Erin Hunter - Sunset

Daisy winced. Brambleclaw thought Cloudtail was being a little optimistic in mentioning Brightheart. “But I’m so useless out there,” she meowed. “I feel like every cat in the Clan is fed up with looking after me.”

“That’s not true.” Brambleclaw tried to reassure her.

“You’ve helped Sorreltail with her kits, haven’t you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after you. I’ll protect you from the badgers. And I’ll teach you the warrior code,” Berrykit promised his mother, the stump of his tail quivering. “When I’m an apprentice, I’ll tell you everything my mentor teaches me.”

“So will we,” Hazelkit added. “ Please take us back! We want to be warriors and catch our own prey. We don’t like that yucky Twoleg food.”

Mousekit flexed tiny claws. “We want to learn to fight.”

Smoky, who had listened in silence until now, padded up to Daisy and brushed his muzzle against hers. “Maybe you should go,” he mewed.

Daisy turned toward him, her eyes questioning and a little hurt. “I thought you missed me.”

“I did. I missed all of you. But it’s obvious that our kits aren’t going to settle here. They’ve done nothing but talk about the forest ever since they set paw in the barn.” The gray-and-white tomcat blinked affectionately at her. “You could always come back yourself once they’re fully grown.”

“Or you could come to the forest too,” Cloudtail suggested to him, making Brambleclaw flinch.

“Me!” Smoky’s eyes opened wide with astonishment. “Live in the open in the pouring rain and have to catch every mouthful of food? No thanks! Besides,” he added, “it sounds way too crowded. I’d never remember all your names.” He glanced back at the other she-cat, who had finished eating and was washing her face with one paw. “And I couldn’t leave Floss all by herself, could I?”

Berrykit nudged Daisy again. “Can we go back? Can we?”

Daisy looked at her kits. “You really want to go live in the cold and wet with no proper food in a forest full of badgers and traps?”

“Yes!” All three kits bounced up and down, eyes blazing with excitement. “Yes! Yes!”

“Well, I suppose…”

Berrykit let out a high-pitched yowl of triumph. He and his littermates scurried around in a circle, their tails held high. “We’re going back to the forest! We’re going back to the forest!”

“That’s great!” Cloudtail looked nearly as pleased as the kits. “These three are just what ThunderClan needs. They’ll be fine warriors one day.”

Brambleclaw spotted a flash of pain in Daisy’s eyes.

Cloudtail seemed more pleased that the kits were coming back than that their mother was coming with them.

He touched her shoulder with his tail. “Ferncloud and Sorreltail will be really glad to see you,” he mewed. “They were both terribly upset when they found you’d gone.”

Daisy blinked at him, a faint glow in the depths of her eyes.

“They’re good friends,” she murmured.

“When can we go?” Berrykit demanded, halting in front of his mother. “Now?”

“No, not now.” Cloudtail stepped forward before Daisy could answer. “It’s dark out there. We’ll go in the morning.”

“You’re welcome to spend the night here,” Smoky offered.

He swept his tail toward the food bowl. “Help yourselves.”

“Okay, thanks.” Cloudtail padded over to the bowl and plunged his muzzle into it.

Brambleclaw remembered hearing about how the white warrior used to sneak off to eat food the Twolegs gave him, until they made him a prisoner and shut him up in their nest.

He had come back to the Clan when Firestar helped him to escape, but he obviously still had a fondness for kittypet food.

“Not for me, thanks,” he meowed to Smoky with a polite dip of his head. “I’ll catch my own.”

“Show us how,” Berrykit pleaded, at the same time Mousekit asked, “Can we watch?”

“You don’t learn how to hunt until you’re apprenticed,” Brambleclaw told them. “But you can watch if you like.”

The three kits crouched down together, gazing at him with huge eyes as he tasted the air. Now that they were quiet, the whole barn seemed to be filled with the scuffling and squeaking of mice. Brambleclaw soon spotted a plump one, nibbling on a seed at the foot of a pile of straw bales. Very cautiously, not letting his claws scrape on the stone floor of the barn, he crept toward it. This is one mouse I can’t afford to miss , he thought as he pounced and swiftly bit it on the back of the neck.

All three kits let out a squeal of excitement as he turned back with his limp prey in his jaws. Berrykit dropped into the hunter’s crouch, waggling his haunches just as Brambleclaw had done. He almost had the position exactly right. He’ll be a great hunter , Brambleclaw thought.

“Here,” he meowed, after dropping the mouse in front of the three kits. “You can share that one, if your mother says it’s okay. I’ll catch another.”

Daisy gave her permission, shaking her head slightly as she watched her kits eat the fresh-kill. A moment later she turned away and joined Cloudtail at the food bowl.

Brambleclaw soon caught himself a second mouse. By the time he had finished eating, Daisy had gathered her kits together and vanished with them into the straw. Cloudtail clawed at the stiff stems until he had pulled enough out of the bale to make a nest. “I’ll be glad to be back in camp,” he mewed. “This stuff isn’t nearly as comfortable as moss.”

As Brambleclaw made a nest for himself, he had to agree.

The straw poked into him, and a chill seeped up from the stone floor underneath. He curled up and tucked his nose into his tail, missing the warriors’ den, its air warmed by the breath of his Clanmates. Most of all he missed Squirrelflight, her sweet scent and the soft touch of her fur. Sleep was a long time in coming, but out here in the horseplace, far from his Clan, no dreams disturbed it.

Leafpool curled up in her nest of moss and bracken, but she shifted around for a long time before she slept, feeling as though ants were crawling through her pelt. How could she get in touch with Willowpaw to tell her about StarClan?

When at last she drifted into unconsciousness, she opened her eyes and found herself at the top of a slope overlooking the lake, not far from the place where Brambleclaw had sat, staring across the water. There was no sign of the tabby warrior tonight. Instead, as she brushed through the long grasses, each blade outlined in silver, there was a different cat waiting for her by the lake. The frosty glimmer of StarClan shone in its fur as it gazed out over the water.

Spottedleaf? Leafpool quickened her pace until she was racing through the undergrowth to the water’s edge. But when she reached the shore and saw the StarClan cat more clearly, she realized it was Feathertail, Stormfur’s sister, who had died in the mountains on the way back from the sun-drown-place.

The beautiful silver-furred tabby let out a welcoming purr.

“I hoped you would come, Leafpool,” she mewed. “We have a task tonight, you and I.”

“What’s that?” Leafpool asked, her pelt prickling with excitement.

“StarClan want me to help you visit Willowpaw in her dreams,” Feathertail explained.

Leafpool stared in astonishment at the StarClan warrior.

Each medicine cat dreamed his or her own dreams of StarClan—they never appeared in each other’s. She had assumed that the only way she could meet Willowpaw was in the waking world. “Can that be done?”