Chapter Eleven

LEAF STRETCHED OUT, MAKING sure that her paws were firmly braced on a thick branch. Her back and neck crunched and clicked where they had stiffened from a cold night sleeping in the high crook of a gingko tree. It was satisfying, but she still ached afterward.

There were grunts and snorts from the other branches, and the leaves bounced and shook. All around her, the trees were full of stirring, uncomfortable pandas.

But they were all still alive. The Slenderwood pandas had made it through the night. In the faint gray light, the trees looked like they had sprouted huge, fluffy black-and-white and red fruits. The red pandas—Swimming Deeps and Digging Deeps, Leaping Highs, Healing Hearts, and others—had all joined the pandas in the trees, along with the Climbing Fars when their vigil ended. Dasher had come to find Leaf and curled up on top of her flank, his long, fluffy tail wrapped around them both for warmth until she had woken at Gray Light.

None of them had been taken by the slinking orange creature.

Tiger.

Leaf shuddered a little. When she and Dasher had returned to tell the Slenderwoods and the red pandas about what they’d seen, Juniper had told them he’d heard old tales of creatures that matched that description. The predator was a tiger.

Dasher’s tail twitched against Leaf’s nose and she looked around.

“You awake?” she whispered.

“Hnn.” Dasher’s eyes blinked open. “I am now.”

“Sorry,” Leaf said. “I need to get up. It’s time for the First Feast.”

“S’okay.” Dasher got stiffly to his paws and climbed into a smaller crook of the tree to let Leaf get up.

“What’s happening?” One of the other red pandas was stirring on a branch just below her.

“It’s the Feast of Gray Light,” Dasher explained. “The pandas need to eat.”

“What, now?” The red panda squinted up at Leaf. “It’s not even dawn yet!”

“No,” Leaf agreed. “That would be the Feast of Golden Light.”

“How many feasts are there?”

“Nine.”

The red panda looked bleakly at Leaf, and then at Dasher, who nodded his confirmation. The other red panda turned around on his branch and curled up again, throwing his tail over his face.

Leaf sighed. The feast might disrupt the red pandas’ sleep a little, but there was nothing she could do about it. They couldn’t not have the feast, after all. That would be madness. Nothing could stop the Nine Feasts, not even a tiger.

Although, as she scanned the ground below, worry crept into her heart. There wasn’t much bamboo in this part of the forest, even less than the Slenderwood’s usual meager crop. If they couldn’t find any at all, they would have to make do with the gingko fruit, and it would be a miserable start to a difficult day. . . .

“I see some!” yelled a high-pitched panda voice. Leaf cringed as red pandas all around her stirred and growled, but followed the voice hopefully. It was little Cane, of course, and by the time Leaf had climbed across the branches to the tree where he had been sleeping, he was already being gently chastised by Hyacinth to be quieter around their red-panda friends.

“Did you see bamboo?” Leaf asked. Cane nodded, his mouth pressed tightly shut, and pointed with one paw. Relief washed over Leaf as she followed his gesture and saw the bamboo—it was just one cane, but it grew tall and strong, and a bushy spray of leaves sprouted from its tip. Each Slenderwood panda would be able to have at least a good mouthful.

The only problem was that it stood too far from the tree for the pandas to reach over and grab the leaves for themselves.

“Some panda will have to go and get it,” Hyacinth said quietly. “And that means going down onto the ground.”

Where the tiger could be lurking. Whichever panda went down there would be vulnerable while they made the awkward climb back up the tree, more so because they’d be trying to hold on to a long bamboo cane at the same time.

“I’ll go,” Leaf said. “I’m the best climber; I’ll be able to get back the fastest. It’ll be no problem,” she said, more brightly than she felt. “Can you watch my back?”

Hyacinth gave her a worried look, but nodded.

Leaf began to climb down the tree, staying in its branches as long as she could, even though some of them dipped dangerously under her weight, so that she would spend as little time on the ground as possible. All the way, she sniffed and listened for any hint of the tiger. There was no sign of it—but she remembered how smoothly and silently it had moved through the forest before. Just because she couldn’t see it, that certainly didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

She reached the forest floor and hurried over to the bamboo and took the stem of it in her jaws.

