by Erin Hunter
One after the other, they squeezed through the small tunnel to the dirtplace.
“He’s not here,” Cinderpaw whispered.
Hollypaw sighed, her heart heavy. “No.”
“What do you think he’s up to?”
Hollypaw didn’t dare reply. She could guess why he might have left the camp under cover of night, but she didn’t want to believe it.
“His trail leads this way,” Cinderpaw announced, pointing with her nose up the lakeward slope.
Hollypaw’s belly tightened. The trail led up over the ridge and then around onto the moorland: WindClan territory. Perhaps he’s just exploring. Hope stirred in her chest, but beneath it, like a rock, lay the dark suspicion that he was meeting Heatherpaw.
“We’re going to follow him, aren’t we?” Cinderpaw was staring at Hollypaw, her eyes clouded with worry. Had she guessed, too? Surely not. How could she know?
“Perhaps it’s none of our business,” Hollypaw suggested feebly.
“Of course it’s our business! Our denmate is out there alone. What if something happened to him?”
“Is that the only reason you want to follow him—because he might be in danger?”
“No.” Cinderpaw sat down. “I think he may be doing something he will live to regret.”
Hollypaw was taken aback by her friend’s serious tone.
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked.
Cinderpaw shook her head. “It’s just a feeling I have. I can’t explain it. A feeling that Lionpaw is making a mistake that’s been made before, that should never be made, that only leads to trouble. . . . ” Her mew died away but her eyes were shining with emotion.
“Okay.” Hollypaw could not ignore the strength of her friend’s feeling. Nor could she ignore her own. All her instincts told her that Lionpaw was breaking the warrior code, and it was her duty as a Clan cat to stop him. She charged up the slope, sniffing the twigs and brambles for Lionpaw’s scent, following the path he had taken to the top of the ridge. Cinderpaw bounded after her and they quickly reached the edge of the trees. The ground sloped away in front of them, down to the shore where the lake sparkled in the moonlight. Hollypaw scanned the distant moorland, half hoping to see Lionpaw, half hoping she wouldn’t. If Lionpaw was roaming around at night, she wanted it to be on ThunderClan territory.
There was no sign of movement in the shadowy heather.
Hollypaw plunged down the slope, following an old rabbit track through the coarsening grass. Underpaw the ground grew more peaty as they neared the WindClan border.
Heather bushes sprouted on either side of the track as the slope flattened and the sound of water lapping the shore grew louder.
“Did you hear that?” Cinderpaw’s hiss startled Hollypaw.
She pricked her ears. A small hollow, ringed by heather, lay in shadow ahead of them. From it came the sound of voices.
Hollypaw’s tail bristled as she recognized Lionpaw’s mew. He sounded happy; happier than she had heard him in days. She crept forward, keeping low, and ducked into the swath of heather that shielded the hollow. Setting the bushes rustling, she wriggled between the bare stems and peered over the top of the slope.
Her brother was charging after a ball of moss like an excited kit. He dived at it as it landed and, with a tremen-dous swipe, sent it flying back in the other direction. A lithe shape leaped up from the grass to catch it. Its tabby pelt glowed in the moonlight. Hollypaw’s heart sank like a rock.
Heatherpaw!
“You don’t seem surprised.” Cinderpaw had slid in beside her and was peering down into the grassy dip.
Hollypaw shook her head. “I’m not.” Reluctantly she wriggled out from the heather. “Lionpaw!” she called.
Lionpaw and Heatherpaw froze, staring at each other in alarm. The moss ball fell to the ground.
“What are you doing here?” Hollypaw demanded.
Slowly Lionpaw tore his gaze from Heatherpaw’s and turned to face his sister. His eyes sparked with defiance.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you!”
“Spying on me!”
Hollypaw flinched. “You shouldn’t be here, playing with her!” She glared at Heatherpaw.
“Why not? She’s just a friend.”
“A friend from another Clan!”
“You’re friends with Willowpaw!”
“I don’t sneak off every night to see her.”
Lionpaw opened his mouth to object, but no words came out. Hollypaw knew she had won the argument. But her brother’s eyes did not concede anything. They shone with rage. He turned to Heatherpaw. “I’d better go.”
