The Hatchling Read online

  Don’t I know it, thought Nyroc, and I didn’t even have anyone to tell me how to do it. Once more, Nyroc felt himself awash with feelings of loneliness. How he missed Phillip. Often when he was overwhelmed with feelings of loneliness, he dreamed of his friend. They were always wrenching dreams in which Nyra was starting her attack on Phillip, and Nyroc was frozen to the ground, his featherless wings heavy as stones, unable to do a thing to help his best friend. That, of course, was what had really happened. He had dreamed it again last night and was exhausted but now, as day was breaking, he must soon be out at this most unnatural of times for an owl to start his daylight hunting. Such were the facts of his lonely hidden existence in this forest.

  But on this morning, Nyroc gave a mighty yawn and before he knew it he was fast asleep again as the night leaked steadily out of the breaking morning and bright harsh sunbeams poured in through the holes and cracks of the rotten stump. And Nyroc did dream, but not of Phillip.

  He dreamed of an owl he had never seen. She was a Spotted Owl. She was perched on a limb of what could only be the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. It was an immense tree. He had never seen one larger, and he could swear it was near a sea because he could almost feel the salty breezes. She seemed to be weeping. She seemed almost as lonely as he was. But not quite. No, there was a misty shape hovering about her, which he sensed was another Spotted Owl, but an elderly one. A scroom. He heard the scroom call out softly, Otulissa! Otulissa! She called, but the younger owl was not listening. The elderly owl seemed to be trying to tell the younger one something. Otulissa! she called again. Otulissa!

  What a strange name, he thought, and then the two figures merged into one vaporous cloud, and the tree itself grew misty.

  Sunlight shot through the dream. Everything was dissolving into sparkling dewdrops. It was gone! Gone! Nyroc blinked his eyes open. His hollow in the old tree stump was filled with daylight. Indeed, half the day was gone. He peered out. These winter days were short and, much to his annoyance, the sun was already sliding down toward the horizon. He would be lucky if there was an hour left of good hunting before the first of the night animals began prowling for their suppers. He shook his head. The dream had been a strange one. He could hardly remember it. There had been a name spoken. He had heard it clearly, though he couldn’t quite remember it. But he had not heard it as if in a dream. No, it was as if a scroom had spoken. The thought of another scroom chilled his gizzard. He stepped out of the log and listened now for the telltale scampering of small forest animals beneath the blanket of snow.

  But while he hunted, he tried to remember that peculiar name, O…O…O-tuh…something or other. Every time he thought he was on the brink of grasping the name, it melted away. It seemed as hard to catch as a dewdrop on a warm sunny morning.

  There were other Ga’Hoolian legends that he listened in on, stories from the Fire Cycle, the War Cycle, and one called the Star Cycle. But it was the legends of first fires and first colliers that most interested him. He wanted to know how King Hoole fit into this cycle. And he wondered what the Ember of Hoole had to do with King Hoole. It was frustrating because he caught only bits and pieces of the stories. Most annoying of all, however, was when the storyteller would say something like, “Well, we all know what happened on that snowy night when Hoole was hatched.” Nyroc wanted to scream, “No, we don’t all know! Please tell the whole story!” But, of course, he couldn’t. He had to remain hidden and completely silent and alone.

  Far away from the Shadow Forest, across the Sea of Hoolemere, a Spotted Owl had also been dreaming. She would not remember the dream when she woke. But as she dreamed, it seemed very real. She could almost smell the breath of the huge wolves, the ones they called dire wolves, as they loped around the cone of the volcano. They were guarding it because it held something more precious than gold, more powerful than flecks—the Ember of Hoole. But it did not make sense, of course, to guard it. “This isn’t logical,” Otulissa had heard herself saying to the largest wolf. “No owl can dive for this coal. They will die in the vapors and the flames. Why spend all this time guarding it?”

  The wolves stopped in their tracks and dropped open their muzzles. Their long fangs flashed in the moonlight as they bayed and then the baying turned to laughter. They’re laughing at me, she had thought. Why are they laughing at me? She flew down the steepest side of the volcano. She felt its shudders shake the earth. Sparks began to fly. I have to get out of here. I’ll be burned. A coal landed on one of her coverts. She shook it off. But she could smell the odor of singed feather. She had dived into hundreds of forest fires. Retrieved all kinds of coals in her job as a collier. She had fought with fire but she had never ever been singed before.