There was no way to make this quiet. She would just have to be quick.

She snapped her jaws shut, using the full force of her bite for the first time in many feasts, and the crack of the bamboo echoed through the forest. In the Gray Light stillness, it sounded loud enough to wake the Dragon in its cave.

After tearing the cane from the ground, Leaf paused only long enough to make sure she had its heavy stem securely in her jaws, and then she ran back to the trunk of the nearest tree, dragging the bamboo behind her, and began to climb.

“Yeah!” Cane barked excitedly, before his mother shushed him again. Leaf kept climbing until she reached a strong, safe branch. She awkwardly yanked the bamboo up after her and wedged the thick end into a gap so that she could let go, and then she looked down.

Still no sign of the tiger.

“That was very brave,” said Juniper, climbing across the tree branches toward her. “Plum would be proud. Why don’t you say the blessing?”

Leaf smiled at him with pride, but the mention of Plum sent her heart dropping.

She’s out there alone, with a tiger on the prowl. Did she even make it to the mountains?

But Leaf wouldn’t let herself think like that. She had to believe that Plum was okay.

The pandas gathered around, and Leaf held the bamboo steady while they all picked bunches of leaves.

“Great Dragon, at the Feast of Gray Light your humble pandas bow before you. Thank you for the gift of the bamboo, and the wisdom you bestow upon us.”

They all munched down on their feasts, a meager handful of leaves each, but Leaf thought it tasted extra fresh and delicious after all the trouble she had gone to collecting it. Afterward, Crabapple said, “I can’t take many more nights like this.” He dipped his head, and Leaf heard his neck crack.

“We’re not all great climbers and tree-sleepers like you, Leaf,” Hyacinth agreed. “I was so afraid Cane would fall and hurt himself, I hardly slept a wink.”

“I think we all know what we need to do,” said Grass. “The Slenderwood is sparse, but at least it used to be safe. We must find a new territory.”

“There must be somewhere that’s got enough bamboo to feed us and isn’t infested with tigers,” Gale agreed.

Leave the Slenderwood, forever? Leaf stared down at the ground as this thought sank in. She couldn’t deny Grass’s and Gale’s reasoning, but she couldn’t imagine leaving, either. Where would they go?

“We’re coming too,” said a voice. Leaf looked up to the branches above her head and saw Seeker Climbing Far sitting with Splasher Swimming Deep, Hunter Leaping High, and a few others Leaf didn’t know. “We talked about it during Scratcher’s vigil,” said Seeker. “We’ll be better off if we stick together. You’re all fearsome in a fight, if it comes to it, and we’re quick and light on our feet and can provide many more eyes and ears in case the tiger comes back.”

“Then it’s decided,” said Juniper. “We will move, all together.”

“Wait!” Leaf gasped. “What about Plum? We can’t just leave the Slenderwood without her! What if she comes back and doesn’t know how to find us? Or she comes back and, instead of us, she finds that . . . that thing.” She broke off with a shudder, trying not to imagine it.

“Yes, you’re right,” said Gale soothingly. “We must find Plum before we settle anywhere else.”

“Then . . . let’s head north, all together,” said Hyacinth. “We’ll find Plum, and—who knows?—maybe a new home is waiting for us on the higher slopes.”

Leaf hoped so. She crunched on the stem of the bamboo as she listened to the pandas and the red pandas talk about the ideal territory they hoped to find. She still couldn’t quite imagine it. The Slenderwood was the only home she had ever known. Would they really never come back to Grandfather Gingko and the riverbank and the Slenderwood clearing?

Great Dragon, let us find Plum soon, she thought. I need her. . . .

“Stop.” Wanderer Leaping High held her tail up in the air, and the pandas all followed the signal and froze, scenting and listening intently. Red pandas advanced, some in the trees and some on the ground.

