Starlight

Chapter 16

Leafpaw stood at the edge of the clearing and watched the four Clans slip back and forth, cautiously greeting old friends and looking for good places to sit. She wanted to ask Crowfeather how Morningflower was getting on, and if she had eaten the herbs Leafpaw had left for her. She knew he was here, because she had seen him with his Clanmates when ThunderClan and WindClan met beside the horseplace. But he had been padding along with his head down, as if he didn’t want to talk to her or any other cat. Now he had vanished. He couldn’t be more annoying if he tried! Leafpaw thought in frustration.

“Leafpaw! Leafpaw, are you dreaming?”

A paw prodded her in the side. Leafpaw jumped as she realized that Cinderpelt was calling to her. At the same moment she spotted Crowfeather across the clearing.

“Sorry, Cinderpelt,” she murmured.

“When the Gathering’s over,” Cinderpelt meowed, “the medicine cats are going to stay behind.”

Leafpaw pricked her ears. “Has one of them had a sign about the new Moonstone?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Then she added more briskly, “Come on, let’s find somewhere to sit. The Gathering will start shortly.”

Leafpaw glanced at Crowfeather, wondering if she’d have a chance to speak with him first.

Cinderpelt’s gaze followed hers. “Take care where your affections fall, Leafpaw,” she warned quietly. “Remember that you are a medicine cat.”

“I do remember,” Leafpaw protested. “You don’t think I feel any affection for that bad-tempered furball, do you?

Every time we see each other he tries to make trouble. I just wanted to know if Barkface had given Morningflower the rest of the water mint; that’s all.”

Cinderpelt looked at her with the faintest hint of disbelief in her pale blue eyes before leading the way over to the other cats. Leafpaw trailed behind, thinking furious thoughts about the WindClan warrior. Affection? She hated every last hair on his pelt!

Cinderpelt settled down near the tree stump, hitching her injured leg underneath her. Leafpaw was about to sit down as well when she spotted Squirrelflight padding over to Ashfur.

Tingling pulses of distress were coming off her; Leafpaw felt them as painfully as if they were her own.

As Blackstar yowled for silence, Leafpaw darted over and sat down on Squirrelflight’s other side. “What’s the matter?” she whispered. “Have you fallen out with Brambleclaw again?”

“Don’t mention his name! It’s over between us!”

Leafpaw stared at her. “Tell me what happened,” she mewed.

“He was talking to Hawkfrost. He actually stood up for him—a warrior from another Clan! Why won’t he listen to me when I tell him that cat can’t be trusted?”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean, is that all?” Squirrelflight lashed her tail. “I’ve told him you know Hawkfrost is untrustworthy, but he won’t take any notice. It all comes down to trust, and Brambleclaw obviously trusts Hawkfrost more than me. How can we be together, if that’s how he feels?”

Leafpaw felt totally helpless. She was a medicine cat—what did she know about relationships like this? She could understand why Squirrelflight might feel hurt if Brambleclaw preferred spending time with Hawkfrost rather than her, but she was puzzled by the way Squirrelflight seemed so quick to reject Brambleclaw altogether. She pressed her muzzle comfortingly against her sister’s. “Don’t forget they’re half brothers. It’s natural for them to enjoy each other’s company now and then.”

Squirrelflight’s green eyes flashed in the moonlight. “This is about trust! I don’t care that Tigerstar was their father. This is about much more than shared blood!”

Blood… The word echoed in Leafpaw’s ears, and she recoiled. Blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red. She had forgotten about her terrible dream, but now it flooded back into her mind, the water lapping thick and slow like a seeping wound. What did it mean? Whose blood would be spilled?

She looked around for Cinderpelt, desperate to ask her about it, but Firestar, Blackstar, and Leopardstar were standing on the tree stump, ready to begin. Leafpaw had to settle down beside her sister, trying to send wordless comfort to her through the warmth of her fur.

Onewhisker ran over to the stump, but when he tried to leap up his paws slipped and he fell back awkwardly. There wasn’t room for four cats to stand up there together. Firestar and Leopardstar exchanged an uncomfortable glance, but Blackstar meowed roughly, “Stay down there, Onewhisker.

