The Shattering

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the USA by Scholastic Inc 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2007

Text copyright © Kathryn Lasky 2004

Illustrations copyright © Richard Cowdrey 2004

The Kathryn Lasky and Richard Cowdrey assert the moral right to be identified as the author

and illustrator of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007215218

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008226831

Version: 2016-12-01

DEDICATION

For Joy Peskin

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One: A friend in Need?

Chapter Two: Spronk No More

Chapter Three: A Grim Tweener

Chapter Four: A Missing Piece

Chapter Five: A fragment from the Sea

Chapter Six: So Close!

Chapter Seven: The Sign of the Centipede

Chapter Eight: Mum Waits for Me

Chapter Nine: The Most Beautiful Mum in the World

Chapter Ten: Eglantine Researches

Chapter Eleven: Primrose’s Last Thought

Chapter Twelve: A Gizzard Begins to Stir

Chapter Thirteen: The Lucky Charm

Chapter Fourteen: As a Gizzard Twitches

Chapter Fifteen: Piece by Piece

Chapter Sixteen: The Sacred Orb

Chapter Seventeen: The Hostage Egg

Chapter Eighteen: “It Cannot fail!”

Chapter Nineteen: The Peg-out

Chapter Twenty: A Crown of fire

Chapter Twenty-One: The Gollymopes

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Living Dead

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Passing of the Claws

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

It was the same. That was her first thought.

It looks just like the old fir tree, the one where Soren and I were hatched. And even the shape of the hollow’s opening where Mum and Da made their nest, a lopsided O – wasn’t that the exact shape?

Eglantine knew she was dreaming, but it seemed so real. Like no dream she’d ever had. It was so lovely she didn’t want it to end. She wondered if she flew a little closer and just took a peek, would the hollow look the same inside? Would her mum and da be there? Oh, it had been forever since she’d seen them. Soren said they were dead. He had seen their scrooms, the spirits of dead owls. She hated it when Soren said that. Eglantine squirmed now in her sleep as the words from the awful conversation wove through her dream.

“You saw their scrooms? That means they are dead, doesn’t it, Soren?”

“It does, Eglantine, and there is nothing we can do about that.”

And then Twilight had added his horrible conclusion. “Dead is dead.”

“Dead is dead.” The words swirled around her like black crows getting ready to mob. “Dead IS NOT dead!” She shouted back in her dream. “Dead IS NOT dead.”

CHAPTER ONE

A friend in Need?

“Wake up, Eglantine! Wake up!” Primrose, Eglantine’s hollowmate, was vigorously shaking her. “You’re just having a bad dream.”

“Oh, for Glaux’s sake, let her sleep,” said Ginger, the newest hollowmate. Ginger was a Barn Owl who had actually been part of the attacking forces during the terrible siege of the previous winter. She had been wounded, but during her recovery she had decided that she’d had enough of the Pure Ones and much preferred life in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. She had not yet, of course, been approved for training as a Guardian. That would require some time. Nonetheless, Eglantine had taken her under her wing, so to speak, and become a kind of big sister to Ginger during her recovery. They had grown quite close in the process. But Primrose was still Eglantine’s best friend in the tree.

“Let her sleep?” Primrose swivelled her head towards the reddish Barn Owl. “Let her continue to have this awful dream?”

Ginger merely sighed and said, “She’s tired. She needs her sleep, bad dream or not.”

Suddenly Eglantine’s eyes flicked open. “Why in the name of Glaux are you shaking me? I was having the loveliest dream.”

“Loveliest dream?” Has she lost her mind? thought Primrose. “You were screaming your head off about being dead or not dead, Eglantine.”

Eglantine blinked. “No I wasn’t,” she replied defiantly. “I was having a wonderful dream about the old hollow in the fir tree back in Tyto where Soren and I lived with our mum and da. And I was just about to go into the hollow. Something wonderful was about to happen, and then you came along and shook me.” She looked accusingly at Primrose. Ginger pretended she wasn’t paying any attention and commenced humming a little owl ditty that Eglantine had taught her.

Now it was Primrose who blinked at Eglantine. Something about her friend seemed different. She’s seemed different for a while, Primrose thought. Is it just my imagination? It must be my imagination. What if she doesn’t want to be my friend any more? Primrose didn’t think she could stand that. She had to stop thinking this way. She and Eglantine were best friends. They had been from the very start, from the day Eglantine had been rescued. Why, she herself had been on the rescue mission that had found Eglantine.

Like most of the young owls in the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, Primrose had also been rescued by the Guardians. She had lost everything in a devastating fire that had swept through the forest of Silverveil. In a matter of minutes her hollow, her homeland, her parents and even the eggs of her future brothers and sisters had been destroyed. But since her rescue, life at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree had been wonderful, and the best part was having a best friend. It didn’t matter that she was a Pygmy Owl, quite small, and that Eglantine, a Barn Owl, was huge by comparison. They had so much in common. They were so much alike. No, she’d never find another friend like Eglantine.

