Erin Hunter - Twilight

“Is all well with your Clan?”

“Everything’s fine,” Cinderpelt replied. “How about ShadowClan?”

“Oh, yes, fine, fine.”

Leafpool thought that the small tabby tom looked distracted. If Cinderpelt noticed, she didn’t say anything, and the three cats headed toward the stream on the WindClan border that they would follow to the Moonpool.

“Mothwing didn’t come with you?” Leafpool meowed.

“No.” Littlecloud twitched his whiskers. “I expect she’s coming through WindClan.”

There was no sign of the RiverClan cat traveling along the shore from the other direction. Leafpool’s paws felt heavy with secrets as she followed the others upstream through the woodland. She wondered if Mothwing had finally decided that she couldn’t be bothered coming to share tongues with cats she didn’t believe in. Or maybe the trouble foretold by Feathertail had already come, and the RiverClan medicine cat couldn’t leave her Clan.

Her anxiety deepened when they met Barkface, the WindClan medicine cat, at the point where the trees gave way to open moorland. He hadn’t seen Mothwing either.

“She can still catch up,” Cinderpelt mewed, as she limped farther up the hill.

As they skirted WindClan territory, Leafpool scanned the moorland slopes. She told herself it was Mothwing’s golden pelt she wanted to see, not the lean gray shape of Crowfeather.

“How are things in WindClan?” Cinderpelt asked Barkface. “Onestar seemed confident at the Gathering.”

“Onestar will make a strong leader.” Barkface’s tone was neutral. If there were still difficulties within WindClan, he obviously wasn’t going to talk about them, not even to other medicine cats.

“You know what I found up on the moors?” Barkface went on, his voice growing more friendly as he changed the subject.

“Of course I don’t, mousebrain!” Cinderpelt flicked his ear gently with the tip of her tail. “But I can see you’re dying to tell me.”

“Goldenrod—huge tall clumps of it.” The older cat let out a satisfied purr. “Very good for healing wounds.”

“That’s excellent news, Barkface,” Cinderpelt meowed.

“Let’s hope you don’t need to use it too soon.”

The WindClan medicine cat agreed with a rumble deep in his throat. “But it’s good to know where it is.”

Leafpool felt a sudden chill. Even counting the fox and the badger, so far they hadn’t encountered many enemies in their new home. They wouldn’t need a supply of goldenrod unless the cats started fighting each other. We all journeyed together not long ago , she thought despairingly. Why do we have to split into four again ?

Night had fallen by the time the four medicine cats reached the Moonpool. Ahead of them rose a cliff of black rock, hung with ferns and shaggy moss. A stream cascaded from a cleft about halfway up; stars glittered on its surface and on the bubbling water of the pool.

Leafpool felt calmer as she pushed through the barrier of bushes that guarded the hollow. Whatever the future would bring, they were all in the paws of StarClan now.

Barkface stood back to let Cinderpelt go first down the path that led around the sides of the hollow. Suddenly Leafpool heard gasping breaths behind her, and the bushes rustled as another cat thrust its way through.

“Mothwing!” she exclaimed, feeling weak with relief. “I thought you weren’t coming. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Mothwing panted. “Busy, that’s all. Sorry I’m late.”

Leafpool caught Cinderpelt giving Mothwing a look from narrowed eyes, as if she wondered what could be so important that it meant being late for a meeting at the Moonpool.

“You’re not late,” Littlecloud mewed, with a friendly wave of his tail. “We haven’t started yet.”

As Cinderpelt led the way down to the pool, Leafpool hung back to whisper to Mothwing. “I thought maybe Feathertail’s prophecy had come true.”

“No, I’ve checked the territory over and over, and there’s nothing.” Mothwing’s brilliant blue eyes gazed seriously into Leafpool’s amber ones. “But I’ll keep looking. I won’t forget.”

She hurried after the other medicine cats.

Leafpool went down last, feeling her paws slip into the pawprints fixed into the hard earth of the path. No cat had been there for moons beyond counting until Spottedleaf had led Leafpool to the place, but the dimpled pawmarks proved that their ancestors had been there many times. Leafpool’s paws tingled at the thought of being in a long line of medicine cats, all serving their Clans with the guidance of StarClan.

At the bottom of the hollow, all five cats crouched down by the edge of the pool and stretched their necks to lap the dancing, star-filled water. Leafpool felt its icy touch on her tongue, tasting of stars and night, and closed her eyes to receive the dreams StarClan wanted to send her.

She expected to see Feathertail, and perhaps receive more explanation of her warning to Mothwing, but the beautiful gray she-cat did not appear. Instead, Leafpool found herself walking through a windy darkness, where the outlined shapes of cats whisked into the corner of her eye and disappeared before she could confront them. She heard a distant wailing, the mingled lament of many cats rising into the night, with no words she could distinguish or voices she could recognize.

“Who are you?” she called aloud. “Where are you? What do you want?”

Only the eerie, distant caterwauling came back to her. Fear pulsed through her, throbbing to the rhythm of her heartbeat. It tugged at her paws, almost making her flee in blind terror through the shadows, but she made herself pace slowly forward, looking from side to side in an effort to find out where she was and what message StarClan had for her.

At last she saw a spot of pure white light, far ahead of her, like a star hovering on the horizon. She raced forward. The light swelled until it filled her vision; then she burst through it and found herself blinking awake on the edge of the Moonpool.

Shivers ran through her and she felt as if every hair on her pelt was on end. When she tried to stand up, she felt so shaky that she flopped down again and lay still, taking deep breaths to calm herself. Looking around, she saw Cinderpelt, Barkface, and Littlecloud still deep in their dreams.

Mothwing, however, had curled up on a flattened stone and was obviously enjoying a peaceful sleep.

“Mothwing!” Leafpool whispered, reaching over to prod her with one paw. “Mothwing, wake up!”

The RiverClan medicine cat’s eyes opened, blinking in confusion at Leafpool. Then she got up and extended her front paws in a graceful stretch. “Honestly, Leafpool,” she complained. “Did you have to wake me? That was the best sleep I’ve had in moons.”

“Sorry, but you wouldn’t want the others to catch you, would you?”

Mothwing glanced at the other three medicine cats, who were all beginning to stir. “No, I wouldn’t. Sorry, Leafpool.”

Leafpool sat up and began to groom her ruffled fur. She wanted to know if the others had received the same confusing dream, and to find out if they could make sense of it. She wasn’t surprised when Cinderpelt, Barkface, and Littlecloud sat up looking solemn and a little puzzled.

“That was a much more confusing dream than usual,” Littlecloud began, giving his chest fur a lick. “Maybe we should discuss it.”

Good , Leafpool thought. Perhaps one of them understands what it meant, because I certainly don’t !

“Claws,” Cinderpelt put in. “I saw huge white claws, ready to tear fur and spill blood.”

Barkface nodded. “And gaping jaws. But were they cats? I couldn’t be sure.”

“And then that voice.” Littlecloud shuddered. “So loud, foretelling death and danger. What does it all mean?”