Eclipse

Chapter 4

Jaypaw pulled the sticky parcel of honeycomb onto the wide, flat leaf he had laid on the floor of the den. Already wrapped in dock leaves, the comb was still oozing honey. Fearing it would seep onto the other herbs stored in the rock cleft at the side of the den, Leafpool had found a wild rhubarb leaf and left Jaypaw to rewrap the honeycomb while she was out collecting catmint.

He folded over the sides of the leaf, hoping the gooey honey would hold them in place while he tied strips of bark around the wrap.

A squeal made him freeze. A kit was in pain. Pricking his ears, he recognized Toadkit’s wailing mew. He turned and dashed toward the den entrance just as Daisy raced in. He smelled fear on her pelt and felt the lash of a flailing paw as she hurried past him. She must be carrying Toadkit by the scruff.

“Put him by the pool,” he ordered.

“He was chasing a bee and jumped straight into the nettle patch,” Daisy panted after setting down Toadkit.

“Dumb bee!” Toadkit yowled.

Jaypaw felt a wave of relief. Nettle stings! From the fuss he was making Jaypaw thought Toadkit had been savaged by a fox.

“Firestar should get those nettles pulled up,” Daisy complained. “I knew they’d be trouble one day.”

“Nettles aren’t deadly.” Jaypaw began sniffing Toadkit. A

small paw swiped him across the muzzle. The young kit was twisting and fidgeting, trying to lick at his stings at the same time as he rubbed his nose with his paw. “Sit still!”

“But it hurts!” Toadkit complained.

His kit-soft pelt would have been no defense against the nettles’ stinging barbs, and Jaypaw could feel heat pulsing from Toadkit’s nose and ears, where the exposed skin had already swollen.

“I’ll fetch some dock leaves,” Jaypaw told him.

Daisy was anxiously circling her kit, and, as he dashed toward the medicine store, Jaypaw tripped over her tail. He stumbled to a clumsy halt at the store entrance and reached into the crack in the rock. Grabbing a pawful of dock leaves from where he knew they were stored beside the mallow, he gave them a quick sniff to make sure he had the right herb before chewing them into a pulp. The dock juice would work quickly on Toadkit’s injuries as long as it got a chance to sink into his fur.

Still chewing, he returned to the wriggling kit and spat the ointment onto his paw, ready to rub it onto the kit’s ears.

Instinctively, Toadkit shied away. “Don’t touch me!” He swiped at the pulp, sending it flying into the pool. Jaypaw heard it drop into the water with a plop. Seething with frustration, he turned back to the pile of dock leaves. “The quicker I treat it, the sooner it’ll stop hurting.” He collided with Daisy, still pacing around her kit. For StarClan’s sake! “Go check on Rosekit!” he snapped. “You don’t want her ending up in the nettles too. I’ll take care of Toadkit.” He flicked his tail.

“If he can sit still!”

“Are you sure he’ll be okay?” Daisy fretted.

Jaypaw took a deep breath. Staying calm is good for you and better for the patient. Leafpool’s words rang in his ears. “No cat has died of nettle stings yet,” he mewed through gritted teeth.

“Try to sit still, dear,” Daisy begged Toadkit as she padded out of the den. “I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I know Rosekit’s okay.”

“Don’t hurry!” Jaypaw muttered under his breath. He crouched to chew another mouthful of dock, then hurried back to Toadkit and began to lick the pulp onto his ears.

Toadkit tried to duck away, but Jaypaw pressed his shoulders to the ground with his forepaws.

“Hold still,” he mumbled between licks. Toadkit yowled, but Jaypaw continued until they were coated with bitter juice.

“I know it hurts,” he mewed, releasing the kit. “But you’re not in any danger. Stay there while I fetch some more for your nose.”

As Jaypaw turned away, he sensed anger flash in Toadkit’s mind. Fur brushed the medicine cat den floor. Toadkit was lunging for his tail!

Jaypaw spun around quickly. “Don’t you dare!”

Toadkit yelped in alarm as Jaypaw faced him, so close their whiskers were touching.

“H-how did you know what I was doing?” Toadkit squeaked.

Jaypaw narrowed his eyes. “I’m not as blind as you think.”

Toadkit backed away. “I’m sorry.”

