Erin Hunter - Midnight

There was a pause; then Tallstar cleared his throat and mewed quietly, “WindClan has lost an apprentice, Crowpaw.

It would have been about the same time.” He added, “I thought a fox or a badger might have gotten him, but it looks as if he might be with your lot.”

A murmur of uneasiness broke out in the clearing. Some cat called out, “How do you know? Maybe there’s something in the forest picking us off one by one.”

The murmur grew louder, and a cat on the edge of the throng let out a wail of terror. Leafpaw could see cats exchanging fearful glances or springing to their paws as if they were ready to flee from the clearing.

“What about the dogs?” another voice yowled. “Maybe the dogs have come back!”

Firestar paced to the edge of the Highrock and looked down. For a moment he caught Leafpaw’s eye. She shivered; surely he wasn’t going to talk about her link with Squirrelpaw in front of the whole Gathering?

She relaxed as her father began to speak. “We wondered about predators too,” he meowed. “But there are none of the signs we would expect to see in the forest—and believe me, ThunderClan would know if the dogs were back. We are sure these cats left of their own accord.”

His calm voice seemed to reassure his listeners; the cats who had sprung up sat down again, though many of them still looked uneasy.

“What about ShadowClan?” Firestar turned to Blackstar.

“Have you lost cats too?”

The ShadowClan leader hesitated; it was always the nature of that Clan to be secretive, as if information were as precious as prey.

“Tawnypelt,” he meowed at last. “I assumed she had gone back to ThunderClan to be with her brother.”

Murmurs filled the clearing, as the cats tried to make sense of what they had just learned.

“That’s at least one cat from every Clan!” Mothwing exclaimed. “What does it mean?” Sounding frustrated, she added, “Why hasn’t StarClan shown this to me?”

Leafpaw longed to tell her friend what Squirrelpaw and Brambleclaw had told her before they left. She wondered if Cinderpelt would mention the omen she saw in the burning bracken, that fire and tiger would join together, somehow connected to trouble for the whole forest. But when she spotted the medicine cat, crouched beside Littlecloud at the base of the Highrock, her head was lowered and she did not speak.

“What do you suggest we do, Firestar?” Tallstar asked.

“There’s not much we can do,” Leopardstar interrupted before Firestar could reply. “They’re gone. They could be anywhere.”

Tallstar looked troubled. “I don’t understand why they had to go all together like that, but they must have had some idea in their heads. I’d swear Crowpaw was loyal to his Clan.”

Firestar nodded. “They are all loyal cats.” Leafpaw knew he must be thinking of his quarrels with Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw before they left, and his worries about the prophecy.

“There must be something we can do,” Tallstar asserted.

“We can’t just pretend they never existed.”

“Your concern honors you, Tallstar,” Firestar meowed.

“But I agree with Leopardstar. There’s nothing we can do.

They are all in the paws of StarClan. And may StarClan grant that one day soon they will come back safely.”

Blackstar, who had made no suggestions so far, added derisively, “Hope is easy, but it catches no prey. If you ask me, we’ve seen the last of them.”

From somewhere behind Leafpaw some cat muttered, “He’s right. It’s dangerous out there.”

Leafpaw felt as though a huge talon were squeezing her heart. Her fears for Squirrelpaw flooded over her again, and she remembered her dream about the rat bites. Squirrelpaw, she murmured to herself, there must be something I can do to help you .

She found it hard to listen as Blackstar reported more Twoleg activity around the Thunderpath, even harder when it seemed that the new monsters were all gathered around a boggy piece of ground where the cats never went.

What does it matter? she thought distractedly. Who cares what Twolegs do?

When the meeting was brought to a close she said good-bye to Mothwing and hurried to find Cinderpelt. An idea had come to her; she was eager to get back to camp and try it out.

On the way back to the ThunderClan camp she made herself keep to Cinderpelt’s slower pace, until the two medicine cats were walking alone, behind the others.

“Cats from all four Clans have disappeared, have they?”

Cinderpelt mused. She paused briefly to gaze up at the full moon, now sinking below the trees. “Leafpaw, you’re worried about Squirrelpaw, aren’t you? Do you know anything about where she is now?”

The direct question startled Leafpaw, and for a couple of heartbeats she did not know how to reply.

“Come on, Leafpaw.” Cinderpelt narrowed her eyes. “Don’t try to tell me you know nothing .”

Leafpaw stopped and faced her mentor, grateful for the chance to tell the truth. “I know that she’s alive, and that she’s with the other cats who have left. But I don’t know where they are, or what they’re doing. They’re very far away, I think—farther than any of the forest cats have gone before.”

Cinderpelt nodded; Leafpaw wondered if StarClan had told her anything about the journey, but if they had the medicine cat said nothing.

“You might tell your father that,” she meowed. “It will help reassure him.”

“Yes, I will.”

They reached the ravine at last; Leafpaw’s paws felt weary as she followed her mentor down the gorse tunnel and into the camp.

“Cinderpelt,” she meowed, “will it do me any harm to eat some of the burdock root?”

“It might give you a bellyache if you eat too much,” Cinderpelt replied. “Why?”

“Just an idea I had.” If I can tell what Squirrelpaw is thinking, she added to herself, maybe she can pick up something from me. She almost felt that she was stupid to hope she could reach her sister across such great distances, but she knew she had to try.

Warmth glimmered in Cinderpelt’s eyes, and she did not press her apprentice to say more. Before she went to her nest in the ferns, Leafpaw bit hard into one of the burdock roots stored in the den, and settled down to sleep with the bitter mouthful in her jaws.

Burdock root. Burdock root, she whispered. Squirrelpaw, can you hear me? Burdock root for rat bites.

Brambleclaw crouched in the bushes and watched the full moon suspended in the dark blue sky. Back at Fourtrees, the Clans would have met for their Gathering. The thought of the clearing thronged with cats, of gossip exchanged and stories told, made him feel lonelier than ever.

For another endless day they had struggled through the Twolegplace, along Thunderpaths, through fences, over walls.

At least they had left the worst of the hard ground behind them; now the Thunderpaths were edged with grass, and gardens surrounded the Twoleg nests. They had found shelter for the night beneath some shrubs, and had even managed to hunt.

Yet the sharp teeth of his anxiety kept Brambleclaw awake.

He still did not know if they were going the right way.

Purdy led them on confidently, but the twisting route he took among the Twoleg nests took no account of the sun, and Brambleclaw felt as if the sun-drown place were as far away as it had ever been.

“I think we’re farther away than ever.” Crowpaw had scornfully echoed his thoughts before he settled down to sleep.