Coryn’s hearing had never been so sharp. He could hear things he had never before heard. He continued to cock his head and scan with his ear slits for any new scrap of information. He was almost sure that there were three eggs in the cache, for he could hear the dim but slightly different heartbeats of the unhatched chicks. They were more like soft pulses than real beats. He cocked his head, and then again. Was there another pulsing sound coming from beneath the hollow that the three Barn Owls guarded? He stilled his own heart and quieted his breathing. It was as if Coryn had transmuted his entire body into one big ear. He opened his eyes wide in amazement. There is an egg at the base of the tree. Perhaps in a shallow pit covered with something. Of course! This is the egg of a Burrowing Owl. This is where a Burrowing Owl’s egg would be kept.
“Did you hear something, Flint?”
“No. You two are just getting jumpy.”
“It…it…sounded like a very soft wind.”
“So, it was a soft wind. Never heard of wind in a forest?”
“I don’t know. It just sounded different.”
Coryn made two more passes high above the tree where the three owls were perched, guarding the eggs. He could hear their rapidly increasing heartbeats. He didn’t want to wait much longer. Now was the time. He slowed his flight and spiraled down and then began to hover. It was perfect timing as the cloud cover parted and a misty trail of moonlight slipped through the trees.
“Nyra!” one of them screamed.
“Not Nyra! Her hagsfiend’s come to curse you.” And then Coryn let loose with a terrifying shree.
Your gizzards are a-wobble,
Your gall grot turned to mush.
I shall take you all to hagsmire
And rip out all your guts.
I shall make you my slaves,
Condemn you to shame,
Unless you learn to play
My great and evil game.
“My Glaux! My Glaux! Save us!” Flint was gasping.
“We should never have left our parents!”
“It’s not my fault. I was snatched!”
The three Barn Owls were fleeing, spiraling upward in flight. They could not leave their post quickly enough. It had worked!
CHAPTER NINE
The Egg Restored
Coryn tore off the scarves of moss. The great ruse had worked better than he had ever dreamed. He lighted down at the base of the tree and carefully cleared away the leaves from the shallow pit. There was the egg, perfectly round and gleaming white, with still a little bit of dirt from The Barrens stuck to its shell.
Ever so cautiously, Coryn wrapped his talons around the precious egg. Then he spread his wings and, with a powerful upstroke followed by a downstroke, lifted off the ground. He felt bad that he could not save the other three in the nest, yet he would not even have known where to take them. All he knew right now was that he had to get out of this forest before Stryker and Wortmore came back. The wind had shifted and was against him. It would be a hard flight back to The Barrens but he had to do it. There was little left of the night. He might have to risk flying into the morning, but there was really no choice.
The cloud cover had blown off. There was no place to hide now in the sky. He could only hope that he would not meet any of the Pure Ones. Perhaps he should have kept the rags of moss. It had certainly worked as a hagsfiend disguise. But flying against this wind with the moss would not have been easy. He could feel now the swish of the liquid in the egg and hear the murmurs of the young heart. How precious these feelings and sounds were. How precious this life was. To think that it could have been destroyed by the Pure Ones. Surely, it would have been as good as destroyed even if it had hatched, because to be born into such a despicable world and nurtured by such vile creatures was the same as death.
He pumped his wings harder against the wind. It was amazing how quickly he had come to love this egg and, with that wonder, Coryn realized something else: To love something can often mean to give it up, to release it to where it truly belongs. Was life always going to be this way for him? Coryn wondered. He had loved Phillip and he had loved Mist and Zan and Streak and the lovely green snakes and yet he was forced to part with them all.
The sky was beginning to lighten. He could see the mound of rocks beneath which the Burrowing Owls had dug their burrow. There was nobody out of the burrow at this hour. They were probably sleeping below. He was not quite sure how he should go about giving them back the egg. He didn’t want to scare them again. But he certainly couldn’t just leave the egg outside to be found. The wrong owls might find it. Not to mention snakes, which loved to eat any kind of bird’s eggs.
