.
“Oh, yes, dear. I am mad for turquoise chips. They become me, you know. You have to have a certain plumage and stature for them to show. Run and get your turquoise, and I’ll wrap up the amber for you.”
Soren, who was watching the bargaining from a wingspan away, caught a blur of movement behind a small stand of birch trees where mice could often be found. He decided to explore and, without saying whe
re he was going, slipped away silently.
Soren’s beak dropped open in utter horror as he peered down through the slim white branches of the birch tree. Never in his life had he seen anything as revolting as the scene beneath him. An owl had just pounced upon a mouse. After having made a deep gash in its back exposing the spine, the mouse not yet dead but still mewling in agony, the owl had proceeded to tickle the dying creature with a blade of grass, all the while singing a little song. And then, most shocking of all, Soren recognized his own sister, Eglantine, who seemed frozen in rapt attention, watching as her friend Ginger sang, tickling and playing with what she would soon eat. This was in violation of every food and hunting law in the owl kingdom. Where had this Barn Owl been raised? What kind of family allowed this sort of behavior? Without thinking, Soren swooped down and thwacked the mouse on the head, killing it instantly and then gulped it down headfirst in proper fashion.
“Hey, no fair! Why did you do that? That was my mouse.”
Soren glared at Ginger. “You are a disgrace to the tree, a disgrace to every owl kingdom on the face of the earth. What sort of creature plays with her food? You don’t deserve to eat.” Then he swiveled his head toward Eglantine. “Eglantine, you go back to my hollow. I’ll talk to you there.” Eglantine blinked. It was as if she were coming out of a spell.
“You’re always ordering her around. She doesn’t like it. And you never include her. She feels left out,” Ginger said.
“I hope she feels left out of this!” Soren shreed. He used the high-pitched tone of voice understood instantly by all owls to express utter anger. “Eglantine, on your way. And you!” He turned his attention back to Ginger. “You, I am reporting to Boron and Barran.”
“Oh, Soren, don’t report her. She’s been raised by those awful owls, the Pure Ones. They never taught her anything. They were brutes, all of them,” Eglantine pleaded. Within seconds both Ginger and Eglantine were sobbing.
“She’s right. I know nothing,” Ginger was saying, suddenly contrite. “I learned nothing except bad manners.”
“This is beyond bad manners. This is brutality.”
“Well, yeah. That, too,” she replied. “Your own brother was the most brutal owl imaginable.”
“Yes, but I’m not, and Eglantine’s not. And we were all born in the same tree, in the same hollow, in the same nest to the same parents. We are not like Kludd, and you don’t have to be this way, either. Don’t use excuses. You’re among civilized owls now. Haven’t you learned anything?”
“Oh, yes, so much. So much from your sister.”
Soren saw that Eglantine was yawning now. When Soren had mentioned the tree, the hollow, the nest, and their parents, it had made her think of her dream.
“What are you yawning about, Eglantine? You’re always yawning. Don’t you get enough sleep?”
“No, I don’t think she does,” Ginger said. “I think she might have summer flux.”
“Oh, great. Now you’re a doctor?”
“Just don’t report her, Soren. Please!” Eglantine yawned again, and her eyes fluttered as if she could barely keep them open.
“All right, all right. But Eglantine, I want you to sleep in my hollow. Then you’ll feel included, right?”
“Right,” Eglantine said sleepily.
“But what about me?” whined Ginger.
“What about you?” Soren shot back.
“I’m not included. Now I feel left out.”
“Tough pellets! When you learn not to play with your food, maybe you’ll be fit to be included.”
Soren made sure that Eglantine was bedded down in his hollow and then went to find Gylfie. “You’re not going to believe what I just saw.”
“Look over there,” Gylfie replied, nodding in the direction of Trader Mags. “Do you believe what you’re seeing now?”
Otulissa was oohing and aahing over some stick that Trader Mags had. “You really have the most enormously interesting collection. Let me see. What can I trade you for this stick? And look, after giving you all my finest lucky stones for that chart, I almost don’t have any left over. You really are wonderful.”
Soren could not believe his exceptionally good ears. “Stick? Chart? Trader Mags is ‘wonderful’?” What had happened to the Otulissa who had never approved of the magpie trader ?
“She’s struck gold with Trader Mags,” Gylfie whispered excitedly. “That stick is a dowsing rod for finding flecks in the ground or in streams. The chart is a diagram of the owl brain, cross-referenced to a diagram of the gizzard, which could help explain fleckasia.”
