Lost Stars

Chapter 4

Grassheart’s body jerked as cough after cough battered at her. Eventually the pale tabby she-cat collapsed into her nest in the medicine cats’ den, where she lay stretched out among the bracken, her eyes closed and her body shaken from time to time by more fits of coughing.

Shadowpaw bent over her limp form, sniffing her carefully from ears to tail-tip. “It’s not greencough yet,” he reported to Puddleshine when he finished his examination. “But if this cold weather doesn’t let up, it could easily change to greencough. She’s worse than she was yesterday.”

Puddleshine’s voice came from the shadows at the back of the den. “An outbreak of whitecough is the last thing we need, much less greencough,” he meowed. “We’re getting low on catmint, and even whitecough could be dangerous in this StarClan-cursed cold.”

Shadowpaw hardly paid any attention to his mentor’s grumbling. His mind kept flying back to the half-moon meeting at the Moonpool, and the hazy, indistinct visions of their warrior ancestors. The distant voices, crying out to the living cats, had haunted his dreams ever since, along with an upsetting theory.

I wonder if it was my fault that we couldn’t reach StarClan.

The young tom had always been aware that there was something different about him. Since he was a kit, before he was apprenticed to Puddleshine, he had received odd, unusually strong visions, ones even medicine cats couldn’t explain. Often these visions were accompanied by seizures. And sometimes they were about cats who had nothing to do with ShadowClan.

It wasn’t a bad thing . . . but it was strange. It wasn’t how medicine cats’ visions usually worked. Did that make him somehow unsuitable to follow the way of a medicine cat? And worse . . . was it upsetting StarClan enough to turn them away?

He felt a heavy weight in his belly at the thought that StarClan might be rejecting him.

“Shadowpaw!”

His mentor’s voice, close to his ear, startled Shadowpaw. He turned his head to see that Puddleshine had emerged from the shadows and was standing beside him with an irritated look in his eyes.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Puddleshine demanded.

“Er . . . catmint?” Shadowpaw guessed wildly.

“Yes, I said we’ll have to go into the Twolegplace to get some,” his mentor told him. He hesitated, and then went on. “Shadowpaw, it isn’t like you to be daydreaming. Is something wrong?”

“Wrong—no!” Shadowpaw didn’t dare confess his fears. In the past, Puddleshine had been supportive, but he couldn’t forget how silent and tense his mentor had seemed after the half-moon meeting. What if Puddleshine agreed with him, and sent him back to the apprentices’ den to train to be a warrior? “Everything’s fine.”

Puddleshine let out a disbelieving snort, but his voice was kind as he mewed, “You can tell me. That’s what I’m here for.”

Shadowpaw flicked an ear, thinking quickly. “I was thinking about the meeting, when our StarClan ancestors didn’t come to speak to us the way they were supposed to,” Shadowpaw admitted, stopping short of telling Puddleshine his worst fears. “Does that mean they aren’t watching over us anymore?”

Puddleshine shook his head. “No, of course not. StarClan is always with us. It must be the Moonpool—I’ve never seen it iced over before, so it must be affecting our connection with our ancestors. Once it warms up again, things should get better.”

Shadowpaw looked at his paws. He hoped the problem would be that simple. He was reassured to learn that Puddleshine thought so.

Outside in the camp he could hear the cheerful voices of his littermates, Pouncestep and Lightleap; they had obviously just returned from a border patrol.

“I’m starving! I thought we’d never get to the end,” Pouncestep announced.

“Me too!” Lightleap agreed. “But we made a good job of those scent markers. SkyClan won’t dare set paw over our borders.”

Shadowpaw sighed. His sisters sounded much more confident as warriors than he felt as a medicine-cat apprentice.

“We’ve done all we can here,” Puddleshine continued. “I’m going on a foraging expedition to see if I can find some catmint. Why don’t you take a break? Talk to your friends, get yourself a piece of fresh-kill.”

“What about Grassheart?” Shadowpaw asked, glancing toward the sick she-cat.

