Midnight

Chapter 5

Brambleclaw stalked stiff-legged across the clearing until he stood face to face with the apprentice. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” he hissed.

“Hi, Brambleclaw.” Squirrelpaw tried to sound calm, but her sparkling eyes betrayed her excitement. “I couldn’t sleep, and I saw you leaving, so I’ve been following you.” She gave a little purr of delight. “I was good, wasn’t I? You never knew I was there, all the way through the forest.”

That was true, though Brambleclaw would have died rather than tell her he was impressed. Instead, he let out a low growl. For two mousetails he felt like springing at the ginger she-cat to claw the smug expression off her face. “Why can’t you mind your own business?”

The she-cat narrowed her eyes. “It’s any cat’s business when a Clan warrior sneaks out of camp at night.”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” Brambleclaw protested guiltily.

“Oh, no?” Squirrelpaw sounded scornful. “You leave camp, come straight up here to Fourtrees, and sit waiting for ages, looking like you expect every warrior in the forest to jump out at you. Don’t tell me you’re just enjoying the beautiful night.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Brambleclaw heard his voice grow desperate; all he wanted was to get rid of this annoying apprentice before any cats from other Clans arrived. She hadn’t mentioned the dream, which meant she couldn’t have had it as well, so she had no right to be here and find out the next part of the prophecy—if that was what was really going to happen. “This has got nothing to do with you, Squirrelpaw.

Why don’t you just go home?”

“No.” Squirrelpaw sat down and curled her tail around her front paws, glaring at Brambleclaw with wide green eyes. “I’m not leaving until I find out what’s going on.”

Brambleclaw let out a snarl of sheer frustration, only to jump when a voice growled behind him, “What’s she doing here?”

It was Tawnypelt, slipping out from behind the Great Rock.

She padded across the clearing and narrowed her eyes at Squirrelpaw. “I thought we weren’t going to tell any other cats?”

Brambleclaw felt his fur prickle. “I didn’t tell her. She saw me leaving and followed me.”

“And it’s a good thing I did.” Squirrelpaw stood up and met Tawnypelt’s gaze, her ears flat against her head. “You creep out at night and come up here to meet a ShadowClan warrior!

What’s Firestar going to think about that when I tell him?”

Brambleclaw’s belly lurched uncomfortably. Perhaps he ought to have told Firestar about the dream right from the start, but it was too late now.

“Listen,” he meowed urgently. “Tawnypelt isn’t just a ShadowClan warrior; she’s my sister. You know that as well as any cat. We’re not plotting anything.”

“Then why all the secrecy?” Squirrelpaw demanded.

Brambleclaw was searching for a reply when Tawnypelt interrupted him, flicking her tail toward the slope. “Look.”

Brambleclaw caught a glimpse of something gray moving among the bushes, and a heartbeat later Feathertail and Stormfur stepped into the clearing. They glanced around warily, but as soon as Feathertail spotted the other cats she raced across the clearing toward them.

“I was right!” she exclaimed, skidding to a halt in front of Brambleclaw and the two she-cats. Her eyes widened, beginning to look puzzled and a little daunted. “Did you have the dream as well? Is it the four of us?”

“Tawnypelt and I have had it,” Brambleclaw replied, at the same moment Squirrelpaw asked, “What dream?”

“The dream from StarClan, telling us that there’s trouble ahead.” Feathertail sounded more uncertain still, and her gaze flicked tensely from cat to cat.

“Did you both have the dream?” Brambleclaw asked, glancing at Stormfur as the RiverClan warrior caught up with his sister.

Stormfur shook his head. “No, only Feathertail.”

“It scared me so much,” Feathertail confessed. “I couldn’t eat or sleep for thinking about it. Stormfur knew something was wrong, and he pestered me so much that I told him what I’d dreamed. We decided that I should come to Fourtrees tonight, at the new moon, and Stormfur wouldn’t let me come by myself.” She gave her brother’s ear a friendly lick.

“He… he didn’t want me to be in danger. But I’m not, am I? I mean, we all know each other.”

“Don’t be so quick to trust every cat,” Stormfur growled. “I don’t like meeting cats from other Clans in secret like this.

