Lost Stars

Bristlepaw flexed her paws to bring feeling back into them as she paused in the snow, surveying the moonlit trees and letting her mentor’s instructions run through her mind. Wind direction . . . uneven ground . . . focus . . . This time I’ll catch something for sure!

Tasting the air, she crept forward, setting each paw down as lightly as a falling leaf, and keeping her tail tucked in to her side. Her ears were pricked to pick up the least sound of prey, but long moments dragged by, and still there was nothing.

Flexing her claws, Bristlepaw couldn’t help letting out a growl of exasperation. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”

Her mentor, Rosepetal, padded up behind her and briefly rested her tail-tip on Bristlepaw’s shoulder. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she explained patiently. “Every cat is having trouble hunting.”

“But it’s been nearly half a moon since I failed my assessment,” Bristlepaw protested miserably. “And since then I haven’t caught any prey. I’m not helping my Clan at all!”

“But it’s not your fault,” Rosepetal reassured her. “I promise you, you’re doing everything right. You’re just having very bad luck in a very bad leaf-bare.”

Bristlepaw heaved a deep sigh. “I guess I’ll just keep trying.”

“No, that’s enough for today,” Rosepetal responded. “It’s getting late; we should be heading back to camp.”

Bristlepaw opened her jaws to argue, then realized that her mentor was right. The scarlet light of sunset had faded. Starlight glittered on the snow-covered ground, except where trees and undergrowth cast patches of deep shade. There would be no more hunting until tomorrow. Reluctantly Bristlepaw nodded; her head and tail drooped as she followed Rosepetal back to the stone hollow.

As Bristlepaw emerged from the thorn tunnel into the clearing, she spotted Thriftpaw and Flippaw bounding across the camp toward her.

“Hey, guess what?” Flippaw yowled as he halted in front of her, panting with excitement. “Thriftpaw caught two mice! Two!”

“It was just luck,” Thriftpaw meowed. Her eyes shone as she tried and failed to hide how proud she was. “And Flippaw nearly caught a vole.”

“I was mouse-brained,” Flippaw confessed. “I messed up my pounce. Hollytuft got it, though.”

“That’s great,” Bristlepaw responded. She wanted to be excited for Thriftpaw, but a weight of misery was gathering in her belly. Obviously there’s prey out there, she thought. How come Thriftpaw can catch it and I can’t?

Heading farther into the camp, with Thriftpaw and Flippaw close behind her, Bristlepaw spotted Bramblestar and the Clan deputy, Squirrelflight, with their heads close together, deep in conversation with the two medicine cats. Curious, Bristlepaw drifted nearer so that she could overhear what they were saying.

“Every Clan is having the same problems?” Bramblestar asked, his amber eyes dark with worry. “No cat can make contact with StarClan?”

“That’s right,” Jayfeather replied. “We haven’t met with StarClan at the last two half-moon meetings. And as far as I know, they haven’t sent dreams or visions to any cat.”

“It’ll be a disaster if we’re cut off from our ancestors for long,” Alderheart added. “What if we don’t follow the right path? What if we mess up our own destinies?”

Bristlepaw was glad to think about something other than Thriftpaw’s hunting success. “Huh!” she muttered, turning to her littermates with a dismissive flick of her tail. “ThunderClan ought to be more worried about the shortage of prey, not whether we can talk to some dead cats in the sky.”

Thriftpaw and Flippaw both let out purrs of amusement at their sister’s daring. But their purrs broke off a moment later and their eyes widened as they gazed at something behind Bristlepaw.

“What?” she asked.

A voice, icy as the leaf-bare wind, cut across the single word. “What kind of stupid furball are you?”

Bristlepaw spun around to see Jayfeather glaring at her from sightless blue eyes. Alderheart, Squirrelflight, and Bramblestar stood beside him. Bristlepaw flinched, taking a pace back. She hadn’t meant any cat to hear her, except for her denmates. It would have to be Jayfeather! He’s the scariest cat in the forest! And Bramblestar . . . I said something stupid in front of my Clan leader! “I . . . uh . . . didn’t mean—” she began.

“You have no more sense than a kit before its eyes open,” Jayfeather snarled. “StarClan holds all the Clans together. If they desert us, we’re nothing but rogues. Clearly you’re too young and stupid to understand what that means, but an older, wiser cat would know that separation from StarClan is the biggest problem we could have to face.”