Goosefeather's Curse

by Erin Hunter

  Goosekit suddenly remembered what his mother had told him about Cloudberry, how she came from RiverClan after the ThunderClan medicine cat Ravenwing was murdered. Had the ThunderClan cats been unwelcoming at first? Even though they needed a new medicine cat?

  Cloudberry had stood up and was pacing anxiously around her cave. “You will have to become my apprentice,” she mewed, jerking his thoughts back to the present.

  Goosekit gulped. That wasn’t what he had planned. He was going to be a great warrior like Rooktail!

  “Hopefully StarClan will guide me in how to train you to use your gift,” Cloudberry went on. She stopped and stared at him. “What do you think, Goosekit? Would you like to be a medicine cat?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Doestar stood on top of the Highrock, her pale cream-and-fawn fur looking like clouds against the clear blue sky. “By the powers of StarClan, I give you your warrior name,” she declared. “Swiftpaw, from this moment you will be known as Swiftbreeze. StarClan honors your courage and your willingness to learn, and we welcome you as a full warrior of ThunderClan.”

  The tabby-and-white she-cat dipped her head self-consciously as around her the Clan exploded with cheers for the new warriors. “Stormtail! Adderfang! Swiftbreeze!”

  Moonkit cheered too, but Goosekit, crouching beside her outside the nursery, felt too anxious to speak. The warriors started to swirl around the clearing, and the noise of chatter grew until it sounded like a flock of birds had filled the ravine.

  “Wait!” Doestar silenced them from her place on the rock. “I have one more ceremony to perform. We have a new apprentice among us.”

  The warriors circled back to sit below Highrock, muttering in confusion. “None of the kits are six moons old, are they?” Goosekit heard Littlestep ask Flashnose.

  “No, I thought Fallowsong’s kits would be made apprentices next moon,” the ginger she-cat replied.

  Among the cats closest to the nursery, Goosekit saw Fallowsong glance questioningly at his mother. Daisytoe looked away without speaking. Goosekit suddenly wondered if his mother was unhappy that he was going to be made an apprentice so soon. Was she afraid of breaking the warrior code? It’s okay; I have a gift! Goosekit sank his tiny claws into the earth, frustrated that he had to keep it a secret even from his own mother.

  Beside him, Moonkit craned her neck to spot Heronkit and his littermates. “No way!” she squeaked. “Who’s going to be made apprentice? Heronkit didn’t say anything to me!”

  “Goosekit, come forward!” Doestar’s voice rang out across the clearing.

  There was a stunned silence. Goosekit stumbled toward the Clan leader and stood beneath the Highrock. Doestar sprang elegantly down from the rock and touched the top of Goosekit’s head with her chin before addressing the Clan. “Cloudberry is taking Goosekit to train as a medicine cat,” she announced. “Goosekit, from this day on, until you receive your full medicine cat name, you will be known as Goosepaw. Your mentor will be Cloudberry, and I hope she will pass down all she knows to you.”

  Goosepaw felt the leader’s breath hot against his ear fur as she licked his head. “Good luck, little one,” she whispered, and Goosepaw felt the knot in his belly grow tighter. He kept his head lowered and screwed his eyes shut as there was an outburst of meowing behind him.

  “What’s going on? He’s only four moons old!”

  “He’s far too young to be a medicine cat!”

  “I don’t want him to look after me if I get injured!”

  Then a new voice, quieter and more rasping than the rest, but with a strength that made the other cats fall silent: “As your medicine cat, I ask you to trust me in this as you do in all other things,” Cloudberry meowed calmly. “This is the right thing to do, I promise.”

  “Did StarClan tell you to do this?” challenged a voice that Goosepaw recognized as Rainfur’s.

  There was a pause; then Cloudberry mewed, “Yes. Our ancestors have chosen Goosepaw for a special path. I must do everything I can to help him follow that path.”

  Goosepaw took a deep breath and turned around. To his relief, a few cats called his name: “Goosepaw! Goosepaw!” He nodded gratefully to Larksong, Mumblefoot, and his sister, Moonkit. But the other kits were glaring at him, and the new warrior Stormtail curled his lip to show his long yellow teeth.

  An image of an ugly badger, its black-and-white snout drawn back in a fierce snarl, flashed across Goosepaw’s mind.