It’s not what the warrior code tells us.”

“But we have each had a message from StarClan, telling us to come,” Tawnypelt pointed out. “Bluestar visited Brambleclaw, and Nightstar came to me.”

“And I saw Oakheart,” Feathertail meowed. “He said great trouble was coming to the forest, and I would have to meet with three other cats at the new moon to hear what midnight tells us.”

“I was told that, too,” Tawnypelt confirmed. With a twitch of her ears at Stormfur she added, “I don’t much like it either, but we should wait and see what StarClan want.”

“At midnight, I suppose,” Stormfur meowed, glancing up at the stars. “It must be nearly that now.”

Brambleclaw’s heart sank as he noticed Squirrelpaw’s eyes getting wider and wider. “You mean that StarClan told all of you to meet here?” the young she-cat burst out. “And they say there’s trouble coming? What kind of trouble?”

“We don’t know,” Feathertail replied. “At least, Oakheart didn’t tell me…” She trailed off, looking flus-tered, but Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt shook their heads to show that their dream-cats hadn’t shared this with them either.

Stormfur’s eyes narrowed. “Your Clan mate hasn’t had the dream,” he mewed to Brambleclaw. “What’s she doing here?”

“You didn’t have it either.” Squirrelpaw wasn’t afraid to stand up to the RiverClan warrior. “I’ve as much right to be here as you.”

“Except I didn’t invite you,” Brambleclaw growled.

“Chase her off, then,” Tawnypelt suggested. “I’ll help.”

Squirrelpaw took a step toward the ShadowClan warrior, her fur fluffed out and her tail bristling. “Just lay one paw on me…”

Brambleclaw sighed. “If we chase her off now she’ll go straight to Firestar,” he meowed. “She’s heard pretty much everything, so she might as well stay.”

Squirrelpaw gave a disdainful sniff and sat down again.

She drew her tongue down her paw and calmly began to wash her face.

“Honestly, Brambleclaw,” Tawnypelt growled. “You should have been more careful. Letting an apprentice track you!”

“What’s going on?” A new voice came from behind them, high-pitched and aggressive. “This can’t be right—Deadfoot said there were only supposed to be four of us.”

Brambleclaw jumped and looked around. His eyes narrowed into a furious glare as he recognized the cat with smoky gray-black fur, lean limbs, and small, neat head. “You!” he spat.

Standing a couple of fox-lengths away was the WindClan apprentice Crowpaw, who had trespassed on ThunderClan territory and stolen a vole.

“Yes, me,” he retorted, his fur bristling as if at any moment he might spring and finish off the fight.

Tawnypelt pricked her ears. “This is a WindClan cat, right?” She looked Crowpaw up and down dismissively.

“Undersized specimen, isn’t he?”

“He’s an apprentice,” Brambleclaw explained, as Crowpaw drew his lips back in a snarl. “His name’s Crowpaw.”

He glanced at Squirrelpaw, willing her to keep silent about the incident with the vole. He wanted WindClan brought to justice over the prey stealing, but properly, at a Gathering, not by provoking a fight here. After all, what they were doing here was already a long way outside the warrior code.

Squirrelpaw twitched the tip of her tail, but to Brambleclaw’s relief she said nothing.

“You had the dream too?” Feathertail asked; Brambleclaw saw the anxiety beginning to fade from her blue eyes, as if she were drawing courage from a growing certainty that the dreams were true.

Crowpaw gave her a curt nod. “I spoke with our old deputy, Deadfoot,” he meowed. “He told me to meet three other cats at the new moon.”

“Then that’s one cat from each Clan,” replied Feathertail.

“We’re all here.”

“Now we just have to wait for midnight,” Brambleclaw added.

“Do you know what this is about?” Crowpaw turned his back on Brambleclaw and appealed directly to Feathertail.

“If it were me,” Squirrelpaw meowed before Feathertail could reply, “I’d be a bit less quick to believe in these dreams.

If there was really trouble on its way, do you think StarClan would come to you first, before the Clan leaders or medicine cats?”

