Guardians of Ga'Hoole 05 - The Shattering

dream mum’s eyes, I must look behind her eyes. I must see what is real and what is not. I must go back one last time.
    “Eglantine!” Ginger shouted out. “I don’t understand why we couldn’t have waited a few hours for this weather to pass. Why now? This stuff is hard to fly through. Your mum will still be there.”
    She’d better be, Eglantine thought. But was it really her mother? She began thinking of the very small differences, starting with the words her dream mum used, and her face. Had her mother’s face been quite that white? And why was her da never there?
    The two owls flew on. The weather grew worse. Ginger was having a hard time. But finally the coastline of The Beaks appeared. Soon they were flying over the Mirror Lakes.
    I should have known…I should have known, Eglantine thought. Hadn’t Mrs. Plithiver told her about the MirrorLakes of The Beaks and the strange spell it had cast on Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, and Digger? The gleaming surface of the water had dazzled them and they had become fascinated by their own reflections— hypnotized, Mrs. P. had said. It was a dangerous place. And now, thought Eglantine, it was a dangerous place with dangerous owls. Once more, she felt a jolt run through her gizzard. Dangerous? My mum dangerous? How strange.
    She was now approaching the fir tree. She knew she had to appear normal—but what was normal? How long had it been since she had been normal? A fog was beginning to lift in Eglantine’s brain, but it took enormous energy not to sink back into it.
    “Darling!” her mum called out. “Oh, I’m so pleased. And in this bad weather. Oh, how lovely that you came.”
    My real mum would scold me for flying in this bad weather.
    “Come in. I have your favorite snack waiting for you—centipedes. But darling, Eglantine. No papers for me? You know how much I enjoy the papers you bring me.”
    “Uh…it was raining, you know. I thought they might get wet.”
    “Oh, yes, of course, silly me. Your da is always saying I’m such a silly old thing.”
    “He does?” Eglantine said blankly. “Are you sure?”Suddenly, the big white-faced owl blinked at her as if watching her more closely. Uh-oh! Be careful. Eglantine’s gizzard quivered with fear. But the quivers felt almost good, because each time her gizzard stirred, she began to feel more like her old self.
    “I have a wonderful surprise for you.”
    “A surprise? Da? Soren?” Eglantine blinked and looked closely. Is she my mum? Really? How can I tell for sure?
    Primrose could hear their conversation. She was being held in a hollow just off the one in which Eglantine and the Barn Owl were talking. She blinked her eyes. What in Glaux’s name was Eglantine talking about? How could Soren or her da be here, and why was Eglantine calling this female owl “Mum”? Primrose had seen and heard all this before when she had first arrived, just before she had been stuffed into the sack. She could hardly believe her ears then, and now she was hearing it all again!
    So far, Primrose had not only resisted shattering but given a fairly decent impression of a shattered owl. She had even managed to affect that glassy, unblinking look that she had noticed in Eglantine. At first, she thought it was a symptom left over from the summer flux, but now she knew better. It was the look of a shattered owl. She was sure. But still the fact remained that she was a prisoner, and so was Eglantine for that matter. Because even thoughEglantine’s body was free to fly back and forth between this hollow and the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, her mind was completely enslaved to these owls. And they were the Pure Ones. They were not here in full force, but there were enough of them to make escape almost impossible. Metal Beak and apparently hundreds of others were off on some mission. Otulissa was right; they should have launched an attack as soon as they could after the siege of last winter. They had to fight offensively. But how in Glaux’s name could a two-ounce seven-inch Pygmy Owl fight these monsters by herself?
    Primrose leaned closer to the opening, trying to catch more of the strange conversation going on in the hollow below.
    The wind howled. The fir tree at the edge of the Mirror Lake rattled ferociously.
    “Odd for The Beaks,” the large Barn Owl said. “But now for the surprise,” she said to Eglantine. But then she looked up and emitted a sharp shree. Something tumbled down out of a hole above that led to another