It was mid-afternoon when Jax led the mini-caravan into the village. The six cats, with four carts, stopped in the clearing at the center of the village.
Chantel and Nixie helped the other cats unhook themselves from the carts.
“Those carts do make it easy to haul heavy loads,” Jax said, “but pulling one is certainly not my favorite way to travel.”
“I agree,” Piper said, dropping her harness belt and doing a little wiggle, enjoying the freedom. “Next time, we need to sucker someone else to do the pulling.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Suki said, “once you get used to it.”
“I have to agree with Piper,” Jax said, rubbing his sore muscles, “it’s the perfect job for someone else… anyone else.”
“It could be that you two had too heavy of a load,” Shaun said. “Or maybe your load wasn’t balanced quite right.”
“Well, we’re here, and I’m starving,” Piper said. “Whose idea was it to push through lunchtime instead of stopping?”
“Okay, everyone, just leave everything here for now,” Jax said. “Let’s go find something to eat. We all know that a hungry Piper can be a dangerous thing.”
“That’s right,” Piper said, with an evil grin, “feed me now, or suffer the consequences.”
“Yes, Ma’am, right away, Ma’am,” Jax said, giving a mock salute.
“Well, I’m going to check in at home,” Chantel said. “You guys are on your own.”
All the cats headed to their own homes. It had been a long trip for all of them.
After a meal and washing off the trail dust, they all returned to unload the carts.
They found the carts were already unloaded and pulled to the side of the clearing.
“Well, I hope everything got where it belongs,” Suki said. “We might as well take the carts back to the storehouse.”
“Nixie and I are going to check in at the artists’ workshop,” Chantel said. “I imagine Gabby is there, and that’s where the art supplies probably end up.”
“We’ll help haul the carts over to the storehouse and then find Kikki and Tam to let them know exactly what we brought back,” Jax said. “They like to keep their records up to date.”
They left the carts next to the storehouse and went inside. Kikki was inside, checking through the new supplies.
“Hi, guys,” Kikki greeted them. “How was your trip?”
“Long and dusty,” Shaun replied. “Where’s Tam? I don’t see him around.”
“He’s working on a project with Cisco,” Kikki said. “I think they’re down at Cisco’s workshop.”
“Oh, oh, Suki, I think we’ve been replaced,” Shaun said.
“Yeah, maybe we should go see what they’re up to,” Suki replied.
“So, what did you two bring back from Fiery Mountain?” she asked after Suki and Shaun left.
“Those two big bags are each fifty pounds of processed lime for making whitewash,” Piper said.
“Olaf gave us detailed instructions for making the whitewash,” she said, handing Kikki the sheet.
“Wow, this will really help,” Kikki said, reading through the instructions. “I’ll be sure to give this to whoever is doing the mixing.”
“The other small bags are colored pigment for the artists to make their own paints,” Piper said. “The bags are marked with what’s inside. The ones with the color and ‘BL’ marked on them are the pigments that only show up under blue light.”
“It’ll be interesting to see what our artists can do with those,” Kikki said.
“And what’s in this package,” Kikki said, holding up a small bundle. “My goodness, it’s heavy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jax said, “That’s something that Olaf made for Cisco. Let me have it, I’ll take it to him.”
“It’s good to have you two back,” Kikki said as they turned to leave. “I see you at dinner tonight.”
Chantel sat in her cabin with her daughter, Gabby, relaxing after her long trip to the Teacher’s village.
“How’s Grandma?” Gabby asked. “I really hated leaving her alone.”
“Oh, she’s doing fine,” Chantel said. “Searching for clues and new information about the legend has her completely fascinated. And since we’re working on the same thing, she still feels connected to us.”
“I wish I had gone with you,” Gabby said. “I did find something while you were gone that I want to ask you about.”
“Oh, really? And what was that?” Chantel said with surprised interest.
“Take a look at this,” Gabby said, laying a sketch on the table. “It’s the second sketch you made of the Ice Cave that you found while you were looking for the History Tree.”
“Oh, yes, that’s the one I made from memory,” Chantel replied. “I thought the details were very nice.”
“I was looking at it the other night and noticed something,” Gabby said. “Take a look at the back wall where the ice ripples down, coating the entire wall.”
“Okay,” Chantel said, examining that part of the sketch, “that’s how I remember it.”
“Now, look at this section here,” Gabby instructed, pointing to a section of the wall to the right of the pool that took up the center of the chamber.
“Alright,” Chantel said, “what am I not seeing?”
“That section is a darker shade than the rest of the wall,” Gabby said, “almost as if there’s something different in that spot, behind the ice.”
Looking closer, Chantel scanned back and forth across the sketch. “I see what you mean.”
Sitting back, viewing the sketch from this new perspective, she finally said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was a door, a large one.”
“And what, Chantel asked with an excited smile, do you think it might lead to?”
“Well,” Gabby said with a grin, “we have been searching for the cave where the ancient cats stored seeds and documents.”
“If that’s what this is… well it could answer a lot of our questions,” Chantel said, still studying the drawing. “We need to tell Isis about this.”
Isis looked at the two sketches in front of her. “This is the one you drew when you were actually in the Ice Cave,” she said, pointing to one of the drawings, “and this second one is what you sketched from memory. Why are they so different?”
“Well, first of all,” Chantel explained, “I made the first sketch while I was freezing my tail off in the Ice Cave. I made the second sketch hours later when I was warm and comfortable.”
“One thing we’ve learned at the Teacher’s village, is that you see many more details than you realize,” she continued. “If you give your mind time to process all that extra information, it can come to the surface later. That’s what came out in the second drawing.”
“Well,” Isis said with an excited grin, “we need to prepare for a return to the Ice Cave.”