Guardians of Ga'Hoole 10 - The Coming of Hoole

How could the little fellow eat so much? This had to be his third field mouse this evening, and the moon wasn’t even up yet.
    “Maybe I’ll try for a vole, Grank. That might fill him up.”
    “Oh, a vole! A vole! I want a vole!” Theo heard Hoole’s little peeping voice. Then, the little bundle of fluff—for he had not yet shed his down—hopped out on the branch and called to Theo below. “Theo, will you really get me a vole?”
    “I’ll try, Hoole.”
    “Back up there, lad,” Grank said. “We don’t want you taking a tumble off this branch. Your down won’t work for flying.”
    “When will my first flight feathers come in, Uncle Grank?”
    “Not until your fluff falls out. Your first molt.”
    “When will that happen?”
    “When you start to budge.”
    “Have I started yet?”
    “No. You’d feel it.”
    “Maybe not, Uncle Grank. Take a look please, please!”
    Grank sighed. “All right, now wave good-bye to Theo.”
    “Bye, Theo! Uncle Grank’s going to see if I’ve started to budge. Maybe by the time you get back I will have a flight feather.”
    “Oh, my!” Grank sighed wearily.

CHAPTER THREE
Theo’s Discovery
    T heo’s favorite hunting ground for finding voles was a patch in the very middle of the island where a large circle of birch trees grew. But as Theo approached, he sensed something different. And then he heard it—a strange chanting. He perched for several minutes behind the thick clusters of needles on an interior branch of a very bushy pine tree. Listening intently, he realized what it was he was hearing. Great Glaux, it’s the brothers! The Glauxian Brothers!
    For years, the Glauxian Brothers had lived in widely dispersed ice holes and caves on the H’rathghar glacier, but he supposed the fighting had gotten too intense there and they needed a retreat where they could be safely together. The brothers were renowned for their studious ways. When they were not chanting, they were studying or writing; when they were not studying or writing, they were silent—for the most part. They had taken vows ofsilence so they might contemplate more deeply the mysteries of the owl universe.
    Theo’s feelings about discovering them here on what he had come to think of as his and Grank’s island were conflicting ones. Theo admired the brothers greatly, and at one time had considered becoming one. Like the brothers, Theo did not believe in war. Furthermore, the brothers believed that the curse of the hagsfiends had been visited upon the N’yrthghar because the owls of this Northern Kingdom had lost their faith in Glaux and in reason. They believed that this loss of faith and reason had created a tear, a rip in the very air of the owl universe, and it was through this tear that these creatures of rage, superstition, and nachtmagen had gained their evil powers. It had pained Theo greatly when Grank had asked him, begged him to make that first pair of battle claws. He had only done so because Grank had revealed to him that the egg, whose well-being he was charged with, was that of King H’rath and Queen Siv.
    But now he felt a horrible tearing within him. He hated making those battle claws as much as he loved Grank—Grank, who had taught him so much. Yet he knew that he himself was not at all like Grank. Am I not of a more contempletive nature? Am I not more like these brothers? And yet… Theo paused in his deliberations. And yet, I am devoted to Grank and to dear little Hoole. How could I think of abandoning them for the brothers?
    But the thought would not leave him entirely. Not for a long time, he knew, and perhaps never. Still, he must get on with the business of hunting down a plump vole for Hoole, and he could not do it here near the chanting brothers. He must do nothing to betray his and Grank’s and Hoole’s presence on this same island. Although the brothers were no threat, Grank had been adamant. “No one must know we are here!” How many times had he said that? The N’yrthghar was vast, yet word traveled fast in the bird world. Grank would be distressed when he heard that the brothers had set up camp on this island. But they could not move. Not until Hoole learned to fly. And they would probably have to shut down their fires. There must be no trace of smoke coming from their end of the island. Of course, the brothers might have already spotted it, for all Theo knew. In any case, he would now have to go elsewhere for a vole.
    “Hello there, little one!” Theo said