Explore 1

The crate rattled into the side of the monster again and Celery curled his tail over his ears in an even more impossibly tight ball. Why why why why why? That morning has seemed so ordinary: she had woken up to wet food from her Twolegs, batted around her favorite jingle ball, and settled down in the sink for a nap. When the short one scooped her up under her forelegs, she pretended to be miffed, but she knew that she was safe. At least, she had been. But when she was dropped into the arms of a new Twoleg and summarily stuffed into a new crate, she knew something was not right.

This crate did not smell the same as the crates that Celery’s siblings had gone away in, plasticy and fresh. It was dusty and smelled like something Celery did not recognize. Paper? Wheatgrass? But what had scared Celery into the huddled wreck he was now was the ghost. As a large Twoleg paw latched the cage door shut, a flash of lightning screamed before Celery’s eyes and in the afterimage, he could see a beast. Like a cat or a dog but one hundred times larger and more fearsome. It opened its terrible jaws and spoke the words that Celery had been hearing in his dreams for moons: “The mighty Stone must never shatter.”

What happened after that was a blur--Celery had nearly passed out, and the rumbling thunder became indistinguishable from the roar of the monster she had been loaded into. The ride was long, much longer than she was used to in her few encounters with monsters, but when she was abruptly lifted out of the seat and her crate set down in front of an old barn, she felt like it had been all too short. Surely this was not her new home? Her foster-siblings, a few moons older than her, had reassured her that they would each go to nice new Twoleg homes when they were grown--like their own, but without any pesky siblings to jostle and fight over wet food. A home with a warm, sunny windowsill and fresh, soft towels.

Celery could not imagine this building containing any towels, soft or otherwise. The dry, grassy smell was much stronger, wafting from large, yellowing piles of straw. The walls were sunbleached wood, and high above was no warm windowsill, but a dark loft. Silhouetted in that loft was a figure. The monstrous old bear of a cat roared, and Celery bolted.

Ignoring the Twoleg’s dismayed yowls, Celery scrambled for a hiding place and dashed into a nearby shrub. When he popped unexpectedly out the other side and tumbled down a short slope, Celery resolved to run as far as his little legs would take him. He would not become supper for a lion. Not today.

Celery wandered, lost, for the better part of a day. The coarse grassland she started in eventually gave way to red clay soil, and then to the smooth, flat stone that Twolegs walked their dogs and monsters on. Around her rose monolithic Twoleg nests, each identical and much thinner than what she was used to. It was like a pantry with boxes of Twoleg kibble stacked face-to-tail. She walked with her eyes cast upward, hoping to find the familiar window of her apartment, but she recognized nothing, and the few cats who she glimpsed through the glass hastily turned their eyes away. Was she really that scary-looking, tired and dirty as she was? On a sudden hunch, Celery anxiously glanced behind her. The beast wasn’t following her, was it? But the only movement was the shadow of a Twoleg pelt rippling high overhead.

Soon after the cloudy evening sky darkened over, it began to rain, and Celery leapt into the half-open mouth of a Twoleg bin to take cover. He thought that he could smell Twoleg food in the tall, dark container, and it would be as good a place to shelter for the night as any. Except for a nice, warm bed, he thought glumly.

Celery was awoken abruptly by a crash and the world turning sideways. Dazed, she tumbled out of the bin and onto the feet of a trio of ferocious-looking rogues. “Hey! There’s nothing but wrappers in here!” one yowled indignantly, “That kittypet ate all our cheeseburgers!”

“There were never going to be cheeseburgers in there, you fat moron.” His buddy jostled the other roughly in the shoulder, but by then Celery was long gone.

A bedraggled Celery trudged through the Twolegplace in the dim moonlight for what seemed like forever. She was miserable, hungry, and she had no idea where she was. Every corner seemed like it had just had the shadowy tail of a rogue or the beast flick around it. The Twolegplace was clearly dangerous, but she had nowhere else to go. She didn’t even have a clue where she was going. 

Suddenly, the old Twoleg barn loomed before him. Oh no. This was the last place that Celery wanted to end up at. He turned to leave, but a bolt of lightning split the dry earth at his tail and he sprung a foxlength into the air. The shadow he cast resolved itself into the shade of a monstrous cat scarred by white lightning: the same figure that Celery had seen earlier that day. But this time it faded with the lightning glow, and in its place, the dim moonlight revealed a much smaller, silvery-grey old she-cat. Her eyes flitted around wildly and she hissed, “Come in. Quick. You’re soaked.”

Celery opened her mouth to protest, but she was soaked, and she could no longer sense the ominous aura of the beastly shade. Hesitantly, she padded after the elder into the cool, dry barn.

“I-- The ghost--” Celery stammered, but the grizzled she-cat cut him off with a hiss. Celery couldn’t help but notice the broad scars that criss-crossed her pelt.

“Hush, child. He won’t hurt you now. It’s a mouse’s breath until sunup, but if you sleep now, you can get some rest. Then we can figure out what to do with you.”

Obediently, Celery curled up on a mound of straw that the old cat had gestured to and closed his eyes.

“Sleep well. Old Charlie will protect you.” 

---

Charlie wearily addressed the ghost standing in the doorway. “What are you doing with this poor child? They have no part in this.”

The shadowy cat only flicked his ear in annoyance and took a pawstep forwards, towing over her. The morning sun rose over the crest of the hill and the last stars of Silverpelt twinkled out. Just before the figure faded, he hissed in Charlie’s tipped ear, “StarClan has deigned to send you a seed. Plant it.”