They had made good progress. The red pandas darted ahead as scouts, but always kept close enough to the pandas that they could run back if they met anything they needed to defend themselves against. They told the pandas the easiest ways around the hillsides, and the quickest, so they could decide which to take.

Already they were climbing a hillside in the Northern Forest where Leaf didn’t think she had ever been before. All the way up and down the rolling slopes, bamboo grew about as sparsely as it had in the Slenderwood, enough for the pandas to make a meager feast as they passed through, but certainly not enough to warrant stopping for very long. The faint scent of predator still lingered on the air too, and whenever their noses caught it, without anyone saying the word tiger, all the pandas and red pandas walked a little faster.

“Okay,” said Wanderer. “It’s clear. Let’s move on.”

“It’s nearly Long Light,” said Gale. “We’ll need to stop at the next patch of bamboo.”

Wanderer sighed. She didn’t say anything, but Leaf could almost hear Again? swirling around her head. The red pandas, who always ate whatever they found whenever they found it, without any kind of blessing or gathering, were still getting used to traveling with the pandas. Leaf didn’t feel guilty—the Nine Feasts were important. They were how they showed the Great Dragon that they were still listening for its voice. Obviously the red pandas wouldn’t understand, and that was okay.

They stopped for the Feast of Long Light at the top of a hill. On one side the hill fell away as a craggy cliff, and Leaf sat near the edge to eat her feast, looking down at the climb they’d already made. She gazed at the Slenderwood they had left behind, and at the glistening surface of the winding river.

Dasher came and sat beside her, and yawned hugely.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” he said.

“Very,” said Leaf. She crunched her bamboo thoughtfully. “I can’t stop thinking about our names. I’m no longer Leaf Slenderwood. What will I be, when we get where we’re going? Will I ever get used to being called . . . I don’t know, Leaf Highslope? Or Greencrag? Or something? And what do I call myself now? While we’re traveling I’m . . . I’m Leaf Nowhere.”

“That’s the good thing about our names,” said Dasher, rolling over and stretching. “Could be anything you do. Or things you don’t do, sometimes. You can invent your own, or join a new family, if you don’t like the one you’re born with. Hey, you could be Leaf Climbing Far! Although I think some of the red pandas think you should all be called Panda Stopping Often,” he added, giggling, and Leaf laughed along with him until quiet fell between them once more.

“I always thought that if I ever left the Slenderwood, it would be to cross the river,” she said eventually. “To go and be with my mother, and my twin. Now we’re going in the opposite direction. I guess I’ll never cross the river now.”

“Never say never.” Dasher sat up and turned to look to the north, and Leaf followed his gaze. The White Spine Mountains glittered in the distance, their snowy slopes just visible beyond the forested crags. “Do you think Plum made it to the top?”

“I hope so.”

They walked on, stopping for more feasts as Long Light and Sun Fall pushed into Dying Light. The pandas began to talk of stopping for the night, finding somewhere that would feed them for Moon Climb, Moon Fall, and Gray Light before they moved on again. But bamboo was hard to find, and more than once the red pandas accidentally led them on a path with a dead end, meeting a solid wall of rock or a thicket so tangled they couldn’t get through.

Dying Light itself was fading, and the air was growing cold and dark. Leaf walked slowly, waiting for word from Wanderer or one of the others. She saw that Cane was riding on Hyacinth’s back again, his little legs too weak for all this walking, and the other pandas’ eyes were starting to droop too. They were picking their way along the side of a slope, and it was getting steeper, so it was hard work to keep their footing, each panda unbalanced, with one paw higher than the other.

Leaf was also becoming aware of more and more chatter among the red pandas, and not the normal gossip she would hear in the Slenderwood. There was a worried, whispery tone to their voices, except when one of them would snap at another and make all the pandas jump.

“I know it’s dark!” Hunter said up ahead.

The red panda he’d been whispering with gave an unhappy growl. “Well, we have to stop soon,” she told him. “Bamboo or not. We’re lost.”

