The Shattering (Guardians of Ga'hoole) by Kathryn Lasky

those little creepy crawlies
That make me feel so jolly
    For the darling centipede—
My favorite buggy feed.
I always want some more,
That’s the insect I adore.
More than beetles, more than crickets,
Which at times give me the hiccups,
I crave only to feed
On a juicy centipede
And I shall be happy forevermore.

    Eglantine pushed herself away a bit from her mother. “Mum, you remember the song.”
    “Of course, my darl—I mean dear. Didn’t I hear Soren sing it to you enough times?”
    “Yes…yes…” Eglantine said hesitantly. She looked more closely at her mother. Something seemed just a little bit off.
    “Mum, your face seems so big and so white.”
    “Well, we all do change a bit, dearest.”
    Mum sometimes called me dearest. But it was usually dearestEggie. She’s sort of got it by half. But never darling . Her mum’s explanation made Eglantine feel a bit more comfortable. But she felt that she was not quite as happy, quite as relieved as she should be.
    “But what’s that line down your face?”
    “Just a scratch, dear. A silly little collision during a storm with a flying branch. That’s all.”
    “But where’s Da?”
    “Out hunting with Kludd and Soren.”
    “But that can’t be.”
    “Well, why ever not?”
    “Soren’s at the great tree, the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.”
    “Now, Eglantine. We don’t tell fibs.”
    “It’s not a fib, Mum. It’s a real place.”
    “It’s a legend, dearest, that’s all. And when your da gets back, he’ll tell you stories of it as he always does before you go to sleep.”
    “But I don’t think I can stay here all through the day. I’ll be missed.”
    “Who could ever miss you more than me, your own mother?”
    Eglantine was getting more confused by the second. She looked around for Ginger. “I brought a friend. Where is she?”
    “Well, there was no one here but you, darling.”
    “No, Ginger was here. I’m sure she came with me. I told her that she could stay with us. She’s an orphan.”
    “Oh, dear, how sad.” Her mother sighed. “Of course, darl—dearest. We always have room for another.”
    “I knew you’d feel that way, Mum. I told her she would be welcome.” Eglantine said all this while studying her mother as if she were trying to convince herself of some truth. “I just don’t know where she could have gone to now.”
    “Well, perhaps she wanted to leave the two of us alone. You know, so we could be just mother and daughter. It’s been so long.”
    “Yes, it has,” Eglantine said in barely a whisper.
    “But I’m going to feed you all your favorite things—centipedes and a nice plump vole and a bit of field mouse.”
    “Oh, yum!” Eglantine said, for she suddenly discovered that she was ravenously hungry.
    She ate, yawned, and vaguely wondered where Ginger could have gone. Then, just before she fell asleep in a nest especially prepared by her mother with the loveliest mosses and her mum’s own down plucked from her very own breast, Eglantine did manage to say in a slow, groggy voice, “Mum, please don’t let me sleep too long. I will be introuble if I don’t get back in time. It may be a legend to you, but it’s something real to me.”
    “Of course, darling. It’s all too real for many.” And just as Eglantine’s eyes shut, there was a flash of harsh light that slid into the hollow like the edge of the sharpest blade.
    On a limb outside the hollow a huge Barn Owl perched as the moonlight struck his metal mask.

CHAPTER TEN
Eglantine Researches
    A m I here? Am I there? In her dream she had felt the softest moss and fluffiest down, but something was a bit more scratchy now, not like the softness of the nest she had dreamed of. Eglantine’s eyes blinked open. It was full daylight. There was Ginger. They were back in their hollow at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. She knew she had been someplace, to the dream hollow, but she had not gone there in a dream. I really went there. I think I saw Mum. She said, “Come back,”