Starlight

Chapter 17

In the days following the Gathering, Leafpaw searched desperately for anything that could be interpreted as a sign from StarClan. She roamed through the woods, finding places by the stream where burdock and marigold grew, and thick clumps of chervil closer to the camp. But even though it was useful to find new stocks of healing herbs, they didn’t lead her to a place where the Clans could meet with their warrior ancestors. What would happen if the half moon came and StarClan hadn’t sent a sign? Would the Clans really have to think about leaving their new homes, and finding somewhere else?

Two days before the half moon, Leafpaw returned from an herb-gathering expedition with a bunch of strong-scented yarrow. Her eyes were watering, but she recognized Brackenfur coming out of the tunnel through the thorns. He bounded up to Sorreltail, who was on guard.

“Hi, there,” he meowed, touching noses with the tortoiseshell warrior. “Do you want to come hunting later—just you and me?”

Sorreltail let out a purr. “Sure. I’m off duty at sunhigh.”

“Great! I’ll see you then.” Brackenfur gave her ears a quick lick and pushed his way back through the tunnel.

Leafpaw padded up to her friend and put down the yarrow stalks. “So that’s how the prey’s running, is it?”

Sorreltail spun around to face her. “I don’t know what you mean!” she protested.

Leafpaw’s tail curled up with amusement. “Just because I’m a medicine cat doesn’t mean I can’t tell Brackenfur likes you.”

“Well…” Sorreltail’s white forepaws kneaded the ground.

“He’s great, isn’t he?” she mewed, her eyes shining with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

“He certainly is.” Leafpaw pressed her muzzle to her friend’s side. “I’m really happy for you.”

She wished Sorreltail good hunting, then picked up her yarrow and ducked under the thorns that guarded the entrance to the hollow.

“There you are!” Cinderpelt meowed, limping across the clearing to meet her. “Come and look at this.”

Leafpaw followed her over to the tallest part of the cliff.

Brambles had rooted themselves in a crack a few tail-lengths up the rock, their long tendrils hanging down in a curtain.

“The brambles here were really thorny,” Cinderpelt explained. “Far too thick for shelter, so this morning I asked Rainwhisker and Sootfur to shift them. And look what they found.”

She slipped behind the prickly curtain, beckoning with her tail. Leafpaw peered carefully around the tendrils and stopped dead in amazement. A deep cleft yawned in front of her, stretching far enough back that the corners were lost in shadow. At one side water dripped down to form a tiny pool.

The rest of the floor was covered with broken rock, but in between there were patches of sand that would be cool and dry to lie on.

Cinderpelt’s eyes gleamed in the semidarkness. “A perfect medicine cat’s den!” she announced. “What do you think?”

Leafpaw gazed around. This was much better than the spot under the overhang where she and Cinderpelt had been sleeping until now. The little pool meant sick cats could drink easily, and there were plenty of cracks in the rock where they could store herbs. She could sleep just outside in the shelter of the remaining brambles, so Cinderpelt had some privacy at night.

“It’s great!” she mewed excitedly. “I’ll clear out the broken rocks and bring some moss for a nest.”

Cinderpelt called Firestar to see her discovery, and the Clan leader summoned Cloudtail and Brightheart to help clear out the den. By the time daylight faded everything was ready, with comfortable nests of moss and bracken for both the medicine cats.

Leafpaw curled up in her new nest and tucked her nose under her tail. She was warm and sheltered beneath the tangle of brambles, and the cleft was barely a tail-length away, so she could be with a sick cat in less than two heartbeats if they called out during the night. Worn out from moving rocks all afternoon, she shut her eyes.

Almost at once she found herself padding along the shore of the lake with starlight washing around her paws. A few tail-lengths ahead, a lean, gray-black shape was standing on a rock, gazing down into the glittering water. It was Crowfeather.

“Feathertail?” Leafpaw heard him murmur as she approached. “Feathertail, where are you?”

