The Owl Keeper

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  "What have you done, you little fool!" snarled Dr. Tredegar, not at all his usual pleasant self. "Mrs. Crumlin spent hours on that dome puzzle!"

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  "I know what you're giving me!" yelled Max. "It's genetically engineered blood!"

  The adults froze, staring at him with open mouths.

  "And this!" He pointed to his neck. "You said my sun mark was a birthmark! That's a lie! It's a tattoo and the High Echelon put it there!"

  Mrs. Crumlin and the doctor exchanged glances that he couldn't quite understand.

  "Someone is feeding you misinformation," said Dr. Tredegar, eyeing Max warily. "Whom have you been talking to?"

  Blood rushed to Max's head. "You think I don't know anything!" he shouted, voice cracking. "Well, I know plenty!" Of course, he only had his suspicions. Sorting this out was like trying to piece together one of Mrs. Crumlin's giant jigsaws.

  The doctor made a grab for his arm. "You're not going anywhere," he snarled, steering Max into the nearest chair. "Sit!" His insectile fingers dug into Max's shoulders as he pushed him down.

  Max looked up in surprise. Today he was seeing a new and startling Dr. Tredegar, not the mild-mannered gentleman he had known for years. He struggled to get away, but the doctor held him in a rock-solid grip.

  Mrs. Crumlin sat down across from Max, clasping her pudgy hands. "The sun mark means you have been selected by the High Echelon for a most important job. That is why they sent me to be your guardian."

  I knew it, he thought, glowering at her. Mrs. Crumlin was a puppet hired by the High Echelon. Still, he was confused. If the government hated Night Seers like Rose said it did, why had a

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  guardian been sent to protect him? Even more mystifying was why the High Echelon would care about some kid whose granny was a rebel and kept banned books in her house.

  "Why is there a creature with the same tattoo as me?" he blurted out.

  There was a stunned silence from the adults.

  "Don't say skræks aren't real!" he cried. "I heard you talking about them just now!"

  Unruffled, Mrs. Crumlin turned to the doctor. "I think I know what this is about, Dr. Tredegar. You see, there is a runaway child in town and I daresay our Maxwell has made a new friend." Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. "I knew you were keeping something from me, Maxwell Unger."

  "I wasn't!" he yelled. "I don't know any runaways!"

  "Lying will get you nowhere fast." Mrs. Crumlin heaved a great sigh. "Very well, Phineas, let the boy go." She smoothed her dress and the apron over it. "The authorities have granted me permission to discuss Maxwell's future."

  Max felt Dr. Tredegar relax his ironclad grip.

  "Until this week I had orders to keep silent," she began. "Now I can talk about your apprenticeship, which is linked to the government's exciting new defense strategy."

  Max went rigid. Were they going to make him a Dark Brigadier? The thought of wearing a mask, goggles and the High Echelon's standard-issue cape, and marching in lines and shooting rifles at owls revolted him.

  "I won't join the military!" he shouted. "I hate uniforms! I'll go AWOL!" He wasn't sure what AWOL meant, but he knew it wasn't good.

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  "Let me finish!" she snapped. "You will be training a special attack animal to defend our domes and keep the borders safe."

  Max flashed back on the plague wolf with its spiky fur, sharp teeth and foaming mouth. "Train wolves?" he asked shakily, going cold all over.

  "What nonsense! Wolves have been extinct for decades," replied the doctor, his voice tense.

  Liar, thought Max, but he said nothing.

  Face flushed, Mrs. Crumlin leaned forward. "Foolish child, I'm talking about a creature with superior fighting talent, designed by the smartest scientists in the world. It attacks, destroys and always wins because it has no fear."

  Her last two words were like a blow to the head. "Skæks!" whispered Max. A deep and profound terror flooded his body, and his stomach turned. "I--I--" he stuttered. "I won't do it, those things are disgusting! It's not in my nature!"

  "Oh, but we have medicine to alleviate your fears," said Dr. Tredegar reassuringly. "And we have ways of changing your nature as well," he added darkly.

  Max could hardly breathe. He had no doubt that at last they were telling him the truth, but he didn't want to hear it.