“Grassheart will be fine for a while,” Puddleshine assured him. “Off you go, and have a mouse ready for me when I get back.” He raced off and disappeared down the bramble tunnel that formed the entrance to the camp.

Shadowpaw followed him as far as the pool at the bottom of the hollow, where he paused to lap at the water. Ice was forming on its edges, too, and Shadowpaw wondered how long it would take to completely freeze, like the Moonpool. Then he spotted his mother, Dovewing, weaving twigs into the branches of the den she shared with Tigerstar.

“Hi,” he mewed, bounding over to join her. “Can I help?”

“If you like,” Dovewing replied, pushing a few twigs toward him. “We need every defense we can get against this icy wind.”

“When will this leaf-bare pass?” Shadowpaw asked his mother as he fitted the flexible twigs into place. “It seems to have gone on forever.”

“You’ve lived through a leaf-bare before,” Dovewing told him. “Don’t you remember?”

Shadowpaw shook his head. “Not really. I can remember some of the journey from the big Twolegplace, with Spiresight and the other cats, but nothing about the weather.”

“It was pretty cold, but not as bad as this,” Dovewing meowed. “But this leaf-bare won’t last forever, I promise. Even the worst leaf-bares end. Then we’ll have newleaf, when the snow disappears and the trees begin to bud again. And then, before we know it, it will be greenleaf, when the air is warm.”

“And after that leaf-fall, and then leaf-bare again,” Shadowpaw murmured. He understood the seasons, though they hadn’t been as pronounced in the Twolegplace. Now he wondered what would have happened if Tigerheart and Dovewing hadn’t regretted their decision to leave the Clans and decided to take their family back. We’d be safe and warm inside the big den. How many more times will I have to go through this?

Glancing around the camp, he saw that the early patrols had returned, and that most of the Clan was in the clearing, gathered around the fresh-kill pile or gossiping outside their dens. They all looked thin and bedraggled; every cat was hungry, he knew, and would be until the weather grew warmer again.

Still thinking about the journey from the big Twolegplace where he had been born, Shadowpaw noticed that two of the cats from there, Cinnamontail and Blazefire, were nowhere to be seen.

I don’t think I’ve seen them since yesterday, he realized.

He turned to ask Dovewing if she knew where they had gone, but before he could speak, he was distracted by a bout of furious hissing.

Glancing over his shoulder, Shadowpaw spotted Strikestone and Whorlpelt standing nose to nose with lashing tails and bristling fur, their lips drawn back as they hissed defiance at each other. A heartbeat later Strikestone leaped at Whorlpelt, and the two cats began rolling around on the ground in a snarling, clawing knot of fur.

“Great StarClan!” Dovewing exclaimed, racing across the camp toward them.

Shadowpaw followed, and watched his mother stand poised beside the grappling cats until she could swoop forward and give each of them a sharp swipe over the ear. The two warriors broke apart and sat up, shaking earth and debris off their pelts.

“What’s going on?” Dovewing demanded.

“He put thorns in my bedding,” Strikestone meowed, glaring at Whorlpelt.

“Did not!” Whorlpelt retorted.

Dovewing heaved an exaggerated sigh. “For StarClan’s sake, are you kits?” she asked. “If you have so much energy, you should be using it to help your Clan.”

For a few heartbeats both cats turned their furious glares on Dovewing. Then Whorlpelt hung his head. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It won’t happen again,” Strikestone promised Dovewing.

“I should think not!” Dovewing snapped, turning and padding back toward her den.

Shadowpaw followed, reflecting how irritable the cold weather was making every cat. Now that the skirmish was over, he remembered his uneasiness about the cats from the Twolegplace, and he veered aside to the fresh-kill pile, where his littermates were sharing a vole.

“Have either of you seen Cinnamontail and Blazefire?” he asked.

Pouncestep gulped down a mouthful of prey. “Not a whisker,” she replied.

“I haven’t, either,” Lightleap added. “Not since yesterday.”

By now Shadowpaw was becoming even more anxious. Glancing around, he saw that Tigerstar had appeared and was talking to Dovewing outside their den. Shadowpaw raced over to them.

