Cloudberry looked at Goosefeather, her yellow eyes wary. “Be careful,” she murmured. “Don’t let the kits hear you say that.”
Goosefeather let out a hiss of irritation. “I was only making an observation!”
His mentor shook her head. “You see his future every time you look at him. Don’t let that blind you to what is happening now, Goosefeather.”
“I can’t take away what I have seen,” Goosefeather growled. “The fact that Sunkit is going to grow up to be our leader makes him special.”
“All kits are special!” Cloudberry flashed. “To their mothers, they are the most perfect creatures that ever walked in the forest. But as medicine cats, we must treat our Clanmates as equals. None is more deserving of our care than another. You should know that by now.”
She broke off as Doestar approached. The pale-furred leader looked at the fresh-kill pile. “Has every cat eaten yet?” she asked.
“Almost,” Cloudberry meowed. “Here, you could take the remains of this squirrel.” She pushed it toward Doestar, but the she-cat backed away.
“Save it for the queens. I’m not hungry.”
“You have to eat,” Cloudberry murmured. “Your warriors don’t want to see you starve yourself.”
Doestar flicked the tip of her tail. “There are too many hungry mouths in ThunderClan,” she mewed. “Three litters born at the start of leaf-bare! How will we feed them all?”
“Like we always do, with clever hunting,” Cloudberry insisted. “Trust your warriors, Doestar.
ThunderClan will survive.”
Goosefeather looked down at the vole he had chosen. It was plump and thickly furred, and its unseeing eyes were bright. If StarClan continued to send them such healthy prey, they would hardly notice leaf-bare passing through the forest.
Goosefeather opened his eyes with a start. The air inside the medicine cats’ den was bitterly cold, and there was just enough moonlight filtering through the cleft in the rock to show his breath hanging in clouds above his nest. Goosefeather stretched and felt the chill pierce his fur as he uncurled.
Beside him, Cloudberry was snoring gently in her own nest, her thick tail over her nose.
Goosefeather felt too restless to go back to sleep. He slid out of his nest and padded out of the den. The ferns were crisp with frost, and the moon was barely a claw-scratch in the clear indigo sky.
Goosefeather winced as he followed the path to the clearing. The ground was hard as stone beneath his paws, and he was so cold he could hardly breathe. The air was completely still, and the only sound came from an owl somewhere in the distance, calling to its mate. Goosefeather paused. That wasn’t the only sound he could hear. A faint moaning was coming from one of the dens.
He ran into the clearing and stopped dead in horror. His Clanmates staggered around him, ribs sticking out of scabby pelts, eyes bulging from sharp-edged faces. The air was thick with wails of pain and the low, steady keening of a cat lost in grief. Two cats, Squirrelwhisker and Rooktail, clawed at the place where the fresh-kill pile had been; it was nothing now but a few scraps of fur and a scattering of tiny bones. A ginger shape lay slumped in the middle of the clearing, eyes open and clouded. To Goosefeather’s dismay, none of the other cats paid any attention to it. Instead they stepped over the dead cat’s crumpled legs, blinded and numb from hunger.
A few cats watched from the edge of the clearing, their pelts sleek and glossy, their bellies plump with food. But their eyes were filled with sorrow, and Goosefeather knew that these were StarClan cats, the dead cats he saw every day among his Clanmates. Waves of grief came from them as they watched the living cats starve.
Goosefeather felt heavy wetness clinging to his belly fur and looked down to see that he was standing in thick snow. A bleak-eyed, hunch-shouldered cat lurched close to him. “Daisytoe?”
Goosefeather whispered. The she-cat didn’t hear him. She stumbled to the fresh-kill pile and leaned on Rooktail.
“You said you would go out hunting,” she rasped. Her gaunt flanks heaved as she fought for breath.
The black tom flicked his tail. “I did,” he growled. “But there’s no prey in this snow.”
“We’re all going to die!” wailed Squirrelwhisker, grinding her paws into the remains of the fresh-kill pile.
“No!” Goosefeather yowled. “I won’t let this happen!”
The cats vanished, and he was alone in the moonlit clearing. He whirled around and raced to the den beneath Highrock.
“Doestar! Wake up!”
He burst into the musty darkness and blinked. The leader sat up in her nest, her fur ruffled from sleep.
“Goosefeather! What’s wrong?”
“The Clan is starving!” he wailed. “This leaf-bare is too harsh. There is no prey and we are all going to die!”
Doestar bounded across the den and pressed her shoulder against Goosefeather. She felt warm and solid, and he started to breathe more steadily. “Calm down,” she told him. “Have you had a vision?”
Goosefeather nodded. “It was snowy and cold… more cold than it has ever been. The fresh-kill pile was empty, and there was nothing for hunting patrols to catch. Cats were dying from hunger…”
He trailed off, picturing the dead ginger cat lying alone in the center of the camp.
There was a stir at the entrance to Doestar’s den, and Pineheart appeared. “Is everything okay?” he meowed. “I was returning from the dirtplace and saw Goosefeather coming in.”
“Goosefeather has had a vision,” Doestar explained. “This is going to be a harder leaf-bare than usual, it seems.” Her voice was even, but Goosefeather could feel her heart thudding beneath her fur.
Pineheart looked at Goosefeather. “Did your vision show you a way to survive what’s coming?”
There was an edge to his voice, and Goosefeather swallowed the urge to hiss at him. One day
Pineheart would be leader and Goosefeather would be his only medicine cat; he had to keep peace with the deputy now and win his trust.
“No,” he admitted. “But we have a chance to do something, now that we have been warned.”
Doestar nodded to Goosefeather. “I want Cloudberry to hear this as well. Fetch her, please.”
Goosefeather ran into the icy air and woke the old medicine cat. She sat in the leader’s den and listened quietly as Goosefeather explained what he had seen.
“We’ll have to find a different source of prey,” mewed Doestar, pacing across the cave and back again. “Should we expand the territory? Send cats into Twolegplace?”
Pineheart flicked his ears. “I can’t see our warriors being happy about that. But perhaps we could set borders around the treecutplace. I don’t think we’d be challenged if we wanted to hunt there.”
Cloudberry was gazing into the distance. “There is something we could try,” she murmured. “I remember a very cold leaf-bare when I was a kit in RiverClan. The river froze, trapping all the fish.
Some warriors broke off a piece of ice at the edge of the river and brought it back to the camp. It contained a fish, stone-cold and dead. But when the warmth of the dens melted the ice around it, the fish was perfect fresh-kill. Somehow the ice had kept it fresh.”
Goosefeather tipped his head on one side. “Are you saying we should wait for the river to freeze, and eat fish?”
“No. I think we should find a way to keep our own prey fresh for when we have nothing else to eat,” Cloudberry mewed.
“But we don’t have enough water on our territory,” Pineheart pointed out.
“Maybe not,” meowed Doestar, flicking her tail. “But what if the same thing happens in the ground? We know the earth freezes when it gets very cold. If we buried the fresh-kill, wouldn’t it freeze too? Then we could dig it up when we need it.”