We must get on with the Gathering.”

Onewhisker sat among the roots and bent his head to lick the ruffled fur on his chest.

“It looks as if he isn’t a proper leader,” Squirrelflight mewed.

“I know,” Leafpaw agreed quietly. “The sooner we find another Moonstone the better, so he can receive his nine lives and his name.”

Blackstar addressed the Gathering first. “As we agreed before, we have set our boundary markers along the small Thunderpath leading to the lake,” he announced.

“Leopardstar, I hope that suits you?” His gaze bored into the RiverClan leader as if he were daring her to argue.

Leopardstar dipped her head. “Perfectly, thank you, Blackstar.”

Blackstar looked surprised, and for a moment Leafpaw couldn’t understand why Leopardstar was being so coopera-tive. Squirrelflight had told her the small Thunderpath wasn’t all that far from RiverClan’s camp. The new boundaries had been only roughly agreed upon at the previous meeting, and she thought Leopardstar might have tried to extend her territory. Then she realized that if the Thunderpath were left as the boundary, the Twoleg half-bridge and the little nest Squirrelflight had described to her would be in ShadowClan territory. If the Twolegs caused any trouble it would be ShadowClan’s problem.

“Our boundary with ThunderClan has been scent-marked as well,” the ShadowClan leader went on. “We have claimed the territory as far as the stream that flows into the lake, and farther away from the lake, as far as the dead tree on the other side of the stream.”

“I think it would make more sense to make the stream the boundary all along the border,” Firestar meowed calmly.

“It would make more sense to ThunderClan, maybe,” Blackstar retorted. “But the stream curves sharply at the end of the clearing, veering deeper into our territory, and there are pine trees on both banks. Scent marks are scent marks, Firestar. If you don’t like where we have set them, you should have been quicker with your own.”

The ThunderClan leader gave Blackstar a long look. At last he bent his head.

“Very well,” he mewed. “But ThunderClan has set scent markers on a line stretching from the dead tree to a tall holly and then to an abandoned fox den under a white rock. Set one pawstep past that boundary, and ThunderClan will have something to say.”

“That sounds fair,” Ashfur mewed. “Firestar certainly knows the new territory!”

“For our other border,” Firestar went on, looking down at Onewhisker, “I suggest that we stick to our first idea of using the stream that runs at the bottom of the hill. That way, cats of both Clans will have access to the water.”

“Good idea,” Leafpaw murmured.

“I don’t understand why Firestar’s worried about water.”

Squirrelflight twitched her whiskers. “With the lake right outside our dens, we’re hardly going to get thirsty.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Leafpaw told her. “If Firestar agrees to make the stream our boundary, it means WindClan gets back the stretch of woodland Onewhisker gave to us.”

Squirrelflight blinked. “So this is Firestar’s way of turning him down, without making it look as if Onewhisker were being too generous in the first place?”

Leafpaw nodded.

“Thanks, Firestar.” Onewhisker sounded relieved, although it was impossible to tell whether that was because he wanted to be able to hunt in the trees, or because he knew this would satisfy his more restless warriors. “That’s fine by us. And we’ll take the fence on the far side of the horseplace as our other border.”

“That leaves the rest of the territory for RiverClan,” meowed Leopardstar.

“Except for where we are now,” Firestar warned. “This place should belong to no Clan, so that we have somewhere to gather.”

The RiverClan leader’s eyes narrowed. “You’re very eager to give part of my territory away,” she rasped.

For once Blackstar supported Firestar. “We have to gather somewhere, and there isn’t anywhere else with enough room for all of us.”

“This is obviously RiverClan territory,” Leopardstar insisted. “There are important herbs growing in these marshes.”

Firestar touched her shoulder with his tail. “Leopardstar, our medicine cats hope that StarClan will show us a better place to gather. Give up your claim for now, and maybe by next full moon you will be able to treat all this as yours.”

Leopardstar hesitated, then responded with a curt nod.

“For now, RiverClan will let the four Clans gather here,” she meowed. “But if there is no sign from StarClan within two moons, we will have to think again.”

Firestar went on to tell the other Clans how ThunderClan was settling in, proudly adding that they had already made a new warrior. “Spiderleg keeps his vigil tonight,” he finished.