“That is worrying,” Tigerstar agreed, when Shadowpaw had told him about his concerns. “I haven’t heard of any foxes or badgers moving into our territory, but in this kind of weather, we can’t be too careful. I’ll send out a search party.”

“I’ll lead the patrol,” Dovewing offered instantly.

“Thanks,” Tigerstar responded. “Choose your cats, and start off by going down toward the lake and the halfbridge. The patrol from the far border just returned, so they’re unlikely to be up there.”

“Can I come with you?” Shadowpaw asked his mother, eager for something to do that would take his mind off the misty StarClan cats at the Moonpool.

His mother shook her head. “It’s too cold, and there could be danger,” she told him. “Besides, you’re a medicine-cat apprentice, and this is warrior business. But you can tell Puddleshine to prepare in case our missing Clanmates have been injured.”

She headed off, calling Whorlpelt and Strikestone with a wave of her tail, and beckoning Snowbird from beside the fresh-kill pile, before leading the way out through the bramble tunnel.

Shadowpaw watched them go with a frustrated twitch of his tail, reminding himself to tell Puddleshine when his mentor returned with the catmint. Then he padded over to join his littermates and choose a blackbird for himself from the pile of prey.

“Cinnamontail and Blazefire are missing. Dovewing has gone to look for them,” he reported.

Lightleap blinked nervously. “I hope she finds them. I can’t think why they would go wandering off in this weather.”

“Tigerstar was talking about foxes and badgers,” Shadowpaw murmured unhappily, imagining how dangerous hungry predators would be.

“But I’m sure there aren’t any on our territory,” Pouncestep meowed, giving her shoulder a quick lick. “Cloverfoot told all the patrols to keep a special lookout, and there hasn’t been so much as a sniff.”

“Then why aren’t Cinnamontail and Blazefire here?” Lightleap asked.

Shadowpaw had no answer to that. He finished his blackbird, then chose a mouse for Puddleshine and carried it to their den, checking on Grassheart while he was there. To his relief, the she-cat seemed to have fallen into a quieter sleep, and he felt confident enough to leave her and head back into the clearing to wait for the patrol to return.

He had barely rejoined his Clanmates when there was a stir of movement at the mouth of the bramble tunnel. Dovewing appeared, with Cinnamontail and Blazefire just behind her and the rest of the patrol following. Puddleshine brought up the rear, a few stalks of catmint in his jaws.

Tigerstar emerged from his den to meet the returning cats in the middle of the camp. Shadowpaw padded up to listen, and several more of his Clanmates gathered around.

“Well?” Tigerstar asked. “What happened?”

“My patrol met these two crossing the border.” Dovewing angled her ears toward Blazefire and Cinnamontail. “Crossing back into our territory. They’d been in the Twolegplace.”

“I spotted them lurking around a Twoleg den,” Puddleshine added, speaking around his mouthful of herbs. “I made them come back to camp with me.”

Tigerstar let out a hiss of fury, and glared at the two straying cats with narrowed eyes. “And why were you there?” he demanded.

Cinnamontail scuffled her forepaws in the earth. “Dunno,” she mumbled. “We sort of thought it might be a good place to hunt.”

“Really?” Tigerstar snarled with a lash of his tail. “Now tell me something I’m going to believe.”

Blazefire took a deep breath. “Honestly, we didn’t mean to do it,” he began. “We were just walking in the forest, trying to keep warm, and tasting the air for prey—only there wasn’t any. And then we picked up this other scent, coming from the Twolegplace. It smelled of food. . . .” His voice died away miserably.

“Have I got this straight?” Tigerstar asked. His voice was soft, but Shadowpaw knew how angry his father was. “You went into the Twolegplace to get Twolegs to give you food?”

“Oh, no!” Cinnamontail protested, her eyes wide. “We would never do that. But you know how they throw food away, delicious food, in scrapcans! We thought we could just . . . It’s almost like hunting,” she finished.

“And we were so hungry,” Blazefire added. “You remember, there was always lots of food to be found in the Twolegplace, and even though this Twolegplace isn’t as big, we thought it would be stupid to ignore it.”

