by Erin Hunter
“So a kit’s life is the price to be paid for the warriors whom Thistleclaw might lead into death,” Moonflower growled. “I know that Bluefur believes Thistleclaw would be the wrong leader for ThunderClan. But how do we know that being deputy wouldn’t make him a better cat?”
“We don’t know,” Brambleberry meowed. “And neither does Bluefur. She must make her choices based on what she thinks might happen. I don’t agree with what she’s doing … I would never endanger innocent kits … but I can see why she’s doing it.”
“It is for the good of the Clan,” Owlstar meowed.
“But not for the good of the kit,” Moonflower spat.
“We cannot change what will happen to Mosskit,” Brambleberry meowed. “We can only make sure he is protected on his journey to StarClan.”
“I will take care of him,” I spoke up. The others all looked around at me. “I was a queen when I died,” I pointed out. “My son, Whitepaw, had only recently left the nursery. I remember well how to care for kits … and I miss it. I would be a good mother to this kit.”
Owlstar nodded. “I think Snowfur is right. She would be a good choice.”
“I agree,” Brambleberry meowed.
Moonflower nodded as well, her eyes soft and sad.
I slipped away from the group and followed the edge of the river down toward Sunningrocks. My paws skimmed the smooth pebbles like I was swimming over them. I could feel the cold blasts of wintry air in the forest world, although they could not pierce my thick white fur.
A few fox-lengths into the trees, I found Bluefur curled around three small gray shapes. She was lucky they all looked like her, I thought—if any had had Oakheart’s coloring, some cat in ThunderClan might have suspected her secret by now. Two of the kits were squirming and protesting as Bluefur licked them. The third seemed to be sleeping in the snow. This was Mosskit.
Bluefur kept nudging him with her nose. Her eyes were pools of grief, and I could feel it with her. The snow buffeted her sides, where her ribs were showing through her thin gray fur, but she kept meowing: “Oh, Mosskit! What have I done? Mosskit, please wake up Mosskit, don’t leave. There’s warmth and safety just on the other side of the river. Your father will look after you, I promise. Just a little bit farther, my tiny, brave son.” She crouched closer to him, gathering him between her paws. “Mosskit, how could I do this to you?”
My heart ached for her, but it was too late. Mosskit had crossed over into my world. I ducked my head and whispered, “Mosskit, wake up.”
The dark gray kit opened his eyes and looked at me. “Who are you?” he squeaked. “Why do you have stars in your fur?”
“Don’t be scared,” I murmured. “I’m Snowfur. I’m here to take care of you.”
Mosskit shook himself and staggered toward me on tiny paws. His spirit nuzzled into my fur. Behind him, his body was still curled beside Bluefur, but Mosskit didn’t notice.
“I’m cold,” he protested. “I’m so cold. Cold all the way to the tip of my tail. My whiskers are frozen, look.”
“I know,” I meowed, licking the top of his head. “Come with me, and you will be warm.”
Mosskit hesitated, looking up at me with wide green eyes. “What about my mother?”
“She’ll be all right,” I meowed. It was true. It would be hard for a long time, and she would never forget Mosskit, but she would push aside the memory and focus on her Clan. She would survive.
“But I want to be with her,” Mosskit whimpered. “I want my mother and Mistykit and Stonekit.”
“You will see them again,” I promised. “You will watch over them from the stars until they come to join you.”
He pressed his face into my fur and nodded. I looked back at my sister one more time, and then Mosskit and I walked away, following the moonlight back into the stars.
TERRITORIES
BEYOND THE TERRITORIES
FOURTREES
In a clearing at the center of the forest, where all four Clan territories converge, there is a space sacred to StarClan. Four great oaks stand at the corners of the clearing. At one end is a large boulder called the Great Rock, where the Clan leaders stand during Gatherings. Every month, at the full moon, cats from all four Clans gather here in peace for one night to share the news of the forest.
BLUEPAW SPEAKS:
My First Sight of Fourtrees
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.
HIGHSTONES
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.
HOW THE MOONSTONE WAS DISCOVERED
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 forgetful. 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. “Stargazing, feather-watching, hollow-headed mouse-brain! You could have been killed—you could both have been killed!”
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bsp; 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. “You will learn the ways of healing herbs. You will read the omens we send you to advise your leader on difficult questions and keep your Clan safe.”
Mothflight shook her head. “Windstar will never let me return.”
“Is that true, Windstar?”
Mothflight spun around to see the shadowy figure of her leader.
“You are dreaming, Windstar,” whispered the spirit. “Welcome your new medicine cat. She will return to you.”
Windstar’s ears twitched, and her fur flattened. She looked into Mothflight’s green eyes, nodded, and vanished into the air.
“These are the cats you must find,” another voice meowed. Three cats appeared before her, each of them curled in a sleeping ball.
“Dapplepelt, from RiverClan,” purred one starry cat, padding up to a delicate tortoiseshell.
“Pebbleheart, from ShadowClan,” whispered another, prodding a dark gray tabby until he snarled in his sleep.