A shadow fell across the clearing. Leafpaw looked up to see that a cloud had drifted over the moon: not thick enough to hide it completely, but enough to make the night seem dark and eerie. A cold, damp wind swept off the lake, ruffling fur and rattling the branches overhead. Leafpaw noticed some of the cats around her shift uneasily and glance over their shoulders.

“This isn’t like Fourtrees,” Ashfur muttered. “We felt safe there.”

“StarClan is with us, wherever we are,” Leafpaw reminded him, but her words didn’t seem to reassure him or the other cats.

“Onewhisker?” Firestar prompted. “Do you have anything to report? Come up here so we can all hear you.” He jumped down so Onewhisker could take his place on the stump.

“We are settling into our camp,” Onewhisker began.

“Speak up—we can’t hear you.” The testy interruption came from Heavystep, a RiverClan elder.

“And you won’t, if you can’t keep quiet.” To Leafpaw’s surprise it was Mudclaw who sprang up to defend Onewhisker.

“Listen to what our leader has to say.”

Heavystep shot a baleful glare at Mudclaw but said nothing.

Onewhisker started again. “Two of our elders were ill, but they are making a good recovery. We thank ThunderClan for the help they sent us.”

“He shouldn’t have mentioned that,” Leafpaw whispered in Squirrelflight’s ear. “It makes it sound as if WindClan can’t cope without ThunderClan.”

“Maybe they can’t,” Squirrelflight muttered dryly.

Over Squirrelflight’s shoulder, Leafpaw glimpsed something moving in the shadows under the trees. Her pelt prickled with a sense of danger close by. The other cats noticed it too, and half the cats sprang to their paws with their claws extended as two lithe shapes slid out of the darkness. Foxes!

They crept closer, undaunted by the number of cats in the clearing; Leafpaw saw the gleam of their teeth as they drew their lips back in a snarl. With a fierce yowl, Dustpelt hurled himself at one of them. The fox whirled around, snapping at him, but Dustpelt was too fast, clawing its side and darting away out of range of the pointed snout. Rainwhisker, Hawkfrost, and Russetfur raced over to join him, and behind them more cats padded forward in a snarling, bristling line.

Outmatched, the two foxes turned tail and fled, with Dustpelt and a few others hard on their paws. Leafpaw stared into the darkness, her heart pounding, until one by one the cats returned. To her relief, none of them was injured.

Dustpelt padded up to the tree stump, flexing his claws.

“They won’t be so curious next time.”

One or two cats congratulated him, but most were still uneasy, peering around into the shadows as if they expected the foxes to come back. Leafpaw looked up at the sky, clearly visible above the sparse thicket of trees, and wished desperately that they could be back at Fourtrees. They had felt safe there, under the shelter of the four giant oaks, knowing their warrior ancestors had trodden the same ground for uncount-able seasons. There was no sign that their ancestors had ever walked in this place.

“Right,” Blackstar meowed. “Let’s end this Gathering and go home before anything else happens. Unless any other cat wants to speak?”

There was no reply. The cats began dividing into their Clans. There was none of the usual gossip and leave-taking; every cat wanted to be on their way quickly.

“I have to stay behind,” Leafpaw told Squirrelflight.

“There’s a meeting of medicine cats.”

“Will you be okay?” Squirrelflight asked. “Those foxes might be back.”

“Would you come back if Dustpelt had clawed you?”

Squirrelflight brushed Leafpaw’s ear with the tip of her tail. “Fair point, but be careful, all the same.”

Ashfur was waiting for her, and the two cats raced off side by side toward the lake. For once, Squirrelflight didn’t wait to see where Brambleclaw was. Leafpaw saw the tabby warrior a moment later. He had stopped to watch Hawkfrost gathering some RiverClan cats together. With an icy feeling in her fur, Leafpaw wondered if Squirrelflight was right when she accused him of being obsessed with his kin.

She felt a light touch on her side. Mothwing was standing next to her.

“Come on. We’re meeting over there.”

Briefly Leafpaw held her back with a wave of her tail. “Are your elders okay?” she asked in a low voice.

