“I hope and pray that will happen,” Echosong responded.
Then she stood up straighter, letting her gaze travel around the Clan, and continued more briskly, “I would prefer not to go alone.
Leafstar, will you allow some cats to come with me to find the lake
I believe StarClan means us to find?”
Leafstar’s ears twitched up, and for a moment Hawkwing thought that she would refuse. Then she dipped her head in reluctant agreement. “I know some cats might feel the same as you, Echosong,” she mewed. “If any cat wants to leave with you, I will not stand in their way.”
“Thank you,” Echosong murmured.
“I’ll come,” Bellaleaf offered immediately, rising to her paws.
As she spoke Harrybrook half rose, seemed to change his mind, then got up to stand beside Bellaleaf. “I’ll come too,” he meowed.
“I’m sorry!” he added, his eyes distraught as he gazed at his mother, Leafstar. “I don’t want to leave you, but I think Echosong is right, and… and she can’t just wander off without any warriors to take care of her!”
Leafstar’s voice was tight as she responded. “You must follow your heart, Harrybrook.”
Hawkwing felt his paws twitching. All his instincts were telling him to volunteer to go with Echosong. But there were too many arguments against it. I have duties here! I have Curlypaw to train!
And I owe so much to Leafstar!
Aware of some cat’s gaze on him, he turned his head and exchanged a long look with Plumwillow. He knew that she would never leave the rest of the Clan. Besides, the kits are too young to travel.
He knew too that the old hot-headed Hawkwing—the cat who had failed all the cats he loved—would have been the first one to volunteer to leave with Echosong. But even though he was still certain that this lake was the wrong place for SkyClan, now he felt strongly that the responsible thing to do was stay.
“Is that all?” Echosong asked.
Hawkwing felt that she was staring right at him. He looked away, but that meant that his gaze fell on Leafstar. He could tell—
however hard the Clan leader tried not to show it—by the tightness of her muzzle and her bristling shoulder fur just how angry and upset she felt that more cats were leaving.
“Very well,” Echosong meowed at last. “We will leave at sunrise.”
As the sun rose, SkyClan gathered at the entrance to the camp to say good-bye to Echosong and the others.
“I understand what pushed you to go,” Leafstar meowed to the medicine cat, “but it grieves me to the bottom of my heart to see the Clan split again. It was hard enough to lose Frecklewish, and the other warriors who stayed beside the gorge.”
Echosong nodded; Hawkwing thought she looked regretful, but there was no sign of wavering in her decision. “I hope this will not be forever,” she responded. “If—when—we find the other Clans, I’ll send a messenger to find the rest of you. And the cats who stayed near the gorge, too.”
Hawkwing’s throat went dry at the thought of seeing his lost
Clanmates again. Are they okay? And what about Cherrytail and Cloudmist, back in Barley’s barn? Maybe one day I’ll see them again, too. And Pebbleshine… she must find her way back to us!
Echosong slipped through the group of cats, saying a personal farewell to each of them. When she came to Hawkwing, she fixed him with a clear green gaze. “You have come so far,” she murmured.
As warm pride flooded Hawkwing’s pelt, she added, “But you still have far to go. Remember who you are, Hawkwing.” Then she touched her nose to his and moved on.
Startled, Hawkwing considered her words as he watched her go.
Remember who I am?
But then tiny claws fastened into his pelt from behind, and he heard Dewkit squealing into his ear. “I’m a Twoleg dog! Fight me!”
I’ve found my family, Hawkwing thought. And even though Plumwillow wasn’t his true mate, that was enough to fill his heart, for now.
Chapter 31
Hawkwing poked his head through the ferns that sheltered the apprentices’ den, only to find it empty. There was no sign of Curlypaw, and her scent was stale. Puzzled, he drew back and padded into the center of the camp, where Blossomheart and Sagenose were waiting for him.
“There’s no sign of her,” he reported. “I wonder where she’s gone?”
Before either of his Clanmates could respond, Curlypaw came dashing through the camp entrance and skidded to a halt at Hawkwing’s side.
“Sorry,” she panted. “I had to go and make dirt.”
Her pelt had an odd, harsh tang that Hawkwing couldn’t identify, and the stale scent in her den suggested she had been away for longer than it would take to go to the dirtplace.
She’s up to something, Hawkwing thought.
But he didn’t want to question his apprentice in front of the others, and the rest of the hunting patrols had already left. “Okay,” he meowed. “Let’s go.”
I’ll talk to her later.
But as Hawkwing led the way through the woods, his apprentice’s weird behavior slipped out of his mind. He had too many other things to worry about.
Two moons had passed since Echosong and the others had left the Clan. A few days later, Leafstar had ordered the remaining SkyClan cats to move camp into a stretch of long grass at the far end of the lake.
But that had been no better. There were still disturbances from the Twolegs and their dogs, and the new camp was more exposed to the huge birds that had attacked Blossomheart and Curlypaw.
Plumwillow had been terrified that they would carry off the kits.
So Leafstar had decided to move camp yet again, to an area of woodland on the opposite side of the lake from where they had first settled. They found a deep hollow surrounded by brambles and thornbushes; it wasn’t as big or as sheltered as their first camp, but it was the best they could find.
At first the new place had seemed to work well. SkyClan was a long way away from the noise and activity around the water, and though there were a few Twoleg dens beside a Thunderpath on the far side of the trees, the Twolegs there didn’t seem interested in the cats. Even so, their comings and goings, the roar of their monsters down the Thunderpath, disturbed the cats’ peace and meant they had to be continually alert.
But what worried Hawkwing more than anything was that some of the younger cats weren’t scared enough. They thought it was exciting to be so close to Twolegs.
And then there’s Parsleyseed…
A few days before, as twilight was falling and the cats of SkyClan were eating together in the camp, the young warrior had risen to his paws in the midst of his Clanmates. “There’s something I have to tell you,” he meowed, sounding scared and determined at the same time.
Leafstar looked up, mildly surprised. “Go on,” she responded.
Parsleyseed hesitated, gulping, and Hawkwing felt a prickle of uneasiness in his pelt. What’s the matter, that he could find it so hard to talk about?
Then Parsleyseed seemed to brace himself. “I’m going to leave to become a kittypet!” he blurted out.
Yowls of disbelief and protest rose from the cats around him.
“You can’t!”
“This is where you belong!”