COPYRIGHT

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the USA by Scholastic Inc 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2007

Text copyright © Kathryn Lasky 2004

Illustrations copyright © Richard Cowdrey 2004

The Kathryn Lasky and Richard Cowdrey assert the moral right to be identified as the author

and illustrator of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007215218

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008226831

Version: 2016-12-01

DEDICATION

For Joy Peskin

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: A friend in Need?

Chapter Two: Spronk No More

Chapter Three: A Grim Tweener

Chapter Four: A Missing Piece

Chapter Five: A fragment from the Sea

Chapter Six: So Close!

Chapter Seven: The Sign of the Centipede

Chapter Eight: Mum Waits for Me

Chapter Nine: The Most Beautiful Mum in the World

Chapter Ten: Eglantine Researches

Chapter Eleven: Primrose’s Last Thought

Chapter Twelve: A Gizzard Begins to Stir

Chapter Thirteen: The Lucky Charm

Chapter Fourteen: As a Gizzard Twitches

Chapter Fifteen: Piece by Piece

Chapter Sixteen: The Sacred Orb

Chapter Seventeen: The Hostage Egg

Chapter Eighteen: “It Cannot fail!”

Chapter Nineteen: The Peg-out

Chapter Twenty: A Crown of fire

Chapter Twenty-One: The Gollymopes

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Living Dead

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Passing of the Claws

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

It was the same. That was her first thought.

It looks just like the old fir tree, the one where Soren and I were hatched. And even the shape of the hollow’s opening where Mum and Da made their nest, a lopsided O – wasn’t that the exact shape?

Eglantine knew she was dreaming, but it seemed so real. Like no dream she’d ever had. It was so lovely she didn’t want it to end. She wondered if she flew a little closer and just took a peek, would the hollow look the same inside? Would her mum and da be there? Oh, it had been forever since she’d seen them. Soren said they were dead. He had seen their scrooms, the spirits of dead owls. She hated it when Soren said that. Eglantine squirmed now in her sleep as the words from the awful conversation wove through her dream.

“You saw their scrooms? That means they are dead, doesn’t it, Soren?”

“It does, Eglantine, and there is nothing we can do about that.”

And then Twilight had added his horrible conclusion. “Dead is dead.”

“Dead is dead.” The words swirled around her like black crows getting ready to mob. “Dead IS NOT dead!” She shouted back in her dream. “Dead IS NOT dead.”

CHAPTER ONE

A friend in Need?

“Wake up, Eglantine! Wake up!” Primrose, Eglantine’s hollowmate, was vigorously shaking her. “You’re just having a bad dream.”

“Oh, for Glaux’s sake, let her sleep,” said Ginger, the newest hollowmate. Ginger was a Barn Owl who had actually been part of the attacking forces during the terrible siege of the previous winter. She had been wounded, but during her recovery she had decided that she’d had enough of the Pure Ones and much preferred life in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. She had not yet, of course, been approved for training as a Guardian. That would require some time. Nonetheless, Eglantine had taken her under her wing, so to speak, and become a kind of big sister to Ginger during her recovery. They had grown quite close in the process. But Primrose was still Eglantine’s best friend in the tree.

“Let her sleep?” Primrose swivelled her head towards the reddish Barn Owl. “Let her continue to have this awful dream?”

Ginger merely sighed and said, “She’s tired. She needs her sleep, bad dream or not.”

Suddenly Eglantine’s eyes flicked open. “Why in the name of Glaux are you shaking me? I was having the loveliest dream.”

“Loveliest dream?” Has she lost her mind? thought Primrose. “You were screaming your head off about being dead or not dead, Eglantine.”

Eglantine blinked. “No I wasn’t,” she replied defiantly. “I was having a wonderful dream about the old hollow in the fir tree back in Tyto where Soren and I lived with our mum and da. And I was just about to go into the hollow. Something wonderful was about to happen, and then you came along and shook me.” She looked accusingly at Primrose. Ginger pretended she wasn’t paying any attention and commenced humming a little owl ditty that Eglantine had taught her.

Now it was Primrose who blinked at Eglantine. Something about her friend seemed different. She’s seemed different for a while, Primrose thought. Is it just my imagination? It must be my imagination. What if she doesn’t want to be my friend any more? Primrose didn’t think she could stand that. She had to stop thinking this way. She and Eglantine were best friends. They had been from the very start, from the day Eglantine had been rescued. Why, she herself had been on the rescue mission that had found Eglantine.

