Goosefeather’s Curse

Chapter Nine

“I am proud to announce three new litters of kits in ThunderClan.” Doestar’s voice rang through the hollow above the heads of the listening cats. Behind her, the other leaders were outlined in silver from frosty moonlight.

Houndstar, the ShadowClan leader, leaned over to Volestar of RiverClan. Goosefeather heard him mutter, “So close to leaf-bare? Those warriors won’t like having to catch prey for so many hungry mouths!”

Doestar must have overheard, because she continued. “ThunderClan is well prepared for leaf-bare. My Clan will grow strong through the coldest moons, and I will bring you our new apprentices when the warm weather returns!”

There were cheers from the ThunderClan cats, and Chiveclaw, the WindClan medicine cat, mewed to Cloudberry, “You’ll be busy with all those little ones!”

Cloudberry nodded. “Thank StarClan, they are all fit and well. Noisy, though!”

Echosnout of RiverClan snorted. “In my day, kits knew when to keep quiet.”

Cloudberry flicked her ears. “In your day, Echosnout, I was one of those kits under your care, and I don’t remember being quiet at all!”

The old she-cat huffed and turned away. Above them on the Great Rock, the WindClan leader, Heatherstar, had stepped forward and was reporting a black-and-white dog loose on the moor. Her warriors had chased it down to the Thunderpath, where a Twoleg caught it.

“I gave it a scratch that it won’t forget in a hurry,” purred Dawnstripe, a cream-striped golden tabby.

A brisk wind rattled the branches of the giant oaks, sending a flurry of raindrops spattering into the hollow. Houndstar jumped to his paws. “We should get home before the rain starts,” he called.

“Come, ShadowClan!”

The tangle of cats parted smoothly in four directions, streaming up out of the hollow and plunging into the forest. Goosefeather ran beside his mother. Daisytoe was limping slightly from an ache in her haunches; with a shock, Goosefeather realized that his mother was growing old. He stayed close to her as they made their way through the trees. Thick clouds had blown in to cover the full moon, and raindrops pattered steadily onto the branches.

The ThunderClan cats raced down the side of the ravine and bounded into their camp. The cats who had stayed behind came out to hear the news from the Gathering, then retreated quickly into their dens as the rain pelted down. Goosefeather followed Cloudberry into their den beneath the rock.

Their pelts steamed in the damp air. Cloudberry shook herself, sending drops flying onto

Goosefeather’s muzzle.

“I’d rather it was cold than wet,” she complained. “This weather gets into my bones now.” She climbed stiffly into her nest and curled up. Goosefeather pulled some feathers over her flanks to keep her warm.

“The wind is strong enough to blow the rain away,” he meowed. “It will be dry by dawn.”

But it wasn’t. Goosefeather was woken by the thrumming of raindrops on the rock above his head.

Outside, the browning ferns were half flattened, and the clearing was awash with rivulets. Warriors ran from den to den hunched against the windblown rain, and the fresh-kill pile was sitting in a brackish puddle.

Pineheart surveyed it with a frown. “We’ll have to move it to higher ground,” he meowed. “I’ll get Mumblefoot and Rooktail to do that as soon as they return from the dawn patrol.”

Mistpelt emerged from the elders’ den on her way to the dirtplace and hissed as her paws sank into mud. “Whose bright idea was it to dig up half the clearing?” she muttered. “If it keeps raining, we’ll all sink up to our necks!”

Goosefeather looked at the freshly turned soil that marked the storage places for fresh-kill. Each one bubbled with liquid brown sludge. He pictured the prey underneath, soaked through and festering.

… “Pineheart!” he yowled. “The fresh-kill will be ruined! We have to dig it up and take it somewhere dry!”

The deputy stared at him. “But we’ve only just buried it! Where else can we put it? The ground will be soaked everywhere in the forest.”

Goosefeather was already scraping at the nearest patch of mud. “We can’t waste time thinking about that. We have to dig it up before it rots!”

He was dimly aware of Pineheart running to the warriors’ den and summoning the cats still in their nests. Harepounce ran from the nursery and started digging alongside Goosefeather. Her light brown pelt was soon smothered in wet earth, and her whiskers were thick with sludge, but she kept scratching until their paws hit a lump of sodden fur.

“It’s a vole,” Harepounce panted. She crouched down and hauled at it with her teeth.

Goosefeather scrabbled at the soil on the other side of the fresh-kill. With a squelch the vole was pulled free, and Harepounce sat back on her haunches.

