Sign Of The Moon

Chapter 4

For a heartbeat, pure joy flooded through Jayfeather. My sister isn’t dead! It was almost like being swept back to the time when they were kits in the nursery, when they still believed that Squirrelflight was their mother and they had no idea that one day Ashfur might be a threat to their safe, peaceful lives.

But reality rushed back all too soon. “We can’t know that for certain,” he argued. “Hollyleaf might have been badly injured; she could have crawled away to die somewhere else in the tunnels. Or maybe she couldn’t find the way out.”

“True.” Lionblaze’s voice was sad. “We both know how hard that is, especially since WindClan blocked off their entrance.”

“And even if she did get out alive, where would she go?” Jayfeather tried to imagine his sister crawling out of the tunnels, shaking earth out of her pelt, maybe sitting down for a while to clean her wounds. What would she have done then? ThunderClan would always be closed to her. Even if no cat ever discovered the truth about Ashfur’s murder, Hollyleaf had been torn apart by the discovery that Leafpool was her mother and her father was Crowfeather of WindClan. She could not bear knowing that the cats she had trusted had lied to her, and that forced her to give up everything she had trained and hoped for as a loyal ThunderClan warrior.

“She couldn’t come back to the Clan,” he murmured.

“But she was good at hunting, and fighting to defend herself,” Lionblaze pointed out. “She might have settled down somewhere as a loner.”

Jayfeather shook his head. “The Clan—the warrior code—was everything to Hollyleaf.” Besides, he added to himself, wouldn’t I have picked up some sense of her if she was still alive? I should have.

“Come on,” Lionblaze urged him. “We must explore the tunnels. We’ve got to find out what happened.”

But Jayfeather hung back. The whispering of the ancient cats was louder now, and he thought he could hear the pad of paws growing ever more frantic: Fallen Leaves in his eternal search for the way out, and the start of his life as a sharpclaw. Jayfeather recalled how he had padded through the tunnels and found himself living among those ancient cats at the moment they were considering abandoning their home for the stone hills in the distance. Undecided, they had left the lake because of Jayfeather’s casting vote.

What would I say to Fallen Leaves now? Does he know that his Clanmates deserted him because of me?

“What are you waiting for?” Lionblaze demanded. He was already standing at the mouth of the tunnel. Reluctantly Jayfeather took a paw step to join him, only to halt as a fat drop of rain splashed onto his head.

“It’s raining,” he meowed. “We can’t go down there now. It’s too dangerous. The river might flood.”

“Mouse dung!” Lionblaze growled.

Jayfeather felt slightly ashamed that he couldn’t share his brother’s annoyance. Instead, he was relieved. As he scrambled back up the branch with Lionblaze behind him, the rain grew heavier. By the time the two cats pulled themselves out of the hole, it was pelting down, plastering their muddy fur to their bodies.

Jayfeather stood shivering while Lionblaze, grunting with effort, pushed the end of the branch down into the hole. “There,” he panted. “No other cat will be lost down there. Dustpelt and Brackenfur will finish the barrier in the morning.”

Jayfeather followed his brother back to camp, rain driving into their faces as they splashed through mud and lashing wet undergrowth. When they reached the entrance, he located Ivypool and Dovewing still on watch, huddled in the shelter of the thorn barrier. Neither of them paid any attention to the two toms as they brushed through the tunnel and headed for their dens.

“We’ve got to talk about this again,” Lionblaze muttered before they separated.

Jayfeather replied with a curt nod. Between the struggle in the hole, the discovery about Hollyleaf, and being soaked through on his way back to camp, he was exhausted.

Briarlight sat up as Jayfeather brushed past the bramble screen and staggered toward his nest. “Where have you been?” she meowed.

“Out,” Jayfeather replied brusquely, then realized that he could scent only one cat inside the den. “Where’s Icecloud?”

“She went back to the warriors’ den. She said she could rest just as well there.”

Jayfeather shrugged. He was too tired to say what he thought about warriors who thought they knew better than their medicine cat. He would check on Icecloud in the morning.

“You’re all wet and muddy!” Briarlight exclaimed.

Yeah, and claws are sharp! Anything else obvious you want to point out?

“I’m fine,” Jayfeather said aloud.

“No, you’re not fine,” Briarlight insisted. “You’re as wet as a drowned mouse, and asleep on your paws. Come over here and let me clean you up.” When Jayfeather didn’t reply, she added with a hint of mischief in her voice, “I promise I won’t nag you about where you’ve been.”

