“You’re right. It’s been so hot. They’ll all be over there cooling off in those chilly crests.”
“But we can pick up the sweet wind on the south side. No one will know where we’ve gone. They’ll just think we’re off doing something else.”
“I hope so,” Eglantine said in a tentative voice. She was thinking how she had just been complaining yesterday to Soren, and he had said that they might get the northerly wind soon. But if she and Ginger left right now they could pretend that they had flown off before they knew the wind crests were arriving. Yes, that was what they must do! Eglantine was so thrilled at the prospect of seeing her mum that she thought her gizzard might just burst from the joy.
At last I am going toward something, I’m going home! Home! To Mum, to Da perhaps, to our family hollow. As the two Barn Owls circled out and climbed over the Sea of Hoolemere, the moon rose and cast a glinting silver thread of light that led right to The Beaks. For Eglantine, it seemed as if she had lived in an empty hollow forever; yes, that was what death meant for those who had not died but grieved endlessly. The grieving life was a large bare hollow, with long empty flight paths leading to it. But now she knew everything was about to change. Her life would have meaning again. With her mum and da, she was somebody and she would live in a lovely mossy hollow hung with vines of ivy and lichen, listening to their stories. Their legends of that place called the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. To them, it was just a legend. Eglantine knew the tree was real, but it didn’t really count, not like a hollow, not like home.
She began to hum a song that she had often heard her mother sing. Oh, she wished she could remember the words. Her mother had sung it when she was returning to the nest from hunting. It was halfway between a hunting song and a lullaby. Suddenly, the words came back to her, and Eglantine began singing the lovely old song.
I’m coming home to my tall tree
In a forest deep and green,
Where my owl chicks wait for me
Tucked away in my tall tree.
I bring you vole,
I bring coon.
The blood’s not cold,
I’ll be there soon.
And from my breast,
I’ll pluck some down,
So you can rest
‘Til the moon grows round.
Sleep on, babes, grow strong.
May your feathers fledge,
Your wings grow long.
And then at day’s edge
When dark drinks light,
We’ll rise together in chick’s first flight.
Like a seam in the night, the coastline of The Beaks began to glimmer.
“This way,” Eglantine cried out to Ginger and tipped her head toward a lake that was shining in the distance. It sparkled with the reflections of the moon and the stars. Eglantine had never seen anything so beautiful. “It’s like a mirror!” she exclaimed, and, indeed, when she looked down, she could see both of their faces.
“But look over there, Eglantine—a tree, a fir tree! Just like the one you told me about. The one in your dreams!”
“But this isn’t a dream, Ginger. This is REAL!”
And she swooped out across the lake, heading straight toward the fir tree. And she began singing once more.
I’m coming home to my tall tree
In a forest deep and green,
Where my mum waits for me
Tucked away in my tall tree.
Oh, my mum waits for me!
CHAPTER NINE
The Most Beautiful Mum
in the World
Eglantine lighted down on the branch. She cocked her head toward the opening of the hollow. Was she really hearing the same song she had just been singing? And in her mum’s voice? She took a couple of steps tentatively toward the opening.
“Look, she’s braided the moss, Ginger, just like she always did in Tyto.”
“Go on in. Don’t be bashful,” Ginger urged. “It’s your mum, for Glaux’s sake.”
“What if she doesn’t recognize me? I was just a baby then.”
“A mother always knows her own chick, even when that chick has grown up and fledged flight feathers.”
Trembling, Eglantine crept closer to the opening. Then with one talon, she very shyly began to part some of the moss strands. Her mum’s back was to her. It looked as if she was plucking some down from her own breast and arranging it in a soft bed. There must be eggs in there, chicks on the way. There won’t be room for me! she thought and started to back away. At that moment, the owl turned round.
“Who’s there?” she said. A breath seemed to lock in Eglantine’s throat. Her gizzard quaked. It wasn’t a scroom. It was her mum…almost. Something was a tiny bit different. Eglantine felt a shove from behind her. It was Ginger firmly pushing her through the moss curtain.
“Eglantine?” It sounded like her mother. “Eglantine,” the owl repeated again. “Mercy, it’s really you.”
She looked almost exactly like her mum, but she hadn’t remembered her mum’s face as looking so white or so large. It was almost as if the moon had floated into this hollow. And there was a line that ran diagonally across her face where the feathers had grown back not as thickly as before so there was a bit of pink showing through. But, in truth, her mother had never looked so beautiful, scar or no scar. This was one of the most beautiful Barn Owls Eglantine had ever seen. She seemed larger than her mother. But her voice was identical.
“Come in, darling. Come in.”
Eglantine blinked hard. “Why’d you call me darling? You never called me that before.”
A small shudder passed through the owl. “Well…uh…it’s been so long. I can’t remember everything. But I do remember that your favorite bug is a centipede, and look what I have here for you right beside your nest.”
She moved to one side. It wasn’t a nest with new eggs in it. No, it was a little berth for Eglantine, fixed up just the way her mum always had done it, with layers of moss, then down from her own breast, then more moss, then more down, and beside it a little pile of centipedes.
