“I’m telling you, it’s the best way,” Root meowed, shaking leaves off his pelt as he got to his paws. He bent down and used his mouth to pick up the mouse he had just killed.
“I’m not convinced that lying around until prey decides you’re a bush instead of a cat is really the best way to hunt,” Tree replied dubiously. Root cocked his head and waggled the mouse back and forth—as if saying, And yet, see this mouse?—until Tree purred with laughter.
“Okay, I get your point,” Tree admitted. “Here, I’ll take it back to camp unless you’re hungry now.”
“Great,” Root meowed, dropping the mouse at Tree’s paws. “I’ll keep hunting.” He lay down again, placing a few leaves on his own back for effect.
Shaking his head in amusement, Tree carried the mouse back to the foot of the tree where they’d been sleeping and scraped up a few pawfuls of dirt to bury it for safekeeping.
In the two moons that he and his father had spent together, Tree had learned a lot. Root didn’t always hunt the way the Sisters did: he believed in taking care of himself while expending as little energy as possible. So not only did he have unique hunting techniques, but he had also taught Tree to find food in Twopaw trash and in the unattended bowls of everkits. He’d shown Tree how to pick the safest spots to rest. And he’d shown him fighting techniques, but also what he said was more usefuclass="underline" how to arch his back and snarl and frighten off rogues and dogs so that they might not have to fight at all.
I would have had such a hard time without Root, Tree thought as he brushed some dry leaves across where he’d buried the mouse.
Another leaf drifted down from the oak tree, and Tree’s tail drooped. Icetime was coming. Root had always said that they wouldn’t stay together for more than a moon or two, and it had been two moons.
Tree knew how much he owed Root. But still … he would be adrift and lonely when they went their separate ways.
If he couldn’t stay with his father forever, Tree wished he could be like the rest of the Sisters. If he could talk to the land, and if he could see spirits, he’d never be alone. Would he ever be able to? Moonlight had told him he would, someday, but he had tried so hard, and nothing had come of it… .
He straightened, struck by a new idea. Maybe—just maybe—something had changed since he was a kit. He was bigger and smarter and more capable now; was it possible that the land would speak to him in a way it had refused to when he was younger?
Tree glanced around half guiltily, making sure that Root wasn’t in sight. Root didn’t like to be reminded of Moonlight and the rest of the Sisters. He didn’t like to see Tree acting like them. The older cat wasn’t nearby, though, so Tree settled comfortably among the soft, dry leaves and tried to remember what Moonlight had taught him.
Oh, yes. He was supposed to try to become one with the grass. Shutting his eyes tightly, Tree listened hard. If he could just do it right, he would hear the grass, the leaves, the trees, all speaking to him. Straining his ears, he held his breath, listening. Nothing. What was wrong with him, that he couldn’t do it?
He heard the soft crunch of a dry leaf under a paw and opened his eyes. Root had come out of the bracken and was watching him. “What’re you doing?” he asked.
Tree felt hot with embarrassment. He hesitated uncomfortably, shifting his paws. “I’m … trying to talk to the grass,” he mewed quietly. “As a tom, I’m supposed to be able to, and I never have.”
Root came over and sat down next to him. “Does the grass really have a lot to say?” he asked. He wasn’t laughing, but his whiskers twitched.
Tree glared at him. “Toms are the guardians of the land,” he told him. “How am I supposed to do what I need to, if I can’t even speak to the world around me?” He dropped his head onto his paws. “I keep failing.”
Root hesitated for a heartbeat, then brushed his tail gently over Tree’s back. “Look,” he mewed, his eyes warm with sympathy. “Not every cat believes what the Sisters believe. A tom doesn’t have to look after the world. The world will keep on going.”
“Moonlight told us—” Tree began.
“You don’t live with Moonlight and the Sisters anymore,” Root interrupted. “You don’t have to live by their rules. You’ve changed your name, and you don’t have to keep anything else they gave you either, unless you want to. Be who you want to be.”
Who I want to be? Who is that cat? Tree didn’t know, but he felt a little lighter. Maybe not wanting to wander and care for the land was okay. The Sisters had made him leave, but maybe he could choose to leave, too.
The idea was amazing … but very lonely.
“I wanted to try again to speak to the land,” he told Root, “because I’ll need some cat to talk to.” Root looked puzzled, and Tree hurried to explain, his words falling over one another in a rush. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” he said. “If you hadn’t let me stay with you, I’d probably be dead by now, or I would’ve given up and become some Twopaw’s everkit. I haven’t forgotten that you’re a loner and that I can’t just stay with you forever. Even a couple of moons has been great. But I know it has to end.”
Root cocked one of his hind legs to scratch at his ear. “Um,” he began slowly, looking up at the sky. “You’re a good hunter now, but I still have a lot to teach you. You’ll need to know how to set up a territory for yourself. Maybe we should stay together a little longer.”
Confused, Tree opened his mouth to object—he’d lived in enough different territories with the Sisters that he was sure he could manage—and then closed it again. There was an embarrassed gleam in Root’s eye.
He doesn’t want me to go, Tree realized. He’d miss me, too. Maybe Root wasn’t as much of a loner as he’d thought he was.
Warmth filled Tree’s chest, and he blinked at his father affectionately. Root’s right, he thought. I can be any cat I want to be now. And maybe who I want to be is Root’s kin.
“I thought you just wanted the prey to come to you,” Tree meowed a few days later, following Root through the forest.
Root flicked his tail dismissively. “That’s fine when you’re hunting mice,” he answered. “But I’ve got a taste for rabbit today, and rabbits are a two-cat job.”
Tree waved his tail happily as they walked. There was a touch of chill in the air, but there were still a couple of moons to go before icetime really arrived. Prey would be tasty, still fat from the warmer weather. Tree’s mouth watered at the thought of rabbit.
“Look,” Root pointed out softly. They had come to the edge of a sunny clearing, where two rabbits nibbled at long stalks of grass, periodically rising up on their hind legs to check for predators.
“One for each of us,” Tree breathed, but Root shook his head.
“If we go after both, we won’t catch either. Let’s go for the big one. Circle around and drive it toward me.”
Tree dipped his head in acknowledgment and began to work his way silently around the edge of the clearing, a careful eye on the rabbits. The smaller one suddenly lifted its head high, ears twitching, and he froze as it sniffed the air. When it finally began to eat again, Tree headed straight toward the rabbits, crouching so low that his belly almost brushed the ground and he was completely hidden by the long grass.
It wasn’t until he had almost reached the rabbits that they suddenly stiffened. With thumps of their big back paws, they took off, zigging away from each other, and Tree saw that Root had been right. If he hadn’t already been sure which to chase, he would have lost both. Instead he launched himself after the larger one, a fat brown one with a white tail, leaping almost on its heels, driving it toward where he knew Root was crouched.