The Owl Keeper

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  owl's message been meant for him? He skimmed the words on the crumpled paper. "This is from the Silver Prophecies, Rose! It's the song of silver and ice, the one Gran used to sing to me!"

  The owl gave a triumphant silvery hoot. Max could feel her small body trembling with excitement.

  "Let me see!" Rose reached greedily for the paper.

  Max whisked it behind his back, the lost shell fresh in his mind. "Do you know how rare this is? This might be the only copy of the poem left in the world!"

  "Maybe your gran knew she was dying," Rose said in a melancholy tone. "Maybe she hid it for you to find."

  Max could feel the old, familiar sorrow. "I think you're right, she left it for me," he said slowly. "Look at the letters. Nobody writes like this anymore, except people from my granny's generation-- and Gran's the only older person I know. Knew, I mean." His throat tightened. "Rose, I'm almost positive she wrote this."

  "Good thing I found it, right, Max?" said Rose, sounding like her old self again. "Otherwise that witchy old housekeeper would've thrown it in the trash."

  "You're right," he agreed. He looked at Rose. "The owl's message talks about finding the Silver Treasure. This is it: 'Silver and Ice'! This poem is the treasure!"

  "It could be," she mused, "but your owl is silver too."

  Max hadn't thought of that. The silver owl hopped off his shoulder onto a gravestone.

  "I wonder who sent your owl to you?" Rose went on. "I mean, somebody must've put the message in her beak and sent her off with it."

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  Max thought a moment, mentally running down the short list of people he knew. He could exclude the untrustworthy ones like Mrs. Crumlin, Dr. Tredegar and Einstein right off the bat. And it was doubtful his mom and dad or Professor LaMothe knew anything about the poem.

  "My gran had lots of friends who were Sages, so maybe it was one of them," he suggested, knowing it was only a guess.

  Rose frowned. "Then that means your owl belongs to somebody else. What if they're waiting for it to come back?"

  Alarmed, Max glanced over at his silver owl, flitting from one gravestone to the next. It had never occurred to him she might be someone's pet. "She's mine," he said fiercely, feeling a deep anger rising inside him. "And nobody's going to take my owl away from me." He would fight to the death, he knew, to keep his silver owl.

  "Read the message!" urged Rose, waving her flashlight. "Hurry up before this thing runs out of batteries."

  Max threw her an annoyed look. He was tired of being ordered around.

  He turned his attention back to the poem. In the beam of Rose's flashlight, the words glimmered strangely--as if they weren't words at all, he thought, but tiny galaxies of light spinning on the page.

  He cleared his throat. "The Way to the Owl Keeper," he began, trying to deepen his voice, "from the Silver Prophecies:

  "Owl in the darkness, silver in the leaves,

  Blind child comes leading

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  through the fog and trees.

  Through the haunted forest, beyond the aching hills,

  Darker grows the eventide, deeper grows the chill.

  Ancient dark is rising on the highest bridge,

  Red-eyed wolves are running on the distant ridge.

  Beware the eyeless creatures

  that would have your soul,

  Choose the burning sunlight, choose the path of gold.

  Journey to the mountain, flee the fortress old,

  Silver wings will save you from the killing cold.

  Two will make the journey, old one gone before,

  TO the icebound tower, through the crumbling door."

  He stopped reading. There was an extra verse at the end, one he'd never heard before. While the first three verses were written in blue, the last verse was penned in thick, broad strokes of silvery ink--as if Gran had meant to draw his attention to it. He continued:

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  "Owl Keeper is summoned

  atop the frozen plain,

  Owls and Sages gather to fight the dark again, two will make the journey, silver owl in hand,

  Seek the moonlit tower as darkness sweeps the land.

  Silver and ice, silver and ice,

  Silver owl will guide you, with its golden eyes."

  Rose leaned over and patted the owl, perched on a gravestone nearby. "It gives me the shivers."

  "The haunted forest makes sense," said Max, mulling over the phrases. "We're in it right now! And the red-eyed wolves are plague wolves."

  "The eyeless creatures are skræks," said Rose darkly. "I really hate those things."