  As Doestar vanished into her den and Pineheart began organizing patrols, the crackling tension in the air faded, and Goosepaw began to breathe more steadily. Several other cats nodded to him, not always recognizable among the blur of bodies and faces. Goosepaw wondered if they were dead cats; he tried to tell the difference, but it wasn’t easy. He was fairly sure he saw Nettlebreeze’s mother beside the entrance to the elders’ den, and the striped brown tom who’d told him about Swiftpaw.

  Nettlebreeze lurched past him, smelling of mouse bile and chewed grass. “Don’t go getting any fancy ideas,” he growled. “Kits becoming apprentices at four moons? It would never have happened in my day.”

  Goosepaw scowled, but Moonkit appeared on his other side, murmuring, “Don’t listen to him. He’s just cross because he’s covered in ticks.”

  Goosepaw turned to face his sister. His fur felt hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I know it’s not fair for me to become an apprentice before you.”

  Moonkit stopped him with a sweep of her tail. “I’m proud of you,” she mewed. “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re going to be a medicine cat!”

  “But . . . won’t you miss me?” Goosepaw pressed. “I’ll have to sleep in Cloudberry’s den now.”

  Moonkit was looking past him at the warriors milling around. “I’ll be fine,” she mewed distractedly. “Do you think I could talk to Stormtail? Or will he think I’m a dumb kit now that he’s a full warrior?”

  Goosepaw followed her gaze. Stormtail was talking to Windflight and Squirrelwhisker, boasting about the size of the pigeon he had caught during his assessment. Goosepaw shrugged. “If you’re willing to listen to how great he is, I’m sure he’d love to talk to you,” he muttered.

  Moonkit was already trotting across the clearing toward the warriors. Goosepaw felt the air stir behind him. Cloudberry was watching him from the entrance to her den. Goosepaw realized she was waiting for him. He dragged his paws toward the gap in the ferns, feeling as if he were falling into a deep hole from which there was no way out.

  Goosepaw stared at the dizzying blackness waiting to swallow him. Every hair on his pelt stood on end, rippling in the soft wind that swept over the rocks. A huge white shape loomed toward him, carrying the scent of ancient stone.

  “Come on, Goosepaw,” Cloudberry grunted. “The moon will rise soon.” She turned and headed back down the tunnel.

  Goosepaw took one last glance over his shoulder. The hill rolled away behind him, down to the faint gray line that was the Thunderpath, before rising again to WindClan’s bare moorland. Beyond that was the dense, dark mass of trees where ThunderClan slept, oblivious to the medicine cats’ long journey for the half-moon Gathering. Goosepaw’s feet hurt from the trek, and his mind still whirled with everything he had seen: not just the Thunderpath, the farm with noisy dogs, and the huge grassy fields, but also the faces of unknown cats, cats who his companions couldn’t see.

  A scrawny gray tom had died at his paws on the border of WindClan, and the hedge beside the Thunderpath had echoed to the wails of a lost kit calling for her mother. Goosepaw had tried to speak to them both, but they had looked straight through him as if they couldn’t see him. Did that mean these things hadn’t happened yet? he wondered. Was he seeing visions of things that would happen in the future? He shivered and ran to catch up to Cloudberry.

  Here at Mothermouth there were three cats watching Goosepaw, their pelts so faint he could see the rocks behind them. They nodded encouragingly as he braced himself to enter the tunnel; Goosepaw decided the
y must be StarClan cats whose lives were already behind them. Far below, in the darkness, he could hear the medicine cats settling on the hard stone floor: Redthistle and Sagepaw from ShadowClan, Chiveclaw and Hawkpaw from WindClan, and Echosnout from RiverClan.

  Goosepaw took a deep breath as if he were about to plunge into an icy river and stepped into the tunnel. The cold of the stone after the warm, heavy night took his breath away. “That’s right, follow me,” rumbled Cloudberry from up ahead. Goosepaw tucked in close to her furry haunches, inhaling her familiar herby scent, as they padded down and down.

  After what seemed like forever, Goosepaw began to see his mentor’s shape outlined against a fuzzy paleness. The tunnel opened up into a cave almost entirely filled by a huge glittering rock, bigger than Highrock, almost as big as the Great Rock, which Goosepaw had seen at Fourtrees on the journey here.