“Scavenging from a Twolegplace is not the way of a warrior,” Tigerstar told them, his ears laid back and his pelt bristling with rage. “If that’s what you want to do, maybe you should go and be kittypets, or loners living in the Twolegplace! Then you can find all the food you like. I had thought you both were learning to be strong warriors . . . which means hunting for your food!”

Cinnamontail and Blazefire exchanged a dismayed glance.

“We don’t want that,” Blazefire protested. “We love being part of a Clan. Now we know how to defend ourselves properly, and that there are lots of cats who are loyal to us, who look out for us.”

“We were just so hungry,” Cinnamontail finished.

“Every cat is hungry,” Tigerstar growled, “because prey is scarce. That’s how it is in leaf-bare. But if you come to rely on finding food in the Twolegplace, you’ll forget how to provide for yourselves through hunting. You’ll be weaker warriors, and that means a weaker Clan.”

“We’re really sorry,” Cinnamontail mewed, while Blazefire nodded fervently in agreement.

“‘Sorry’ fills no bellies,” Tigerstar snapped.

Cloverfoot, the Clan deputy, who had been listening closely, stepped up to Tigerstar’s side. “There’s no telling how a cat will react in conditions like these,” she pointed out. “And this is Blazefire’s and Cinnamontail’s first leaf-bare in a Clan. I don’t think we should be too hard on them.”

Tigerstar nodded slowly and took a moment to ponder, while the two straying cats waited, their tension visible in their working claws and quivering whiskers.

“Please don’t send us away!” Blazefire burst out after a few heartbeats.

“No, I won’t do that,” Tigerstar meowed. “I’m tempted to send you out to scrape fresh earth over the dirtplace, but I won’t do that, either. But since you’ve eaten Twoleg food today, you’ll take nothing from the fresh-kill pile until tomorrow. And you’ll go out on a hunting patrol every sunrise from now until the next Gathering.”

“Oh, thank you!” Cinnamontail exclaimed, her eyes shining in relief.

“We’ll never do it again,” Blazefire promised.

“You’d better not,” Tigerstar retorted. “Because if you ever do behave so selfishly again, you’ll wish you’d never left your big Twoleg den. Is that clear?”

Chastened, both cats nodded, and they stood with heads bowed as Tigerstar stalked off.

As the rest of the Clan broke up, Shadowpaw noticed that Puddleshine looked agitated. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I need to ask Tigerstar if he’ll organize extra hunting patrols so that Grassheart can have more food,” he replied. “She needs to keep her strength up.”

Shadowpaw wasn’t sure if his father would agree to that, not after all he had said about prey being scarce, and how important it was for cats not to be selfish. But he said nothing. There’s no harm in Puddleshine asking.

Still carrying the precious leaves of catmint, Puddleshine bounded after Tigerstar and caught up with the Clan leader.

Curious to hear what his father would say, Shadowpaw drifted after him, closer to Tigerstar’s den.

Even before he came within earshot, he could see from Tigerstar’s bristling fur and the gruff sound of his voice that he wasn’t sympathetic to what Puddleshine was asking. Finally he heard his father meow, “Leaf-bare or not, I can’t risk cats overextending themselves on hunts. If I did, the rest of the Clan would end up in your den with Grassheart. And then where would we be?”

Puddleshine dipped his head respectfully; Shadowpaw could see that he wasn’t happy with the Clan leader’s decision, but he didn’t try to argue anymore.

Before his mentor could see that he had been eavesdropping, Shadowpaw headed back to his den, but as he passed the pool in the center of the camp, he spotted his sister Lightleap waving her tail at him.

“Hey, Shadowpaw! Come and play with us,” she called.

Intrigued, Shadowpaw trotted over. Pouncestep was there, too; both his littermates sprang to their paws as he joined them.

“We thought we’d have a play fight,” Pouncestep meowed. “It’ll keep us warm.”

“Do you think I’m mouse-brained?” Shadowpaw asked, his tail curling up in amusement. “I’m not trained like you. You’d claw my fur off.”