Heatherpaw dipped her head. “I know,” she sighed.
Hollypaw clenched her teeth as Lionpaw brushed muzzles with the WindClan apprentice. Did he really believe it was just friendship that brought him here?
Lionpaw padded up the slope and glared at Cinderpaw.
“Did you have to tell the whole Clan?” he hissed at Hollypaw.
Cinderpaw flicked her tail. “I just came to make sure Hollypaw was safe,” she explained. “No one else knows.”
“And they won’t know,” Hollypaw added, “so long as you stay away from Heatherpaw.”
Lionpaw glared at her. “Is that a threat?”
Hollypaw backed away. She had never seen Lionpaw this angry. Even when they had quarreled as kits, there had always been a lighthearted twinkle in his eyes. But not now. His eyes were cold as stars.
“If you continue meeting Heatherpaw, I will have to tell Brambleclaw,” she insisted, trying not to let her voice tremble.
Lionpaw bristled.
“There’s a good reason why the warrior code forbids mix-ing with cats from other Clans,” Hollypaw went on. “How
can you be loyal to your own Clan when your heart lies in another?”
“Are you accusing me of disloyalty?” Lionpaw flattened his ears.
“I know you’d never be disloyal,” Hollypaw mewed. “But you’re making it difficult for yourself. That’s why you must stop this.” It was hard enough having kin in another Clan without deliberately making friends outside the forest.
Weren’t Lionpaw’s Clanmates enough for him?
A low growl sounded in Lionpaw’s throat. He barged past Hollypaw and padded toward the trees. Hollypaw felt Cinderpaw’s tail run along her flank, smoothing her ruffled fur.
“He’ll get over it,” Cinderpaw promised.
“I hope so,” Hollypaw sighed. She knew she’d done the right thing, but she hadn’t expected Lionpaw to react so angrily, as if he believed that he’d done nothing wrong. Would he ever forgive her?
Chapter 3
Jaypaw winced as grit from the trail dug into his pads. At least they did not ache with cold. The stony path to the Moonpool was warming up as newleaf took hold.
Ahead of him, Leafpool chatted with Mothwing. Their mews were only just audible over the rush of water, because the stream that flowed beside their path was swollen by snowmelt from the distant mountains. It carried the scent of frost and rock, and below them, the level of the lake would be rising with the extra water.
Littlecloud and Barkface had taken the lead while Willowpaw trailed behind with Kestrelpaw. Jaypaw slowed occasionally in case the two apprentices wanted to catch up to him, but Willowpaw adjusted her soft step, and Kestrelpaw quickly matched it so that they were always a little behind.
It was a silent challenge but Jaypaw was content to walk alone. At least he could listen to snatches of the medicine cats’ conversation—who had recovered from greencough, who had sprained a paw, which herb best treated the mange that was currently running rife in the ShadowClan
apprentice den. As he listened, he let his mind wander, feeling for what emotion lurked behind the words.
“I’ve tried comfrey for the itching,” Littlecloud sighed.
He blames the apprentices for not keeping their pelts clean in the first place.
“We didn’t think Morningf
lower would recover from greencough, but she has lived to see another newleaf,”
Barkface confided.
But your anxiety tells me that you think it will be her last.
“Is Mousefur completely recovered?” Mothwing asked Leafpool.
Jaypaw searched Mothwing’s mind, but only found the blankness that always seemed to shield her emotions. He flicked his attention to Willowpaw. If Hollypaw was right and RiverClan were in trouble, Willowpaw would be the one to betray it. Her mind was usually as open as the moorland.
He concentrated on the RiverClan apprentice, sniffing out her emotions as though they were scent. Sure enough, unease enfolded her. Jaypaw tried to delve farther into her thoughts but it was as though she had wrapped herself in brambles.
Thorny barbs drove him back. Frustrated, he gave up.
I’ll find out more when she dreams.
