“Is that the same old stick you found last time?” Leafpool had caught up to him.
Jaypaw nodded.
“Why are you so interested in it?” Leafpool was puzzled.
“It feels important!” He rested both paws on the wood, as smooth as spider’s silk. A gentle murmuring filled his mind, like softly lapping waves. His paws traced the etching on the wood. They lingered on the uncrossed marks, and he felt sadness spike into his pads. These marks are untold stories.
Rain was spattering on the leaves overhead and splashed in great drops onto his back.
“We should get back,” Leafpool decided.
“What about the stick?”
Thunder rolled in the distance. Wind whipped in off the lake, buffeting and pushing like a bad-tempered badger.
“We must get back to camp.” Leafpool sounded worried. “I can see the storm clouds coming. We shouldn’t be out in this.”
Jaypaw’s fur bristled. He felt lightning prickle in the air. A blast of wind pushed him sideways, knocking him away from the stick.
“Come on!” Leafpool urged.
Waves were pounding the shore now, beaten in by the rising wind.
“What about the stick?” Jaypaw called.
But Leafpool was already hurrying away. “Come on!” she ordered.
There was no time to drag it back to the safety of the root.
The wind was tearing at his fur, blowing back his ears. Pelting rain stung his eyes. Ducking down, Jaypaw darted after his mentor and raced back to the safety of the camp.
The rain had stopped but the wind still roared above the hollow.
Jaypaw lay in his nest and listened to the forest creaking high above the medicine den. The leaves swished like waves upon a shore. But Jaypaw hardly heard them. His ears were filled with whispering. His claws itched as he imagined the earthy scent of the stick. He rolled over in his nest and flattened his ears, but the whispering still breathed in his ears.
He stretched out and pummeled restlessly at the moss underneath him.
“Why don’t you go for a walk?” Leafpool murmured from her nest. “Before your fidgeting wakes Cinderpaw as well.”
“Okay.” Jaypaw sat up. His paws ached to be outside. He wanted to touch the stick once more.
He pushed his way through the brambles. Outside, the wind was stirring up the restless scents of newleaf so that the whole forest seemed to be swaying and fidgeting with impatience. Instinctively, Jaypaw knew that the sky was clear and the moon was shining. He could feel its cold light wash his pelt. As he headed for the camp entrance, the thorn barrier quivered.
“Jaypaw?”
Lionpaw was squeezing though the dirtplace tunnel.
“Hi, Lionpaw,” Jaypaw greeted him curiously. His brother’s pelt pricked with guilt and alarm. And it smelled of the wind.
He’s been out in the forest!
“I was just making dirt.” Lionpaw was lying.
Jaypaw narrowed his eyes. Does every cat in the Clan have secrets?
“I was just going out.” He sensed weariness in his brother’s paws and decided to test him. “Will you come with me?”
“If you want,” Lionpaw mewed warily.
He feels too guilty to refuse.
Birchfall hailed them from the camp entrance. “Who’s there?”
“Only us,” Jaypaw called back. He padded toward the thorn tunnel. “We’re just going out into the forest.”
Birchfall purred. “A midnight adventure,” he meowed.
“That reminds me of my apprentice days.” He sounded wistful, even though he’d been a warrior for only a few moons.
Jaypaw didn’t say anything; Birchfall always liked to pretend he was vastly wise and experienced compared with apprentices but Jaypaw hadn’t forgotten the fuss he’d made over getting a thorn in his paw.
The warrior stepped aside, and Jaypaw felt the wind whisk down the tunnel. He beckoned to Lionpaw with his tail.
“Coming?”
Lionpaw followed Jaypaw through the barrier.
“Watch out for foxes!” Birchfall called after them.
Jaypaw shivered. The memory of the fox springing from the undergrowth while he and Brightheart trekked through the forest made his belly tighten.
“Don’t worry,” Lionpaw reassured him. “I can handle foxes now.”
They padded up the slope and onto the ridge.
“Where are we going?” Lionpaw asked.
“The lake.”
Lionpaw made no comment. No interest sparked from his pelt. Jaypaw could feel a dark cloud hovering in his brother’s mind, absorbing every other thought like quicksand. He tried reaching into it but felt nothing but uncertainty.
As they left the trees and headed down the grassy slope, the wind whipped at Jaypaw’s ears and whiskers. He lashed his tail, excited by the stormy weather and the thought of touching the stick once more. He could smell the lake now and pictured it—a vast Moonpool, ruffled and reflecting a shattered moon.
The scents of RiverClan, WindClan, and ShadowClan clashed and mingled on the breeze. Was there really going to be a battle?
“Do you think WindClan is planning to invade us?” he mewed.
Lionpaw pressed against him, steering him around a rabbit hole. “It wouldn’t make sense.” Jaypaw thought he heard hope in his brother’s mew. “It’s RiverClan they should be worried about, not us.”
“But what about the squirrel-hunting?”
“Why shouldn’t they hunt squirrels? The woods belong to them on that side of the gully.” Lionpaw sounded more like a warrior than an apprentice; as though he knew something Jaypaw didn’t.
As their paws crunched on the pebbles around the edge of the lake, Lionpaw hesitated. “Why are we here?”
“I left something here,” Jaypaw explained. “I need to drag it into the trees. I want to keep it safe from the lake.”
“What?”
“A stick.”
“A stick?”
“Yes!” Jaypaw sniffed the air, hoping to detect its scent. “It has markings on it.” His tail pricked with anxiety as he smelled nothing but windblown water. “I left it here.”
“What does it look like?”
“No bark,” Jaypaw mewed. “Just smooth wood. With lines scratched into it.”
“Okay,” Lionpaw mewed. “You check where you left it. I’ll search the top of the shore in case the wind’s carried it up there.”
Jaypaw hurried to the place where he had abandoned the stick. His heart began to pound. He was certain it was gone, and not just because he couldn’t scent it. There was a dark emptiness in his chest that told him the stick was no longer here.
He was right.
The pebbles were bare.
Fighting the fear that jabbed his belly, Jaypaw zigzagged over the shore, sniffing at the pebbles, trying to trace where the stick had gone. Why had he let the storm chase him away?
He should have made sure the stick was safe before he ran home like a fox-hearted coward!
“Have you found it?” Lionpaw’s mew was muffled by the wind.
“No!” Jaypaw felt panic rising in his chest. He couldn’t have lost it.
“Is this it?” Lionpaw called suddenly.
Jaypaw charged toward his brother. He tripped over a piece of driftwood, bruising his paw, but he ignored the pain and limped desperately toward Lionpaw.
He knew even before he reached it that it was not the stick. “Where are the scratches?” he snapped. “I told you, it has scratches!”