“And Cloudspots, from ThunderClan.” The first spirit pointed his tail at a long-furred black cat with white ears, a white chest, and two white paws.
“Bring them here at the next half-moon,” the spirit-cats meowed, “and we will teach you all how to be medicine cats.”
As they faded away, leaving only the glitter of stars, Mothflight stretched and tucked herself into a comfortable ball. Tonight she would sleep beside the Moonstone. Tomorrow, she would return to the forest as the first medicine cat of the Clans.
THE MOONPOOL
When the warrior Clans arrived at their new home by the lake, they knew they needed to find a replacement for the Moonstone. Highstones was too far to travel, and the cats needed guidance from StarClan. The ThunderClan medicine cat apprentice, Leafpaw, was the one who found the Moonpool. This small pool high in the hills above WindClan is surrounded by stone walls and fed by a trickling waterfall. Ancient pawprints in the stone suggest that other cats came to this sacred place once, a long time ago....
AN ANCIENT CAT SPEAKS
My name is Rock. Many generations past, my kin lived on the lakeshore. Now new cats have come here and walk in our pawprints. They have brought their own warrior ancestors with them. Their fur brushes mine as they learn the sky paths I have trodden for seasons.
They live in four Clans, unlike our three Tribes that scattered so long ago. They have a separate medicine cat and leader, unlike our healers, who were both. And they have found the Moonpool, the place of the ancestors. The pool is as round as the full moon.
I used to travel to the Moonpool with the two other healers. Then we followed the stream up to its source, high in the hills, and onward to a deep claw-slice in the hills. At the far end, we climbed a steep, rocky slope to a stream beyond.
We followed the stream up to a barrier of thornbushes. Once inside, we would stand for a short while, looking down at the hollow and listening to the sound of the water bubbling out of the sheer cliff beyond.
In the center of the hollow is the Moonpool.
We knew the path that spiraled down to it like the scent of our own Tribes. Then we closed our eyes, drank from the water’s edge, and waited for the visions to appear. I remember the clear, cold taste of the water, like drinking silver moonlight.
It gives me joy to see new tribes traveling to the Moonpool. I hope it will bring them serenity, wisdom, and guidance for many moons to come.
THE ISLAND
In their new home by the lake, the Clans also needed a replacement for Fourtrees—a place to hold the peaceful monthly Gathering. At first they met by the Twoleg horseplace, but a better spot was soon found. The Island is just off the shore of RiverClan territory. It would be impossible for young cats and elders to swim to, but StarClan made a tree fall across the span of the water. Now the cats use the tree as a bridge to get to the Island every full moon. There they can meet in safety, on neutral, sacred ground.
DUSTPELT SPEAKS:
How StarClan Gave Us a New Gathering Place
When we first arrived at the lake, I remember looking down from the hill and seeing a dark shape on the near end, and I thought to myself, Dustpelt, that’s an island! I said so to Ferncloud, although she doesn’t remember it now.
Hawkfrost said it would be a perfect place for the RiverClan camp. Imagine! One Clan taking the whole Island! And anyway, how would their kits and elders manage the swim from the lakeshore? But StarClan had other plans. They wanted the Island to be the place of Gatherings, a neutral place for the Clans to meet, like Fourtrees.
A huge storm blew in. Mudclaw tried to snatch the leadership of WindClan away from Onewhisker, but we chased him off, down to the lakeshore. Then a bolt of fire struck a tree on the Island and
brought it crashing down on the lakeside, crushing Mudclaw. Onewhisker was the rightful leader of WindClan, and to prove it, StarClan had sent us a way to get to the Island for Gatherings.
Now every full moon, the Gathering takes place in the clearing at the center of the Island, surrounded by bushes and trees. The leaders look down on all the Clans from the branches of a tree, with their deputies on the roots below.
It’s a strong and safe place. And best of all, it belongs to all the Clans now.
SUN-DROWN-PLACE
Not far from the Clan’s new lakeside home, there is a vast expanse of water known as the sun-drown-place. Here the sun sinks into the sea every night as if it were being swallowed up. The water is strangely salty and roars as it beats the shore. This is where Midnight the badger lives. This is where the questing cats were sent to learn that the Clans had to leave the forest and travel to a new home.
TAWNYPELT SPEAKS:
Journey’s End
I could barely lift my paws to follow the others. The air was filled with the smell of salt, and beneath the shrieking of strange birds I could hear a distant roaring sound. I thought the giant cats of LionClan were prowling out of sight.
Then we reached the top of a cliff, and there below us was a sandy slope stretching down to the water. I didn’t know there was room in the world for so much water. We couldn’t even see the end of it. It was frothing and roaring and leaping up onto the sand. The sun was a flame-red ball on the horizon; we watched it sink into the water, leaving the world dark.
Brambleclaw led the way along the cliff, which slanted closer to the water the farther we went. The edge of the cliff was jagged. I could see the frothing water through cracks in the rock. It was through one of these cracks that Brambleclaw fell, with Squirrelpaw and me tumbling after him.