Like most of the young owls in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, Primrose had also been rescued by the Guardians. She had lost everything in a devastating fire that had swept through the forest of Silverveil. In a matter of minutes her hollow, her homeland, her parents and even the eggs of her future brothers and sisters had been destroyed. But since her rescue, life at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree had been wonderful, and the best part was having a best friend. It didn’t matter that she was a Pygmy Owl, quite small, and that Eglantine, a Barn Owl, was huge by comparison. They had so much in common. They were so much alike. No, she’d never find another friend like Eglantine.

“Look,” she said to Eglantine, “I’m sorry I woke you from your nice dream. It looked like a nightmare to me. I just couldn’t stand hearing you cry like that.”

“It’s all right, Primrose, don’t worry. I know you meant well.” Eglantine said it softly, and then repeated, “Don’t worry. I’m going right back to sleep and finish my nice dream.”

But Primrose was worried.

Within a few minutes it would be tween time, those slivers of seconds between the last minute of the day and the first of the evening. It was a lovely time, especially in summer as it was now. The sky turned a soft lavender just as the sun began to slip away. Sometimes there were streaks of pink and a fragile light illuminated every leaf and blade of grass, making everything stand out with special beauty. Primrose sat on the branch just outside her hollow and watched the subtle transformation of the lovely Island of Hoole as the light played across it. How close they had come last winter to losing it all to the terrible owls known as the Pure Ones, who were led by Kludd, the brother of Eglantine and Soren.

How fragile life is, thought Primrose, how fragile everything is, including friendship. And once more she felt a tremor deep within her gizzard, where all owls feel their most intense feelings.

She could not dwell upon this, she realised. She was now up for the evening, and the rest of the tree would soon be up as well. Perhaps she would go to the library. It was summertime and there were fewer chaw practices and classes, so she could pick out a book and read just for fun – a nice joke or riddle book. Nothing too serious, like colliering techniques, weather interpretation (which the owls of the great tree were expected to be familiar with) or land and celestial navigation, which Primrose, being a member of the search-and-rescue chaw, was expected to know. No, not tonight.

Tonight, she would find herself a really good joke book and she would laugh as loud as she wanted because there would be no one else in the library at this early hour of the evening.

CHAPTER TWO

Spronk No More

But Primrose was not to be alone.

“I just don’t understand it Digger.” Otulissa said in a low, rasping whisper as Primrose entered the library. “If it hadn’t been for Dewlap, Strix Struma would never have been killed. She’s a traitor, I tell you.”

“Look, I agree that she’s a traitor but we would have had that battle with the Pure Ones any way you look at it,” Digger said. “Primrose, you’re up early,” he added, seeing her come into the library.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” Primrose lied. “You’re talking about what’s going to happen to Dewlap?”

“Yes, and as far as we can see, nothing’s going to happen to her,” Otulissa huffed. “It just isn’t fair.”

“They say,” Primrose offered, “that she’s had a nervous breakdown. That she’s really sick and didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Breakdown my flight feathers!” Otulissa harrumphed. “And I’ll tell you what she was doing.” Otulissa didn’t wait for them to ask. “She was not only leaking information to the enemy and destroying books, she was also hoarding.”

“Hoarding!” both Primrose and Digger said at once.

“Hoarding what?” Digger asked. “What possibly could there have been to hoard last winter?”

“I’ll tell you what: while we all were starving during that long siege, she had her own private supply of milkberries and Ga’Hoole nuts. You didn’t see her getting any thinner last winter while the rest of us were so pathetically skinny we could have slipped through a knothole.”

“I can already do that,” Primrose said, trying to make a small joke. After all, she had come here to read a joke book. She had not expected such serious conversation.

“Oh, sorry,” Otulissa replied. “I wasn’t talking about Pygmy Owls, but you got awfully skinny yourself, Primrose. Probably could have slipped into a hummingbird hole.”

“What are you reading, Otulissa?” Primrose asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Dowsing and divining techniques for metals and water. There’s a short chapter in here by Strix Emerilla. You know, my ancestor—”

“The renowned weathertrix,” Primrose finished the sentence. They all knew about Otulissa’s ancestor Strix Emerilla. There was hardly a word written by her that Otulissa hadn’t read, and she rarely missed an opportunity to remind them of her connection to the great owl. But Primrose didn’t mind. She was happy that Otulissa was showing signs of being herself again.

