Veil Of Shadows

As if the senior warrior had given a signal, the Clan erupted into yowls of protest, disbelief, and fear. Leafstar let the noise continue for a few heartbeats, then raised her tail for silence. “Enough!” she meowed sternly.

“How could this be?” she wondered when the Clan was quiet enough for her to make herself heard. She directed her amber gaze toward Tree. “Did you have something to do with this?” she asked.

Rootpaw was aware of Frecklewish’s gaze on him. She expected him to speak up, he realized. For a moment he hesitated, still reluctant to admit in front of every cat that he was as weird as his father.

Before he could, Tree stood up with a brief nod toward Leafstar. “I’ve seen Bramblestar’s ghost, too,” he meowed.

That isn’t a lie, Rootpaw thought. Tree saw Bramblestar at the medicine-cat meeting. But it wasn’t the whole story, not by a fox-length.

“Oh, so he’s another of your ghosts, Tree,” Sagenose mewed with a long, elaborate yawn. “Thought so.”

The mockery in Sagenose’s words gave Rootpaw the courage he needed. He was ashamed and grateful that Tree had tried to shield him from the Clan’s scrutiny, but he knew he couldn’t sit still and let his father take all the criticism. He sprang to his paws.

“Actually, I was the one who saw the ghost first,” he announced. “I’ve been seeing it for moons now, ever since Bramblestar died in the cold and Shadowsight tried to bring him back.”

“Yeah, sure, and hedgehogs fly,” Harrybrook sneered.

A few of the others murmured agreement with the gray tom. Rootpaw tried to read Leafstar’s expression, but she was giving nothing away. He closed his eyes, concentrating hard to focus on Bramblestar and call out to his spirit, hoping that he might be able to appear again.

That might be the only way to prove what Frecklewish and I are saying.

But no ghost responded to Rootpaw’s call. He could feel that Bramblestar was far away from the SkyClan camp. Rootpaw could only hope that the ThunderClan leader was still out there somewhere.

“Why would Bramblestar appear to you?” Macgyver asked. He wasn’t mocking Rootpaw like Harrybrook, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he didn’t believe a word Rootpaw had said. “If he had to come to a cat with the Sisters’ blood, why not Tree?”

“I don’t know!” Rootpaw retorted. He faced Macgyver, his pelt bristling with indignation. “But I’m telling the truth. I saw him!”

“So did I,” Frecklewish asserted, while Fidgetflake nodded agreement.

“And me. Seeing ghosts is very different from the visions of the medicine cats,” Fidgetflake went on, with a hard look at the cats who had voiced their disbelief. “But that doesn’t seem to make it any less real.”

The SkyClan cats were muttering together, exchanging uneasy glances as if none of them knew what to make of Rootpaw’s story. Rootpaw stood listening, his belly roiling with tension as he wondered what their verdict would be, and what Leafstar would decide. He gave a start of surprise as he felt a tail rest on his shoulder, and turned his head to see his mentor, Dewspring, standing by his side.

“There’s one thing that occurs to me,” Dewspring began, raising his voice to be heard over the chattering. “Bramblestar has always been an honorable cat in the past. Does any cat feel that this recent behavior is like him?”

Warm with gratitude, Rootpaw realized that his mentor must believe him, and the rest of his Clanmates were listening, thinking over what he had just said.

Maybe now Dewspring will understand why my mind hasn’t been totally on my training. . . .

Eventually Leafstar waved her tail to quiet the Clan once more. “I don’t know what to make of any of this,” she admitted. “I trust my medicine cats, and I know that Tree and Rootpaw are loyal Clan members. I want to believe them, but I don’t want to believe that some mysterious spirit cat is driving ThunderClan to exile its warriors.” She paused for a moment to give her chest fur a thoughtful lick. “The stakes of being wrong are so high,” she continued. “SkyClan is still the new Clan around the lake; if we accuse Bramblestar of being an impostor, we could start a war.”

“Maybe we should do just that!” Sandynose put in. Plumwillow gave him an irritated nudge.

Leafstar gave Sandynose a chilly nod, as if she had heard his suggestion but didn’t think much of it. “SkyClan lived alone for a very long time,” she went on. “We haven’t faced as many battles as the cats who have been living by the lake for all these moons—and in their old forest for seasons before that. In battle many cats die—not just the bad ones. I believe that Tree and Rootpaw are trying to help, but I haven’t seen enough yet to risk cats’ lives.”