“Look,” she said to Eglantine, “I’m sorry I woke you from your nice dream. It looked like a nightmare to me. I just couldn’t stand hearing you cry like that.”

“It’s all right, Primrose, don’t worry. I know you meant well.” Eglantine said it softly, and then repeated, “Don’t worry. I’m going right back to sleep and finish my nice dream.”

But Primrose was worried.

Within a few minutes it would be tween time, those slivers of seconds between the last minute of the day and the first of the evening. It was a lovely time, especially in summer as it was now. The sky turned a soft lavender just as the sun began to slip away. Sometimes there were streaks of pink and a fragile light illuminated every leaf and blade of grass, making everything stand out with special beauty. Primrose sat on the branch just outside her hollow and watched the subtle transformation of the lovely Island of Hoole as the light played across it. How close they had come last winter to losing it all to the terrible owls known as the Pure Ones, who were led by Kludd, the brother of Eglantine and Soren.

How fragile life is, thought Primrose, how fragile everything is, including friendship. And once more she felt a tremor deep within her gizzard, where all owls feel their most intense feelings.

She could not dwell upon this, she realised. She was now up for the evening, and the rest of the tree would soon be up as well. Perhaps she would go to the library. It was summertime and there were fewer chaw practices and classes, so she could pick out a book and read just for fun – a nice joke or riddle book. Nothing too serious, like colliering techniques, weather interpretation (which the owls of the great tree were expected to be familiar with) or land and celestial navigation, which Primrose, being a member of the search-and-rescue chaw, was expected to know. No, not tonight.

Tonight, she would find herself a really good joke book and she would laugh as loud as she wanted because there would be no one else in the library at this early hour of the evening.

CHAPTER TWO

Spronk No More

But Primrose was not to be alone.

“I just don’t understand it Digger.” Otulissa said in a low, rasping whisper as Primrose entered the library. “If it hadn’t been for Dewlap, Strix Struma would never have been killed. She’s a traitor, I tell you.”

“Look, I agree that she’s a traitor but we would have had that battle with the Pure Ones any way you look at it,” Digger said. “Primrose, you’re up early,” he added, seeing her come into the library.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” Primrose lied. “You’re talking about what’s going to happen to Dewlap?”

“Yes, and as far as we can see, nothing’s going to happen to her,” Otulissa huffed. “It just isn’t fair.”

“They say,” Primrose offered, “that she’s had a nervous breakdown. That she’s really sick and didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Breakdown my flight feathers!” Otulissa harrumphed. “And I’ll tell you what she was doing.” Otulissa didn’t wait for them to ask. “She was not only leaking information to the enemy and destroying books, she was also hoarding.”

“Hoarding!” both Primrose and Digger said at once.

“Hoarding what?” Digger asked. “What possibly could there have been to hoard last winter?”

“I’ll tell you what: while we all were starving during that long siege, she had her own private supply of milkberries and Ga’Hoole nuts. You didn’t see her getting any thinner last winter while the rest of us were so pathetically skinny we could have slipped through a knothole.”

“I can already do that,” Primrose said, trying to make a small joke. After all, she had come here to read a joke book. She had not expected such serious conversation.

“Oh, sorry,” Otulissa replied. “I wasn’t talking about Pygmy Owls, but you got awfully skinny yourself, Primrose. Probably could have slipped into a hummingbird hole.”

“What are you reading, Otulissa?” Primrose asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Dowsing and divining techniques for metals and water. There’s a short chapter in here by Strix Emerilla. You know, my ancestor—”

“The renowned weathertrix,” Primrose finished the sentence. They all knew about Otulissa’s ancestor Strix Emerilla. There was hardly a word written by her that Otulissa hadn’t read, and she rarely missed an opportunity to remind them of her connection to the great owl. But Primrose didn’t mind. She was happy that Otulissa was showing signs of being herself again.

“That’s terrible, about the hoarding,” Digger said. “I never knew that. I wonder what the parliament will decide about Dewlap.” Then he looked slyly at Otulissa. “Have you been to the roots lately?”

Very few of the owls knew about the roots, but Primrose had once overheard the band – as Soren, Gylfie, Twilight and Digger were often called – talk about them. Of course, they had immediately sworn her to secrecy. The place they called ‘the roots’ was a cramped space deep under the Great Ga’Hoole Tree directly beneath the parliament chamber. Something about the tangled roots and ceiling timbers caused sounds to resonate, most particularly the sounds coming from the owls’ innermost parliament chamber. The roots transmitted the voices of the owls in the parliament above. Listening in on closed parliament sessions was the only really bad thing that the band, plus Otulissa, ever did. It was out-and-out eavesdropping. They all knew it. They all felt guilty about it. But they simply couldn’t stop. They had a million and one ways of rationalising their snooping activities, but their excuses never made them feel much better. Still, they continued to secretly listen.