Leafpaw jumped onto the rock beside him, gently brushing her fur against his. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were brimming with sorrow.

“Feathertail is here, among the stars,” she told him gently.

“She’s always with you, Crowfeather, watching over you.”

“Why did she have to die?” he whispered. His eyes burned into hers, and Leafpaw felt as if a thorn had pierced her heart.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

A beautiful sweet scent swept over her, and she looked back to see Spottedleaf waiting for her.

“I must go,” she mewed, turning away from the gray warrior.

Crowfeather didn’t reply. He was staring down at the water again, as if he could find the one star among all of them that was Feathertail’s endlessly shining spirit.

Leafpaw bounded along the shore toward the medicine cat. “Spottedleaf!” she cried. She stopped, sending pebbles rolling away from her paws, and gazed at Spottedleaf until she felt lost in the medicine cat’s shining eyes. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

“I am here now,” Spottedleaf murmured. She ran her muzzle, soft as cobweb, over Leafpaw’s ears.

Leafpaw closed her eyes and drank in the familiar scent.

Then she stepped back and took a deep, steadying breath.

“Why has StarClan been silent?” she asked, struggling with unfamiliar feelings of anger that Spottedleaf had let her go on worrying for so long. “We have searched and searched for another Moonstone, but we haven’t found one. What will we do if we don’t have somewhere to share tongues with StarClan? Will we have to leave?”

“Peace, little one,” Spottedleaf mewed. “Don’t forget that StarClan had to travel here too. This is a new place for us as well, and it will take time to explore every part of it. But starlight on water will show you where to go.”

“Do you mean the lake?”

“No. You must seek a different path this time.”

“Where? Please show me!” Leafpaw begged.

Spottedleaf turned and bounded away. “Wait!” Leafpaw called, but the beautiful medicine cat had already been swallowed up by the shadows.

Leafpaw raced after her. Suddenly the lake vanished and she was running uphill beside a starlit stream; even though she couldn’t see Spottedleaf, the sweet scent hung in the air, guiding her on. Leafpaw’s ears filled with the sound of tumbling, sparkling water, and when she looked down into the stream she felt as if she would drown in starlight.

“Spottedleaf, where are you?”

Her cry echoed around her, bouncing off the rocks and shattering the noise of the waterfall. Leafpaw woke up, gasping and scrabbling in her mossy nest. An owl hooted in the trees overhead, and she let out a hiss of frustration. She had lost Spottedleaf’s trail and might never find out what the medicine cat had wanted to show her. Her heart pounded with the urge to keep running, to climb into the hills and find the sparkling stream.

Peering into the cleft she could just see the gray curve of Cinderpelt’s back, her flank gently rising and falling as she slept. Leafpaw slipped out of the brambles and paused to shake scraps of moss from her fur. It had rained heavily earlier and the walls of the hollow sparkled with raindrops, but now the clouds had cleared away. The moon floated out from behind the trees, and the sky was filled with stars. A cool wind stirred the branches, and Leafpaw heard Spottedleaf’s voice among the gentle rustling: “I am here. Come to me.”

I will come, Spottedleaf, she replied silently. Wait for me.

She padded quietly toward the camp entrance. When she was halfway across the clearing, a tortoiseshell shape appeared from behind some ferns. Leafpaw caught her breath. “Spottedleaf? Is that you?”

“Leafpaw?” came the surprised reply. It was Sorreltail.

“Where are you going?”

“I-I’m not sure,” Leafpaw admitted. “I’ve had a message from StarClan. I have to go and find our new Moonstone place.”

“Now? Can’t you wait for daylight?”

“No.” Leafpaw flexed her claws. “I have to follow a stream filled with starlight.”

“What stream?” Sorreltail’s tail twitched anxiously. “Is it outside our territory? How do you know where to find it?”

“I just do.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Sorreltail mewed.

