The Wildflower Club

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The Wildflower Club
No one saw it happen. No one knew. The secret was thrown into the river of lost time, it died between our locked jaws and ground teeth. But on some higher plane, all is seen; recorded and remembered by a foolproof mind. Perhaps it was the island, the insects, or that eerie thrush on the tree branch with the massive black eyes. Maybe it was fate, who never forgives.

We were never exiled nor executed for our figurative crime, which was nothing more than a new idea. We didn't kill anyone; we weren't murderers. We were never put to justice, but left to live our lives: sharing tongues, border patrol, a mate and two litters of kits, apprentices and a long life coming to a peaceful end.

But after the chain of events, none of us were happy. We were condemned in the most subtle and sadistic way possible. We found ourselves unable to eat birds without vomiting and it was impossible to enjoy anything. Our minds were convoluted and we fell into a cycle of heartache and bitter nostalgia that left us bedridden and trapped in the past. Bouts of longing paralyzed us and ghosts made us cry. Desire like the ocean. When we could walk; we drifted. We lived in dreams and altered recollections of a romantic, roseate past that we could never return to. The very thought of reality broke our hearts.

Isn't it fitting that I would be the one to tell the story? First to die and first to betray. Trapped in a rotting, starless forest that I do not deserve to be in, it's all I can do to confess to the air and the bloodied phantoms that roam here. So to all those listening: know that I had only the best intentions, and I am a good soul. I didn't intend for any of this to happen.

-*-

The Gathering island during noon smelled strangely of appleskin. "Not the pale flesh of it," Beewing remarked when we had first started meeting there instead of going on patrol. "Just the skin.  The sour bits that get stuck between your teeth."

The island was perfect for our beautiful and ceremonial meetings together: five friends who wasted their youths discussing philosophy and diving into the frozen lake. Lilac and dandelion wreathed underfoot, and the trees made gothic spires against the cornflower blue sky. Slabs of rock jutted out from the ground, creating the perfect resting spot. Every day, we draped ourselves across the ground, wreathing wildflowers around each others' ears. Gorsestripe, Beewing, Rooktail and me, bound in a midsummer haze. When we were apprentices, we made a blood pact.

Rookpaw took a sharp stone between her small, gray teeth and jammed it through each of our left forepaws. It had to be her to complete this ritual; with her mystic qualities. We smeared the crimson into a puddle, and drank from it.

"For life," I said, tasting organ red and metal.

"For life," they echoed. We renewed this promise twice a year, not realizing how sinister it could be.

-*-

Throughout our apprenticeship we experimented with ideas and each other, and by the time we were warriors, we had developed an intricate set of rules that we devoted our lives to. We called ourselves The Wildflower Club.

During leafbare, it was a strict life of fast and abstinence. Before dawn we ate a single piece of prey and nuts from tjhe woods, and then we starved until moonhigh, where we ate bitter shrews alone on the island. We bathed in sub-zero temperatures and stayed at least a foot away from each other at all times. We fought off temptations and barely spoke. Leafbare was the season of purge, of being brutally scrubbed raw and thrust into the world anew.

But greenleaf, I shudder just remembering it. Greenleaf was absolute madness. Fun and frantic ardor; we became dissolute and hedonistic, valuing instant gratification and worshipping the heat of the moment. Now now now now. The world spun; we were insane and we did things we regretted. But come leaffall, we would cease to remember anything, save secret giggles and inside jokes.

Between leafbare and greenleaf, we had plenty of strange rules to occupy our time. Do not eat birds, value the club over anything, do not take on a mate, do not spill blood outside the club, etc. I liked the structure and the sense of belonging.

The wonders of the Wildflower Club were heightened when we made the decision to indoctrinate Heatherpaw.

Heatherpaw was apprenticed to me near the end of leaffall. No one saw it coming and no one wanted it to happen. Nevertheless, Redstar called my name during that fateful ceremony, and Heatherpaw bounded up to me and we touched noses warmly. Her body still held pockets of baby fat and kit fluff dotted her face. With me as her mentor, that would be gone within a week. "I'm so excited to be your apprentice!  Thanks for mentoring me!" Her eyes were luminous and starry.