Guilt flooded into Mothwing’s eyes. “Yes, but I’m so sorry, Leafpaw. I should have checked that water more carefully.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Leafpaw brushed against her comfortingly. “How could you smell the water when you were covered in mouse bile? Everything’s fine now, and it just meant we had to find new supplies of herbs more quickly than we might have done. That’s a good thing.”

Mothwing didn’t look convinced. She led Leafpaw to the brambles where the medicine cats had met before, when they first arrived at the lake. Cinderpelt and Barkface were already crouched on a bed of dead leaves, dry and sheltered by the wind-ruffled branches. Mothwing and Leafpaw crept in to join them, and a moment later Littlecloud appeared.

“If there are any more wandering foxes, they won’t find it easy to get at us here,” he remarked as he ducked underneath a bramble to sit beside Cinderpelt.

Barkface, as the oldest medicine cat among them, began the meeting. “That incident with the foxes made it clear we need a better place to gather. We also have to find somewhere like the Moonstone where we can share tongues with StarClan. Have any of you had a sign?”

All the cats shook their heads.

“The Moonstone is more urgent,” Cinderpelt pointed out.

“Unless Leopardstar changes her mind, we don’t need to worry about a gathering place for another moon, but Onewhisker needs his name and his nine lives now.”

“StarClan knows what we need,” Littlecloud murmured.

“Perhaps they’re trying to tell us, and we’re not recognizing their signs.”

“And perhaps hedgehogs will fly,” Barkface retorted. “Do you think we wouldn’t know if StarClan had sent us a sign about something as important as this?”

“Well, maybe there isn’t a Moonstone place around here,” Mothwing meowed.

Leafpaw winced as Barkface gave her friend a withering look. “If there isn’t, then this is not the place StarClan intends us to stay. Do you want to tell all the Clans they have to move somewhere else?”

Mothwing looked down at her paws.

“All the same,” Cinderpelt meowed, “that might be exactly what we have to do if we don’t have a sign soon. The Clans cannot survive without a place to share tongues with StarClan.”

“Perhaps this isn’t where StarClan means us to be after all,” Littlecloud ventured quietly.

Barkface curled his lip. “If we tell the Clans they have to leave, many cats will refuse. What would we do then?”

Guilt gnawed at Leafpaw. Her sister had been among the cats who had led the Clans through the mountains to this place, and she had been the one to interpret the starlight reflected in the lake as a sign that StarClan was waiting for them. Had they been wrong all along?

“Perhaps StarClan wants us to go and look for signs?” she suggested.

Cinderpelt nodded. “You could be right, Leafpaw. We must keep a careful watch until we meet at the half-moon.”

“And ask patrols to keep a lookout for tunnels like Mothermouth,” Barkface added. “If they find anything, their medicine cat can send a message to the rest of us.”

“Good idea,” mewed Cinderpelt.

“If that’s all, we might as well go home,” Barkface rasped.

“I just want to thank Leafpaw for the help she gave our elders when they were sick. They’re doing fine now.”

Leafpaw dipped her head.

“Were your elders sick?” Littlecloud asked. “A couple of ours were, too. They must have picked up a bellyache while we were all together. Mothwing, have you had any trouble in RiverClan?”

Mothwing flashed a glance at Leafpaw. “Yes.”

“Well, don’t give us any details, will you?” Barkface growled. “Are your elders okay or not? What did you treat them with?”

“Juniper berries. And yes, they’re fine, thanks, Barkface.”

Barkface nodded and got up to leave. When the medicine cats wriggled out of the brambles, Mothwing flicked her tail to draw Leafpaw a little way from the others.

“Thanks for not telling them, Leafpaw,” she mewed.

“That’s okay.” Leafpaw could imagine how Mousefur would react if she found out she had been ill because another cat had fed her tainted water.

Mothwing gave her a long look from troubled blue eyes.

“Leafpaw, we are friends, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Leafpaw answered in surprise.

Mothwing hesitated, flexing her claws into the ground. At last she took a deep breath and mewed, “What Cinderpelt said—about watching for signs from StarClan. You do know I won’t get any, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about? You’re the RiverClan medicine cat! Who else is StarClan going to speak to?”