Leafpaw hesitated. Would StarClan mind if she brought a warrior with her, rather than another medicine cat? Then she remembered that all the cats, including warriors, would go to the Moonstone at least once, and she decided that it would be fine. Besides, she liked the thought of having Sorreltail’s company, especially if they ran into any trouble. She didn’t know exactly where they were going, after all.

“Come on, then!” Leafpaw led the way to the thorn tunnel, where Brackenfur sat on guard with his tail curled neatly around his paws.

“Where are you two going?” he asked, getting up as the two she-cats approached.

“Just out,” Sorreltail replied.

“I’ve had a sign from StarClan,” Leafpaw mewed, knowing that Brackenfur deserved an explanation if he was going to let them leave camp in the middle of the night. “I have to go and find the new Moonstone.”

To her dismay Brackenfur still looked uncertain. “It’s too dangerous for you to go off before daylight. We hardly know this territory yet.”

“Can’t you trust us?” Sorreltail pleaded. “Can’t you trust me? I’ll bring Leafpaw home safe, I promise.”

She and Brackenfur exchanged a long look, and at last the ginger warrior nodded. “Okay, but be careful.”

“Don’t you think we can look after ourselves?” Sorreltail mewed, flicking Brackenfur lightly across the ears with her tail.

Brackenfur let out an amused purr. “Sorreltail, if any cat can look after herself, it’s you.”

Leafpaw took the lead, racing through the forest until she came to the stream that marked the boundary between ThunderClan and WindClan. It ran dark and secret, shadowed by bushes on overhanging banks and looking nothing like the sparkling stream she had run beside in her dream.

Leafpaw bounded up the slope and stopped at the edge of the trees. In her dream she had been running on open hillside, so she knew they had to leave the trees behind.

“Where next?” Sorreltail panted.

“Up,” Leafpaw replied.

They padded onward, following the boundary stream out of the woods and up the hill. When Leafpaw closed her eyes, she felt as if two cats flanked her, one on each side: her best friend Sorreltail, and Spottedleaf, invisible but for the faintest brush of fur and a hint of her sweet scent. When Leafpaw opened her eyes, she thought she could hear a third set of pawsteps, just on the edge of sound.

As they followed the stream into the hills, Leafpaw decided to tell Sorreltail about her dream. “I met Spottedleaf at the edge of the lake, and she told me that starlight on water would be the sign. Not in the lake, but in a stream. The next moment I was running uphill beside a stream, and the water was full of stars.”

“Did you know where you were?”

“I couldn’t see anything I recognized. There were no trees, and the air felt cold and clear, as if I were somewhere very high.”

“We’d better keep climbing, then,” Sorreltail meowed.

The stream slid quietly over its stony bed, the water dark and glimmering. Leafpaw’s head was still full of the surge and bubbling of the stream Spottedleaf had shown her. As they went on it seemed to grow steadily louder, even when they reached the source of the boundary stream and left it far behind.

“I’m coming, Spottedleaf,” murmured Leafpaw.

They came to a cleft in the hills, where the land dipped down as if sliced by a giant claw. The valley was lined with gorse and bracken, and it grew steeper and narrower as they went on, the ground littered with broken rocks. Leafpaw reached the end of the valley first, where it led to a sheer, rocky slope. She stopped to wait for Sorreltail, whose tail was beginning to droop with weariness, though she still padded on determinedly. But Leafpaw felt as though she could run forever. The sound in her head roared and tumbled like the waterfall in the mountains where the Tribe of Rushing Water lived. She had grown so used to hearing it echo in her mind that for several heartbeats she didn’t realize she could hear it in the waking world too.

“Come on!” she cried to Sorreltail. “We’re almost there!”

She launched herself upward, scrabbling and slipping on the damp rock. The peak above her was outlined by the first faint signs of dawn, but stars still shone in the indigo sky.

Wait for me! she begged the glittering warriors. Glancing back at Sorreltail, she called, “Hurry—before the starshine fades!”

She turned to run on, and froze. A cat was standing a few tail-lengths above her, her ears pricked and her tail held high.

