“Make sure you take it a long way from camp,” Leafpool reminded him. “And when you’ve finished, you can fetch Millie and Briarkit back in, before they get too tired and cold.”
Jaypaw rolled the ball of soiled bedding out through the thorn barrier, and dumped it several fox-lengths away from the hollow. Nearby he found more moss growing thickly around the roots of a tree. To his relief, it had dried out since the heavy rain of a few days before. Tearing off some fronds of bracken, he bundled the whole lot together and staggered with it back into camp.
When he went to fetch the sick cats, he found Millie lying stretched out in a sunny spot beside the wall of the stone hollow. Her breath rasped in her throat and when he rested a paw on her chest, Jaypaw could feel it heaving rapidly up and down. Briarkit pushed up beside him, nudging at her mother.
“I want to play,” she whimpered. She had to catch her breath as she spoke, and Jaypaw could feel her legs wobbling. “Be a mouse, and I’ll catch you!”
Millie let out a weary sigh, and Briarkit’s pleading ended in a cough.
“Come on,” Jaypaw meowed, trying to sound cheerful. “I’ve put down some fresh bedding for you. You’ll be able to have a really good sleep.”
“Don’t want to sleep!” Briarkit protested.
“Yes, you do,” Jaypaw informed her. “Sleeping will make you feel better.”
He slipped his shoulder under Millie’s as she struggled to her paws; her chest wheezed with the effort and her coughs were weak, as if her strength was ebbing fast. Jaypaw’s belly twisted with frustration. The prophecy said he had the power of the stars in his paws, but what good was that if he had to witness the cats in his care die?
He helped Millie back into her nest, with Briarkit getting under his paws until he shooed her into the moss beside her mother. He straightened up and headed back to the cleft, wondering if he could have possibly missed any stores of herbs.
Suddenly his eyes filled with dazzling sunlight, so bright that he flinched and bent his head, trying to shut out the rays.
When his vision cleared, he looked up again, blinking. He was standing in a glade, thick with rustling leaves. The warm air was heavy with the scent of growing herbs.
Is there catmint here? That was the first thought that jumped into his head.
As he tasted the air, the smell of cats flooded over him, drowning the scents of the herbs. Starlight glimmered in the undergrowth under the trees, and warriors of StarClan began to emerge into the clearing. Jaypaw recognized Bluestar, her tail twitching with anxiety; she glanced back at the muscular figure of Whitestorm, who followed her into the open.
“They are coming,” the old ThunderClan leader whispered.
“So many of them…”
“Maybe not,” Whitestorm meowed reassuringly. “ThunderClan couldn’t have better medicine cats.”
Jaypaw heard a disgusted snort as yet another starry cat pushed her way through the ferns: Yellowfang with her ragged gray pelt and burning amber eyes. “Are you mouse-brained, Whitestorm? What can medicine cats do if there aren’t any healing herbs?”
“Is there no way we can guide them?” A soft mew announced the arrival of Spottedleaf, her tail waving gracefully as she padded out into the open. “No way to help?”
“You tell me,” Yellowfang snapped. “There’s no more catmint on ThunderClan territory, and that’s that. I’d give them my pelt if I could, but what use would that be?”
“Will sickness destroy my Clan?” Bluestar wailed, her claws working furiously, tearing up clumps of grass.
One last cat slipped into the clearing: the silver tabby whom
Jaypaw had seen in Graystripe’s memory, her lifeblood gushing out onto stones as she gave birth to a pair of tiny kits.
“Millie is close to joining us,” she murmured. “What can we do? Graystripe doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken again.”
None of the other StarClan cats could answer her. They began to circle distractedly, their pelts quivering with distress.
None of them seemed to have noticed Jaypaw.
Why am I here? he wondered. If there’s nothing useful in this vision, I’ve got sick cats to look after.
A cool breeze swept over the clearing, ruffling the moon-colored fur of the restless cats. Starlight gleamed again in the shadows under the trees, and three more cats padded into the open. The first was a young she-cat—barely old enough to be a warrior—her silver tabby pelt glimmering with a pale light.
The second cat was older, a silver tabby so like the first that Jaypaw guessed she was her mother, while the third was a broad-shouldered tabby tom.
“Brightspirit.” Bluestar dipped her head respectfully to the young she-cat. “It has been a long time.”
“Shiningheart. Braveheart,” Whitestorm greeted the two older cats. “Your presence honors us.”
Jaypaw stared at the three newcomers. Where had these cats come from? He had never seen them before, or heard their names in any of the Clans. Their scent was different too—faintly of StarClan, and of something else carried on wind and in starlight. He sensed that they had traveled a long distance. Is this why I’m here? To meet these cats?
The two older cats remained at the edge of the trees, their tails twined together, but Brightspirit bounded across the clearing and halted in front of Jaypaw. Her green eyes glowed with love and sympathy and her sweet scent wreathed around him.
“Greetings, Jaypaw,” she mewed. “You are troubled.”
Jaypaw crouched to the ground. This was no ordinary StarClan cat; he couldn’t imagine telling this cat she was merely a Clan cat in a different place. Something about her, the way she tipped her head to one side and studied him as if they were the only cats in the clearing, made him spill out the truth.
“ThunderClan cats are dying. I don’t know what to do.”
Brightspirit stretched out her neck and rested her muzzle against her ear, warming him with her breath.
“Seek for the wind,” she whispered. “The wind holds what you seek.”
Jaypaw took a step back and stared at her. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
With a hiss, darkness slammed down over his eyes as if night had suddenly fallen, and he found himself surrounded by the scents of stale herbs and sick cats once more. He bit back a yowl of frustration.
She was going to tell me something!
For a few heartbeats he could still make out Brightspirit’s scent, and a distant echo of her voice. “Seek for the wind. And may StarClan light your path.” Then she was gone.
“Come on, Millie.” Leafpool’s voice sounded close by him.
“Lie down here. Jaypaw fetched fresh bedding for you.”
“Thanks, Jaypaw,” Millie rasped.
Jaypaw tensed. Had the whole of his vision taken only a couple of heartbeats? He helped Leafpool settle Millie and Briarkit, longing all the while for a bit of peace so that he could think about Brightspirit and her mysterious words.
As the sick cats curled up in their nest, Jaypaw heard the sound of racing footsteps drawing closer. What now? He picked up Sandstorm’s scent as she halted by the bramble screen.
“Leafpool, come quickly!” she gasped. “Firestar’s ill!”
Chapter 12
Leafpool let out a yelp of horror. “I’m coming!” She slipped past
Jaypaw and raced after Sandstorm.
Jaypaw snatched up a couple of the coltsfoot stalks and dashed after her, scrambling up the rocks leading to Firestar’s den without stopping to think about where to put his paws.
When he reached Highledge the smell of sickness struck him like a blow. Inside his den, Firestar was coughing, and as Jaypaw padded up to him he could feel the heat of fever pulsing from his body. Every hair on Jaypaw’s pelt stood on end.