“Peace, little one,” Spottedleaf mewed. “Don’t forget that StarClan had to travel here too. This is a new place for us as well, and it will take time to explore every part of it. But starlight on water will show you where to go.”
“Do you mean the lake?”
“No. You must seek a different path this time.”
“Where? Please show me!” Leafpaw begged.
Spottedleaf turned and bounded away. “Wait!” Leafpaw called, but the beautiful medicine cat had already been swallowed up by the shadows.
Leafpaw raced after her. Suddenly the lake vanished and she was running uphill beside a starlit stream; even though she couldn’t see Spottedleaf, the sweet scent hung in the air, guiding her on. Leafpaw’s ears filled with the sound of tumbling, sparkling water, and when she looked down into the stream she felt as if she would drown in starlight.
“Spottedleaf, where are you?”
Her cry echoed around her, bouncing off the rocks and shattering the noise of the waterfall. Leafpaw woke up, gasping and scrabbling in her mossy nest. An owl hooted in the trees overhead, and she let out a hiss of frustration. She had lost Spottedleaf’s trail and might never find out what the medicine cat had wanted to show her. Her heart pounded with the urge to keep running, to climb into the hills and find the sparkling stream.
Peering into the cleft she could just see the gray curve of Cinderpelt’s back, her flank gently rising and falling as she slept. Leafpaw slipped out of the brambles and paused to shake scraps of moss from her fur. It had rained heavily earlier and the walls of the hollow sparkled with raindrops, but now the clouds had cleared away. The moon floated out from behind the trees, and the sky was filled with stars. A cool wind stirred the branches, and Leafpaw heard Spottedleaf’s voice among the gentle rustling: “I am here. Come to me.”
I will come, Spottedleaf, she replied silently. Wait for me.
She padded quietly toward the camp entrance. When she was halfway across the clearing, a tortoiseshell shape appeared from behind some ferns. Leafpaw caught her breath. “Spottedleaf? Is that you?”
“Leafpaw?” came the surprised reply. It was Sorreltail.
“Where are you going?”
“I-I’m not sure,” Leafpaw admitted. “I’ve had a message from StarClan. I have to go and find our new Moonstone place.”
“Now? Can’t you wait for daylight?”
“No.” Leafpaw flexed her claws. “I have to follow a stream filled with starlight.”
“What stream?” Sorreltail’s tail twitched anxiously. “Is it outside our territory? How do you know where to find it?”
“I just do.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Sorreltail mewed.
Leafpaw hesitated. Would StarClan mind if she brought a warrior with her, rather than another medicine cat? Then she remembered that all the cats, including warriors, would go to the Moonstone at least once, and she decided that it would be fine. Besides, she liked the thought of having Sorreltail’s company, especially if they ran into any trouble. She didn’t know exactly where they were going, after all.
“Come on, then!” Leafpaw led the way to the thorn tunnel, where Brackenfur sat on guard with his tail curled neatly around his paws.
“Where are you two going?” he asked, getting up as the two she-cats approached.
“Just out,” Sorreltail replied.
“I’ve had a sign from StarClan,” Leafpaw mewed, knowing that Brackenfur deserved an explanation if he was going to let them leave camp in the middle of the night. “I have to go and find the new Moonstone.”
To her dismay Brackenfur still looked uncertain. “It’s too dangerous for you to go off before daylight. We hardly know this territory yet.”
“Can’t you trust us?” Sorreltail pleaded. “Can’t you trust me? I’ll bring Leafpaw home safe, I promise.”
She and Brackenfur exchanged a long look, and at last the ginger warrior nodded. “Okay, but be careful.”
“Don’t you think we can look after ourselves?” Sorreltail mewed, flicking Brackenfur lightly across the ears with her tail.
Brackenfur let out an amused purr. “Sorreltail, if any cat can look after herself, it’s you.”
Leafpaw took the lead, racing through the forest until she came to the stream that marked the boundary between ThunderClan and WindClan. It ran dark and secret, shadowed by bushes on overhanging banks and looking nothing like the sparkling stream she had run beside in her dream.
Leafpaw bounded up the slope and stopped at the edge of the trees. In her dream she had been running on open hillside, so she knew they had to leave the trees behind.
“Where next?” Sorreltail panted.
“Up,” Leafpaw replied.
They padded onward, following the boundary stream out of the woods and up the hill. When Leafpaw closed her eyes, she felt as if two cats flanked her, one on each side: her best friend Sorreltail, and Spottedleaf, invisible but for the faintest brush of fur and a hint of her sweet scent. When Leafpaw opened her eyes, she thought she could hear a third set of pawsteps, just on the edge of sound.
As they followed the stream into the hills, Leafpaw decided to tell Sorreltail about her dream. “I met Spottedleaf at the edge of the lake, and she told me that starlight on water would be the sign. Not in the lake, but in a stream. The next moment I was running uphill beside a stream, and the water was full of stars.”
“Did you know where you were?”
“I couldn’t see anything I recognized. There were no trees, and the air felt cold and clear, as if I were somewhere very high.”
“We’d better keep climbing, then,” Sorreltail meowed.
The stream slid quietly over its stony bed, the water dark and glimmering. Leafpaw’s head was still full of the surge and bubbling of the stream Spottedleaf had shown her. As they went on it seemed to grow steadily louder, even when they reached the source of the boundary stream and left it far behind.
“I’m coming, Spottedleaf,” murmured Leafpaw.
They came to a cleft in the hills, where the land dipped down as if sliced by a giant claw. The valley was lined with gorse and bracken, and it grew steeper and narrower as they went on, the ground littered with broken rocks. Leafpaw reached the end of the valley first, where it led to a sheer, rocky slope. She stopped to wait for Sorreltail, whose tail was beginning to droop with weariness, though she still padded on determinedly. But Leafpaw felt as though she could run forever. The sound in her head roared and tumbled like the waterfall in the mountains where the Tribe of Rushing Water lived. She had grown so used to hearing it echo in her mind that for several heartbeats she didn’t realize she could hear it in the waking world too.
“Come on!” she cried to Sorreltail. “We’re almost there!”
She launched herself upward, scrabbling and slipping on the damp rock. The peak above her was outlined by the first faint signs of dawn, but stars still shone in the indigo sky.
Wait for me! she begged the glittering warriors. Glancing back at Sorreltail, she called, “Hurry—before the starshine fades!”
She turned to run on, and froze. A cat was standing a few tail-lengths above her, her ears pricked and her tail held high.
Had one of the other medicine cats been guided to this place too? Then she realized it was Spottedleaf, waiting patiently for her, trusting her to find this place even though she had lost her in the dream.
When Leafpaw leaped up to join her, she saw that she stood on the bank of a stream pouring down a deep channel in the rock. Starlight glittered on the surface of the water as it spilled over the stones.
“We’re here!” Leafpaw breathed. “We’ve found it!”
“Follow me,” Spottedleaf urged.