"Port Sunlight is Silvern? The battle happened here?" he cried. A thrill of excitement rushed through him. Then he'd come to the right place after all!
"The fulfillment of the Silver Prophecy is what the High Echelon fears most." Vivian knelt and picked up a black leather bellows, pointing it at the embers and pumping. "That is why the High Echelon has spread the idea that the owls are extinct," she explained as she fanned the flames.
Her words sent a chill through Max. "I knew they weren't extinct, but are they really trying to kill them?" he asked. "My gran told me that the silver owls have strong magic. They'd be able to protect themselves, right?"
Vivian stared into the glowing fire. "The silver owls are powerful, it's true, but they've lost something that was integral to their very being. You see, the silver owls have gone silent. They've lost the ability to sing their magic songs."
"Why can't the Owl Keeper help the silver owls?" asked Max,
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his heart thumping. Though, the more he thought about it, the more different the silver owls he'd met earlier seemed from his own. They were far less vibrant than his little owl. They were tough and scrappy, and they'd carried him and Rose on their wings, yet all the while they'd been subdued--and eerily silent.
"I am no Sage or seeress," said Vivian slowly. "I cannot say if the Owl Keeper can help the owls or not."
"But that's the reason we came! The silver owls have to carry out the Prophecy!" cried Max, panicked to think it might not happen after all. "Listen, I have to talk to the Owl Keeper! I have to go there right away!"
"There is a keeper, but"--Vivian gazed at him over the half-moon lenses--"Miranda knows the way to the owl tower. She and the keeper are rather good friends."
"Miranda?" said Max, disappointed. He couldn't think of a more unlikely guide. "She's just a goofy little kid! She thinks the owls are ghosties!"
Vivian chuckled. "Max, you know the silver owls are not ghosts! They protect this ancient city and the people who took refuge here. They are smoke and fire and stars and wind, all rolled into one. You might say they're heaven and earth and every brave heart that ever lived combined. They are, in a nutshell, hope."
Max stared into the flames, lost in the mystery of the owls, wondering at their goodness and fearlessness. What a thing it was, he thought, to live in a time such as this.
Vivian leaned forward, staring at him intently. "I understand you are a Night Seer. Your friend Rose mentioned it to my husband. May I see your tattoo?"
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Max sighed, feeling deeply irritated with Rose. She couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it. "I guess so," he mumbled, not wanting to say no to this fascinating woman who was the real Wavy Gray.
Vivian pushed a clump of his brown hair to one side and prodded his neck with her fingertips. He hated that tattoo. For him it would always be a grim reminder of the skræks and the High Echelon, and the horrible future they'd planned for him.
"There's no tattoo here," she murmured at last.
"It's a yellow sun," said Max. "You can't miss it." Maybe she needs new glasses, he told himself, maybe she should trade the half-moons for whole ones.
"What I see," said Vivian, "is the outline of an owl."
He gasped. "The Mark of the Owl?" Max reached back and felt a raised shape on his neck. A delicious shiver went through him. "It's gone!" he whispered. "The sun tattoo's gone!" It was like a terrible curse being lifted.
"Why are you surprised? After all, you fell through the silver owls and, as you know, they possess strange, unknowable powers." Eyes dancing, Vivian offered him the last bitter chocolate from Cavernstone Grey. "They have given back to you the owl mark you were born with. You carry once again the Night Seer's symbol of generations past."
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CHAPTER THIRTY
[Image: The tower.]
Max raced upstairs to the sixth floor and burst into Rose's room, where she stood braiding Miranda's hair. He saw the dog dozing on a tatty rug. Miranda's braids were coming out crooked, but the little girl didn't seem to notice. Helios awoke and padded over to Max. His fur gleamed, as if someone had given him a good brushing.
"My sun tattoo's gone!" shouted Max. "The High Echelon doesn't own me anymore!" He felt somehow stronger, more centered, more himself. Helios sprang up, licking his ear with a kind of doggy happiness. "And the Owl Keeper's here, Rose! So come on, we've got to--"
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For the first time since entering the room, he actually looked at Rose. Suddenly tongue-tied, all Max could do was stare. Rose looked unfamiliar and oddly girly in a clean white filmy dress. Beneath its lace hem were two freshly bandaged knees. On her feet were white shoes, paper-thin, with sequins spattered across the tops. Her sweet proud face was shining and her silken hair fell in waves of pale fire.
