The Owl Keeper (2 page)

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Max Unger was a pale-faced flannel-shirt sort of boy, with dark brown eyes and stringy brown hair. He had his father's straight nose, his mother's high cheekbones and a dash of freckles. His ears were slightly too big, but his mother promised he'd grow into them.

Mrs. Crumlin often remarked that Max's face had a look of permanent worry due to his insecure nature. True, he was often anxious and easily frightened. As a little boy he had been afraid of large dogs, fearful of spiders, terrified of loud noises. Even now, those things could make him jump.

"Breaking news," boomed the radio announcer. "In an emergency session last night the government passed the Sealed Borders Act, declaring that all borders will be closed until further notice. This action, they say, comes after threats from hostile countries as yet unnamed. Under this act, no one is allowed to enter or leave the country without High Echelon permission."

Puzzled, Max sat up, listening intently, but the announcer had moved on to the weather. Why would the government want to cut them off from the rest of the world?

"Why are the borders closed?" he asked.

"Not to worry, Maxwell, the High Echelon knows what it's doing. Remember, its job is to protect us." Mrs. Crumlin turned down the volume. "Puzzling, I'd say, the way those injections bring on those nightmares of yours," she said, changing the subject completely. "Would you like to tell me about your dream?"

"No," Max said, gnawing on a fingernail. "I wouldn't."

His mother often said that Mrs. Crumlin had a thankless job and that Max should see things from her point of view. But he

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resented the way she was always quizzing him about his dreams, pressing him for details.

"Very well." Mrs. Crumlin sounded a bit hurt. "Have it your way.

When Max was little, he'd had impossibly wonderful dreams that featured mysterious towers and enchanted trees and silver owls flying through snow. He remembered those as the Good Dreams. But when he turned seven, those dreams ended abruptly. Ever since, he had suffered from disturbing nightmares.

"Hungry, Maxwell?" asked Mrs. Crumlin, straightening a lamp shade. "I'll find something to munch on." She plodded off. "Try not to bite your nails, dear."

He leaned back on the cushions, pretending he hadn't heard that last, annoying remark.

Max's schedule was totally different from those of other kids his age. Because he spent his nights at the owl tree--a secret he'd kept from his parents for years--he'd gotten into the habit of sleeping through the day.

Mrs. Crumlin arrived each morning at seven sharp, lugging a tapestry bag stuffed with yarn, just as Max's parents were leaving for work. All day long she knitted and pickled and boiled up meals, singing nonstop to the radio. Every hour she inspected the house, clumping from room to room, checking that no sunlight filtered inside. When Nora and Ewan Unger returned each evening at six o'clock she rushed off, terrified of being caught out in the dark.

The Ungers' kitchen was a permanent disaster. Pots were burned, counters scorched, dish towels mangled, all on account

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of Mrs. Crumlin. Max's father said it was a marvel the house was still standing at the end of the day. Max didn't mind the chaos, the off-putting smells or even Mrs. Crumlin's inedible cooking. It was her constant niggling that drove him crazy, her disapproving looks, and the way she passed judgment on everything he did.

"You look peaky, Maxwell." Mrs. Crumlin set down a mug of hot cocoa and a plate of her sunfire cookies. "Everything all right? I'm willing to listen, if you'd like to discuss your dream. No need to be hypersensitive."

Mrs. Crumlin loved words like
hypersensitive
and
hyperfrenetic,
Max noticed. She used them every chance she got.

"I don't feel like talking," he said, running a hand through his limp hair. He could tell it needed a good shampooing. "My throat's scratchy." Max often woke from his nightmares with a sore throat, his eyes burning.

She made a sympathetic clucking sound that set his nerves on edge. "Your face is flushed, Maxwell. Let's hope you're not coming down with a fever. Drink up, now." She handed him the mug. "A pity you're so susceptible to germs. I do worry, since we'll be celebrating your twelfth birthday next month. Won't that be exciting? That's when the High Echelon will announce the details of your apprenticeship."

Max's mouth went dry. The thought of his upcoming apprenticeship filled him with dread. Under High Echelon law, children left school on their twelfth birthday and were assigned a field of study. Some were sent to institutions of learning, others

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apprenticed with Master Craftspeople, while an unfortunate few were sent to work underground.