“Oh, Mum,” Eglantine cried and rushed to her mother’s breast.
Her mum’s huge wings wrapped around her. And then while still holding her close, her mum picked up a dried centipede with one talon and began to sing. She sang in a small childish voice that sounded quite strange. It was an old song from Eglantine’s earliest chick days, when she ate only insects.
What gives a wriggle
And makes you giggle
When you eat’em?
Whose weensy little feet
Make my heart really beat?
Why, it’s those little creepy crawlies
That make me feel so jolly
For the darling centipede—
My favorite buggy feed.
I always want some more,
That’s the insect I adore.
More than beetles, more than crickets,
Which at times give me the hiccups,
I crave only to feed
On a juicy centipede
And I shall be happy forevermore.
Eglantine pushed herself away a bit from her mother. “Mum, you remember the song.”
“Of course, my darl—I mean dear. Didn’t I hear Soren sing it to you enough times?”
“Yes…yes…” Eglantine said hesitantly. She looked more closely at her mother. Something seemed just a little bit off.
“Mum, your face seems so big and so white.”
“Well, we all do change a bit, dearest.”
Mum sometimes called me dearest. But it was usually dearest Eggie. She’s sort of got it by half. But never darling. Her mum’s explanation made Eglantine feel a bit more comfortable. But she felt that she was not quite as happy, quite as relieved as she should be.
“But what’s that line down your face?”
“Just a scratch, dear. A silly little collision during a storm with a flying branch. That’s all.”
“But where’s Da?”
“Out
hunting with Kludd and Soren.”
“But that can’t be.”
“Well, why ever not?”
“Soren’s at the great tree, the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”
“Now, Eglantine. We don’t tell fibs.”
“It’s not a fib, Mum. It’s a real place.”
“It’s a legend, dearest, that’s all. And when your da gets back, he’ll tell you stories of it as he always does before you go to sleep.”
“But I don’t think I can stay here all through the day. I’ll be missed.”
“Who could ever miss you more than me, your own mother?”
Eglantine was getting more confused by the second. She looked around for Ginger. “I brought a friend. Where is she?”
“Well, there was no one here but you, darling.”
“No, Ginger was here. I’m sure she came with me. I told her that she could stay with us. She’s an orphan.”
“Oh, dear, how sad.” Her mother sighed. “Of course, darl—dearest. We always have room for another.”
“I knew you’d feel that way, Mum. I told her she would be welcome.” Eglantine said all this while studying her mother as if she were trying to convince herself of some truth. “I just don’t know where she could have gone to now.”
“Well, perhaps she wanted to leave the two of us alone. You know, so we could be just mother and daughter. It’s been so long.”
“Yes, it has,” Eglantine said in barely a whisper.
“But I’m going to feed you all your favorite things—centipedes and a nice plump vole and a bit of field mouse.”
“Oh, yum!” Eglantine said, for she suddenly discovered that she was ravenously hungry.
She ate, yawned, and vaguely wondered where Ginger could have gone. Then, just before she fell asleep in a nest especially prepared by her mother with the loveliest mosses and her mum’s own down plucked from her very own breast, Eglantine did manage to say in a slow, groggy voice, “Mum, please don’t let me sleep too long. I will be in trouble if I don’t get back in time. It may be a legend to you, but it’s something real to me.”
“Of course, darling. It’s all too real for many.” And just as Eglantine’s eyes shut, there was a flash of harsh light that slid into the hollow like the edge of the sharpest blade.
On a limb outside the hollow a huge Barn Owl perched as the moonlight struck his metal mask.
CHAPTER TEN
Eglantine Researches
Am I here? Am I there? In her dream she had felt the softest moss and fluffiest down, but something was a bit more scratchy now, not like the softness of the nest she had dreamed of. Eglantine’s eyes blinked open. It was full daylight. There was Ginger. They were back in their hollow at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. She knew she had been someplace, to the dream hollow, but she had not gone there in a dream. I really went there. I think I saw Mum. She said, “Come back,” but how in the world did I get back here?
Eglantine had no recollection of flying back. She looked around the hollow. Where was Primrose? Oh, yes, in the infirmary, she remembered. And she had promised to go visit her at tween time when everyone would be getting up. She resettled herself in what she now felt to be an exceedingly scratchy bed of moss with no nice fluffy down, and she waited for sleep to come.
But sleep didn’t come. In fact, Eglantine was not at all sleepy. She felt wide awake and had a sudden urge to go to the library. She got up and flew from the hollow, weaving through the bright sunlight of midday, spiraling upward in the tree toward the entrance to the library. Nobody would be there now. It would be empty. Not even Ezylryb—who was always in the library—ever came at this time of the day. Normally, Eglantine went to the shelf with the game books and puzzles, but for some reason these seemed boring to her now. So instead she went to another shelf, the shelf that Otulissa loved, the one that had the books on higher magnetics and flecks. Great Glaux, she remembered the fuss about these books last winter when Dewlap had wanted them declared spronk, or forbidden, which of course was absolutely opposed to everything the Guardians of Ga’Hoole stood for. They believed that no knowledge should ever be forbidden.
