CHAPTER 12

Jayfeather shifted uncomfortably on the bare earth. How was any cat supposed to sleep without a proper nest? But Leafpool had kept him so busy the day before that there had been no time to search for fresh moss. “It’ll do the den good to be aired out,” Leafpool had said. Huh! Jayfeather wriggled again, feeling a cold dawn wind ruffle his pelt.

The sound of a cat brushing past the bramble screen brought him properly awake. He picked up Leafpool’s scent, and the smell of the moss she carried in her jaw. At last! But why didn’t she ask me to help? Jayfeather’s paws itched with irritation that Leafpool seemed determined to do even the most basic tasks without him. Does she think I’m too incompetent even to carry moss?

But there was no point in protesting. Jayfeather stumbled out of the scoop where his nest should have been and helped Leafpool arrange the moss near the trickle of water, where sick cats slept.

“Do you want me to fetch more?” he offered.

His mentor’s only reply was a grunt that could have meant anything. Jayfeather wanted to ask her what was biting her, but he knew she wouldn’t tell him anything. She’d probably claw my ears off just for asking, he muttered to himself. The only way I’ll get any answers—about my own past and what’s going on with Leafpool—is if I look for them myself.

While he pushed the moss tidily into place, Jayfeather cast his mind back to his earliest memories. His littermates’ absence stabbed him like a claw. We might find out a lot more if we could share what we remember!

He recalled a long, cold journey, stumbling through snow that reached up to his belly fur, following his mother’s scent.

No—Squirrelflight’s scent! Pausing with a pawful of moss, he tried to think himself back into that snowbound forest. He strove to distinguish each individual scent: his own, Lionblaze’s, Hollyleaf’s, Squirrelflight’s…and there was another! Another adult cat, a warm and bulky shape. He’d never remembered this detail before, but another cat was definitely there, just ahead of Squirrelflight, forcing a way through the snow….

Who was that? Jayfeather wondered. Did two cats bring us back to the hollow?

He needed to ask another cat, one who had been in ThunderClan when Squirrelflight brought her kits to the hollow. But it had to be a cat who wouldn’t get suspicious about his questions or tell the rest of the Clan what he had been asking.

Well, there’s one cat who doesn’t gossip….

“I’ll go get more moss,” he meowed, rapidly shoving the last pawful into place.

Without giving Leafpool a chance to protest, he brushed past the bramble screen and into the clearing. But instead of heading for the thorn tunnel, he darted across to the elders’ den under the hazel bush.

“Mousefur!” he called, ducking under a trailing strand of honeysuckle.

The skinny brown elder was curled up near the trunk of the hazel. “I hope your tail’s on fire or foxes are invading the camp,” she rasped, stifling a yawn. “Or that you’ve got another really good excuse for waking me up.”