“That’s terrible, about the hoarding,” Digger said. “I never knew that. I wonder what the parliament will decide about Dewlap.” Then he looked slyly at Otulissa. “Have you been to the roots lately?”

Very few of the owls knew about the roots, but Primrose had once overheard the band – as Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger were often called – talk about them. Of course, they had immediately sworn her to secrecy. The place they called ‘the roots’ was a cramped space deep under the Great Ga’Hoole Tree directly beneath the parliament chamber. Something about the tangled roots and ceiling timbers caused sounds to resonate, most particularly the sounds coming from the owls’ innermost parliament chamber. The roots transmitted the voices of the owls in the parliament above. Listening in on closed parliament sessions was the only really bad thing that the band, plus Otulissa, ever did. It was out-and-out eavesdropping. They all knew it. They all felt guilty about it. But they simply couldn’t stop. They had a million and one ways of rationalising their snooping activities, but their excuses never made them feel much better. Still, they continued to secretly listen.

“I just don’t buy it – the stuff about Dewlap having a nervous breakdown: she’s not shattered.”

“Shattered?” Digger and Primrose both said at once.

“Shattering. It’s terrible when it happens, worse than any moon blinking that Soren and Gylfie went through at St Aggie’s, believe me.”

“How could anything be worse than moon blinking?” Digger wondered aloud.

“Well, shattering is. I read about it in that book, Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard, which we have Dewlap to thank for confiscating and then losing.”

“Well, what is it? Did you read enough to learn anything about it?” Digger asked.

“A little bit.” Otulissa’s plumage suddenly drooped and flattened. She was ‘wilfing’. This happens to owls when they experience extreme fear or agitation.

Primrose blinked. Shattering must be awful, she thought, if just reading about it does this to Otulissa.

“You see,” Otulissa continued, regaining some of her composure. “Moon blinking is caused by the moon – especially the full moon – shining down upon the head of a sleeping owl, resulting in massive disorientation and confusion of one’s sense of self. But shattering is much worse. It is not caused by the moon but by exposure to flecks under certain conditions.”

“You mean like when we infiltrated St Aggie’s and discovered that the Pure Ones’ agents were putting flecks into the nests in the eggorium?” Digger asked.

“Yes, precisely. When owls are still in the egg it can happen. Young owls in general are very susceptible. But it is thought that shattering can happen to almost any owl.”

“But look at all the flecks at St Aggie’s,” Digger said. “When we were there, we weren’t hurt by them. It was the moon blinking that was bad.”

“I know it’s very odd. Sometimes, I guess, one can rub right up against flecks and it doesn’t cause shattering. Like with Hortense from Ambala. They say that the streams of Ambala have lots of flecks. But she wasn’t shattered. Instead she simply has deformed wings and is small for her age. It’s a very complicated thing. If only that stupid old Burrowing Owl Dewlap – no offence, Digger …” she apologised because Digger himself was a Burrowing Owl, “… but if only she hadn’t taken that book.”

“But aren’t there other books in the library that might tell about it – about shattering?” Primrose asked. “I mean now that nothing is spronk any longer.”

“Not so far and believe me, I have scoured this library.”

Books being declared spronk had been the beginning of Otulissa’s problems with Dewlap, indeed the beginning of all of their problems with the strange old Burrowing Owl who was the Ga’Hoolology ryb. Spronk meant forbidden and nothing, especially books, had ever been forbidden at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Then for some reason Dewlap had forbidden the young owls access to certain books. No one had really agreed with her, and Ezylryb had personally delivered the fleckasia book to Otulissa. But then Dewlap had confiscated and lost it.

At that moment a matron, a rather chubby Short-eared Owl, stuck her head in the library. “Almost time for tweener,” she hooted cheerfully. Tweener was their evening meal, just as breaklight was their morning meal and the last food they consumed before going to sleep for the day.

So the three owls made their way to the dining hollow.

CHAPTER THREE

A Grim Tweener

Primrose stopped in her own hollow to check if Eglantine had got up. She’d become a late sleeper lately, which was strange because it was summertime and the nights were so short that every owl wanted to be flying about having larks in the dark. With no heavy study or chaw schedule, flying on the smooth air of warm nights under the great summer constellations was so much fun that no owl wanted to miss a minute of the blackness. Primrose was pleased to see that the hollow was empty and that Eglantine and Ginger would not be late to the dining hollow as they so often were. She smelled good things as she approached. Could it be barbecued bat wings? Bats were common summer food. Fruit bats in particular were thick around the Great Ga’Hoole Tree in the early part of the summer evenings. It could hardly be called hunting as an owl only had to stick its head out of a hollow opening to catch one on the wing.