As Coryn began to descend, he heard a soft weeping sound coming from the burrow. It was the mother. Then there were the murmurs of the father trying his best to soothe her.
Now how should I do this? Coryn thought. He lighted down and gently placed the egg just to the side of the entrance. The sunrise behind the egg was creeping over the dawn horizon, making the egg cast a lovely cool shadow over the entrance to the burrow. Below in the burrow, Harry blinked as he patted his wife and looked up, noticing this change in the light.
“Just a minute, dear, I want to check something outside.”
Coryn turned away from the burrow’s entrance. He could not face this owl. His gizzard was shivering so hard it seemed to shake his entire body. He heard a gasp.
“What? What is this? Myrtle, come here. It’s a miracle. Our egg, our egg is back!”
There was a racket as the rest of the family clambered from the burrow.
“How? How did this happen?” Myrtle asked.
It was a minute before anyone noticed Coryn off to the side, almost hiding himself behind a rock with his face still turned away.
“This was no a miracle.” It was a young female owl who spoke. Coryn could hear the scratches of her talons against the hard gritty earth and rock as she came toward him. “You…” She hesitated. “You brought our egg back, didn’t you?”
Coryn nodded but still would not turn around. He could hear the rapid heartbeat of the young owl. She was coming closer. He buried his head beneath one wing.
“Won’t you turn around so we can see you?” she said softly. “Please!”
Slowly, Coryn began to turn around, but his wing was still lifted against his face.
“Who are you?” Myrtle asked.
“Why are you hiding your face?” asked the young daughter.
“Because,” Coryn began slowly, “I am not who you think I am. As I told you before, I am nothing like my mother or father. My name is not Nyra, I am Coryn.” And he let his wing drop from his face.
There was a gasp and a little shriek from the young daughter, Kalo. But then she stepped forward. She extended her wing and touched Coryn gently. “We believe you. You brought our egg back. We believe you.”
“Please come into our burrow,” Harry said. “Please, son, come in.”
He called me son. No one has ever called me son.
CHAPTER TEN
A Namesake
The little egg deep in the burrow began to rock slightly.
“Watch it carefully now, Coryn. It will sort of shudder,” Kalo whispered.
“Shudder?” Coryn asked.
“Yes. All eggs do just before they hatch. I really shuddered. Mom said I was the biggest egg she ever laid,” Kalo offered.
“Hush up,” said Myrtle. “This isn’t a contest. It’s a hatching, a birth!”
And it’s a miracle, Coryn thought.
A miracle and a dream. It had been only two nights since he had arrived at the burrow but he felt as if he had entered a dream. A dream family. There was a young owl his age, a mum and da who loved and nurtured her. There was gentle bickering between the parents, and some squabbling and teasing. But there was love. And now for the first time ever, he was seeing a chick hatch.
“Look, Myrtle, there’s the egg tooth coming through.”
“Egg tooth?” Coryn wondered aloud.
“My mum told me nothing,” Coryn sighed. Nothing except false stories of glory, conduct of so-called valor that were really deeds of shame, tales of so-called honor that were in truth histories of disgrace, codes of loyalty that were in fact schemes of hatred and vengeance. Yes, that is what Nyra taught me.
“The egg tooth, my dear,” Myrtle began, “is a tiny sharp tooth that has only one purpose: to help a chick peck its way out of the shell. It disappears soon after hatching.”
They all watched spellbound now as a long crack began crinkling out from the tiny hole.
“The ‘Fracture of Glaux’ some call it,” Harry whispered.
“Get ready!” Kalo said. “It’s coming! I bet it’s a…” She started to say she thought it would be a boy, but Harry cuffed her wings gently. “What did I tell you? We don’t bet on such things. We just thank Glaux that we have our precious egg back.”