As I led Heatherpaw to the edge of camp for territory exploration, Gorsestripe whispered in passing: "The island after sunset."

"This is so fun!" Heatherpaw said. A few hours into her apprenticeship and I was taking a strange liking to her. Out on the WindClan moors, we were at the highest and most blustery point of the territory. The cooling breeze bit her soft, flushed ears. She was honey-sweet and endearingly innocent. "I think this is my favorite spot you've taken me to."

"It's beautiful when the sun sets," I remarked softly. "The sky is so clear.  Especially during greenleaf."

Heatherpaw sighed. "Greenleaf is so far away.  It's going to snow any day now and leafbare will start."

And leafbare will start. "Leafbare isn't too bad."

"But everything dies." Heatherpaw looked physically sad. For a second, I thought she might cry. "Even the butterflies.  Why do the butterflies have to die?"

"Death doesn't always have to be a bad thing," I replied, in a gentle, motherly tone. It sounded artificial, much like the voice my mother used with me when I was small. My parents were nice, but they were distant and never with me. "Leafbare wipes the slate clean.  So everyone gets a chance to start over."

"That's a nice way to think about it." Heatherpaw turned to me and smiled. "I think I like you, Skybreeze.  I like you a lot."

-*-

"You're late," Beewing snapped when I arrived at the island, deep in the night. "What were you doing?  Telling Heatherpaw a bedtime story?" He laughed at his own joke. I rolled my eyes and sat down next to Gorsestripe.

"Exploring the territory took a while, that's all," I said, composing myself. I liked him as much as the rest of them but he was annoying as anything. "Nothing unusual."

"It's freezing," Beewing whined. "I'm not going to sit out until midnight just because of your apprentice stealing you from us."

Gorsestripe stepped in. "And that brings us to our topic of the night: what to do with Heatherpaw."

"We could postpone our meetings," I suggested. "Until her training is over."

"No way," Beewing shot back. "We meet regardless of outside factors."

"That is an important rule of ours," Gorsestripe added. "Perhaps you could send her on patrols while we meet?"

"That's never going to work," Beewing groaned.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I snapped, irritated with his denial of ideas.

"It's not like you do!"

"Come on, don't fight," said Gorsestripe, ever the pacifist. "It's a difficult situation."

Rooktail stood up and we all fell quiet. She held an unseen power over us, I realize. Always quiet, watching, but when she spoke she shook mountains. "We could make her one of us."

Instantly, I felt reluctant. "Rook, she's the picture of innocence."

"So were we," Beewing snorted.

"Once," Gorsestripe added.

The three of us burst into laughter, while Rooktail remained stone-faced. "I'm being completely serious."

"When aren't you?" Beewing snickered. "I mean, it could work."

Gorsestripe shrugged. "Sure, I guess.  If she's nice."

"Too nice," I said. "Should we really?"

"Yes," said Rooktail. "Wouldn't it be interesting?"

"And we'd be thrusting her right in," said Beewing. "Leafbare starts soon."

"I like leafbare the most," Gorsestripe remarked. "I feel so clean.  Light."

Beewing:  "So we can screw it all up once it gets warm!"

Rooktail let them carry their conversation on. She turned to me as if we were sharing a secret, feminine code. She was always like this when talking to me: almost smiling, staring intently. I was her entire world. "Bring Heatherpaw here tomorrow during training.  Around sunhigh."

I nodded, with no idea what I was getting into.

-*-

It began to snow the next day. Leafbare. The snow was unplanned and arrived after dawn, so we couldn't begin our fasts. However, the start of the season did entail renewing the blood pact.

Heatherpaw was waiting patiently outside when I emerged from the warriors den. "Good morning!" she said cheerily. "What are we doing today?"

"Share a rabbit with someone," I ordered. "You'll need the energy."

Heatherpaw obliged, dragging a hare over to a group of bubbly she-cats, where they began to gossip with each other and whisper. When I was a kit, I indulged in such innocent pleasures. I played tag with the Wildflower Club, before we were a clique. I was born with an injured paw, and when they ran away I always dragged behind. That would be imperative later on. I could never keep up. Not even once.

