by George Hagen
“Okay,” said Pamela. “Who wants to ask first?”
“I’ll go!” Somes turned to Gabriel. “Will it talk back to me?”
“No,” said Gabriel, drawing a key out of his pocket. “If the desk has an answer, it will be lying inside when I unlock it. It might be a thing, or a letter, or—”
“One time,” interrupted Abby, “I found a postcard with a picture that came to life.”
Somes fixed the desk with a serious look. “A long time ago, when I was a baby,” he began, “my dad was driving a truck when something attacked him. He won’t tell me what it was, but he lost the tip of his pinkie. It still hurts, twelve years later, and it makes him crazy. So, desk, can you tell me what happened that night?”
“Somes,” whispered Abby, “that’s a very long question.”
“You said it answered questions. What difference does it make if it’s short or long?”
Gabriel put the key in the keyhole and turned it, raising the desk lid.
“Look!” cried Pamela.
A glass globe lay in the middle cubbyhole. Little flakes of snow swirled inside it. Somes placed the globe gently in his palm and held it up for the others to see.
Inside the globe, a bakery truck rolled forward out of the blizzard. The words Love in a Loaf were painted on the truck’s side.
“My dad’s bakery truck,” murmured Somes.
As the children watched, the driver climbed out and squinted into the falling snow.
“And that’s my dad when he was younger.”
Mr. Grindle raised the truck’s hood to examine the engine. He shook his head and lowered the hood. Suddenly, an enormous black bird swooped down and landed before him. Mr. Grindle stared with astonishment. It was easy to see why, for the bird resembled a raven but with a strangely human head. In addition to wings, it had arms, which cradled a small bundle. Its yellow eyes glared menacingly at the driver.
“Is that a valraven?” murmured Pamela.
“Valravens don’t have arms,” said Gabriel. “It’s Corax—part human, part valraven. Do you see what he’s holding?”
“It’s a baby!” said Abby with astonishment.
In a swift movement, Corax lurched forward and snapped at Mr. Grindle’s hand. Mr. Grindle uttered a soundless cry and nursed his bloody finger. It appeared that Corax had taken something from his victim, which he then dropped from his beak into the mouth of the baby. Then, drawing the baby closer, he spread his wings and flew off into the swirling snow.
Mr. Grindle sank to his knees, clutching his bleeding hand.
Then, very slowly, the truck and Mr. Grindle faded away until nothing remained inside the globe but snow tumbling around in darkness.
Somes didn’t say anything for a moment. He simply placed the snow globe back in the desk and shut the lid.
“I can see why my dad didn’t want to explain what happened,” he muttered at last. “Most people would say he was crazy.”
Just then the desk began rattling its talons impatiently on the floorboards, as if to remind the children of their other questions.
Gabriel’s turn came next. “How do I find out where my mother is?” he asked.
He turned the key and raised the lid. As he peered inside, his expression fell. There was no slip of paper, no snow globe, nothing in any of the cubbyholes. He was about to close the lid when Abby pointed.
“Ooh! Look in the corner!”
A single feather rested in the third cubbyhole. Gabriel picked it up and turned it over. It was just a fluffy white feather with gray markings, no longer than his thumb. Gabriel held it up to show the others.
“Strange answer,” remarked Somes.
“What could it mean?” wondered Gabriel.
“I have no clue,” said Abby, rubbing her spectacles.
“Can I go now?” Pamela looked about ready to burst.
Gabriel placed the feather gently in his shirt pocket and closed the lid. “Darn,” he said.
Pamela leaned toward the desk. “Deskie?” she whispered. “Where is my father?”
The desk seemed to take a deep breath, but as Gabriel leaned forward to put the key in the lock, the desk hopped backward.
“Hey!” he said sharply. “Come here!”
The desk crouched and retreated like a dog preparing to flee.
“Why doesn’t it want to answer?” Pamela wondered.
Scraping its talons hurriedly on the floor, the desk fled through the gap between Pamela and Somes, thundered down the staircase, and struck the landing with a loud crash.
