The Journey

Mrs Plithiver crawled on to Digger’s back. “Now, this won’t hurt, dear, but I just want to feel what those awful crows did to you.” Gently, she began flicking her forked tongue over his wound. “It’s not deep. The best thing I can do is to curl up right on the wound until they come back. A snake’s skin can be very healing in many cases. We’re a little too dry for the long run, however. That’s why I want the worms.”

Soon the owls were back with the worms and leeches that Mrs P had ordered. She directed Soren to place two leeches on the wound. “That will cleanse it. I can’t tell you how filthy crows are!”

After the leeches had done their work, Mrs Plithiver pulled them off and gently replaced them with two fat worms.

Digger sighed. “That feels so good.”

“Yes, there’s nothing like a fat slimy worm for relief of a wound. You’ll be fit to fly by tomorrow night.”

“Thank you, Mrs P. Thank you so much.” Digger blinked at Mrs P, and there was a look in his large yellow eyes of disbelief that he could have ever considered such a snake a meal – which, as a desert owl, Digger often did.

Within the spruce tree where they perched, there was another hollow that housed a family of Masked Owls.

“They look almost exactly like you, Soren,” Gylfie said. “And they’re coming to visit.”

“Masked Owls look nothing like me,” Soren replied. Everyone was always saying this. He had heard his parents complain about it. Yes, they had white faces and buff-coloured wings, but they had many more spots on their breasts and head.

“They’re coming here to visit?” Mrs P said. “Oh dear, the place is a mess. We can’t receive company now. I’m nursing this poor owl.”

“They heard about the mobbing,” Gylfie said. “We’re even a little bit famous.”

“Why’s that?” asked Soren.

“I guess that gang of crows is really bad. They couldn’t believe we battled back and survived,” Gylfie replied.

Soon, they heard the Masked Owls arriving. One poked her head in. “Mind if we visit?” It was the female owl. And although Masked Owls belonged to the same species of owls as Soren’s family, which were Barn Owls, and they were all known as Tytos, they were hardly identical.

“See what I mean?” Soren whispered to Gylfie. “They are completely different. Look at how much bigger and darker they are.” The point was lost on Gylfie.

“We wanted to meet the brave owls who battled the crows,” said the owl’s mate.

“Yeah, how’d you ever do that?” a very young owlet who had barely fledged peeped up.

“Oh, it wasn’t all that hard,” Twilight said and dipped his head almost modestly.

“Not that hard!” Mrs Plithiver piped up. “Hardest thing I’ve ever done!”

“You!” the male Masked Owl exclaimed.

“She certainly had nothing to do with the defeat of the crows. She’s a nest-maid,” his mate said in a haughty voice.

Mrs Plithiver seemed to fade a bit. She nudged one of the worms that had begun to crawl off Digger’s wing.

“She had everything to do with it!” Soren bristled up and suddenly seemed almost as big as the Masked Owls. “If it hadn’t been for Mrs P, I would have been dive-bombed from the rear and poor Digger would have never made it back.”

The Masked Owls blinked. “Well, well.” The large female chuffed and stepped nervously from one talon to another. “We just aren’t used to such aggressive behaviour from our nest-maids. Ours are rather meek, I guess, compared to this … what do you call her?”

“Her name is Mrs Plithiver,” Soren said slowly and distinctly, with the contempt in his voice poorly concealed.

“Yes, yes,” the female replied nervously. “Well, we discourage our nest-maids from socially mingling with us at any time, really.”

“That was hardly a party, what happened up there in the sky, ma’am,” Twilight said hotly.

“Well, now tell me, young’uns,” said the male as if he was desperately trying to change the subject. “Where are you heading? What are your plans?”

“We’re going to Hoolemere and the Great Ga’Hoole Tree,” Soren said.

“Oh, how interesting,” the female replied in a voice that had a sneer embedded in it.

“Oh, Mummy,” said the young owlet. “That’s the place I was telling you about. Can’t we go?”

