Fading Echoes

Chapter 3

Jayfeather looked up as the brambles at the entrance to his den swished.

Lionblaze poked his head through. “Mistystar and Mothwing have gone.”

Jayfeather could feel urgency rippling beneath the golden warrior’s pelt. “What’s wrong?”

Lionblaze hesitated.

“Let’s go into the forest,” Jayfeather suggested.

In answer, Lionblaze turned and headed for the camp entrance. Jayfeather let the thoughts and feelings of his Clanmates flood his mind for a moment, searching for any signs of need. All was well. Satisfied, he followed his brother out of the camp.

Lionblaze was already pounding through the trees toward the lake. As Jayfeather caught up to him, the scent of the water bathed his tongue.

“I can see RiverClan fishing,” Lionblaze told him.

A cool, damp breeze rushed through the trees, sending leaves showering onto their pelts. The lake rippled and splashed below.

“So, what’s up?” Jayfeather broached the question.

Before Lionblaze could answer, bushes farther along the shore crackled, and Briarpaw and Bumblepaw came crashing out of the undergrowth, dragging a fat rabbit between them.

They halted and Jayfeather could feel the happiness pulsing from their pelts. Graystripe and Millie’s kits were growing fast. They’d be warriors come leaf-bare.

“Impressive catch,” Lionblaze praised. “Where’d you find it?”

“It was grazing by the stream.” Bumblepaw was out of breath.

“It was me who caught it,” Briarpaw boasted.

“Only because I blocked its escape.” Bumblepaw’s purr rumbled deep in his throat.

“You just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Briarpaw retorted.

The leaves rustled on the forest floor as the littermates fell into a mock fight, tumbling between the slender trees. Jayfeather could sense the strength beneath their pelts. Their minds were filled with green flashes from running through the woods, a mixture of prey-scent and falling leaves and their own fearless pride. A sudden, fierce gladness caught him. ThunderClan was lucky to have cats like these.

“They’ll make great warriors,” Lionblaze whispered, echoing Jayfeather’s thoughts.

“Yes,” Jayfeather agreed, remembering the long, anxious days he’d nursed Briarpaw and Millie through a severe bout of greencough.

“You shouldn’t leave prey unattended!” Lionblaze called to the two young cats. “Some warrior might claim it for his own.”

The apprentices scrambled back to them, panting.

“Paws off!” Bumblepaw warned good-naturedly.

“Hey!” Blossompaw’s petulant mew sounded through the trees and the tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat bounded out from the undergrowth. “I thought you were going to wait for me! Now everyone will think you caught the rabbit without me.”

“We waited for ages,” Bumblepaw objected. “We thought you’d gone back to camp without us.”

Blossompaw sat down. “Why would I do that?”

“So you can moon over Toadstep some more?” Briarpaw teased.

“I do not moon over Toadstep!” Blossompaw snapped. “Why are you being mean?”

“Why are you being grumpy?” Bumblepaw didn’t wait for an answer. “Let’s take this rabbit to the camp. Mousewhisker is expecting me back for training.” He began dragging the rabbit through the trees. Briarpaw hurried after him, her paws skidding on the leaves as she caught hold of the fresh-kill.

Blossompaw stomped after them, complaining, “You’re leaving me behind again!”

Lionblaze stirred the leaves with one paw. “Did we fight that much?”

Jayfeather felt a prick of grief, remembering the games they’d played with Hollyleaf as kits and then as ’paws. “I guess.” The breeze tugged his fur.

He could sense words on the tip of Lionblaze’s tongue, hesitancy on his breath. At last the golden warrior spoke. “Ivypaw stepped on a broken stick earlier.”

Jayfeather nodded. “I put ointment on her wound.” He suddenly knew what was coming next. Ivypaw hadn’t told him that her injury had come from a stick; he might have guessed Lionblaze’s news earlier if she had.

“It was your stick, wasn’t it?”

Jayfeather could feel Lionblaze’s gaze prick his pelt, sharp with worry.

“Did you break it?” Lionblaze asked softly.

“Yes.” Guilt surged in Jayfeather’s belly. He’d had so many questions about the prophecy—he still did—but Rock would not answer him. And when the ancient cat had ignored his pleas, frustration had driven Jayfeather to fury and he’d broken the stick. With a shiver, he remembered the crack of the wood when it splintered. The scratches were destroyed forever, all connection with the cats from the past gone. The memory nearly choked him.

“Why?” Lionblaze sounded confused.

Jayfeather’s pelt seemed to crawl with invisible lice. He had destroyed something sacred, something he didn’t fully understand. Why? He wished with all his heart he hadn’t broken the stick. “I-I…” How could he explain?

“I never understood why the stick was so important to you.” Lionblaze’s voice was distant; he was staring out over the lake once more. “But I know you used to go to it when you were worried or troubled.” His fur brushed Jayfeather’s as he leaned closer. “Was it a sign from StarClan?”