“I just don’t buy it – the stuff about Dewlap having a nervous breakdown: she’s not shattered.”

“Shattered?” Digger and Primrose both said at once.

“Shattering. It’s terrible when it happens, worse than any moon blinking that Soren and Gylfie went through at St Aggie’s, believe me.”

“How could anything be worse than moon blinking?” Digger wondered aloud.

“Well, shattering is. I read about it in that book, Fleckasia and Other Disorders of the Gizzard, which we have Dewlap to thank for confiscating and then losing.”

“Well, what is it? Did you read enough to learn anything about it?” Digger asked.

“A little bit.” Otulissa’s plumage suddenly drooped and flattened. She was ‘wilfing’. This happens to owls when they experience extreme fear or agitation.

Primrose blinked. Shattering must be awful, she thought, if just reading about it does this to Otulissa.

“You see,” Otulissa continued, regaining some of her composure. “Moon blinking is caused by the moon – especially the full moon – shining down upon the head of a sleeping owl, resulting in massive disorientation and confusion of one’s sense of self. But shattering is much worse. It is not caused by the moon but by exposure to flecks under certain conditions.”

“You mean like when we infiltrated St Aggie’s and discovered that the Pure Ones’ agents were putting flecks into the nests in the eggorium?” Digger asked.

“Yes, precisely. When owls are still in the egg it can happen. Young owls in general are very susceptible. But it is thought that shattering can happen to almost any owl.”

“But look at all the flecks at St Aggie’s,” Digger said. “When we were there, we weren’t hurt by them. It was the moon blinking that was bad.”

“I know it’s very odd. Sometimes, I guess, one can rub right up against flecks and it doesn’t cause shattering. Like with Hortense from Ambala. They say that the streams of Ambala have lots of flecks. But she wasn’t shattered. Instead she simply has deformed wings and is small for her age. It’s a very complicated thing. If only that stupid old Burrowing Owl Dewlap – no offence, Digger …” she apologised because Digger himself was a Burrowing Owl, “… but if only she hadn’t taken that book.”

“But aren’t there other books in the library that might tell about it – about shattering?” Primrose asked. “I mean now that nothing is spronk any longer.”

“Not so far and believe me, I have scoured this library.”

Books being declared spronk had been the beginning of Otulissa’s problems with Dewlap, indeed the beginning of all of their problems with the strange old Burrowing Owl who was the Ga’Hoolology ryb. Spronk meant forbidden and nothing, especially books, had ever been forbidden at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. Then for some reason Dewlap had forbidden the young owls access to certain books. No one had really agreed with her, and Ezylryb had personally delivered the fleckasia book to Otulissa. But then Dewlap had confiscated and lost it.

At that moment a matron, a rather chubby Short-eared Owl, stuck her head in the library. “Almost time for tweener,” she hooted cheerfully. Tweener was their evening meal, just as breaklight was their morning meal and the last food they consumed before going to sleep for the day.

So the three owls made their way to the dining hollow.

CHAPTER THREE

A Grim Tweener

Primrose stopped in her own hollow to check if Eglantine had got up. She’d become a late sleeper lately, which was strange because it was summertime and the nights were so short that every owl wanted to be flying about having larks in the dark. With no heavy study or chaw schedule, flying on the smooth air of warm nights under the great summer constellations was so much fun that no owl wanted to miss a minute of the blackness. Primrose was pleased to see that the hollow was empty and that Eglantine and Ginger would not be late to the dining hollow as they so often were. She smelled good things as she approached. Could it be barbecued bat wings? Bats were common summer food. Fruit bats in particular were thick around the Great Ga’Hoole Tree in the early part of the summer evenings. It could hardly be called hunting as an owl only had to stick its head out of a hollow opening to catch one on the wing.

Primrose made her way to her usual spot at Mrs Plithiver’s table. The nest-maid snakes of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree also served as dining tables for the owls. They stretched their supple, rosy-scaled bodies to accommodate at least half a dozen owls for dining. But now as Primrose approached, she saw that Mrs P’s table was overcrowded and the place where she usually sat next to Eglantine was taken by Ginger. Soren waved a wing for her to come over, anyway.

“There’s always room dearie,” Mrs P said. She stretched herself a bit more and all the owls squashed in a little closer. All the owls, that is, except Eglantine and Ginger, who continued jabbering away to each other in low whispers.

Soren blinked. He was shocked at his sister’s rude behaviour. “Eglantine! Could you stop talking for one second and move your butt feathers to make room for Primrose?”