Gorsestripe padded up to me with a shrew. "Best to get it in before we fast.  Want some?"

He sat down and we shared the oddly tasteless shrew. I suppose we looked like mates, and in a way we were. I was mates with all three of them. I could go up to Gorsestripe or Rooktail or even Beewing and say 'I love you', because it was true. I was in love with them in a way that bordered dementia: I dreamt of them, I thought of them constantly, I would die for them. Before Heatherpaw, they were the only cats I interacted with. I can't recall a single moment of my life that didn't involve them. From the nursery to the grave, they were my first and last and only. Even now, beyond the tomb, after all the mess we made, I love them. I'm enamoured. I loved them I loved them I loved them; and together, we destroyed our world.

Heatherpaw and her friends were staring at Gorsestripe, swooning.

"Wink at them," I whispered.

"What?"

"Just do it.  It's playful."

Gorsestripe winked, but he did so in a way that made him look like a sickly elder with greencough, about to sneeze out a wad of phlegm. The apprentices recoiled.

"That didn't work," Gorsestripe noted.

"You idiot," I shot back, coyly cuffing his ear. "For all your intellect, you can't flirt at all."

He shrugged. "I can't help it.  I'm awful at that type of thing.  Always have been, you know that."

"No kidding."

Heatherpaw bounded up to me after the sun made its lazy climb from dawn to early morning. "I'm ready to go!"

"I'll leave you, then," said Gorsestripe, getting up. I smiled goodbye as he walked out of my sight.

"He seems nice," said Heatherpaw. "Your mate.  What's his name?"

"Gorsestripe." I felt the need to say he wasn't my mate (by conventional standards), but I didn't. "Come on.  I'm going to teach you how to hunt."

We fled from the camp out onto the moors, where we chased rabbits through the snow. She was faster than me and my stupid paw, of course she was. Even with her kitten pudge and lack of training. But then again, when did I ever train, with my mentor who went to see her ShadowClan lover instead of working with me? I don't lament the fact. Without my absent mentor, I would have drifted away from my clique, leading to a future I could never imagine.

Without forewarning, I said:  "I have a secret."

Heatherpaw peeked up from her hunter's crouch. "Oh?  Really?  Is it a big secret?"

"Very.  But you must promise not to tell anyone."

"Okay!"

"Swear by it."

"I swear."

I shifted my weight. "I have a clique.  A club, almost.  Me and three of my friends.  It's very exclusive and very dangerous, but also fun.  And we want to let you in."

"That sounds cool.  Why me?"

"Because you're my apprentice and I like you.  If you do it, you don't have to train."

"But I want to train!  I want to be a good warrior!"

"Not after this, you won't.  We do different things by season.  Leafbare isn't the best but greenleaf is wild.  You should try.  You're mature enough for it.  And smart too."

Her eyes lit up from the flattery and I knew I had her in. "Okay! If you really want me to."

"I do." The sun was at its apex. The Gathering island awaited me. "Follow me."

-*-

"Late, again," barked Beewing. "Not by much, but late."

"Hi," Heatherpaw mumbled, suddenly looking terrified in the harsh white light of the cold. "What exactly are we doing?"

"We're making a pact," I explained. "An important one.  In blood.  You can't tell anyone about this.  You promised, don't forget."

Heatherpaw nodded, younger than I thought. Rooktail shoveler snow into a small hole in the ground, her sharp, ceremonial stone beside her. "We're ready."

"Hold out your paw," I whispered. "Over the snow."

Heatherpaw obeyed. I liked that about her, how she never questioned anything. Just did as she was told, like a lamb. Sweet and sacrificial. The pad of her fluffy white paws were blushing pink against the ground.

Without any hesitation, Rooktail stabbed her skin through and wrenched the rock out. Heatherpaw gasped, shuddering. The blood dribbled down into the snow, staining it deathberry red. She whimpered. We all went through the process, with much less of a reaction. The pain was familiar now. A homecoming. When we tasted the snow, Heatherpaw gagged. For life.

