Half Moon’s shining green gaze was still fixed on him. “You would go, wouldn’t you? To find a new home for us, with plenty of food and no Twolegs?”
“Well…” Jaypaw began.
“If you went, I’d come with you,” Half Moon mewed. “You know that.”
Jaypaw felt overwhelmed by the strength of her gaze; he wasn’t used to looking another cat right in the eyes. The emotion flowing from her pelt threatened to sweep him away. He had never felt it before, not like this, but he knew exactly what it was. She loves me—at least, she loves the cat she thinks I am!
For some reason a picture flickered into his mind of Lionblaze and Heatherpaw. Was this how they had felt? He had never understood before how much they had lost when Lionblaze decided they couldn’t see each other anymore.
Do I love Half Moon? he wondered. No…but maybe I could love her. I like the way she makes me feel.
Half Moon took a pace toward Jaypaw, who found himself taking a step back. We can’t do this! I’m a medicine cat! he wanted to wail aloud. I don’t belong here. You think I’m some other cat!
To his relief, whatever Half Moon wanted to say was interrupted by a big black tom who leaped up to the top of the ridge and halted beside Stone Song. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
Stone Song turned toward him, blinking as if he had to drag himself back from some distant place. “Oh, it’s you, Dark Whiskers. Jay’s Wing has had a dream about stone hills and falling water, where there are huge birds to be plucked from the sky, and where Twolegs cannot go. It sounds like a place where we could live safely, with prey and shelter and nothing to harm us.”
Dark Whiskers’s ears flicked up. “Do you believe him?”
Stone Song nodded.
“Then we must go!” Dark Whiskers exclaimed.
Rising to his paws, Stone Song turned to Jaypaw. “If we leave, will you guide us to this place? Will your dreams show you the way?”
Jaypaw was bewildered by how quickly everything was happening. How long had they been planning to move? Surely they couldn’t leave just like that? What about Furled Bracken? A decision like this was for their leader to make.
Before he could reply, a small, dusty-brown she-cat appeared on the ridge, padding in Dark Whiskers’s paw steps. “You aren’t talking about leaving again, are you?” she spat. “But this is our home! Why can’t you understand that?”
Stone Song and Dark Whiskers exchanged a glance. “Shy Fawn, it isn’t our home if we can’t live here,” Stone Song mewed quietly.
Shy Fawn’s tail lashed once. “You seem to have forgotten it’s not your decision to make. You know what has to happen: the casting of stones.”
“See, stones again!” Stone Song meowed. “We are linked always to stones; why shouldn’t we live among them, and feed from the sky?”
Shy Fawn glared at him. “I came to tell you Furled Bracken wants to have a meeting.”
“Then we can cast the stones now,” Dark Whiskers announced.
With an annoyed hiss, Shy Fawn headed down the slope toward the trees. Stone Song and Dark Whiskers followed; Jaypaw and Half Moon picked up their pieces of blackbird and brought up the rear.
Jaypaw could feel his companion’s nervousness and wasn’t surprised when she paused halfway down the slope and dropped her prey. “It’s really going to happen!” she exclaimed. “We’re going to cast the stones to decide whether to leave our home!”
Confusion eddied through Jaypaw. It sounded as if the cats used omens from stones to make their decisions. There was a moonfull of questions he wanted to ask, but he knew enough by now to keep his jaws shut and his ears open.
Is this happening because of me? How can I influence what happened all those seasons ago? He couldn’t even think straight because of the feelings that were crackling between him and Half Moon like lightning in greenleaf.
As they continued on down the slope, Dove’s Wing and Fish Leap came running out to meet them, their eyes alight and their tails waving.
“Is there going to be a meeting?” Dove’s Wing asked excitedly. “Will there be a casting of stones?”
Jaypaw nodded.
“About leaving?” his sister gasped, her neck fur beginning to rise.
“We’ll never leave,” Fish Leap declared. “This is our home. What about the Pool of Stars? And the tunnels where we become sharpclaws? How can we lose all that?”
Dove’s Wing’s excitement faded, but her voice was determined as she replied, “If it’s a choice between water and caves, and saving our own lives, then we have to go.”
