The nursery was warm, smelling of milk and damp moss, but to a tiny Starkit, it felt like a cage of fire. While her littermates tumbled over one another in a heap of soft fur, Starkit stayed pressed against the furthest wall, a tiny paw clamped desperately over her left eye. "It’s a rot," Starkit whimpered, her high-pitched voice shaking. "It’s the green-cough rot, but it’s in my head." The medicine cat—a stern, grey-muzzled elder named Cloudwhisker—had been hovering over them for days "I told you, little one," Cloudwhisker sighed, gently trying to pry the kit’s paw away. "There is no fever. Your nose is wet, and your belly is full. You aren't sick." "Then why does it burn?" Starkit shrieked, ducking away. "It’s a sickness! I’m going to go blind, and then my head is going to split open like a dry seed pod!" Every time she closed her right eye, the left one showed her things that made her stomach churn. She saw a drop of water fall from the cave ceiling seconds before it hit the floor. She saw her mother, Fernlight, trip over a stray stick before she even stood up to stretch. "Look at me, Starkit," Fernlight urged, pulling her kit into her belly fur to soothe her. "It’s just a mark. Many kits have birthmarks." Starkit sobbed. "It’s the stars, Mama. They’re inside me, and they’re trying to eat their way out. I’m a monster-kit." That was the day the first oak leaf was found. Starkit had crawled out of the nursery, shivering, and found a fresh oak leaf outside the den. With clumsy, kittenish paws, she pressed it against her face. The coolness of the damp leaf felt like ice on a burn. For the first time in moons, the "static" in her head went quiet.
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