Эрин Хантер - Secrets Оf Тhe Clans

From the moment you take your first pawsteps outside the nursery, you long to go to Fourtrees. You long to meet cats from other Clans, to gaze up at Great Rock beneath StarClan. But you have to wait. Six moons, to be exact, until you’re an apprentice.

My first Gathering was only two days after I received my apprentice name, Bluepaw. In my first training session, I caught a squirrel that was as big as me. My mentor, Stonepelt, was so impressed, he invited me to the Gathering, ahead of the older apprentices.

The moon was as round and yellow as my mother Moonflower’s eyes. She ran beside me, her tail lifted proudly. We stopped at the top of a wooded slope. I gazed down into a wide clearing. At each corner of the clearing was a tree—four massive oaks that looked as old as the Highstones beyond.

The clearing was full of cats, meowing and murmuring. In the moonlight, their fur looked silver, and it rippled like the surface of the river. Their eyes flashed like leaping fish. In the center of the clearing stood the Great Rock. It seemed to grow out of the earth, like the peak of a mountain whose roots spread beneath the whole forest.

My fur tingled as I scrambled down into Fourtrees for the first time. I vowed that one day I’d be the one leading ThunderClan in a flurry of fur and claws into the clearing. I’d be the one who leaped onto the Great Rock with the other Clan leaders. One day, I would be Bluestar, leader of ThunderClan.

Far to the north of WindClan’s territory, across a dangerous Thunderpath, there is a range of mountains known to the cats as Highstones. Deep inside a cave in the mountain lies the Moonstone, a glowing rock turned to silver by the moonlight. This is where cats from all the Clans must go to communicate with StarClan. Leaders travel here to receive their nine lives and their warrior name. Medicine cats visit the Moonstone together once a month at the half-moon, to trade remedies and share tongues with StarClan.

Many moons ago, at the dawn of the forest, Clan leaders had no way of sharing tongues with their warrior ancestors. Spirits appeared to them in dreams, but they had no way of seeking guidance.

At this time, there was a WindClan cat named Mothflight. She had soft white fur and stormy green eyes. Her paws were swift, and her heart was true, but she was restless, easily distracted, and forget-ful. She would return from hunting patrols with berries instead of prey. When asked what the berries were for, she would say she didn’t know, but she thought they might be useful.

More than once, the WindClan deputy, Gorsefur, found Mothflight nosing at plants over the border in other Clans’ territories. If she was caught by cats from another Clan, Gorsefur knew that WindClan would pay the price.

One morning, Windstar was leading a patrol along the edge of the Thunderpath. She felt the rumble of a Twoleg monster beneath her paws and glanced back at her warriors. Her breath caught in her throat.

Mothflight was crossing the Thunderpath, following a light blue feather as it drifted over into ShadowClan territory.

“Mothflight!”

The WindClan leader’s yowl was drowned out by the monster’s roar as Gorsefur dashed across the Thunderpath, shoving Mothflight to safety on the far side. Gravel spat into their faces as the monster rumbled past, trailing foul-smelling smoke.

“Stay here,” Windstar hissed to the rest of the patrol, and sped across the Thunderpath. She was furious. Gorsefur was not just her deputy; he was the father of her kits.

“Mouse-brain!” Windstar growled at the white warrior. “Star-gazing, feather-watching, hollow-headed mouse-brain! You could have been killed—you could both have been killed!”

Mothflight scuffled her paws in the dirt. “I’m sorry, Windstar,” she meowed. “I felt like it was calling to me.”

“The feather?” Windstar meowed. “Calling you where?”

Mothflight nodded at a ridge of jagged stone peaks in the distance, far beyond any Clan territory.

“Very well then,” Windstar meowed. “Follow your feathers, stuff your head with clouds, eat nothing but berries as far as I care.

If you cannot devote yourself to the warrior code, we cannot trust you in our Clan. You must go.”

Mothflight’s face fell. “But I belong to WindClan!”

“This is your punishment, Mothflight.” Windstar’s eyes were cold as the north wind.

Heavy with sorrow, Mothflight left her home. She walked all day, crossing out of ShadowClan territory, toward the teethlike rocks. As she climbed higher, the grass below her paws became bare, rocky soil, and the trees were replaced by boulders as large as the Great Rock at Fourtrees. The sun sank behind the ridge, turning the rocks to sharp black fangs.

Mothflight was licking her scratched paws when a thrush burst out of a bush, flying low to the ground. She tore after it, then came skidding to a halt around a large boulder. Mothflight barely noticed as the bird escaped into the orange sky. She was staring at the mountain in front of her, where a large, square hole yawned in the rock face.

Cautiously she padded up to the opening. It was completely dark inside, black and silent like a gaping mouth. Outside, the shadows were lengthening. She would be an easy target for night predators. She sniffed the black air inside the tunnel; it did not smell of other animals.

Mothflight padded into the mouth of the cave, feeling the cold stone under her paws. She crept forward, feeling the tunnel narrow and wind downward. Sometimes she became aware of other passages going off in other directions, but something drew her on. In the cold black air she felt dizzy and light, as if she were made of clouds. Her tail brushed the roof of the tunnel. But she traveled deeper into the mountain, unafraid.

She didn’t know how long she had been walking when a new scent drifted into her nostrils. It smelled like fresh air and prey.

Mothflight stopped. A silvery light was trickling into the darkness in front of her, revealing a glittering cavern. High in the roof, she saw a triangle of night sky and then the climbing moon. It poured its bright silver light through the hole onto a stone at the center of the cave.

The stone was three tail-lengths high, and it glittered like raindrops on cobwebs. Mothflight crept forward, her fur tingling.

Following an instinct she didn’t understand, she lay down, closed her eyes, and pressed her nose against the cold surface of the stone. Then she opened her eyes. The cave was filled with shimmering cats.

“Welcome, Mothflight. You have found the Moonstone,” one of the spirits murmured. “It is a sacred place. You must take the knowledge of this place back to the forest cats.”

“But I can’t!” Mothflight blurted. “I’ve been exiled.” She hung her head.

“You were exiled precisely for the strengths we need,” meowed the spirit. “Your curiosity, your visions, your openness to the signs in the world. We choose you to be the first medicine cat.”

Mothflight’s heart filled with a strange, fierce joy. “What does that mean?”

“You will devote yourself to your Clan,” meowed another spirit.