“It’s not always easy. In fact, recently, SkyClan has had a very hard time.” Pebbleshine paused, feeling a prick in her heart as she remembered the troubles with Darktail, and leaving the gorge.
“I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?” Milo asked, his ears tipped curiously toward her.
“A very bad cat came along pretending to be our friend, but he stole our home,” Pebbleshine began slowly. She didn’t want to get into details these kittypets wouldn’t understand … and she didn’t want to think too hard about it herself. Memories of life at the gorge still hurt too much. “It was difficult, and we had to leave some Clanmates behind. Now we’re looking for a new home.”
Olive’s eyes filled with sympathy. “Don’t you have anywhere to go? Maybe you could come live by us. There’s a lady a few houses down who has lots of cats! I bet she’d take you in… .”
Pebbleshine looked at her warmly. “That’s kind, Olive, but Clan cats don’t usually live with Twolegs. We like to be in charge of ourselves. Sometimes it can be a hard life,” Pebbleshine warned her. “But I think you and Milo would make fine warriors.”
“But we couldn’t leave our housefolk,” Milo insisted. “What would they do without us?”
“When we lived in the gorge,” Pebbleshine meowed, “some of our Clan members were daylight warriors. They lived in the gorge in the daytime, and hunted and trained with the rest of us, but at night they went back to their Twolegs.”
Milo gave an enthusiastic swish of his tail. “That would be perfect!”
“Where is SkyClan going now?” Olive asked. “I mean, if you can’t go back to the gorge.”
“Well, we’re headed to a lake,” Pebbleshine explained, struggling to think of a way to explain Echosong’s vision in a way these kittypets would understand. “We have cats in the Clan who are very wise, who communicate with our ancestors. One of those cats had a vision that told her we should live by a lake.”
She had been expecting more questions, but Olive and Milo looked satisfied. Olive gave her an earnest look. “I hope you find it,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” Pebbleshine nodded. “I do too.” More than you know.
While they’d been talking, the cats had continued to travel, and Pebbleshine realized that the sun had sunk below the horizon, casting long shadows over their route. “Is it much farther?” she asked.
At the same moment, Milo exclaimed. “We’re almost there!”
A narrow path led upward between two Twoleg dens. Milo bounded along it, while Pebbleshine and Olive followed. “It’s just over this hill,” Olive panted.
Leaving the Twoleg nests behind them, the cats burst out onto an open, grassy slope, leading to a ridge outlined against the sky. Pebbleshine’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it would break out of her chest. Maybe my Clan will still be waiting for me! Maybe I’ll see Hawkwing again, right now!
Pebbleshine raced up the slope, outstripping the two kittypets. Cresting the hill, she halted as if she had slammed into a wall of rock.
She was looking down at the monster camp—but it wasn’t the right one. It was bigger than the one where she had lost her Clan, the walls that surrounded it were red, not gray, and where the line of bushes should have been was a tangle of brambles and a few stunted trees. She felt farther from her Clan than ever.
“Are they here?” Olive gasped as she climbed the hill to stand beside Pebbleshine. “Are your friends here?”
Pebbleshine shook her head. She wanted to wail her desolation, but she made her voice remain steady as she replied, “No. This isn’t the right place after all.”
“Are you serious?” Milo exclaimed, reaching the top in time to hear Pebbleshine’s words. “But it sounded so much like what you described! Take a good look. Are you sure?”
Pebbleshine looked downhill again, then looked him in the eye. “I’m sure, Milo. It is what I described to you. It’s just not the one where I left my friends.”
Milo looked at the ground, but Olive bounded up to Pebbleshine, leaning in to nuzzle her cheek sympathetically.
“I’m so sorry, Pebbleshine!
“I can’t blame you,” Pebbleshine responded. “I asked you to show me a monster camp, and that’s what you’ve done. It’s not your fault that it isn’t the right one.”
Milo stepped forward, and the two young cats pressed themselves against Pebbleshine, one on each side, trying to comfort her. Pebbleshine just felt empty. She had no idea what she should do next.
“Maybe we should sleep,” Olive suggested after a few heartbeats. “It’s going to be dark soon. Probably things will look brighter in the morning.”
Pebbleshine murmured agreement. I could sleep for moons and nothing would look brighter, but I don’t want to upset Olive.
“I wish my housefolk were here to give us some food right now,” Milo meowed. “My belly’s growling so hard!”
“I’ll hunt for you,” Pebbleshine offered immediately.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” Olive objected. “You’ve had an awful shock, and you need to rest.”
“Hunting will take my mind off my worries,” Pebbleshine insisted. She wasn’t sure that was true, but she knew that she had to get away by herself for a while, to come to terms with how all this effort had been for nothing. She was in danger of breaking down completely in front of two kittypets.
And that’s the last thing I want, when they’ve gone to all this trouble to help me. They can’t possibly understand how hopeless I feel right now.
The slope leading down to the monster camp was shallower than the one they had already climbed, dotted with bushes and the occasional outcrop of rock. Pebbleshine left the kittypets in a sheltered spot beside a gorse thicket and prowled off to look for prey.
The sun had set and twilight was gathering. At first all Pebbleshine could scent was the acrid tang of monsters, but as she worked her way around toward the brambles and trees that edged the camp, she began to pick up definite traces of mouse and squirrel.
She realized too that the discipline of hunting was helping to dispel the fog of misery that surrounded her. She felt the familiar tingle in her paws as she spotted a plump squirrel scuffling around in the debris at the edge of a bramble thicket and dropped into the hunter’s crouch, focusing on her prey as she crept up on it.
A breeze sprang up as Pebbleshine was almost within pouncing distance, carrying her scent toward the squirrel. It sat up, then leaped away; Pebbleshine hurled herself toward it, but her outstretched forepaws slammed down on empty ground.
The squirrel raced away toward the nearest of the stunted trees. Pebbleshine pelted after it, but she couldn’t catch it before it swarmed up the trunk and crouched on a low branch, chittering angrily at her as if challenging her to a fight.
Good luck with that! Pebbleshine thought. I’m a SkyClan cat!
Launching herself upward in a tremendous leap, she snagged her claws into the squirrel’s tail and dragged it down off the branch. The squirrel struggled briefly, until Pebbleshine killed it with a swift bite to the neck.
Breathing hard, she stood over the limp body. “Thank you, StarClan, for this prey,” she mewed. But then the thought struck her: Can they even hear me? She was so far from home, so far from SkyClan; she didn’t even know where she was. Does StarClan?
She shuddered. For a few heartbeats she had forgotten her troubles, but now they returned in full force. Back in the gorge she would have carried the squirrel to the fresh-kill pile, but there was no more camp in the gorge now, and she would eat her prey alone, not even knowing how far she was from her Clanmates.
I wish Hawkwing had seen that catch, and I could share it with him.