Goosefeather gazed down at the vole in dismay. Its flanks had caved in, the flesh eaten away by fat white maggots, which writhed in the shriveled fur. The remains of the creature stank worse than crow-food, and greasy slime was oozing out of it, soaking Goosefeather’s paws.

“It’s ruined,” Harepounce whispered.

All around them, warriors were digging up more rotten prey. Soaked, maggoty, and wasted away to nothing, their precious stores were useless. Goosefeather looked up and saw Doestar standing below Highrock, her eyes dark with fear. Pineheart was standing beside her, his tail lashing as he promised to send out more patrols, restock the stores. But there was a weight in Goosefeather’s belly like cold stone. His vision was going to come true. There was nothing he could do to save his Clanmates from starvation.

Harepounce died first, refusing to eat a mouthful from the moment they dug up the rotten prey and instead giving all her meager share to her kits. The rain stopped and snow came, smothering the forest into silent whiteness, which was pierced by moans of pain and hunger. Pineheart kept sending out hunting patrols, but again and again they returned empty-pawed.

Goosefeather and Cloudberry turned their paws raw from scraping in the snow in search of leaves to soothe bellyache and ward off coughs and fever. Flashnose died from a bout of sickness that racked her body with terrible spasms, and Stagleap and Hollypelt faded soon after. By the time Nettlebreeze slipped into a slumber from which he couldn’t awake, sprawled in the middle of the clearing on his way back from the dirtplace, none of the cats were strong enough to move his body. A circle of StarClan cats gathered around the dead tom, their pelts noticeably shiny amid the mangy, dull-eyed warriors.

Goosefeather stared down at the stiffening ginger cat softly being covered with snowflakes and felt a surge of molten fury in his belly. Swiftbreeze staggered past, almost tripping over one of Nettlebreeze’s legs.

“Careful!” Goosefeather hissed.

The tabby-and-white she-cat turned to him with clouded, vacant eyes. A scrap of bark clung to her whiskers. Goosefeather knew that some of the warriors had started chewing twigs in an effort to fill their empty bellies.

“He can’t feel anything now,” Swiftbreeze rasped, sounding older than stone.

“He still deserves our respect,” Goosefeather mewed. He was too weak to move Nettlebreeze himself, but he tried to tuck the dead cat’s legs under his belly so that no one else would fall over him.

He heard paw steps crunching over the snow and looked up to see Cloudberry limping toward him. The medicine cat looked hollow beneath her white fur, and her teeth seemed too large for her mouth. “Rabbitpaw dug up some worms today,” she croaked. “I’m sharing them with Rainfur and the kits. Do you want one?”

Goosefeather pictured the slimy, throbbing creature and gagged. “It’s okay,” he mewed. “Save them for yourself.” He gently picked up Nettlebreeze’s tail in his jaws and draped it over the ginger cat’s back.

“We did everything we could,” Cloudberry whispered close to his ear. Her breath smelled rotten.

“It’s not your fault we couldn’t stop this happening. The rain spoiling all our prey was just bad luck.”

Goosefeather lifted his head and looked at her. “There is no such thing as bad luck,” he told her.

“Only destiny. I knew this was coming. But everything I did just made it worse.”

He turned and plunged through the snow toward the gorse tunnel. Churned slush showed where a patrol had gone out in the hope of finding something to eat. Goosefeather scrambled up the ravine and walked into the silent forest.

How had he ever thought his visions were a gift? StarClan hadn’t blessed him; they had cursed him instead. He would always know the worst that would happen, and be powerless to change it.

Mapleshade was right: He was doomed.

“Goosefeather?”

A soft voice made him stop and look around. A familiar dark brown figure was waiting beneath a patch of bracken.

“Pearnose!”

The dead cat looked more alive than any of his Clanmates. Goosefeather padded up to her, inhaling her sweet, leaf-fresh scent.

“I have seen what is happening in ThunderClan,” Pearnose murmured. “My heart is breaking for you all.”

Goosefeather closed his eyes and fought down the urge to wail like a kit. “I can’t believe there was nothing we could do to stop it. I knew what was coming!”

The she-cat licked the top of his head. “You walk a difficult path, my friend. You must learn that it is not your role to change the future. Instead, all you can do is shine a light through the darkness, like the tiniest flame. Your Clanmates must deal with their destinies as they unfold. You cannot be responsible for all of them.”

Goosefeather let out a long sigh. “Then my gift is useless,” he whispered. “Without power, everything I see, everything I know, will bring me nothing but pain.” He lifted his head and opened his mouth in a yowl. “StarClan! Why have you done this to me?”