  “I still think he’s too young to be here,” muttered Echosnout, lowering herself onto the stone floor at the far side of the cave. “Four moons old? He should be suckling at his mother’s belly.” Goosefeather knew she had been Cloudberry’s mentor in RiverClan, and the old medicine cat seemed to think she could still boss the ThunderClan medicine cat around.

  “If Cloudberry believes that he needs to begin his training now, then who are we to argue?” meowed a deep voice. That was Chiveclaw from WindClan. He had been kind to Goosepaw on the journey, helping him squeeze under a prickly hedge and reassuring him that the hollering dogs couldn’t get close.

  “Why did I have to wait until I was six moons until you made me your apprentice?” whispered Hawkpaw. “Didn’t StarClan send you a sign about me?”

  Chiveclaw sighed in the darkness. “You became my apprentice when it was right for you,” he replied. “Now be quiet and close your eyes. Make sure you’re touching the Moonstone with your muzzle, remember.”

  Cloudberry nudged Goosepaw, and he shuffled forward on his belly until his nose scraped the sharp rock. He closed his eyes, then opened them again.

  “Cloudberry?” he breathed.

  “What is it?”

  “We’re going to see StarClan now, right?”

  “Yes. You have to be very still and quiet for them to come to you.”

  “But I see them all the time, don’t I? In the camp, on the way here. I bet if I looked around I could see some of them now!”

  Cloudberry let out a sigh. “You haven’t seen the most important StarClan cats yet. You need to be at the Moonstone for that.”

  Goosepaw wriggled around to look at his mentor. “How do you know? I can’t tell you the names of all the cats I’ve seen. What if I don’t need to do this at all? I could be a medicine cat already!”

  “You’ve been my apprentice for precisely one quarter moon. Do you know any herbs? How to treat sickness? What to do if a queen is struggling to kit? No. You are most definitely not a medicine cat,” Cloudberry mewed. She prodded his cheek with her front paw. “Put your nose against the Moonstone and go to sleep.”

  “Will you two be quiet?” hissed Echosnout.

  “Sorry,” whispered Cloudberry. She leaned forward and pressed her broad, flattened muzzle against the stone.

  Goosepaw lay with his nose getting colder and colder as the cats beside him drifted off to sleep. He listened to their breathing slow down and felt the air grow still. He sighed. This stone was far too uncomfortable to go to sleep on, and his paws tingled from walking so far. He opened his eyes a chink. Above him, the crystal glowed from the light of the half-moon pouring down through the tiny gap in the roof. Goosepaw could see the shapes of the sleeping cats clearly on either side of them. Redthistle’s apprentice, Sagepaw, stirred in her sleep, her white fur glowing like the rock. Goosepaw sighed. This was totally boring. He was getting cold, and he wasn’t sleepy at all. He wondered how much trouble he would get into if he went back up the tunnel.

  “Goosepaw! Goosepaw!”

  Goosepaw stiffened. Someone was whispering. Had one of the apprentices woken up?

  “Goosepaw!”

  A pair of eyes gleamed like green stars in the shadows beside the Moonstone. Two more orbs appeared, blinking, then more and more, until Goosepaw was surrounded by cats staring at him. They started to move toward him, a mass of shifting pelts turned to shades of gray and silver by the moonlight.

  “We have been waiting for you, Goosepaw!” breathed one of them.

  “A long time,” hissed another.

  “We watched you being born!”

  “And now you must listen to us. We have so much to tell you.”

  Goosepaw took a step back, flattening his ears. “Wait. There are so many of you. . . . Can you speak one at a time, please?”

  A black cat loomed into his face. “ThunderClan is doomed!”

  “There will be a cat who burns like fire!”

  “Trust no one, not even your Clanmates. Too many hearts are fickle.”

  “Beware the striped face and snapping teeth!”

  Goosepaw tried to edge toward the tunnel. “Stop!” he begged. “You’re scaring me!” He looked at the medicine cats, but they were still sleeping, still lost in their dreams of StarClan. But which cats were these around him now? Why hadn’t they waited for him in his dreams?

  “So much water, more than any cat has seen before . . .”

  “You will find friends in unexpected places. Listen to what midnight tells you.”

  “The lake will run red with the blood of brothers!”

  Goosepaw stubbed his toe on the entrance to the tunnel. With a yelp he turned and fled up the steep stone.

  “ShadowClan will soar above you all!”

