Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

in chick’s first flight.

    Like a seam in the night, the coastline of The Beaks began to glimmer.
    “This way,” Eglantine cried out to Ginger and tipped her head toward a lake that was shining in the distance. It sparkled with the reflections of the moon and the stars. Eglantine had never seen anything so beautiful. “It’s like a mirror!” she exclaimed, and, indeed, when she looked down, she could see both of their faces.
    “But look over there, Eglantine—a tree, a fir tree! Just like the one you told me about. The one in your dreams!”
    “But this isn’t a dream, Ginger. This is REAL!”
    And she swooped out across the lake, heading straight toward the fir tree. And she began singing once more.

I’m coming home to my tall tree
In a forest deep and green,
Where my mum waits for me
Tucked away in my tall tree.
Oh, my mum waits for me!

CHAPTER NINE
The Most Beautiful Mum
in the World
    E glantine lighted down on the branch. She cocked her head toward the opening of the hollow. Was she really hearing the same song she had just been singing? And in her mum’s voice? She took a couple of steps tentatively toward the opening.
    “Look, she’s braided the moss, Ginger, just like she always did in Tyto.”
    “Go on in. Don’t be bashful,” Ginger urged. “It’s your mum, for Glaux’s sake.”
    “What if she doesn’t recognize me? I was just a baby then.”
    “A mother always knows her own chick, even when that chick has grown up and fledged flight feathers.”
    Trembling, Eglantine crept closer to the opening. Then with one talon, she very shyly began to part some of themoss strands. Her mum’s back was to her. It looked as if she was plucking some down from her own breast and arranging it in a soft bed. There must be eggs in there, chicks on the way. There won’t be room for me! she thought and started to back away. At that moment, the owl turned round.
    “Who’s there?” she said. A breath seemed to lock in Eglantine’s throat. Her gizzard quaked. It wasn’t a scroom. It was her mum…almost. Something was a tiny bit different. Eglantine felt a shove from behind her. It was Ginger firmly pushing her through the moss curtain.
    “Eglantine?” It sounded like her mother. “Eglantine,” the owl repeated again. “Mercy, it’s really you.”
    She looked almost exactly like her mum, but she hadn’t remembered her mum’s face as looking so white or so large. It was almost as if the moon had floated into this hollow. And there was a line that ran diagonally across her face where the feathers had grown back not as thickly as before so there was a bit of pink showing through. But, in truth, her mother had never looked so beautiful, scar or no scar. This was one of the most beautiful Barn Owls Eglantine had ever seen. She seemed larger than her mother. But her voice was identical.
    “Come in, darling. Come in.”
    Eglantine blinked hard. “Why’d you call me darling? You never called me that before.”
    A small shudder passed through the owl. “Well…uh…it’s been so long. I can’t remember everything. But I do remember that your favorite bug is a centipede, and look what I have here for you right beside your nest.”
    She moved to one side. It wasn’t a nest with new eggs in it. No, it was a little berth for Eglantine, fixed up just the way her mum always had done it, with layers of moss, then down from her own breast, then more moss, then more down, and beside it a little pile of centipedes.
    “Oh, Mum,” Eglantine cried and rushed to her mother’s breast.
    Her mum’s huge wings wrapped around her. And then while still holding her close, her mum picked up a dried centipede with one talon and began to sing. She sang in a small childish voice that sounded quite strange. It was an old song from Eglantine’s earliest chick days, when she ate only insects.

What gives a wriggle
And makes you giggle
When you eat’em?
Whose weensy little feet
Make my heart really beat?
Why, it’s those little creepy crawlies
That make me feel so jolly
    For the darling centipede—
My favorite buggy feed.
I always want some more,
That’s the insect I adore.
More than beetles, more than crickets,
Which at times give me the hiccups,
I crave only to feed
On a juicy centipede
And I shall be happy forevermore.

    Eglantine pushed herself away a bit from her mother. “Mum, you remember the song.”
    “Of course, my darl—I mean dear. Didn’t I hear Soren sing it to you enough