He slid out of the den to find her waiting there with Jayfeather.
“Come on!” Jayfeather ordered. “Sparkpaw, show us where you left Cherryfall.”
Sparkpaw led the way out of the camp and headed toward the ShadowClan border.
Alderpaw followed with Jayfeather, guiding the blind medicine cat around tree stumps and bramble thickets. Even though he was worried about Cherryfall, he was relieved to be out in the forest again instead of being cooped up all day in the medicine cats’ den.
“Can’t you get a move on?” Jayfeather asked him irritably. “Cherryfall could be bleeding to death!”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Alderpaw responded. He felt a spurt of annoyance, because he could have gone a lot faster if he hadn’t been guiding a blind cat. But he knew that Jayfeather was only bad-tempered because he hated needing help, so Alderpaw kept calm and looked ahead to work out the easiest route.
“How did Cherryfall hurt herself?”
Jayfeather asked as they emerged onto the lakeshore where the going was easier.
“Well, we were talking about the prophecy,” Sparkpaw began, “and Cherryfall wondered if ‘what you find in the shadows’ could mean the kittypets who stayed with ThunderClan during the Great Storm. We were going to go try and find the ones who left after, and see if they wanted to come back.”
Alderpaw wasn’t surprised. Since the Gathering he had been too busy to think much about the prophecy, but the rest of his Clanmates seemed to talk of nothing else.
Jayfeather let out a snort. “That was a mouse-brained idea! Kittypets have nothing to do with StarClan. They are no use to Clan cats.”
“Cherryfall thought it was worth a try,” Sparkpaw mewed defensively.
“Besides, you would have to cross
ShadowClan to get to the Twolegplace,” Jayfeather growled, letting out a hiss of annoyance as he stumbled over a fallen branch.
“You should have asked permission before just wandering out of ThunderClan territory. Stupid furballs!”
“It was only an idea.” Sparkpaw’s neck fur bristled at Jayfeather’s dismissive tone.
“Anyway, we didn’t get near ShadowClan territory. Cherryfall slipped and cut herself on some Twoleg rubbish before we came in sight of the border.”
Jayfeather made no response, though he still looked angry.
“We just thought if we made it to the Twolegplace, maybe we’d find some kittypets who knew the cats we wanted to talk to,” Sparkpaw added.
Jayfeather rolled his eyes. “StarClan help us! Mouse-brains!”
Sparkpaw clamped her jaws together as if she was biting back a furious retort. Alderpaw felt sorry for her, though he couldn’t help thinking that Jayfeather was right. Surely kittypets couldn’t be part of a prophecy from StarClan.
“It’s this way,” Sparkpaw meowed after a moment. She veered away from the shore, through a stand of hazel saplings, and into a grassy hollow shaded by a spreading beech tree.
Cherryfall was lying at the foot of the tree with one leg stretched out, while Sorrelstripe paced up and down anxiously beside her.
“Thank StarClan you’re here!” Sorrelstripe exclaimed as Sparkpaw led the way down into the hollow.
Alderpaw followed and stood beside
Jayfeather as the medicine cat examined Cherryfall’s paw. There was a deep cut across her pads, and blood was oozing out of it. Clots of blood had soaked the grass beside her, and Alderpaw spotted some scraps of hard, clear Twoleg stuff close beside her. He dabbed at it experimentally and felt the sharp edge.
“Careful!” Sorrelstripe warned him. “That’s what hurt Cherryfall.”
“Why can’t the Twolegs take their stuff back to their own dens instead of leaving it here to injure cats?” Sparkpaw asked angrily.
“Alderpaw!” Jayfeather beckoned with his tail. “We need some cobweb to stop the bleeding. Go and find some.”
Alderpaw froze, glancing around wildly.
Cobweb? Where? The sight and reek of the blood, and Cherryfall’s face screwed up with pain, worried him so much that his paws felt stuck to the ground.
“Over there!” Sparkpaw pointed to an oak tree at the far side of the hollow. “There’s a cleft in that tree—there should be cobwebs inside it.”
Before Alderpaw could move, his littermate darted off, closely followed by Sorrelstripe.
Now Sparkpaw is better than me at being a medicine cat! Alderpaw thought, furious with himself. He was even angrier when she turned out to be right, and she and Sorrelstripe returned across the hollow with pawfuls of cobweb.
“Oh, for StarClan’s sake, Alderpaw!”
Jayfeather hissed in exasperation. “Come here.
Put your paw there.” He pointed with his tail to a spot on Cherryfall’s leg. “Press down hard—no, harder than that. Don’t worry about hurting her. We’ve got to stop this bleeding.”
“It’s okay, Alderpaw,” Cherryfall gasped.
Alderpaw put all his strength into pressing down where Jayfeather had shown him, and to his relief the flow of blood from Cherryfall’s paw slowed and then dwindled away completely.
“Good,” Jayfeather grunted. “Now the cobweb.”
Alderpaw couldn’t believe how deft Jayfeather’s paws were in wrapping Cherryfall’s wound, especially considering he was blind.
“Now release the pressure,” Jayfeather instructed Alderpaw when all the cobweb was wound around the injured paw. “And—please, StarClan—let’s hope the bleeding doesn’t start again.”
Alderpaw lifted his paw and stared at the cobweb covering, afraid that he would see a red blotch spreading on the gray webs. “There’s no more blood,” he mewed after a few heartbeats.
“Right.” Jayfeather sounded satisfied.
“Cherryfall, let’s get you back to camp. And don’t even think about putting that paw to the ground. Sparkpaw and Sorrelstripe, support her.”
Back in the camp, Jayfeather had the other cats take Cherryfall to the medicine cats’ den.
Alderpaw arranged a nest for her beside
Briarlight, and she sank into it with a sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Jayfeather,” she mewed. “And you, Alderpaw. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”
“Just remember that the next time you want to do something mouse-brained,” Jayfeather muttered.
“Now, Alderpaw, unwrap the cobwebs. I want to get a better idea of the wound.”
“What if the bleeding starts again?”
Alderpaw asked nervously.
“Then we put more cobweb on, bee-brain!”
As carefully as he could, snagging his claws delicately into the cobweb wrapping, Alderpaw laid the wound bare. He hardly dared to breathe as he tore away the last of the cobwebs, but to his relief there was no more bleeding.
Meanwhile Jayfeather had gone to the herb store, and he came back carrying a piece of comfrey root. “We’ll put a poultice of this on the wound,” he meowed, dropping it at Alderpaw’s paws. “You can chew it up, and Cherryfall, give that wound a good lick.”
Alderpaw began chewing the root, blinking at its tangy taste. When he thought it was fine enough, he spat it out again. Jayfeather bent his head to sniff at it.
“It’ll do,” he commented. “Now spread it on Cherryfall’s paw.”
Alderpaw noticed how Cherryfall began to relax as he patted the poultice into place and the comfrey juices sank into her wound. “That feels so good… ,” she murmured.
“You should get some sleep,” Jayfeather told her when the poultice was in place. Turning to Alderpaw, he added, “And you’re done for the day. Go and get something to eat.”
“Thanks, Jayfeather.”
Alderpaw slipped out of the den, his legs shaky with exhaustion. Spotting his sister over by the fresh-kill pile, he padded across to join her.