Had one of the other medicine cats been guided to this place too? Then she realized it was Spottedleaf, waiting patiently for her, trusting her to find this place even though she had lost her in the dream.

When Leafpaw leaped up to join her, she saw that she stood on the bank of a stream pouring down a deep channel in the rock. Starlight glittered on the surface of the water as it spilled over the stones.

“We’re here!” Leafpaw breathed. “We’ve found it!”

“Follow me,” Spottedleaf urged.

Leafpaw beckoned Sorreltail with her tail. “Quick!

Spottedleaf’s here!”

The tortoiseshell warrior joined Leafpaw in a couple of bounds and looked around. “Where?”

“There!” Leafpaw gestured to the starlit shape standing a couple of tail-lengths away on the edge of the stream.

“I can’t see her,” Sorreltail meowed. She looked worriedly at Leafpaw. “Is that a problem?”

Leafpaw gently drew her tail over Sorreltail’s eyes. “No, of course not. She can see that you are here, and that’s all that matters. Trust me, she is with us.”

Spottedleaf turned away and began to follow the stream upward. Leafpaw scrambled eagerly after her. The ground sloped more steeply than before, and the starlit stream vanished among a barrier of thornbushes that swallowed Spottedleaf like a fish diving into water.

Leafpaw stopped and put her head to one side as she studied the bushes. She had to follow Spottedleaf, but she’d be clawed to pieces by thorns if she tried to push her way through. Then she spotted a tiny gap and ducked between the prickly stems; there was just enough room to squeeze through without losing half her fur, though the thorns still tugged at her pelt. Behind her she could hear Sorreltail following, her breath rasping with the effort of running up the last stretch of rock.

A heartbeat later Leafpaw emerged on the edge of a steep-sided hollow. The ground fell sharply away on the other side of the thornbushes, and Leafpaw swayed for a moment as she struggled to keep her balance. It was much smaller than the hollow where ThunderClan had made their camp, clear of gorse and bramble and with sides that sloped more gently, lined with moss-covered rocks. Only on the far side did the ground rise into a sheer cliff, shaggy with moss and fern.

Water bubbled out from a cleft about halfway up and splashed into a pool in the center of the hollow. The surface of the pool danced and glittered with reflected starlight. It was the most beautiful place Leafpaw had ever seen.

Spottedleaf was standing at the edge of the water. “Come,” she meowed, beckoning with her tail.

Just beside Leafpaw’s paws a narrow path curved around the side of the hollow, spiraling steadily down until it reached the pool below.

She heard Sorreltail push her way out of the thorns behind her. “Wow!” she breathed. “Is this it?”

“I think so,” Leafpaw replied. “Spottedleaf wants me to go down to the pool.”

“Shall I come too?” Sorreltail offered.

Leafpaw shook her head. “I think I should go alone the first time.”

Leaving Sorreltail on the edge of the hollow, she stepped carefully down the path. The rock was dimpled with ancient pawprints, too many to count, and with each step she felt her paws slip into the marks left by cats many, many moons before. They were long gone, but Leafpaw’s fur tingled just to know they once had been here.

At last she stood beside Spottedleaf at the edge of the pool.

“Look at the water, Leafpaw,” the ghostly cat murmured.

Puzzled, Leafpaw looked down, and felt the stone beneath her paws lurch. Instead of stars she saw the reflections of many, many cats, their moonlit pelts shimmering. Countless pairs of eyes gleamed expectantly at her, as if they had known she would come.

Hardly daring to breathe, Leafpaw looked up. All around her sat the shining warriors of StarClan, lining the hollow’s sloping sides. Their eyes glowed like tiny moons, and their fur was tipped with the glitter of frost.

“Don’t be afraid,” Spottedleaf murmured. “We have been waiting for you to find your way to us.”

