I am reading Awodey (Category Theory, 1st edition), p 175, and I have difficulties to understand the paragraph about the subobject classifier of $\mathbf{Sets}^{\mathbf{C^{op}}}$.
First let me quote the paragraph. Awodey is trying to define a subobject classifier $1 \rightarrow \Omega$ by using sieves:
Let $$ \Omega(C) = \{ S\subseteq > \mathbf{C}_1 \mid S \text{ is a sieve > on } C \} $$
and given $h:D \rightarrow C$ let
$$ h^* : \Omega(C)\rightarrow\Omega(D) > $$
be defined by
$$ h^*(S)=\{g:\cdot \rightarrow D \mid > h \circ g \in S \} $$
This clearly defines a preasheaf $\Omega : \mathbf{C^{op}} \rightarrow > \mathbf{Sets}$, with a distinguished point,
$$ t:1\rightarrow\Omega $$
namely, at each $C$, the "total sieve"
$$ t_C = \{ f : \cdot \rightarrow C\} > $$
We claim that $t:1\rightarrow \Omega$ so defined is a subobject classifier for $\mathbf{Sets}^{\mathbf{C^{op}}}$. Indeed, given any object $E$ and a subobject $U \rightarrow E$, define $u > : E \rightarrow \Omega$ at any object $C \in \mathbf{C}$ by:
$$ u_C(e) = \{f:D\rightarrow C \mid > f^*(e) \in U(D) \rightarrowtail E(D) > \} $$
for any $e \in E(C)$. That is, $u_C(e)$ is the sieve of arrows into $C$ that take $e \in E(C)$ back into the subobject $U$.
At this point I am very troubled by the notation $f^*(e)$.
If I assume it is a pullback notation, being the pullback functor of $f$ applied on the element $e$, I end up with this diagram:
$$ \begin{matrix} &\xrightarrow{} & 1 \\[1ex] \downarrow \rlap{\scriptstyle{f^*(e)}} & & \downarrow \rlap{\scriptstyle{e}} \\[1ex] &\xrightarrow{f} & E(C) \\[1ex] \end{matrix} $$
that seems to me totally crazy because $f$ is supposed to be of the type $f:D\rightarrow C$.
Could somebody show me what I missed?
Note: If possible, could you avoid using adjoints in your answers? Just because I have not yet reached the chapter when it is defined and explained... (other notions are ok)