If only it were that simple. “There was a time before StarClan,” Jayfeather ventured.

Lionblaze’s fur sparked with surprise. “Before?”

“The stick came from then.” Would Lionblaze understand? “The cats who lived here used to become sharpclaws by finding their way through the tunnels…”

Lionblaze halted him midflow. “Sharpclaws?”

“Like warriors.”

“Were they a Clan?”

Jayfeather frowned. “Not a Clan. Not then.”

“But they had warriors?” He paced around Jayfeather.

“Sharpclaws,” Jayfeather corrected.

“What did the stick have to do with them?”

“There were marks on the stick. The marks were a record of the cats who made it out of the tunnels alive and those who didn’t.” Lionblaze had to understand that. They had all been in the tunnels as apprentices—Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf—when floods had swept underground. They all would have drowned if Fallen Leaves, one of the ancient cats, hadn’t shown Jayfeather the way out.

Lionblaze stopped pacing and shuddered. “Cats died trying to become warriors?”

Jayfeather nodded.

“And these cats were here before us?”

“Yes.”

“Do they still live here?”

“No.” Though I’ve met them. But Jayfeather wasn’t about to try to explain how he’d lived with those ancient cats, shared their food and their words, traveled back through time to learn their story, to help them leave in search of a new home. “I think some of them went to live in the mountains.”

“Like the Tribe of Rushing Water?”

“I think they became the Tribe of Rushing Water.”

Lionblaze’s mind was whirling so fast Jayfeather had to block out the thoughts tumbling from his brother.

“How did you know what the stick meant?” Lionblaze asked finally.

“I felt it at first, and then I met Rock.” He hurried on before Lionblaze could interrupt. “Rock lived in the tunnels a long time ago. His spirit lives there still, right beneath our territory.”

Lionblaze halted, his paws and his mind suddenly still. What was he thinking? Does he believe me?

Tentatively, Jayfeather probed his brother’s thoughts. He didn’t like to pry in the minds of cats close to him. It felt unfair. And there were some things he didn’t want to know. But right now, Jayfeather needed to know what Lionblaze was thinking. After all, his brother had his own associations with the tunnels underground. How did he feel, knowing that the caves were not as empty as they appeared?

Lionblaze was remembering Heathertail. He was standing in a cavern split by an underground stream and lit by a trickle of gray moonlight. Watching through his brother’s eyes, Jayfeather glanced up at the ledge where he’d first seen Rock.

Rock wasn’t there. But Heathertail was, watching Lionblaze with blue eyes filled with affection. “I am leader of DarkClan!” she announced.

Jayfeather felt a stab of grief pass through Lionblaze, then sensed Lionblaze shove it angrily away.

Lionblaze’s memories held no image of Rock, yet Jayfeather could sense the ancient cat’s presence in the cavern. Furless, ugly, and blind, he kept very still as the young cats played: not judging, hardly interested, just waiting, as though the outcome were inevitable.

“Stop that!” Lionblaze hissed. He must have guessed Jayfeather was walking through his memories.

Jayfeather snapped back to the present. “Sorry.”

“Heathertail and I never saw any other cats down there,” Lionblaze told him. “It was just us.”

“They left long ago.”

“Then why keep the scratched branch?” Lionblaze leaned closer. “Why break it?”

Jayfeather turned away, unable to describe the rage that had made him smash the stick. The prophecy had churned in his mind for so long; he had to know what it meant. What were their powers for? Why had the Three been chosen? What was their destiny? Rock knew the answers. Jayfeather sensed it in the very core of his heart. Yet Rock had chosen to stay silent.

Jayfeather swallowed back the frustration that had driven him to smash the stick. Anger hadn’t worked then; it wouldn’t work now.

“Why did you break it?” Lionblaze asked again.

Jayfeather stood up and shook out his fur. “We need to worry about what’s happening now, not what happened in the past. If we’re more powerful than the stars, then no cat can help us. We have to figure it out for ourselves.”

“We haven’t had much luck so far.” Lionblaze padded forward to the very edge of the crest. Jayfeather followed him, the wind from the lake whisking through his ear fur so roughly that he could hardly hear Lionblaze’s next words.

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Like what?” Jayfeather raised his voice.

“Go and look for something. Try to find out what we’re supposed to do.” Lionblaze’s mew grew louder as he turned to face him. “Instead of just waiting for things to happen.”

Jayfeather shrugged. He didn’t know the answer. He’d shared tongues with StarClan and with ancient cats and still he was no closer to understanding anything.

Lionblaze snorted and turned away. “I’m going back to camp.”

Jayfeather stayed where he was, breathing the scent of the lake. An image of the stick swirled through his thoughts, its two shattered pieces drifting farther apart on the restless surface of the lake and then disappearing beneath the waves, sinking deeper and deeper, vanishing into the blackness.