Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

behavior at tea. I am truly sorry. I know that…”
    Mrs. P. coiled up and cocked her head in that particularly sympathetic way she had. “Soren,” she spoke softly and there was something in the very softness of her voicethat brought tears to his eyes. “Soren, dear boy, I know you are sorry, but I don’t think that is why you are here.”
    “It’s not?” Soren was dumbfounded. But she was right. That really wasn’t why he was here. He knew it as soon as she had said it. Yet he was still confused. “Why…why,” he stammered, “am I here?”
    “I think it has to do with your sister, Eglantine.”
    As soon as she said it, Soren knew that she was right. He missed his parents terribly but he did not worry about his parents. Eglantine, however, was another story. Mrs. P. had her suspicions about Kludd. These suspicions deepened when Kludd threatened to eat her. Still, she was not sure if Eglantine had been snatched or not. Eglantine had simply disappeared.
    “It’s the not knowing, isn’t it, that’s so hard. Not knowing if Eglantine is dead or alive…”
    “Or imprisoned,” Soren said.
    “Yes, dear. I know.”
    “And if she is dead, it doesn’t help me one bit to think of her being in glaumora if I am here and she is there.”
    “No, of course not. She’s too young to be in glaumora.”
    “Mrs. P., I know that St. Aegolius Academy for Orphan Owls is the most terrible place. But remember what the dying Barred Owl said about,” Soren dropped his voice, “the ‘you only wish’…”
    “Hush now, dear.”
    Soren simply couldn’t stop himself. “Have you heard anything else about the ‘you only wish’?”
    Mrs. Plithiver waved her head about in a small figure eight, which was the manner in which blind snakes often moved when they could not quite decide what to say or do. Soren peered at her closely. Was something leaking out of the small dents where her eyes would have been? Soren suddenly felt terrible. “I’m sorry, Mrs. P. I won’t speak of this again.”
    “No, dear. Come to me whenever you want to talk about Eglantine. I think it will help you, but let’s not get carried away about rumors of terrible places. I have a feeling deep within me that Eglantine is not dead. Now, I cannot tell you more than that, but I think, together, we can hope. Hope is never a foolish thing—although others will tell you it is. But I don’t need to tell you that, Soren—look at yourself. You were snatched and you taught yourself to fly and you escaped from that awful St. Aggie’s. You flew straight out of those deep stone canyons and right into the Yonder. Anyone who flies out of a stone hole into the Yonder knows about hope.”
    It was always this way when Soren spoke with Mrs. P. She always made him feel so much better. It was just as if a clean rain had washed away all of the worry and the sadness.Yes, he still missed his parents. He would always miss his parents, and he would never get used to it, but Mrs. P. had given him hope about Eglantine, and this alone made him feel so much better. He decided to take the outside route back to his hollow. The day guard on this side of the tree was very nice and wouldn’t mind that he had gone down to see his old nest-maid. And there weren’t any real rules at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree about having to stay in your hollow asleep all day until the wake-up calls of good night. So he stepped out on a branch and lifted into flight, swooping through the spreading limbs of the old tree. Yes, Mrs. P. was right. He could see the beginnings of the new milkberries forming on the long glistening threads they called silver rain at this time of the year.
    These slim vines cascaded down from branches of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree and swayed like sheer curtains in the afternoon sun. In winter, they were white and then in spring they turned silvery, by summer they would be golden, and by fall they would turn a deep coppery rose. Thus, in Ga’Hoole, the seasons were not simply called winter, summer, spring, and fall, but the times of the white rain, the silver rain, the golden rain, and the rain of the copper rose. For the young owls, there was nothing more fun than to fly amid the glistening curtains. Therefore they had developed all sorts of games to be played. But onthis bright afternoon, everyone was asleep so Soren found himself alone. Rain must have just fallen for the vines sparkled with beads of water and behind one curtain he caught the shimmering colors of a