“No, we’ll go easy on you, promise,” Lightleap assured him. “Come on! It’ll be fun.”

“I’ll be a badger, invading the camp,” Pouncestep suggested. “And you two can be warriors trying to drive me out.”

“Okay!” Lightleap reared up onto her hind paws and swiped at her sister’s muzzle, her claws sheathed. “Get out of here, filthy badger!”

Pouncestep let out a fearsome growl. “I’m a huge, scary badger, and I’m going to eat you!”

Trying to get into the spirit of the fight, Shadowpaw leaped forward and butted his head into his sister’s shoulder. Pouncestep whipped around, lashing out at him with one paw, but Shadowpaw dodged to one side, and the blow never landed. Shadowpaw felt pride shimmering from his pelt. Did I just dodge a trained warrior?

While she was distracted, Lightleap jumped in and rolled her sister over, battering at her belly with all four paws. Shadowpaw watched Pouncestep trying to shove her off, then crept up from behind Pouncestep’s head and slammed both paws down on her shoulders.

“I think we’ve trapped this badger,” he mewed to Lightleap. “What should we do with it?”

“Shove it out of camp,” Lightleap replied, beginning to push her sister across the ground toward the camp entrance.

Pouncestep let out yowls of protest, her paws and tail flailing, then managed to struggle free and scramble to her paws. “Wow, that was a good fight!” she exclaimed, shaking her pelt to get rid of the debris that clung to it. “And you did well, Shadowpaw,” she added. “You could have been a warrior if you’d wanted.”

“Thanks, but I’m happy being . . . ,” Shadowpaw began to mew, then let his voice trail off as a fierce shiver ran all through his body, shaking him from ears to tail-tip. Between one heartbeat and the next, the camp vanished, and he found himself standing once again beside the Moonpool.

The half-moon hung in the sky, as though this were an ordinary Moonpool meeting, but this time Shadowpaw was alone. The pool wasn’t frozen, but when he looked around him, the shapes of his warrior ancestors were still blurred like mist, glowing with an eerie cold light that gradually faded away.

“Don’t go!” Shadowpaw cried out. “Tell me what’s happening!”

There was no reply. Instead Shadowpaw’s nose twitched as the smell of smoke drifted over him. His pelt began to prickle as he felt the heat of a fire burning close by, though he couldn’t see it or hear the crackle of flames. Ash fluttered in the sky, swirling around him and settling in tiny gray flakes on his pelt.

Then the screech of a furious cat split the silence. Shadowpaw spun around to see the ThunderClan leader, Bramblestar. He had some other cat on the ground and was slashing his claws across its belly. Shadowpaw couldn’t see who the other cat was, until it threw off Bramblestar and stood up.

Shadowpaw let out a gasp. “Tigerstar!”

His father’s dark brown tabby fur was ruffled, and blood was streaming from gashes along his side, but he sprang back undaunted into the fight, cuffing Bramblestar around the ears with both forepaws.

Staring in horror, Shadowpaw couldn’t begin to understand why the two Clan leaders—and they were kin, too, he remembered—would be fighting. But before he could spring forward to intervene, or even ask what they were doing, the vision vanished and he found himself in the camp once more, lying on his side and drawing in long, gasping breaths.

Raising his head, he saw his mother and father gazing down at him anxiously, while Lightleap and Pouncestep looked on from a tail-length away, their eyes wide with fear. Tigerstar’s fur was sleek and neatly groomed, with no sign of any wounds.

“You’ve had another seizure,” Dovewing mewed, bending her head to give Shadowpaw’s ears a worried lick. “I thought you were growing out of them.”

So did I, Shadowpaw thought with dismay. I guess training isn’t making me normal after all.

“You’d better go to your den and let Puddleshine have a look at you,” Tigerstar added.

Shadowpaw’s legs felt as though they would give way like thawing ice as he scrambled to his paws, leaning heavily on his father’s shoulder. He was desperately trying to cling on to the memory of what he had seen. Even though it had been upsetting, the swell of dread in his belly gave him the feeling that somehow his vision might be very important.