Guardians of Ga'Hoole 02 - The Journey

Plonk, who was admiring herself in a fragment of mirror that Mags had brought.
    They had moved on. Walking along, they looked at other simpler cloths that had been spread with a variety of items—a bright pocket watch, several broken saucers with a sign that said “mendable,” a strange flower that Soren paused to look at. “It ain’t real,” the little magpie, Bubbles, said.
    “Well, if it isn’t real, what is it?” Soren asked.
    “It’s an unreal flower,” Bubbles answered.
    “But why have an unreal flower?”
    “It ain’t never gonna die. Ya see?”
    Soren didn’t see but moved along. Despite all the merriment, he noticed that Boron and Strix Struma were always huddled together in tense conversation. They seemed, in fact, very apart from the entire festive spirit of the evening.
    Soon Soren and Eglantine joined Twilight and Digger and Primrose. Primrose had traded one of her strung milkberry bracelets for a tiny comb. And Digger had traded a very smooth pebble for a shell. “They say it comes from a very faraway ocean and that once a tiny animal lived inside it,” he explained.
    The moon was beginning to slip away, and Mags had begun to pack up her wares. It would be time for good light, but suddenly Soren noticed that Eglantine was not by his side. He had a terrible moment’s panic but then spotted her standing rigidly in front of a cloth covered with fragments of glass and pretty stones. Bubbles was packing up. “She ain’t moved an inch,” Bubbles said. “Just staring at this stone here, with the sparkles. Ain’t really gold, Mags says—just little bits of something she calls isinglass, some calls it mica. But makes a right pretty rock. Kind of sparkly in places and, if you hold it up, light can shine through it a bit. It’s kind of like a dusty mirror. Certainlycaught your sister’s fancy. There be something wrong with her, I s’pose?” she said quietly to Soren. “Here, dear, I’ll show you something real pretty we can do with it.” She picked up the stone, which was as thin as a blade. “See what it does now.” She held it up to the moon as it swept down on the dark horizon. When the light of the moon touched the stone it grew luminous. At that very same moment, the harp could be heard as the guild began their evening practice. No one else noticed, of course, but for one fraction of a second the stone blade shimmered in a swirl of flickering light and sound.
    Eglantine began to shake uncontrollably. “The Place! The Place!” Eglantine screamed.
    Something started in a dim way to make sense to Soren. He put a talon on his sister’s shoulder and spun her around to face him. “Eglantine,” he said softly.
    His sister blinked. “Soren? Oh, Soren!” she cried as he swept her under his wings.
    “I ain’t done nothing, Mags, I swear. Nothing.” Bubbles was crying and sputtering in near hysterics. “I just held up this here piece of glass we got from that castle over in Am-bala and she done gone yoicks.”
    “Take me to the music, Soren. Take me to the music. Take us all to the music,” Eglantine cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the Folds of the Night
    S oren perched on a slender branch next to Eglantine. He draped one wing over her shoulders. It seemed like a miracle. His sister was back—really back. And now she said they must listen to the harp music. If she had told him to hang upside down and be mobbed by crows, he would have. He had never been happier in his life. The other owlets that had been rescued were now gathering on the limbs outside the concert hollow. Madame Plonk rarely allowed owls to observe harp practice but she made an exception now. Boron came and perched on the other side of Eglantine. They all watched as the nest-maid snakes of the guild gathered at the harp and took their positions. Half of the guild snakes played the higher strings and the other half played the lower strings, and then there were a very few, the most talented harp snakes, that were called sliptweens. The job of the sliptweens was to jump octaves. An octave contained all eight tones of the scale. This harp had six and a half octaves, from C-flat below middle C tothe G-flat. G-flat was three and a half octaves above middle C. To find a snake that could do that jump and do it well in a split second, causing the most beautiful liquid sound to pour from the harp, was rare. And it could be exhausting work, depending on the composition.
    Mrs. P. was a natural sliptween. And Soren now