  “Leopard and Tiger will feast on your bones!”

  “Rivers of blood, washing away everything the Clans have known . . .”

  Goosepaw ignored the pain in his feet as he raced up the tunnel. He could feel soft air on his whiskers, and a few moments later he burst into the open, flanks heaving and gasping for breath. He stumbled to a halt beside a pile of rocks and let the silence of the night wash over him. The StarClan cats had stayed in the tunnel. He was alone.

  “Goosepaw! What are you doing?”

  Goosepaw spun around. Cloudberry was standing at the mouth of the tunnel, glaring at him. “You can’t leave the Moonstone before the ceremony is over! I still have to name you as my apprentice before StarClan. Come on, the others are waiting.”

  “StarClan knows who I am already,” Goosepaw panted. “They came to me, all of them, with so many prophecies. I couldn’t listen to them all; I was so frightened. They told me that terrible things are going to happen!” He broke off in a wail.

  Cloudberry walked over and pressed her shoulder against him. “It’s all right, young one. Calm down. We’ll have to figure out a way for you to control those visions.”

  Goosepaw stared wildly at the she-cat. “They’re not visions! These cats are actually here, all around us!”

  “Then you’ll have to find a way to ignore them,” Cloudberry meowed. “There’s more to being a medicine cat than talking with StarClan. There are herbs and ways of healing to learn, and omens to find. The other cats must see you preparing to be a medicine cat in the ways that they expect. Remember, no one must know about your . . . your gift.” She said the last word reluctantly.

  This isn’t a gift, Goosepaw thought. I don’t want to have all these cats around me! I don’t want to be a medicine cat! I just want to be a warrior. He lifted his head and gazed at the star-flecked sky.

  Find some other cat to talk to, StarClan!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Comfrey, marigold, borage, chickweed . . .”

  “No, no, this one’s chickweed, and that’s mallow.” The she-cat reached out with one plump brown paw and patted the scraps of leaf. “Try again.”

  “I don’t want to!” Goosepaw flopped back on the sun-warmed stone and looked up at the cloudless sky. The only sound was the river running beside Sunningrocks, punctuated by the occasional plop of a vole entering the water. “It’s too
hot to remember anything. Tell me a story about LeopardClan, Pearnose. Please!”

  “You’re not a kit anymore, Goosepaw! And you don’t deserve to be a medicine cat apprentice if you don’t start learning your herbs. Now, can you tell me what this is and what you’d use it for?”

  Goosepaw stared at the limp green leaf hanging from Pearnose’s paw. It looked like comfrey, except that comfrey was furrier. Could it be chervil? No, that was thinner and darker. “Tansy, for treating coughs?” he guessed.

  Pearnose shook her head. “No, it’s yarrow for vomiting. But you’re right that tansy is good for coughs.”

  “See? I think my brain has melted. I can’t remember anything!” Goosepaw insisted.

  “Who are you talking to?” Soft paw steps on the stone behind him made Goosepaw spin around. Moonpaw was watching him, her eyes narrowed.

  “Uh—no one,” Goosepaw stammered, standing up so quickly that he mixed up his piles of leaves.

  Moonpaw came over and studied the herbs. “Wow. They all look the same.”

  “Tell me about it.” Goosepaw sighed.

  “Are you sure there’s no one here?” Moonpaw pressed, looking around.

  “Well, can you see anyone?” Goosepaw challenged.

  “No, but . . .” Your gift must be a secret! Cloudberry’s words echoed in his mind. Goosepaw sighed. “Sometimes I talk to myself, that’s all. It’s easier to remember all the herbs if I say them out loud.”

  “That’s kind of freaky.” Moonpaw’s blue eyes burned into him. “Cloudberry doesn’t talk to herself.”

  “I’m not Cloudberry,” Goosepaw retorted.

  “Moonpaw! Where are you?”

  Goosepaw spotted a dark gray shape moving through the reeds on the far side of Sunningrocks. An image of a long pointed face, striped black and white and taut with fury, filled his mind. He pushed it away with an effort. “Stormtail’s looking for you,” he told his sister. “You’d better go.”

  Moonpaw was already bounding across the rocks. “Coming!” she yowled.

  “Any cat would think he was your mentor!” Goosepaw called. “Don’t make it too obvious how you feel about him, Moonpaw. It’ll just make his head even bigger.”