Erin Hunter - Sunset

“In another day or two,” Leafpool promised the kit. “You need to get a bit stronger first. Rest instead of bouncing around the whole time.”

Berrykit immediately curled up among the ferns, managing to wrap his bit of tail over his nose. His eyes still gleamed, watching his mother and Leafpool.

“Thank you so much, Leafpool,” Daisy meowed, rising to her paws. “ThunderClan is really lucky to have you as their medicine cat.”

Saying good-bye to Leafpool and Berrykit, she left, passing Brightheart, who brushed past the bramble screen with a leafy bunch of catmint in her jaws.

“There!” she exclaimed, after dropping the bundle near the entrance to Leafpool’s den. “Don’t you just love the smell of catmint?”

Leafpool murmured agreement, even though the scent was making her belly lurch. She thought it would remind her for the rest of her life of the message she had failed to deliver to RiverClan, and the death of Heavystep.

“Leafpool,” Brightheart began, “is it okay if I go back to warrior duties now? Only Ashfur still needs his wounds checked every day. There’s really not much for me to do here.”

Leafpool looked at her in surprise. She had grown used to having the ginger-and-white she-cat’s help this past moon. It was hard to remember how much she had resented her when Cinderpelt was alive, and she realized that she wasn’t looking forward to being medicine cat all alone. But Brightheart was right—there was no reason to keep her from her regular duties anymore.

“Sure,” she replied. “I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done.”

Brightheart dipped her head, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’ve enjoyed it,” she meowed. “I’ve learned a lot—from you as well as Cinderpelt. I’ll come back to help anytime you need me.”

“Thanks, Brightheart.”

Leafpool watched her friend vanish around the brambles, then turned and picked up the catmint to take it into her den.

Her supplies of herbs and berries were looking untidy; she began to sort through them, making sure everything was in its proper place.

She noticed that some of her juniper berries were shriveled and started to examine them to pick out those that could still be used. A pang of grief shook her as she remembered Cinderpelt doing the same, showing Leafpool which berries were too old and could be discarded. Now she couldn’t even pick up Cinderpelt’s scent in her den; the air was too thick with the scents of herbs, moss, and stone. It was as though her mentor had never been, as though individual medicine cats didn’t matter, only the skills that were passed down the generations.

If that’s true, then what I feel doesn’t matter either , Leafpool told herself firmly. I will serve my Clan as best I can .

It might be time to think about training an apprentice of her own; perhaps one of Sorreltail’s kits, when they were old enough. She hoped she would find a cat as good as RiverClan’s Willowpaw. Leafpool remembered how helpful the new apprentice had been when many RiverClan cats got sick from the Twoleg poison. Are StarClan pleased with Mothwing’s choice of apprentice ? Leafpool wondered. Surely they must be. But how could Mothwing teach Willowpaw to be a proper medicine cat, when she didn’t believe in StarClan?

How could she show her apprentice how to interpret signs and dreams from StarClan, when she never received any herself?

Thinking of Mothwing reminded Leafpool of the golden cat’s bitter quarrel with her brother at the end of the Gathering the night before. What was going on between them?

Just then, she heard an excited squeal behind her. She turned to see Hazelkit and Mousekit frisking around outside the den, and opened her mouth to warn them not to disturb Berrykit, who was sleeping quietly now. Before she could speak, a butterfly fluttered into the den, high above her head, and the two kits came leaping after it. They scrambled past Leafpool, scattering the carefully sorted juniper berries, and letting out little joyful mews as the butterfly flew just out of reach of their paws.

“Hey!” Leafpool exclaimed. “Watch where you’re going.”

The two kits took no notice, chasing the butterfly out into the open air again. Sighing, Leafpool padded after them, checked that they hadn’t disturbed Berrykit, then poked her head out from behind the brambles to make sure that they weren’t getting into more trouble. She was just in time to spot Hazelkit and Mousekit pursuing their prey behind some thornbushes that grew close to the rock wall.

“Kits!” she muttered. They were likely to get stuck in there, or even try climbing the wall. She set off after them, hearing a yowl of triumph as she whisked around the bristling thorn branches.

Inside the thicket, the two kits were looking down at the butterfly, lying dead on the ground with one bright speckled wing torn off.

Hazelkit looked up as Leafpool appeared. “I got it,” she boasted. “I’m going to be the best hunter ever!”

Leafpool felt her pelt prickle as she gazed down at the butterfly’s torn wing. Somehow the sight was familiar, though she couldn’t recall ever looking closely at a dead butterfly before.

Before she found an answer, Mousekit interrupted her thoughts. “The tortoiseshell cat showed the butterfly to us.

She told us we could chase it.”

Leafpool was puzzled. “Do you mean Sorreltail?” Her friend was the only tortoiseshell cat in the Clan just now, and she was still in the nursery with her kits.

“No, another tortoiseshell cat.” Hazelkit sounded a bit scornful, as if she thought Leafpool was being mousebrained.

“She called us out of the nursery. I’ve never seen her before, but she smelled like ThunderClan.”

“And she knew our names,” Mousekit added.

The prickling in Leafpool’s pelt swept over her again, much stronger than before. “Where is she now?” she asked carefully.

Mousekit shrugged. “I dunno. Gone.”

Losing interest, the two kits scampered back into the clearing. Leafpool stayed where she was, staring down at the torn butterfly. There was only one tortoiseshell cat who could have visited the kits like that and vanished with no other cat seeing her. She must have sent them after the butterfly for a reason, but what was it? Spottedleaf, what are you trying to tell me?

Leafpool patted the remains with one paw, snagging her claw on the torn wing. A butterfly’s wing… a moth’s wing…

Mothwing!

Standing frozen with her eyes wide open, Leafpool saw a scene unfold in her mind: Hawkfrost with a moth’s wing pierced on one claw, slipping through the shadows in the old RiverClan camp and carefully laying it outside Mudfur’s den.

Leafpool shivered. RiverClan had accepted the old medicine cat’s choice of Mothwing to be his apprentice because he found a moth’s wing at the entrance to his den. He had taken it to be a sign that StarClan approved his choice… but had Hawkfrost put it there on purpose ?

Leafpool was sure Mothwing hadn’t known the sign was false until much later; she could still remember the wonder in her friend’s eyes when she first spoke about the moth’s wing.

She must have been devastated when Hawkfrost told her, but her commitment to serving her Clan as a medicine cat would have forced her to keep the secret.

Leafpool shook the butterfly’s wing from her claw. She wanted to believe that she was wrong, that no cat would do such a dreadful thing, not even Hawkfrost. But she couldn’t deny what Spottedleaf seemed to be telling her; it explained too much that had been hidden in shadows until now.

At the Gathering, Hawkfrost had threatened Mothwing with revealing a secret, and he had said that he helped her become her Clan’s medicine cat. He was obviously holding the secret over her, forcing her to invent messages from StarClan to help him gain power in RiverClan.