Fish Leap led the way down the hill to a glade where the undergrowth grew more thickly than anywhere else Jaypaw had seen. He spotted a row of dens under a fallen tree and behind dense ferns. Several other cats were already there.
Half Moon beckoned him with a flick of her tail and led him behind a clump of spiny thistles to where a dark gap yawned at the foot of an oak tree. From inside Jaypaw could hear tiny sounds of mewling.
Half Moon poked her head inside the hollow tree. “Hi, Owl Feather. We brought you some prey.”
As Jaypaw stepped forward to drop his piece of blackbird inside the hollow, he saw a skinny she-cat with pale speckled brown fur, suckling three squirming kits. She looks just like Kestrelpaw, he thought.
“Thanks,” Owl Feather purred. “The kits are ready to try fresh-kill. Hey…” She nudged her kits gently. “Come have some of this blackbird. It’s really good.”
While the kits tasted blackbird for the first time, Half Moon told Owl Feather about the meeting.
“Not before time,” Owl Feather meowed.
“You mean you’d go?” Half Moon gasped. “With the kits?”
“Of course.” Owl Feather spoke as if her decision had been made for moons.
“But what about Jagged Lightning?” Half Moon blurted out, then looked as if she wished she hadn’t asked that.
“My kits will come with me,” Owl Feather replied in a tone that warned no cat should argue with her.
Half Moon gave her an embarrassed nod, and she and Jaypaw backed away from the hollow tree into the glade. By now more cats had arrived. Jaypaw spotted two whose graying muzzles and scant fur showed their age. One of them was a dark brown tom with long legs and knobbly joints; Jaypaw guessed he was Running Horse, who knew so much about herbs. He wondered whether Rising Moon had asked the elder about the horsetail yet; Jaypaw had meant to look for some in the forest, but he had been distracted by finding the Twoleg path and the stone hollow. The other elder was a pale ginger she-cat with green eyes; Jaypaw could see she had once been beautiful, but she was frail now, every rib showing through her pelt.
Opposite Jaypaw, Rising Moon padded into the clearing, nudging along Broken Shadow, who looked so dazed with grief that she didn’t know where she was. A large gray-and-white tom flanked her on the other side; he looked enough like Half Moon that Jaypaw guessed he must be her father, Chasing Clouds.
Furled Bracken was sitting in the center of the glade, waiting for the rest of the cats to appear. Jaypaw thought he looked patient and respectful, not at all like a Clan leader who had just summoned his cats to a meeting. Furled Bracken hadn’t even called to announce it; the news had spread from cat to cat, and they all seemed to be strolling in whenever they felt like it.
At last Stone Song stepped forward from where he had been standing at the side of the clearing beside Dark Whiskers. “We wish to cast the stones,” he meowed.
“About leaving?” Furled Bracken asked.
Stone Song nodded. “Yes.”
With a resigned look, Furled Bracken rose to his paws. “I wish it hadn’t come to this,” he sighed, “but I know there is only one way to decide. Before we cast the stones, I want to remind you all that this has been our home for as long as any cat can remember.”
Any living cat, Jaypaw corrected him. But where have all the dead cats gone? Are they here now, watching us without being able to speak?
“Yes,” Furled Bracken went on with a sad glance
around the clearing, “prey is scarcer this greenleaf than it has ever been before, and yes, the Twolegs are coming closer. But are we really going to turn and flee like mice? We have found a way to survive alongside the badgers, and they have caused us far more trouble in the past than Twolegs. We should stay together and accept that we have to share the lake.”
Jaypaw was almost convinced by the deep emotion behind Furled Bracken’s speech. Several other cats were nodding in agreement, including Rising Moon and the frail old she-cat.
Half Moon nudged him. “Look, Jagged Lightning wants to stay.” She flicked her ears toward a long-legged black-and-white tom, whose amber eyes were glowing with approval of Furled Bracken’s plea. “Owl Feather won’t like that.”
A soft murmur of anticipation ran around the glade as Stone Song stepped forward. “What you say is true, Furled Bracken,” he began, dipping his head respectfully, “but it leaves out too much. What about the cats we have lost? Falcon Swoop died under the paws of a Twoleg monster.”