Leafpaw wasn’t afraid. She was conscious of nothing but warmth and goodwill in the starry gazes fixed on her. Most of the warriors were unfamiliar to her, but in one of the front rows she saw Dappletail, the ThunderClan elder who had died from eating a rabbit poisoned by the Twolegs. The she-cat looked graceful and beautiful, not thin and desperate as she had been when Leafpaw last saw her. Her eyes glowed with welcome, and she nodded toward two small shapes near the water’s edge, tumbling together as they chased a shaft of moonlight. As their play brought them close to her Leafpaw drank in their sweet kit scent. With a stab of joy, she recognized Hollykit and Larchkit, who had starved when Twolegs destroyed the forest. A half-grown cat reached out with a paw to nudge the starry kits away from the water’s edge: it was their brother Shrewpaw, the apprentice struck by a Twoleg monster as he tried to hunt for their Clan.

I must tell Ferncloud, thought Leafpaw, knowing how happy their mother would be to know that her three kits were safe in the ranks of StarClan.

Then she realized that one cat was missing. She ran her gaze quickly around the hollow to make sure. There was no sign of Graystripe. Leafpaw’s heart leaped. Did that mean that Firestar was right when he insisted that his friend was still alive?

Across the pool, a blue-gray warrior rose to her paws. She reminded Leafpaw of some cat… Of course, she’s the image of Mistyfoot! This must be Bluestar, Mistyfoot’s mother, and ThunderClan’s leader before Firestar.

“Welcome, Leafpaw,” Bluestar meowed. “We are delighted to welcome you here. This is where medicine cats must come to share tongues with StarClan, and where your leaders will receive their nine lives and their names.”

“It’s beautiful, Bluestar,” Leafpaw whispered. “Thank you for sending Spottedleaf to help me find it.”

“You must go back and tell all the Clans,” Bluestar continued. “But first there is a friend who wants to speak to you.”

A beautiful silver-gray cat left the ranks of cats and padded around the pool toward Leafpaw.

“Feathertail!”

The radiant warrior came to a halt in front of her. She touched noses with her, a caress light as a breeze whispering against Leafpaw’s muzzle.

“I thought we left you with the Tribe of Endless Hunting,” Leafpaw meowed.

Feathertail shook her head. “I walk in two skies now, with the Tribe’s ancestors as well as my own. But wherever I am, I shall never forget the Clans.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “Especially Crowfeather.”

“He misses you very much. He chose his warrior name for you.”

“Yes, I was watching,” Feathertail purred. “I was so proud.

He will make a great warrior.” She bent close to Leafpaw again, her warm breath stirring the apprentice’s fur. “Tell him not to grieve. I will always love him, but there will be many, many moons before we meet again. For now, he must live with his Clanmates in their new home. He cannot be blind to the cats who are around him for all that time.”

“I’ll tell him,” Leafpaw promised.

Feathertail dipped her head and turned away, starlight dappling her silver pelt. The warriors began to fade until they were little more than a starry sheen around the slopes of the hollow, and then they were gone. Leafpaw caught one more breath of Spottedleaf’s scent before that faded too.

She looked up and saw that the sky was growing brighter.

Sorreltail was standing at the top of the hollow, looking down at her.

Leafpaw ran up the path to join her. “Did you see them?” she asked excitedly.

Sorreltail tipped her head on one side. “See who?”

“StarClan! They were here, all around the hollow! I spoke to Bluestar, and Feathertail!” Leafpaw trailed off when she saw that Sorreltail was looking bewildered, and a little wary.

“I saw a bright mist rising from the pool,” she mewed hesitantly.

“That must have been them,” Leafpaw told her. She gazed around the hollow with the sound of tumbling starlit water filling her ears. “This is the place.”

“Are you sure?”

At that moment the rays of the moon caught the surface of the water, and a pure white light flooded the hollow.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Leafpaw mewed. “We no longer have the Moonstone—but we have the Moonpool. This is the place where StarClan will share tongues with us.” She turned to Sorreltail, feeling her fur glitter with starlight.

“We’ve found it! This is where the Clans are meant to be.”