As Jaypaw turned away, he sensed anger flash in Toadkit’s mind. Fur brushed the medicine cat den floor. Toadkit was lunging for his tail!
Jaypaw spun around quickly. “Don’t you dare!”
Toadkit yelped in alarm as Jaypaw faced him, so close their whiskers were touching.
“H-how did you know what I was doing?” Toadkit squeaked.
Jaypaw narrowed his eyes. “I’m not as blind as you think.”
Toadkit backed away. “I’m sorry.”
“Now are you going to sit still?” Jaypaw demanded.
“Yes,” Toadkit murmured.
Feeling a pang of guilt for frightening the kit, Jaypaw fetched another mouthful of pulp. This time he dropped it in front of Toadkit. “Spread this on your pads, then rub it into your nose and over your mouth,” he ordered.
Jerkily, Toadkit smeared the pulp onto his stings. Jaypaw sensed his pain ease. The dock juice was working. Relieved, he fetched more pulp and helped Toadkit to rub it over his pelt until, between them, they had coated every sting. I’ll give Daisy a poppy seed when she gets back. She can give it to Toadkit before bedtime so he’ll sleep through the itching.
Brambles rustled. Jaypaw scented the air. Leafpool had returned, and she was carrying catmint.
“Daisy told me you’ve been stung.” Leafpool dropped her bundle and padded over to Toadkit.
Jaypaw heard her sniffing as she checked him over. “Good job, Jaypaw,” she pronounced. “Just the right amount of dock.”
Jaypaw wondered whether to tell her what a difficult patient Toadkit had been.
“You should give him a small poppy seed,” Leafpool advised, “just to make sure the stings don’t keep him awake tonight.
They’ll be sore and itchy for a while.”
Thanks for the advice! Jaypaw bit back his reply. He was going to have to get used to listening to lessons he didn’t need; unlike Hollypaw and Lionpaw, he would be treated as an apprentice for many moons yet. As a medicine cat, he would still be expected to learn from his mentor and follow her orders even after he was given his Clan name. He might as well get used to it.
“Thanks, Jaypaw.” Toadkit’s grateful mew took him by surprise. “Sorry I was such a mouse-brain.”
Jaypaw felt a flood of sympathy for the young kit. “You were scared and hurt.”
“I’m fine now, thanks to you.” Toadkit began to head toward the entrance.
“Aren’t you going to wait for Daisy to fetch you?” Jaypaw called.
Toadkit paused. “I think I can find my way back to the nursery.”
Cheeky furball! Jaypaw felt a flicker of pride. Toadkit had been hard work, but Jaypaw had managed to earn his respect.
As the brambles swished shut behind the young kit, Jaypaw began clearing up the unused pulp. “I’ll take the poppy seed over to the nursery before bedtime,” he promised Leafpool before she could remind him.
But Leafpool seemed busy with her own thoughts. Jaypaw paused from his clearing up. She’s worried. Her mind, though closed to him, seemed to prickle with uneasy energy, like lightning on the horizon. As she padded to where Jaypaw had left the half-wrapped packet of honey, her steps were heavy, as though weariness weighted her paws. She must’ve worked twice as hard while I was away. He quickly scraped up the last of the pulp and, flicking it into the corner of the den, hurried to help his mentor.
“Sorry I didn’t have time to finish this.” He pressed his paws down on the honey parcel, now well bundled in rhubarb leaf, and held it fast while Leafpool wrapped the bark strips around it.
She tucked the last one in place. “You had to look after Toadkit.” Even her mew sounded tired. Why hadn’t he noticed before?
“I’ll check the stores,” he meowed, licking the last of the dock juice from his paws. “You were saying that we need to find out what we’ve got before leaf-fall arrives, in case we need to stock up.” He padded to the rock cleft and squeezed inside before Leafpool could offer to help.
They had only recently discovered this useful gap in the rock wall of the medicine cave. Leafpool had been clearing away the ivy that had gradually been creeping along the cave wall, threatening to dip its greedy roots into the precious supply of rainwater that pooled at the side of the den. The crack was narrow, wide enough for only a small cat to squeeze through, but inside it opened into a space large enough for a nest. Inside it now, Jaypaw had enough room to turn around, and he began sniffing the different piles of herbs, berries, and roots stacked along the wall.
“Pass them out,” Leafpool called. “We can see what we’ve got.”
One pile at a time, Jaypaw pushed them through the cleft.
By the time he emerged, Leafpool had them ordered into neat rows. His sensitive nose placed each scent until he had built a picture in his mind of one small heap piled beside the next: comfrey, mallow, thyme, catmint, poppy seeds gathered in an expertly folded bark shell, and countless more.
“Not much mallow,” Leafpool commented. “And I still want to get more catmint.” Leaves rustled beneath her paw. “I brought back as much as I could carry today, but there’s plenty more, and we should gather it while it’s still in full leaf and dry it to be ready for leaf-bare.”
Drying the leaves in the sun was the best way of making sure they didn’t rot away in storage.
Jaypaw felt a bundle of thyme, tickly beneath his paw. It smelled stale. “How old is this?”
Leafpool bent toward him to sniff it. “Must have been gathered last greenleaf,” she observed. “It’ll have lost a lot of strength. We should get fresh.”
“Do we have any deathberries?” Jaypaw had heard Littlecloud mention the fatal berry last time they were at the Moonpool. It was used only to save the sickest cats from a lingering death. A bushful of them grew on ShadowClan land, and Littlecloud had offered to share them. Leafpool had refused, and Jaypaw sensed a prickle of unease from her now.
“I don’t use deathberries,” she murmured. She began to pick through a pile of coltsfoot. “ShadowClan medicine cats keep them,” she added. “They teach their apprentices how to use them.” Her voice was thick, as though a dark memory filled her mind. “But I won’t teach you.”
Why not? Jaypaw was intrigued by the idea of having the power of life and death in his paws.
Leafpool clearly wanted nothing to do with it. “We must do all we can to help our Clanmates, but it’s up to StarClan to choose the moment of death.” She pushed a pile of leaves toward Jaypaw. Comfrey, by the smell of it. “Sort through these and throw out any that are musty or starting to lose their scent.”
Jaypaw began to turn over each leaf, sniffing them closely and throwing to one side any that were no longer fresh or fragrant enough. Leafpool worked beside him, tearing coltsfoot and rolling it into bundles.
“I haven’t had a chance to ask you since you got back,” Leafpool began. “How was the journey?”
“It was okay.” Jaypaw remembered the terrifying jump over the gap in the steep mountain path, not knowing where he would land, or how far was the drop below him. He shivered.
“What did you think of the Tribe?” Leafpool had met them on the Great Journey.
“They were odd.” Jaypaw tried to fix on what he had found strangest about the mountain cats. “The mountains are tough.
I thought the cats would be too, but they had no idea how to fight off the invaders.” They’re like a Clan in hiding from something.
Jaypaw had pitied the Tribe, huddled in their cave behind their waterfall, always glancing nervously over their shoulders for danger. Even their ancestors had seemed fearful. “I met the Tribe of Endless Hunting,” he ventured.