  And then that terrible image came back to her. The night Strix Struma had died in battle. One wing torn off. The other in flames as her beloved ryb and commander of the Strix Struma Strikers plummeted into the Sea of Hoolemere. In her dream, she had watched, horrified. “It’s too real…too real,” she whispered to herself as she saw the fiery bundle of feathers swallowed by the sea. Otulissa herself seemed to hang in midair, transfixed by the sea and not stirring a wing, crying for her beloved teacher. Then suddenly from the tumultuous waters, feathers spewed forth. But they were not the feathers of a Spotted Owl at all. Not the feathers of Strix Struma. They were buff-colored with tiny speckles of brown and then there was the terrible shree of a Barn Owl. She felt the desperation of that owl. She wanted to fly to him, but in her dream, her wings locked. She was yeep in her own dream. This cannot be, Otulissa protested in her dream. I have never gone yeep in my life. Not even in battle. Never!

  When Otulissa woke up the next evening at tween time, she had no recollection of the dream but that shree and the roar of the sea still rang in her ears. But then, she thought, a winter storm is brewing in the Sea of Hoolemere. Ezylryb had said that there was extremely nasty weather coming out of the Shadow Forest. Perhaps it had been the wind. Otulissa was a very rational bird. She did not believe in dreams. She believed in science. Even though she’d had a full day’s sleep, she was awfully tired. She sensed the low-pressure front being pushed in by the foul weather and decided that it accounted for her fatigue. She reached now for one of her favorite books, Atmospheric Pressures and Turbulations: An Interpreter’s Guide. It was written by a distinguished relative of Otulissa’s, Strix Emerilla, a renowned weathertrix of the last century.

  For Nyroc, on the other side of the great Sea of Hoolemere, the nights passed and the days lengthened. The winter storms that battered the forest and took their toll on the oldest and most frail of the trees before blowing out to that immense sea became fewer. Winter grew old and the snow gradually began to melt. The sun, which had barely risen above the horizon in days, began to climb higher, a sign that winter was wearing out and spring could not be too far away. Nyroc’s feathers were growing back, but he dared not go to the edge of the pond at night to look at his reflection in its black water. He still feared that the mask made of mist might swirl up from the surface and once more he would have to face the dreadful scroom of his father. So he flipped his head this way and that, pivoting his neck in fantastic swivels while counting feathers. The undertail coverts had at last all grown back, along with most of his plummels. But the cause for real celebration was when number eleven of his secondary feathers came in. Oh, how he felt like hollering and hooting. But he knew that he must remain quiet and hidden in the great rotten tree that he had come to love. Nyra might have scouts out looking for him. So instead, he made up a little song, a silly little ditty. Phillip had told him that mums often sang to their children, that his had. But Nyra had never sung to Nyroc. Even so, as spring approached, this song came to him. Someday when he was much older and had chicks of his own, he would sing it to them.

  In the meantime, he sang it quietly to himself.

  There is a feather I’ve been told

  That helps owls fly high and bold.

  Oh, welcome back, number eleven,

  You lift me
from hagsmire up to heaven.

  Nyroc hopped back and forth on his feet, entertaining himself with the whispered song. The rabbit’s ear moss beneath him had grown quite tattered. He had replaced some of it with another moss he had found nearby but it was not nearly so soft as the rabbit’s ear moss.

  Nyroc knew that soon he would have to leave the safety of the old rotted tree. He didn’t know where he would go, but this part of the Shadow Forest was too close to where he had left his mother, and with the weather improving, he feared she would renew her efforts to find him. Then there was his father’s scroom that he had seen again, hovering over the pond one moonlit night. No, he would have to leave. He told himself he would go when spring came. He longed to go to Phillip’s hatching place—that magical and most beautiful forest of all—Silverveil.

  The first shoots of spring were pushing out of the ground. On the pond, flat green leaves spread. Yes, Nyroc now knew the color green. He was entranced by it. Spring passed into summer and he still had not left. On the water, splendid pink flowers unfolded on flat, round leaves, making the pond a beautiful watery garden.

  From his shelter in the rotted trunk, he had learned more than just the legends recited at daybreak. He learned about the lives of true owl families. He heard parents giving gentle scoldings and the homey lessons of kindness, and teaching something called “manners.” He loved the soft lullabies the mothers crooned to their young to help them fall asleep as the night broke into day.

  Why did my mum never sing me one of those lovely lullabies? Nyroc wondered. Just above him as the first glimmer of pink stained the sky, he heard a Boreal Owl’s voice, which sounded like chimes, begin one of Nyroc’s favorite stories.

  Once upon a time, before there were kingdoms of owls, in a time of ever-raging wars, there was an owl born in the country of the North Waters and his name was Hoole. Some say there was an enchantment cast upon him at the time of his hatching, that he was given natural gifts of extraordinary power. But what was known of this owl was that he inspired other owls to great and noble deeds and that although he wore no crown of gold, the owls knew him as a king, for indeed his good grace and conscience anointed him and his spirit was his crown. In a wood of straight, tall trees he was hatched, in a glimmering time when the seconds slow between the last minute of the old year and the first of the new, and the forest on this night was sheathed in ice.