"Jump in the lake," said Gorsestripe. "It's tradition."

"No," Heatherpaw murmured. We glared at her and she fell silent. She would learn not to resist us. Sternly, I reminded her, "There's no backing out now."

We walked Heatherpaw to the edge of the island. She was nauseous and unsteady, miserable in her own decision. The hungry, half-frozen lake bit at her paws. "Do I really have to?"

"Yes," I said, rather forcefully. "Get it over with."

Screwing her eyes shut, Heatherpaw dived headfirst into the lake.

For the longest time, there was nothing. Just the silvery glint of the soft waves and the silence that came from all of us holding our breaths. Stale oxygen. A fish darted by and the lake was slow, rhythmic. For a split, dizzyingly scary second, I thought I had sent her to her watery, drowned death.

But Heatherpaw's head appeared over the water. She dragged herself back into the shore, sand catching in her underbelly.

"There," I said, trying to approach her. "Good job."

Heatherpaw scrambled away from me like I was a monster. Furry, cruel sneer, gangrene. Half my face rotting off and decaying organs. Gaunt and ghostly. Boo!

-*-

"Wake up."

I dragged Heatherpaw out of the apprentice den, while she puttered behind me sleepily. The snow had ceased and the sky was black with early morning. "Where are we going now?"

"To eat."

Breakfast was in the center of camp; a somber composition of a starved rabbit and bitter acorns. We chewed on snow for water, eating as little as possible without fainting. The sun rose and the sky flushed with streaks of pale flame.

"You aren't to eat until sundown," Rooktail instructed. Heatherpaw nodded, consigned to fate.

For all of leafbare this regiment continued, and I began to notice changes in Heatherpaw's lifestyle. Her rolls of kitten fat disappeared, much to my satisfaction, revealing a pallid and translucent interior. She drew away from Clan life; her flighty friends were nowhere to be found. She had no more silly crushes or thoughtless daydreams. If she tried to talk back to us, we made her swim in the lake, something she despised. Through leafbare purge I had created a fascinating creature that was both intense and obedient. My sacrificial animal had matured into a haunting ghost. She spoke less and worked harder; everyone in the group took a liking to her.

Once leafbare ended, she feasted on rabbits, which curled my spine in worry. When I saw her going back for a second piece of prey, I stopped her. "Don't eat any more."

She looked at me with her tired eyes, the spark of curiosity gone. "Why, I'm so hungry."

"I don't care.  No one gets fat under me."

Heatherpaw sighed. Her collarbone peeked out from her flesh and I could count one or two of her ribs. She padded out of my sight and her prescence was replaced by Gorsestripe. "Isn't that a bit creepy?"

"What?"

"How you control her diet.  Leafbare is over.  Let it go."

"No.  We value beauty, and I'm going to keep her beautiful."

"You're going to starve her?"

"If that's what's necessary."

Gorsestripe inched away from me and looked at me in a way that disturbed me. Bug eyes. "I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this idea."

"Why?"

"She doesn't seem to like it with us.  It's different when you enjoy it but she looks awful.  Depressed out of her mind.  I think we should just leave her alone."

"And let her tell everyone about us?  Get us all exiled, or worse?  You would abandon us for her?  Abandon me?"

Gorsestripe paused. "No.  Not for that."

"Then just go with it.  She'll be fine.  What's the worst thing that can happen?"

-*-

Newleaf was a blur of Gatherings and training that all seemed to blend into one another. Heatherpaw grew out of her childhood body and I kept her pretty, however difficult she wanted to be. We did nothing at our meetings but talk, which Heatherpaw seemed to prefer. Gorsestripe spoke to her, mostly, and she liked it. I was jealous over the way she laughed next to him and how he flirted like it was suddenly easy, staring Heatherpaw's body that I sculpted so meticulously. My bouts of envy led me to speak to Rooktail more often, something she lapped up eagerly. She gave me the attention of the world; I could speak to her forever. Beewing added his own lewd commentary on the events from his perch in the treetops.

