Guardians of Ga'Hoole 07 - The Hatchling

you were always sure.
    Yes, just as you were always sure that there were no such things as scrooms.
    Please. Can’t you tell me? Don’t you know at all what it is?
    And prophecies. You believed that prophecies were somewhat ridiculous.
    The last stanza, Otulissa suddenly thought. And then another thought seemed to pop into her mind, and therewas a sensation in her gizzard she had never felt before, like a mighty tug.
    An owl needs me, isn’t that so, Strix Struma? The owl I dream of…
    The scroom nodded silently.
    Do you know who it is? Please tell me. Who is it?
    But the scroom of Strix Struma began to fade away, and suddenly, the hollow was filled with the bright light of the sun. Otulissa heard the last hiss of her candle as its flame guttered out. But she knew that an owl needed her and that she must go…go to Beyond the Beyond. Otulissa knew this not through her usually very rational mind. She knew this because of a dream, a dream she had had several days before of a desperate and very young Barn Owl, almost still a hatchling.
    I have dreamed, she thought. I have dreamed!
    The Spotted Owl slept a long, hard, dreamless sleep and did not wake until First Black. And when she did awake, she shook her head. “Simply not so,” Otulissa muttered. “It was all just a dream. There is no such thing as scrooms.”
    But she was aware of the hollow sound of her own words. She walked over to the niches beneath the bookshelves where she kept her charts that showed every region and kingdom in the owl universe with detailed notes on the prevailing winds of each area. She knew what she must do even if she did not know why. “Numberthirty-seven, yes, that is the chart I need,” she whispered. She drew out a rolled piece of heavy parchment and spread it out on the hollow floor. “Unpredictable thermal volatility,” the notes said. “Prevailing winds usually from the southeast except during the eruption seasons. But those seasons are unpredictable as well.”
    “Yes, yes,” Otulissa muttered. “What would one expect from a place like Beyond the Beyond?”
    She rolled up the chart carefully after committing the terrain and the pertinent details to memory. She would have to travel light. A few navigation tools, no battle claws, fat lot of good they would do her against dire wolves. Let’s see. What can I give for an excuse? What would she tell Soren and Gyfie, Digger and Twilight? They would think she had really gone yoicks if she told them that Strix Struma’s scroom had shown up after a close reading of the Fire Cycle and she thought she better go directly to Beyond the Beyond. They wouldn’t believe her, for one thing. Probably think she was going there to find hireclaws. Ha! This job was way beyond hireclaws! But then she stopped. What exactly is this job? What am I doing?
    Otulissa for once could not even speculate. She just knew she had to go, and go soon, to Beyond the Beyond. This was in fact beyond rational thought. Yes, she thoughtquietly. I have dreamed dreams. I have spoken with scrooms. I am desperate. I am dire!
    In a distant forest, another owl crouched low in the hollow of a rotted-out stump and felt the cold shadow of a metal mask pass over him. Nyroc’s gizzard clenched in despair. No, no, it cannot be!
    Yes!
    He had faced so much. The death of his best friend, the wrath of his mother. He was an owl who could not even fly out into the darkness of the night but must hunt in the glare of the day. Well, no more! Nyroc was desperate. He flew out of the stump directly toward the mask that hung in the evening shadows. “You are a mask, you are nothing more! There is nothing behind your mask, not a face, nothing! I shall fly in the fullness of the night. I shall hunt the vole, the rat, even the fox under the moon and the stars. I shall become part of owlkind no matter where I have to go. But go I shall! And I shall never ever return to the Pure Ones. I defy you! I have free will!”

THE GUARDIANS OF GA’HOOLE
    Book One: The Capture
    Book Two: The Journey
    Book Three: The Rescue
    Book Four: The Siege
    Book Five: The Shattering
    Book Six: The Burning
    Book Seven: The Hatchling
    Book Eight: The Outcast
    Book Nine: The First Collier
    Book Ten: The Coming of Hoole
    Book Eleven: To Be a King
    Book Twelve: The Golden Tree
    Book Thirteen: The River of Wind
    Book Fourteen: Exile
    Book Fifteen: The War of the Ember
    A Guide Book to the Great Tree
    Lost Tales of Ga’Hoole

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