  By the time the owl finished the story, Nyroc knew that the owlets, as all the other owlets in this forest, would be asleep and it would be time for him to move out in the light of day and hunt. But he dreamed of someday going to a place where he would not have to hide. But not today, not tonight. He wanted to stay just a little bit longer, here in this fallen tree that was the best home he had ever known, with all its hollows and tunnels and plentiful supply of moss and insects of every kind.

  Not yet, Nyroc thought. Not yet. Even though every single one of his feathers had grown back and he was able to fly perfectly—just one more day, he thought, one more night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Riddle of the Forest

  There is a difference between a day forest and a night forest—especially in the summer when a vast heat lies upon it and nothing seems to stir, and the air is thick with warmth and quiet. Except for the lazy hum of a bee or the occasional splash of a fish leaping in a silvery arc from a pond, a perfect silence descends upon the forest from midmorning until later afternoon.

  At night, however, the forest comes alive in the coolness and the shadows. The owls come out to hunt along with the bobcat, the fox, and the raccoon. In the pond, the muskrat and the beaver leave their lodges to plow their watery paths. The grasses that grow thickly at the pond’s edge shimmer with the glow of fireflies. It was a different world, a tantalizing one, which Nyroc longed to join—but he did not dare.

  There was a riddle in these nights that Nyroc could not solve. Each night, almost as if to tempt him out of his hollow in the fallen tree trunk, a plump rabbit would appear just as the sun slipped beneath the horizon. The rabbit would crouch in front of a nearby shrub or small tree and not move for the longest time, staying well into the darkness and often until the moon rose high in the sky. Nyroc did not understand how this rabbit had survived. Rabbits were a favorite owl food. It seemed almost impossible that a plump one like this, standing absolutely still in a forest thick with owls, had never been preyed upon. But night after night, Nyroc watched the odd creature—hungrily, his gizzard seeming to grind in anticipation and his first stomach burbling at the thought of the rabbit’s succulent flesh. Even stranger, sometimes the rabbit stood on its hind legs as if in some sort of trance.

  Then one morning, after the last goodlight lullaby had been sung in a nearby fir tree, and an owl chick of a Great Gray in an oak begged for “just one more story, Da,” Nyroc peered out of his hollow and blinked. There was the rabbit, standing on his hind legs almost near enough to reach out and grab. He seemed to be studying something very intently on a short branch of the fallen tree trunk. Ever so quietly, Nyroc moved out of his hollow. The rabbit was a talon’s reach away. He pounced and grabbed it. Then a most shocking thing occurred. The rabbit turned its head and, looking at its would-be killer, said in a fierce voice, “Don’t! Remember the vole!”

  “What?” Nyroc said. He had never had a prey argue with him. Usually, if his talons had not mortally punctured it, the creature went yeep from fright and simply froze. They rarely screeched or moaned in pain. But talking? Never!

  “The vole—the one you let go.”

  Nyroc was so astonished that he dropped the rabbit on the ground. How did this rabbit know about that vole he had left back in the fox’s den in the deep canyon when the posse had shown up?

  The rabbit then gave himself a little shake. “Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt me. Barely a scratch.”

  Nyroc was too stunned to speak. He felt dizzy and began to sway a bit. “Take it easy there, fellow.” The rabbit extended a paw toward Nyroc’s wing as if to steady him. “I don’t want you crashing into my web. It’s a good one. Lots of information.”

  Nyroc blinked several times and stared at the rabbit. It was a soft brownish-gray color, but his feet were snowy white and on his forehead there was a small white crescent of fur. Nyroc stared at him.

  “That’s it, fella. Take me in slowly. I am a real rabbit. But not simply dinner or tweener or breaklight, whatever you owls call your meals. There is nothing simple about me, actually. See, I can do all those rabbity things. Wanna see a cute nose twitch?” Suddenly, the velvety pink skin of his nose began to wriggle about. “Tail twitch, as well. And I can flick my ears, too. Hopping? Want me to demonstrate a hop?” He paused and looked hard at Nyroc. “Well, for Lapin’s sake, say something!”

  But Nyroc was speechless. Finally, he managed to say, “Who’s Lapin?”

  “The Big Rabbit.” And he rolled his pink-rimmed eyes toward the sky. “You’ve got Glaux; we’ve got Lapin.”

  “Oh,” Nyroc said. “But how did you know about the vole?”

  “Aha! Now that’s a question!” He moved closer to Nyroc. “Feeling a little steadier now?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Well, come over here, then.” The rabbit began waddling toward the spiderweb hung between the trunk of the tree and the branch. It was a huge glittering affair, strung with jewels of morning dew.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Nyroc said, although he had never thought much about spiderwebs before. A slight breeze ruffled along and the web trembled.

  The rabbit suddenly froze in front of the web. “Don’t disturb 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?”