  "What works in your favor, Maxwell," said Mrs. Crumlin, "is that these creatures have no eyes." She smiled uncertainly. Her pale, doughy face reminded Max of an underbaked cookie.

  "Attempts were made to graft eyes onto the skræks," explained Dr. Tredegar. "But the transplants failed. Unfortunate, that."

  Max felt his stomach twist at the memory of the squirming body, the torn wings, the missing eyes. "No!" he screamed. "I won't do it!"

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  With a fierce cry of despair, he doubled over. How could this possibly be his destiny, training gene-spliced mutants to kill?

  "The High Echelon selected you years ago, Maxwell, when Project Skræk was in its infancy. You were considered perfect for the role," twittered Mrs. Crumlin. "They were looking for a smooth stone amid the broken ones, a tabula rasa, as it were, untainted by civilization, a child of the Prophecy, plucked from a state of naïveté." Her eyes shone feverishly. "That would be you, Maxwell. For the High Echelon decrees there can only be one Skræk Master."

  "You're out of your mind!" he cried, his voice at once disgusted and incredulous. What was all this talk about stones and prophecies? Mrs. Crumlin was obviously delusional. Maybe she'd listened to too many episodes of Flamingo Valley.

  "When everyone from Cavernstone Grey moves into the domes, you will move in with the skræks." Mrs. Crumlin clasped her hands to her bosom. "You'll need to familiarize yourself with them, of course, learn their ways and so forth. I've no doubt you'll adjust in time. And of course you will be given hardworking assistants."

  "The word skræk comes from old Danish," said the doctor with a wink. "Translated, it means fear."

  Max stared at him, appalled.

  "Skræks are rather unpleasant creatures, I'll grant you that," chimed in Mrs. Crumlin. "Still, they are a marvelous experiment, genetically designed to protect us from radicals, traitors, runaways and the like. They will hunt our enemies down and, if necessary, exterminate them."

  Max's stomach did a double flip. He didn't need anyone to explain the meaning of exterminate.

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  "Of course, their main objective will be to seek out and destroy any remaining silver owls." Her voice struck a gleeful note. "No one will be safe in this country until each and every one is eradicated."

  Max stiffened. They wanted him to kill the things he loved most? Was this their plan, to twist his love of silver owls into something hateful and repulsive?

  "The High Echelon thinks of everything--including the no-fear gene." Mrs. Crumlin's tone was falsely soothing. "These injections will make your Transmutation much easier. No fear, Maxwell, think of it. And your conscience will be crystal clear. No feelings of guilt at all."

  Max looked at her, stunned. He would be no better than a robot, without thought or emotion. And the no-fear gene--that was the one Rose had told him about, the gene they were selling on the black market!

  "I won't!" he shouted. "You can't make me!"

  Ignoring his outburst, Mrs. Crumlin continued: "The Transmutation takes place the day before your twelfth birthday, just before midnight. The timing could not be more perfect."

  "No!" bellowed Max.

  "Let's get on with this, shall we?" growled the doctor. "Steady the boy's arm, Mrs. Crumlin."

  Max looked up to see Dr. Tredegar skulking toward him with the InjectaPort. No way, he told himself, I'm not letting that lunatic near me anymore.

  The doctor took another step and Max leapt out of the chair. "Get away!" he screamed, and raced out of the room. Before they could nab him, he bolted upstairs.

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  [Image: M
ax and the owl.]

  Max turned the key in the lock and dragged a chair against his bedroom door. Tears streaming down his face, he dove beneath the quilt.

  Okay, so Mrs. Crumlin and the doctor had finally come clean and told him the truth. But what good was truth when they were sneaking no-fear genes into him and gearing him up for a life of killing things and living with mutant monsters? They were planning to change him, perhaps in some irreversible way--and the thought terrified him.

  It was clear that they had been plotting behind his back for years.

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  What an idiot he'd been, listening to their stupid lies. Didn't they realize that he was Max Unger, the boy who loved owls? He was the kid who waited under the owl tree every night for the Owl Keeper to come. He would rather die than kill anything--especially an owl.