Jaypaw spotted Dove’s Wing with head and tail drooping miserably at the mention of their mother’s death; quickly he bent his own head.
“Then her mate Falling Rain left us, and no cat knows where he’s gone. And a moon ago”—his voice shook—“Fallen Leaves went into the tunnels and never came out.”
Broken Shadow let out a soft wail at the mention of their son, and Stone Song glanced at her for a heartbeat, his eyes full of love and pain.
“The trial in the caves isn’t supposed to take sharpclaws away from us,” he went on. “It’s supposed to be the making of them, the sign that they’re fully grown and the equal of any other cat. And that’s not all. Prey is disappearing, scared off by Twolegs or taken by foxes and badgers. Even the ground is being torn up by Twolegs, with endless noise and quaking. This isn’t our home now; it’s a place that doesn’t want us anymore.”
More nods and murmurs of agreement followed Stone Song’s speech. A black-and-white cat called out, “But where can we go?”
Jaypaw’s heart sank when he saw Stone Song turn toward him. He could guess what was coming next.
“Jay’s Wing has had a dream,” the tabby tom announced. “He saw a place where we can live: stone hills teeming with prey and shelter, and free from any enemies.”
Jaypaw bit back a protest. He hadn’t made the mountains sound as wonderful as that! But Stone Song had a point; the Clans had made the Great Journey when Twolegs made the forest impossible to live in. And cats had settled in the mountains, long, long ago. If these cats were the ancestors of the Tribe, then perhaps it was Jaypaw’s responsibility to encourage them to go there.
“It sounds a lot better than here,” Dark Whiskers commented.
Rising Moon nodded. “I don’t want to lose my kits down those dreadful tunnels.”
“And we’d be far away from Twoleg monsters,” Whispering Breeze added. “We wouldn’t lose any more cats like my sister was lost.”
Jaypaw saw that Dove’s Wing and Fish Leap were gazing at him expectantly; their glances scorched his fur. They were waiting for him to lead them! Then he realized that all the cats were looking at him in the same way. For a heartbeat his head spun. I can’t do this! I want to go home to ThunderClan!
When his head cleared, Jaypaw saw that the cats had formed into a ragged line, leading up to Furled Bracken. Their gaze was fixed on the ground in front of the line. Jaypaw padded forward to see what they were looking at.
At Furled Bracken’s paws was a circular patch of bare ground, about the size of a tree stump. Beside it was a pile of small, round pebbles that looked as if they came from the lakeshore. Furled Bracken stretched out his claws and drew a line in the earth across the bare patch, dividing it into two halves. Then he pushed one of the stones into the center of one half.
“This side wishes to stay,” he announced. He stepped back to let the next cat choose.
Stone Song padded up. He pushed his stone into the opposite half of the bare patch. “This side wishes to leave.”
Jaypaw stared at the circle of ground in astonishment. These cats were casting the stones themselves! There were no omens, no sharing tongues with StarClan, no obeying the word of the leader. Furled Bracken was allowing the cats to make their own decision. “What sort of way is this to run a Clan?” he murmured under his breath.
And what’s going to happen when all the stones are cast?
The elder Running Horse stepped up and placed a stone in the “stay” half of the circle. “My bones are too old to climb stone hills,” he grunted. “Come on, Cloudy Sun, you know what to do.”
The frail she-cat padded up beside him. “The sun warms me here, and that’s all I want now,” she murmured, pushing a stone to rest beside Running Horse’s. She touched her nose to his ear. “We’ll stay together.”
Stone Song and Dark Whiskers led Broken Shadow up to the circle. Distractedly, as if she hardly knew what she was doing, she set a stone in the “leave” half, and Dark Whiskers added his own with it.
Jagged Lightning padded up, hesitating for a moment while he glanced at Owl Feather. But Owl Feather was absorbed in watching her kits, who were wrestling at her paws. Jagged Lightning voted to stay, and turned away.
Jaypaw realized that Owl Feather had been aware of her mate all the time. As soon as Jagged Lightning had moved off from the circle, she cast her own stone, to leave, without looking at him once.
His belly churning, Jaypaw stepped up to make his own choice, but Furled Bracken held him back with a flick of the tail. “As the newest sharpclaw, you cast the final stone,” he meowed.
