Bluestar's Prophecy

Still trembling, she followed the ThunderClan leader as he headed to Highstones. The wind, chilly with night air, whipped through her fur. She shivered and glanced up. The sun was no more than a glow over the jagged peaks, and the sky was black overhead. Trembling, she searched out the brightest star. Could that be Moonflower watching her first journey to the Moonstone?

The land sloped and steepened, and the grass turned to stones beneath their paws. Pinestar was breathing heavily, and Bluefur’s belly was beginning to growl. There would be little to hunt on this bare, rocky soil dotted only with heather made ragged by the wind.

She was relieved when Pinestar paused. He lifted his tawny muzzle and stared up the slope. “Mothermouth.”

Holding her breath, Bluefur followed his gaze. Above them, as the slope grew steeper and rockier, a hole gaped in the hillside. Square and black, it yawned beneath a stone archway.

Pinestar glanced at the moon glowing high overhead. “It’s time.”

Chapter 18

“Welcome to Mothermouth.” Pinestar brushed his tail lightly over Bluefur’s shoulder before entering the tunnel. Almost at once, his red-brown coat vanished into the shadows.

With one last glance at the star-filled sky, Bluefur followed. Darkness swallowed her, pressing so thick that she held her breath and waited for the blackness to swamp her like water. Pinestar’s paw steps brushed the floor as it began to slope deep into the earth, and she padded after him with the blood roaring in her ears.

“Pinestar?” she gasped. Freezing air rushed into her lungs. The taste of water and stone and earth bathed her tongue. Where was he? His scent was lost in the jumble of strange odors. Crushed by the darkness, panic surged through her pelt. She darted forward, squawking as she crashed into him and bowled him over.

“What in the name of StarClan are you doing?” Pinestar scrambled to his paws, untangling himself from Bluefur.

Hot with embarrassment, she jumped up, wishing she could see…something. “I got scared.” She felt his pelt press against hers.

“We’re nearly there,” he promised. “I’ll walk beside you till it gets lighter.”

“Gets lighter?” Bluefur peered ahead in disbelief. How could it be light down there? And yet, after a few more paw steps, her eyes detected a glow in the tunnel ahead.

As Pinestar pulled away, Bluefur began to make out the tall, smooth sides of the tunnel, glistening with moisture. And then the tunnel opened into a cavern arching high above Pinestar, making the ThunderClan leader look very small. Vast curved walls reached to a high ceiling and there, at the top, a hole was open to the sky. The scents of heather and wind washed down, and moonlight flooded in and bathed the great stone standing in the center of the cave. The stone reached several tail-lengths high, sparkling like countless dewdrops and illuminating the cave like a captured star.

Bluefur’s paws would not move. She stood and stared, horribly aware of the choking blackness that stood between her and freedom, longing to feel the wind in her fur and frightened by the thought that StarClan shared dreams in this place. Were her ancestors with them now, weaving invisibly around her? She pressed herself against a wall, instinctively backing away from the Moonstone.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Pinestar told her. “I must share dreams with StarClan now.”

Bluefur crouched down, fluffing out her fur to protect her belly from the freezing stone floor. She wondered if sunshine ever filled this cavern the way moonshine did now, and she yearned for warmth and brightness to sweep away the cold, eerie glow.

Pinestar approached the Moonstone and, crouching beside it, touched the sparkling crystal with his nose. Instantly his eyes closed and his body stiffened. Bluefur tensed, waiting for sparks or flashes. But nothing moved or changed; the cave was silent but for the wind sighing down around the Moonstone. The journey had been long and she felt tiredness creep through her. Her eyes glazed and grew heavy, and she let them close so that darkness engulfed her.

Dreaming now, she gulped for air and breathed water. Panic surged beneath her pelt as a fierce current swept her off her paws and tumbled her into endless darkness. Water dragged at her fur, filled her nose and eyes and ears, blinding her, deafening her to all but the terror screaming in her mind. Struggling against the torrent, coughing and fighting, Bluefur thrashed her paws, her lungs aching for air. She searched for light to swim toward, some sense of where the breathing world might be, but saw nothing beyond the endless black water.

She woke gasping, her pelt bristling with fear.

Pinestar stood outlined against the shimmering crystal. He stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Nightmare?”

Panting, she nodded and got clumsily to her paws, still drowsy with sleep and swamped by terror.

“Fresh air will clear your head.” Pinestar led the way from the cavern.