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.