Long Shadows

“Perhaps Falcon Swoop can see you.” A silver-furred she-cat padded up to Jaypaw. She was slender and graceful, with long legs and brilliant blue eyes.

“Do you really think so, Whispering Breeze?” Jaypaw’s sister meowed hopefully.

“Precious Dove’s Wing, you know how much Falcon Swoop loved you and Jay’s Wing while she was alive. I’m sure she still loves you, wherever she may be.”

“I hope so,” Dove’s Wing murmured.

Jaypaw didn’t understand. Don’t these cats go to StarClan when they die? And why do they all seem to know me?

“Look, there’s been a mistake,” he began. “I’m not who you think I am. And where’s ThunderClan?”

Whispering Breeze stretched out her neck to give him a sniff. “Are you okay?” she queried. “I think your brain got scrambled down in the tunnels.”

“What’s ThunderClan?” Dove’s Wing asked, faintly anxious. “Did Rock tell you about it?”

Rock? Jaypaw’s belly lurched. Did Dove’s Wing know the sightless cat who lived in the tunnels?

He was about to ask her, when another cat loomed over him, a dark ginger tabby tom with muscular shoulders and amber eyes. “Don’t forget sharpclaws never talk about what goes on in the caves,” he warned. “That’s a secret they must keep for the rest of their lives.”

“It’s okay, Furled Bracken,” Dove’s Wing assured him.

“Jay’s Wing is just a bit confused.”

Furled Bracken grunted. “Just so long as he remembers what he was told when he went into the tunnels two nights ago.”

“I haven’t been in the tunnels for two nights!” Jaypaw protested. “I—”

“We were so worried about you when you didn’t come out on the first sunrise,” Dove’s Wing interrupted. “We thought you’d been lost.”

“Like Fallen Leaves,” a new voice broke in. Jaypaw turned and saw a hefty dark gray tabby tom with glittering ice-blue eyes. Sadness radiated from his pelt. Jaypaw picked up such a strong image of Fallen Leaves from his mind that he guessed this cat must be the drowned cat’s father.

“Stone Song.” Furled Bracken touched the tabby tom’s ear with his nose. “I know how hard this is for you.”

Stone Song sighed. “We waited a moon of sunrises for Fallen Leaves to emerge,” he murmured. “But he never came.”

He glanced across at Broken Shadow, who was lying under a tree not far off. Rising Moon crouched beside her, grooming her gently like a mother with her kit. “It is time to give up waiting,” Stone Song finished quietly.

Jaypaw stared at the dark gray tabby. How can it be only one moon since Fallen Leaves disappeared? If that’s true, it means this must be long ago! Somehow he had emerged from the tunnels during the time before the Clan cats came to the lake, maybe even as far back as when the ancient cats trod the path to the Moonpool.

The stick! Jaypaw felt every hair on his pelt rise. I’m among the cats who are marked on the stick!

He looked back at the mouth of the tunnel. It looked different now, because it was on exposed hillside rather than surrounded by thick undergrowth, but he had sensed its shape when he walked through it to find the WindClan kits, and he was sure it was the same tunnel. Turning, he looked down at the lake, its glinting surface clearly visible through the trees. The shape of the water was familiar, but when he looked across to the flank of WindClan territory, he spotted Twolegs swarming over a mound of pale brown earth, pushing it around with yellow monsters. Their roaring hung in the air like the buzzing of bumblebees.

Jaypaw padded forward to the edge of the slope to take a closer look. A moment later, Furled Bracken joined him. “The Twolegs are still moving the earth,” he meowed worriedly.

“Chasing Clouds and I went down there to check it out, but we still don’t know what they’re doing.”

“They’re building nests,” Jaypaw replied without thinking.

Furled Bracken gave him a sharp look. “What, nests for Twolegs to live in? There are a few in the woods on the other side of the lake, but Twolegs have never tried to live any closer than that.”

“Yes, there’ll be four nests.” Jaypaw remembered Hollyleaf’s and Lionblaze’s description of the horseplace. “The Twolegs are going to keep horses there.”

He realized that Furled Bracken was looking at him with a strange expression in his eyes. “How do you know that?” he gasped.

Jaypaw gulped. Mouse-brain! Of course these cats had no way of knowing what the Twolegs were doing with their yellow monsters. Had he just made a prophecy that was going to come true?

Furled Bracken twitched his ears; he was still waiting for an answer.

Jaypaw shrugged. “I just figure that’s what Twolegs do when they dig holes in the ground.”

The ginger tom was still giving him a doubtful look. And I can’t say I blame him. Jaypaw was relieved to see Dove’s Wing bounding toward them.