Twilight

Chapter 18

Squirrelflight was on the dawn patrol with Ashfur and Thornclaw, checking the ShadowClan border. Everything was quiet. The ShadowClan scent markings at the foot of the dead tree were strong and fresh.

“Have you scented either of those kittypets?” she asked Ashfur as he came up to join her.

“Not a thing.” Ashfur’s blue eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “You must have scared them off for good.”

Squirrelflight twitched her ears. “I hope so. If I never see them again, it’ll be too soon.”

Ashfur waved his tail to summon Rainwhisker, who had been renewing the ThunderClan scent markers farther up the border, and the patrol set off back to camp. The sun was rising as they emerged from the thorn tunnel. Golden rays slanted down into the stone hollow and the ground was dappled with shadows of fresh leaves. Stopping just inside the entrance, Squirrelflight arched her back in a long stretch and let the warmth soak into her pelt.

“Squirrelflight!” Cinderpelt called to her from across the camp; the medicine cat was limping rapidly toward her.

“Have you seen Leafpool this morning?”

Alarm flared in Squirrelflight’s belly. “No,” she replied.

“We were over by the ShadowClan border.” She almost added, and Leafpool only ever goes toward WindClan, but stopped herself in time.

Cinderpelt nodded, and Squirrelflight realized the medicine cat already knew what she had not put into words. “I saw her last night—” Cinderpelt broke off, twitching her ears.

Squirrelflight stared at her. What was the medicine cat not telling her?

“When I woke up, her nest was cold,” Cinderpelt went on, “and her scent was stale. She hasn’t been here all night.”

“But she always comes back before dawn!” Squirrelflight blurted out.

Cinderpelt’s eyes narrowed and Squirrelflight flinched.

Would the medicine cat be angry that Squirrelflight had known her sister’s secret all along? “I’m sorry, Cinderpelt,” she began.

Cinderpelt stopped her with a dismissive flick of her tail.

“It’s all right. I know she’s been visiting Crowfeather.”

“Crowfeather?” Squirrelflight felt every hair on her pelt bristle. All she had known was that Leafpool had had some reason to sneak out of the camp at night. “That can’t be true!

Crowfeather is in love with Feathertail.”

“Feathertail is dead. And it’s possible to love more than one cat in a lifetime. Squirrelflight, have you never noticed how they looked at each other at Gatherings? Where did you think she was going all these nights?”

Squirrelflight stared at her, speechless with shock. Leafpool was a medicine cat! Then she remembered sensing her sister’s chaotic feelings of guilt and excitement, and she knew Cinderpelt must be right. Guilt flooded over her; she had been so distracted by her new friendship with Ashfur that she hadn’t tried hard enough to find out what was troubling her sister.

“Do you think she’s gone to WindClan to be with Crowfeather?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

Cinderpelt’s whiskers twitched. “Perhaps.”

“Would WindClan accept her?”

“What do you think?” The medicine cat’s tone was dry.

“Leafpool is a valuable cat for any Clan. But we can’t be sure,” she added. “Last night, when Leafpool left the camp, I followed her. She saw me, and we quarreled. We both said things that should have been left unsaid. Perhaps she’s somewhere in ThunderClan territory, waiting until her temper has cooled before she comes back to camp.”

Cinderpelt spoke briskly, without betraying much feeling.

Squirrelflight wondered if her coldness came from anger and disappointment at Leafpool’s betrayal. But as Cinderpelt turned away, Squirrelflight heard her mutter, “StarClan be with her, and bring her back safe!” The anguish in her voice revealed how much she had been torn apart by Leafpool’s disappearance.

The camp was stirring around them. Daisy appeared at the entrance to the nursery, blinked lazily in the sunlight, then called her kits out. The three little scraps tumbled happily on the ground in front of her, squealing and batting each other with soft paws. On the other side of the clearing, Sandstorm slid out of the warriors’ den, calling to Cloudtail and Dustpelt for a hunting patrol; the three cats loped across the clearing and out through the tunnel, waving their tails at Squirrelflight and Cinderpelt as they passed. A few moments later Whitepaw and Birchpaw emerged from the apprentices’ den, arguing about whose turn it was to fetch mouse bile for the elders’ ticks.

Squirrelflight knew it wouldn’t be long before some cat noticed Leafpool’s absence and started asking questions.

“I’m going to tell Firestar.” Suddenly Cinderpelt sounded exhausted.

Squirrelflight ran after her. “No, don’t tell him or any other cat just yet. I’ll go out and look for Leafpool. Maybe I can bring her home before any cat notices she’s gone.”

Cinderpelt hesitated. Then her eyes seemed to focus again and she nodded. “Thank you, Squirrelflight. It’s very important to find her. She’ll lose so much—her Clan, her kin, her life as a medicine cat—if she doesn’t come back.” She looked away and added more quietly, “I don’t think she understands how much her Clan needs her.”

“I’m on my way.” Squirrelflight whipped around and plunged back into the thorn tunnel.

