Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

and fast for a while now. With each stroke of their wings, they felt surer of their course, and their gizzards began to tremble with excitement. And with each stroke that drew Soren closer to the island with the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, he knew he was flying somehow farther away from St. Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls. How dare they call that place an academy? For nothing was learned there. Indeed, one of the worst rules that an owl could break was that of asking a question. The most severe and the bloodiest punishments were reserved for questioners. The foulest words one could utter at St. Aggie’s were the cursed wh words: what, when, why. Soren at one point had all of his just-budging flight feathers ripped out and his wings left with a slick of blood because he had asked a question. Knowledge was forbidden.
    Soon it began to snow, rubbing the pinpoints of starlight into smears, feathering the edges of the mooninto a blurry softness, and smudging the dark green line of the current. I can’t lose the current! Soren thought.
    “I don’t know how we’ll ever see this Island of Hoole,” Digger said. “Look down. Everything is turning white.”
    “Where’s the current?” asked Gylfie anxiously.
    Soren felt Mrs. Plithiver shift nervously in his neck feathers. So near but so far! They couldn’t lose the current now. Soren thought that the Island of Hoole and the Great Ga’Hoole Tree seemed almost like the sky did to Mrs. Plithiver, the Yonder. And right now it felt as if they were just this side of the Yonder.
    The conditions became increasingly confusing for the owls to fly in. Accustomed in night flying to opening up their pupils so wide that they nearly filled the entire size of their eyes, on this snowy night the owls had to do the reverse and yet it was not like day flying. There was too much light and it was all the same color, a shadowy gray. Water would appear no different from the surrounding land. Were they still over water? Or could they be over the Island of Hoole? Or maybe they had been blown off course again! Soren remembered what Mrs. Plithiver had said, that one had to see with one’s entire body. Mrs. P.’s words came back to him. The four owls were bunched together in a tight V–shaped formation with Twilight at the point. Soren realized that flying on one side of the V or theother was not the best place to take advantage of the uneven placement of his ears and his good hearing.
    “Let me fly point, Twilight. I’ll be able to hear better.”
    Twilight slowed his speed and Soren stroked past him. “Hang on, Mrs. P., I’m going to have to do some head rolls.”
    An owl’s neck is a strange thing. Unlike most birds, owls have extra bones in their necks that allow them to swivel their heads far to each side, in an arc much wider than any other living creature. Indeed, an owl can flip its head back so that its crown touches its shoulders, or turn its face almost upside down as Soren was doing just now. “Hello!” said Soren to Mrs. P., who nestled now directly beneath his beak as he flipped his face about. “Just scanning.”
    After several minutes of this, Soren noticed a change in the night. He was not sure exactly what it was but something seemed different. “Digger, remember that coyote song you were singing?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sing it again and tip your head down.”
    “Hard to tell which way is down tonight.”
    Indeed it was, for the entire world, thick with snow, had suddenly turned completely white. But Digger began to sing in the thin grainy voice of a desert owl. Soren meanwhile was moving his head in small, minute movements. Finally, he said, “I think we’re still over water.” Thesound of Digger’s song that was reflected back was different from when he had sung it when they were over land and his sound had disappeared into the softness of an earth clad with trees. Now the song came back sharp and crisp.
    And then there came a moment when the wind died and the snowflakes seemed to stand still. Twilight spoke. “It’s time for me to fly point again, Soren.”
    Soren knew he was right. The snowflakes had evaporated into a thick dense fog. The world, the water below, was shrouded in mist. It was time for the vision of Twilight—that time that Twilight had spoken about when Soren and Gylfie had first met him, that time that had given Twilight his name, when boundaries become dim and shapes begin to melt away. It was the time for the Great Gray Owl, who lived on the