“He talks to us as if he was our mentor,” Icecloud complained in a whisper as they headed for the thorn tunnel.
“Jayfeather, I don’t know what to tell them!” Dovepaw meowed as soon as the warriors were out of earshot. “I didn’t have a dream, you know I didn’t! I can hear those brown animals, sense them, just like I knew what Lionblaze was doing by the lake.”
Jayfeather twitched his whiskers. “I know,” he replied. “But only Lionblaze and I will understand that. As far as the other cats are concerned, this was a dream. Understand?”
Dovepaw hesitated. “I don’t like lying to them,” she meowed.
Jayfeather could feel her bewilderment, and he understood that her supersharp senses were perfectly natural to her. But she was being way too stubborn and narrow-minded. Frustration stabbed at him, sharp as a thorn. “Don’t you want to be special?” he demanded. “Don’t you like being chosen for a destiny greater than your Clanmates?”
“No, I don’t!” Dovepaw spat back at him, then seemed to remember who she was talking to. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t like keeping secrets from my Clanmates, that’s all.”
“Then don’t talk about it,” Jayfeather advised. He sensed that the apprentice was about to go on arguing, when he scented Brightheart approaching. Dovepaw took the chance to scamper away across the clearing to where her sister was sitting outside the apprentices’ den.
“Hi, Jayfeather,” the she-cat called. “Do you want me to go and collect some traveling herbs for the journey?”
“Thanks, Brightheart, that would be great,” Jayfeather replied. His mind began to race. He knew Brightheart was waiting for him to tell her what herbs she needed to look for.
Mouse dung! I’m not sure I can remember.
This would be the first time he had prepared the traveling-herbs mixture on his own. He tried to think what Leafpool had done when Brambleclaw and the rest left to search for Sol, but he was distracted by another, deeper worry. I wish Lionblaze and Dovepaw weren’t both going on the quest. What if they don’t come back? The prophecy will never be fulfilled if I’m the only one left!
He scented Leafpool as she padded past on her way to the fresh-kill pile. His pelt burned to ask her about the traveling herbs, but he forced his mouth to stay shut. She’s not a medicine cat anymore! She turned her back on that when she let herself fall in love with Crowfeather.
“Sorry,” he mumbled to Brightheart. “Just give me a couple of moments.”
He could always ask Cinderheart, to see if her half-buried Cinderpelt memories would be able to tell her the list of herbs. But that might cause more problems than it solves. Cinderheart has no idea that she was once ThunderClan’s medicine cat.
“It’s okay,” Brightheart mewed cheerfully. “I think I can remember the mixture, from when I ate the traveling herbs before I went to the Moonstone, back in the old forest. Let me see…there’s sorrel in it, isn’t there, and daisy? I remember that because I hate the taste!”
“That’s right.” To Jayfeather’s relief, his memory was coming back. “And chamomile’s another…”
“And burnet!” Brightheart finished triumphantly. “That’s all, isn’t it? I’ll get onto it right away.”
“Thanks, Brightheart.” Jayfeather dipped his head. “The best place for sorrel is beside the old Twoleg path. And you’ll probably find chamomile in the garden behind the Twoleg nest.”
“Great!” The she-cat whisked away. “Hazeltail! Blossompaw!” she called. “Do you want to come with me and look for herbs?”
When the three cats had vanished into the thorn tunnel, Jayfeather sensed Leafpool still crouched beside the fresh-kill pile. A surge of emotion jolted him, so powerful that it almost carried him off his paws. Before he could stop himself, he was flung into Leafpool’s memories.
He was looking through her eyes as she hurried through long grass and undergrowth, her heart pounding. The pungent taste of traveling herbs was in her mouth. The scents around her were strange to Jayfeather, and he realized that this memory must belong to the old forest, before the Clans were driven out. Leafpool was struggling with an agony of fear; Jayfeather sensed that she was completely focused on her sister. There was something that she didn’t want Squirrelflight to do…
Then Leafpool pushed her way through the branches of a bush and confronted Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight. Jayfeather was surprised by how much smaller and younger the cats looked. This was before the Great Journey. Leafpool and Squirrelflight must have still been apprentices.
Leafpool padded forward and laid her mouthful of leaves down in front of her sister and Brambleclaw. “I brought you some traveling herbs,” she murmured. “You’re going to need them where you’re going.”
Brambleclaw’s eyes widened with outrage, and he began to accuse Squirrelflight of giving away their secret to her sister. What secret? Jayfeather wondered.
“She didn’t need to tell me anything,” Leafpool promised. “I just knew, that’s all.”
Jayfeather flinched. Leafpool and Squirrelflight had a connection he had never appreciated before—and now Leafpool was terrified that her sister was going away, and that they might never see each other again. This is the beginning of the quest! Jayfeather realized. When the six cats went to find Midnight and learn the message StarClan had given her.
He listened through Leafpool’s ears as Squirrelflight poured out the whole story of Brambleclaw’s dreams, and of the meeting with cats of other Clans. He was aware of Leafpool’s deepening dismay, a chaos of feeling he could not penetrate, as if even in her memories there was something she was hiding. Leafpool tried hard to persuade Squirrelflight not to go, but Jayfeather could tell that she knew she had no hope of changing her sister’s mind. Squirrelflight hasn’t changed much, then! At last, sadly, Leafpool had to accept that Squirrelflight was leaving.
“You won’t tell any cat where we’ve gone?” Squirrelflight insisted.
“I don’t know where you’re going—and neither do you,” Leafpool pointed out. “But no, I won’t say anything.”
She watched as Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw licked up the traveling herbs, then in a sudden rush of anxiety tried to teach her sister everything she had learned from Cinderpelt, so that they could find the right herbs to help them while they were on their journey.
“We will come back,” Squirrelflight promised.
Then the memory dissolved, and Jayfeather was sightless again, back in the clearing. As the rush of Leafpool’s emotion died away, he sensed her watching him from the fresh-kill pile. She had deliberately given him this memory.
I know how you feel. I felt like this, too.
No, you didn’t! Jayfeather flashed back angrily. You and Squirrelflight weren’t part of a prophecy. If she hadn’t come back, perhaps it would have been better for every cat.
She rose to her paws and padded away, toward the warriors’ den. The air as she left was sharp with sadness. For a couple of heartbeats Jayfeather was almost betrayed into sympathy. The memory had been so clear, and Leafpool’s emotions so raw. He shook his head, trying to toss the weakness away.
If you’d told the truth in the beginning, you could have helped us with the prophecy. Hollyleaf might still be here. But she’s gone now, and we have to do it on our own.
The sun was well above the trees by now, its rays burning down into the hollow as if the air had turned to flame. Jayfeather’s paws itched to be doing something, but with Brightheart out collecting herbs he couldn’t justify leaving the hollow.