“Now are you going to sit still?” Jaypaw demanded.

“Yes,” Toadkit murmured.

Feeling a pang of guilt for frightening the kit, Jaypaw fetched another mouthful of pulp. This time he dropped it in front of Toadkit. “Spread this on your pads, then rub it into your nose and over your mouth,” he ordered.

Jerkily, Toadkit smeared the pulp onto his stings. Jaypaw sensed his pain ease. The dock juice was working. Relieved, he fetched more pulp and helped Toadkit to rub it over his pelt until, between them, they had coated every sting. I’ll give Daisy a poppy seed when she gets back. She can give it to Toadkit before bedtime so he’ll sleep through the itching.

Brambles rustled. Jaypaw scented the air. Leafpool had returned, and she was carrying catmint.

“Daisy told me you’ve been stung.” Leafpool dropped her bundle and padded over to Toadkit.

Jaypaw heard her sniffing as she checked him over. “Good job, Jaypaw,” she pronounced. “Just the right amount of dock.”

Jaypaw wondered whether to tell her what a difficult patient Toadkit had been.

“You should give him a small poppy seed,” Leafpool advised, “just to make sure the stings don’t keep him awake tonight.

They’ll be sore and itchy for a while.”

Thanks for the advice! Jaypaw bit back his reply. He was going to have to get used to listening to lessons he didn’t need; unlike Hollypaw and Lionpaw, he would be treated as an apprentice for many moons yet. As a medicine cat, he would still be expected to learn from his mentor and follow her orders even after he was given his Clan name. He might as well get used to it.

“Thanks, Jaypaw.” Toadkit’s grateful mew took him by surprise. “Sorry I was such a mouse-brain.”

Jaypaw felt a flood of sympathy for the young kit. “You were scared and hurt.”

“I’m fine now, thanks to you.” Toadkit began to head toward the entrance.

“Aren’t you going to wait for Daisy to fetch you?” Jaypaw called.

Toadkit paused. “I think I can find my way back to the nursery.”

Cheeky furball! Jaypaw felt a flicker of pride. Toadkit had been hard work, but Jaypaw had managed to earn his respect.

As the brambles swished shut behind the young kit, Jaypaw began clearing up the unused pulp. “I’ll take the poppy seed over to the nursery before bedtime,” he promised Leafpool before she could remind him.

But Leafpool seemed busy with her own thoughts. Jaypaw paused from his clearing up. She’s worried. Her mind, though closed to him, seemed to prickle with uneasy energy, like lightning on the horizon. As she padded to where Jaypaw had left the half-wrapped packet of honey, her steps were heavy, as though weariness weighted her paws. She must’ve worked twice as hard while I was away. He quickly scraped up the last of the pulp and, flicking it into the corner of the den, hurried to help his mentor.

“Sorry I didn’t have time to finish this.” He pressed his paws down on the honey parcel, now well bundled in rhubarb leaf, and held it fast while Leafpool wrapped the bark strips around it.

She tucked the last one in place. “You had to look after Toadkit.” Even her mew sounded tired. Why hadn’t he noticed before?

“I’ll check the stores,” he meowed, licking the last of the dock juice from his paws. “You were saying that we need to find out what we’ve got before leaf-fall arrives, in case we need to stock up.” He padded to the rock cleft and squeezed inside before Leafpool could offer to help.

They had only recently discovered this useful gap in the rock wall of the medicine cave. Leafpool had been clearing away the ivy that had gradually been creeping along the cave wall, threatening to dip its greedy roots into the precious supply of rainwater that pooled at the side of the den. The crack was narrow, wide enough for only a small cat to squeeze through, but inside it opened into a space large enough for a nest. Inside it now, Jaypaw had enough room to turn around, and he began sniffing the different piles of herbs, berries, and roots stacked along the wall.

“Pass them out,” Leafpool called. “We can see what we’ve got.”

One pile at a time, Jaypaw pushed them through the cleft.

By the time he emerged, Leafpool had them ordered into neat rows. His sensitive nose placed each scent until he had built a picture in his mind of one small heap piled beside the next: comfrey, mallow, thyme, catmint, poppy seeds gathered in an expertly folded bark shell, and countless more.