  Downstairs he could hear Mrs. Crumlin and the doctor having a long, drawn-out conversation. Who were the mysterious twelve they had talked about, he wondered, who were being trained in a facility in Sengeneth? And what were they being trained to do?

  Their muffled voices drifted up, filling Max with anguish and rage. He burrowed deeper under the quilt, trying to shut them out, while disquieting thoughts filled his head. Did his parents know anything about his apprenticeship? Were they part of the High Echelon's plot--or had they been deceived too?

  Sobbing, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

  He was startled awake by a knock at the door. Outside his window he could see the two moons, rising against a cold black sky.

  "Are you awake, Max?" his father called in a weary voice. "Aren't you coming down for dinner?"

  "Go away!" shouted Max, choking back a sob. He wasn't ready to face his parents. "Leave me alone!"

  His gaze traveled around the room, resting on his collection of odd-shaped stones, his jar of found objects, an empty lizard bowl, a model wind-borne vessel tied to a strand of wire. All these things were going to disappear soon, when his parents moved to the dome and Cavernstone Grey was demolished.

  His father gave another timid knock. "Max?"

  "I hate you! I hate all of you!"

  "Let me know when you're ready to talk," mumbled his father,

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  sounding dejected. But Max didn't care; all he wanted was to be left alone.

  The world around him seemed utterly black. His chest ached every time he thought about Rose. Where was she? Had she found a safe place to hide? He knew what would happen if they caught her: she'd be sent to Children's Prison and he'd never see her again.

  He envisioned her knotted hair, smelling of leaves and tree sap, her green eyes flecked with gold. The way she swung so expertly from the branches of trees, spiders falling from her long coat. Her silly high laugh, her lopsided smile. He even missed her bossy voice.

  He had never had a true friend before--not a human friend, anyway, not someone like Rose. She was gutsy, unique, like the deadly purple sphinx. And once, beneath the owl tree, she had kissed the top of his ear, making his heart racket inside his chest.

  Max was so distraught that he realized he was coming down with a fever. Chilled and semi-delirious, shivering all over, he stayed in bed, sweat rolling off his forehead, the quilt hiked up to his chin, thumbing through Owls of the Wild. But the words jumped around on the pages too much, so he returned the book to its hiding place under the closet floorboards.

  The next morning Mrs. Crumlin left a bowl of turnip soup outside his door. Max ignored it, vowing never to eat her poisoned food again. All through the morning and early afternoon he stayed in bed, drifting in and out of sleep until late afternoon, when a knock at the front door woke him.

  He jumped out of bed, rushed to the top of the stairs and leaned over the railing. Down in the hallway he saw Einstein

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  handing Mrs. Crumlin a sheaf of papers. "Sorry to hear Max is sick," Einstein said. "Hope he gets better soon."

  "Just between you and me, I think it's all in his head," Mrs. Crumlin replied. "Never mind about him, tell me the latest news."

  Max gripped the wooden rail until his knuckles turned white. "Not Rose," he whispered to himself. "Please don't let it be Rose--"

  "The Dark Brigade's identified the runaway they caught two weeks ago," Einstein announced. "A man named Eccles, ex-ecology professor from Scattersea, next town over. Fancies himself an intellectual revolutionary, dead set against the High Echelon's policies. A traitor!" he added with a sneer.

  It saddened Max to hear Einstein talk that way, knowing his friend's attitude was fueled by the High Echelon's lies. But hadn't Rose said she came from Tattersall Heath? It was hard to know what to believe from her anymore.

  "This Eccles fellow will get his comeuppance," said Mrs. Crumlin in a self-satisfied voice. She gave a low chuckle and Einstein joined in.

  Their laughter struck Max as cruel and smug. He had never noticed before just how fanatical they were.

  "And that's not all, Mrs. Crumlin!" said Einstein in a voice that made Max's stomach lurch. "The Dark Brigade nearly caught the runaway girl yesterday! My uncle Phineas joined in the chase, and you'll never guess what happened!"

  Holding his breath, Max listened with a growing sense of dread.