"Don't look so glum, Maxwell," said Mrs. Crumlin in a chirpy voice. "The High Echelon has your best interests at heart. Rest assured it'll make an appropriate match."

Max had no idea what the High Echelon had planned for him. No one ever did. When he was small, he dreamed of a career tracking down silver owls and building them a sanctuary. If only owl tracking were one of the choices. But of course it wasn't-- not when silver owls had been declared extinct.

Mrs. Crumlin plumped up his pillow. "Perhaps we need to speak to Dr. Tredegar about those bad dreams."

Max stiffened. Dr. Tredegar had been coming to the house to give him injections every week since he was seven. Never pleasant, the injections had become increasingly painful over the years.

"My mother already telephoned him." Max crunched into a sun-shaped cookie. It was hard as a rock, with a pungent odor. "Tredegar told her the nightmares are a side effect of the shots and there's nothing he can do." He took small bites, not wanting to be rude, trying to be tidy. Despite her messy kitchen, Mrs. Crumlin was a stickler about crumbs in the parlor.

"Doctor
Tredegar to you, dear," she corrected. She was also strict when it came to good manners.

Even in the day, Max found himself haunted by the nightmares. Recently they'd become so intense that he often woke up in a cold sweat. What kind of medicine were they giving him? he wondered. What if they were rewiring his brain or something

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equally weird? Gran had always maintained that the government was doing secret experiments. Yet whenever Max asked questions, the doctor made silly wisecracks and his father mumbled clichés about stabilizing his condition.

Mrs. Crumlin shuffled over to the radio and turned up the sound. "Those bitten-down fingernails are
so
unsightly, Maxwell." The speaker crackled with static. "I am disappointed," she went on, fiddling with the antenna. "A boy your age should take pride in his appearance."

Ignoring her comments, Max stuffed the rest of his cookie beneath the sofa cushion. He knew Mrs. Crumlin wouldn't find it because she never bothered to clean under there.

Following Max's seventh birthday, Gran had died unexpectedly, and on a routine examination Max had been diagnosed by Dr. Tredegar with his rare condition. On the doctor's advice, the Lingers had taken their son out of school and arranged for a tutor and a guardian. The tutor, Professor LaMothe, was a whiskery old bloater with a potbelly and breath that reeked of tinned eels. Luckily for Max, he had modest expectations. A mild-mannered man, the professor lectured Max one day a week, barking out mathematical theorems and quoting paragraphs from the Constitution of the High Echelon.

Adapting to Mrs. Crumlin had been far more stressful. Her first week at the house, Max had caught her rummaging through his closet, digging out books he'd hidden at the bottom of his toy chest. He had shouted terrible things at her, but it hadn't done any good. He never saw the books again. His stuffed toy owl went missing at the same time.

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Over the years, he'd put up with Mrs. Crumlin's mugs of bitter hot cocoa, her incessant nagging, her moronic board games and off-key humming. In the end, he'd resigned himself to her being there.

But Max had never resigned himself to Gran's being gone. He missed the dusty jumbled rooms of her house, the falling-apart books she was forever sorting through, the adventure tales she read aloud to him. He missed her impulsive hugs and silvery laughter, her amusing stories at the dinner table. His memories of that time were filled with light.

Mrs. Crumlin was the exact opposite of his grandmother. Gran had expressed endless curiosity about nature and imaginary worlds, and never toed the line when it came to government edicts. Unlike Gran, Mrs. Crumlin never hugged, rarely smiled and always kept her private life under wraps. Was there a Mr. Crumlin? Little Crumlins? Grand-Crumlins? Max didn't have a clue--and his parents had warned him not to ask.

"And this just in," came the announcer's staccato voice. "Three silver owls were tracked down and destroyed yesterday morning by the Dark Brigade in the Easterly Reaches area. This was in response to a new government edict calling for the eradication of silver owls, which were thought to be extinct. The Silver Owl Eradication Edict was passed after scientists found that the remaining silver owls carry plague and pestilence and may attack humans. Should you see a silver owl in your area, contact your local Dark Brigade immediately."

Max froze, sick with fear. If they sent him away for his apprenticeship, what would become of his beloved silver owl? Who

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would look after her and keep her safe? If the authorities caught her, he'd never forgive himself.

