Free The Skull of the World by Kate Forsyth

she would have cried, but all that came out was a long mournful hoot.
    Owl now-hooh.
    Isabeau unclasped and clasped her talons anxiously. Buba huddled closer, rubbing her feathery head against her. Come soar-sivoop through moon cool-hooh, the elf-owl said and took off into the darkness.
    After a moment Isabeau spread her wings and flapped them. She was afraid to launch off as Buba had done. The ground was terribly far away. It would have been like jumping off the top of the Tower of Two Moons. She hooted anxiously and Buba materialized out of the darkness, white and silent as a snowflake. She landed beside Isabeau and, without warning, pushed her off the branch. Isabeau shrieked and flung open her wings. Effortlessly she glided through the darkness. A fretwork of twigs sprang toward her and she shrieked again and turned instinctively, narrowly missing a tree trunk. She ducked her head and flapped her wings, and her body obediently soared upward. Euphoria filled her. She was flying! She experimented, stretching one wing then the other, flapping them, holding them still. Through the dark forest she bumped and bounced, Buba gliding beside her.
    At last they came to the edge of the forest, looking out across the river to the shoulders of the mountain. The Skull of the World towered at the head of the valley. Isabeau's euphoria faded abruptly. Here she was at her journey's end, and she was trapped in the shape of an owl. How was she to complete her quest and return to the pride as an owl?
    I have to-hooh remember how-hooh I changed shape, she said to Buba. If I can change shape once, I can surely do-hooh it again.
    The elf-owl only stared at her unblinkingly. Isabeau stared back. She would have liked to have rubbed her eyes and yawned, for she was very tired. It was hard to think, her head felt stuffed with feathers.
    Noon for snooze-hooh, moon cool for soar-swooping, Buba said. Snooze-hooh when sun comes.
    So-hooh snoozy, Isabeau said. She could hardly stretch her wings out and thought if she had tried to fly, she would have dropped like a stone.
    Come, Buba said. Creep inside tree and snooze-hooh. Owl shall pursue subdue for you-hooh.
    Isabeau obeyed. Within the bole of the tree was a snug little cave, lined with sawdust and pine needles. She huddled her wings about her and closed her eyes, sleep falling down on her like a giant hammer.
    When she woke Buba slept beside her, head sunk into her ruffled-up feathers, a little pile of half-eaten moths and grasshoppers beside her. Once Isabeau would have been revolted by the sight. Now she felt a savage hunger awake in her and devoured the insects hungrily. Once her appetite was- sated, she poked her head out of the hole in the trunk. It was daytime and the sun dazzled her eyes. She snuggled back down into the burrow, hunched her head down into her wings, her ear tufts erect. Just as she was dropping back to sleep, she involuntarily burped up a little hard pellet of undigested shell and wing. Feeling much better, she settled down into sleep again.
    It was night when she woke. Hunger was gnawing at her once more and so she made no complaint when Buba led her out to hunt. They flew through the forest, snapping at moths and little night insects, searching out grubs under bark, and breaking open cocoons with their sharp hooked beaks. Isabeau managed her wings with some skill this time, though she did not have the same effortless silence as Buba.
    When they were replete, the owls flew on through the forest, flying for the sheer joy of it. They soared along the curve of the river and up the cliff, where two thin waterfalls created fantastical curtains of water, intricate as lace. As Isabeau soared up into the dark sky, a vague thought tugged at the back of her mind. She saw how the waterfalls streamed down on either side of a great yawning cave and said to herself, The Tears of the Gods.
    She turned and swooped back, following the course of .the falling water till she came again to the dark