There was a loud crack now as the egg split open. A shiny blob of a chick flopped out. Coryn was shocked. It was one of the most disgusting things he had ever seen—featherless, slimy with bulging eyes, but…but…I love it! Never had he felt such a swirl of emotions. It was ugly yet adorable. It was repulsive yet lovable. It was gooey with slime but he wanted to cuddle it. He watched transfixed as the tiny thing attempted to stagger to its feet and then collapsed.
“It’s a boy!” Myrtle cooed. Then she looked up. “And we’ll call him Coryn!”
“What?” Coryn said.
“Of course, Coryn!” Harry repeated. Then hoorays broke out in the burrow.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Kalo spoke softly. “If it hadn’t been for you…”
“Yes, Coryn. If it hadn’t been for you…” Myrtle’s eyes filled with tears.
And then began all the wonderful little ceremonies that mark an owl’s life soon after hatching. The “Firsts” they were called. Coryn felt the most touching of all these ceremonies was the First Seeing ceremony, when the little chick first opened its bulging eyes and took a peek at its new world.
“Just think,” Kalo whispered as little Coryn looked about. “He thinks this burrow is the whole world and there are only five owls in it!” That ceremony was followed usually by the First Worm or Insect ceremony, and Coryn was allowed to bring him his very first worm. Then there was the First Down ceremony when the first fluffy filaments of downy feathers began to sprout from the naked chick’s puckery skin.
“Oh, you’ll be a regular little fluff-ball soon,” Harry said as he fussed over his son. “Here, chickie-chickie poo-poo!”
“Da’s absolutely besotted!” Kalo said.
“Besotted?” Coryn asked.
“Fancy word for being in love, like yoicks with love,” Myrtle said. “Kalo is always using fancy words. ‘Besotted’ is her latest one.”
But it was perfect, Coryn thought. He, too, was besotted. It sounded to him like being soggy with love—not simply yoicks or crazy.
It would be so hard to leave. He felt as if he could stay in this burrow forever. He had already stayed too long, nearly five nights. They were now begging him to stay for little Coryn’s First Meat ceremony, which would be in another two nights. But he knew he couldn’t. This would be his last night. He would have to leave by First Black the next evening. But for tonight he and Kalo—with whom he had grown very close—would go out and hunt for that first meat together.
Night flying with Kalo was very interesting. Kalo spent almost as much time on the ground poking into rats’ nests and molehills as she did in the sky. Coryn supposed that this was the way it was with most Burrowing Owls, because they were known for their excellent walking skills and their long, strong, featherless legs.
He was perched on a rock with a dead mouse firmly beneath one talon. It was curious, he thought. At first, he found the featherless legs of Burrowing Owls unattractive, almost disgusting. But now as he watched Kalo striding toward a molehill, he thought them downright pretty. And she looked so elegant as she walked. Her tail didn’t drag at all on the ground like most owl tails would have. And just the way her shoulders set was something special. It wasn’t, however, simply how Kalo looked. She was smart. Oh, why, oh, why do I have to leave everything nice behind and go beyond? To Beyond the Beyond!
Kalo came back as Coryn was in the midst of all these thoughts.
“It’s grosnik,” she said as she lofted herself onto the rock beside him.
“Grosnik? What’s that?”
“You’ve never heard of grosnik?” She blinked.
“No.”
“Well, there were only baby moles in the nest. We don’t eat baby anything. We call it grosnik.”
“Oh, you’re talking about standards!” Coryn replied.
“Yes, standards. But ‘grosnik’ is the word used for forbidden food—at least among Burrowing Owls.”
“My best friend, Phillip, told me about such standards. You see, his father once had to kill a baby fox when they were starving to death.”
“Oh,” Kalo said and was very quiet for a moment. Coryn hoped that she didn’t think poorly of him because he had had a friend whose father killed a baby. “Coryn, I know so little about you, really, except where you came from and who your parents were.”
“Isn’t that enough?” Coryn looked down at the dead mouse clamped beneath the toes of his talons.