"What?" said Rose. Her voice sounded softer. "What are you talking about?"
She didn't look like the Rose he knew, who had mussed-up hair, scabby knees and a dirty, torn overcoat two sizes too big. It struck him that this girl was, well, pretty.
"Vivian said the silver owls zapped my tattoo," Max muttered at last, jamming his hands in his pockets and looking at the floor. "They used their magic when they brought us down." He touched the back of his neck, tracing the owl birthmark with his forefinger. "I have my owl mark back!"
Rose spun around, nearly knocking over Miranda. "What about me? It wouldn't be fair if they erased your tattoo and not mine!" She lifted her hair and searched for it. "Miranda, quick!" She lowered her head. "Do you see a yellow diamond on my neck?"
"No," answered the girl. "I doesn't see a diamond. I sees a owlie."
Smiling, Rose looked up at Max. "The Mark of the Owl! I've got mine back, too!"
Miranda skipped in a circle, then skipped over to Max and shyly offered her hand. Rose took her other hand and, laughing, they
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danced in ragged, earthy joy, Helios leaping beside them, until they all became so dizzy that they collapsed, breathless, on the floor.
Rose stood up first. "You seem different, Max," she said, brushing off her dress.
Max pulled Miranda to her feet. "How do you mean, different?" How clearly, he wondered, was she seeing him?
He pushed a lock of brown hair from his eyes. After all, he was wearing his same old mail-order boots and jacket, and he badly needed a haircut. He wasn't spiffed up the way she was.
"Something about the shape of you, Max. You're standing extra straight and tall, with your shoulders pulled back, not slumped over like before. Yeah, you're different."
Max mulled over her words. He supposed she had a point. It occurred to him that he felt straighter and taller on the inside as well. And braver, too.
"Rose?" he said quietly. "Can you see me?"
She shrugged and looked down at the floor. "Sort of. It comes and goes, and sometimes I just see shadows."
Max felt a sudden tightness in his throat. "Oh, Rose," he said, throwing his arms around her.
"I don't want to lose my sight," she whispered in his ear. "Help me, Max."
"I will. I promise." Max gritted his teeth, trying to hold back his tears. He knew crying wasn't going to help Rose, but maybe the Owl Keeper could do something for her.
"Get your coats," he said to Rose and Miranda. "We're going to the Owl Keeper."
"Now?" asked Rose, wiping away tears with the back of her hand.
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Miranda twirled around, braids sticking straight out. "I knows, I knows, I knows," she sang, "I knows where the Owl Keeper lives!"
"You do?" said Rose. "Will you take us?"
"Yes, I will, I will--" Helios pranced over to lick her face and Miranda tipped over in a fit of giggles.
Through a window of fractured glass, Max could see snow falling outside. He heard a distant rumble that sounded like thunder. Reaching into his pocket, he tugged out Gran's shell. There was no sign of Dr. Tredegar's blood on it. Maybe the silver owls had used their magic on the shell, too.
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His thoughts turned to Gran, and he felt a deep sadness wondering if he'd ever see her again. What about his mother and father, toiling away in the chocolate factory? And Rose's parents, imprisoned in faraway cells? What about his silver owl, why hadn't she returned? And Rose's eyes--had they been damaged permanently?
Max knew that not all mysteries could be solved, and not all stories had happy endings, but the shell he held in his hand glowed with a dreamy light, easing his pain, giving him the tiniest shred of hope.
At eleven o'clock that morning, Max, Rose and Miranda set off from the hotel, carrying backpacks filled with poppy seed cakes, goat cheese and a flask of cider. Feeling somewhat apprehensive, Max raced with the others along the frost-covered streets, Helios yipping at their heels. Snow gusted, whirling around them. They ran on, unafraid of the thunder booming in the distance. A brisk wind struck their faces, and every few steps, Max whistled for his owl.
