Hattie wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Why would I want to do that? There would be blood and feathers everywhere—ugh!”
Firestar bit back an annoyed response. A kittypet couldn’t understand that a bird—even the scrawniest, toughest thrush—might be the only thing that kept a Clan cat from starvation.
“I used to stalk the birds,” he remarked, padding over to the bush and ducking underneath its branches. “I never caught one, though. They were too quick for me. I learned how to catch prey when I went into the forest.”
“I can’t understand why you left your housefolk,” Hattie mewed, padding over to sit beside him. “They—”
She broke off at the sound of footsteps approaching.
Firestar sprang up and whipped around to see his former Twolegs walking down the path that led around the side of the nest. They had a kit with them—a female, staggering along on short, stubby legs, and clinging with one paw to her mother.
Before the Twolegs could spot him, Firestar darted out of the bush; one outlying branch raked through his fur. He flung himself up the wooden strips of the fence, over the top, and down into the shade of the forest. As soon as his paws touched the ground, he dived into the shelter of a clump of ferns and crouched there, his ears straining for the sound of the Twolegs coming after him. Had he moved fast enough, or had they seen him? He couldn’t even be sure they’d recognize him after so many seasons, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
Gradually his breath slowed. Everything was quiet in the Twoleg gardens. He couldn’t hear any sounds of Twolegs searching for him, only the rustle of the trees and the tiny sounds of scuffling prey. But he stayed hidden until the sun began to set, bathing the forest in scarlet light.
Venturing out of the shadow of the fern fronds, he scented the vole he had killed earlier, dug it up, and devoured it in hungry gulps. Then in the twilight he crept cautiously back to the Twoleg nests and scaled the fence to land unseen in Smudge’s garden.
He padded forward, looking for a place to sleep near the center of the dip, where he imagined the SkyClan camp would have been. A faint sound made him jump, but it was only Smudge, dropping down from the low branch of a tree.
“There you are!” the kittypet gasped. “I thought you’d gone back to the forest. Hattie told me what happened with your old Twolegs.”
Firestar didn’t want to talk about that. “I just kept out of sight until they’d gone,” he explained.
Smudge gave his chest fur a few rapid licks, as if he was trying to hide how anxious he had been. “Are you sure you’ll be able to sleep out here?” he went on. “It’ll be cold now that the sun’s gone.”
“Smudge, I sleep out every night,” Firestar reminded him.
“I’m used to it. I don’t think I could sleep inside a Twoleg nest if I tried.”
Smudge blinked. “Oh, okay. I just thought—”
He broke off as the door of the nest swung open and yellow light poured out into the dusky garden. A female Twoleg stood there, yowling, with a bowl in her hand.
“I’ve got to go,” Smudge meowed, while Firestar crouched down behind a clump of feathery grasses. “My supper’s ready.
Are you sure—”
Firestar suppressed a sigh. “I’ll be fine, honestly.”
“Good night, then.” Smudge ran across the grass with his tail in the air and rubbed against the Twoleg. She bent down to stroke him, then closed the door.
Firestar padded down into the dip until he reached a bush covered with sweet-smelling white flowers that glimmered pale in the dim light. Sliding underneath the low-growing branches, he scraped out a rough nest, and sneezed as a couple of petals drifted down onto his nose.
As he curled up, he thought how strange it felt to be back in Twolegplace after so long. The faint sounds coming from the nest were oddly familiar, and so was the orange light spreading over the sky. The harsh glow hid the stars, so that Firestar felt even farther away from his warrior ancestors.
Gazing up through the branches, he formed a silent prayer, but it was not to StarClan.
Warrior of SkyClan, wherever you are, visit me in my dreams.
Damp cold woke him, soaking into his pelt. Above his head, the orange sky was softened by mist. Shivering, he crawled out from under the bush to stretch his stiff legs, and froze midway through a stretch.
The gray-and-white cat was sitting a few tail-lengths away.
Mist wreathed around him, and he watched Firestar with eyes the color of a pale winter sky.
“I have been waiting for you,” he meowed.
Chapter 8
“Wh-who are you?” Firestar stammered. “What’s your name?”
The strange cat looked at him blankly. “It’s been so long since any cat spoke my name, I don’t need it anymore.” His eyes spoke to Firestar of deep sadness; his voice ached with it, so that Firestar could hardly bear to listen.
“Do you come from SkyClan?” he asked, though he was almost sure what the answer would be.
The pale-furred cat twitched his whiskers in surprise.
“You know of SkyClan, then?”
“A little,” Firestar mewed. “I spoke with a warrior of StarClan. She told me that there were once five Clans in the forest, but SkyClan left when—”
“Left?” The SkyClan warrior’s voice was full of contempt.
“We didn’t leave. The other Clans drove us out of the forest because they said there was no room for us anymore.”
Firestar stared at him. When he had spoken to Bluestar, she had let him believe that SkyClan had gone away of their own accord when the Twoleg monsters had invaded their territory. She never told him that the other Clans had driven them away. Surely the warrior code wouldn’t allow it? Yet he couldn’t suppress a nagging thought: would he want to give up any of ThunderClan’s territory if another Clan had asked for it?
“Couldn’t StarClan do anything to help you?” he asked.
“StarClan!” The SkyClan cat spat out the word, lashing his tail. “StarClan betrayed us. They allowed the other Clans to chase us out like rogues. When we left the forest, I vowed that I would never look to the stars again.”
“A Clan without warrior ancestors?” Firestar was bewildered.
“Our medicine cat still walked with them in dreams,” the SkyClan cat told him. “And many of our warriors kept to the old ways. I never tried to stop them. They had lost their home; how could I take the warrior code away from them as well?”
The strange cat spoke as though he had been the leader of his Clan. But before Firestar could ask him if this was true, the pale-furred warrior straightened up and looked around.
“Once we roamed over all this territory, patrolled our borders, and caught as much prey as we wanted. But then the Twolegs came.” The throbbing note of sadness returned to his voice, raising every hair on Firestar’s pelt. “This was once our camp,” he went on, indicating Smudge’s garden with a sweep of his tail. “Where we are standing used to be the warriors’ den. The Twoleg nest stands where our nursery was.
Our apprentices’ den was beneath ferns along the line of the fence, and under those bushes over there was where our elders slept.” He sighed. “It was all so long ago…”
“Where is the SkyClan camp now?”
The gray-and-white cat stared at his paws. “SkyClan have no camp,” he mewed quietly. “My Clan has broken apart and scattered.”
Firestar was puzzled. “Then there’s no SkyClan anymore?”
The SkyClan warrior’s neck fur bristled and he drew back his lips in the beginning of a snarl. “I did not say that. I said that our home has gone and my Clanmates have scattered.