Goosekit doesn't really fit in with his Clanmates. He feels crowded in the camp, and besides that, he's certain that one day, Stormpaw - who his sister Moonkit seems to like - will kill him by driving a badger toward him. One day, the apprentice Swiftpaw goes missing, and one of the other cats tells Goosekit where she is. He passes the message on to other cats, and they're doubtful, but they search in the spot he recommended and successfully find her. After talking to the medicine cat, Cloudberry, he learns that the cat who told him about Swiftpaw - as well as many of the other cats he sees around the clearing - are from StarClan, and despite him only being four moons old, he is appointed as the medicine cat apprentice.
Three moons into his apprenticeship, Goosepaw has a vision of battle, and then one of the spirit cats he sees - who introduces herself as Mapleshade - tells him that some of his Clanmates are being attacked by kittypets. He tells his mentor and the Clan leader Doestar, and they send out a party that ends up rescuing a patrol that had, as he'd predicted, been attacked by kittypets. Doestar announces that to honor him for saving his Clanmates' lives, Goosepaw will be given his full medicine cat name, and at the next half-moon he receives the new name Goosefeather.
Goosefeather still has trouble fitting in with his Clan; they find him weird, and the cats his age are resentful of his being apprenticed and promoted early. Finally, the thing he's been fearing comes to pass: a badger attacks him, but thankfully his sister Moonpaw rescues him. He insists that Stormtail was behind it, as his visions have predicted, but Moonpaw refuses to believe him. Mapleshade appears again to Goosefeather and teaches him some fighting moves. He returns in camp just in time to help with Larksong's kitting. He has visions of the two kits' future - one will be the next Clan leader, and the other will be the medicine cat - but his mentor Cloudberry advises him to keep that information to himself.
Two more litters are born that same moon, just at the start of leaf-bare. Goosefeather has a vision of his Clanmates starving around him, and he tells Cloudberry and Doestar. Cloudberry tells him that back when she lived in RiverClan, they'd thawed a frozen fish and it was still good for fresh-kill, so he suggests that they try the same, burying prey in the frozen ground to last all of leaf-bare. Things don't go as well as they'd hoped, however. The start of leaf-bare is rainy, flooding the hole and rotting the prey. Things go from bad to worse: as leaf-bare continues, the ThunderClan cats begin to starve, and many who don't starve fall ill. They're forced to eat worms and twigs to try to stay alive.
Eventually, the season lets up and newleaf comes, but Doestar's sickness doesn't go away, and she loses her final life. Cloudberry at this point is old and very weakened from leaf-bare, and Goosefeather knows that she won't be with them much longer. It's up to him to take the deputy, Pineheart, to the Moonstone. He watches him receive his nine lives, but after the ceremony, he has a vision of Pinestar leaving the Clan to become a kittypet. He knows that he'll be wondering every day if this will be the day it happens, and he knows that he will be powerless to change things.
Tropes appearing in this novella:
- Big Damn Heroes: Moonpaw shows up just in time to save Goosefeather from a badger.
- A Day in the Limelight: Goosefeather's only POV.
- Dead Person Conversation: Goosefeather often speaks to StarClan cats.
- Dies Wide Open: Doestar.
- Freakiness Shame: Goosepaw feels this way about his ability to see dead cats.
- Grade Skipper: The Clan equivalent. Most cats are apprenticed at the age of six moons, and become a warrior around twelve moons. Due to his ability to see StarClan spirits, Goosekit is apprenticed at the age of four moons, and he's given his full medicine cat name at the age of seven moons.
- Inconsistent Coloring: Moonpaw has yellow eyes in the Allegiances, but blue eyes in an actual scene.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Several cats, including the Clan leader, die of sickness.
- I See Dead People: Goosefeather has the ability to see StarClan cats walking among his Clanmates; until he's four moons old he doesn't even realize that they're not his living Clanmates.
- I Want My Mommy!: When a badger attacks Goosefeather and he thinks that he's about to die, he calls his mother's name. Despite having his full medicine cat name, he's only seven moons old - just barely over the age most kits leave the nursery - so he's still quite young.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: Goosefeather feels this way about all the secrets he carries throughout the novella: his ability to see StarClan cats, his knowledge of Sunkit and Featherkit's future, Doestar's illness, and lastly the knowledge that Pinestar will one day betray his Clan to become a kittypet.
- Kid Hero: Goosefeather is a kit - the equivalent of a child - at the start of the novella.
- Passed in Their Sleep: Nettlebreeze.
- Series Continuity Error:
- Hawkpaw is the WindClan medicine cat apprentice, and he complains that he had to wait until he was six moons old to become the medicine cat apprentice. In Bluestar's Prophecy, Hawkheart was described as being a warrior first before becoming a medicine cat (the "fiercest warrior in WindClan", in fact.)
- In Into the Wild, One-eye is the oldest cat in ThunderClan, and Speckletail isn't retired, still young enough to raise one more litter of kits. Goosefeather's Curse makes them littermates and the same age. Similarly, in Bluestar's Prophecy, Thrushpelt is the youngest warrior at the time Bluestar is born, while Dappletail is still an apprentice and Tawnyspots is an established warrior; the three are littermates in this book.
- Robinwing, Fuzzypelt, Sparrowpelt, Stonepelt, and Weedwhisker are either forgotten in this book or not born yet, despite the fact that some of the youngest cats in ThunderClan in Bluestar's Prophecy (Dappletail and Thrushpelt) have been born. Especially notable for Weedwhisker, who is an elder in Bluestar's Prophecy, and for Robinwing and Fuzzypelt, who appear as apprentices alongside Moonflower in Tallstar's Revenge yet do not appear in Goosefeather's Curse even by the time she's a warrior.
- In Tallstar's Revenge, Moonpaw is seen at a Gathering as an apprentice under Pinestar's leadership. In Goosefeather's Curse, Moonflower is made a warrior the day before Doestar's death/Pinestar's nine lives.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Goosepaw believes this of Stormtail.
- Snow Means Death: The novella takes place during a bitter leaf-bare when many cats die. In one scene, the elder Nettlebreeze's body is covered in falling snowflakes.
- Spirit Advisor: Pearnose, an ancient medicine cat, serves as basically a second mentor to Goosepaw.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: During a terrible leaf-bare, the Clan is starving. The cats who don't starve to death are forced to eat worms and bark to survive.
- Unreliable Narrator: Goosefeather is certain that Stormtail tried to kill him by driving a badger toward him due to visions he's had, but as we saw in Bluestar's Prophecy, his visions are not always correct.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Goosefeather comes to believe this by the end of the book, and it's why he doesn't say anything about what he knows about Pinestar.
