Erin Hunter - Midnight

Mothwing started to do the same, and then paused.

“Leafpaw, will you test me?” she begged.

“Test you—on what?”

“Herbs.” Mothwing’s eyes were wide and anxious. “In case Mudfur expects me to know all of them. I don’t want to let him down. We use marigold to stop infection, and yarrow leaves to expel poison, but what’s best for bellyache? I can never remember.”

“Juniper berries, or chervil root,” Leafpaw replied, mystified. “But why are you getting so worked up? You can always ask your mentor. He won’t expect you to know everything already.”

“Not when I meet StarClan!” Mothwing was almost wailing in distress. “I have to show them that I’m fit to be a medicine cat. They might not accept me if I can’t remember the things I ought to know.”

Leafpaw almost burst out laughing. “It’s not like that,” she meowed patiently. “StarClan won’t ask you questions.

They… Well, it’s difficult to explain, but I’m sure you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“It’s easy enough for you.” To Leafpaw’s surprise, there was a hint of bitterness in Mothwing’s tone. “You were born a forest cat. I have to be better than any other cat, just to be accepted in the Clan.”

Her eyes were huge, shining with a mixture of anger and determination. Pity for her squeezed Leafpaw’s heart, and she swept her tail around to touch Mothwing’s shoulder.

“That might be true of RiverClan,” she meowed, “but it isn’t true of StarClan. You don’t earn StarClan’s approval—they give it as a gift.”

“Well, they might not give it to me,” Mothwing muttered.

Leafpaw stared at her friend in amazement. She was so strong and beautiful, she had all of a warrior’s skills as well as the chance to learn those of a medicine cat, but she was still afraid that she would never belong in the forest.

Moving closer to her, Leafpaw pressed her muzzle comfortingly into Mothwing’s side. “You’ll be fine,” she murmured. “Look at Firestar. He’s not Clan-born, but now he’s ThunderClan leader.” When Mothwing still looked uncertain, she added, “Trust me. When you stand in front of the Moonstone, you’ll understand everything.”

The sun was beginning to sink as the medicine cats approached Highstones. The rough moorland grass gave way to a steep slope of bare soil, with here and there a clump of heather. Outcrops of rock poked through it, blotched with yellow lichen.

Barkface, who had taken the lead, paused on a flat rock and gazed upward. Just below the peak a dark hole gaped in the hillside beneath a stone archway.

“There’s Mothermouth,” Leafpaw explained to Mothwing, and then remembered that her friend would have seen it before, when she made her apprentice journey during her warrior training. “Sorry,” she added. “I know this isn’t your first time.”

Mothwing’s eyes widened as she gazed up at the yawning gap. “This is as far as I went,” she replied. “I wasn’t chosen to go inside.”

“It is frightening, I know—but it’s wonderful, too,” Leafpaw reassured her.

Mothwing drew herself up. “I’m not afraid,” she insisted.

“I’m a warrior. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Not even rejection by StarClan? Leafpaw didn’t dare put words to her thought, but as she settled down beside her friend to wait for nightfall she couldn’t help noticing that Mothwing was trembling.

At last the half-moon floated above the peak and Mudfur rose to his paws. “It’s time,” he rasped.

Leafpaw felt tension in her belly as she followed her mentor up the slope and underneath the stone archway. Cold, damp air flowed toward them, and it almost seemed as if a river of darkness flowed out too, blacker than the night that surrounded them. Leafpaw took her place at the back of the line of cats, just behind Mothwing.

The tunnel sloped down, winding back and forth until Leafpaw lost all sense of direction. The air seemed thick, as if they were underwater as well as underground. She could see nothing, not even Mothwing padding no more than a rabbit-hop in front of her, though she could hear the RiverClan cat’s shallow breathing and smell the fear-scent that came from her.

At last Leafpaw felt a cool ripple in the air around them, and her fur tingled with excitement as she recognized the first sign that they were coming to the heart of the hill. Fresh scents of the world above came faintly to her as she stepped into a large cavern; a glitter of starshine through a hole in the roof showed her soaring walls of stone, and underneath her paws the floor was smooth, well-worn stone. In the center of the cave stood a rock three tail-lengths high. Leafpaw’s eyes widened in awe as she gazed at it, though as yet it was dark, a formidable sleeping presence.

Mothwing’s fur brushed her lightly. “Where are we?” she whispered. “What’s happening?”

“Mothwing, come before the Moonstone,” Barkface announced from farther in the cavern. “We must all wait until the time comes to share tongues with StarClan.” He and the other medicine cats sat around the stone, about a foxlength from it.

Leafpaw heard a shuddering sigh from her friend, and pressed reassuringly against the RiverClan apprentice’s shoulder. “It’s okay for us to sit, too,” she breathed into Mothwing’s ear. As she took her place a tail-length behind Cinderpelt, she felt Mothwing hesitantly sit down beside her.

In the darkness, time stretched out until Leafpaw almost believed that they had been waiting there for seasons. Then, within a heartbeat, brilliant white light flashed into the cave as the moon appeared through the hole in the roof. She heard Mothwing gasp. The Moonstone woke into dazzling life in front of them, glittering in moonlight as if the whole of Silverpelt had swirled down into its crystal surface.

As Leafpaw’s eyes became used to the brilliant light she saw Mudfur rise to his paws, turn, and pace slowly across the cavern floor to stand in front of his apprentice. The white light flooded over his fur so that he looked as if he were covered in ice.

“Mothwing,” he meowed solemnly, “is it your wish to enter into the mysteries of StarClan as a medicine cat?”

Mothwing hesitated. Leafpaw saw her swallow before she replied, “It is.”

“Then come forward.”

Mothwing rose and followed her mentor back across the cavern until both cats stood close to the stone. In its light Mothwing looked unearthly, her golden fur pale as ash and a glint of silver in her eyes—almost as if she had already joined the ranks of StarClan. Leafpaw shivered. That could not be a good thought; she pushed it out of her mind, reluctant to believe that it might be an omen.

“Warriors of StarClan,” Mudfur continued, “I present to you this apprentice. She has chosen the path of a medicine cat.

Grant her your wisdom and insight so that she may understand your ways and heal her Clan in accordance with your will.”

He waved his tail and spoke to Mothwing. “Lie down here, and press your nose against the stone.”

As if she moved in a dream, Mothwing obeyed. Once she was settled, all the medicine cats moved forward to lie in the same position around the Moonstone, and Cinderpelt gestured to Leafpaw to join them. Her fur crawled with anticipation; she knew what was about to happen.

“It is time to share tongues with StarClan,” Barkface murmured.

“Speak with us, warrior ancestors,” Littlecloud meowed. “Show us the destiny of our Clans.”

Leafpaw closed her eyes and pressed her nose against the surface of the stone. At once the cold gripped her body like the talon of a hawk, or as if she had fallen headlong into dark water. She couldn’t see or hear anything, or feel the stone floor of the cavern underneath her; she was floating in a dark night without even the light of Silverpelt.