“Glaux! I guess she did strike gold,” Soren replied.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sign of the Centipede
I can’t believe we’re going to find any flecks around here,” Gylfie said.
The band was walking behind Otulissa through a grove of trees on the southern side of the island as she stepped carefully with the divining rod in her beak. She was quite awkward with it and often dropped it.
“Can you imagine what that stick would do in the canyons of St. Aggie’s?” Twilight said.
“Shake itself to bits,” Digger replied. “Otulissa, why don’t you let an experienced walker like myself try that thing?” The Spotted Owl had dropped the stick again.
“All right, my beak is tired from holding it.”
Digger picked up the rod and walked in graceful strides while swinging his head in arcs.
It was getting a little boring. The rod had not given the slightest quiver. But for Soren it was a nice break from worrying about Eglantine. It was decided that she was suffering from some form of summer flux. She had been put in the infirmary where all she did was sleep and dream some pleasant dream that she was always anxious to get back to. Recently, though, the infirmary matron had reported that she was sleeping somewhat less. She had even roused herself the previous evening to go out on a short flight with Primrose and Ginger.
The night was now getting old, however, and soon it would be time to return to the tree for breaklight and then sleep. So the owls decided to put the rod aside and go out for a quick flight over the moonlit Sea of Hoolemere. It was a beautiful summer evening and there promised to be plenty of scooters, for the day had been quite hot. Scooters were land breezes that spilled off the edge of the cooling island. Because land cooled faster than water, it created silky winds that could be ridden almost without stirring one’s wings. They were great fun to play in and the owls could slide down their gentle slopes until almost hitting the water. They had been doing this for several minutes when Gylfie spotted Eglantine and Ginger.
“Look, Soren, there’s your sister, up and about!”
“Oh, good! She must be feeling better.” He climbed up the wind slope, and when he reached the top called out, “Eglantine! Ginger!” He was trying extra hard to be nice to Ginger. He had felt that Eglantine had been right in a way—Ginger, after all, had known only the brutal ways of the Pure Ones, and her bad behavior really wasn’t all her fault. And Ginger did seem to respond well to his kindness. She seemed much nicer and was genuinely trying to learn the ways of civilized owls. The three of them now sought a perch in a spruce tree that somehow clung to the rocky edge above the beach.
“Where have you two been?”
“Halfway across the sea!” Eglantine exclaimed with delight. “I think I really am getting better. I’m not sleeping nearly as much. I think it’s that tonic matron has been giving me.”
“And she’s getting stronger, too,” Ginger added.
But what Eglantine did not tell anyone was that although she wasn’t sleeping as much, her dreams had become even more intense. And more important, she now knew they were not just dreams but were real and true. Out there—somewhere—was a hollow just like the one in which she and Soren had been hatched, and their mother was there, waiting for them. It wasn’t in the Forest of Tyto but rather, she suspected, in the region known as The Beaks. She could see this place perfectly in her dream. The hollow was in a fir tr
ee, and it was near a beautiful shining lake. She hadn’t told anybody yet, not even Primrose or Ginger. But she knew if she stayed awake a little longer each night and tried to fly as hard as she could, soon she would be strong enough to fly there.
And then what joy there would be! She would be Soren’s hero. She would be the one who found their parents. And Soren would never again dare leave her out of anything. They would all be happy together. Eglantine had already figured out that they would live together here in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree part of the year and then the other part of the year in their own private hollow in The Beaks, or maybe even back in Tyto. And Mrs. Plithiver would come along and keep everything as neat and perfect as she had before. Yes, it would all be so perfect, and she just knew that her parents were so smart that Boron and Barran would ask them to be rybs. Oh, it would all be so wonderful.
Eglantine and Ginger flew back to the tree with the other owls who had been out. They headed toward Mrs. P.’s table for breaklight.
“Good news!” Mrs. P. said as they gathered around her for one of their favorite summer meals, milkberry jelly with a small bug set right in the middle.
“What’s that?” said Soren.
“Matron says that Eglantine is well enough to return to her own hollow to sleep.”
“You were out flying tonight,” Gylfie said to Eglantine. “So you must be feeling a lot better.”
“Yes,” Eglantine said.
“Oh, great!” Primrose said. She had missed Eglantine so much when she was gone. But she had to admit that Ginger was a lot nicer than she had been at first.
“But,” Mrs. P. continued, “you have to keep taking the tonic, Eglantine.”
“Oh, I will. I promise. ”
“Oh,” Primrose exclaimed. “I got a dragonfly in my jelly. My favorite!”
The other owls began poking at their milkberry jelly to see what bug might be embedded in the lilac-colored treat.