Bristlepaw spun around to see Jayfeather glaring at her from sightless blue eyes. Alderheart, Squirrelflight, and Bramblestar stood beside him. Bristlepaw flinched, taking a pace back. She hadn’t meant any cat to hear her, except for her denmates. It would have to be Jayfeather! He’s the scariest cat in the forest! And Bramblestar . . . I said something stupid in front of my Clan leader! “I . . . uh . . . didn’t mean—” she began.
“You have no more sense than a kit before its eyes open,” Jayfeather snarled. “StarClan holds all the Clans together. If they desert us, we’re nothing but rogues. Clearly you’re too young and stupid to understand what that means, but an older, wiser cat would know that separation from StarClan is the biggest problem we could have to face.”
Bristlepaw glanced around to see that more of her Clanmates had gathered around, gazing at her with worried eyes. She wanted to shrink into a tiny little bug that could hide itself under a twig.
“I’m really sorry—”
“‘Sorry’ fills no bellies,” Jayfeather snapped. “If I were your mentor, I’d confine you to camp for the next six moons, and the only training you’d get would be how to shift the elders’ ticks!”
While he was speaking, Bramblestar stepped forward, and he brushed his tail down Jayfeather’s side. “Calm down,” he meowed. “If we punished apprentices every time they said something foolish, we’d have no time for anything else. I’m sure Bristlepaw didn’t mean it.” As he spoke, he fixed Bristlepaw with his powerful amber gaze.
“N-no, I really didn’t,” Bristlepaw stammered. “I was just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s clear enough.” Jayfeather took a step back.
“We’re sorry, too,” Flippaw added, while Thriftpaw nodded eagerly.
Bramblestar inclined his head, accepting their apologies. “However,” he continued, “it’s clear that the three of you don’t know enough about StarClan. You’d better come with us to the Gathering tonight, and maybe you’ll learn more.”
As her Clan leader spoke, Bristlepaw felt a churning in her belly, a weird mix of shame at being scolded by her Clan leader and excitement at being chosen to accompany her Clanmates to a Gathering.
“Really?” Jayfeather twitched his whiskers in disgust. “It’s like you’re rewarding them!” He stalked off toward his den.
“Jayfeather has a point,” Bramblestar meowed, his gaze traveling over Bristlepaw and her littermates. “You’d better make sure that tonight you don’t put a single claw out of line.”
“Oh, we won’t!” Bristlepaw assured him fervently, while her brother and sister nodded in earnest agreement.
The frozen lake shone silver under the full moon as Bristlepaw, Thriftpaw, and Flippaw followed their Clan leader along the water’s edge toward the Gathering island. The snow had stopped, but the cold felt like huge claws gripping Bristlepaw’s body and striking up through her pads. She had never seen the forest looking so desolate, and the stars that glittered overhead seemed remote and uncaring. For the first time, she wondered why the warriors of StarClan might be refusing to communicate with the medicine cats.
Have we done something to make them angry?
But Bristlepaw’s fears receded as she and the rest of her Clan arrived beside the tree-bridge to cross to the island. WindClan’s cats were already picking their way along the tree trunk, and the mingled scents of the other Clans wafted from the bushes at the far side.
I wonder which cats I’ll meet tonight? Maybe Rootpaw, she added to herself. I hope he’s okay—and I hope the silly furball has had the sense to ignore the other SkyClan apprentices.
Crossing the tree-bridge felt weird. Bristlepaw had been to Gatherings before, and she was used to the way that the lake water would suck at the tree, making her feel that at any moment she would lose her balance and fall in. Tonight the water was frozen, and Bristlepaw guessed that they could have walked across to the island without using the tree.
Leaping down from the trunk at the other side, Bristlepaw raced up the shore and pushed her way through the bushes into the clearing where the Gathering took place. ThunderClan was the last to arrive, and the open space around the Great Oak was already crowded with cats. Bramblestar and Squirrelflight headed for the Great Oak; Squirrelflight took her place on the roots, while Bramblestar leaped into the branches and found a spot near Mistystar, the RiverClan leader. Jayfeather and Alderheart headed to join the other medicine cats.
Glancing around, Bristlepaw saw that her Clanmates were already mingling with cats from other Clans. She waved her tail to greet some young WindClan warriors she had met at previous Gatherings, but as she was making her way toward them, she was almost carried off her paws by a small yellow tom who thrust his way out of the crowd and bounced up to her.
“Hi, Bristlepaw!” he meowed.
“Rootpaw!” Bristlepaw exclaimed. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Rootpaw assured her. “And it’s all thanks to you! I’ll never forget how you saved my life. Did they give you your warrior name after that? I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have called you Bristlepaw.”
Bristlepaw winced; the comment stung, even though Rootpaw had no way of knowing about her failed assessment. And I’m not about to tell him. “No, I’m still Bristlepaw,” she told him.
“I went on this amazing hunt the other day,” Rootpaw chattered on, clearly unaware of how Bristlepaw was feeling. “I caught a huge crow, all by myself! Four of us shared it, and we still couldn’t finish it.”
Bristlepaw tried to force some enthusiasm into her reply. “That’s great.”
“I love hunting!” Rootpaw exclaimed, his eyes shining. “Don’t you love it, Bristlepaw?”
“I’d love it if there were anything to hunt,” Bristlepaw snapped. Of course I love hunting. I’m going to be a warrior, aren’t I? What a mouse-brained question!
Rootpaw didn’t seem bothered by her curt tone. “If you’re short of prey in ThunderClan, I could bring you some,” he offered.
Bristlepaw’s irritation flared into pure anger. Stretching out her neck, she hissed into Rootpaw’s face. “ThunderClan cats can catch their own prey, thank you very much!”
Rootpaw jerked backward, his eyes wide with distress. “I—I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean to say you couldn’t.”
Bristlepaw instantly felt guilty when she saw how much she had upset the younger apprentice. She was trying to find the right words to apologize when the voice of Tigerstar rang out from the branches of the Great Oak.
“Cats of all Clans, it’s time for the Gathering to begin!”
Bristlepaw glanced up at his powerful tabby figure poised on a branch, and when she turned back again, she saw that Rootpaw wasn’t by her side any longer. She spotted him scurrying into a group of SkyClan cats, including the two apprentices who had been with him beside the lake.
It wasn’t my fault, she tried to tell herself, though she couldn’t wipe out her feelings of guilt. He shouldn’t have said something so mouse-brained. And he’s still hanging out with those two useless lumps of fur!
The sounds of talk in the clearing gradually died away as the cats settled down to listen to their Clan leaders, crowding into the shelter of the bushes where the ground was almost clear of snow.
“ShadowClan remains strong,” Tigerstar announced, “but I must admit we’ll all be glad when this leaf-bare is over.”
“RiverClan wishes the same,” Mistystar agreed, rising to her paws and giving her blue-gray pelt a shake. “The lake and the streams around our camp are frozen. It seems like moons since we’ve tasted fish.”
“WindClan has problems too,” Harestar added. “There’s so little shelter in our territory, all the prey has fled.”