The theme song from
Flamingo Valley,
Mrs. Crumlin's favorite radio drama, started up. There was a single station, run by the High Echelon, and its mindless songs and broadcasts bored Max silly. He often wondered why there was only one. According to Gran, the airwaves had once crackled with numerous stations that offered poetry, music, drama, debates and political forums.

Back when Gran was young, no one had been afraid of the government. Back then, Max reflected sadly, silver owls flew wherever they wanted and people were free to speak their minds.

As the theme song to
Flamingo Valley
ended, Max curled up on the sofa and drifted off into a familiar nightmare.

Just like in his other dreams, he was transformed into a creature that was powerful and deadly. No longer human, he flapped two ragged wings, soaring unevenly through the night. Buoyed by winds and currents, his body weighed almost nothing. In real life he was nervous about heights, never daring to go too high in the owl tree. But when he flew in his dreams, his fears melted away.

He saw stars scrambled overhead, and two moons floating above the forest--the broken halves of the old moon, which had cracked in two during the Great Destruction. Beneath him churned the black, icy waters of the river, rushing into empty darkness.

In the distance loomed a plateau pulsing with a strange, unearthly light: the Frozen Zone. For a moment Max lost his bearings. Then, righting himself, he saw the village of Cavernstone Grey with its twisting streets and barn-board houses, its outlying

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farms and factories. He circled the grounds of Cavernstone Hall, where his parents worked, and flew over a mysterious building called The Ruins.

He sniffed, smelling fetid creatures like himself. Scores of them were pouring out the windows of The Ruins. As he glided down, the cold rush of the river filled his ears. His heart thudded and a reckless thrill surged through him.

He spotted an ancient tree in the middle of a field and swooped toward it, skimming the tips of the branches. Hunger gnawed at the pit of his stomach. His ears pricked at the sound of a low, sad hooting.

When he saw the silver owl high on a branch, head tucked beneath one wing, a warm glow spread through him. But the warm feeling quickly gave way to rage. A bitter taste filled his mouth and a dark, primal craving washed over him: the urge to destroy.

Then, as always happened, the silver owl looked up, her eyes wide with fear. For an instant her heart-shaped face reminded him of Gran's. Behind his eyes the blood thickened and boiled, blotting out the image. A ravenous hunger took hold of him.

With a triumphant shriek, Max flew toward the owl.

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CHAPTER THREE

[Image: Max and the owl.]

Stepping off the back porch, Max ducked beneath the hooded flannel shirts and long underwear snapping on the clothesline. Mrs. Crumlin had hung them after breakfast and forgotten to take them down. On top of the line sat three fat sleeping ravens.

Against the bleak night sky, his house stood silent and shuttered. Like the other houses at the edge of town, it was solid and ordinary, with a tilting roof, unpainted shingles and porches at the front and back.

His mom and dad had gone to bed at their usual time of eight o'clock. Because Max only saw his parents at dinnertime, it was

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difficult to be close to them. Nora and Ewan Unger worked long hours, six days a week, arriving home each evening exhausted. The High Echelon had put an end to vacations and sick time, and missing work for any reason was frowned upon. On their day off they were required to attend Dome Commission meetings.

Each night Max waited to make sure his parents were asleep, then sneaked out through the back door. The darkness drew him like a magnet: he could never resist the night.

Grasses crackled as he thumped across the dark field to the owl tree, trying to forget his nightmare from the afternoon. He knew he was a bird of prey in his dream--but what kind? A raven? He didn't think so, because ravens were languid and dozy.

Why would he want to attack the silver owl? She was like a secret treasure, more precious to him than anything in the world. Max wound his scarf tighter around his neck. Calling up those dreams upset him terribly, leaving him anxious and confused.

Beneath his fleece-lined jacket, he wore three sweaters, knitted by Mrs. Crumlin from surplus wool. His leather boots had been shipped from a mail-order house and had extra-thick treads. He'd gotten them for his eleventh birthday, though it had taken nearly a year for his feet to grow into them.

When he was young, Max would sneak out of the house with Gran at night, setting off on all kinds of adventures, exploring marshes and tramping across grasslands. He was scared of many things, but the night had always felt safe to Max, wrapping itself like a magical cloak around his grandmother and him.

Gran knew where to find dryad beetles and turtle eggs and a fungus that glowed in the dark. They searched for silver owls,