Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

she’d accept me just the way I am.”
    “You’re probably right.” Eglantine nodded and a dreamy look filled her eyes.
    But then it seemed as if a wary silence hung between them, as if neither one of them dared to say what they were thinking.
    Wouldn’t it be lovely, Eglantine thought, if Ginger could come and stay with us. Mum would love her. I just know it. I’d have a sister at last.
    Finally, the silence was broken by Ginger. She had swiveled her head and was looking out the hollow’s opening. “Look. The wind has shifted. It’s blowing from the north, right toward The Beaks. They call it a sweet wind, don’t they?”
    “Yes, it’s a sweet wind if it blows toward the southeast in the summer. I’m not sure why. Maybe it cools things down in the worst of the summer heat. But it’s a sign, Eglantine thought. Yes, indeed, the sweet wind is a sign just as the centipede in the milkberry jelly had been a sign that Mum is near, and I should go to her. The sweet wind will carry me there.
    “Ginger, I have an idea.”
    “Yes?” Ginger leaned forward eagerly, her dark eyes shining.
    “I think with this favorable wind, this sweet wind, I could easily make it to my mum’s hollow in The Beaks tonight.”
    “I think you could, too, Eglantine,” she said. Then she cast her eyes down shyly. Eglantine could tell that Ginger wanted to say something more, but for some reason she was having trouble getting the words out.
    “What is it, Ginger?”
    “I’m not sure I can ask this. It seems so…so…I don’t know.”
    “Ginger, do you want to know if you can come with me? Is that it?”
    Ginger gave a barely discernible nod and then fluttered her eyelids.
    “Why, of course you can. I wouldn’t think of going without you. Mum will love you.”
    “Really?”
    “Really,” replied Eglantine. “Now, when should we go?”
    “I think we should leave as soon as free flight begins tonight. There are no classes all night, and I bet every owl will be over on the north side of the island riding those northerly wind crests as they come in.”
    “You’re right. It’s been so hot. They’ll all be over there cooling off in those chilly crests.”
    “But we can pick up the sweet wind on the south side. No one will know where we’ve gone. They’ll just think we’re off doing something else.”
    “I hope so,” Eglantine said in a tentative voice. She wasthinking how she had just been complaining yesterday to Soren, and he had said that they might get the northerly wind soon. But if she and Ginger left right now they could pretend that they had flown off before they knew the wind crests were arriving. Yes, that was what they must do! Eglantine was so thrilled at the prospect of seeing her mum that she thought her gizzard might just burst from the joy.
    At last I am going toward something, I’m going home! Home! To Mum, to Da perhaps, to our family hollow . As the two Barn Owls circled out and climbed over the Sea of Hoolemere, the moon rose and cast a glinting silver thread of light that led right to The Beaks. For Eglantine, it seemed as if she had lived in an empty hollow forever; yes, that was what death meant for those who had not died but grieved endlessly. The grieving life was a large bare hollow, with long empty flight paths leading to it. But now she knew everything was about to change. Her life would have meaning again. With her mum and da, she was somebody and she would live in a lovely mossy hollow hung with vines of ivy and lichen, listening to their stories. Their legends of that place called the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. To them, it was just a legend. Eglantine knew the tree was real, but it didn’t really count, not like a hollow, not like home.
    She began to hum a song that she had often heard hermother sing. Oh, she wished she could remember the words. Her mother had sung it when she was returning to the nest from hunting. It was halfway between a hunting song and a lullaby. Suddenly, the words came back to her, and Eglantine began singing the lovely old song.

I’m coming home to my tall tree
In a forest deep and green,
Where my owl chicks wait for me
Tucked away in my tall tree.
    I bring you vole,
I bring coon.
The blood’s not cold,
I’ll be there soon.
    And from my breast,
I’ll pluck some down,
So you can rest
‘Til the moon grows round.
    Sleep on, babes, grow strong.
May your feathers fledge,
Your wings grow long.
    And then at day’s edge
When dark drinks light,
We’ll rise together