Primrose made her way to her usual spot at Mrs Plithiver’s table. The nest-maid snakes of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree also served as dining tables for the owls. They stretched their supple, rosy-scaled bodies to accommodate at least half a dozen owls for dining. But now as Primrose approached, she saw that Mrs P’s table was overcrowded and the place where she usually sat next to Eglantine was taken by Ginger. Soren waved a wing for her to come over, anyway.

“There’s always room dearie,” Mrs P said. She stretched herself a bit more and all the owls squashed in a little closer. All the owls, that is, except Eglantine and Ginger, who continued jabbering away to each other in low whispers.

Soren blinked. He was shocked at his sister’s rude behaviour. “Eglantine! Could you stop talking for one second and move your butt feathers to make room for Primrose?”

“Oh dear. Sorry Prim.” Eglantine looked up and began to move over.

But Soren was still angry. He blinked and looked at Eglantine and then Ginger. “You know Eglantine, whispering at the table isn’t very polite. If you have something that is so private that the rest of us can’t hear it, maybe you should eat by yourselves.”

What, Primrose wondered, could Eglantine and Ginger have to say that was so private? Primrose suddenly realised that Ginger was often trying to get Eglantine alone, not just away from her but from the group. Was Ginger jealous of all of Eglantine’s friends? True, they were all in training to be Guardians, and she knew how much Ginger hoped to be approved for training too. Did Ginger think that Eglantine would have some special influence over that approval?

There was an awkward silence, and then Eglantine and Ginger erupted into convulsive laughter as if sharing a very private joke. The other owls looked on grimly, but Primrose wilfed in the biggest way and became so slender that there was hardly any need for anyone to squash in. She just knew they were laughing about her, or thinking how she wouldn’t understand their little joke anyway. To think that just last evening she had looked for a joke book. Well, the joke’s on me, she thought sourly.

To change the subject, Soren began talking about the weather experiments that Ezylryb wanted him to do. “Martin can’t go and neither can Ruby because they are doing other experiments for him. That’s why he said I could ask friends from other chaws for help. So Twilight and Gylfie and Digger are going. You want to go, Otulissa?”

“No I can’t,” she replied. “I have to run that experiment on the far beach for him.”

“Ginger and I will go,” Eglantine piped up.

“You have to be full-fledged chaw members, and you’re still in training, Eglantine. I don’t think he’d agree. What about you Primrose? You’re full-fledged. Want to go?”

“No, not tonight,” she answered quietly. She knew that if she got to go and Eglantine didn’t, it would drive an even deeper wedge in their friendship.

“Come on, Soren. Go ask Ezylryb,” Eglantine urged her brother.

“No, I’m not going to bother him when I know what the answer will be.”

“That frinks me off,” Eglantine said sourly.

“Well, too bad.” Soren saw Ginger give Eglantine a nudge and whisper something in her ear.

“Young’uns!” Mrs P interrupted. “No bad language, not at the table, please. And need I remind you, I am the table!”

Tweener, usually a cheerful meal, was not going well. Now Gylfie, in another attempt to change the subject, reminded everyone that on the next evening Trader Mags would be arriving. “Trader Mags always comes on the first day of full shine in the summer,” she said.

“Why’s that?” Primrose asked, relieved to be talking about something other than Eglantine’s rude behaviour.

“She thinks the full moon shows off her wares best,” Soren said.

“As if the tawdriness of all that frippery needs any more sparkle,” Otulissa said acidly. Otulissa did not approve of Trader Mags.

“Who’s Trader Mags?” Ginger asked.

“You don’t know about Trader Mags?” Eglantine blinked. “Ooh, she brings the most wonderful stuff. We’ll have so much fun looking at it together. Shopping!”

Primrose sensed a wilfing in her gizzard.

“Trader Mags,” Otulissa said in a very haughty, superior voice, “is an ostentatious magpie who – true to her nature – is quite skilful at ‘collecting’ a variety of items. ‘Collecting’ is, of course, a euphemism for what some might call stealing.”

“Ooh!” Ginger exclaimed again, her eyes blinking darkly in anticipation. “Where does she get the stuff?”

