But there was no point in protesting. Jayfeather stumbled out of the scoop where his nest should have been and helped Leafpool arrange the moss near the trickle of water, where sick cats slept.
“Do you want me to fetch more?” he offered.
His mentor’s only reply was a grunt that could have meant anything. Jayfeather wanted to ask her what was biting her, but he knew she wouldn’t tell him anything. She’d probably claw my ears off just for asking, he muttered to himself. The only way I’ll get any answers—about my own past and what’s going on with Leafpool—is if I look for them myself.
While he pushed the moss tidily into place, Jayfeather cast his mind back to his earliest memories. His littermates’ absence stabbed him like a claw. We might find out a lot more if we could share what we remember!
He recalled a long, cold journey, stumbling through snow that reached up to his belly fur, following his mother’s scent.
No—Squirrelflight’s scent! Pausing with a pawful of moss, he tried to think himself back into that snowbound forest. He strove to distinguish each individual scent: his own, Lionblaze’s, Hollyleaf’s, Squirrelflight’s…and there was another! Another adult cat, a warm and bulky shape. He’d never remembered this detail before, but another cat was definitely there, just ahead of Squirrelflight, forcing a way through the snow….
Who was that? Jayfeather wondered. Did two cats bring us back to the hollow?
He needed to ask another cat, one who had been in ThunderClan when Squirrelflight brought her kits to the hollow. But it had to be a cat who wouldn’t get suspicious about his questions or tell the rest of the Clan what he had been asking.
Well, there’s one cat who doesn’t gossip….
“I’ll go get more moss,” he meowed, rapidly shoving the last pawful into place.
Without giving Leafpool a chance to protest, he brushed past the bramble screen and into the clearing. But instead of heading for the thorn tunnel, he darted across to the elders’ den under the hazel bush.
“Mousefur!” he called, ducking under a trailing strand of honeysuckle.
The skinny brown elder was curled up near the trunk of the hazel. “I hope your tail’s on fire or foxes are invading the camp,” she rasped, stifling a yawn. “Or that you’ve got another really good excuse for waking me up.”
“Sorry,” Jayfeather mumbled. Mouse dung! That’s a great way to start….
“Don’t worry,” Longtail mewed peaceably. The blind elder was sitting by Mousefur’s side; Jayfeather heard the rasp of his tongue as he gave himself a thorough wash. “Mousefur has been asleep for ages. It’s time she woke up.”
Mousefur let out an annoyed hiss. “Well, what do you want?”
“I’ve come to check you for fleas,” Jayfeather explained, thinking fast. “One of the apprentices brought some back from patrol.” He hoped neither of the elders would think to mention his lie to any other cat.
“I haven’t been scratching,” Mousefur meowed. “But you can check my pelt anyway.” She settled herself comfortably with her paws tucked underneath her. “Be careful you don’t miss any,” she added as Jayfeather began probing her thick, ungroomed fur. “You’ve been Leafpool’s apprentice for long enough.”
Jayfeather bit back an irritated retort as he realized this could be the opening to the conversation he wanted. “That’s true,” he mewed. “It was the middle of last leaf-bare when I was born, wasn’t it?”
“The coldest leaf-bare I remember,” Longtail agreed. “I remember how thick the snow was. The whole Clan was stunned when Squirrelflight came back to the hollow with three kits! She said they’d been born earlier than she expected, which is why she didn’t have a chance to get back to the nursery, but even still, what queen plans to have kits in the dead of leaf-bare?”
“Thank StarClan she had Leafpool with her,” Mousefur added, twitching her ears as Jayfeather parted the fur on her head. “She’d have been in big trouble otherwise.”
Leafpool! Jayfeather stopped running his claws through Mousefur’s pelt. So Leafpool was the second cat he hadn’t been able to identify. She’d never said anything to him about being with Squirrelflight when he was born….
Locating a bit of twig on the ground, he snatched it up behind Mousefur’s back and cracked it in his teeth. “That’s one flea you don’t need to worry about,” he meowed. Trying to sound as if the answer didn’t matter very much, he added, “Do you remember anything else about Squirrelflight bringing us home?”
“Not a lot,” the elder replied. “It was so cold and snowy, we spent most of our time asleep that leaf-bare. I do remember how surprised every cat was that Squirrelflight hadn’t realized how close she was to having her kits when she went away. But then, she was always scatterbrained, right from when she was a kit.”
“Did you notice anything…odd about that time?” Jayfeather asked, cracking the twig again. He hoped Mousefur wouldn’t think she was infested with fleas.
“Odd?” Mousefur snorted. “Most of what the Clan does these days seems odd to me.”
“I remember,” Longtail put in. “It was around then that Leafpool fed you that funny-tasting herb.”
Jayfeather’s ears pricked. “What funny herb?”
“Oh, how should I know?” Mousefur muttered. “Leafpool brought me some tansy, as usual. I think she expects me to live on the stuff every leaf-bare. And this weird-tasting stuff was mixed in with it.”
A tingle in Jayfeather’s paws told him that the strange herb was important. “Did Leafpool tell you what it was?”
Mousefur stretched, shaking her pelt. “No. I never asked her. When I complained about the taste, she just took away what was left. She said it hadn’t been meant for me anyway.”
“What was it like?” Jayfeather pressed, moving across to Longtail to check his pelt.
“Odd, but not unpleasant,” Mousefur mewed. “I’d have clawed Leafpool’s ears off if she fed me something disgusting! It tasted cold, like frost on fur, and fresh like grass, even though it was dry and dusty—from right at the back of Leafpool’s store, I’d guess.”
“How weird.” Jayfeather gave the twig another crack. “It’s not like Leafpool to get herbs muddled up.”
Mousefur snorted. “She was all over the place, trying to help Squirrelflight care for you kits! The fuss she made, any cat would think Squirrelflight was the first queen ever to give birth!”
“Really…” Jayfeather murmured.
Quickly finishing his examination of Longtail’s fur—and finding a real flea, which he crunched between his teeth—he said good-bye to the elders and headed into the forest to gather moss. As he tugged mouthfuls of it from between the roots of a tree, he wondered what Mousefur’s mystery herb could have been. It was strange that Leafpool hadn’t told Mousefur what the herb was or who it had been meant for. And stranger still that Leafpool, who was always so careful, had made a mistake.
I need to find out what the herb was, Jayfeather thought, gathering up his moss to carry it back to the camp.
When he returned to the medicine cats’ den, he found that Leafpool had already gathered more bedding while he was talking to the elders. “Did you go to RiverClan to find that moss?” she demanded. “Or have you been mooning about in the forest again?”
“Uh…no.” Jayfeather dropped his bundle and started to arrange it in his own nest. “I thought I’d check on the elders first.” When Leafpool didn’t respond, he added, “Mousefur told me a weird story. She said you gave her a funny-tasting herb once, mixed up with her tansy.”