Sign Of The Moon

Jayfeather stepped forward. Dovewing tensed; the short-tempered medicine cat was bound to make things worse with some cutting remark. Instead, she was surprised by Jayfeather’s even tones as he began to speak.

“Nothing is wrong, Stoneteller, believe me. We come in peace, as friends.” Waving his tail toward Foxleap and Dovewing, he added, “We thought it would be a good experience for these two young cats to see how the Tribe lives. We have as much to learn from you as you have learned from us in the past.”

Stoneteller let out a snort but didn’t challenge the visitors any further.

“Well done, Jayfeather,” Squirrelflight whispered.

Wing weaved her way through the cats and dipped her head to Stoneteller. “Healer, may these cats share today’s meal?”

“Today’s meal?” Foxleap sounded dismayed. “You mean you only eat once a day? Don’t you get hungry?”

“Don’t you get fat?” a young she-cat countered, looking Foxleap up and down.

Stoneteller gave his permission, though Dovewing could tell he wasn’t thrilled. He stood back as Wing and Brook led the visiting cats across the cave and halted in front of a fresh-kill pile.

“Help yourselves,” Wing invited.

Following Squirrelflight, Dovewing pulled a bird out of the pile and bit into it hungrily. A heartbeat later she was struggling to swallow. Great StarClan, that tastes bitter! She studied the prey carefully; the bird wasn’t any kind she had seen before: bigger than the forest birds, with brown feathers and a hooked beak.

“I don’t see how any cat could catch a bird like this alone,” she murmured, half to herself.

“That’s ridiculous!” Dark exclaimed, overhearing her. He blinked at her scornfully. “As if any cat would be expected to hunt alone. Prey-hunters work together; even kits know that. Watch; we’ll show you. Here—Rain, Snow!” He called to the other to-be who had met them in the mountains, and another young she-cat with a white pelt. “Snow, you be an eagle.”

“Okay.” Snow leaped up onto a ledge in the cave wall.

“Rain, be a prey-hunter with me,” Dark went on.

“But I’m a cave-guard,” Rain objected.

Dark sighed. “So? You can pretend, right? You know what prey-hunters do.”

Rain shrugged and crouched at the bottom of a boulder. Dark also dropped into a crouch a couple of tail-lengths away. The two young cats stayed where they were, quite motionless, while Dovewing watched, puzzled.

“They aren’t doing anything,” Foxleap whispered, looking up from his own prey.

At that moment, Snow dived off her ledge onto the cave floor below. Instantly Dark and Rain pounced in unison, bundling on top of her and slapping her to the ground with their paws when she tried to get up.

“Hey, not so hard!” she yowled.

“What are you doing?” A black she-cat, her belly heavy with kits, glanced over her shoulder with an irritated expression. “You to-bes! This is the time for eating, not for playing.”

“Sorry, Night,” Rain mumbled.

“We were only showing these strange cats—” Dark protested.

“I know, I know,” Night interrupted. “Always excuses… Show them at sunrise, okay?”

Dark ducked his head and yanked a rabbit out of the pile, dragging it away to share with the other to-bes.

“Weird,” Dovewing murmured to Foxleap. She felt a pang of homesickness for her Clan, where any cat who was hungry could eat when they felt like it, provided there was enough prey, and no cat told apprentices off for playing, if they’d finished their duties. “The Tribe cats are really strict!”

Foxleap moved closer to her. “Strict and weird,” he agreed.

When the Clan cats had finished eating, Brook led them across the cavern. “You can sleep here,” she announced. Peering around Squirrelflight, Dovewing saw several shallow scoops in the cave floor, lined with feathers. Those are nests? she wondered, longing for the soft moss and crackly bracken in her own den in the stone hollow.

Brook’s kit Pine leaned over the edge of the biggest scoop and sniffed at the feathers. “That looks really cozy!” he mewed.

“I want to sleep there!” Lark announced, taking a flying leap into the middle of the nest. Feathers swirled up around her and she sneezed as one settled on her nose.

“Certainly not!” Brook exclaimed, her fur fluffing up. “Come out of there at once. We have a perfectly good nest of our own.”

Lashing her tiny tail, Lark scrambled out with feathers clinging to her pelt. Brook brushed them off with her tail and patted her daughter’s fur down again. “Sorry,” she murmured to Squirrelflight. “But you know what they’re like at this age. Sleep well,” she added, as she gathered her kits together with her tail and prodded them away.

“Good night!” Squirrelflight called after her.

Curled up in one of the scoops, Dovewing found it impossible to sleep. The thunder of the waterfall was so loud that it hurt her ears, and there was no way to shut it out. She felt trapped by it; the noise drowned out any other sounds that she might have picked up from beyond it. Never before had she been so closed in by stone and water.

This isn’t right, she thought.