(GoG Book 02) The Journey by Kathryn Lasky Read Free Book Online Page B

longing for The Beaks and the Mirror Lakes grew stronger and stronger.
    “Time to get up, young’uns.” It was the male puffin, nudging Soren with one of his large, orange, webbed feet.“Wind died down. You can fly out of here now. The wall’s weeping.”
    “Huh?” Soren asked. “What do you mean the wall’s weeping?”
    “The ice is melting. Means warm air, the thermals have come. Easy flying.”
    The other owls were already up and standing at the rim of the hollow. The wall certainly was weeping. Glistening with wetness, it appeared shimmering, almost fiery as the setting sun turned its ice into liquid flames of pink, then orange and red.
    “Dumpy,” his father called. “Come over here, son. I want you to step up here and watch the young’uns fly. They are the masters of silent flight. Never going to hear a wing flap with these owls!”
    Just before they took off, Soren looked at each of the owls. He wasn’t the only one who had dreamed of the Mirror Lakes. They all wanted to go back. Could it be that wrong if they all wanted to do it? Twilight slid in close to him. “Soren, the three of us have been thinking.”
    “Yes?”
    “Thinking about The Beaks and the Mirror Lakes. We’ve been thinking, why not go back there for just a little while? You know, just to kind of rest up, get this fish out ofour system. Eat us some nice fat voles, then go on to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”
    It was so tempting, so tempting. Soren felt Mrs. Plithiver shift in the feathers between his shoulders.
    “I…I…” Soren stammered. “I think there’s a problem.”
    “What’s the problem?” Twilight pressed.
    “I think that if we go there, we won’t go on—ever—to the Great Ga’Hoole Tree,” Soren replied.
    Twilight paused. “Well, what if some of us think—you know, kind of differently? Would that be wrong of us to go? I mean, you’d be free to go on.”
    After they took off, Soren could feel Gylfie flying nervously beside him. He turned and looked directly at Gylfie. Together, they had survived moon blinking and moon scalding. Together, they had escaped St. Aggie’s. He spun his head toward Twilight and Digger. They had fought with him and Gylfie in the desert and, together, killed the murderers of Digger’s brother and parents. It was in that desert stained with blood that the four of them had, within the slivers of time and the silver of moonlight, sworn an oath and become a band. And it was as a band they had sworn to go to Hoolemere and find its Great Ga’Hoole Tree. That was no dream. That was real. But itwas a dream that now threatened them, a dream of the Mirror Lakes and endless summer that could, in fact, destroy their reason for living.
    Twilight continued, “I mean, Soren, as I said, you could go on if you wanted. What would be wrong with each of us doing what we want to do?”
    Soren looked hard at Twilight. “Because we are a band,” he said simply. And he sheered off toward an inlet near the end of the Ice Narrows that streamed into the Sea of Hoole-mere.

CHAPTER SEVEN
This Side of Yonder
    T he puffins had told them that there was a current of darker green water that swirled out from the Ice Narrows, then curved into the Sea of Hoolemere and, if they followed it, it would lead to the island. Soren was very thankful that they had found the current quickly. For, although the other three owls seemed to understand what he had said about being a band, he did not know what he would have done if they hadn’t found the current. At least for now he could assure them that they were on course. One more navigational error, one more time getting blown off in some wild direction—well, Soren wasn’t sure if he could hold the band together. The draw of The Mirror Lakes was powerful. It was odd, but he often thought of the night that he and Gylfie escaped from St. Aggie’s. When Skench, in her full battle regalia with claws and helmet, had burst in on them in the library, something had drawn her into