“Nonsense. You know how we feel about make-believe.”

The little owlet dipped his head in embarrassment.

“It’s not make-believe,” said Gylfie.

“Oh, you can’t be serious, young’un,” said the male. “It’s just a story, an old legend.”

“Let me tell you something,” said the female, whom Soren disliked more and more by the second. “It does not do any good to believe in things you cannot see, touch or feel. It is a waste of time. From the look of your flight feathers’ development, not to mention your talons, it is apparent that you are either fly-aways or orphans. Why else would you be out cavorting about the skies at such dangerous hours of the morning? I think your parents would be ashamed of you. I can tell you have good breeding.” She looked directly at Soren and blinked.

Soren thought he might explode with anger. How did this owl know what his parents might think? How dare she suggest that she knew them so well that she knew they would be ashamed of him?

And then there was a small soft, hissing voice. “I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still cannot see.” It was Mrs Plithiver. She slithered from the corner in the hollow. “But, of course, to see with two eyes is a very common thing.”

“What is she talking about?” said the male.

“What happened to the old days when servants served and were quiet? Imagine a nest-maid going on like this,” said the female.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs Plithiver. “And I shall go on a bit more, if you permit me.” She proceeded to arrange herself in a lovely coil and swung her head towards Soren.

“Of course, Mrs Plithiver. Please go on,” Soren said.

“I am a blind snake, but who says I cannot see as much as you?” And then she swung her head sharply towards the female Masked Owl, who seemed startled, and it did appear indeed as if Mrs Plithiver was looking directly at her with her two small eye dents. “Who says I cannot see? To see with eyes is so ordinary. I see with my whole body – my skin, my bones, the coiling of my spine. And between the slow beats of my very slow heart, I sense the world here and beyond. I know the Yonder. Oh, yes. I have known it even before I ever flew in it. But before that day did I say it did not exist? What a fool you would have called me, milady, had I said your sky does not exist because I cannot see it nor can I fly. And what a fool you are to believe that Hoolemere does not exist.”

“Well, I never!” gasped the Masked Owl. She looked at her mate in astonishment. “She called me a fool!”

But Mrs Plithiver continued. “Sky does not exist merely in the wings of birds, an impulse in their feathers and blood and bone. Sky becomes the Yonder for all creatures if they free their hearts and their brains to feel, to know in the deepest ways. And when the Yonder calls, it speaks to all of us, be it sky, be it Hoolemere, be it heaven or glaumora.” Glaumora was the special heaven where the souls of owls went. “So perhaps,” Mrs Plithiver continued, “there are some who need to lose their eyes to discover their sight.” Mrs P nodded her head gracefully and slithered back into the corner. A stunned silence fell upon the hollow.

The four young owls waited until First Black to leave. “No more flying during light,” Mrs Plithiver said as she coiled into Soren’s neck feathers. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” the owls replied at once.

They were now skirting the edges of the Kingdom of Tyto, the kingdom from which Soren’s family came. Although he was as alert as ever and flying most skilfully, Mrs Plithiver could sense a quietness in him. He did not join in the others’ flight chatter. She knew he must have been thinking of his parents, his lost family and, in particular, his sister, Eglantine, whom he loved most dearly. The chances of finding any of them were almost zero and she knew that Soren knew this, but still she could feel his pain. Yet he had not exactly described it as pain. He had once said to Mrs P shortly after they had been reunited that he had felt as if there were a hole in his gizzard, and that when he and Mrs P had found each other again, it was as if a little bit of the hole had been mended. But Mrs P knew that despite the patch she had provided there was still a hole.

When the first stars began to fade, they looked for a place to land and settle in before morning. It was Gylfie who spotted an old sycamore, silvery in this moonless night. The full moon had begun its dwenking many nights before, growing slimmer and slimmer until it dwenked and disappeared entirely, and there would not be a trace of it for another night or so until the newing began.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e65bd2d5-5481-5041-bd9a-32646f3a1c59)