Jaypaw’s belly churned when he saw that two straight lines of stones were forming in the half circles. They looked equal; what would happen if there was no clear decision?
Rising Moon was the next cat to step up; she paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and pushed her stone into the “stay” half. “I’ve reared kits here before,” she murmured, “and I’ll rear them again.”
Her mate Chasing Clouds gave her a long, sorrowful look, but cast his stone to leave. Whispering Breeze followed him. The line for leaving was growing longer, but then Fish Leap, Dawn River, and Shy Fawn all went up together and set their stones to stay.
Dove’s Wing padded up slowly, glanced at her friends’ stones, then at Jaypaw, and finally voted to leave. Only Half Moon and Jaypaw were left. Half Moon stepped forward, gazing straight at Jaypaw as she pushed her stone into the “leave” half of the circle.
The lines were equal! Now what do I do? Jaypaw wondered, aware that every cat was staring at him. How can it be fair that I have to make the decision? I don’t even belong here!
His paws trembled as he walked up to the edge of the bare patch and stretched out a paw to draw a stone toward him. It felt sun-warmed under his still-sore pad. “They have to go to the mountains,” he whispered. “They will become the Tribe of Rushing Water.” Closing his eyes, he pushed his stone to the end of the line that voted to leave.
CHAPTER 18
A gasp like the wind in the trees rose from the cats around Jaypaw. “No! No!” Broken Shadow wailed. “Fallen Leaves, I didn’t mean it! I want to stay with you!”
Another wail of distress rose from some other cat; Jaypaw felt a claw of guilt tear briefly at his heart, but he did his best to ignore it. I know that this is the right decision for them.
He padded away from the circle, aware of the glowing look in Half Moon’s eyes. “We’re going to travel together!” she whispered.
Furled Bracken stepped forward. “The stones have been cast,” he announced. “I can no longer be your leader. Stone Song, it is only fair that you lead us into the mountains.” His gaze traveled around the assembled cats. “If any cat thinks Stone Song should not be our leader, speak now.”
They choose their leaders? Jaypaw wondered, astonished. Leaders can retire, and become ordinary sharpclaws again?
Silence followed Furled Bracken’s words, except for the muffled wails of Broken Shadow. Rising
Moon was beside her, comforting her by licking her ear. “Everything will be all right,” she encouraged the grief-stricken she-cat. “Fallen Leaves won’t know you’ve gone.”
You’re wrong, Jaypaw thought. Fallen Leaves will live in the tunnels for moons and moons and moons, in agony that he was abandoned.
Stone Song dipped his head to Furled Bracken. “I will do my best to lead our cats to safety,” he promised. Then he glanced around at the others, meeting the expectation in their eyes. “We shall rest until dusk,” he ordered. “We will leave while the Twoleg monsters are sleeping.”
Cats looked at each other, a flurry of confusion arising even among those who had wanted to leave. “So soon?” Chasing Clouds asked.
“We have waited long enough,” Stone Song replied with a grief-filled glance at Broken Shadow. “There is nothing more to keep us here. Jay’s Wing has told us of the stone hills that are ready for us. They will be our home.”
Chasing Clouds straightened up. “Then let’s hunt,” he suggested. “We’ll make sure that every cat is full fed before we set out.”
Several cats bounded out of the glade as soon as he had finished speaking, looking relieved to have something to do. Chasing Clouds followed them, pausing beside Rising Moon to touch her ear with his nose. “We will raise strong, healthy kits in the mountains,” he promised her.
Rising Moon hesitated for a heartbeat, then twined her tail with his. “I know. I’ll look for some useful herbs,” she added. “Running Horse will help me.”
Memories flooded over Jaypaw of the preparations he and his Clanmates had made before their own journey into the mountains. He wondered if there was any more advice he ought to give these cats, like watching out for the dogs in the barn that had nearly torn Hollyleaf and Lionblaze to pieces.
Mouse-brain! he told himself. The barn probably isn’t even built yet.
Standing alone in the midst of the flurry of activity, Jaypaw couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something missing, something essential for the cats to find their new home and establish themselves securely in the mountains. He just couldn’t think what it was.