“The Others – their old ruins, their churches or castles, what have you,” Otulissa continued. “Bits of stained glass, broken crockery, beads and baubles – all the colourful, garish doodads that the Others seem to have loved. Tawdry, awful stuff, in my opinion.”

“Madame Plonk likes it,” Eglantine said, cheerfully undeterred by Otulissa’s sneering tone.

“She would,” Otulissa said. “Madame Plonk is hardly known for her restraint in matters of style. There’s a touch of the tawdry in that Snowy Owl, to say the least.” Otulissa sniffed. “One might even say she’s an exhibitionist.”

“Come off it, Otulissa,” Twilight, the huge Great Grey, scoffed. “Look, we can’t all be as pure as you.”

Silence fell on the table like a blade slashing through the chatter. Since the siege and their fierce battle with the Pure Ones, something had happened to the word ‘pure’, as if it had become a swear word overnight. Soren felt Mrs P squirm and the owls’ Ga’Hoole-nut cups of milkberry tea trembled slightly. Ezylryb’s words from the Last Ceremony for Strix Struma following her death in battle came back to him:

We have been fighting a war that has been instigated by this vile notion that declares that some breeds of owls are better than others, more pure. Not one of us shall, I suppose, ever again say the words ‘pure’ or ‘purity’ without thinking of the bloodshed these words have caused. How unfortunate that a good word has been ruined by the evilness of one group.

Twilight, realising too late what he had just said, clamped his beak shut.

Knowing how mortified Twilight must feel, Otulissa tried to set things to rights again. “Oh, I have never been all that comfortable with fancy stuff. Madam Plonk’s voice is so beautiful when she sings, and she herself is so lovely to look at, I feel she needs no further adornment. And such ornamentation would be completely wasted on me.”

It had been a gracious speech until this point, but then for some reason that eluded even Otulissa, she swivelled her head towards Ginger. “Just give me my helm, my nickel-alloy battle claws and a burning branch, and I feel adorned.” The glare in the young Spotted Owl’s yellow eyes was harsh. It had been in just such battle gear that Otulissa had served with great bravery in one of the fiercest encounters with the Pure Ones.

Once more silence settled on the table, thickly this time, like fog that wouldn’t burn off.

A wet poop joke, that’s what we need, Soren thought desperately.

“Did you hear the one about the seagull that got hit by the wet poop of a bat?” Often, wet poop jokes began with seagulls, for they were considered the worst and messiest of the wet poopers.

“No, what’s that?” said Gylfie, equally desperate to lift the mood.

“Well, this seagull got hit right in the eyes by an off-loading bat and could hardly see to fly. And the bat turned around and said, ‘Now you’re as blind as a splat!”’

The table roared with the churring sound of owl laughter. A little too hard, Soren thought, for the joke was not that funny. He nervously looked down at Mrs P because they had just violated one of the few rules of the dining hollow – no wet poop jokes at meals. Nest-maids were under strict orders to writhe at the first words of a wet poop joke and throw everything off the table and send the owls scattering. But Mrs P was as still as could be. She must have been as desperate as the rest of them to change the subject once the dreadful word had been mentioned.

Everyone continued to churr and guffaw. Soren noticed that other tables began to look at them as loose feathers from the laughing owls drifted down. But then he swivelled his head towards Primrose and caught his breath when he saw her. Glaux! Is she laughing or crying? The little Pygmy was shaking hard and making unintelligible sounds, but there were tears streaming from her eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

A Missing Piece

“You see, Eglantine,” Ginger was saying back in the hollow, “just one more way you’re being left out.”

“I know. It’s getting bad. And did I tell you how Soren missed my first Fur-on-Bones ceremony?”

“No, you don’t say! I am shocked. Your own brother didn’t come to your Fur-on-Bones ceremony? That’s unforgivable.”

“He had some excuse, but he was really out larking about with the band.”

“The band?”

“That’s what everyone calls the four of them – Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger – because they all came here together, and they stick together.”

“And leave you out!”

“Right! I’ve never felt more left out in my life.”

You feel left out?! What about me? Primrose almost screamed from the branch she was perched on just outside the hollow. She was eavesdropping. She knew it wasn’t very nice, but it was her hollow too after all, and they wouldn’t talk this freely if they knew she were around.

“Do you know what I think you should do about it?” Ginger asked.

“What?”

Primrose inclined her head a bit more so she could hear better.

“Well,” Ginger said in a cozy, chatty voice. “If I were you, I’d make a list.”