“Oh dear. Sorry Prim.” Eglantine looked up and began to move over.

But Soren was still angry. He blinked and looked at Eglantine and then Ginger. “You know Eglantine, whispering at the table isn’t very polite. If you have something that is so private that the rest of us can’t hear it, maybe you should eat by yourselves.”

What, Primrose wondered, could Eglantine and Ginger have to say that was so private? Primrose suddenly realised that Ginger was often trying to get Eglantine alone, not just away from her but from the group. Was Ginger jealous of all of Eglantine’s friends? True, they were all in training to be Guardians, and she knew how much Ginger hoped to be approved for training too. Did Ginger think that Eglantine would have some special influence over that approval?

There was an awkward silence, and then Eglantine and Ginger erupted into convulsive laughter as if sharing a very private joke. The other owls looked on grimly, but Primrose wilfed in the biggest way and became so slender that there was hardly any need for anyone to squash in. She just knew they were laughing about her, or thinking how she wouldn’t understand their little joke anyway. To think that just last evening she had looked for a joke book. Well, the joke’s on me, she thought sourly.

To change the subject, Soren began talking about the weather experiments that Ezylryb wanted him to do. “Martin can’t go and neither can Ruby because they are doing other experiments for him. That’s why he said I could ask friends from other chaws for help. So Twilight and Gylfie and Digger are going. You want to go, Otulissa?”

“No I can’t,” she replied. “I have to run that experiment on the far beach for him.”

“Ginger and I will go,” Eglantine piped up.

“You have to be full-fledged chaw members, and you’re still in training, Eglantine. I don’t think he’d agree. What about you Primrose? You’re full-fledged. Want to go?”

“No, not tonight,” she answered quietly. She knew that if she got to go and Eglantine didn’t, it would drive an even deeper wedge in their friendship.

“Come on, Soren. Go ask Ezylryb,” Eglantine urged her brother.

“No, I’m not going to bother him when I know what the answer will be.”

“That frinks me off,” Eglantine said sourly.

“Well, too bad.” Soren saw Ginger give Eglantine a nudge and whisper something in her ear.

“Young’uns!” Mrs P interrupted. “No bad language, not at the table, please. And need I remind you, I am the table!”

Tweener, usually a cheerful meal, was not going well. Now Gylfie, in another attempt to change the subject, reminded everyone that on the next evening Trader Mags would be arriving. “Trader Mags always comes on the first day of full shine in the summer,” she said.

“Why’s that?” Primrose asked, relieved to be talking about something other than Eglantine’s rude behaviour.

“She thinks the full moon shows off her wares best,” Soren said.

“As if the tawdriness of all that frippery needs any more sparkle,” Otulissa said acidly. Otulissa did not approve of Trader Mags.

“Who’s Trader Mags?” Ginger asked.

“You don’t know about Trader Mags?” Eglantine blinked. “Ooh, she brings the most wonderful stuff. We’ll have so much fun looking at it together. Shopping!”

Primrose sensed a wilfing in her gizzard.

“Trader Mags,” Otulissa said in a very haughty, superior voice, “is an ostentatious magpie who – true to her nature – is quite skilful at ‘collecting’ a variety of items. ‘Collecting’ is, of course, a euphemism for what some might call stealing.”

“Ooh!” Ginger exclaimed again, her eyes blinking darkly in anticipation. “Where does she get the stuff?”

“The Others – their old ruins, their churches or castles, what have you,” Otulissa continued. “Bits of stained glass, broken crockery, beads and baubles – all the colourful, garish doodads that the Others seem to have loved. Tawdry, awful stuff, in my opinion.”

“Madame Plonk likes it,” Eglantine said, cheerfully undeterred by Otulissa’s sneering tone.

“She would,” Otulissa said. “Madame Plonk is hardly known for her restraint in matters of style. There’s a touch of the tawdry in that Snowy Owl, to say the least.” Otulissa sniffed. “One might even say she’s an exhibitionist.”

“Come off it, Otulissa,” Twilight, the huge Great Grey, scoffed. “Look, we can’t all be as pure as you.”

Silence fell on the table like a blade slashing through the chatter. Since the siege and their fierce battle with the Pure Ones, something had happened to the word ‘pure’, as if it had become a swear word overnight. Soren felt Mrs P squirm and the owls’ Ga’Hoole-nut cups of milkberry tea trembled slightly. Ezylryb’s words from the Last Ceremony for Strix Struma following her death in battle came back to him:

We have been fighting a war that has been instigated by this vile notion that declares that some breeds of owls are better than others, more pure. Not one of us shall, I suppose, ever again say the words ‘pure’ or ‘purity’ without thinking of the bloodshed these words have caused. How unfortunate that a good word has been ruined by the evilness of one group.

Twilight, realising too late what he had just said, clamped his beak shut.