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In courtyards and along the streets, tall trees rushed up from the earth, waving skeletal branches. The ground was cracked and frozen, the buildings half-buried in ice, yet to Max the city felt remarkably alive. He looked around in wonder, marveling, as they threaded past makeshift settlements and blazing fires, trudging past people in stalls hawking quince muffins and fire-roasted chestnuts. Until now he'd had no idea that the city was so populated! Shaggy animals bleated, causing Helios to stay close to Rose, refusing to leave her side.
Families gathered in noisy clumps, warming themselves beside open fires, roasting meat on huge spits, waving and shouting as the children ran past. A stately long-legged creature with a swishing tail and braided mane trotted by, pulling a caravan piled high with suitcases.
"A horse!" cried Max, astounded by its size and elegance. He had only ever seen horses in books. Port Sunlight, he was beginning to realize, wasn't dead at all.
Miranda skipped confidently along in her white fur-lined cape and high-buttoned boots. Max thought she looked like a time traveler from another century. Twirling, Miranda ushered Max and Rose along a narrow street that wound out of the city. Max called again for his owl, but there was no reply. Leaving the houses and buildings behind, they crossed a road covered with snow.
"Your grandparents let you come all this way alone?" Max asked Miranda. She seemed too little to be on her own.
"I comes with my gramma." Miranda skittered across the ice and called back to them. "Hurry! We's almost there!" Clambering
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onto a stone wall, she crab-walked out of sight. "I sees it! The tower!"
Max and Rose followed Miranda over the wall, dropping into knee-deep snow on the other side. Impatient, Miranda hopped up and down a few yards ahead of them.
"Come!" she called, waving her arms. Barking wildly, Helios bounded after her.
Through a tunnel of pale trees, Max saw a cobbled path glimmering with ice and snow. He and Rose plunged through the snow and onto the path. Branches bent over them, frosted with crystals, as they trudged across the glazed cobblestones.
Max looked up and saw the smoky outline of a tree and, behind it, a tower. The air smelled of chimney smoke.
"The owl tower!" he breathed.
The tree was ancient and wide and scarred. It seemed to burst out of the frozen ground, silver branches waving at the sky. The tree reminded Max of his beloved owl tree back home, though it was a much larger version.
"Look at the leaves, Rose! They're silver!"
"Silver leaves on a winter tree!" Rose's hushed voice floated over. "Max, I have a feeling about this place. I think it's enchanted."
True enough, he thought. Nothing about the place was the least bit ordinary. As they neared the tower, the silver leaves shuddered in the wind, lifting off the branches and into the air. Astonished, Max watched them scatter in all directions. They weren't leaves at all.
"Silver owls!" he breathed. He watched the owls fly above the
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tree, darting and skimming amid the top branches. Was his owl there with the others? "Can you see them, Rose?"
"Oh no, everything's gone white again!" she said, and Max could hear the sorrow in her voice. "But I can imagine what they look like."
Max felt a pain in his heart. Rose was so brave.
Max hooted and called, but still there was no sign of his owl. Lightning flared--pure white flashes across the sky--throwing the scene into disarray. He saw Miranda and Helios at the top of the path, leaping in the snow. And with sudden clarity he realized that the Owl Keeper and silver owls belonged not only to him but to Rose as well. It was a tale of danger and friendship and astonishing adventures, and it bound them together.
Hands linked, they ran up the path to the tower. Max saw the huge wooden door fly open, spilling light across the cobblestones. With mounting apprehension, he glimpsed a tall shadow framed in the entrance.
The Owl Keeper stood waiting for them.
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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
[Image: The tower.]
Transfixed, Max stared up at the tower. It seemed to expand as he climbed the path, filling the sky with incandescent light. He had never seen a building so strange or intriguing.
The owl tower was a massive structure, exactly as his grandmother had described: six stories high and built of polished stone, with balconies and dormers and a steep thatched roof that rose to a point. Smoke billowed out of a tall brick chimney. Behind the mullioned windows on the lower floors a warm, welcoming light glowed. Just below the roof Max could see tiny round holes through which silver owls flew in and out.