“A list?” Eglantine said.

“Yes, a list of all the things that your brother and his friends have left you out of. I think it always makes one feel better to make a list.”

Racdrops! Complete racdrops! That idiot owl doesn’t even know how to write! Primrose raged silently.

“Hmmm,” Eglantine said.

“Making that list will be a relief. Trust me.”

Don’t trust her! Primrose thought and rushed into the hollow.

“Come on, Eglantine. It’s a great night for flying.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be coming Primrose. We have things to do,” Ginger said.

Primrose blinked. All right. I’m finished with being polite. “I actually didn’t ask you, Ginger. I thought with you still healing from your wing injury you wouldn’t be up for it, but surely you are Eglantine.”

Eglantine looked nervously towards Ginger, almost as if to ask permission to go. “Well … well, maybe just for a little while,” Eglantine replied. “But I’ll come back early and make that list, don’t worry Ginger. Yes, we have important things to do.”

“It will be a relief, Eglantine. I promise.” Then as Primrose and Eglantine were leaving the hollow to join the others for a few flight frolics under the rising moon, Ginger called out, “A real relief, like sleeping.”

Primrose brimmed with joy to be flying with her best friend through the satiny black night. The air was so smooth and soft, soft as an owl chick’s down. Ruby, a Short-eared Owl and probably the best flier in the tree, was inscribing figure-of-eights just under the paws of the constellation of the Big Raccoon, which was rising in the eastern sky. Primrose, however, was cautious. She didn’t want to get too happy. Things might change. And she certainly didn’t want to think about Eglantine making that stupid list. She was wondering if she should say something, not specifically about the list, but about Eglantine feeling left out. She was sure Soren didn’t mean to leave her out. He didn’t have a choice with this weather experiment thing. And just as she was wondering whether to say something, Eglantine said, “Well, time to get back to the hollow.”

“What? Are you yoicks? The night is just beginning. The Big Raccoon is hardly up. I can only see two of his paws.”

“Well, look. Soren and the band are taking off to do their weather experiments already.”

“That’s different. They have things to do. They can’t mess around out here like we can. You don’t see anyone else taking off for their hollows.”

“Well, I have things to do too.”

“Like what?” Primrose was flying just beneath Eglantine, and flipped her head backwards and up as only owls can.

“Just things,” Eglantine answered vaguely. “And sleep. I want to catch a few winks.”

A few winks? That must be an expression she picked up from Ginger. “What do you need to sleep for? Owls don’t sleep at night – especially not a night like this.”

“Well, I’ve been feeling Kind of tired lately.” Eglantine tossed this last comment over her shoulder as she flew off in the direction of the great tree.

Primrose blinked. Maybe there really was something wrong with Eglantine. Maybe she was getting summer flux or grey scale. They said that owls with grey scale slept a lot. Oh, dear, I hope she isn’t really sick.

CHAPTER FIVE

A fragment from the Sea

Meanwhile, as the Big Raccoon climbed higher and higher in the sky, the band of four – Soren, Twilight, Gylfie and Digger – headed north to a small speck of an island that dripped like the tiniest leak from the peninsula of the Broken Talon. They were flying there to perform their weather experiment for Ezylryb.

The conditions were perfect for setting out the small floats made from bundles of downy feathers and hollowed-out Ga’Hoole nuts.

“Now, what’s this all about?” Twilight asked.

“The idea is to measure the wind drift and current variations in this part of the Sea of Hoolemere,” Soren replied. “So we set out these little floats, then fly back in a few days and see where they are. Make sure the streamers are well attached because that’s how we’re going to find them again.”

It was fun work, and for a snack when they finished Soren had brought along some barbecued bat wings left over from tweener.

“Glaux, this island is so tiny even I feel big on it,” Gylfie said. “Where are we going to light down for a snack?”

“Look over there.” Digger flipped his head towards the northern tip of the island. There were three rocks that dribbled off the island, not more than a foot or two away from the shore. “That looks nice enough.”

The four owls lighted down on the rocks by a small tide pool. As they ate their bat wings in the moonlight they peered into the shallow water.

“Are starfish good to eat?” Digger asked, spotting one on the bottom.

“They’re fish aren’t they?” growled Twilight.

“They don’t look like fish,” Digger said.

“I wouldn’t risk it,” said Soren. “Remember how that Brown Fish Owl’s hollow smelled last autumn in Ambala?”

