“Look at it!” Sandstorm halted, swishing her tail in disgust.
“It’s swarming with Twolegs.”
Firestar stopped beside her, puzzled. Most Twoleg nests held only a Twoleg and his mate, and maybe their kits. But there were far more than that outside this nest, too many to count. Most of the adults were sitting around, eating Twoleg food, while their kits ran shrieking down to the river to throw stones in the water. Some of the Twolegs yowled at them, but the kits didn’t take any notice.
“Don’t they ever apprentice their young?” Sandstorm asked with a sigh.
“If we stay on the riverbank we’ll have to go right through the middle of them,” Firestar meowed. “We’d be spotted for sure. We’ll have to go around.”
A white wooden fence enclosed the nest and the Twolegs, leading down to the river. Skirting it, Firestar led the way up the bank and around the back of the nest. Close to the nest wall, where he would have expected to find a garden, was a wide space covered with the same hard black stuff as a
Thunderpath. Several monsters were crouching there.
“Are they asleep?” Sandstorm whispered.
As if in answer to her question, one of the monsters broke into a throaty roar and began to creep slowly away from the others and through a gap in the fence onto a small
Thunderpath. Then it leaped forward and dashed away, passing two other monsters on their way in.
Firestar felt his pelt bristle. Crossing a Thunderpath was bad enough, but here he felt as if the crouching monsters were watching him, ready to spring as soon as he ventured onto the hard surface.
Setting down his paws as lightly as if he were stalking a mouse, his belly fur brushing the grass, he crept up to the edge of the Thunderpath. There were shrubs for cover on the other side, but he didn’t dare dart across yet. He could hear the growling of another monster, and a few heartbeats later it sped down the Thunderpath, slowed at the gap in the fence, then went to sleep beside the others near the nest. A couple of Twolegs emerged from its belly.
“Run when I say ‘now,’” he murmured to Sandstorm.
“Get on with it, then,” she replied edgily.
Firestar’s gaze flicked from the nest to the Thunderpath and back again. Everything was still. “Okay, now!”
He sprang forward with Sandstorm beside him. At the same moment, the snarl of a waking monster broke out near the nest. Firestar flung himself forward and hurtled into the bushes, where he squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried to stop shaking.
“It spotted us!” Sandstorm gasped, thrusting her way into cover beside him. “But it can’t follow us in here.”
Firestar hoped she was right. When he opened his eyes and peered through the leaves he could make out the monster’s gleaming color as it prowled onto the Thunderpath and paused. Was it trying to scent them? Surely it would be hard for a monster to scent anything except its own harsh reek. All the same, Firestar’s breathing didn’t slow until the monster gave up and went on, its roar dying away into the distance.
“Okay, let’s go,” he mewed. He would have liked to rest for a bit longer, but he hated this weird nest crammed with Twolegs, and their monsters that seemed to have learned how to hunt.
Sandstorm muttered agreement; both cats pushed their way through the shrubs until they reached the river. Firestar’s pelt didn’t lie flat until they had rounded a bend and left the Twoleg nest far behind.
By the time the next Twoleg nest came into sight, Firestar guessed that sunhigh was long past, though there was no sun to be seen. The clouds had darkened and a sharp wind had picked up, bringing the scent of rain. White-flecked ripples appeared on the river; in the distance Firestar heard the rumble of thunder. The storm would break soon.
Sandstorm stopped to taste the air. “Mice!” she exclaimed.
“The scent’s coming from that nest.”
“Are you sure?” Firestar asked.
He broke off at Sandstorm’s scathing look. Without bothering to reply, she stalked toward the nest.
“Hey, wait!” Firestar broke into a run to catch up with her.
“You don’t know what’s in there.”
“I know what isn’t. There’s no Twoleg scent, no dogs.”
Sandstorm sighed. “Do you want fresh-kill, Firestar, or don’t you?”
Firestar had to admit that his belly was yowling with hunger. All day so far they had done nothing but avoid Twolegs. There had been no chance to hunt. “Okay, but…”
Ignoring him, Sandstorm prowled closer to the nest.
Following her, Firestar realized that she was right about the scent: lots of mice, but no trace of Twolegs or dogs. The nest looked abandoned. The door sagged open, and the square holes in the walls were dark and empty. There had been a wooden fence around the garden once, but most of it was broken down and rotting, while the garden itself was overgrown.
Sandstorm crept up to the door and paused to taste the air again before she slipped inside. Firestar followed, the powerful aroma of mouse flooding over him as he entered.
Inside the light was gray and cold, filtering through dusty air. A thick layer of dust and debris covered the floor. On either side, doors to separate dens stood open, while straight ahead an uneven slope led to a higher level. Sandstorm began to climb upward.
“Be careful,” Firestar warned her.
Her tail twitched. “Stay here and keep watch.”
Firestar waited at the bottom of the slope until Sandstorm had vanished. Then, ears pricked for the sound of danger, he padded through the empty dens. Every tiny movement woke an echo; Firestar found himself remembering what it had been like when he lived with his Twolegs, before he had ever set paw in the forest. Their nest had been warm and cozy, the floors covered with thick padding that muffled every sound.
The holes in the walls were filled with shiny stuff like ice, and pelts hung there to be drawn across at night. The Twolegs had slept in a den on the higher level, while he stayed in the… What was the name of the den where they ate food?
Yes—the kitchen.
The unfamiliar word popped into his mind as he stood in the empty nest. The trickle of memory was becoming a flood; Firestar thought of Hattie and Smudge, living happily with their housefolk. Would he have been as happy if he had stayed, if he had never known the excitement of stalking prey in the rustling shadow of leaves, never curled up in the warriors’ den beside his Clanmates, never fought for his Clan or shouldered the burden of being their leader?
No. Even in the Twoleg nest, he had walked the forest in his dreams. When he joined ThunderClan he knew that he had found the place where he belonged. But if ThunderClan meant so much to him, why had he left to help a Clan who had been driven from the forest so long ago that no Clan remembered them? Was it enough that he felt he was doing the right thing?
He started at the sound of a pawstep behind him and spun around to see Sandstorm padding into the kitchen with the limp body of a mouse in her jaws.
“You look as if you’ve got a lot on your mind,” she meowed, dropping the fresh-kill. “What’s the problem?”
Firestar shook his head. “Nothing important.”
Sandstorm held his gaze for a heartbeat as if she didn’t believe him, but she said nothing more.
Crouching side by side, they shared the mouse. Outside the wind had grown stronger, buffeting the nest and hurling sharp rain at the walls and through the holes to spatter in the dust on the floor.
“Maybe we should stay here overnight,” Sandstorm suggested.
Firestar knew she was right. They could catch more prey and sleep full-fed until the storm was over. But the walls of the Twoleg nest seemed to be closing in on him. He couldn’t bear to be inside any longer, struggling with old memories.