Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

before. A slight breeze ruffled along and the web trembled.
    The rabbit suddenly froze in front of the web. “Don’tdisturb me,” he said in a commanding voice. Nyroc wouldn’t think of it. A few minutes later, the rabbit broke out of his trance and turned to look at Nyroc.
    “Just as I thought,” he said.
    “What? Just as you thought what?”
    The rabbit then gave a kind of guffaw and slapped his pouch cheek with one foot. “Oh, silly me. I haven’t explained, have I?”
    “No, you haven’t,” Nyroc replied, his voice a little edgy. “Who are you? What are you?”
    “Well, I’m a mystic of sorts,” the rabbit said. “I see certain things where others don’t.”
    “In a spiderweb?” Nyroc was awash with confusion.
    “Precisely. I’m a web reader. I read spiderwebs.” He tapped the crescent shape of white fur on his forehead. “This is the sign of a web reader. Only rabbits with this mark can do it. At least, as far as I know. Why do you think I’ve survived this long in these woods without getting eaten by something?”
    “Because you’re a web reader.”
    “That’s it!”
    “So, what do you see in the webs?”
    “Things…just things,” the rabbit replied elusively.
    “Like me releasing the vole?” Nyroc asked.
    “Yes, and other things.”
    “What other things?”
    “In some webs I see the past, in some the present, and in some the future. But it is never a whole picture, just pieces.”
    “What is my future?” Nyroc said, suddenly excited. “Where am I going? What am I going to do? What will I be? Will I ever get to see my uncle Soren and the Guardians of Ga’Hoole? Will my da’s scroom follow me forever?” The questions poured out of Nyroc and he wondered how he ever could have considered eating this wondrous rabbit.
    “Slow down! Slow down! Didn’t you hear me, lad? I said I can only see pieces of the future or the past or the present. And I don’t usually know what they mean. It is as much of a puzzle to me as it is to you.”
    “But if you see it and tell me something, I might do it or not and that would cause things to be different,” argued Nyroc.
    “Not at all. I saw you release the vole. It had already happened but I saw it in the web, a rather simple one at that, a tent web, not an orb weaver’s.”
    “Tent? Orb weaver? What are you talking about?”
    “Different spiders weave different kinds of webs. You got your dome web, your orb, your tube web, your tent, your basic radial.” The rabbit listed several more and then concluded, “But orb weavers are particularly rich inrevealing things past. And the webs are gorgeous! Oh, my Lapin, you’ve never seen anything like it. But knowledge of the past or the future does not cause things to happen.”
    “But you said to me, ‘Remember the vole,’ and that made me drop you from my talons almost immediately. So it did cause something to happen.”
    “I wouldn’t count on that.” The rabbit paused and reflected a moment. “However, I did feel that you must be a very compassionate owl. For it was a very kind act when you released the vole.”
    “But it wasn’t kind at all! I dropped the vole because the posse was coming, and Phillip told me to drop it.”
    “Aha! My point exactly,” the rabbit said. “I told you that I only see pieces of the past or the present or the future. Apparently, the logic behind my plea for you to drop me was erroneous.”
    “What does that mean—erroneous?”
    “Full of mistakes. Yes, the outcome was what I had hoped for, I have to admit. Sometimes it works out that way. Just pure dumb luck.”
    Nyroc was confused. The rabbit was answering his questions, but he felt there was much more to what he was saying. Why, for example, would he have risked standing so close to an owl’s hollow, an owl who was not a dweller of this forest? And why should he have looked inthat orb weaver’s web and found information about Nyroc and not the many other creatures of the world? Why me? Nyroc wondered. What is so special about me? So he asked.
    “Why me?”
    “Why me what?” replied the rabbit.
    “Why are there things about me in the webs and not other animals?”
    The rabbit blinked and his pink-rimmed eyes grew sad. Nyroc saw his nose tremble a bit. He felt a tremor pass through his own gizzard. “Because your story is very important. And your story is unfinished.”
    “But how am I to finish it?”
    “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you more. But it wouldn’t really make