The path had reached the steep rocks that walled the ridge. Conversation died as the medicine cats climbed, their words turning to breathless gasps as they bounded up rock after rock. Jaypaw scrambled ahead of Leafpool. He felt his mentor’s watchful gaze warm his pelt as he leaped onto a tricky ledge. Thankfully, she said nothing. He had been this
way often enough to make it to the ridge without help.
As he hauled himself over the edge he was caught by the fresh scent of the Moonpool. Frost and rock and sky.
“Look how big it is,” Willowpaw breathed as she climbed up beside him.
“Meltwater,” Leafpool meowed.
“It’s wide enough to hold every star in the sky,” Kestrelpaw mewed.
There is room for all tonight, a whispering breeze sang into Jaypaw’s ears. The voices had come to welcome him. He wondered if they welcomed the others, too.
“Did you hear that?” he asked casually.
Leafpool’s gaze scorched his ears. “Hear what?”
“That’d be the wind,” Littlecloud explained.
“It sounds different up here because it’s echoed by the rock,” Barkface added.
Their matter-of-fact tone answered Jaypaw’s question.
These cats heard only the wind. The voices spoke to him alone.
Jaypaw thought again of the prophecy he had heard in Firestar’s dream: There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws. His pelt prickled with excitement.
This must be part of his power, the ability to hear things no other cat could.
Willowpaw shifted her weight from one paw to another.
“Where shall we lie? The water has covered our usual places.”
Jaypaw heard Mothwing’s tail swish the air. “The rocks are flat over there.”
He followed Leafpool down toward the pool. The breeze stirred his fur, and the voices whispered in his ear again.
Welcome, Jaypaw. The stone beneath his paws was dimpled, worn into a pathway by countless paw steps.
Water suddenly lapped his paws. They were only halfway down the slope! Tingling with surprise, he followed Leafpool around the water’s far-reaching edge and settled on the rock beside her. He heard Leafpool’s breath stir the pool and then deepen as she fell into dream-sleep.
The other cats lay down, their fur brushing the rock, and soon the hollow echoed only with the sound of breath and wind upon water. Willowpaw was the last to settle. Jaypaw waited while she slid into sleep. Focusing on her mind, he leaned forward and touched the Moonpool with his muzzle.
Instantly, he was swept away in a torrent of seething water.
He struggled and flailed with his paws, his heart bursting with terror as he gasped for air. He looked up and saw a stormy sky clouding above him and all around, churning water that stretched to endless horizons. Then he saw Willowpaw’s head bobbing above the waves. She was swimming, her eyes filled with determination, her jaws clutching a mouthful of herbs as her paws churned. Jaypaw clutched at the water, struggling to keep his head above the surface. The water sucked at his hind paws, dragging him down. Water filled his mouth and nose. Splashing, coughing, he tried to claw his way back into the safety of consciousness.
He opened his eyes. He was lying on damp grass. Trees leaned over him, their leaves blocking out the sun, and ferns
crowded around him. Jaypaw struggled to his paws and looked around. Was this Willowpaw’s dream or his own?
“You must hurry!” A husky mew hissed beyond the ferns.
Jaypaw stretched warily onto his hind legs and peered over the ferns. A brown tom, stiff with age, was nudging Willowpaw forward. “You must leave,” he meowed.
“What about my herbs?” Willowpaw dug her claws into the grass. “You know I can’t leave them behind, Mudfur.”
“Take what you can, find the rest when you get there.”
“Get where?” Willowpaw’s voice sounded close to panic.
“There is no time for questions,” Mudfur mewed. “If you stay, the Clan will be destroyed.”
“But there’s nowhere to go!”
Jaypaw dropped back onto four paws. There was something wrong in RiverClan. Something very wrong.
“Spying again!”
Jaypaw spun around. He had heard this voice before, and it had lost none of its mocking sharpness.
“I don’t see how you can accuse me of spying,” he objected,
“when you keep turning up in all my dreams!”
“But they’re not your dreams, are they?” Yellowfang stared at him, her amber eyes cloudy, her thick coat as unkempt as ever.
Jaypaw felt a rush of anger. “I’m dreaming, so it’s my dream!”
“Clever,” croaked Yellowfang, “but not honest. You intended to trespass on Willowpaw’s dream the moment you closed your eyes.”