“Not really. I don’t mean to pry. But this is the first time you have ever mentioned a best friend. And why must you leave us tomorrow? Why must you go to Beyond the Beyond?”
Coryn sighed. “I am not even exactly sure myself, Kalo.” He didn’t want to tell her about his fire sight. It was such a freakish thing. He didn’t want to scare her in any way. “You know sometimes that you just have to do something. You might not be sure why.”
“Like you had to bring the egg back to us.”
“Well, yes, but I knew that was the right thing to do. It was simple.”
“Simple! Are you yoicks? There was nothing simple about it, Coryn. You were incredibly courageous.” Coryn felt a delicious quivering in his gizzard. “You must know that this is the right thing to do.”
“Yes, yes. That’s it,” Coryn said. “I wouldn’t dare do it if I thought it was wrong. If I thought it was grosnik.”
Kalo churred softly.
“Why are you laughing?”
“It’s just that grosnik is usually a word meant for food, forbidden food, but I know what you mean. You wouldn’t do it if you thought it was against your standards.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Coryn.
“But, Coryn, would you tell me about your friend, Phillip?”
“It’s a very sad story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes, Coryn, I am your friend. That is what friends are for, to share the sad stories as well as the happy ones.”
So Coryn told Kalo about Phillip, and together the two young owls wept in the moonlight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Listening to Legends
The last thing the family of Burrowing Owls told Coryn before he left the following evening was that he should be careful of the Pure Ones.
Then Harry had said, “I have heard rumors, however, that Nyra has been killed.”
“What?” Coryn had said.
“Yes, her scroom, or some say it was a hagsfiend, was spotted in the southwest corner of Silverveil near the border of the Shadow Forest.”
It was all Coryn was able to do to keep from bursting out laughing. He had never told the Burrowing Owls, not even Kalo, of his ruse. Apparently, it had worked better than he ever dreamed.
And, indeed, there were rumors!
The northerly winds had continued to build and it had taken several days of very slow flying to reach the edge of the Shadow Forest. He had found what he thought was only an empty hollow in a fir tree. But now as the sun rose high in the sky, he could hear t
he voices of a family of Great Horned Owls talking.
“They say a hagsfiend of Nyra was spotted over by Cape Glaux.”
“Cape Glaux? I thought it was just in the southern part of Silverveil.”
“Well, there was another rumor that her scroom was in Ambala.”
“Hagsfiend, scroom—there are rumors all over the place. The important question is: Is she dead or not? Hagsfiends can’t lead armies. They can just scare owls, but they have no real power.”
“At least not anymore,” another owl added.
The conversation was fascinating. The dry wood of the tree was a perfect conductor for the family’s every word.
“What do you mean, not anymore?”
My question precisely, Coryn thought.
“In ancient times…”
“You mean the time of the legends, Da?”
Coryn’s gizzard quickened. Nothing stirred him like hearing the fragments of the legends of Ga’Hoole. When he had first fled from the Pure Ones and spent the long winter hiding out in tree stumps, flying by day and sleeping by night, his only solace had been to listen to the bedtime stories and legends told by parents to their young’uns toward dawn. He had heard mostly fragments, rarely complete stories. Now he pressed his ear slit to the rough wood of the hollow’s sides.
“In the time of the Coming of Hoole, when Grank, the first collier, rescued the egg that was the good King Hoole.”
Rescued the egg! The egg of good King Hoole! Coryn’s gizzard did a flip-flop, his heart skipped a beat.
“The hagsfiends tried to snatch that princely egg. But Grank saved it and even raised it in the great Northern Kingdoms in a secret forest far from any other owls. But when Hoole was no longer a hatchling, somehow the hagsfiends and other evil owls found out where he was, and Grank and Hoole were forced to flee to Beyond the Beyond. Some say it was Grank’s plan all along to take the young prince there, for that was where his education would be completed. You know that Grank was not only the first collier, and a great one at that, but he had what some called wizardly powers. He had fire sight.”
The Outcast Page 4