“Then how do you explain it?” Brambleclaw asked, all the more defensive because he had felt exactly the same doubts that Squirrelpaw was voicing now. “Why else would we all have had the same dream?”

“Maybe you’ve all been stuffing yourselves with too much fresh-kill?” Squirrelpaw suggested.

Crowpaw whipped around with an angry hiss. “Who asked you, anyway?” he demanded.

“I can say what I like,” Squirrelpaw shot back at him. “I don’t need your permission. You’re not even a warrior.”

“Nor are you,” the gray-black cat snapped. “What are you doing here, anyway? You didn’t have the dream. No cat wants you here.”

Brambleclaw opened his jaws to defend Squirrelpaw. Even though he had been annoyed with her for following him, it was no business of Crowpaw’s to tell her what to do. Then he realized that Squirrelpaw wouldn’t thank him; with her ready tongue she was quite capable of defending herself.

“I don’t see them falling over themselves to welcome you, either,” she growled.

Crowpaw spat, his ears flattened and his eyes glaring fury.

“There’s no need to get angry,” Feathertail began.

The small black cat ignored her. Lashing his tail from side to side, he sprang at Squirrelpaw. An instant later Brambleclaw leaped too, barreling into him and rolling him over before his claws could score down her flank.

“Back off,” he hissed, pinning Crowpaw down with a paw on his neck. He could hardly believe that the WindClan apprentice would start a fight now, when they were waiting for a message from StarClan, and linked in the prophecy through their dreams. If StarClan had really chosen them for a mysterious destiny, they would surely not fulfill it by shed-ding one another’s blood.

The light of battle died from Crowpaw’s eyes, though he still looked furious. Brambleclaw let him get up; he turned his back and started to groom his ruffled fur.

“Thanks for nothing!” Brambleclaw was hardly surprised to see that Squirrelpaw was glaring at him with just as much hostility as Crowpaw. “I can fight my own battles.”

Brambleclaw let out a hiss of exasperation. “You can’t start fighting here. There are more important things to think about. And if these dreams are true, then StarClan wants the Clans to work together.”

He glanced around the clearing, half hoping that a cat from StarClan would appear to tell them what they were supposed to be doing, before a fight broke out that he couldn’t stop. But Silverpelt shone on a clearing empty of any cats but themselves. He could smell nothing but the ordinary night scents of growing plants and distant prey, and hear nothing but the sigh of wind through the branches of the oaks.

“It must be after midnight now,” Tawnypelt meowed. “I don’t think StarClan are coming.”

Feathertail turned to look all around the clearing, her blue eyes once more wide with anxiety. “But they have to come!

Why did we all have the same dream, if it wasn’t true?”

“Then why is nothing happening?” Tawnypelt challenged her. “Here we are, meeting at the new moon, just as StarClan told us. We can’t do any more.”

“We were fools to come.” Crowpaw gave them all another unfriendly stare. “The dreams meant nothing. There’s no prophecy, no danger—and even if there were, the warrior code should be enough to protect the forest.” He began to stalk across the clearing to the slope on the WindClan side, and his last words were flung over his shoulder. “I’m going back to camp.”

“Good riddance!” Squirrelpaw yowled after him.

He ignored her, and a moment later had disappeared into the bushes.

“Tawnypelt’s right. Nothing is going to happen,” Stormfur meowed. “We might as well go too. Come on, Feathertail.”

“Just a minute,” mewed Brambleclaw. “Maybe we got it wrong—maybe StarClan was angry because of the fighting.

We can’t just pretend that nothing has happened, that none of us had those dreams. We ought to decide what we’re going to do next.”

“What can we do?” Tawnypelt asked. She flicked her tail toward Squirrelpaw. “Maybe she’s right. Why would StarClan choose us and not our leaders?”

“I don’t know, but I think they have chosen us,” Feathertail meowed gently. “But somehow we haven’t understood properly. Maybe they’ll send us all another dream to explain.”

“Maybe.” Her brother didn’t sound convinced.

“Let’s all try to come to the next Gathering,” Brambleclaw suggested. “There might be another sign by then.”

“Crowpaw won’t know to meet us there,” Feathertail murmured, glancing at the spot in the bushes where the WindClan apprentice had vanished.

