Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

didn’t seem to be a weather situation or a forest fire.
    “We need all the help we can get and not just for the rescue. Something’s going on out here and we must get to the bottom of it.” What Strix Struma did not add was that it was for precisely that reason why they needed Ezylryb. Only Ezylryb, with his immense knowledge gleaned from years of reading and his long life of experiences throughout every owl kingdom, might be able to begin to understand what was going on here. Strix Struma was as worried as she had ever been. Was it a plague of some sort? A spell? A bewitchment? She didn’t believe in such nonsense. Shebroke off these thoughts. “Get that Sooty back to the gathering spot and then if you have it in you and feel you could fly one more mission, do so.” She sheered off downwind.
    “All this talk about purity and Tytos. Never heard such a bunch of babble in my life.” It was Elsie, a rather bunchy-looking Barred Owl, who seemed to have more feathers than her small body could manage. The bar designs on her wings had almost faded into a blur. But she was a kindly old bird, who, along with Matron, was in charge of the care and feeding of all the newly arrived young owlets at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Never before had the two owls been actually brought out to a gathering station on a search-and-rescue mission, however.
    “Over here, Twilight,” Matron called. “I have just fluffed up a place. That Sooty will fit in nicely. Elsie dear, spare me a bit more down for this Sooty.”
    Elsie obliged by plucking out some downy fluff from beneath her primaries. Twilight blinked. It was just as Elsie said. A low babble came in a steady stream from the little owlets, and they were all reciting some kind of poetry, and it made absolutely no sense to Twilight.
    One little Grass Owl was now chanting in a thin little voice, “Tytos now forever, so pure, so rare! Yet supreme!” A Masked Owl spoke of a Tyto to whom righteousness belongedand still another was crying out, “Oh, Tyto, who is pureness beyond compare, show thyself…Tyto, how long shall the impure triumph?”
    “Depressing little ditties, aren’t they?” Bubo said as he lighted down next to Twilight.
    “What are they talking about?” Twilight said.
    “I don’t know, but I’ve heard more cheerful tunes in my day than all this whining about Tytos.”
    As Twilight and Primrose and Digger took off for their last mission, the ragtag ends of mournful songs seemed to trail out behind them. “My goodness,” sighed Primrose. “It’s enough to make you long for a nice little wet poop joke.” She dropped down to her mid-level surveillance position, and then Digger flew under her. It was well beyond the last of the daylight. It was night. No longer flying on that silver border, Twilight would wait for signals from Primrose or Digger if they found any owlets down. Digger now swooped in close to the ground. In the muddy runoff from a creek, he saw the distinctive markings of a Barn Owl’s front talons, the toes exactly equal lengths. He followed the talon marks down the muddy path. Perhaps this one was not injured so badly if it could walk, Digger thought. But where could it have walked? And why? He saw a buff-colored feather in the path ahead. A feather ofan almost fully fledged owl, it would seem. So why not fly? And just within that moment, under the low branches of a juniper, he saw a tawny glow in the night and he heard the long, drawn-out hiss, the begging call of a Tyto alba. “ Coo coo ROOOO! Coo coo ROOOO! ”
    Digger hooted the signal indicating a downed owlet.
    As Digger waited for Twilight to spiral down, the strangest feeling began to steal over him. Twilight settled down next to him.
    “What have we got here?” Twilight said.
    “Another Barn Owl, but not a Masked or a Sooty or a Grass Owl.”
    “No,” Twilight said in a whisper. “A Tyto alba. ”
    “Like Soren,” they both said at once. Digger looked at Twilight. He almost didn’t dare say it. “Do you think it could be?”
    “Remember,” Twilight said, “how Soren once told us that his sister had a speckle near her eye. That it looked as if one of those dots from her head feathers had just slipped down to her eye and that it was the same with his mother, that she, too, had a slipped dot?”
    “Yes,” said Digger slowly.
    “Look!”
    The two owls brought their beaks close to the littleowl, whose cries had grown weaker and weaker and then stopped. They almost forgot