“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.