By greenleaf, Heatherpaw's kittenish joy had returned, all thanks to Gorsestripe, who never spoke to me anymore. Never ate prey or shared tongues, no one whispered about an alleged courtship any more. It was all Heatherpaw. The ditzy she-cats from before giggled when they walked together (which was often). I went into the rapture of greenleaf with a jealous heart and head full of vengeance.

Heatherpaw was eating a plump rabbit on the island, some sunny, clear day. Her eating was refined and slow, but she managed to smear blood along her cheek. She noticed it instantly. "Oh StarClan."

"Don't worry about it," said Gorsestripe. "Here, I've got it."

He leaned in, light reflecting off his immaculate teeth, and licked the blood of her face. So near her mouth, she was giggling. His tongue was soft and quick and I lost my mind.

"You look amazing!" I shrieked, not meaning a word of it. "Why don't you just get blood all over yourself?  Won't you feel gorgeous!"

I skewered the rabbit through the stomach and held it above her head. The blood trickled down her skull and onto her face, nearly in her eyes. I shifted the rabbit over and let it bleed out onto her back, her tail, her paws. Very suddenly, Heatherpaw started to cry.

"Enough!" Gorsestripe shouted, sending the rabbit flying from my paws as Heatherpaw collapsed, shaking and smeared with foreign blood. "What's wrong with you, Skybreeze?"

Both Beewing and Rooktail observed this, not aiding either side. It nearly made me mad towards them as well. "What's wrong with me?  Nothing!  You're the problem here!  You've changed so much since Heatherpaw arrived.  I hate it.  It's like I don't exist to you.  You don't love me anymore."

"I never loved you."

I can't exactly recall what happened next. Beewing started running, I know that. My claws were unsheathed and Heatherpaw started crying harder, cried until she couldn't breathe. Gorsestripe had a massive scratch down his left flank and Rooktail led me away to a secluded spot near the Twolegplace.

"It doesn't matter if he doesn't love you," she said, quickly. "None of it matters.  He doesn't matter.  He doesn't have to love you.  I love you."

"I love you too.  And Beewing.  And I thought I loved him—"

"No.  I don't love Beewing.  Or Gorsestripe.  I love you.  It's only ever been you."

I didn't quite understand what she was saying, my brain was lagging behind. We stood silent for the longest time, before Beewing emerged from the reeds, followed by Gorsestripe and Heatherpaw.

"We should just go home."

I limped behind them through the Twolegplace. Beewing's voice sharp in my memory. Late, late, always late. They crossed over the Thunderpath and I followed, slow and sad. I felt tears spring to my eyes. Never had I felt this unhappy around my almost-family. How had I gotten to this point, limping on the cement, finding love to be difficult? Love! My favorite pastime, my end of ends now eludes me. Light rushed into my vision and I heard a whoosh of sound, akin to wind, but larger. More symphonic. Crescendo! Explosions! The big finale!

From across the Thunderpath, Rooktail's face morphed into that of terror. "Skybreeze!"

The speeding monster killed me instantly.

-*-

Now, I lurk here. With the murderers and the creeps. The cannibals, the psychopaths, the unloved. Our group fractured after I died. Gorsestripe and Heatherpaw ran away together and had kits in a Twolegplace alley. She changed her name to Mallow and loved her kittens fiercely. Eventually, she left Gorsestripe for bittersweet solitude. She loved him, but she could never quite forgive him for letting us ruin her life.

Beewing stopped talking to Rooktail. He tried to date unsuccessfully, and developed the habit of grinding his claws. Staring into the lake, he noticed his front tooth was starting to rot.

Rooktail was bedridden out of sheer grief for a week. She never spoke to anyone and refused to go to Gatherings: she couldn't bear the sight of that island. I think about her confession often, how it was only ever me. I lose sleep over it, and I've come to the bitter conclusion that I never loved her back. Not once.

The wildflowers wilted. The club was gone. Why do the butterflies have to die? I have no valid answer to that question, other than the tattered innocence of my former apprentice. But I suppose we all lose our innocence, we all wither and stop sleeping. Every last one of us. Even the butterflies.