  "Me too." Max shuddered. How could he ever tell Rose that the High Echelon had planned to make him a Skræk Master?

  Rose tugged on a string of matted hair. "What does the last verse mean?"

  "It's about the Owl Keeper bringing together Sages and silver owls."

  "Yeah, but what about the two making a journey with a silver owl?" Rose's voice fell to a melodramatic whisper. "That's us,

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  Max! We're supposed to take your silver owl to a moonlit tower! It says so right there!"

  Max sifted through his memories, trying to recall what Gran had told him. Sounds and images tumbled through his head: a tower, a silver treasure, unearthly songs rising up through the moonlight. He tilted his head toward the silver owl. Looking into her golden eyes, scattered with flecks of amber, he could almost read her thoughts. Heed the poem, she seemed to say to him. Follow the path.

  Max let out a slow, measured breath. "Gran always talked about a tower on a high plateau. I think that's where we'll find the Owl Keeper, Rose!"

  "Okay. The poem talks about an icebound tower and a frozen plain," she said, craning her neck and looking off in the distance. "Does that mean--"

  "Yep," said Max, following her gaze. "The Frozen Zone." Just above the trees he could see its cold, jagged edges, jutting up against the sky.

  Rose sucked in her breath. "Wow, Max, this is a real adventure! And the Owl Keeper lives up there in a tower, right? Hey, maybe we can stay with him! I bet he has servants and a maitre d' and a television with a rotary antenna--"

  "Don't count on it," Max cut in dryly, wondering what a maitre d' was. "Televisions haven't been around for generations." He slipped the paper inside his jacket.

  The owl gave a delicate sneeze. Max picked her up and held her a moment, stroking her feathers, then he opened his pocket and she squeezed inside.

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  "Max!" cried Rose.

  He looked up to see a pinkish yellow light, filtering through the tangled branches. "The sun!" he gasped. Panic and fear took hold of him.

  "Run!" yelled Rose.

  Wheeling around, they streaked through the graveyard, dodging headstones, leaping over stone walls, sprinting through the trees. The sky was growing lighter by the minute. Soon they were running along the river, slipping and sliding on the muddy banks.

  This is worse than plague wolves or skræks, thought Max, this is instant death.

  "Over here!" cried Rose, pulling him toward a narrow wooden bridge.

  There was no time to worry about crossing the river into a forest where wolves and Misshapens roamed at night. It was the only place to hide. All Max could do was clamber across the bridge and into the shadows, dodging the lethal rays of the sun.

  Looking wildly around, Max glimpsed a cluster of shapes, half hidden in the mist, and galloped toward them. To his amazement he could see a clump of blasted walls, with stone steps winding upward---and a doorway leading into a crumbling stone structure.

  Crashing through the forest, he jumped over twisted roots and ducked beneath branches. Arms pumping, he hurtled through the open doorway and into the ruined building. Rolling across the earthen floor, he landed in a cold, pitch-black space, relief spiraling through him.

  Rose came flying in, her rubber boots skidding in the dirt. "Max, are you okay?"

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  Out of breath, he looked up at her w
ith a weary smile, his eyes already adjusting to the darkness.

  "Whew, that was a close call," she said. With a concerned expression, she pulled him to his feet, looking him up and down, checking for damage. "I was so scared for you, Max! I was afraid your skin would start bubbling up and your eyes would pop out and your hair would catch fire and--" She stopped abruptly, leaving the rest to their imaginations.

  Seeing her worried expression, Max felt his cheeks go red. Rose really does care about me, he thought. Now that the scare was over, he brushed leaves and dirt from his clothes, gazing with curiosity at the scarred walls and beams of rotting wood. They were in a great hall of some sort. It was built of enormous stones that were covered with carvings so weathered, they were fading back into the stone.

  It must have been magnificent here once, he thought. Who had lived in this place? Had they been royalty or wise people of some sort? He guessed the castle had been built centuries ago, maybe as far back as the first Sages.

  Then he was struck by an awful thought and his heart sank. "My owl!" he cried. "What if I squashed her?"

