“Mum! Da!” he cried out in his half sleep. He would forever regret calling out those two words, for suddenly, the night was ripped with a shrill screech and Soren felt talons wrap around him. Now he was being lifted. And they were flying fast, faster than he could think, faster than he could ever imagine. His parents never flew this fast. He had watched them when they took off or came back from the hollow. They glided slowly and rose in beautiful lazy spirals into the night. But now, underneath, the earth raced by. Slivers of air blistered his skin. The moon rolled out from behind thick clouds and bleached the world with an eerie whiteness. He scoured the landscape below for the tree that had been his home. But the trees blurred into clumps, and then the forest of the Kingdom of Tyto seemed to grow smaller and smaller and dimmer and dimmer in the night, until Soren could not stand to look down any more. So he dared to look up.
There was a great bushiness of feathers on the owl’s legs. His eyes continued upward. This was a huge owl – or was it even an owl? Atop this creature’s head, over each eye, were two tufts of feathers that looked like an extra set of wings. Just as Soren was thinking this was the strangest owl he had ever seen, the owl blinked and looked down. Yellow eyes! He had never seen such eyes. His own parents and his brother and sister all had dark, almost black eyes. His parents’ friends who occasionally flew by had brownish eyes, perhaps some with a tinge of tawny gold. But yellow eyes? This was wrong. Very wrong!
“Surprised?”
The owl blinked, but Soren could not reply. So the owl continued. “Yes, you see, that’s the problem with the Kingdom of Tyto – you never see any other kind of owl but your own kind – lowly, undistinguished Barn Owls.”
“That’s not true,” said Soren.
“You dare contradict me!” screeched the owl.
“I’ve seen Grass Owls and Masked Owls. I’ve seen Bay Owls and Sooty Owls. Some of my parents’ very best friends are Grass Owls.”
“Stupid! They’re all Tytos,” the owl barked at him.
Stupid? Grown-ups weren’t supposed to speak this way – not to young owls, not to chicks. It was mean. Soren decided he should be quiet. He would stop looking up.
“We might have a haggard here,” he heard the owl say. Soren turned his head slightly to see who the owl was speaking to.
“Oh, great Glaux! One wonders if it is worth the effort.” This owl’s eyes seemed more brown than yellow and his feathers were spattered with splotches of white and grey and brown.
“Oh, I think it is always worth the effort, Grimble. And don’t let Spoorn hear you talking that way. You’ll get a demerit and then we’ll all be forced to attend another one of her interminable lectures on attitude.”
This owl looked different as well. Not nearly as big as the other owl and his voice made a soft tingg-tingg sound. It was at least a minute before Soren noticed that this owl was also carrying something in his talons. It was a creature of some sort and it looked rather owlish, but it was so small, hardly larger than a mouse. Then it blinked its eyes. Yellow! Soren resisted the urge to yarp. “Don’t say a word!” the small owl said in a squeaky whisper. “Wait.”
Wait for what? Soren wondered. But soon he felt the night stir with the beating of other wings. More owls fell in beside them. Each one carried an owlet in its talons. Then there was a low hum from the owl that gripped Soren. Gradually, the other owls flanking them joined in. Soon the air thrummed with a strange music. “It’s their hymn,” whispered the tiny owl. “It gets louder. That’s when we can talk.”
Soren listened to the words of the hymn.
Hail to St Aegolius
Our Alma Mater.
Hail, our song we raise in praise of thee
Long in the memory of every loyal owl
Thy splendid banner emblazoned be.
Now to thy golden talons
Homage we’re bringing.
Guiding symbol of our hopes and fears
Hark to the cries of eternal praises ringing
Long may we triumph in the coming years.
The tiny owl began to speak as the voices swelled in the black of the night. “My first words of advice are to listen rather than speak. You’ve already got yourself marked as a wild owl, a haggard.”
“Who are you? What are you? Why do you have yellow eyes?”
“You see what I mean! That is the last thing that you should worry about.” The tiny owl sighed softly. “But I’ll tell you. I am an Elf Owl. My name is Gylfie.”
“I’ve never seen one in Tyto.”
“We live in the high desert kingdom of Kuneer.”
“Do you ever grow any bigger?”
“No. This is it.”
“But you’re so small and you’ve got all of your feathers, or almost.”
“Yes, this is the worst part. I was within a week or so of flying when I got snatched.”
“But how old are you?”
“Twenty nights.”
“Twenty nights!” Soren exclaimed. “How can you fly that young?”
“Elf Owls are able to fly by twenty-seven or thirty nights.”
“How much is sixty-six nights?” Soren asked.
“A lot.”
“I’m a Barn Owl and we can’t fly for sixty-six nights. But what happened to you? How did you get snatched?”
Gylfie did not answer right away. Then slowly, “What is the ONE thing that your parents always tell you not to do?”
“Fly before you’re ready?” Soren said.
“I tried and I fell.”
“But I don’t understand. It would have been only a week, you said.” Soren, of course, wasn’t sure how long a week was or how long twenty-seven nights were, but it all sounded shorter than sixty-six.
“I was impatient. I was well on my way to growing feathers but had grown no patience.” Gylfie paused again. “But what about yourself? You must have tried it too.”
“No. I don’t really know what happened. I just fell out of the nest.” But the second Soren said those words he felt a weird queasiness. He almost knew. He just couldn’t quite remember, but he almost knew how it had happened, and he felt a mixture of dread and shame creep through him. He felt something terrible deep in his gizzard.