“Not much mallow,” Leafpool commented. “And I still want to get more catmint.” Leaves rustled beneath her paw. “I brought back as much as I could carry today, but there’s plenty more, and we should gather it while it’s still in full leaf and dry it to be ready for leaf-bare.”

Drying the leaves in the sun was the best way of making sure they didn’t rot away in storage.

Jaypaw felt a bundle of thyme, tickly beneath his paw. It smelled stale. “How old is this?”

Leafpool bent toward him to sniff it. “Must have been gathered last greenleaf,” she observed. “It’ll have lost a lot of strength. We should get fresh.”

“Do we have any deathberries?” Jaypaw had heard Littlecloud mention the fatal berry last time they were at the Moonpool. It was used only to save the sickest cats from a lingering death. A bushful of them grew on ShadowClan land, and Littlecloud had offered to share them. Leafpool had refused, and Jaypaw sensed a prickle of unease from her now.

“I don’t use deathberries,” she murmured. She began to pick through a pile of coltsfoot. “ShadowClan medicine cats keep them,” she added. “They teach their apprentices how to use them.” Her voice was thick, as though a dark memory filled her mind. “But I won’t teach you.”

Why not? Jaypaw was intrigued by the idea of having the power of life and death in his paws.

Leafpool clearly wanted nothing to do with it. “We must do all we can to help our Clanmates, but it’s up to StarClan to choose the moment of death.” She pushed a pile of leaves toward Jaypaw. Comfrey, by the smell of it. “Sort through these and throw out any that are musty or starting to lose their scent.”

Jaypaw began to turn over each leaf, sniffing them closely and throwing to one side any that were no longer fresh or fragrant enough. Leafpool worked beside him, tearing coltsfoot and rolling it into bundles.

“I haven’t had a chance to ask you since you got back,” Leafpool began. “How was the journey?”

“It was okay.” Jaypaw remembered the terrifying jump over the gap in the steep mountain path, not knowing where he would land, or how far was the drop below him. He shivered.

“What did you think of the Tribe?” Leafpool had met them on the Great Journey.

“They were odd.” Jaypaw tried to fix on what he had found strangest about the mountain cats. “The mountains are tough.

I thought the cats would be too, but they had no idea how to fight off the invaders.” They’re like a Clan in hiding from something.

Jaypaw had pitied the Tribe, huddled in their cave behind their waterfall, always glancing nervously over their shoulders for danger. Even their ancestors had seemed fearful. “I met the Tribe of Endless Hunting,” he ventured.

Leafpool kept on with her work. But the coltsfoot in her paws grew more fragrant, as though her pads were twitching with unease. “What were they like?” she mewed.

“They’re a bit like StarClan.” They had known I would come.

They knew about the prophecy. “But they didn’t try to help the Tribe to beat the invaders.”

“Sometimes even our ancestors are powerless to help us.”

Leafpool sighed.

“But it was like they were lost.” Jaypaw couldn’t shake the idea that the Tribe hadn’t always lived in the mountains; that they had lived far away from the bitter winds and craggy peaks, among cats who were the first to know about the prophecy of three.

Leafpool had paused in her task, and he could sense her watching him, curiosity flashing from her pelt.

“I was surprised Stoneteller was leader and medicine cat,” he mewed before she could ask any more questions about the Tribe of Endless Hunting.

“It’s a lot of responsibility for one cat,” Leafpool agreed.

She began rolling the coltsfoot again. “Great knowledge can be lonely.”

Jaypaw’s heart lurched. Does she mean the prophecy? Does she know? She can’t! She would have said something. His heart began to slow as he reassured himself that Leafpool would never be able to ignore a secret like that. Nevertheless, he tried to search her thoughts for some clue. The usual fog barred his way. He could sense only wistfulness engulfing her like a cloud. She might not know about the prophecy, but something was troubling her.

Why did she often seem so unhappy? He wanted to cheer her up. “Can I get you some fresh-kill?” he offered.

“No.” Leafpool gave herself a small shake, as though banishing her thoughts. “But you can start putting the comfrey back in storage.”

As Jaypaw backed in through the cleft with a wad of comfrey between his jaws, a voice sounded at the entrance.

“Leafpool?”

Jaypaw recognized Cloudtail.