  But when he opened his pocket, the owl fluttered out and flew straight up to a beam in the ceiling, ruffling her feathers. She had a look of faded elegance, sitting high above, gazing at them with quizzical eyes, making soft triumphant noises.

  "Did you see her fly up there?" Max stared at his owl, feeling incredibly happy and relieved. "Her wing is working again, Rose! And look at her bad eye--doesn't it seem brighter to you?" His owl was whole again! Her broken wing was healed!

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  "She's kind of far away to see, but yeah, I think she's beautiful!" Rose hugged him. "Your owl's going to be all right!"

  Max hugged her back. "She's the most special owl in the world, and she's the toughest, too! Listen, Rose, she's singing!" He tilted his head, marveling at the mysterious sounds coming from his owl.

  "I like her song, Max. It's got hope in it." Rose gave a loud sniff and spun away from him. "This place smells like the barn in Cavernstone Grey." Then her face fell. "Max, I don't know where my father is. They could've taken him anywhere!"

  "Oh, Rose," said Max, feeling sad and helpless and sorry for her. Rose had such a fiery nature and most of the time she was fearless and unshakable. But seeing the anger in her eyes, and the sadness deeper down, he realized for the first time that a part of her was damaged. She carried a hidden sorrow that made his heart ache for her.

  Maybe that was what drew them to each other, he reflected. They both suffered: Rose from her buried anger and sadness, Max from his illness and isolation.

  "I want my dad and mom," whispered Rose. "I miss them so much, Max!"

  Max's heart melted. His high spirits fell as he remembered his own parents. And he knew what it meant to lose someone you loved: after all these years, he still missed Gran terribly.

  He put his arms around Rose, breathing in the tree-sap smell of her hair. What else could he do? He had no idea whether her parents were safe or not, and no comforting words came into his head, so he stayed quiet.

  He thought of his parents at the dinner table, cutlery clinking,

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  pretending to enjoy Mrs. Crumlin's scalded beet casserole. After a few days would they even notice he was gone? Would they ask each other, "Whatever happened to Max?" and shake their heads in bewilderment? A deep sadness tugged at his heart, and he wondered if they missed him.

  He let go of Rose. Unscrewing the thermos, he poured the last of the milk and honey, which was lukewarm, into its lid and offered it to her. He felt compelled to say something, to give Rose a reason not to lose hope.

  "Everything seems black right now, Max," she said in a quiet voice. "I feel so alone without my dad."

  "But you've got me, Rose, I'll look after you," he said, trying to sound confident. "So what we do is, we keep going. We find the icebound tower and we bring the owl--"

  But as he said the words, Max wasn't so sure he believed them. Away from the safety of his home and all the familiar things he'd left behind, Max felt uprooted, insecure. The world out here was so frightening and unpredictable. Still, he told himself, it was important to put on a brave face for Rose.

  "It should be easy to find the Owl Keeper." Rose wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sipped the milk. "We just take your granny's poem and break it down line by line, like when my dad cracks a code." She smiled unevenly.

  Max grinned, thinking how Rose could tell the most believable lies. Right then it didn't bother him--he actually sort of understood it. "But your dad's not really a spy, is he? I heard Einstein say he's a professor at a university. You made that spy stuff up, didn't you? It's not really true."

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  "Yeah, I did, sort of." Rose giggled through her tears. "Sometimes I get carried away. I wanted to impress you, that's all. And it worked, right, Max?"

  She giggled harder and he joined in, relieved to let go of his pent-up worries and fears. Soon they were falling all over the place, laughing hysterically. It felt good to be laughing, to forget the sadness that had come before.

  Max rolled over and lay flat on his back, staring up at the rafters. Something slowly drifted down. A bundle of twigs landed in the dust beside him. "Look, my owl dropped a pellet!" Excited he reached over and picked it up. His owl had never made a real pellet before. That was something he'd told Rose to impress her.

  Rose looked on, curious. For once she didn't make any inane comments.

  "Here's a skull," he said, gently tearing the pellet apart. "It could be a mouse, or a vole, maybe." He pulled out twigs and leaves and tiny bones, a glob of feathers, a cluster of seeds, setting them on the floor for Rose to see. She knelt down, inspecting each item, though he noticed she held everything very close to her eyes.

