Then she froze. She could not cross the border. She had been driven out—exiled by her own
Clanmates. If she took one step into her former home, she would be treated worse than a rogue. An image swam into Mapleshade’s mind of a small black cat, eyes narrowed with suspicion, spouting words that rang with righteous indignation. Ravenwing! This was all his fault. He had jumped to conclusions, shattered the Clan’s trust in her, forced her Clanmates to judge her for something beyond her control. Because of his actions, Patchkit, Larchkit, and Petalkit had died. Every breath that Ravenwing took was a breath he had denied Mapleshade’s kits.
Rage swelled inside Mapleshade’s head until the sounds of the forest faded away and her vision blurred. She stumbled along the edge of the border, not caring when her claws scraped on stones or brambles dragged at her pelt. Her skin throbbed with heat and she was dimly aware of being thirstier than she had ever been in her life, but even when her paws splashed through a tiny stream, she couldn’t muster the energy to stop and drink. Eventually she could walk no farther, and she flopped down where she was, in a narrow ditch beside a holly bush that smelled of home.
Mapleshade closed her eyes and listened to the thudding of her heart. It seemed to grow louder and louder, until the leaf mulch she was lying on started to quiver. With a jolt she opened her eyes and saw a ginger face staring down at her in dismay.
“Mapleshade!” squeaked Nettlepaw. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
“Then pretend that I’m dead,” Mapleshade growled. “I may as well be.”
Nettlepaw’s gaze darted around the ditch. “Where are the kits?” he whispered. “Are they in RiverClan?”
Mapleshade felt the numbness creeping over her once more. “They drowned in the river.”
“Oh no!” Nettlepaw’s eyes grew huge.
Mapleshade let her cheek rest on the cold dirt. “Leave me alone.”
With a muffled meow, Nettlepaw turned and fled. Mapleshade wondered if she would ever climb out of the ditch. There was another patter of paw steps above her. Mapleshade opened one eye.
Nettlepaw was pushing a bundle of herbs down toward her.
“I was collecting these for Ravenwing,” he mewed. “But I think you need them more. You don’t smell good, Mapleshade.” He peered earnestly at her. “Please eat them. I… I’m sorry about your kits. Frecklewish saw what happened in the river, but I hoped you made it to the other side.”
Mapleshade sat up with a hiss. “Frecklewish was watching?”
The apprentice looked scared. “Y-yes. She followed you to make sure that you left. She… she said you fell off the stepping-stones.”
“And yet she did nothing?” Mapleshade rasped. “Those kits were helpless! How could she watch them drown?”
Nettlepaw started to back away. “I don’t know. She must have thought they were okay. She said there were RiverClan cats on the far shore.”
“They were not okay!” Mapleshade snarled, arching her back and sinking her claws into the mulch.
“Nettlepaw! Where are you?” a cat called from the other side of the holly bush. Nettlepaw let out a whimper and raced away.
Mapleshade sank back down into the ditch. She chewed the leaves without tasting them, feeling a stab of satisfaction that she had taken them from Ravenwing. How could he carry on gathering herbs, treating his Clanmates, as if nothing had happened? Mapleshade burned with the need to see him, to make him regret spilling the secret that was hers, and hers alone. She looked up at the moon, which had appeared in the twilight sky. In one sunrise it would be at its half, when the medicine cats traveled to the Moonstone. Mapleshade might be forbidden from entering ThunderClan’s territory, but no cat could keep her away from the path that led to Mothermouth. Ravenwing would be alone on his journey, unprotected by warriors who were stupid enough to listen to his accusations and doom-mongering.
She felt the herbs working inside her, restoring strength to her legs. With a grunt, she jumped out of the ditch and started trotting away from the border, into the bramble thickets that encircled the hollow at Fourtrees. It wasn’t safe to stay so close to ThunderClan, not when patrols might be looking out for her. She didn’t know if Nettlepaw would keep quiet about finding her, though presumably he wouldn’t admit to giving her the herbs.
Mapleshade dropped down the steep slope into the hollow, paused briefly to look up at the four gigantic oaks, then carried on, scrambling up the other side and plunging into the trees that bordered WindClan’s territory. There was a strong smell of fox, which made her fur prickle, but it was stale rather than fresh, and would hide her own scent from curious border patrols.
She felt rather than heard the thrumming of terrified paws over the ground; peeping out of the bracken, she saw a rabbit hurtling across the moor toward her, pursued by a patrol of WindClan cats.
Mapleshade hardly had time to think before the rabbit ran straight into her in a tumble of paws and fur. She bit down hard on its neck and it went limp. The warriors were still racing toward her so
Mapleshade grasped the rabbit in her jaws and hauled it up the nearest tree. Her claws tore on the smooth bark and the rabbit dragged at her teeth but at last she reached the lowest branch and crawled onto it with her fresh-kill. She heard the WindClan cats scramble to a halt below.
“Where did that rabbit go?” asked one of them.
Another was circling the trunk, sniffing the ground. “The trail ends here, but that’s impossible.
Rabbits don’t climb trees.”
“I don’t know how you can smell anything,” grumbled an old tom with patchy brown fur.
Mapleshade thought his name was Midgepelt. “It stinks of fox around here.”
Mapleshade held her breath, waiting for one of the cats to look up and see her. There was little leaf cover this far down the trunk, and she couldn’t climb higher without making a noise. But the patrol sniffed around for a moment more, then headed back to the open moor, grumbling about vanishing prey. Fools! Mapleshade thought as she bit into the rabbit.
She spent the night under a clump of ferns a little deeper into the forest. She woke shivering beneath a light coat of frost, missing the warmth of her kits. Wherever you are, I hope you are warm , she thought through chattering teeth. Her belly was still full from the rabbit so she headed straight into the open, hoping it was too early for the WindClan dawn patrol. She had traveled to the Moonstone once before, as an apprentice. Mapleshade remembered her excitement at being inside WindClan’s territory with impunity; how she had longed to be seen by a patrol and challenged! But now she darted from rock to clump of gorse, cursing the lack of cover on the empty moor.
At last she reached the foot of the slope and crouched beside the Thunderpath. The stench of monsters caught in her throat and made her eyes water, but there were few of the noisy beasts around this early. She only had to wait a few moments before silence fell heavily in the valley and she was able to dart across the hard black stone. On the other side, she plunged through the long soft grass and into a hedge. She recalled passing a Twoleg den with cows and a dark, hay-scented barn where she and the other apprentices had paused to hunt. She decided to stay well clear this time, in case she ran into any of the other medicine cats traveling early to the Moonstone.
After crossing a broad expanse of grass and pushing through another hedge, Mapleshade saw the dark brown tops of some Twoleg dens that looked like the barn. She swerved to the far side of the next stretch of grass and trotted through a row of trees to where the ground started to slope steeply up.