“Near the Thunderpath?” Twigpaw blinked. She’d never seen a Thunderpath before—not that she could remember, any way. The noise and sm ell m ade her shrink back. Monsters roared along it, the sun flashing on their shiny pelts.
“Yes.” Alderpaw frowned.
Ivy pool and Fernsong paced the top of the slope, their pelts twitching nervously. “Should we go down there?”
“Of course!” Twigpaw flattened her ears against the sound of the Thunderpath and padded forward. “I want to see the nest.” She’d heard how Alderpaw and Needletail had plucked her and Violetpaw from a nest hidden in the shadows. Perhaps som e trace of her mother’s scent lingered there, a trace they could track.
Ivy pool hesitated.
Fernsong looked at her. “We’ve come this far,” he meowed. “We might as well go all the way.”
“But the m onsters.” Ivy pool stared at them nervously. “What if they leave the path?”
Fernsong whisked his tail. “They never leave the path,” he meowed. “Monsters m ay be big and loud, but they are bee-brained.”
Twigpaw flicked her tail. Warriors weren’t supposed to be scared. She hurried forward, her heart quickening as she scanned the slope for som e sign of a nest.
Alderpaw hurried to catch up to her. “We have to go underneath it.”
“Underneath?” Twigpaw looked at him, shocked.
“There’s a tunnel. It’s not very —” The sound of the m onsters drowned his mew.
Twigpaw could feel their heat as they neared. She raised her voice. “Where’s the entrance?”
Alderpaw scanned the edge of the Thunderpath, frowning for a m om ent. Then he nodded toward a sm all shadowy hollow where the side of the Thunderpath dropped into a ditch. “There it is.”
Excitem ent surged in Twigpaw’s belly. She broke into a run. Ignoring the acrid wind from the m onsters, which tore through her fur, she leaped into the ditch. Pebbles lined it, j abbing her paws.
She hurried along it until she reached the shadowy hollow. A huge m onster scream ed past. She screwed up her eyes as grit spray ed her.
Alderpaw landed beside her. Leaning over her, he shielded her as another m onster streaked past.
Paw steps crunched behind them. Ivy pool and Fernsong were hurry ing along the ditch toward them.
“Is this it?” Ivy pool blinked at the hole in the side of the ditch. Sm ooth, dark sticks crisscrossed it.
Twigpaw peered between them. The scent of dank stone and sour water filled her nose. She sniffed nervously, straining to see through the darkness. As her eyes grew accustom ed to the gloom, she could see twigs littering the bottom of the tunnel. Water pooled there, gleam ing as it stretched into the distance. Pale light showed at the far end. Som ething skittered there. A rat?
Alderpaw crouched close beside her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Twigpaw swallowed. She realized that her pelt was bristling as she struggled to remember this place. Was this really where her mother had left them? Sadness twisted her heart.
What a terrible place for a nursery. She thought of the bramble den back at camp, where countless queens had raised litters in warmth and safety. What had driven her mother to this? She stuck her head between the sticks and squeezed through them.
Foul-sm elling water soaked her paws. The skittering paw steps sounded again, echoing along the stone walls of the tunnel. Picking her way am ong the debris, Twigpaw sniffed. She tried desperately to sm ell som e trace of her mother through the stench, but nothing rem ained except the scent of m onsters and rats.
Alderpaw squeezed after her, while Fernsong and Ivy pool crouched at the opening, their eyes wide as they peered through.
“The nest must have been washed away,” Alderpaw guessed.
Twigpaw blinked at him through the darkness. Sorrow tugged at her heart. “Why did she leave us here?”
“Surely she had no choice.” Alderpaw’s eyes glinted in the shadows.
Twigpaw glanced around. “I see why you took us now.” Suddenly she understood that Alderpaw couldn’t have left her and Violetpaw here. If cold or hunger hadn’t killed them, rats might have. But hope still pricked her heart. “I wonder where she went.”
Without waiting for a response, she pushed past Alderpaw and slid back through the crisscrossed sticks. Flattening her ears against the m onsters’ roars, she glanced along the ditch. She tried to im agine what her mother had been thinking when she left the nest. She must have gone looking for food. Had she gotten lost? Had she forgotten her way back to the tunnel? Twigpaw nosed past Ivy pool and Fernsong and headed along the ditch. She clim bed onto the slope and toward a swath of long grass. Mice would be there, right? Her mother might have followed this path, guessing the sam e.
“Twigpaw!” Ivy pool called after her.
Twigpaw glanced back.
The silver-and-white she-cat was hurry ing after her, Fernsong and Alderpaw on her heels.
“Wait for us.” She caught up to her, puffing.
“I have to figure out where m y mother went,” Twigpaw mewed urgently.
Ivy pool gazed at her sy m pathetically. “But it was moons ago, Twigpaw. You can’t hope to find a trace of her.”
Fernsong stopped beside her. “The leaf-bare snows would have washed any scents away.”
Twigpaw stared at them, panic opening like a whirlpool in her belly. White fur caught her ey e.
She glanced past them. A cat was on the Thunderpath! It sat, m otionless, in the m iddle as m onsters thundered past it. “Look!”
Ivy pool snapped her head around, following her gaze.
“What in StarClan!” Fernsong’s m outh gaped open as he saw the stranded cat.
“Why isn’t she try ing to run away?”
Twigpaw hardly heard Ivy pool’s gasp. She hared down the slope. “We have to save her!”
She tore toward the Thunderpath, desperation driving her on. What if that was her mother?
She leaped over the ditch, her paws hitting the Thunderpath as a m onster howled past, a tail-length from her nose. Her gaze flicked across the stretch of gray stone. If she could dodge the m onsters, she could reach the cat and guide her to safety. Her thoughts whirled. Blood pounded in her ears.
She glanced back and forth, searching for a gap to race through.
Suddenly claws gripped her pelt. Her paws scratched over the stone as som eone j erked her backward. Teeth sank into her scruff as the ditch opened below her and Ivy pool hauled her down into its shelter.
“What in StarClan do you think y ou’re doing?” Ivy pool stared at her.
Fernsong landed beside them, his pelt bushed. “Do you want to get y ourself killed?”
“What about the cat?” Twigpaw wailed above the m onsters.
She reared onto her hind legs, peering over the edge. A bright red m onster, far bigger than the rest, pounded toward the helpless cat. “Run!” The shriek tore from Twigpaw’s throat. But the cat didn’t m ove. Horror shrilled though Twigpaw as the red m onster hurtled over it. She stared in disbelief as the cat disappeared.
“They killed her.” Her words caught in her throat.
Ivy pool hopped onto the edge of the Thunderpath and stared across it. Twigpaw j um ped up beside her, her heart pounding as she scanned the stone for blood. But there was none. All that was left of the cat was white fluff, tossed in the wake of the m onsters like thistledown.
Twigpaw stared at it. “That cat wasn’t real.” Her m urm ur was swept away as another m onster tore past.
Ivy pool nudged her down into the ditch. “It must have been som e Twoleg trick,” she meowed as they landed with a crunch on the pebbles.
Fernsong blinked at them. “Let’s get out of here.”
Twigpaw stared at him, hardly hearing. She felt frozen. That could have been her mother.