And how right they were, Eglantine suddenly thought. All of this should be shared! It’s my duty! My mission!
And so she plucked a book from the shelf with the title of Higher Magnetics: The Destructive Powers and began to read. Great Glaux, this is fascinating! She wondered why she had ever wasted her time on game books. She was worried she might not remember it all, so she went and fetched a paper, quill, and ink so she could make a few notes. She had been working several hours before she realized that the harsh light of noon had begun to leak out of the library hollow from its opening and a softer light began to slip in. Although she did not feel at all tired, for some reason she did not want to be discovered in the library even though it was approaching a more normal hour for such study. She rolled up her papers and decided to go back to her own hollow and catch a nap. It would be at least another hour until Madame Plonk sang “Day Is Done, Night Has Come” to rouse them. There was one other thing she had wanted to do. What was it? Oh, yes. Primrose. She had wanted to go see Primrose in the infirmary. Oh, well, there would be time for that later.
When she returned to her hollow, Eglantine saw that Ginger was still sleeping. She tucked her papers into a small niche and settled down. It seemed as if she had only been asleep five minutes when the first chords from the grass harp threaded through the twilight and Madame Plonk’s voice shimmered with the “Day Is Done” song and woke her up.
Now twilight came, and Ginger roused herself. Eglantine simply had to ask her if the trip to The Beaks had really happened and how they had gotten back.
“Ginger,” she said slowly. “We were there, weren’t we?”
“Where?”
“You know where. At my mum’s in The Beaks.”
“Yes. We flew there,” Ginger assured her. “Don’t you remember?”
“Sort of, but I have no memory of coming back.”
“Well, you did. Here you are.”
“But where were you?”
“Where was I when?” Ginger asked.
“You seemed to disappear when I went into the hollow with Mum.”
“Eglantine, I was there the whole time. Maybe you were just so excited about seeing your mum you didn’t notice. But I was there. I heard your mum sing that cute little centipede song.”
“You did?” Eglantine asked, genuinely excited. That means it really happened. Mum is alive.
“I did. Your mum was so nice to me.”
“She was?”
“She certainly was,” Ginger answered.
“Oh, I can’t wait to go back. Do you think we can slip away again tonight?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I wonder if I should tell Soren.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t rush that,” Ginger said. “Don’t you want to have your mum all to yourself for a while?”
“Well,” Eglantine hesitated.
“Look. You’ve been left out so much,” Ginger said soothingly, “you should have something that’s just for you.”
“Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right.” For a sliver of a second Eglantine felt a tiny bit greedy, but she quickly forgot about the feeling and basked in the anticipation of her mum’s love and attention.
So night after summer night, Eglantine and Ginger managed to slip away. Certain odd things happened to Eglantine’s mind and her memory on these visits. She could never, for instance, quite recall how she got back from The Beaks, and it seemed odd to her that Ginger was rarely in her mum’s hollow. And her father never appeared. But none of this bothered her much, just as her mum’s occasional slips of calling her darling stopped bothering her. She quickly forgot about anything disturbing, just as she had forgotten to tell Soren about having found their mother, and just as she had forgotten about visiting Primrose in the infirmary. No, once she flew over The Beaks and neared the hollow, all her concerns and worries simply melted away.
&n
bsp; And her mum was always so proud of her, especially her reading and her writing skills. Her mum saved every little paper Eglantine brought her and praised her fine penmanship. She always showed such interest in the books that Eglantine was reading.
“There’s one, Mum, that tells all about flecks and how to make more flecks from flecks.” At this her mum grew very excited.
“Oh, darling! I would love to know about that. Please copy that one down.”
“Oh, Mum, I don’t know. It’s in a very big book with a lot of writing on each page and very complicated diagrams.”
“Well, darling, I think if you would just tear out a couple of the pages, no one would notice.”
Eglantine blinked. Did something perhaps prick at the back of her mind? Did her gizzard perhaps flinch ever so slightly? Although it hardly stirred at all anymore. She simply said, “Sure, I’ll get it next time.”
And she did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Primrose’s Last Thought
But Eglantine, I was in the infirmary for two weeks and never once did you come to visit me. Not one time.” Primrose peered at her friend in genuine confoundment.
Eglantine blinked. “I’m sorry, it just slipped my mind.” But she didn’t look the least bit sorry. She did look different, though. Her usually lustrous black eyes had a dull gaze to them. Primrose didn’t know what to think. “I’ve been so busy, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” Primrose replied. “How would I if you never came to visit me?”
“Oh, well. I’ve been busy, trust me.”
And it was when Eglantine said those two simple words “trust me” that something clicked in Primrose’s brain and her gizzard gave a painful little twitch. Primrose did not trust Eglantine. Not one bit. And she was going to find out why. What had changed her friend? It was no longer a question of not being included. Primrose guessed that she might not even want to be included in whatever Eglantine was up to, but she planned to find out what it was, nonetheless. Until she knew more she would keep her thoughts to herself, but as soon as she figured it out, she would go directly to Soren. However, before she did that, she dared to ask Eglantine a question. “Eglantine, I want to know something.”