Erin Hunter - Long Shadows

But that could be tricky, when he was supposed to be a sharpclaw already.

“Will Furled Bracken give me any duties?” he asked Half Moon.

The white she-cat had taken one bite of the blackbird, then began to clean her face and whiskers with her paws. “You might have to hunt for the elders if no cat has any spare,” she mewed. “Don’t you remember how hard it rained last moon?

How Whispering Breeze had to catch prey for all of us because she’s the only cat who doesn’t mind getting her fur wet?”

“Oh, sure,” Jaypaw mumbled.

“I couldn’t believe it when she caught fish!” Half Moon purred. “I’d never tasted fish before.”

“Prey isn’t running well, is it?” Jaypaw thought that was a safe comment to make.

Half Moon shook her head. “Maybe Stone Song isn’t wrong when he says we should think about leaving.” Sadness clouded her eyes. “I remember you said the same.”

“Right,” Jaypaw meowed, relieved to know which side of the argument Jay’s Wing had taken. “There must be somewhere with more prey, and no Twolegs and badgers to bother us.”

“You really think there’s a place like that for us?”

Jaypaw nodded slowly. After all, the Clans found a new home for themselves when the Twolegs destroyed the old forest.

Except that the Clans came here.

By the time Jaypaw was full, there was still quite a lot of the blackbird left. “Do you want any more?” he asked Half Moon.

The white she-cat shook her head. “We could take it to Owl Feather,” she suggested. “Her kits are hungry, and growing fast.”

“Good idea.” Jaypaw wanted to see as much of these cats and where they lived before he went back to ThunderClan. If he went back…

He and Half Moon picked up the remains of the blackbird and headed farther up the hill toward the tunnel entrance.

It seemed to be a popular daytime gathering place, like the clearing in the center of a camp. Several cats were scattered around it, dozing or sharing tongues; Jaypaw waved his tail at Dove’s Wing and Fish Leap as he passed, hoping he looked as if he knew where he was going.

He dropped back to follow Half Moon as she climbed farther up the slope until they broke clear of the trees. On the ridge, she dropped her chunk of blackbird and stood gazing out across the moorland. She pointed her muzzle at a faint purple line in the far distance.

“Stone Song thinks we should go that way,” she mewed.

As he put down his fresh-kill, Jaypaw felt the hair on his pelt start to rise and his paws tremble. Those were the mountains! Could these cats possibly be the ancestors of the Tribe?

Glancing sideways at Half Moon, he saw that she was compactly built, with strong haunches that looked as if they would be good for climbing trees. She didn’t have the wiry build of a Tribe cat.

“What do you think it would be like to travel so far?” Half

Moon asked.

“Hard.” Jaypaw tried to choose his words carefully. “The land that way could be very, very different from the land here.”

“How?”

“Sharp hills of stone that stretch up into the sky,” Jaypaw replied, his mind filled with memories of the journey he had taken to the mountains. “Huge birds, bigger than badgers, that have to be dragged out of the sky by many cats at once.

Tumbling water, filling the air with spray even when there aren’t any clouds…”

“You sound as if you’ve been there already,” a new voice meowed.

Jaypaw stiffened and turned his head to see the hefty gray figure of Stone Song standing behind them. His piercing blue eyes were fixed on Jaypaw.

“I… er… I had a dream,” Jaypaw stammered.

Stone Song’s ears flicked up, his interest intensifying.

“Really? Did you dream anything else?”

“No.” Jaypaw could have told him a lot more, but he didn’t want to get any more tangled up in the gap between what he knew and what these cats thought he should know.

“But you think cats could live there?” Stone Song persisted.

“It wouldn’t be easy,” Jaypaw warned, thinking of the harsh life of the Tribe. “But maybe.”

Stone Song began to pace to and fro along the ridge, the tip of his tail twitching. When he began to speak, Jaypaw could hardly hear him above the roar of the monsters on WindClan territory, which had just begun to move their piles of earth again. He could even feel them in his paws, thrumming through the ground.

“We can’t stay here!” Stone Song growled. “Listen to those monsters! What if they come here and tear up this place, too?”

Jaypaw wanted to say, They won’t , but he remembered in time that he wasn’t supposed to know that.

“It’s wrong,” Stone Song continued, his blue eyes clouded.

“Cats are being lost and prey is disappearing. There must be a better place to live.” He stopped pacing and sat down facing the purple line of the distant mountains, the wind flattening his pelt against his sides. “Maybe that place is in the stone hills you speak of. When I was kitted, my mother said the wind cried over the stones like a birdcall, giving me my name. Perhaps this means I must find a place where the wind sings over stones, and that will be our home.” Sorrow crept into his voice. “My son is never coming back. I cannot wait in this place anymore.”

Half Moon glanced toward him, compassion in her eyes.

Then she looked at Jaypaw with her head tipped on one side.

“Did you really dream of the stone hills?” she meowed. “You seem to see them so clearly.”

Jaypaw shuffled his paws. “There must be lots of different places out there.”

Half Moon’s shining green gaze was still fixed on him.

“You would go, wouldn’t you? To find a new home for us, with plenty of food and no Twolegs?”

“Well…” Jaypaw began.

“If you went, I’d come with you,” Half Moon mewed. “You know that.”

Jaypaw felt overwhelmed by the strength of her gaze; he wasn’t used to looking another cat right in the eyes. The emotion flowing from her pelt threatened to sweep him away. He had never felt it before, not like this, but he knew exactly what it was. She loves me—at least, she loves the cat she thinks I am!

For some reason a picture flickered into his mind of Lionblaze and Heatherpaw. Was this how they had felt? He had never understood before how much they had lost when Lionblaze decided they couldn’t see each other anymore.

Do I love Half Moon ? he wondered. No… but maybe I could love her. I like the way she makes me feel.

Half Moon took a pace toward Jaypaw, who found himself taking a step back. We can’t do this! I’m a medicine cat! he wanted to wail aloud. I don’t belong here. You think I’m some other cat!

To his relief, whatever Half Moon wanted to say was interrupted by a big black tom who leaped up to the top of the ridge and halted beside Stone Song. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

Stone Song turned toward him, blinking as if he had to drag himself back from some distant place. “Oh, it’s you, Dark

Whiskers. Jay’s Wing has had a dream about stone hills and falling water, where there are huge birds to be plucked from the sky, and where Twolegs cannot go. It sounds like a place where we could live safely, with prey and shelter and nothing to harm us.”

Dark Whiskers’s ears flicked up. “Do you believe him?”

Stone Song nodded.

“Then we must go!” Dark Whiskers exclaimed.

Rising to his paws, Stone Song turned to Jaypaw. “If we leave, will you guide us to this place? Will your dreams show you the way?”