“Why do you ask?” Fidgetflake glanced at him as he snapped a fresh stem. He dropped it on the ground. “’Paws aren’t usually interested in dead cats.”
“I was just wondering.” Rootpaw shrugged. “Do you see dead cats out here in the forest, like Tree does?”
“We only see StarClan cats,” Fidgetflake explained. “They appear to us in visions. Tree sees cats who are left behind in the forest.” He paused, tipping his head. “At least I think he does.”
“So spirits wandering in the forest are never StarClan cats?” Rootpaw pressed. Couldn’t Bramblestar get to StarClan? Was he stuck?
“StarClan cats usually stay in their own hunting grounds,” Fidgetflake told him. “There’s no reason to come back to the forest. They can share with us at the Moonpool.”
So why had Bramblestar come back? Rootpaw’s tail twitched uneasily. “If one did come back to the forest, would you speak to it?”
“Of course.” Fidgetflake had stopped picking horsetail. He was staring at Rootpaw curiously.
Rootpaw reached up for another stem. He quickly snapped off the tip with his teeth and laid it with the others, avoiding Fidgetflake’s eye.
“You’re not thinking of becoming a medicine cat, are you?” Fidgetflake blinked at him.
“No,” Rootpaw told him quickly. “I was just talking about ghosts at the Gathering,” he lied. “Some of the other apprentices were interested. One said they’d seen the ghost of a Clan cat.”
Fidgetflake pricked his ears. “When?”
“I don’t know.” Rootpaw’s heart quickened. He didn’t want Fidgetflake asking too many questions. “Ages ago. He said . . . he said he saw the ghost of a cat who was still alive.”
Fidgetflake looked disappointed. “It sounds like he was making it up. A living cat can’t have a ghost.”
Rootpaw’s heart sank. “So it’s impossible, right?”
“Totally.”
Rootpaw frowned. He wasn’t ready to give up entirely. There was another question that had been nagging him since Bramblestar’s ghost had appeared. Why had the apparition chosen him and not a cat from his own Clan? “Do you ever speak to StarClan cats who aren’t from SkyClan?”
“We do now that we live beside the lake,” Fidgetflake told him. “We had our own StarClan beside the gorge. But now we see all our ancestors, and once a cat is in StarClan, they talk to any cat they like.”
“So it’s okay for dead cats to speak to cats from other Clans.”
“Of course.”
Rootpaw felt a glimmer of relief. At least something about this was normal.
Fidgetflake went on. “It doesn’t matter which Clan a warrior comes from,” he mewed. “Or if they come from StarClan at all. If a dead cat has a message to pass on, we must listen to it and do our best to honor their wishes.”
Am I supposed to honor Bramblestar’s wishes? Rootpaw shifted uneasily. He wasn’t even sure what they were.
The horsetail shivered a few tail-lengths away. Rootpaw jerked his muzzle around to see what was moving there.
“Hey!” Tree pushed through the stems toward them. His paws were wet and water dripped from his belly. “I was seeing if it’s possible to catch fish in the stream.”
“Any luck?” Fidgetflake asked.
“No.” Tree stopped as he reached them. “Fish are too slippery. I can’t hold on to one even with my claws out. RiverClan must have burrs on their paws. I can’t see how else they can catch them.” He blinked at Rootpaw. “Where’s Dewspring?”
“He’s sprained a paw.”
“No training today?” Tree’s gaze rounded.
“No,” Rootpaw told him. “I’m helping Frecklewish gather herbs instead.”
“I thought your assessment was coming up.” Tree looked worried.
“It is, but I’ll be okay,” Rootpaw reassured him.
“Come with me,” Tree mewed cheerily. “I can teach you some of my hunting skills.”
Rootpaw hesitated. His father’s skills would be strange. “I’m not sure Dewspring wants me learning new skills somewhere else.”
“Nonsense.” Tree swished his tail. “You can’t have too many skills.” He glanced at the pile of horsetail stems Rootpaw had gathered. “If you can learn how to gather herbs, you can learn a few of my hunting tricks.”
Rootpaw’s tail drooped.
“Can I take him away?” Tree asked Fidgetflake.
“Of course.” Fidgetflake dipped his head to Rootpaw. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.” Rootpaw followed his father as Tree led the way across the meadow to an alder grove. Perhaps it was better to leave the medicine cat in peace. If he asked any more questions, Fidgetflake might start to get suspicious.
Tree padded among the pale trunks and stopped. “Have I shown you how to be a bush?”
“‘Be a bush’?” Rootpaw stared at his father. He loved him very much, but did he have to be weird about everything?
“If you’re a bush, prey doesn’t know you’re there,” Tree told him.
“But I’m a cat.” Rootpaw blinked at him, confused.
“You can pretend to be a bush.” Tree crouched and rolled, one way, then the other, until his fur was flecked with leaf litter. He got to his paws. “The first thing you have to do is smell like a bush.” He nodded toward the patch he’d rolled in. “Try it.”
Reluctantly, Rootpaw rolled in the leaf litter until he could feel his fur itching with it. He got to his paws, resisting the urge to shake his pelt out.
“We need to find a shady place where we can hide.” Tree led Rootpaw between the trees until they reached a spot where a sprawling bramble spilled between the alders. He crouched beside it, hunching down in its shadow. “Now we just sit quietly until the prey comes,” he whispered.
Rootpaw ducked and squeezed in beside him. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to find a prey trail and track it?”
“Sometimes it’s better to let prey come to you.” Tree’s litter-specked pelt brushed Rootpaw’s as he shifted to get more comfortable. “Warriors insist on making everything harder than it should be.”
Rootpaw bristled. Why did Tree have to criticize Clan cats all the time? “They just want to be the best warriors they can be. Is there something wrong with that?”
“Nothing.” Tree purred. “But it’s nice just to sit around with another cat while you’re pretending to be a bush.” He glanced at Rootpaw. “It’s a good excuse to talk.”
Does he know something? Rootpaw wondered, dread tingling in his belly. Is that why Tree brought me here? To talk? He glanced suspiciously at his father. “What about?”
“Leaving the Clans.”
Alarm pricked in Rootpaw’s pelt. “But . . . I’m about to become a warrior,” he mewed. “I’ve been training for moons.” Tree had talked about leaving the forest after the last Gathering when Bramblestar had suggested that cats should start accusing one another of crimes that could get them expelled. He’d been worried that it was the sort of rule Darktail would have made. Rootpaw had heard all about Darktail and the Kin and how they had taken over ShadowClan first, then the other Clans, and killed and starved any warrior who’d stood in their way. Tree had said that it would be safer to live as rogues than to live with Clans who behaved like rogues.
Tree gazed thoughtfully into the distance. “I’m not saying we have to leave now. But this Gathering wasn’t any better than the last one. I don’t think Bramblestar is going to let go of this codebreaking issue any time soon. The Clans are changing, and I think that you, Needlepaw, Violetshine, and I need to be prepared to walk our own path if we have to.”
Rootpaw frowned. Bramblestar’s ghost would leave him alone if he left the Clan. That would be good. But was it worth becoming a rogue? “I think we should stick it out. Isn’t that what being a warrior is all about?”