Guardians of Ga'Hoole 13 - The River of Wind by authors_sort Read Free Book Online Page B

as you normally would, by flying four points off the western paw of the whatever raccoon, this way or that way off the Golden Talons, taking into consideration the wind strength and direction and so on and so on. I don’t think that will work. These constellations are slipping away. I can feel it as we approach the curve. I even feel something is happening to time as we approach the…” Mrs. P. waggled her head high into the air as if searching for the right word. “The tomorrow line!” she said suddenly.
    “The tomorrow line?” they all echoed.
    “You see, this is not like when you go on a night flightand fly from midnight into the next morning. For you owls, that time is continuous—at least in the world that you know. The new night—the tomorrow—begins the next evening at First Black. But I think we have to think differently about where we are flying. In a funny way, I feel that as we continue to fly across this sea, somehow time is behaving differently. Maybe it is the influence of this central stream of fast-moving air. I’m not sure, but look: We know the Earth is round. If it is night here, it must be day someplace else. We know this from the movement of the stars, from our movement around the sun. We cannot always live in a world capped by the night. So we know that tomorrow must start somewhere. That place is out there. How many leagues? I don’t know. But that’s where tomorrow begins.”
    “I think we’ll know it when we get there. It will be like a hole in the wind—no wind,” Mrs. P. said.
    Gylfie blinked. She had a logical mind, the mind of a navigator. She was used to plotting courses using the angle of the stars and the most favorable wind directions. It was mathematical, and although time was involved it was not the kind of time Mrs. P. was talking about. Of this she was sure. But at this point there were few other options.
    Coryn had been silent throughout this entire discussion. He now turned to Gylfie. “Gylfie, you have served admirably as navigator, but what if what Mrs. P. is saying is true?”
    “You are absolutely right,” Gylfie said. “This is not my kind of navigation. Soren should fly with Mrs. P. in my usual spot.”
    “Good.” Coryn nodded. “I say, after we have rested a bit, we should fly to tomorrow.”
    “Pardon me, sir.” Mrs. P. could not bring herself to address the king simply as “Coryn.” “But I think if we are not too tired, we should go as quickly as possible. The point is to fly as fast as we can away from the dawn toward this new world.”
    The eight owls blinked rapidly in confusion. They looked at the horizon.
    Digger spoke first in his ponderous voice. “What Mrs. P. suggests is that we are right now trapped between the here and now and tomorrow. To break out of this trap, we must fly fast toward the tomorrow line.”
    “And you say we’ll know it when we get there?” Soren flipped his head straight up and twisted it around so he could speak directly to Mrs. P.
    “Oh, you’ll know it, Soren, don’t worry. You’ll know it when you get there.”
    So as the dawn broke, casting a soft pink sheen across the unusually calm waters of the sea, the eight owls lifted from the wolf’s fang rock. On the distant horizon, low clouds were strung like pearls on a strand. The strand of tomorrow? Soren wondered.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Blue in the Night
    S omething blue, like fog at tween time, hovered over Bell. She blinked, and blinked again, then squinted. A form came into focus. “Matron?” Bell asked. It was a sensible question, for it was the matron who organized the nursing and care of wounded owls. And Bell knew she was a wounded owl. Every bone, every feather seemed to ache.
    “Matron?” the voice echoed. The accent was strange. Bell was suddenly very frightened.
    “Where am I? What has happened?” Is this even an owl? she thought as the creature bent over her. “W-w-wh…w-what,” she stammered. “What are you?” It was a bird. It even looked