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"We goes to the Owl Keeper!" yelled Miranda, running up to Rose and taking her hand.
Max hung back, hands in pockets, feeling shy. He gazed at the tower, the owls, the silver tree, wary and uncertain as a young child. He called again for his silver owl and his heart sank when he heard no answer. All he could hear was the echo of his pulse in his ears.
Rose and Miranda ran off, Helios loping behind them. The Owl Keeper stood waiting, silhouetted beneath the tree, rough woven cloak snapping in the wind. A line of silver owls swooped down, forming a brilliant arc, and one small owl broke away and flew off. Max felt suddenly lonely, thinking of his own owl.
Dwarfed by the massive tree, Miranda and Rose ran to the Owl Keeper, dresses trailing in the snow. Chittering merrily, Miranda skipped off with the Helios, shouting to the silver owls, while Rose stood talking to the Owl Keeper.
Snow flicked past on the wind as Max headed up to the tower. Would the Owl Keeper be angry because he hadn't brought his silver owl? Not his owl, he thought ruefully, the silver owl had never been his --he had no claim to her.
He tramped along the path, bristling with anticipation. He could see Rose, hat strings fluttering, deep in conversation with the Owl Keeper. Drawing closer, he noticed worn carvings on the sides of the tower--circles, spirals and zigzags--ancient as the spells in the stories his gran had told him. Wonder and anticipation stirred within him.
The Owl Keeper held up a glowing shell. It was shaped the same as Gran's shell, though slightly larger, and the sight of it somehow reassured Max. Yet as he hurried on, irrational fears
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took hold of him. Was Rose safe? What was happening? The Owl Keeper looked so strange and wild, yet so oddly familiar.
The hands of the Owl Keeper grew luminous as light streamed from the shell into Rose's eyes. Max could see the Owl Keeper growing more and more transparent, dissolving into light and air. His arms broke out in goose bumps. Snow fell in dizzying currents, landing on his nose and eyelashes, dusting the path. He sensed that the ground beneath his feet had become enchanted, brimming with magic and power.
As he stepped off the path, powdery snow flew around him; he heard a familiar hooting and the whoosh of beating wings overhead. In a flash his silver owl swooped down, landing on his shoulder, nudging her beak against his face. She looked at Max with eyes that were sad and wise and ancient, as if to say, I'm home.
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p; Max gave a long, happy sigh. His owl had returned.
Beneath the tree, the Owl Keeper raised one arm above Rose, and with a shock Max realized the Owl Keeper was a woman! The silver owl cried out and Max stared in disbelief, eyes fixed on the sharp profile and blowing hair, the shell glowing around the Owl Keeper's neck. Lightning flashed and he saw her face as she turned: long and craggy, framed in a swirl of snow-white hair, so striking it seemed carved out of ice. In that instant she appeared goddesslike, immortal.
The Owl Keeper caught sight of Max as he sprinted madly toward her. Calling his name, she waved her arms, beckoning him. He ran so fast his woolen cap flew off. Then he was there, standing before the Owl Keeper, unable to believe his eyes. The silver owl hooted joyously from his shoulder.
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"Gran!" Max fell into her arms, sobbing. "It's really you!" Tears blurred his vision.
"Oh, Max, you're here at last! I've waited so long!" His grandmother held him close and Max smelled the musty scent of old books. "And your parents? Are they--"
"They're still in Cavernstone Grey!" Sobs racked his body. To his embarrassment, they wouldn't stop. "Oh, Gran, I ran away without telling them and now they're moving to the dome! What if I never see them again?"
"Oh, Max." She held him closer, and he knew she was crying too. "We'll find your parents, we'll get them back somehow--I promise." She brushed away his tears, then stepped back, snow crunching beneath her boots, looking taller than he remembered. "Oh my, what a great distance you've traveled--and look how you've grown!"
Max studied his grandmother's face. "I can't believe I found you!" he cried, afraid to blink and find her gone. "I can't believe you're real!" He turned to Rose. "This is my gran, Rose!"
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