Long Shadows

Chapter 11

Jaypaw let out a sneeze as dust from the dried herbs got up his nose. Squeezing himself even farther into the storage cleft in the medicine cats’ den, he stretched out a paw and scrabbled at a few brittle stems that lay right at the back. The faint scent that lingered told him they were coltsfoot, collected the previous newleaf.

“Jaypaw!”

The apprentice started at the sound of Leafpool’s voice and bumped his head on the roof of the cleft. “Mouse dung!” he muttered, wriggling out backward with the dried coltsfoot leaves in his claws.

“What have you managed to find?” Leafpool asked.

“Coltsfoot, and a few juniper berries,” Jaypaw reported, dropping the stems at Leafpool’s paws.

“So little…” Leafpool murmured.

Jaypaw could hear her sorting through the pitiful collection.

“Better than nothing,” he mewed, trying to sound optimistic.

“But it’s not enough. Jaypaw, we’re losing the battle.”

Every hair on Jaypaw’s pelt prickled and he dug his claws into the packed earthen floor. “We can’t be!”

“We are.” Leafpool let out a despairing sigh. “There isn’t enough room to separate the sick cats from the rest of the Clan, and we can’t treat greencough without catmint.”

“I’ve been looking after the catmint plants at the old Twoleg nest,” Jaypaw meowed. “Shall I go and see if there are any new shoots?”

“No, there can’t possibly be enough.” Jaypaw felt his mentor’s hopelessness as if it were his own. “Besides, we need to let that supply grow for next season.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Things will only get worse as the weather gets colder. Cats will get weaker as prey runs short. And if more cats get sick, there won’t be enough warriors left to hunt for the Clan.”

Jaypaw lifted his chin. “Then we need to find more catmint.”

“There is no more,” Leafpool insisted. “I know of one patch, just outside the RiverClan border, by a Twoleg nest, but I can’t leave the Clan long enough to fetch it, and—”

She broke off, but Jaypaw knew well enough what she had meant to say. You can’t go because you’re blind. He sensed Leafpool watching him in despair, and felt the strength of her desire that he could see. Briefly he struggled with a surge of bitterness. Because then I’d be more useful, right?

“No, Jaypaw.” Leafpool answered his unspoken resentment. “It’s not because you’re blind that you can’t go. If that was the problem, I could send you with a warrior.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Leafpool sighed. “Because you would need to cross ShadowClan territory, and go along the RiverClan border to get to the place. There has been too much fighting recently. We can’t risk you and a warrior when so many cats are sick. What if another Clan attacked us? We need all the paws we’ve got, here in our own territory.”

“Then what about asking the other medicine cats?” Jaypaw suggested. “If they’ve got catmint, they’d give us some.”

“Yes, they would.” Leafpool’s voice grew sharper, as if she was annoyed by his insistence. “But I can’t ask without the other Clans finding out how weak we are. Firestar would have my pelt if he found out I’d done that.”

Reluctantly Jaypaw had to admit she was right. “So what can I do to help?” he asked.

“I’ve sent Millie and Briarkit out for some fresh air and sun.” Leafpool sounded relieved to turn to something more practical. “They’re in that space between here and the warriors’ den. It’s sheltered there, and they should be far enough away from the other cats to stop the cough from spreading.

Could you take out their old bedding, and bring in some fresh?”

“Sure.” Jaypaw padded to the side of the den and started scraping up the used moss and bracken, collecting it into a ball.

“Make sure you take it a long way from camp,” Leafpool reminded him. “And when you’ve finished, you can fetch Millie and Briarkit back in, before they get too tired and cold.”

Jaypaw rolled the ball of soiled bedding out through the thorn barrier, and dumped it several fox-lengths away from the hollow. Nearby he found more moss growing thickly around the roots of a tree. To his relief, it had dried out since the heavy rain of a few days before. Tearing off some fronds of bracken, he bundled the whole lot together and staggered with it back into camp.

When he went to fetch the sick cats, he found Millie lying stretched out in a sunny spot beside the wall of the stone hollow. Her breath rasped in her throat and when he rested a paw on her chest, Jaypaw could feel it heaving rapidly up and down. Briarkit pushed up beside him, nudging at her mother.

“I want to play,” she whimpered. She had to catch her breath as she spoke, and Jaypaw could feel her legs wobbling. “Be a mouse, and I’ll catch you!”

Millie let out a weary sigh, and Briarkit’s pleading ended in a cough.

“Come on,” Jaypaw meowed, trying to sound cheerful. “I’ve put down some fresh bedding for you. You’ll be able to have a really good sleep.”

“Don’t want to sleep!” Briarkit protested.

“Yes, you do,” Jaypaw informed her. “Sleeping will make you feel better.”

He slipped his shoulder under Millie’s as she struggled to her paws; her chest wheezed with the effort and her coughs were weak, as if her strength was ebbing fast. Jaypaw’s belly twisted with frustration. The prophecy said he had the power of the stars in his paws, but what good was that if he had to witness the cats in his care die?

