Erin Hunter - Dawn

“Leafpaw!” Cody hissed from the shadow of the trees. “Is everything okay?”

Leafpaw could not answer. She was still staring at her father with a pang of sorrow so great she could hardly breathe. She felt her sister’s tail sweep gently down her flank.

“Don’t worry,” Squirrelpaw murmured. “Firestar will be all right, so long as he believes Graystripe will return.”

“But they trapped him in a monster,” Rainwhisker repeated, as if he would never get the image out of his head.

Mousefur looked grim. “Firestar will have to choose another deputy before moonhigh,” she meowed.

Squirrelpaw’s eyes flashed with rage, and she rounded on Mousefur, making Leafpaw jump. “You’re acting like Graystripe is dead!” she cried. “He’s not dead! You heard what Firestar said. He will come back. We must not give up hope.”

A mournful yowl echoed around the rocky cleft, jolting Leafpaw awake. For a moment she thought she was back in the cage, and that her terrifying escape had been nothing but a dream.

Then she smelled the scent of the forest and the river on the icy breeze, and remembered she was at Sunningrocks, in the new ThunderClan camp. She blinked open her eyes and looked over the edge of the hollow, her breath billowing like smoke in the freezing air.

“What is it?” Cody whispered. The kittypet had slept beside her in the apprentices’ gully last night. Leafpaw felt her soft fur bristling against her flank.

“It sounded like Ferncloud,” she mewed. “But I can only see Dustpelt from here.”

The striped warrior stood on the frost-covered slope, silhouetted by the early morning light. A kit dangled limply from his jaws.

As Dustpelt carried the kit away, Ferncloud cried out again from the hollow that formed the camp’s makeshift nursery.

Leafpaw scrambled out, struggling to get a grip on the icy stone, and raced to Ferncloud’s side. “What’s happened?”

“Hollykit is dead!” Ferncloud whispered. “Dustpelt’s gone to bury her.” She tucked her remaining kit close to her belly.

“I woke and she was cold. So cold!” Her voice cracked with grief. “I licked her and licked her but she would not wake up.”

Leafpaw felt sorrow grip her heart. What kind of medicine cat was she if she hadn’t even noticed Hollykit was so close to death?

“Oh, Ferncloud,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

One by one, the Clan gathered above the nursery in grim silence. Cody stood among them, her eyes round with sympathy. To Leafpaw’s relief, her Clanmates took no notice of the kittypet. They shared a common enemy now—the Twolegs who were trapping cats and tearing up the forest.

Cinderpelt scrambled down into the hollow. “Fetch some poppy seeds,” she ordered. “Ferncloud must not waste what little energy she has left on grieving.”

Leafpaw hurried to the crack in the rock where Cinderpelt stored her tiny heap of remedies and reached in to pull out a leaf-wrapped hoard of poppy seeds. She wished with all her heart they were still in the ravine, where the medicine cats had kept their den in the rock well stocked. Looking at the shriveled leaf beneath her paw, she guessed there were only two or three doses of poppy seeds left, and there was no hope of finding more with leaf-bare nearly upon them.

Firestar’s call startled her. “Leafpaw!” She turned to see her father bounding up the slope with Brambleclaw and Mousefur.

“How is Ferncloud?” he asked.

“Cinderpelt told me to get some poppy seeds to calm her,” Leafpaw told him.

“I didn’t think it would get this bad so soon!” Firestar growled. “Oh, StarClan! What can I do to help these cats?”

He raised his eyes to Silverpelt, fading quickly in the dawn light.

“Last night was so cold,” Mousefur remarked. “The poor little mite didn’t have enough flesh on her bones to make it through.”

“Birchkit survived,” Leafpaw reminded them. “We must do everything we can to make sure Ferncloud can feed him properly.”

“But the nights are only going to get colder, and once the snow comes…” Firestar trailed off and stared into the treetops beyond Sunningrocks.

Brambleclaw glanced uneasily at Leafpaw. “If we are to leave the forest we should go soon,” he meowed. “Before snowfall makes the mountains too difficult to cross.”

Leafpaw narrowed her eyes. She had been torn by doubts since her sister had told her about Midnight’s warning. She could tell that many of her Clanmates couldn’t believe that StarClan really intended them to go, but she trusted that her sister and Brambleclaw had a role to play in their Clan’s destiny. She did not want to leave her forest home, and she feared the Clan were not strong enough for such a journey, but how could she ignore the will of StarClan?

“You already know how I feel. We cannot go without the other Clans,” Firestar pointed out. Leafpaw silently agreed with him. However much hardship one Clan was in, they had to remain together for StarClan’s sake.

“I must take these to Ferncloud,” she murmured, picking up the bundle of seeds.

As she reached the crevice, Sorreltail was padding away, her eyes dull with sorrow. She didn’t even look up as she went past. Leafpaw noticed that she trod carefully on the freezing stone as if it hurt her paws. She scrambled into the hollow and dropped the poppy seeds at Cinderpelt’s paws. Ferncloud was lying with her eyes wide, staring at nothing. Birchkit was huddled beside her, too shocked and hungry to mew. To Leafpaw’s surprise, Cody was there too.

“Thank you,” Cinderpelt whispered, taking the leaf bundle and carefully unwrapping it with her teeth.

“Shouldn’t you be outside?” Leafpaw gently prompted Cody.

“I thought I might be able to help,” came the reply. “I lost a litter once.”

“A whole litter? That’s so sad!”

“They didn’t die,” Cody explained quickly. “My housefolk sent them away to new homes. But I felt the loss as badly.”

“And these are the Twolegs you want to go back to?”

Leafpaw mewed in disbelief. “How could you possibly forgive them?”

“It is normal for kittypets not to raise their kits. We don’t expect anything else.” Cody blinked. “My housefolk are gentle and kind. They chose good homes for each kit. They wouldn’t have known that I miss them.”

Cinderpelt silenced them with a warning stare. Ferncloud had grown fretful again, writhing on the cold stone and letting out tiny moaning sounds. “Hollykit is with StarClan now,” Cinderpelt whispered to her. “She will never know cold or hunger again.”

“I tried my best,” Ferncloud wailed. “Why couldn’t I have died instead of her?”

Firestar’s deep mew sounded from the rim of the hollow.

“Because then there would be no cat left to look after Birchkit.

You must have courage, Ferncloud.”

Leafpaw looked up. Cody flattened her ears. She had not met the ThunderClan leader yet.

“Ferncloud, I’m so sorry about Hollykit,” Firestar went on.

“We will make sure Birchkit survives.”

Ferncloud stared up at him. “Birchkit must survive,” she hissed.

Cinderpelt placed a poppy seed on the ground beside her.

“Here,” she mewed. “Eat this; it will help soothe your pain.”

Ferncloud looked uncertainly at the seed.

Cody stretched forward and sniffed the black speck. “Eat it,” she advised, pushing it nearer to Ferncloud with her paw.

“You need to save all your strength for the kit you have left.”