“Hmmm.” Digger looked at the starfish and seemed to think twice about eating it.

“I don’t think it would be good for your gizzard,” Gylfie said. “I mean bones and fur, that’s one thing, but Glaux knows what these creatures are made from. I’d steer clear of it.”

“Pretty though, aren’t they?” Digger said.

Twilight now bent closer to look at the starfish. “S’pose you could take it back for decoration. They dry out, you know. Might be able to trade it for something with Mags.”

“TWILIGHT!” they all shrieked.

“It’s alive,” Soren said. “You kill things to eat, not for decoration.”

“Barely alive, I’d say. Doesn’t have a brain, doesn’t have a gizzard.”

“Still,” Gylfie said, “it’s alive in its own way.”

“S’pose you’re right,” Twilight said and looked up from his examination of the starfish. “Hey! What’s that over there caught in the rocks?”

Something was fluttering between two rocks in the next tide pool. Soren lofted into the air to fly-hop the short distance. “It’s a piece of paper.” He poked at the piece with his talon. “Or a piece of a piece of paper.” And then more slowly, “Or a piece of a page of what was once a book.” He blinked at the smeared letters. “Great Glaux … Fleckasia! It’s part of the book that Dewlap confiscated from Otulissa.”

“No!” Gylfie said in a stunned voice.

Soon they were all crowded around Soren and peering at the fragment of the page. Then Digger spoke: “Otulissa will flip her gizzard when she sees this. Can you make out any of the writing? She was just talking about this thing called shattering, which fleckasia can cause. It’s worse than moon blinking. But she never got to finish the chapter because Dewlap came in and took the book.”

“Then Dewlap must have thrown it away,” Soren said. “What a complete creep that owl is. Imagine destroying a book like this.”

“How did this piece of it ever get this far without completely dissolving?” Gylfie wondered.

“Maybe a seagull picked it up then dropped it here. You know they’ll try to eat anything. And it was caught in this little crack where it kept pretty dry,” Soren said. “In any case, we have to take this back to Otulissa. Maybe she can make something of it.”

When they returned to the great tree, the first pink streaks of dawn were just showing. After a quick breaklight Soren, Digger and Gylfie went to their hollow. Otulissa had completed her experiment for Ezylryb on the far beach but had not yet returned from a special errand for Barran and Boron. She was flying to a slipgizzle who it was thought might have information about the Northern Kingdoms. Soren felt that Boron and Barran were trying to placate Otulissa, who had been plotting a very complex attack on the Pure Ones in which she envisioned enlisting recruits from the Kielian League. Soren and Gylfie had discussed this plan, and both thought it was probably never going to happen. But Boron and Barran seemed to have decided to let Otulissa explore where things stood in the Northern Kingdoms. Ever since Strix Struma had been killed in battle, Otulissa had been obsessed with her plan. In any case, the owls of the band would wait until the next night to show Otulissa the fragment of the page they had found.

In the coolness of the breaking day, the owls nestled into their hollow and, after a few sleepy words, were sound asleep – except for Soren. His mind continued to speculate almost playfully on how that fragment of paper got to where it was between those rocks. He supposed it could have got caught in the sub-Lobelian current. He tried to recall what those current charts looked like and imagine the course that little piece of paper had travelled. He wondered if there were possibly more pieces of paper caught in rocks. No, not a chance, this was a one-in-a-million thing. He yawned again and was asleep.

The sea seemed to float with pieces of paper and oddly enough, the writing on the bits of paper was perfectly legible. But every time Soren swooped down to pick one up, the fog rolled in and he couldn’t see. He wished that Twilight were here. Twilight was the master of seeing in conditions like these.

Aaah, finally the fog is lifting. But suddenly, Soren realised that he was no longer over the sea. Racdrops! He looked down and saw the regularly undulating hills. The Beaks! His gizzard twitched with dread. Mrs Plithiver’s raspy voice scratched in his ear: “No owl, especially a young impressionable one, has any business in The Beaks. It’s a bad, bad place.”

And then below him were the tantalising 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 towards 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 dishonour. 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. And she had 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 and 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 swivelled her head towards 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 towards the amber drop.

It is lovely, Primrose thought. She didn’t much believe in good-luck charms, but most of the jewellery 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 where 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 recognised 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 behaviour? 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 swivelled his head towards 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, in the high-pitched tone of voice understood instantly by all owls to express 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 civilised 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.”

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