Hollyleaf’s Story

“Great StarClan, that hurts!” Hollyleaf growled. Speaking aloud seemed to help, so she carried on. “I’ve been down here before. I know there are other ways out. I just need to follow this tunnel until I find a source of light. Come on, one paw in front of the other.” In spite of her fear, in spite of the pain in her leg, the memories kept flooding back…

“I am your mother, Hollyleaf,” Leafpool had whispered. Hollyleaf shook her head. That was impossible. How could she be the daughter of a medicine cat, when medicine cats were forbidden to have kits? Worse than being a rogue or a kittypet, her own birth had broken the code of the Clans.

Hollyleaf unsheathed her claws to give her a better grip on the stone. To her dismay, several of them had already broken off in her struggle to get out, and the tips of her pads felt wet and sticky. She smelled blood and pictured the trail she was leaving as she crawled along the tunnel. If Lionblaze and Jayfeather dug through the rockfall, they’d know she’d survived and would follow the trail to find her. Suddenly her front paws thudded into stone. She yelped with pain and swiveled sideways to follow the curve of the wall. It was so dark, she couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open. If I can just find some light. If, if, if…

Jayfeather had figured out who their father was. “It’s Crowfeather.”

Hollyleaf stared at him in disbelief. “But… Crowfeather’s from WindClan! I’m a ThunderClan cat!”

“Yellowfang came to me in a dream,” Jayfeather insisted. “She told me it was time we knew the truth.”

For Hollyleaf, there was nothing left. Half-Clan? She stood in the mouth of the tunnel and felt the scent of stone smooth her ruffled fur. She could disappear down here and emerge somewhere far from the Clans. She could begin a new life, away from all these lies and broken promises.

Hollyleaf turned and ran into the tunnel. She heard Jayfeather calling to her—and then the thunder came, and the sky fell in, and she was swallowed up by the dizzying black.

Hollyleaf kept going. Breathe, scrape, haul. Over and over. She longed to stop, to sleep, to wait for a StarClan warrior to come for her. But did StarClan even know she was here? Her birth had broken the warrior code. She had killed another cat. And she had given up her place in ThunderClan. No ancestors would be watching over her. Had they been watching when Hollyleaf spilled all her Clan’s secrets at the Gathering?

“Wait!” Hollyleaf leaped to her paws. “There’s something that I have to say that all the Clans should hear.” There had been too many lies, too much damage done to the warrior code, for her to keep quiet any longer.

The clearing was so quiet that Hollyleaf could hear a mouse scuttering among the dead leaves under the Great Oak. “You think you know me,” she began. “And my brothers, Lionblaze and Jayfeather of ThunderClan. You think you know us, but everything you have been told about us is a lie! We are not the kits of Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight.”

“What?” Brambleclaw shot to his paws from where he sat with the other deputies among the roots of the Great Oak. “Squirrelflight, why is she talking such nonsense?”