“If you knew what I was going to do, why did you let me do it?” he demanded.
Yellowfang turned her face away.
“You can’t stop me, can you?” Jaypaw felt a rush of delight, like a bird escaping grasping claws. “I have the power of the stars in my paws!”
Yellowfang swung her head around and glared at him. “Do you really believe that?”
“Are you telling me it’s not true?”
“Just tell me this—what exactly do you have the power to do?”
Jaypaw stared at her.
“You have no idea, do you?” she pressed.
Jaypaw’s whiskers twitched. “Do you?”
Yellowfang blinked slowly but did not reply.
“I have this power for a reason!” Jaypaw insisted.
“Then find out what that reason is before you use it!”
Yellowfang turned away. As she disappeared into the ferns, Jaypaw woke up.
Blackness pressed in on him. He was blind once more.
Beside him, Leafpool was stretching. “Did you dream?”
she yawned.
“Yes.” Jaypaw scrambled to his paws and whispered in her ear, “About RiverClan.”
“Tell me once we have left the others.” She jerked away from him. “Mothwing! Is everything okay?”
What, in her dreams about hunting squirrels and chasing butterflies?
Jaypaw had long since guessed that there was something wrong with Mothwing’s connection with StarClan, some
secret that Leafpool shared but would not betray.
He heard grit skidding across the rock. Willowpaw had leaped to her paws. “Mothwing!” Jaypaw could tell the young cat was trying to stop her voice from trembling. “We have to go home at once!”
“What did you see in your dream?” Anxiety was pricking from Leafpool’s pelt; Jaypaw could feel it like lightning in the air.
They had left the others at the WindClan border and were heading up the slope toward the forest. The wind was chilly and carried the freshness of unfurling leaves. Jaypaw guessed that dawn was close.
“RiverClan is in trouble,” he announced. “I saw Willowpaw swimming in a huge lake, bigger than this one. She said RiverClan have to find a new home and she was talking to some old cat called Mudfur—”
“He was RiverClan’s medicine cat before Mothwing!” Leafpool gasped. “What was he doing in your dream? What was either of them doing . . . ” Her voice trailed away and Jaypaw felt anger flare from her. “You went into Willowpaw’s dream, didn’t you?”
“Hollypaw told me to find out if RiverClan were in trouble.”
“Did she tell you to trespass on her friend’s dreams?”
“Of course not. Hollypaw doesn’t understand that stuff.
She just wanted to know what was wrong, so I tried to find out.”
“As a favor to your littermate.” Leafpool’s mew was scathing. And yet beneath her anger Jaypaw could sense fear, which puzzled him. What was there to be scared of?
“StarClan let me do it,” he told her. “Why are you making such a fuss? The most important thing is that we know RiverClan is in trouble.”
“You shouldn’t be able to find things like that out so easily,” Leafpool murmured, half to herself.
“Just because you can’t do it, doesn’t mean it’s wrong,”
Jaypaw snorted impatiently.
“That’s got nothing to do with it!” Leafpool snapped. “I’m worried it’ll be like last time.”
“When I dreamed about the dogs attacking WindClan?”
“When Barkface dreamed about the dogs attacking WindClan!” Leafpool was fighting not to raise her voice. “StarClan shared with him so he could protect his Clan. You wanted to take advantage of their vulnerability.”
“Well, this time I’m just doing Hollypaw a favor,” Jaypaw mewed.
“Don’t tell anyone else what you’re doing,” Leafpool begged.
“Why not?” Jaypaw flexed his claws. “Why should I keep secrets about a gift StarClan has given me?”
Why was Leafpool so fond of secrets? Secrets about his gift, secrets about Mothwing and StarClan. He suspected there were even more secrets buried in his mentor’s heart, secrets that she guarded so closely he had never been able to glimpse them.
“Knowledge can be dangerous,” Leafpool warned.
Frustration clawed at Jaypaw’s belly. He lived his life in darkness; he longed for light and clarity, not shadows. He forced away his anger. Leafpool had lived too long with secrets. He couldn’t change her mind in a single night. But why did she have to drag him into her complicated world?