Moments later, they heard a door slam.
Somes turned to the others. “Well, that’s the end of that.”
“What about my question?” Abby was upset. “I wanted to find out if a raven is going to ask me a riddle on my birthday.”
“Hey, look!” said Gabriel.
He pointed to Pamela’s window. The robin gazed at them in profile, his eye scrutinizing each child.
“Nobody move,” said Gabriel, concerned that a wish was on the way.
At that moment, footsteps came up the stairs. The children turned, expecting that the desk had returned, but when the door opened, it was only Trudy.
“What are you all doing?” she asked brusquely.
Pamela tried to think of an explanation. “Oh, Mom, we’re just—”
“Trying not to scare the robin at the window,” said Abby.
“What robin?” said Trudy.
The children turned to look.
But Snitcher had flown away.
—
After his friends had gone, Gabriel headed downstairs to Mr. Finley’s study. His father was in his armchair, examining a thick volume with a magnifying glass. He looked weary and frustrated, and simply frowned when Gabriel showed him the feather.
“I have no idea what this means,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Okay, thanks anyway, Dad.”
Disappointed, Gabriel trudged slowly upstairs. He passed his aunt’s bedroom and noticed that she was applying a brilliant shade of red lipstick. “Are you going somewhere fancy?” he asked.
“Oh no, just meeting a friend.” Aunt Jaz took another glance at herself in the mirror, then turned to him. “How do I look?”
There was something different about her appearance. It took Gabriel a moment to realize that she had not applied her little black boomerang eyebrows. Without them, her blue eyes stood out brightly. She looked very nice, and he told her so.
Aunt Jaz’s dimples appeared. “Thank you, my dear!” she said. She rose quickly, put on her coat, and said goodbye.
Gabriel continued to his room and sat on his bed, puzzling over the feather. What can it mean? he wondered. What does it have to do with finding disappeared things?
And then a voice said, It’s quite obvious to me.
Startled, Gabriel looked up and saw Paladin perched on the bed knob, tidying his feathers very carefully with his beak.
“What’s so obvious, Paladin?”
Every raven recognizes a feather like that. It sends chills through his wings. That is a feather no raven wants to see.
“Why? What does it come from?”
A great horned owl.
“Ah!” said Gabriel. He knew that ravens were terrified of great horned owls. And he remembered that he and Paladin had met such owls before.
Do you recall that night in the zoo when the great horned owls entrusted us with the torc? Paladin continued. They know a lot about its past. If anybody can tell us about disappeared things, it will be them. We must pay them a visit.
Gabriel gave a sigh. “But I promised my dad that I wouldn’t paravolate.”
Paladin hopped onto Gabriel’s shoulder. If you learn where your mother is, I think your father will forgive you; he needs your help.
When his amicus put it that way, Gabriel was convinced. He stood up from his bed and threw the window open. A fresh breeze rippled the curtains.
Paladin hopped to the windowsill, spread his wings, and c
ried, Jump!
The boy and his raven focused their thoughts for a moment, and then Gabriel leaped. He felt his body shiver violently, his arms vanish, his shoulders slide backward to form wings, and his feet shrink into slender talons. It was both terrifying and thrilling, a bit like one’s first jump into a deep, dark, and unfamiliar lake. He and Paladin merged into one.
In that instant, they went soaring out the window. Paladin tipped his wings and caught a wind current that raised them high above the Finley house. This was the part about flying that Gabriel loved the most—the sensation of being able to ride the air effortlessly.
Oh, I’ve missed this so much, he thought.
Borne by a fast current, they flew north over the rooftops of the nighttime city. Cars and taxis crawled in slow, predictable paths below; smoke rose in faint wisps above hundreds of chimneys; the East River glittered beneath the moon like a ribbon of tinsel between Brooklyn and the Bronx. After crossing a small island, they descended over several city blocks toward a dark patch of trees and footpaths.
