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 they 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.