Erin Hunter - Long Shadows

Fallen Leaves, the ancient cat had saved his life, and the lives of his littermates and WindClan cats, when floodwaters had risen while they were looking for the lost kits.

“What happened to your Clanmates?” Jaypaw asked. “Why did they leave the lake?”

Fallen Leaves looked down at his paws. “I don’t know. I only knew that they had gone. Sharpclaws stopped coming into the tunnels, and the only sound from the moor was the wind. I have been on my own here for so long, I have lost count of the moons.” He raised his head, his green eyes pleading. “You and your friends were the first cats I had seen down here since… since I came in.”

“I have to know why they left!” Jaypaw meowed; he couldn’t explain it, but he was certain that the fate of those long-ago cats was bound up with the prophecy. Meeting Rock, finding the stick, feeling the whispers of ancient cats around him when he went to the Moonpool: None of that had happened by chance, he was sure.

He bounded toward the tunnel that led up into ThunderClan territory, brushing aside Fallen Leaves, who stared after him in dismay.

“Wait!” Fallen Leaves called out. “I thought you were going to stay with me.”

“I have to know what happened,” Jaypaw insisted with a last glance over his shoulder. The drowned cat was standing at the end of the tunnel, his eyes wide and distressed.

Jaypaw forced anger to stifle his pity. “How can I stay with him?” he muttered as he padded forward into the thick blackness of the tunnel. “There are too many things I need to find out. I can’t spend all my time hanging out with a dead cat!”

He expected to emerge in the woods above the hollow, awake and blind once more, or perhaps find himself on the lakeshore with the stick. Instead, daylight began to gleam on the walls ahead of him, growing stronger as he padded on. He could hear the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.

“I must be still dreaming,” he whispered.

His paws tingling, Jaypaw headed for the light. Rounding a curve in the tunnel, he saw a circle of daylight ahead of him.

Excited voices broke the silence.

“Is it him?”

“He’s later than I thought he’d be.”

“Do you think he got lost?”

Jaypaw slowed his pace. Even if he was coming up inside

WindClan, he should have known some of the voices, but they were all strange to him. And he didn’t recognize any of the scents drifting toward him from the tunnel mouth. Where was he, and who was waiting for him?

Then another voice reached him, making his paws freeze to the floor of the tunnel.

“Jay’s Wing? Jay’s Wing, is that you?”

Jaypaw forced his legs to carry him forward to the end of the tunnel. As he emerged, blinking, into brilliant sunlight, several cats crowded around him, mewing excitedly.

“Jay’s Wing! It is you!”

“Well done! You’re a sharpclaw now.”

“Congratulations!”

At first Jaypaw couldn’t make out individual cats among the press of furry bodies. Then a ginger-and-white she-cat thrust her way through the crowd. Her fur stood on end as she danced on restless paws.

“You’re lucky Jay’s Wing survived the challenge!” she yowled. Her voice quivered with sorrow, and her amber eyes were full of bitterness. “Have you forgotten that Fallen Leaves never came out of the tunnels?”

A small gray-and-white she-cat, her belly heavy with kits, padded up to her side and pressed her muzzle into her shoulder. “Come on, Broken Shadow,” she murmured. “Let’s go find a patch of sunshine to rest in.”

“You don’t understand, Rising Moon!” Broken Shadow wailed, but she allowed the other she-cat to lead her away.

Jaypaw stared around him, his mind racing. He recognized the way the ground sloped down toward the entrance to the tunnels, but the trees were smaller, letting through the bright sunlight that had dazzled him. The spaces between the trees were mostly clear of undergrowth. It was like his home, yet not like it.

Where am I? And who are these strange cats? Has ThunderClan been invaded?

He spun around, looking for his Clanmates. Looking? Jaypaw shivered. This feels too real to be a dream. He could feel the wind in his fur and hear the voices of the other cats like birdsong in his ears; his belly was rumbling and his paws dragged as though he had truly been awake all night, searching for a way out of the tunnels in order to become a sharpclaw.

A pretty pale gray she-cat bounded up to him, her blue eyes sparkling with affection. She drew her tail down Jaypaw’s side.

“You’re a sharpclaw! It’s so exciting!” she meowed, bouncing gently on her paws. Suddenly her tail drooped. “I wish our mother could see you.”

Jaypaw stiffened. This she-cat was his sister ?

Who does she think I am?

“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.