Outcast

But after he had paced down the spiral track, feeling his paws slip into the paw prints of those long-ago cats, after he had touched his nose to the water and settled himself comfortably, Jaypaw found it hard to sleep. All around the pool he could hear the other cats’ breathing sink into the rhythmic patterns of dream-sleep, while he stayed obstinately awake.

“Come on,” he muttered. “What’s the matter with you?”

For once he didn’t want to enter the others’ dreams. He wanted a dream of his own: to wake underneath the hill, in the tunnels where he had met Rock and Fallen Leaves. If he didn’t manage it now, it would be a whole moon before he had another chance to visit the Moonpool.

He closed his eyes, willing sleep to come, but he could still feel the damp rock under his paws and hear the sound of the waterfall and the breathing of the cats around him.

Stretching his jaws in a yawn, he opened his eyes again. His fur prickled with excitement as he realized that he could see.

Instantly his ears twitched in frustration. He wasn’t in the underground cave. Instead, he had never left the Moonpool.

He could see the curled-up bodies of his companions and reflected starlight glimmering in the water.

“Now what?” he demanded.

A quiet voice spoke behind him. “You wanted to speak with me?”

Jaypaw spun around, almost tripping over his own paws.

Rock stood in front of him. His long, twisted claws scraped on the bare rock. Here in the open, out of the shadows of his cave, his bare skin looked raw and painful, and his bulging eyes glowed silver in his disfigured face. With an unexpected quiver of fear, Jaypaw wondered if Rock could see him or if he only sensed his presence.

“Why did you stop talking to me?” Jaypaw asked. “I tried and tried, but you wouldn’t answer.”

Rock dismissed the question with a flick of his ratlike tail.

“I’m here now,” he rasped. “Say what you have to say.”

“Are you part of StarClan?”

Rock blinked. “No. I share tongues with the ones who came before.”

“You mean the cats like Fallen Leaves, who went into the tunnels to prove themselves?”

“No.” Rock’s voice grated like shifting stones. “More ancient even than those.”

“Then where did they come from?” Jaypaw meowed, exasperated. “Is there a set of ancestors who are older than all the others? Did we all come from them—Fallen Leaves’s cats, and the Tribe cats, and the Clans?”

Rock turned his silver gaze on Jaypaw. “There will always be stories older than any cat remembers,” he rumbled.

That’s not an answer! “Then where did you come from?”

The old cat stood silent for many heartbeats, staring out across the Moonpool as if he could look back across the abyss of time that separated Jaypaw from those ancient cats.

“You will find your answers in the mountains,” he murmured at last. “Though they may not be the ones you most want to hear.”

“What do you mean? Tell me now!” Jaypaw insisted.

But Rock was beginning to fade. The patches of reflected moonlight on his skin, the silver gleam of his bulging eyes, thinned out like mist until Jaypaw could see nothing but the shimmer of starlight on rock and water. He shivered in a sudden cold breeze.

“Come back!” he yowled.

There was no reply. The starshine faded, and scents of tree and bracken filled his mouth. He was standing in a dusky forest, in the midst of fern and grasses. Moonlight dappled the ground as it shone through gaps in the branches above his head. The air was warm, full of the tempting scents of prey.

Just ahead of him, Leafpool was following a narrow path that wound between clumps of bracken. She paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “I wondered if you’d join me,” she mewed.

Jaypaw was about to reply when the bushes just ahead of Leafpool rustled and a group of StarClan cats burst out into the open. Jaypaw spotted prey scurrying away from their claws.

A blue-furred she-cat halted briefly to mew, “Greetings, Leafpool.” Leafpool dipped her head, but the she-cat bounded onward before she could speak. Another cat, a powerful white tom, gave Jaypaw a friendly flick over the ear with his tail as he sped past.

Most of the StarClan warriors were intent on their prey.

Their eyes were bright with delight in the hunt; their pelts gleamed and their muscles rippled in the moonlight. Jaypaw watched as each cat pounced on its prey and turned to race away with the limp body dangling from its jaws. He supposed they were taking it to some starry fresh-kill pile.

Leafpool padded up to him and touched her nose to his shoulder. “You see the silver tabby over there?” She pointed with her tail to where a beautiful she-cat was leaping to catch a plump vole. “That’s Feathertail. She was Stormfur’s sister.

She died in the mountains.”

Jaypaw gazed curiously at the cat, wondering if she knew anything about the mountain cats’ ancestors.

“Can we talk to her?”

“She might not wait for us,” Leafpool replied. “She’ll want to take her prey back to the StarClan camp.”