~By the Lion's Mane: See You Again~

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

~Eustace~

I was woken what felt like minutes later by a noise. At first when I was roused, I wasn’t sure what had woken me, and I sat very still, eyes and ears straining in the dark to see or hear what it was.

A flurry of motion and a loud tap outside my window made me jump. I went to the window and saw the Owl that had first met us—Glimfeather-- wheeling about in the darkness outside my window. I opened it and he came swooping inside with a gust of cool, damp air.

I opened my mouth to say something, but he cut me off. “Hush, hush, don’t make noise,” he hooted softly. “Come with me now, if you really want to find the Prince, and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I whispered fiercely. “I don’t know how to get downstairs and out of the castle!”

Glimfeather puffed his feathers and said, “No, not through the castle!” He turned around on the windowsill with his back to me and then twisted his head all the way around to say, “You’ll have to ride on my back!”

Seeing as how he wasn’t even as big as I was, I didn’t see how this was going to be possible. After all, birds have hollow bones to make them lighter. I had read numerous books on ornithology at home.

I told this to Glimfeather, who tutted and admonished me for taking too long and told me to pack some things, and then I hesitantly wrapped my legs around his round little body.

He dove off the windowsill at once, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out as my stomach swooped. But then we were rising through the air, moonlight peaking through the clouds that promised rain above us. Glimfeather glided nearly silently, his wide wings hardly making a sound.

We flew over farms and fields and a forest, and then the Owl began to fly lower towards a taller black structure. As we closed in, I saw it was a ruin of an old guard tower, covered in vines and made of crumbling stone. We sailed through the arched, broken window and I rolled off of Glimfeather’s back.

There was a lot of shuffling and hooting and ruffling of feathers, and I deduced that the little room was crowded with other Owls. Glimfeather took off again nearly at once, and left me with the other birds.

After a few minutes of hooting and being questioned by the Owls, Glimfeather arrived again with Jill.

“Is that you, Pole?” I asked.

“Is that you, Scrubb?” she answered. She scooted over to sit next to me with our backs against the crumbling stone wall.

Glimfeather spoke up, silencing the other Owls. “Now, I think we’re all here. Let us begin a parliament of Owls.”

The others hooted their agreement.

I was struck with a sudden realization that I had no idea what they were doing here. They could be plotting something, and I didn’t know where their loyalties lay.

“Half a moment,” I interrupted. “There’s something I want to say first.”

I was given permission to continue.

“I suppose all you chaps-- er-- Owls-- know that King Caspian the Tenth, in his younger days, sailed to the eastern end of the world. Well, I was with him on that journey: with him and Reepicheep the Mouse, and the Lord Drinian and Lady Rose and all of them. I know it sounds hard to believe, but people don’t age the same in our world as yours. And what I want to say is that I’m the King’s man, and if this gathering of owls is any sort of plot against the King, I’m having nothing to do with it.” I ended with my arms crossed and gave a nod to emphasize my point.