She headed straight for the WindClan border. In spite of what Cinderpelt had said, she didn’t believe Leafpool was sulking somewhere in ThunderClan territory. Leafpool never sulked… but maybe Squirrelflight didn’t know her sister as well as she thought.

She paused to taste the air, searching for a trace of Leafpool’s scent. “If I don’t find her on the border, I’ll have to go into WindClan territory,” she decided out loud.

“Go to WindClan? Why?”

Squirrelflight jumped. “Brambleclaw! You nearly frightened me out of my fur,” she gulped, spinning around to see the tabby warrior stepping out from the shelter of a hazel thicket.

“What were you saying about WindClan?” Brambleclaw persisted. “We don’t want to stir up trouble with them.

Onestar’s prickly enough as it is.”

“I’m not looking for trouble!” Squirrelflight retorted. She was too shaken to lie about where she was going. “I’ve got to find Leafpool. Cinderpelt thinks she’s gone to WindClan so she can be with Crowfeather.”

Brambleclaw’s ears twitched. “But she’s a medicine cat.”

Squirrelflight glared at him. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Brambleclaw still remained infuriatingly calm. “You’re right, we have to go after her,” he meowed. “We don’t want Onestar to think we’re driving our cats away.” As Squirrelflight let out a furious hiss, he added, “And we want Leafpool back. She’s making a big mistake, leaving her own Clan.”

“She’s lost her mind!” Squirrelflight tore at the ground with her claws. “I’ve got to find her before Firestar finds out.”

“Do you think she’ll come back?” Brambleclaw’s amber gaze was serious. “We can’t force her.”

“She has to!”

“If she has really gone to join WindClan, it must have been a hard decision for her,” Brambleclaw pointed out. “It won’t be easy to change her mind.”

“But I have to try,” Squirrelflight protested. “And even if I can’t convince her, I need to know where she is.”

“Can you sense anything?” Brambleclaw asked. “You know, like when we were on our journey?”

Squirrelflight reached out with that strange sense she had always shared with her sister. She tried to picture Leafpool, and for a heartbeat she thought she picked up a trace of wind on the moorland, but then it was gone, leaving nothing but emptiness.

“I can’t see her anywhere,” she mewed wretchedly.

Brambleclaw straightened up. “Well, standing here won’t solve anything. Let’s go.”

“You’ll come with me?” Squirrelflight stared at him in surprise.

“If you’re going to WindClan, you’ll need some cat with you,” Brambleclaw replied. “ThunderClan cats aren’t exactly Onestar’s favorite guests these days.”

Gratitude flooded over Squirrelflight like a warm wash of sunlight. Whatever she felt about Brambleclaw’s private ambitions, or his willingness to trust Hawkfrost, she couldn’t think of any other cat she’d rather have beside her right now.

They padded toward the border in silence; Squirrelflight was still feeling too stunned to speak. How could Leafpool think of giving up her life in ThunderClan? Didn’t her kin, her friends, her work as a medicine cat mean anything to her?

What about StarClan? Did Leafpool have a choice not to be a medicine cat? And what about Firestar? Squirrelflight’s pelt prickled as she wondered what she could possibly say to her father to explain where Leafpool had gone.

The sun shone down from a blue sky dotted with tiny puffs of cloud. Dew glittered on the grass and on strands of cobweb stretched precariously across thickets of bramble.

New fronds of bracken were beginning to uncurl and everywhere Squirrelflight could smell the sharp, green scent of growing things. But even the rustle of prey in the undergrowth couldn’t distract Squirrelflight from her troubled thoughts.

Glancing sideways, she met Brambleclaw’s eyes and saw nothing but calm sympathy in his face. She realized he must understand part of what she was feeling because he too had lost a sister to another Clan.

“Did you feel like this when Tawnypelt left? As if nothing would ever be all right again?”

Brambleclaw waited until they had ducked beneath some low-hanging ferns before replying. “At first I felt so lonely I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear it,” he meowed. “But I knew I had to respect her decision. And we’re still friends, even though she is in a different Clan.”

But it’s not the same, Squirrelflight thought. And Tawnypelt wasn’t a medicine cat, chosen by StarClan to serve her Clanmates.

They followed the stream upward on the ThunderClan side, tasting the air every few paces for any sign of Leafpool.

When the trees gave way to bare moorland Squirrelflight picked up a faint trace, but it was stale, at least from the night before, and it stopped at the edge of the stream. “She crossed here,” she meowed to Brambleclaw.

The tabby warrior nosed the grasses that overhung the water, then nodded. “It looks like it.” He raised his head and gazed across the moorland. “Okay, WindClan it is.”

He led the way across the stream and Squirrelflight followed, splashing through brown peaty water that ran ice cold over pebbles. On the other side they found more of Leafpool’s scent, mingled with a second cat’s.

“WindClan,” Brambleclaw meowed. “Crowfeather, I think.”

“He must have been waiting for her.” Squirrelflight’s last hope vanished, and for the first time she realized she might have lost her sister forever.