“Stop pretending, Leafpaw.” Mothwing’s tail twitched impatiently. “To me, StarClan, our warrior ancestors, these signs we’re supposed to interpret—they’re nothing but a bunch of stories to keep the Clans happy.”

Leafpaw stared at her friend in horror. How could you be a medicine cat and not believe in StarClan? “B-but you shared tongues with StarClan at the Moonstone, when you were made a medicine cat!” she stammered.

Mothwing lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I had a dream, that’s all. Don’t look so shocked,” she added. “It’s not the end of the world. I can heal my Clan just as well as any medicine cat. I don’t need StarClan to tell me which herb to use.”

Leafpaw opened her mouth to tell Mothwing about the signs she had received, and her precious encounters with Spottedleaf, the former ThunderClan medicine cat, while she slept. Then she realized that Mothwing would dismiss those as dreams, too.

“Come on, Leafpaw,” Mothwing went on. “You said just now that we have to go out and look for our own signs. Why would we need to do that if StarClan is sending them to us?”

“Well… yes. But that’s not the point. Looking for signs isn’t the same as making them up.”

Mothwing flicked her ears. “It doesn’t sound all that different to me.”

Leafpaw felt the ground sway beneath her paws.

Mothwing was questioning everything she had believed since she was a kit. But it was impossible to defend, when everything she knew about StarClan, all the encounters she had had with them, were inside her own head.

“It’s not the same,” she insisted. “That’s what faith in StarClan means—to go on searching, and believing, even when there aren’t any signs. We won’t know for certain that they are really there and watching over us until it’s our time to go and walk with StarClan.”

Mothwing shook her head. “I’m sorry, Leafpaw. It’s not like that for me. Maybe it’s because my mother was a rogue. I can be a loyal RiverClan cat without believing all the myths about our warrior ancestors.”

“But what about your moth’s-wing sign?” Leafpaw prompted. At first, Mothwing had struggled to be accepted as a medicine cat because her mother had not been Clanborn.

When she was still being considered as an apprentice, Mudfur, the previous RiverClan medicine cat, had found a moth’s wing lying outside his den; he had taken it as a sign from StarClan that Mothwing was the right cat to succeed him, and she had begun her apprenticeship. “You can’t say that didn’t come from StarClan,” Leafpaw insisted.

“The moth’s wing?” There was a flash of something like fear in Mothwing’s eyes. “That was—”

“Leafpaw! Are you coming?” Cinderpelt called.

Leafpaw waved her tail in reply; she wanted to hear what Mothwing was about to tell her.

But the RiverClan cat had turned away. “Cinderpelt wants you,” she meowed. “I’ll see you at the next half-moon.”

Before Leafpaw could say anything, she bounded away.

Leafpaw padded over to join her mentor as they made their way back to the lakeshore. Mothwing didn’t believe in StarClan! She had always known Mothwing struggled with some parts of being a medicine cat, but she had thought it was just because she found it hard to learn all the different healing herbs. She had never dreamed her friend simply didn’t believe in their warrior ancestors.

Every hair on Leafpaw’s pelt stood on end. Should she tell Cinderpelt? Would it make any difference? Fear stalked her like a fox as another, even more dreadful thought came to her: had StarClan been silent because they knew that one of the medicine cats didn’t believe in them? Was Mothwing’s lack of faith putting all four Clans in danger of losing their new home?

Leafpaw let out a long sigh.

“Is everything okay?” Cinderpelt asked.

Leafpaw gulped. She didn’t want her mentor to start asking questions about Mothwing. “Yes, fine, thanks,” she replied.

“That sigh wasn’t anything to do with a certain WindClan warrior, was it?”

Leafpaw blinked. “No, it wasn’t,” she retorted. “Nothing to do with a certain WindClan warrior at all!”

Cinderpelt’s eyes glinted but she said nothing more.

Leafpaw gazed at the starshine reflected in the lake and forced herself to see it with Mothwing’s eyes, as nothing more than specks of light. A shiver rippled through her from whiskers to tail-tip. No! She had to trust that her warrior ancestors had meant the Clans to come to this place.

StarClan, show us we are meant to be here, she prayed, but if any of the shining spirits replied, she did not hear them.