HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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First published in the USA by Scholastic Inc 2004
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2007
Text copyright © Kathryn Lasky 2004
Illustrations copyright © Richard Cowdrey 2004
The Kathryn Lasky and Richard Cowdrey assert the moral right to be identified as the author
and illustrator of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007215218
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008226831
Version: 2016-12-01
For Joy Peskin
CONTENTS
Chapter One: A friend in Need?
Chapter Five: A fragment from the Sea
Chapter Seven: The Sign of the Centipede
Chapter Eight: Mum Waits for Me
Chapter Nine: The Most Beautiful Mum in the World
Chapter Ten: Eglantine Researches
Chapter Eleven: Primrose’s Last Thought
Chapter Twelve: A Gizzard Begins to Stir
Chapter Thirteen: The Lucky Charm
Chapter Fourteen: As a Gizzard Twitches
Chapter Fifteen: Piece by Piece
Chapter Sixteen: The Sacred Orb
Chapter Seventeen: The Hostage Egg
Chapter Eighteen: “It Cannot fail!”
Chapter Twenty: A Crown of fire
Chapter Twenty-One: The Gollymopes
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Living Dead
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Passing of the Claws
It was the same. That was her first thought.
It looks just like the old fir tree, the one where Soren and I were hatched. And even the shape of the hollow’s opening where Mum and Da made their nest, a lopsided O – wasn’t that the exact shape?
Eglantine knew she was dreaming, but it seemed so real. Like no dream she’d ever had. It was so lovely she didn’t want it to end. She wondered if she flew a little closer and just took a peek, would the hollow look the same inside? Would her mum and da be there? Oh, it had been forever since she’d seen them. Soren said they were dead. He had seen their scrooms, the spirits of dead owls. She hated it when Soren said that. Eglantine squirmed now in her sleep as the words from the awful conversation wove through her dream.
“You saw their scrooms? That means they are dead, doesn’t it, Soren?”
“It does, Eglantine, and there is nothing we can do about that.”
And then Twilight had added his horrible conclusion. “Dead is dead.”
“Dead is dead.” The words swirled around her like black crows getting ready to mob.