Prologue

"Does it have to happen?"

"It must."

"Why are we doing this?"

"It is not of our doing."

"There is something more powerful than StarClan? Besides the apprentices, I mean."

"We do not control the heavens."

"And we let them believe that we do? We let them believe that it is us who send clouds to cover the moon? We let them believe that we send the signs?"

"The Clans would collapse if they knew the truth."

"So what will they make of this sign?"

"They will think that we turned our backs on them."

"Like so many of them have to us."

"Not yet, Spottedleaf, not yet. Blackstar's faith is wavering, but he is still a believer."

"This will make him change his mind completely."

"It cannot be stopped."

"But can't we help them?"

"There is nothing we can do, Spottedleaf."

"It's not like you to give up so easily, Bluestar."

"I repeat: there is nothing we can do. This will end all Life as They Knew It."

* * *

Jaypaw blinked awake uneasily. It unsettled him to be blind in dreams. They were usually the only place he could see, but in this dream everything had been lost in shadow. He couldn't even identify the voices until they had spoken the names.

He forgot this quickly, though. There was something much more pressing to think about. Bluestar's parting line had scared him. What could be so big, so dangerous, that it would destroy the Clans forever? Was it twolegs?

All around him, he could hear the sounds of the other medicine cats awakening. The soft plash of water hitting water as the stream trickled into the Moonpool filled his ears. Jaypaw was aware of Leafpool lying beside him. She seemed nervous, just as he was.

"What did you dream of?" he meowed to her in an undertone.

"Wait," Leafpool mewed back, equally hushed. Jaypaw heard her bound over to the other medicine cats.

"Did you dream of trouble?" Barkface asked.

"Something dangerous yet to come." It sounded like Littlecloud would be nodding as he said this.

"Worse than the twolegs in the old forest?" Mothwing mewed uncertainly.

Jaypaw knew very well that Mothwing hadn't had the same dream as he had, or any of the other medicine cats for that matter. The RiverClan she-cat didn't believe in StarClan. She just came to the Moonpool to get that good night of sleep that she couldn't seem to get at the camp.

Her apprentice, Willowpaw, believed, though. Jaypaw felt the other apprentice's eyes on his back, and he turned to face her. Neither of them had been alive when the twolegs had destroyed the old forest, but they both trembled with fear at the thought of having to leave their homes.

"Did you dream of the trouble, too?" Jaypaw asked her.

"Yes," Willowpaw mewed uncertainly.

"It must be big if it came to all of us," he thought out loud.

"All of the other medicine cats seem to be on edge. Were the twolegs really that bad?"

"Willowpaw, they drove them out of the forest. Most cats nearly starved."

"But it was nearly leafbare then," she pointed out. "It's newleaf now. I wouldn't be too worried about starving."

Leafpool padded over to them, ending their conversation. "We're leaving, Jaypaw." Her mew trembled.

Now Jaypaw seemed skeptical about the danger. StarClan had prophesized trouble hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. Why were they making such a big deal out of it now?

He stayed quiet the whole way back to camp. He was thinking about the dream. StarClan rarely sent such important dreams to apprentices, so maybe it was big. Very big. Big enough to wipe out all of the Clans.

ThunderClan seemed to agree with him. As he approached the camp, he could hear uneasy murmurs coming out of the stone hollow.

Wait a minute, Jaypaw thought. They shouldn't know about the trouble! Leafpool and I aren't even back yet.

He was almost to camp when he realized that Leafpool was no longer with him. Jaypaw backtracked till he was standing with his mentor. Her neck was stretched up. She seemed to be looking at the sky.

"Leafpool?" Jaypaw asked nervously. "What's wrong?"

"The moon," she whispered.

Yes, the moon is shining, he thought sarcastically. It does just about every night!

"What about the moon?" he asked.

"Something's flying toward it." Leafpool sounded scared. It didn't surprise Jaypaw, though. He was still a little on edge about the dream, too.

"Like a shooting star?" he asked hopefully. Jaypaw had never seen one before, but they were supposed to bring good luck to the Clans.

"No," she mewed. "It's too big to be a star. It's the biggest thing I've ever seen in the sky, besides the moon itself."

Why can't I see? Jaypaw thought desperately. Something important is happening, and all I can see is darkness!

Suddenly, Leafpool gasped. Screams filled the forest. Jaypaw put his tail over his ears, trying to block out the sound. "What's happening?" he meowed. Is it the danger?

"The moon," his mentor whispered again. Her voice sounded hoarse.

"It was hit?" Jaypaw pressed.

"Yes." Leafpool sounded near faint.

"So? The moon gets hit all the time. I'll bet that how it gets those strange markings."

"This is… different."

"Different how? What difference can one big rock make?"

"It's not a half moon anymore, Jaypaw." His mentor wasn't even trying to control the tremor in her voice.

"What are you talking about?" Now Jaypaw was sure his mentor was pulling his paw. Any instant now, the serious tone would be gone and she'd meow playfully, "Tricked you!"

"The rock, the shooting star, what ever the accursed thing was, it hit the moon. It hit it very hard," Leafpool meowed.
"I know that!" Jaypaw mewed frustratedly.

"It's big."

"Yes, of course it's big! It's the biggest thing in the night sky, you just said so yourself!"

"No, Jaypaw, you don't understand. It's bigger."

"How is that even possible?"

"I don't know, Jaypaw. But it's not a half moon anymore. It's almost three-quarters. And it doesn't look right. It's too big. It's taking up too much space."

And with that, his mentor bolted back to camp.

What was that about? Jaypaw wondered. Is it part of the prank? Or what if she was serious? Is this the beginning of the trouble StarClan prophesized?