The Shattering (Guardians of Ga'hoole) (5 page)

“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.

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 tree, 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.

Eglantine peered down into her own jelly. It wasn’t a slug or a grasshopper. It was a centipede, her very favorite bug. It had to be a sign—a sign that her dreams were real. Her mum had always brought back centipedes as a special treat for her, and Soren would sing the centipede song. She looked up at Soren now with huge, blinking eyes.

“Eglantine, you’re not going to make me sing the centipede song here?” he whispered.

Eglantine giggled. “No, don’t worry.” And she might have said aloud what she was thinking:
I don’t need the centipede song to prove that my dream is real. Mum is waiting for me with a dozen centipedes, I just know it!

The shortest night and longest day of the year were approaching. It was called Nimsy night, and all of the owls looked forward to it because it was after Nimsy that the nights began to grow longer by slivers, first in seconds, then in minutes, and finally, at summer’s end, by hours. Eglantine had decided that she would fly to the hollow in The Beaks after Nimsy, when the longer nights would give her more time.

However, on these short summer nights and long summer days before Nimsy, the owls tended to stay up longer and go to sleep later. There were only so many hours an owl could sleep during the day, especially when their night flight exercise was cut short.

“Let’s go to the library,” Otulissa said. “I want to study this chart.”

On one of the larger tables, Otulissa unrolled the chart she had gotten from Trader Mags. It showed a diagram of the owl brain cross-referenced with a diagram of the owl gizzard. Perhaps it could help explain fleckasia, Otulissa thought. “If I only had that whole book on fleckasia,” she sighed.

“But you have that page we found when we were out doing weather experiments for Ezylryb,” Gylfie said.

“Yes, but it was hardly legible.” Otulissa stared down at the diagram. “Quadrant!” she suddenly said in a
hushed voice. With a shaking talon, Otulissa pointed to the chart.

“You see the word ‘quadrant’ in both that section of the brain and that section of the gizzard. The very word that was on the torn page you found! I’ll be back in a second.” Otulissa flapped her wings and flew out of the library. In less than a minute, she was back with the torn page in her beak. She bent over the page and peered. Then swung her head toward the chart. “There’s the number two, look. I can barely make it out, but it’s there.” She blinked and slowly began to speak. “I get it. See. The gizzard is divided into four quadrants and so is the brain.”

“And so is the night sky for navigation,” Gylfie said. “Strix Struma taught us that.”

“Right!” Otulissa said. “When Ezylryb was lost, it was because the bags of flecks had destroyed his sense of the quadrants for navigation. He no longer knew where the earth’s magnetic poles were.”

A creaky voice scratched the air. “Indeed, Otulissa. You are right.” It was Ezylryb. “Aha! A humors chart,” the old Whiskered Screech proclaimed.

“Humors?” Twilight said. “What’s so funny about an owl gizzard and brain?”

“It’s not ha-ha humor. No, not in the least. The lost book,
Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard,
would have
explained much about humors…and how they relate to shattering.”

Soren blinked. Shattering was the terrible disease that Otulissa had told them about.

“Tell me, Ezylryb,” Soren asked hesitantly. “Is that what’s wrong with Dewlap? Was she shattered?”

Ezylryb sighed heavily, then shook his head. “No, she is not shattered. She is an old and foolish owl. Still, there was no rupture between the gizzard and brain. She was just misguided, used bad judgment, and her focus was limited. She felt the Pure Ones would take better care of the tree than we would.”

“But what exactly is ‘shattering’?” Otulissa asked.

“It is very complicated, Otulissa. It is even beyond higher magnetics, which I know you know a lot about. But without the book, I don’t know how I could begin to explain it.”

“It’s connected to higher magnetics?” Otulissa asked.

“Oh, indeed it is. You know how in all of our brains there are tiny bits of magnetic particles much smaller than flecks. They are sometimes called iron oxides. They aid us with navigation because they help us sense the earth’s magnetic field.”

Primrose had come into the library and was now also listening intently.

“Imagine, however, if something disturbed those bits in our brain,” Ezylryb continued. “Exposure to too many flecks not only causes problems to the internal compass that we use for navigational purposes, as it did mine, but in certain conditions it can cause a shattering to other vital systems. In fact, sometimes it is not the navigational system that is affected, but the gizzard. The gizzard itself becomes almost like stone, incapable of sorting out feelings and emotions. It can even cause delusions. That is what fleckasia is all about.”

“Well, is there a book on the humors or these quadrants, so I can find out more?” Otulissa asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed. Here, let me show you.” Ezylryb made his way toward a far shelf in the library, and Otulissa bustled behind him. The other four owls looked at one another. This was Otulissa’s kind of thing, not theirs. Soren was thankful that Ezylryb had come in. Perhaps if Otulissa began sinking herself into a study of fleckasia, she would ease up on her battle plans for attacking the Pure Ones. She was sure they would be back. She kept saying, “First strike! We must make the first strike!” But Soren knew she would never convince Boron and Barran or any of the parliament members. It was absolutely against the tradition of the Guardians to strike the first blow, certainly not on the scale that Otulissa was planning.

“Can I come look at the book, too?” Primrose asked.

Otulissa blinked as did the others. Primrose had never struck them as much of an intellect. “Sure,” said Otulissa.

“Just want to take a peek,” Primrose said.

The sun was well up over the horizon by the time the owls made their way to their hollows. Eglantine was tired because that night had been the first long-distance flight she had made in some time. Madame Plonk had begun to sing the “Night Is Done” song, and by the time she reached the second verse, Eglantine was sound asleep.

Primrose had come back to the hollow she shared with Ginger and Eglantine just after Madame Plonk had begun the song. She had been reading with Otulissa in the library the whole time. Now, as she entered the hollow, Ginger woke up.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Reading in the library,” Primrose answered.

“Must have been interesting.”

For the second time ever, Primrose lied outright. “Oh, just doing some of those game and riddle books that Eglantine loves so much.” She looked over and blinked at her best friend. Then she turned again to Ginger and whispered, “I do hope she stops having those dreams. I
know she says they are lovely but I think they’re not. She twitches all night long when she has them.”

“Yes,” said Ginger sleepily. “I know what you mean. Sometimes I just get up and pat her, and it seems to calm her down a little.”