Where were Hollykit and Lionkit?
He couldn’t smell them anywhere.
He writhed in his nest, trying to find them.
“Lie still, little one.”
Jaykit opened his eyes and saw a she-cat crouched beside him. He realized he must be dreaming. She wasn’t a cat he recognized, but she had ThunderClan scent. Her image was hazy, a jumble of shapes, but he could make out the beautiful orange and brown markings on her lithe body as she sniffed along his pelt.
Her eyes were large and pale, one rimmed with darker fur than the other, and her mottled face narrowed to a soft white muzzle. “Don’t look so frightened,” she told him. “You are safe.”
“What about Hollykit and Lionkit?”
“They are safe too.”
Jaykit let his head rest back into the moss as the she-cat continued to nuzzle his fur, gently touching every aching spot on his body. The parts she touched seemed to flood with heat until he felt warm all over.
“Drink now, precious,” she urged. She dragged a leaf to his mouth. It held a tiny pool of water. It was cool and sweet and made him feel sleepy. He closed his eyes.
When Jaykit awoke the she-cat was gone. His body still ached, but not as much as before.
“You’re awake.” Leafpool’s voice surprised him.
“Where is the other cat?” he asked groggily.
“What other cat?”
“The one that brought me water to drink.” He recalled the distinctive mottled markings on her body. “She was a tortoiseshell, with a white muzzle.”
“Tortoiseshell with a white muzzle?” Leafpool’s mew sharpened with interest.
Jaykit couldn’t understand why Leafpool was just repeating everything he said. He tried lifting his head, but his neck felt too stiff and he winced in pain.
“You’ll be sore for a while,” Leafpool warned him. “But you were lucky that no bones were broken.” She rolled a ball of water-soaked moss to his muzzle. “Here, you should drink something.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Jaykit mewed. “I told you, that other cat brought me some water.”
Leafpool pawed the moss away from his mouth. “Tell me about her,” she prompted gently.
Jaykit started to feel uneasy, as if he might have done something wrong. He was puzzled by the tension in Leafpool’s shoulders, and the way the tip of her tail stirred the moss-covered ground. “I’d never seen her before, but she smelled of ThunderClan and she was here in your den, so I guessed it was okay to drink the water she gave me.”
There was a long pause, then: “It was Spottedleaf,” Leafpool meowed. “One of our warrior ancestors.”
“Like in StarClan? I… I’m not dead, am I?”
“No, of course not. It must have been a dream.”
“But why would I dream of a cat I’ve never met?”
“StarClan works in its own way. Spottedleaf chose to come to you for a reason,” Leafpool murmured. She turned away to tidy a wrap of herbs. “Thank StarClan your ancestors took pity on you,” she told him briskly. “You could have died falling over the cliff. You were lucky you weren’t badly hurt!”
“I feel hurt enough,” Jaykit complained.
“You have no one to blame but yourself. You should never have gone hunting foxes. You’re mouse-brains, the three of you! And you most of all. What were you thinking of, leaving the camp like that?”
Her irritation sparked anger in Jaykit. Ignoring his aching stiffness, he scrabbled to his paws and glared at her. “It’s not fair!” he snapped. “I should be allowed to do the same things as any cat!”
“None of you should have been outside the hollow,” Leafpool pointed out. “Hollykit and Lionkit have been in serious trouble with Firestar and Squirrelflight.” Jaykit opened his mouth to defend himself, but she went on.
“Thank StarClan that Thornclaw was close enough to save Hollykit and Lionkit from that den. Those fox cubs were old enough to have torn them to pieces.”
Jaykit lifted his chin defiantly. “We were trying to protect the Clan.”
“One day you will,” Leafpool promised. “But first you need to learn as much as you can, which includes learning not to go off by yourself!”
“Do you think Firestar will delay my apprenticeship because of this?” he mewed, suddenly anxious.
Leafpool drew the tip of her tail gently around his ears and said nothing.
“You do, don’t you!” Jaykit wailed. “Has Firestar said anything? Tell me!”
“Dear Jaykit.” Leafpool sighed. “You must know that you can never become an ordinary apprentice like Hollykit or Lionkit.” She ran her tail along his back.
Jaykit shrugged it away. It was as though a gale had swept him up and he could hear nothing but the rushing of wind in his ears. He began to walk to the entrance of the den, but each pawstep made him wince with pain.
Leafpool called to him, sounding unhappy. “Jaykit, wait. I thought you understood…”
“Understood what?” Jaykit whipped around to face her.
“That I’m not good enough to fight for my Clan?”
“This has nothing to do with not being good enough,” Leafpool meowed. “There are other ways to serve your Clan.”
But Jaykit hardly heard her. “It’s not fair!” he raged. He started to push his way out through the brambles.
“Jaykit!” Leafpool’s voice was firm. “Come back!”
Instinctively Jaykit paused.
“You described Spottedleaf to me perfectly. Have you always been able to see like that in your dreams?”
Jaykit tipped his head to one side. “I guess,” he mewed.
“What do you see?”
“It depends what I’m dreaming about.” Jaykit was growing impatient. How could his dreams help him become a ThunderClan warrior? The hazy images he saw while he slept were pale in comparison to the rich world his senses brought him while he was awake.
“Now tell me which herbs I used to treat you.”
Curious now, Jaykit padded back to his nest, focusing on the pungent scents that lingered on his pelt, scents left by the herbs Leafpool had massaged into his wounds. “Dock on my scratches and comfrey where my body is stiff.”
“You have a good memory for plants. There are other ways to serve your Clan than being a warrior. You’d make a good medicine cat, for example.”
“A medicine cat!” Jaykit echoed in disbelief. Always stinking of mouse bile and cleaning up bad-smelling wounds?
“You could be my apprentice,” Leafpool urged.
“I don’t want to make do with being a medicine cat!” Jaykit hissed. “I don’t want to live half a life, separated from my Clanmates like you are. I want to be a warrior like Brambleclaw and Firestar.”
He turned away from Leafpool, bristling with fury. “I hate being blind. I wish I had never been born!”
Chapter 4
Hollykit waited in the center of the clearing, where Brambleclaw had left her. The sun was sinking behind the trees, pulling a shadow across the camp. Lionkit sat beside her, his pelt golden in the fading sunshine. Cold air drifted down into the hollow, and Lionkit shivered.
Suddenly the brambles at the entrance of the medicine den trembled, and Hollykit saw the gray-striped head of Jaykit poke out. She nudged Lionkit. “Look!”
“He’s okay!” he mewed in relief.
“Thank StarClan!”
Jaykit turned around and went back into the den.