A chorus of worried noises went up from the pandas and the red pandas alike. Hunter spun to look at them, his tail lashing in the pine needles underfoot.

“We are not lost!”

“We are,” put in Splasher. “We need to stop—we could be going in any direction now. We might have already doubled back on ourselves.”

“You want to sleep right here, out in the open? We need to find bamboo and climbable trees.”

“But how are we going to find them in the dark?” Hyacinth said, clambering closer to the bickering red pandas.

“By scent,” Hunter snarled. “The same way the tiger’s going to find us!”

A hush fell over the whole group, until it was broken by the sound of Cane keening, a low, panicky sound. Hyacinth turned away to comfort her cub, and the red pandas fell back to arguing among themselves.

Leaf took a step back, trying to fight down the panic in her own heart. They would be okay. They would. The Great Dragon would help them. . . .

Then something caught her eye, moving between the trees. For a moment, she was too afraid to even cry out. It was dark, almost like a solid shadow, and it moved sinuously, like a snake—but it was too big to be a snake.

But it wasn’t the tiger, either. She watched it, frozen with confusion. Whatever it was, it was coming closer and closer, faster and faster, leaving a trail of dislodged pine needles in its wake. It curled between the trees, passing so close to Leaf that, just for a moment, she saw that it had form after all—the dim moonlight gleamed on a pattern like scales.

In a flash, she saw more strange details: feet with clawed toes, a silky fin, a glimpse of fur.

Leaf’s heart began to beat faster than she had ever known. Her fear was gone, and in its place there was a joy so sharp it made her want to cry out.

And then the shape had passed her. She spun around to follow it, but it had vanished, in a way nothing that size should be able to. There was no sign that anything had ever been there . . . except, no, there was still a trail, as if something large had dragged itself through the pine needles.

She began to follow the trail.

“Leaf,” Dasher said, scampering to her side. “What are you doing? Did you see the tiger?”

“I saw . . . something,” Leaf said. She couldn’t bring herself to say what it had been. Not yet. But if she was right . . .

“Everyone,” Dasher called back. “Leaf’s found something!”

Leaf thought the red pandas must be grateful for the distraction, because soon she found herself leading the whole group up the slope, following the trail that the black shape had left. It wound between the trees, nearly vertical at one point, up and over a sharp ridge. But then the ground suddenly evened out to a comfortable climb up a gentle slope. She followed the trail until she came out of the shadow of trees into an open space and saw up ahead a pair of tall, pale rocks, lit by moonlight. She headed for them and stepped through the gap in between, to find herself looking down the other side of the hill. There was a gentle slope, a copse of wide-branched and climbable trees, and even a small forest of bamboo, its green leaves waving in the chilly breeze.

“Leaf!” The red pandas ran up to her and nudged their heads against her affectionately, before scampering down the slope toward the trees.

“You found the way!” said Gale. She gave Leaf a big affectionate lick on the cheek. “However did you know?”

Leaf looked at Gale, and Gale’s expression turned a little worried.

“Leaf, are you all right?”

“I saw a shape in the forest,” she said slowly. “It was long, like a snake, but huge and black. It passed by me, almost as close as you are now. It showed me where to go.”

There was a heavy, stunned silence.

“The Dragon,” breathed Juniper.

“It showed us the way,” Crabapple said, his eyes glistening with tears in the moonlight. “It’s watching over us after all!”

“Perhaps Plum found its cave and woke it up?” Hyacinth wondered.

“Things will get better for us now,” Juniper said. “You wait and see.”

The pandas laughed and chattered over this thought as they ran down the slope and prepared themselves for the Feast of Moon Climb. But Leaf didn’t follow them just yet. She stayed behind by herself, at the top of the hill between the tall rocks.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t as happy as the others. If anything, she felt happier than she ever had in her life. She felt as if she were glowing.

The breeze blew through the gap between the rocks, stirring her fur. But instead of the chilly mountain air, it was warm. She shivered with excitement as the breeze curled itself around her, and then it was gone.

The Great Dragon really was with them.

The Great Dragon . . . is with me.