“No loss,” Stormfur remarked, but at his sister’s anxious look he added, “We can keep an eye open for him when he comes to the river to drink. If we see him we’ll pass the message on.”

“All right, that’s decided,” meowed Tawnypelt. “We meet at the Gathering.”

“And what do we tell our Clans?” Stormfur asked. “It’s against the warrior code to hide things from them.”

“StarClan never said we had to keep the dream secret,” Tawnypelt put in.

“I know, but…” Feathertail hesitated and then went on, “I just feel it’s wrong to talk about it.”

Brambleclaw knew Stormfur and Tawnypelt were right; he was already feeling guilty that he had said nothing about his dream to Firestar and Cinderpelt. At the same time he shared Feathertail’s instinct to keep silent.

“I’m not sure,” he meowed. “Suppose our leaders forbade us to meet again? We could end up having to choose between obeying them or obeying StarClan.” Aware of uneasy glances from the others, he went on earnestly; “We don’t know enough to tell them. Suppose we wait until the next Gathering, at least. We might have other signs by then that will explain it all to us.”

Feathertail agreed at once, obviously relieved, and after a pause Stormfur gave a small, reluctant nod.

“But only until the next Gathering,” Tawnypelt meowed.

“If we haven’t found out any more by then, I’ll have to tell Blackstar.” She gave a huge stretch, her back arched and her forepaws extended. “Right, I’m off.”

Brambleclaw touched noses with her in farewell, breathing in her familiar scent. “It must mean something that we were both chosen—brother and sister,” he murmured.

“Maybe.” Tawnypelt’s green eyes were unconvinced. “The other cats aren’t kin, though.” Her tongue rasped once over Brambleclaw’s ear in a rare gesture of affection. “StarClan willing, I’ll see you at the Gathering.”

Brambleclaw watched her bound across the clearing, before turning to Squirrelpaw. “Come on,” he meowed. “I’ve things I want to say to you.”

Squirrelpaw shrugged and padded away from him, toward ThunderClan territory.

Saying good night to Feathertail and Stormfur, Brambleclaw headed up the slope after her. When he emerged from the hollow a hot, clammy breeze was blowing into his face, ruffling his fur and turning back the leaves on the trees.

Clouds had begun to mass above his head, cutting off the light of Silverpelt. The forest was silent and the air felt heavier than ever. Brambleclaw guessed that the storm was on its way at last.

As he began trotting down toward the stream, Squirrelpaw paused to wait for him. Her fur was relaxed on her spine now, and her green eyes shone.

“That was exciting!” she exclaimed. “Brambleclaw, you have to let me come with you to the next meeting, please! I never thought I’d be part of a prophecy from StarClan.”

“You’re not part of it,” Brambleclaw meowed sternly.

“StarClan didn’t send you the dream.”

“But I know about it, don’t I? If StarClan didn’t want me involved, they would have kept me away from Fourtrees somehow.” Squirrelpaw faced him, forcing him to halt, and gazed at him with pleading eyes. “I could help. I’d do everything you told me.”

Brambleclaw couldn’t keep back a puff of laughter. “And hedgehogs might fly.”

“No, I will, I promise.” Her green eyes narrowed. “And I wouldn’t tell any cat. You can trust me on that, at least.”

For a few heartbeats Brambleclaw returned her gaze. He knew that if she told Firestar what had happened he would be in deep trouble. Her silence must be worth something.

“Okay,” he agreed at last. “I’ll let you know if anything else happens, but only if you keep your mouth shut.”

Squirrelpaw’s tail went straight up and her eyes blazed with delight. “Thank you, Brambleclaw!”

Brambleclaw sighed. Somehow he could sense that he would be in even deeper trouble because of the bargain he had just made. He followed Squirrelpaw into the shadows that lay thickly under the trees, feeling a shiver of fear at the thought of what might be watching them, unseen. But the forest around him was no darker or more threatening than the half-offered prophecy. If the trouble that was coming to the forest was as serious as Bluestar had said, then Brambleclaw was in great danger of making a fatal mistake simply because he did not know enough.