  "My uncle devised this contraption, see, for shooting poison darts at wild animals--slows them down to a crawl. So he shoots this dart at the girl and it's tipped with some new experimental

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  drug. She won't get far, because in two days or so her vision will be messed up and--bingo!--they'll nab her."

  Mrs. Crumlin gave a low chuckle. "Oh my word, that's Phineas Tredegar for you, coming up with another brilliant invention! I've always said he was a genius."

  The two of them started laughing again.

  Horrified, Max backed away, their manic laughter ringing in his ears. Rose! They blinded Rose!

  He fled to his room, locking the door behind him, and sat trembling on his bed, trying to calm himself. Where was Rose now? He had to save her from the Dark Brigade! But how? What about the High Echelon and its creatures? What about his allergies to sunlight?

  The other option was to stand his ground and fight them all to the bitter end. Who am I kidding? he asked himself, I wouldn't stand a chance.

  He ached to know where Rose was hiding and whether she was safe. Without her father, Max knew she was totally alone, running from the Dark Brigade, with no one to turn to--except him.

  He had to find her.

  Late that night, certain that his parents were asleep, Max slipped out the back door and raced downhill to the moonlit grassy field. The air was frigid and he wondered if Rose was warm enough in her ratty old coat and rubber boots.

  He wore three sweaters, one on top of the other, knowing he might be waiting all night for Rose to turn up. She was bound to come, he told himself, she had no place else to go. But what if she

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  couldn't see because of the poison dart? How would she find her way to the tree?

  The moment he saw the owl tree, with no Rose swinging from a branch, Max got choked up. Her absence, he realized, was as if the two moons had been ripped from the sky, leaving a black hole behind.

  With alarm he noticed something new: a length of tape wrapped around the tree, cordoning it off. Puzzled, he ran over. Tied to stakes hammered into the ground, the tape was bright red with yellow suns. Max's heart sank. The High Echelon was planning to cut down the owl tree!

  Panic raced through him. Where was his owl? Looking up into the tree, he searched the branches for her, giving a few wild hoots. But he was so upset he sounded more like a sick frog.

  He hooted again. At last he saw the silver owl, looking bedraggled, staring down reproachfully from the top of the tree. Relief washed over him. She was safe!

  But he could see that her feathers drooped and her good eye wasn't as bright as usual. Suddenly he was afraid for her. Did she realize the danger she was in? If the Dark Brigade found her, she wouldn't be able to save herself because of her broken w
ing!

  "Oh little owl, you're still here!" he cried, climbing onto a low branch. "I wanted to come last night, but I was sick with a fever."

  The owl hopped down from branch to branch and snuggled against his jacket, as if to say she forgave him. She looked a bit frightened, he thought.

  "The Dark Brigade were here today, weren't they? I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you," said Max, extracting a

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  thistle from her wing. "Everything's in a mess: Rose is on the run, my future's a disaster, and Mrs. Crumlin found your secret message"--his eyes filled with tears--"and now you're going to lose your home!" He held his owl close, marveling at the pure silver of her wings. "I want to take you and Rose someplace safe! I want to run away but I'm too scared!"

  The owl regarded him with luminous eyes. If he understood owl language, she would probably answer with comforting words. Her sadness was palpable; it tore at his heart.

  "I have to find Rose," he said determinedly. He found a peach in his knapsack and offered it to his owl. "I was sure she'd be here." The owl nibbled daintily, but when she had finished she still looked sad. "It's not midnight yet. I think she'll come."

  The owl regarded him with her magnificent solemn eyes. Most of the time her expression was serene. But not tonight--tonight she seemed to emanate sadness and fear.

  The two sat on the branch, being sad together. From his perch in the owl tree, Max watched the dark rushing river far below. If he squinted he could see the glowing eyes of the Misshapens, bobbing through the forest on the other side. Their eyes chilled him to the bone.

  Hours passed. The night grew colder. Clinging to the tree trunk, Max fell into a dreamless sleep.

  The owl hooted, jolting him awake, and he nearly fell from the branch. He could hear a rustling at the base of the tree. Was it a wolf? His heart stopped. He didn't know if plague wolves could climb trees.