Aneira reached a hand out into the darkness and felt the air running through her fingers like very soft sand. They were flying through the night sky again. Aneira thought about all that had happened so far this evening and how it had all started from being afraid of the dark. It was strange that you could be scared of something that you couldn’t actually touch or hear, like darkness. Up there with Mrs O, the dark didn’t feel creepy; instead it felt far away and like it couldn’t hurt her. Come to think of it, the dark couldn’t hurt her or anyone. She’d never thought of it like that before. After the noise of the Owl Parliament it was pretty peaceful up in it too.
Mrs O flapped her wings beneath Aneira as they climbed higher.
“Wise Owl told us to get close to the Moon but I still don’t know how I can turn it back on,” said a worried Aneira to Mrs O.
“We still have a bit of a journey to get to the Moon dear, so we have time to work that out,” soothed Mrs O.
“Yes I suppose,” agreed Aneira.
“As we are making the journey, we might as well enjoy ourselves,” said Mrs O mischievously. “If you feel brave enough, look down. I think everything looks rather wonderful from up here.”
Aneira held on tight and looked down. They were much higher in the sky and everything was so small. The forest looked like a furry doormat from up here and the cities looked like little houses in a toy village. The street lights left patches of yellow on the dark grey outlines of tiny roads and cars and buildings; it looked a lot like a painting in a museum they’d been to on a school trip.
All the houses began to disappear completely and she could see trees and large flat squares like a patchwork blanket. Then something else large and flat and dark but she couldn’t see its edges. Every so often there were little white lines that came and went like froth.
“The sea!”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs O.
The sea looked so different in the dark. It was quite still and looked more like a swimming pool filled with black water. All of a sudden, Aneira could smell the salty air too.
“I want to show you one of my favourite views at night,” said Mrs O.
As they flew along the edge of the sea, Aneira could see a light coming from up ahead but it looked like it was coming from inside the water. It didn’t look like the streetlamps and house lights she had seen earlier that were yellow splashes. This light was blue and it was spattered along the shoreline in patches.
“It is something called plankton, which are small insect-like creatures that live in the water and can light up at night.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Aneira as they flew over a huge area of the blue light.
It looked a lot like a galaxy that Mrs Allen had shown the class in science which was blue and made up of lots of different stars and planets shaped in a pattern.
“Just think, these tiny plankton have been lighting up like this for years and years, before there were streets and houses and cars. They were the first light in the dark,” said Mrs O.
“Wow,” said Aneira again. It was pretty amazing and there were no light switches in sight.
“Do you know the other original light in the dark?”
“Erm…” said Aneira thinking hard.
“Stars and… the Moon, dear,” reminded Mrs O.
Oh yeah. She had almost forgotten that she had made the Moon go out and that was the real reason she was flying through the dark on the owl’s back.
“Yes, the Moon. We need to get that back on,” agreed Aneira.
“Then you’d better look up dear, we are getting closer,” directed Mrs O.
Aneira was so busy looking down at the sea that she looked up and was shocked at the view. There was a whole world of light overhead. It was like they were flying in the middle of two worlds below and above.
“I can see stars!”
Aneira could see hundreds of them, like houses hanging from the sky with their bedroom lights on.
“I remember when I was young, sitting in our nest, glimpsing the stars and wishing I could fly up here and see them. That was the first thing I did dear, once I got my wings working, now I only pop down to rest and catch food,” said Mrs O.
Aneira thought for a moment. “What is it like to have wings?”
Mrs O chuckled again. “Well, it’s rather normal I suppose. They help me fly and flying is the best way to get around. You humans spend a lot of time on roads but up here there are no roads to follow so you can choose to go wherever you like.”
“That does sound kind of great,” agreed Aneira.
“What’s it like to have arms with no feathers and those funny hands hanging off them?”
“I haven’t really thought about it before. Hands are useful, they mean I can plait hair and tie my laces and use my mum’s tablet. Arms are just… quite heavy really,” answered Aneira.
“Arms sound awful,” said Mrs O.
“Well, they are good for lifting things and keeping jumpers on too,” said Aneira.
“Owls don’t wear jumpers,” said Mrs O.
That made Aneira giggle.
