Эрин Хантер - Lost Stars

“I’ve had enough of this,” Rosepetal muttered when they were almost halfway to the border. “Let’s find somewhere to shelter for a bit.”

“I don’t mind going on,” Bristlepaw protested, afraid that her mentor was suggesting a rest for her sake.

Stemleaf flicked her ear gently with his tail-tip. “You don’t have to be the bravest cat in the Clan all the time,” he mewed teasingly.

At the same moment Rosepetal angled her ears toward a holly bush that grew at the bottom of a steep rise. “Under there would be good. Come on.”

I guess it’s okay to stop for a little while, Bristlepaw thought as she followed her mentor and wriggled underneath the branches into the warm layer of debris beneath. And it does feel good to be out of the wind.

Crouching beside Stemleaf beneath the holly bush, watching dead leaves whirl past, Bristlepaw couldn’t remember when she had been this happy. Even the wind bringing light flurries of snow, dappling their pelts with faint blotches of white, couldn’t destroy her buoyant mood.

“Will it be this cold every leaf-bare?” she asked Stemleaf.

The orange-and-white tom shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve heard some of the elders say this is the coldest leaf-bare they remember.”

Rosepetal, who had been gazing out into the forest, scrambled to her paws. “The wind is dropping,” she mewed. “We should get going.”

Bristlepaw and Stemleaf followed her out of their shelter into the buffeting wind. Before they had gone very far, Bristlepaw picked up the faint scent of prey, and she spotted a wagtail fluttering to the ground between two massive trees.

“Should I try to catch it?” she murmured to Rosepetal.

Her mentor nodded. “Let’s see your hunting moves.”

Stemleaf swiped his tongue around his jaws. “The Clan has been fed,” he mewed. “No cat will mind if we stop for a little snack.”

Bristlepaw dropped into a hunter’s crouch and began to creep slowly toward the wagtail, setting each paw down as lightly as she could and keeping her tail tucked in to her side. From the corner of her eye she could glimpse Stemleaf, working his way around in a wide circle to approach the wagtail from the other side. For a moment she was dismayed, wondering if Stemleaf thought she wouldn’t make the catch, but then she realized he was only positioning himself to drive the bird toward her. The thought warmed her to the tips of her claws.

The wagtail seemed unaware that danger was close. It was stabbing its beak into debris at the foot of one of the trees, looking for insects. But as Bristlepaw halted, waggling her hindquarters in readiness for her pounce, something alerted her prey. It let out a harsh alarm call and fluttered upward. At the same moment, Stemleaf sprang forward. The wagtail veered away from him, and Bristlepaw was able to leap up and snag it in her claws. Its wings flapped wildly against her chest as she landed, and she killed it with a swift bite behind its head.

“Great catch!” Rosepetal exclaimed.

“Stemleaf helped,” Bristlepaw responded, blinking happily at the orange-and-white tom as he padded up. We make a great team, she added to herself.

“You’ve got the makings of a fine hunter,” Stemleaf said as all three cats crouched down to share the wagtail. “In fact, between that and your bravery when you rescued Rootpaw, you’re going to be quite a strong warrior one day.”

At first Bristlepaw couldn’t find the words to reply, but delight filled her until she couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. Though Stemleaf was young, she knew that the Clan already respected him as a strong and capable warrior.

If he believes in me, then I know I’ll be able to achieve my dream.

“I want to be one of the best warriors in ThunderClan,” she meowed to Stemleaf.

“I’m sure you will be,” he purred.

A picture flickered across Bristlepaw’s mind: an imagined future where she and Stemleaf were striding through the forest, warriors and mates, side by side.

We’ll be the strongest pair in the whole Clan. . . .

Chapter 4

Grassheart’s body jerked as cough after cough battered at her. Eventually the pale tabby she-cat collapsed into her nest in the medicine cats’ den, where she lay stretched out among the bracken, her eyes closed and her body shaken from time to time by more fits of coughing.

Shadowpaw bent over her limp form, sniffing her carefully from ears to tail-tip. “It’s not greencough yet,” he reported to Puddleshine when he finished his examination. “But if this cold weather doesn’t let up, it could easily change to greencough. She’s worse than she was yesterday.”

Puddleshine’s voice came from the shadows at the back of the den. “An outbreak of whitecough is the last thing we need, much less greencough,” he meowed. “We’re getting low on catmint, and even whitecough could be dangerous in this StarClan-cursed cold.”

Shadowpaw hardly paid any attention to his mentor’s grumbling. His mind kept flying back to the half-moon meeting at the Moonpool, and the hazy, indistinct visions of their warrior ancestors. The distant voices, crying out to the living cats, had haunted his dreams ever since, along with an upsetting theory.

I wonder if it was my fault that we couldn’t reach StarClan.

The young tom had always been aware that there was something different about him. Since he was a kit, before he was apprenticed to Puddleshine, he had received odd, unusually strong visions, ones even medicine cats couldn’t explain. Often these visions were accompanied by seizures. And sometimes they were about cats who had nothing to do with ShadowClan.

It wasn’t a bad thing . . . but it was strange. It wasn’t how medicine cats’ visions usually worked. Did that make him somehow unsuitable to follow the way of a medicine cat? And worse . . . was it upsetting StarClan enough to turn them away?

He felt a heavy weight in his belly at the thought that StarClan might be rejecting him.

“Shadowpaw!”

His mentor’s voice, close to his ear, startled Shadowpaw. He turned his head to see that Puddleshine had emerged from the shadows and was standing beside him with an irritated look in his eyes.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Puddleshine demanded.

“Er . . . catmint?” Shadowpaw guessed wildly.

“Yes, I said we’ll have to go into the Twolegplace to get some,” his mentor told him. He hesitated, and then went on. “Shadowpaw, it isn’t like you to be daydreaming. Is something wrong?”

“Wrong—no!” Shadowpaw didn’t dare confess his fears. In the past, Puddleshine had been supportive, but he couldn’t forget how silent and tense his mentor had seemed after the half-moon meeting. What if Puddleshine agreed with him, and sent him back to the apprentices’ den to train to be a warrior? “Everything’s fine.”

Puddleshine let out a disbelieving snort, but his voice was kind as he mewed, “You can tell me. That’s what I’m here for.”

Shadowpaw flicked an ear, thinking quickly. “I was thinking about the meeting, when our StarClan ancestors didn’t come to speak to us the way they were supposed to,” Shadowpaw admitted, stopping short of telling Puddleshine his worst fears. “Does that mean they aren’t watching over us anymore?”

Puddleshine shook his head. “No, of course not. StarClan is always with us. It must be the Moonpool—I’ve never seen it iced over before, so it must be affecting our connection with our ancestors. Once it warms up again, things should get better.”