This was the zoo. It was long after closing time, so there were no keepers on the paths. Gabriel and Paladin glided over the ponds and exhibits until they recognized the building marked BIRDS OF PREY. They perched upon a bench beside the large black glass doors.
Paladin sprang apart from Gabriel, then alighted upon his shoulder and trembled at the prospect of meeting the owls again.
“Remember, we’re friends with them,” the boy reminded his amicus.
I know, replied Paladin. But they still give me the shivers. If you don’t mind, I would prefer to merge into your body. I don’t fancy being an accidental snack for an owl.
Gabriel agreed that this was a good idea, so Paladin concentrated for a moment and did a leap of his own.
The boy felt a tickle as the raven merged with him. It was a bit like having a very small hand squeeze into the glove you’re already wearing—not painful, just very cozy.
All right, Paladin said. I’m ready.
Once inside, Gabriel walked past bright displays with photographs of eagles, falcons, and hawks. He didn’t stop until he found a door marked NOCTURNAL PREDATORS. The moment he stepped into the room, he felt a sense of danger and the skin on the back of his neck grew prickly. It was too dark to see anything at first, but as his eyes adjusted he recognized the silhouettes of four enormous owls with hornlike feathers on their heads. They seemed asleep, but then their piercing eyes opened and regarded him like a row of judges gazing down at a defendant.
“Who goes there?” said a raspy voice.
“Gabriel Finley.”
“The son of Adam Finley?”
“Yes.”
“We have been expecting you. You have a lot to explain.”
Gabriel was surprised by this ominous greeting.
“Young Finley,” said the first owl, “months ago we entrusted you with an ancient torc.”
“You were to keep it upon its staff,” continued a second owl, “and protect it from all who would use it for evil.”
“But you have lost it to a robin!” said a third with a shiver of disgust.
“I’m sorry. Really sorry,” Gabriel replied.
Their expressions remained unforgiving, and the silence made Gabriel feel ashamed. He tried to explain himself. “I needed to rescue my dad from Aviopolis. You know that he was imprisoned there by my uncle, Corax. When I dueled Corax for the torc, the robin stole it. But I’ve been trying to—”
“You have no idea how serious the situation is!” interrupted the first owl. “Corax’s soul lies trapped inside the torc.”
“Wait!” said Gabriel with surprise. “Did you say Corax’s soul is in the torc? In other words, he’s alive?”
“Indeed. He commands the robin to do his bidding.”
Gabriel felt his stomach turn. “I thought he’d been destroyed,” he said. “I’ve been so stupid. That explains so much….”
“You are in grave danger, all because of your own foolishness,” said another owl.
Gabriel wilted in front of his judges. “But I have to find my mother. I’ll get the torc back, I promise.”
One owl turned skeptically to his neighbor. “Another promise.”
“Just one minute!” snapped a plump, scruffy owl at the far end of the perch. “The boy is a good egg. Perhaps his plan is a bit soft-boiled, but better that than rotten or poached, don’t you agree?”
Several smaller owls emerged from the shadows and began to cough helplessly—which is how owls laugh.
Hey, Gabriel, said Paladin silently. That’s our friend Caruso. He helped us rescue your father, remember?
The scruffy owl looked kindly upon Gabriel, and winked at him.
“Thank you, Caruso,” Gabriel replied, glad to have one friend in the room.
“This lad dueled a demon double his own diameter,” Caruso quipped. “Punned him into purgatory! Riddled him into ridicule! Now the soul of the Lord of Air and Darkness is nailed in the noggin of a nincompoop! The brainpan of a boob! Better he be sealed in a robin’s cerebellum than ruling the world, so spare me the gloom and doom and help the lad find his mother.”
“How do you propose we do that, Caruso?” replied the first owl.
“Tell him about the Chamber of Runes.”
The moment Caruso said this, all the owls hushed, then exchanged a flicker of glances, followed by a lot of muttering.
Gabriel grew excited. “Is the Chamber of Runes where my mother is? Is that where the disappeared go?”
“It is a secret place,” said the first owl.
“It was until Caruso spilled the beans,” snapped the second owl.