  "Hey, Max, what's that shiny thing over there?" Rose pointed.

  Max stared, incredulous, marveling at a small, gleaming object on the earthen floor. Tears of joy sprang to his eyes. His hand closed around the familiar shape, rare and delicate, with fluted edges and--by some quirk of fate--still in one piece.

  Gran's shell.

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  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  [Image: Mrs. Crumlin.]

  Max was drifting in and out of sleep when he heard the formidable voice of Mrs. Crumlin. At first he thought he was dreaming.

  "A wonder he's survived. Such a pathetic, hyperfrenetic child." Hearing her words, Max felt a sudden creeping fear. "Well, it won't be long now--things are about to change rather quickly."

  Max opened his eyes halfway and his heart sank. It wasn't a dream. Mrs. Crumlin stood inside the doorway watching him. Small and squat, she looked like an evil dwarf in a fairy tale. The person she was talking to, he realized, was outside the door, out

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  of earshot and hidden from view. Immediately he closed his eyes again and, pretending to be asleep, listened intently.

  "See that wretched urchin in black, over in the corner?" Mrs. Crumlin continued. "That's the one causing all the trouble! The boy has fallen under her influence."

  A deep voice answered, the words muffled.

  "I have no idea whether or not the girl can see! All I know is, she must be gotten rid of," said Mrs. Crumlin in a low, sinister tone. "Without delay. Wait here--"

  But Max didn't hear the rest. Get rid of Rose? His heart began to race. How were they planning to do that? Through half-shut eyelids, he saw Mrs. Crumlin trundling toward him, swinging a large woven basket.

  "Wake up, sleepyhead!" she chirped sweetly.

  Max opened his eyes. It was no good pretending to be asleep. She stood looming over him, her smile bleak and dangerous. He heartily disliked Mrs. Crumlin, but he'd never been afraid of her before--not until now.

  Sickened by the smells of bleach and pickles, and confused by Mrs. Crumlin's sudden appearance, he shrank against the wall. He was stiff and cold in this cavernous room with stone walls. Was this a prison? Then he saw the sagging beams and battered carvings and remembered: he was in a ruined
castle in the forest. He'd run from the sunrise and taken shelter there with Rose.

  He rubbed his eyes. But what was Mrs. Crumlin doing here? How had she tracked them down?

  "It took us a while to find you, but here we are, none the worse for wear." Mrs. Crumlin looked so ordinary and out of place,

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  with her shiny quilted raincoat and a plastic rain hat tied in a crisp bow beneath her chin. Max realized with relief that she was unaware he'd heard her comments about Rose. "Who's with you?" he asked nervously.

  "My bodyguard, of course. How could you be so foolhardy, Maxwell, venturing into the forest? Even in daylight it's treacherous. Dangers lurk at every corner!" With gloved fingers she massaged her temples. "We've been searching for you since early this morning. I'm absolutely shattered."

  How are Rose and I going to get out of here? Max wondered, his eyes scanning the ruined structure. Except for the main doorway, there seemed to be no other way out.

  "This may interest you, Maxwell: a wind-borne vessel delivered us here!" Mrs. Crumlin's tone was both lighthearted and boastful. "It awaits in a field nearby."

  Her words caught Max by surprise. How did Mrs. Crumlin rate, flying in a wind-borne vessel? He knew they were few in number: most of the metallic pod-shaped flying craft had vanished during the Great Destruction. Known for their sturdy wings and tempered glass windows, wind-borne vessels were piloted by the Dark Brigade. Only top government officials traveled in them.

  Mrs. Crumlin held out the basket she was holding. Max saw that it was filled with steaming hot muffins. "Take one, dearie," she urged, "you must be famished. They're made with golden-eye treacle--another radio cook-show recipe!"

  Max eyed the muffins suspiciously. He didn't want to think what Mrs. Crumlin might have baked inside them. Why was she

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  being so nice to him? he wondered. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten for a long time. Reaching for a muffin, Max went to take a bite, but it looked viscous and smelled oversweet. The cloying scent stayed in his nostrils as he dropped it back into the basket.