Sign Of The Moon

“Cats do live in the mountains,” Stoneteller responded dryly. “And more successfully than us, it seems. That’s why we have to waste time patrolling every day, to keep the invaders away from what we can catch.”

“But those aren’t the right cats!” Jayfeather protested. “The Tribe of Endless Hunting didn’t bring them here.”

Stoneteller snorted dismissively. “I just want to be left in peace,” the old cat muttered. He sounded old and very tired. “All that I was proud of has gone. The time of the Tribe is over. When I die, my Tribemates will leave the mountains and find other homes where they will be safe.”

As the old cat’s words faded into silence, Jayfeather’s ears were filled with the sound of roaring water and his vision became washed with gray, splashed with white foam. He was inside the waterfall! For a heartbeat he froze, waiting to feel himself crashing down with it, tossed in the torrent like a fallen leaf. But he could still feel his paws standing on the solid floor of the cave.

Then he choked back a yowl of horror. All around him, the cascade of dark water was full of cats, their paws and tails flailing helplessly, their jaws stretching wide in a soundless screech. They fell down, down, down, into a whirlpool of darkness and foam, and vanished.

But…I know these cats! Jayfeather started to shake. There’s Yellowfang…and Crookedstar…and Lionheart… Is StarClan being destroyed?

Mistystar…and Kestrelwing…and the Tribe cats, too. Brook…Crag…

“No!” Jayfeather choked as he spotted Firestar, the ThunderClan leader reduced to a scrap of orange fur tossed in the crashing torrent.

Dustpelt…Mousewhisker…Brambleclaw…

All his Clanmates, all the cats of the Tribe, falling, falling, to be consumed in water and blackness.

Jayfeather let out a screech and sprang forward as he saw Lionblaze carried past him, his claws outstretched to snag his brother’s pelt and drag him to safety. Instead, darkness slammed down over his vision once more and he found himself back in the Cave of Pointed Stones. Dazed with terror, he stumbled forward and crashed into one of the spikes of stone. His feet shot out from under him and he fell on his side in a pool of water.

Stoneteller began to speak, but Jayfeather wasn’t listening. Scrambling to his paws, he fled, and this time managed to get himself into the tunnel. He bounced off the narrow walls until he emerged in the cavern, gasping. The cave was cool and gray around him, silver light filtering in through the screen of water. A throng of cats were milling around restlessly, or slumped near the cave wall, and for a moment Jayfeather thought that the patrols had come back.

Then, as he tried to steady his breathing and quiet his pounding heart, he realized that he was looking at the cats in the cave.

Is this another vision?

As he hesitated at the mouth of the tunnel, a young white she-cat raced across the floor of the cave and skidded to a halt beside him. Her jaws gaped with astonishment.

“Jay’s Wing!”

Jayfeather stared at her. “Half Moon!”

The cats in the cave started to look vaguely familiar as his gaze flickered from one half-remembered face to the next. His thoughts flew back to when he had emerged from the tunnels below ThunderClan in the time of the ancient cats, who had lived by the lake seasons upon seasons ago, whose paw prints dimpled the path that led down to the Moonpool.

While I was with them, they decided to leave because it was too dangerous to live by the lake. I told them they could find a home in the mountains…and now they’re here!

Half Moon was still gazing at him, her green eyes stretched wide as two small moons. “You disappeared when we set out on our journey from the lake. I thought you didn’t want to be with me—with us, anymore.”

Jayfeather fought back panic, while inside his head thoughts skittered like a mouse trying to escape from a hunting patrol. “I stayed behind. I was scared,” he blurted out. “But when you’d all gone, I was lonely. I decided to follow you.”

Half Moon blinked, and her eyes were clouded. “You…you didn’t even say good-bye. I thought I’d never see you again.”

Before he could answer, Jayfeather spotted Stone Song, the powerful gray tabby tom who had led the ancient cats away from the lake. He was standing in the middle of the cavern with Jagged Lightning by his side, close enough for Jayfeather to hear what they were talking about.

“I’m still convinced that coming here was the right thing to do,” Stone Song meowed. “Back where we came from, we were losing too many cats. Badgers, Twolegs—”

“That’s all very well,” Jagged Lightning interrupted with a flick of his black-and-white tail. “But are we any better off here? We’re all hungry and exhausted, and I’ve never been so cold in my entire life. It was all Owl Feather and I could do to get our kits here. And Dark Whiskers didn’t even make it,” he added with a note of challenge in his voice. “If we’d stayed by the lake, he wouldn’t have been blown off a ledge in the middle of an ice storm!”