Too weary to argue, Jayfeather padded over to Briarlight’s nest and flopped down beside her. A moment later he felt the rough lap of her tongue, stroking rhythmically over his shoulder. For a moment he felt embarrassed that she was the one looking after him, but the young cat’s licks were so soothing that he dozed off, wondering if his mother had ever licked him like this.

But which mother? Leafpool or Squirrelflight?

He could see a face gazing down at him; at first he thought it was Leafpool, but it blurred and became Squirrelflight, then changed to Hollyleaf, her green eyes glowing as they stared at him. Jayfeather jerked awake, half sitting up. His fur felt dry and warm, and his whole body was more relaxed.

“Are you okay?” Briarlight’s anxious voice reminded him where he was.

“I’m fine.” Jayfeather sighed. Suddenly he wished there was some cat he could talk to: not a cat from StarClan, but a real friend like Lionblaze had in Cinderheart. He didn’t think Briarlight could be that cat.

“It must be hard, when you do so much for the Clan, and you have to keep all StarClan’s secrets,” she murmured.

StarClan’s secrets are much easier than our own!

“I’m a medicine cat; it’s what I do,” he responded. “You’ll never have to worry about anything like that.”

“Yeah, right,” Briarlight muttered in such a low tone that Jayfeather wasn’t sure he was meant to hear. “Because I’ll never be anything useful, will I?”

Jayfeather rose to his paws. He knew that even though Briarlight had been helping him with medicine cat duties, nothing would make up for not being a warrior. “Thanks for licking my fur dry,” he mewed, and padded off to his own nest.

Curled up among the bracken, Jayfeather opened his eyes to find himself back at the bottom of the hole. The rain had stopped. High above, clouds scudded fast across the sky, though Jayfeather couldn’t feel any wind. Padding deeper into the tunnel, he saw that the way ahead was dimly lit, as if the stars were shining through the earth and rock above his head. He walked farther in, his ears pricked to catch the slightest sound, but the air around him was empty and silent.

Where are all the ancient cats?

Jayfeather padded on and on into the silver light, until he reached the cave where the river flowed. This time it was thin and black, rushing swiftly between the rocks, not swollen and angry as it had been last time he was here. Hope tingled through his paws as he glanced up at Rock’s ledge, but it was bare.

A soft paw step sounded behind Jayfeather. He spun around to see a faint shape slipping out from a different tunnel. “Fallen Leaves?” he meowed.

“No,” rasped a familiar voice.

“Rock!”

The ancient cat padded up to Jayfeather, his long, twisted claws clicking on the stone floor. His blind eyes bulged and the pale light glistened on his furless body. His face was solemn as he halted in front of Jayfeather.

“Why did you break my stick?” Rock asked. His tone revealed no anger or sadness, nothing to tell Jayfeather how he was feeling.

“I—I wanted to talk to you, and you weren’t there,” Jayfeather stumbled. “What was the point of keeping a piece of wood with scratches on it?” Even as he spoke he knew that the stick had been much more than that.

“I am always here,” Rock responded, and now Jayfeather could hear sadness in his voice. “I will come to you when I have something to say. It is not for you to summon me.”

Jayfeather bowed his head, feeling like a kit being scolded for sneaking out of camp.

“That stick was your history,” Rock continued. “You cannot throw that away. The past is all around you, and cats who once were warriors will be warriors again.”

Jayfeather tensed and his claws scraped on the rock floor of the cave. “Do you mean Hollyleaf?” he asked urgently. “Have you seen her? Is she still alive?”

Rock blinked, and Jayfeather shivered at the thought that the ancient cat’s blind gray eyes could still see him very well. “Your past lies in the mountains,” Rock told him. “The place where I was born, the place where cats have returned before. You must go there once more to complete the circle.”

“Back to the Tribe of Rushing Water?” Now Jayfeather couldn’t get his questions out fast enough. “Are they in trouble?”

Rock didn’t reply. The clink of a stone behind him distracted Jayfeather for a heartbeat, and when he turned back, the ancient cat had disappeared.

“Rock!” he called, but the echoes of his voice died away into silence, and there was no answer.

As Jayfeather stood beside the stream, seething with frustration, he heard quiet paw steps approaching and looked around to see a young ginger-and-white tom emerging from a tunnel.

Fallen Leaves padded up to Jayfeather and dipped his head. His eyes were full of sadness. “Greetings, Jay’s Wing,” he mewed.

Jayfeather tensed as Fallen Leaves called him by the name he had borne in the ancient time. “Greetings.”