He helped Millie back into her nest, with Briarkit getting under his paws until he shooed her into the moss beside her mother. He straightened up and headed back to the cleft, wondering if he could have possibly missed any stores of herbs.

Suddenly his eyes filled with dazzling sunlight, so bright that he flinched and bent his head, trying to shut out the rays.

When his vision cleared, he looked up again, blinking. He was standing in a glade, thick with rustling leaves. The warm air was heavy with the scent of growing herbs.

Is there catmint here? That was the first thought that jumped into his head.

As he tasted the air, the smell of cats flooded over him, drowning the scents of the herbs. Starlight glimmered in the undergrowth under the trees, and warriors of StarClan began to emerge into the clearing. Jaypaw recognized Bluestar, her tail twitching with anxiety; she glanced back at the muscular figure of Whitestorm, who followed her into the open.

“They are coming,” the old ThunderClan leader whispered.

“So many of them…”

“Maybe not,” Whitestorm meowed reassuringly. “ThunderClan couldn’t have better medicine cats.”

Jaypaw heard a disgusted snort as yet another starry cat pushed her way through the ferns: Yellowfang with her ragged gray pelt and burning amber eyes. “Are you mouse-brained, Whitestorm? What can medicine cats do if there aren’t any healing herbs?”

“Is there no way we can guide them?” A soft mew announced the arrival of Spottedleaf, her tail waving gracefully as she padded out into the open. “No way to help?”

“You tell me,” Yellowfang snapped. “There’s no more catmint on ThunderClan territory, and that’s that. I’d give them my pelt if I could, but what use would that be?”

“Will sickness destroy my Clan?” Bluestar wailed, her claws working furiously, tearing up clumps of grass.

One last cat slipped into the clearing: the silver tabby whom

Jaypaw had seen in Graystripe’s memory, her lifeblood gushing out onto stones as she gave birth to a pair of tiny kits.

“Millie is close to joining us,” she murmured. “What can we do? Graystripe doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken again.”

None of the other StarClan cats could answer her. They began to circle distractedly, their pelts quivering with distress.

None of them seemed to have noticed Jaypaw.

Why am I here? he wondered. If there’s nothing useful in this vision, I’ve got sick cats to look after.

A cool breeze swept over the clearing, ruffling the moon-colored fur of the restless cats. Starlight gleamed again in the shadows under the trees, and three more cats padded into the open. The first was a young she-cat—barely old enough to be a warrior—her silver tabby pelt glimmering with a pale light.

The second cat was older, a silver tabby so like the first that Jaypaw guessed she was her mother, while the third was a broad-shouldered tabby tom.

“Brightspirit.” Bluestar dipped her head respectfully to the young she-cat. “It has been a long time.”

“Shiningheart. Braveheart,” Whitestorm greeted the two older cats. “Your presence honors us.”

Jaypaw stared at the three newcomers. Where had these cats come from? He had never seen them before, or heard their names in any of the Clans. Their scent was different too—faintly of StarClan, and of something else carried on wind and in starlight. He sensed that they had traveled a long distance. Is this why I’m here? To meet these cats?

The two older cats remained at the edge of the trees, their tails twined together, but Brightspirit bounded across the clearing and halted in front of Jaypaw. Her green eyes glowed with love and sympathy and her sweet scent wreathed around him.

“Greetings, Jaypaw,” she mewed. “You are troubled.”

Jaypaw crouched to the ground. This was no ordinary StarClan cat; he couldn’t imagine telling this cat she was merely a Clan cat in a different place. Something about her, the way she tipped her head to one side and studied him as if they were the only cats in the clearing, made him spill out the truth.

“ThunderClan cats are dying. I don’t know what to do.”

Brightspirit stretched out her neck and rested her muzzle against her ear, warming him with her breath.

“Seek for the wind,” she whispered. “The wind holds what you seek.”

Jaypaw took a step back and stared at her. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

With a hiss, darkness slammed down over his eyes as if night had suddenly fallen, and he found himself surrounded by the scents of stale herbs and sick cats once more. He bit back a yowl of frustration.

She was going to tell me something!

For a few heartbeats he could still make out Brightspirit’s scent, and a distant echo of her voice. “Seek for the wind. And may StarClan light your path.” Then she was gone.

“Come on, Millie.” Leafpool’s voice sounded close by him.

“Lie down here. Jaypaw fetched fresh bedding for you.”

“Thanks, Jaypaw,” Millie rasped.

Jaypaw tensed. Had the whole of his vision taken only a couple of heartbeats? He helped Leafpool settle Millie and Briarkit, longing all the while for a bit of peace so that he could think about Brightspirit and her mysterious words.

As the sick cats curled up in their nest, Jaypaw heard the sound of racing footsteps drawing closer. What now? He picked up Sandstorm’s scent as she halted by the bramble screen.

“Leafpool, come quickly!” she gasped. “Firestar’s ill!”