Erin Hunter - Starlight

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.