“All disappeared souls go there,” Caruso continued. “The dwarfs who forged the torc created this chamber in the event of a mishap. Anyone who is made to vanish by the torc’s magic is separated, body from soul. The soul may wander, but the body becomes captive—”
“Compressed, reduced, and shrunk,” quipped a small owl.
“And contained,” continued a third owl, “in a stone vessel called a rune—and that rune is kept in a place called the Chamber of Runes.”
“Where is this chamber?” asked Gabriel.
“Why, deep down in the—”
“SILENCE, Caruso!” interrupted the first owl. “No owl may reveal its location!”
“Why not?” asked Gabriel.
“Corax will seek to free his own body from its rune, then resume his quest to rule the world. Do you realize how many creatures have already been driven to extinction when they refused to serve him? Why, he’s killed most of the talking birds in existence—”
“Like who?” asked Gabriel.
“Oh, he’s wiped out hundreds of species,” said Caruso.
“The rapping rheas of Rhodesia and the mumbling moas of Mozambique,” said one owl.
“The boasting bustards of Belarus,” added another. “The quipsters of Qatar!”
“And perhaps the funniest bird in the world, the Catskill Mountains cuckoo,” added a third. “Every gag a winner, every joke a gem.”
“None left. And all those punch lines forgotten,” intoned another owl, sadly.
“That’s nothing compared to what he’ll do to you humans,” added a stern-voiced owl.
Gabriel turned anxiously from the owl to his scruffy friend. “Please, Caruso,” he begged. “I’ve got to find my mom. I just want my family to be together again.” He glanced at the others. “You can all understand that, can’t you?”
“I sympathize, dear lad—”
Before Caruso could say another word, the other owls drew in front of him, muffling his voice.
“Young Finley,” said the stern owl, “you must return to the mission we gave you. Get the torc from the robin and we will reconsider your request.”
—
Gabriel left the owls’ habitat and strode from the building. Outside, he noticed the full moon. It was bright and magnificent—but it could do nothing to help him bring his mother back.
Paladin sprang free of Gabriel, and hovered before him.
I tell you, he said. Owls are the absolute opposite of wise. How can they think it’s easy to get the torc back from a nasty little bird? This is a catastrophe.
“Let’s just fly home,” Gabriel replied.
He jumped, and merged with Paladin. A breeze lifted them above the rooftops and the moon shone down like silver. Then a hopeful thought occurred to Gabriel. Hey, what if we asked around about this Chamber of Runes? If the owls know about it, maybe some other birds do, too.
Along their way, they asked some pigeons, who were no help. A laughing gull uttered a brief titter and glided off. Then Paladin spied a proud silhouette perched on the chimney of a very grand house below them. It was a spindly-legged bird with an elegant neck and a long, pointed beak—a stork.
“Good evening!” cried Paladin.
“What’s so good about it?” snapped the slender bird.
“The older you get, the lower I get. What am I?” asked Paladin.
The stork gave a dismissive sniff. “You ravens and your riddles.”
“Can you guess it?” asked Paladin. “It’s simple, really.” He waited for the stork to try, but she just perched there. “Okay,” he said. “Do you give up? The answer is your voice, because voices always get lower as you get older! Get it?”
The stork drew a long, slow, annoyed breath. “We storks prefer limericks,” she replied haughtily.
“Oh, you should have said so,” said Paladin. “Listen to this one:
“A man had a nose like a horn.
He played it each morning at dawn,
He needed no feet
To walk any street,
For it ran as he played on his horn.”
Paladin laughed, but the stork was unmoved.
“Get it?” said the raven. “He didn’t need feet because he had a runny nose? It’s a pun.”
“Not funny,” she said. “You can’t run with a runny nose.”
“You can if you have a sense of humor,” the raven grumbled.
The stork looked pleased; she obviously enjoyed feeling superior to him.
Gabriel noticed this, and so he made a suggestion to Paladin. Ask her about the Chamber of Runes, but say it wrong and let her correct you.