“The other cats have left, haven’t they?”

His tone was quiet, not accusing, but Jayfeather felt even guiltier because of the part he had played in the ancient cats’ departure from the lake. I wonder if Fallen Leaves knows what I did? “Yes, they’ve gone,” he admitted.

“I feel their absence inside me, like a silence,” Fallen Leaves meowed. “But your cats are still here. Come, let me take you to them.” Without waiting for Jayfeather to reply, he headed across the cave into the mouth of a different tunnel. Jayfeather hesitated for a heartbeat, then bounded in pursuit.

Fallen Leaves led him along the tunnels, and before Jayfeather thought it could be possible, they were standing in the hole again, in front of the branch. Of course—he has wandered these tunnels for so long. He knows the quickest way.

Suddenly, Jayfeather couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the young tom alone there again. “Come with me,” he urged.

Fallen Leaves shook his head. “We both know that can’t happen.” He raised his head and looked up at the sky. The clouds had cleared away, and the warriors of StarClan shone in a blaze of icy light. “The stars are still shining,” Fallen Leaves whispered with wonder in his eyes. “I never thought I would see them again. It’s good to know that they are still there, just as they have always been. The past is all around us.”

Jayfeather jumped, startled. That’s what Rock said!

“Your destiny lies up there, doesn’t it?” Fallen Leaves meowed, gesturing with his tail toward the sky. “You don’t belong here.” He reached out with his tail, and Jayfeather raised his own tail so that they touched for a moment.

“I wish you luck, my friend,” Fallen Leaves continued. “If ever you need me, I will be here.”

“Thank you,” Jayfeather murmured. He picked his way across the loose earth and scrambled up the branch. When he looked down into the hole again, Fallen Leaves had gone. “Hey, Fallen Leaves!” Desperate to see him once more, Jayfeather leaned out over the hole.

Something sharp jabbed into his side. Darkness slammed down over his vision as he opened his eyes and found himself leaning over the edge of his nest, his cheek pressed against the stone floor of his den.

“Jayfeather?” Briarlight’s voice was muffled, and Jayfeather realized that she was prodding him with a twig held in her mouth.

“Stop that,” he mumbled, sitting up and shaking the moss out of his pelt.

“I thought you were having a bad dream,” Briarlight mewed, more clearly now. “You were saying weird things…something about leaves falling. What was happening to you?”

Jayfeather ignored her question. Hauling himself to his paws, he stumbled past the bramble screen and out into the camp, almost barging into Mousewhisker as he headed for the fresh-kill pile. “Sorry,” he muttered, as the young tom whisked around him.

Over by the nursery, Poppyfrost’s kits were squeaking and tumbling about while their mother sat watching. Ivypool and Dovewing brushed through the thorn tunnel and staggered across to the apprentices’ den, their paws heavy with weariness after their night’s vigil.

Briefly Jayfeather wondered why they were still heading for their old den, until he remembered how little space there was in the warriors’ den. With no other apprentices, they’ll get a good sleep there.

In the middle of the hollow, he could hear Brambleclaw’s voice raised as he gave out the instructions for the first patrols of the day. “Graystripe, you can lead the dawn patrol. Take Squirrelflight, Birchfall, and Brightheart.”

“We’re on our way,” Graystripe responded.

“Keep an eye on the ShadowClan border,” Brambleclaw warned him. “We don’t want any more trouble.” As Graystripe’s patrol moved off, the deputy continued, “Thornclaw, you can take a hunting patrol along the stream that borders WindClan. There might still be some prey sheltering along the bank.”

“Okay, Brambleclaw. Which cats should I take with me?”

The deputy hesitated for a heartbeat, then meowed, “Blossomfall, Berrynose, and Lionblaze. Cinderheart, you lead another patrol down toward the lake…”

As soon as Jayfeather heard his brother’s name mentioned, he stopped listening to Brambleclaw and headed across the camp to intercept Lionblaze before he reached the thorns. “Lionblaze, wait! We have to go to the mountains!”

“What?” Lionblaze radiated shock and impatience. “Jayfeather, I’m headed out on patrol. You can’t spring something like that on me now.”

Jayfeather flicked his tail dismissively. “I had a dream,” he insisted. “Our destiny lies there!”

He could tell that he had aroused his brother’s interest. “Was it a dream from StarClan?” Lionblaze queried.

“No, from a cat even older than that. I think he knows where the prophecy comes from. Lionblaze, we have to go!”