of the word. For starters, he had lived his entire life – until he was orphaned – not in a tree but in a burrow. With his long, strong, featherless legs, he had preferred walking to flying when Soren and Gylfie and Twilight first met him. He had planned to walk all the way across the desert in search of his parents until mortal danger intervened and the three owls convinced him otherwise. Nervous and high-strung, Digger worried a lot but at the same time, this owl was a very deep thinker. He was always asking the strangest questions. Boron said that Digger possessed what he called a “philosophical turn of mind”. Soren wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. He only knew that if he said to Digger, “I think Octavia might know something about Ezylryb,” Digger, unlike Gylfie, would go deeper. He would not be just a stickler for words or, like Twilight, say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Soren wished he could wake Digger up right now and share his thoughts. But he didn’t want to risk waking the others. No, he would just have to wait until they all rose at First Black.
And so Soren squashed himself into the corner bed of soft moss and down. He stole a glance at Digger before he drifted off. Digger, unlike the others, did not sleep standing or sometimes perched, but in a curious posture that more or less could be described as a squat supported by his short stubby tail with his legs splayed out to the sides. Good Glaux, that owl even sleeps odd. That was Soren’s last thought before he drifted off to sleep.
The dawn bled into night, flaying the darkness, turning the black red, and Soren, with Digger by his side, flew through it.
“Strange isn’t it, Soren, how even at night the comet makes this colour?”
“I know. And look at those sparks from the tail just below the moon. Great Glaux, even the moon is beginning to look red.” Digger’s voice was quavery with worry.
“I told you about Octavia. How she thinks it’s an omen, or at least I think she thinks it is, even though she won’t really admit it.”
“Why won’t she admit it?” Digger asked.
“I think she’s sensitive about coming from the great North Waters. She says everyone there is very superstitious, but I don’t know, I suppose she just thinks the owls here will laugh at her or something. I’m not sure.”
Suddenly Soren was experiencing a tight, uncomfortable feeling as he flew. He had never felt uncomfortable flying, even when he was diving into the fringes of forest fires to gather coals on colliering missions. But he could almost feel the sparks from that comet’s tail. It was as if they were hot sizzling points pinging off his wings, singeing his flight feathers as the infernos of burning forests never had. He carved a great downwards arc in the night to try to escape it. Was he becoming like Octavia? Could he actually feel the comet? Impossible! The comet was hundreds of thousands, millions of leagues away. Now suddenly those sparks were turning to glints, sparkling silverygrey glints. “Flecks! Flecks! Flecks!” he screeched.
“Wake up, Soren! Wake up!” The huge Great Grey Owl, Twilight, was shaking him. Eglantine had flown to a perch above him and was quaking with fear at the sight of her brother writhing and screaming in his sleep. And Gylfie the Elf Owl was flying in tight little loops above him, beating the air as best she could to bring down cool drafts that might jar him from sleep and this terrible dream. Digger blinked and said, “Flecks? You mean the ones you had to pick at St Aggie’s?”
Just at that moment, Mrs Plithiver slithered into the hollow. “Soren, dear.”
“Mrs P,” Soren gulped. He was fully awake now. “Great Glaux, did I wake you up with my screaming?”
“No dear, but I just had a feeling that you were having some terrible dream. You know how we blind snakes feel things.”
“Can you feel the comet, Mrs Plithiver?”
Mrs P squirmed a bit then arranged herself into a neat coil. “Well, I can’t really say. But it is true that since the comet arrived a lot of us nest-maid snakes have been feeling – oh, how shall I describe it – a kind of tightness in our scales. But whether it’s the comet or winter coming on I don’t know for sure.”
Soren sighed and remembered the feeling in his dream. “Does it ever feel like hot little sparks pinging off you?”
“No, no. I wouldn’t describe it that way. But, then again, I’m a snake and you’re a Barn Owl.”
“And why …” Soren hesitated. “Why is the sky bleeding?” Soren felt a shiver go through the hollow as he spoke the words.
“It’s not bleeding, silly.” A Spotted Owl stuck her head into the hollow. It was Otulissa. “It’s merely a red tinge and it’s caused by a moisture bank encountering random gasses. I read all about it in Strix Miralda’s book, she’s a sister of the renowned weathertrix—”
“Strix Emerilla,” Gylfie chimed in.
“Yes. How did you know, Gylfie?”
“Because every other word out of your mouth is a quote from Strix Emerilla.”
“Well, I won’t apologise. You know I think we are distantly related, although she lived centuries ago. Emerilla’s sister, Miralda, was a specialist in spectography and atmospheric gasses.”
“Hot air,” Twilight snarled. Glaux! She frinks me off, Twilight thought. But he did not say aloud the rather rude word for ‘supremely irritated’.
“It’s more than hot air, Twilight.”
“But you aren’t, Otulissa,” retorted the Great Grey.
“Now, young’uns, stop your bickering,” Mrs P said. “Soren here has had a frightfully bad dream. And I for one feel that it is not a good idea to push bad dreams away. If you feel like talking about your bad dream, Soren, please go right ahead.”
But Soren really didn’t feel like talking about it that much. And he had decided definitely not to tell Digger of his feelings about Octavia. His head was in too much of a muddle to be able to explain anything.
There was a tense silence. But then Digger spoke up. “Soren, why ‘flecks’? What made you scream out, ‘flecks’?” Soren felt Gylfie give a shudder. And even Otulissa remained silent. When Soren and Gylfie had been captives at St Aggie’s they had been forced to work in the pelletorium picking apart owl pellets. Owls have a unique system for digesting their food and ridding themselves of the waste materials. All of the fur and bone and feathers of their prey are separated into small packets called pellets in their second stomach, that amazingly sensitive organ of owls, the gizzard. When all the materials are packed up, owls yarp the pellets through their beaks. In the pelletorium at St Aggie’s, they had been required to pick out the various materials like bone and feather and some mysterious element that was referred to as flecks. They never knew what flecks were exactly but they were highly prized by the brutal leaders of St Aggie’s.
“I’m not sure why. I think those sparks that come off the comet’s tail somehow glinted like the flecks that we picked out of the pellets.”
“Hmm,” was all Digger said.
