Erin Hunter - Midnight

“No herbs here anyway,” Tawnypelt murmured, wincing.

“Thanks, Squirrelpaw, that really helps.”

“We’d better keep watch,” Brambleclaw announced. “Those rats might be back. I’ll go first,” he added, worried that some cat would start protesting. “The rest of you get some sleep, but if you’ve got any bites, give them a good lick first.”

All his companions, even Crowpaw, obeyed without question. Brambleclaw guessed that they were so frightened, they were just glad to have some cat tell them what to do.

He padded back to the gap in the wall and sat in shadow, gazing out across the Thunderpath to the place where the rats had appeared. Everything was quiet, leaving Brambleclaw nothing to do but worry about how the journey had gone so disastrously wrong. Most of all he worried about Tawnypelt.

They all had scratches from the battle with the rats, but his sister’s was the only deep bite; it looked nasty, and he knew that of all bites, those from a rat were feared most by his Clan mates. How would they cope if the bite became infected, or if her leg stiffened so that Tawnypelt couldn’t go on?

A whisper of movement beside him made him jump, until he saw that it was Squirrelpaw. Her ginger fur stood on end and blood was oozing from a scratch on her nose, but her eyes were still bright. Brambleclaw braced himself for criticism or some clever remark, but when she spoke her voice was quiet.

“Tawnypelt’s asleep.”

“Good,” Brambleclaw meowed. “You… you fought well today. Dustpelt would have been proud of you, if he could have seen.” He let out a long sigh, full of weariness and uncertainty.

To his surprise, Squirrelpaw pushed her nose comfortingly into his fur. “Don’t worry,” she mewed. “We’ll be fine. StarClan are watching over us.”

Breathing in her soft, warm scent, Brambleclaw wished that he could believe her.

Leafpaw jumped up from her nest in the ferns outside Cinderpelt’s den. The sun was just rising, its rays glittering on drops of water that trembled on each fern frond and blade of grass.

There was a chill in the air, reminding Leafpaw that leaf-fall would give way to leaf-bare before many moons.

At first she was not sure what had awakened her. There was no sound except for the gentle sigh of wind in the tree-tops and the distant murmur of the warriors rousing in the main clearing. Cinderpelt had not called her, yet Leafpaw’s fur prickled with the certainty that there was something she had to do.

Almost of their own accord her paws took her to the mouth of Cinderpelt’s den. Peering into the cleft in the rock, she meowed softly, “Cinderpelt, are you awake?”

“I am now.” The medicine cat’s voice was sleepy. “What’s the matter? ShadowClan attacking? StarClan walking among us?”

“No, Cinderpelt.” Leafpaw shuffled her paws. “I just wanted to check if we have any burdock root.”

“Burdock root?” Leafpaw heard her mentor scramble to her paws, and a heartbeat later Cinderpelt poked her head out of the den. “What do you want that for? Come on, Leafpaw, what do we use burdock root for?”

“Rat bites, Cinderpelt,” Leafpaw meowed. She sat down and wrapped her tail around her paws, trying to calm her heart, which was pounding as if she’d just run all the way from Fourtrees. “Especially if they’re infected.”

“That’s right.” Cinderpelt slipped out of the den and made a quick tour of the clearing, prodding the clumps of fern with one paw. “No, just as I thought. No rats here,” she pronounced at last.

“I know there aren’t any rats,” Leafpaw mewed helplessly.

“I just needed to check that we have burdock root, that’s all.”

Cinderpelt’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been dreaming?”

“No, I—” Leafpaw broke off. “Actually, I think perhaps I have, but I don’t know what it means. I can’t even remember what the dream was about.”

Cinderpelt’s blue eyes considered her calmly for several heartbeats. “This may be a sign from StarClan,” she meowed at last.

“Then can you tell me what it means?” Leafpaw begged.

“Please!”

To her dismay Cinderpelt shook her head. “The sign—if it is a sign—is yours,” she explained. “You know that StarClan never speak to us in plain words. Their messages come in little things… the prickling of fur, a tugging in our paws—”

“The feeling that something’s right—or wrong,” Leafpaw put in.

“Exactly.” Cinderpelt nodded. “Part of being a medicine cat is learning to read those messages by instinct… and we both know how hard it can be to make a leap of faith. That’s what you have to do now.”

“I’m not sure I know how,” Leafpaw confessed, scraping the ground with one forepaw. “Suppose I get the meaning wrong?”

“Do you think I’m never wrong?” Cinderpelt’s gaze suddenly grew intense. “You must trust your own judgment.

Believe me, Leafpaw, one day you will make a wonderful medicine cat—perhaps even as good as Spottedleaf.”

Leafpaw’s eyes flew open. She had heard many stories of the gifted young medicine cat who had been killed not long after Firestar had joined ThunderClan. She had never in her wildest dreams thought that she might be compared with her.

“Cinderpelt, you can’t mean that!”

“Of course I mean it,” Cinderpelt mewed dryly. “I don’t talk for the pleasure of hearing my own voice. As for burdock, you’ll find it growing on the edge of the training hollow. Why don’t you go and dig up a few roots—so we’ll have plenty, just in case.”

As Leafpaw trotted out of the camp, she tried to remember what she had dreamed about. But nothing came into her mind except for a picture of dark Twoleg nests and harsh light shining on a Thunderpath. She wondered if the dream had really been a sign from StarClan; instead, she had a sense that Squirrelpaw was trying to tell her something, though the strength of their link had dwindled with distance. Leafpaw had not seen her sister and the other journeying cats in her dream, but somehow she became convinced that Squirrelpaw had been bitten by a rat.

If only I’d gone with her, she thought helplessly. They need a medicine cat. Oh, Squirrelpaw, where are you?

In the sandy hollow, Mousefur and Thornclaw were training their apprentices. Leafpaw paused for a few moments to watch, but somehow she could not summon up much interest.

She felt as if the sunlight were draining all her energy away, so that she could hardly manage to put one paw in front of the others.

The tall stems of the burdock were easy to find. Leafpaw burrowed under the dark, sharp-scented leaves to dig up the roots. When she had scraped off most of the clinging earth, she carried them back to Cinderpelt’s den and laid them in a neat pile beside the other herbs.

Tonight was the Gathering, she remembered. When Cinderpelt had first told her she would be going she had been excited, especially at the thought of seeing Mothwing again.

Now she did not feel she had enough strength for the journey to Fourtrees. She would have given up every Gathering from now until she went to join StarClan, if only she could have been sure that her sister was safe.

By the time the ThunderClan cats reached the Gathering, Leafpaw felt better. She had snatched a brief nap after sunhigh, her nose filled with the scent of burdock clinging to her fur, and woken with energy in her paws again.

As she emerged from the bushes in the clearing at Fourtrees, she saw Mothwing pushing her way toward her.