– 12–1. Isn’t it sublime! It’s a very special number, and I am sure that you will discover your very own specialness as an owl.”
“Thank you,” Soren said, still slightly mystified but relieved that the fierce owl had apparently not told Finny anything bad about him.
“Thank you, what?” Finny giggled. “See? I get to ask questions too, sometimes.”
“Thank you, Finny?”
Finny inclined her head towards him again. There was a slight glare in the yellow glow. “Again,” she whispered softly. “Again … now, look me in the eyes.” Soren looked into the yellow light.
“Thank you, Auntie.”
“Yes, dear. I’m just an old broody. Love being called Auntie.”
Soren did not know what a broody was, but he took the mouse meat and followed the owl who had been in front of him into the glaucidium. Two large, ragged brown owls escorted the entire group. The glaucidium was a deep box canyon, the floor of which was covered with sleeping owlets. Moonlight streamed down directly on them, silvering their feathers.
“Fall in, you two!” barked a voice from high up in a rocky crevice.
“You!” A plump owl stepped up to Soren. Indeed, Soren’s heart quickened at first for it was another Barn Owl just like his own family. There was the white heart-shaped face and the familiar dark eyes. And yet, although the colour of these eyes was identical to his own and those of his family, he found the owl’s gaze frightening.
“Back row, and prepare to assume the sleeping position.” These instructions were delivered in the throaty rasp common to Barn Owls, but Soren found nothing comforting in the familiar.
The two owls who had escorted the newly arrived orphans spoke to them next. They were Long Eared Owls and had tufts that poked straight up over their eyes and twitched. Soren found this especially unnerving. They each alternated speaking in short deep whoos. The whoos were even more disturbing than the barks of Skench earlier, for the sound seemed to coil into Soren’s very breast and thrum with a terrible clang.
“I am Jatt,” said the first owl. “I was once a number. But now I have earned my new name.”
“Whhh—” Soren snapped off the word.
“I see a question forming on your disgusting beak, number 12–1!” The whoo thrummed so deep within Soren’s breast that he thought his heart might burst.
“Let me make this perrr-fectly clear.” The thrumming of the owl’s sound was almost unbearable. “At St Aggie’s words beginning with the whh sound are not to be spoken. Such words are question words, a habit of mental luxury and indulgence. Questions might fatten the imagination, but they starve the owlish instincts of hardiness, patience, humility and self-denial. We are not here to pamper you by allowing an orgy of wwwhh words, question words. They are dirty words, swear words punishable by the most severe means at our disposal.” Jatt blinked and cast his gaze on Soren’s wings. “We are here to make true owls out of you. And someday you will thank us for it.”
Soren thought he was going to faint with fear. These owls were so different from Finny. Auntie! He silently corrected himself. Jatt had resumed speaking in his normal whoo. “Now my brother shall address you.”
It was an identical voice. “I am Jutt. I too was once a number but have earned my new name. You are now in the sleeping position. Standing tall, head up, beak tipped to the moon. You see in this glaucidium hundreds of owlets. They have all learned to sleep in this manner. You too shall learn.”
Soren looked around, desperately searching for Gylfie, but all he saw was Hortense, or number 12–8. She had assumed the perfect sleeping position. He could tell by the stillness of her head that she was sound asleep under the glare of a full moon. Soren spotted a stone arch that connected to what he thought was another glaucidium. A mass of owls seemed to be marching. Their beaks were bobbing open and shut but Soren could not hear what they were saying.
Jatt now spoke again. “It is strictly forbidden to sleep with the head tucked under the wings, dipped towards the breast, or in the manner that many of you young owls are accustomed, which is the semi-twist position in which the head rests on the back.” Soren felt at least seven wh sounds die mutely in his throat. “Incorrect sleeping posture is also punishable, using our most severe methods.”
“Sleep correction monitors patrol the glaucidium, making their rounds at regular intervals,” Jutt continued.
Now it was Jatt’s turn again. Their timing seemed perfect. Soren felt they had given this speech many times. “Also, at regular intervals, you shall hear the alarm. At the sound, all owlets in the glaucidium are required to begin the sleep march.”
“During the sleep march,” Jutt resumed, “you march, repeating your old name over and over and over again. When the second alarm sounds, you halt where you are. Repeat your number designation one time, and one time only, and assume the sleep position once more.”
Both owls next spoke at once in an awesome thrum. “Now, sleep!”
Soren tried to sleep. He really did try. Maybe Finny, he meant Auntie, would believe him. But there was just something in his gizzard, a little twinge, that seemed to make sleep impossible. It was almost as if the shine of the full moon that sprayed its light over half the glaucidium became a sharp silver needle stabbing through his skull and going straight to his gizzard. Perhaps he had a very sensitive gizzard like his da. But in this case he wasn’t “tasting” the sweet grass the meadow mouse had feasted on. He was tasting dread.
Soren was not sure how long it was before the alarm sounded but it was soon time for his first sleep march. Repeating his name over and over, he followed the owls in his group and now moved into the shadow under the overhang of the arch. “Ah,” Soren sighed. The stabbing feeling in his skull ceased. His gizzard grew still. And Soren became more alert, the proper state for an owl who lived in the night. He looked about him. The little Spotted Owl named Hortense stood next to him. “Hortense?” Soren said. She stared at him blankly and began tapping her feet as if to move.
A sleep monitor swooped down. “Whatcha marching in place for, 12–8? Assume the sleeping position.”
Hortense immediately tipped her beak up, her head slightly back, but there was no moon to shine down upon it in the shadow of the rock. Soren, also in the sleep position, slid his eyes towards her. Curious, he thought. She responded to her number name but not her old name, except to move her feet. Still unable to sleep in this newfangled position, Soren twisted his head about to survey the stone arch. Through the other side of the arch, he caught sight of Gylfie, but too late. The alarm sounded, a high, piercing shriek. Before he knew it, he was being pushed along as thousands of owls began to move. Within seconds, there was an indescribable babble as each owl repeated its old name over and over again.
It became clear to Soren that they were following the path of the moon around the glaucidium. There were, however, so many owls that they could not all be herded under the full shine of the moon at the same time. Therefore, some were allowed an interval under the overhang of the rock arch. Perhaps he and Gylfie, since they had ended up before at the arch at the same time, could meet there again. He was determined to get close to Gylfie the next time.
But that would take three more times. Three more times of blathering his name into the moonlit night. Three more times of feeling the terrible twinge in his gizzard.