“You’re here.” The warrior sounded relieved to find Leafpool in her den.

Jaypaw stayed where he was. He could busy himself rolling and stacking the comfrey at the back of the cleft while Leafpool and Cloudtail talked.

“Are you hurt?” Leafpool asked.

“No.” Cloudtail was pacing the cave. “I’m worried about Cinderpaw.”

Jaypaw pricked his ears. So far, only he and Leafpool knew that Cinderpaw had lived before as ThunderClan’s medicine cat, Cinderpelt; that she had been given a second chance to live her life as she had always dreamed—as a warrior of ThunderClan. Cinderpaw herself didn’t realize. But she sometimes showed flashes of knowledge that only memory could have taught her, and she talked about the old forest as though she had seen it with her own eyes. Was Cloudtail beginning to suspect that there was something unusual about his apprentice?

“Is she okay?” Leafpool’s breathing had quickened with his own.

Jaypaw leaned closer to the opening.

“Do you think she’s ready for her final assessment?” Cloudtail asked in a rush. “Honeypaw and Poppypaw are, but I don’t want to put Cinderpaw through the test unless her leg is fully recovered.”

Leafpool hesitated.

Why isn’t she answering? Alarmed, Jaypaw groped for her thoughts. This time he was determined to make it through the fog. His breath caught in his throat. A memory lit Leafpool’s mind, a memory so strong that it couldn’t be hidden.

Walls of rock enclosed a snow-filled ravine. At once Jaypaw recognized the old forest camp he had visited in Cinderpaw’s dream. Snow blanketed the dens and bushes, but a hollow had been cleared in the center, and here limped a gray she-cat, tail down, whiskers white with frost. She was so thin Jaypaw could see her bones like the branches of a leafless tree. A biting wind sent flurries of powdery snow scudding across the makeshift clearing. Jaypaw shivered with cold, caught in Leafpool’s memory like fur in a thistle.

Leafpool was padding toward the gray she-cat, snowflakes dappling her coat. She looked young, with the rounded face of a kit and her fur fluffed up against the cold. “Cinderpelt, let me fetch you some fresh-kill,” she begged. “A hunting patrol has just returned with a blackbird.”

Hope sparked in Cinderpelt’s dull eyes. “A blackbird?” she murmured. “We haven’t seen prey like that for a while.”

“Let me bring you some,” Leafpool insisted.

Cinderpelt’s expression changed abruptly. Now her eyes were like chips of ice. “Don’t waste it on me!” she snapped.

“The elders and queens must eat first. And the warriors and apprentices. They need their strength if they are to find more food.”

“But you need strength, too,” Leafpool argued. “You’re looking after the cats with whitecough. What if it turns to greencough? They’ll need you even more.”

Cinderpelt dipped her head, then spoke more gently. “With this leg, I can’t walk far. Especially when the cold makes it ache. I can get by on less food than the others.” There was grief and longing in her voice. Jaypaw could hear the words Cinderpelt did not speak: If I weren’t crippled, I could be out there too, finding food for my Clanmates…

“She’s fine.” Leafpool’s bright mew jolted him back into the present. His mentor was reassuring Cloudtail enthusiastically.

“Nothing will stop her from becoming a warrior.”

“I’ve noticed her leg is stiff in some of her battle moves.”

Cloudtail sounded uncertain. “I’m worried she’s not telling me when it hurts.”

“Then it probably doesn’t hurt,” Leafpool mewed.

“Perhaps you could watch her next training session?”

Cloudtail ventured. “To make sure?”

“No need.” Leafpool was brisk. “She’s going to make a great warrior. You should be proud of her.”

“I am,” Cloudtail assured her. “But I don’t want to push her. If she needs more time to recover I’m happy to wait.”

“You’re not pushing her, I’m sure,” Leafpool insisted.

Jaypaw sensed Cloudtail’s doubt melt away.

“I’m relieved to hear it,” the warrior meowed.

“I’m glad I could help.”

“Are you coming to eat?” Cloudtail asked. “A hunting party’s just returned.”

Jaypaw waited for the two cats to leave before he hopped out of the cleft in the rock. He could still feel Cinderpelt’s grief like a wound in his mind. How had Leafpool pushed it away so easily? She must have felt it; the memory was hers. Yet she had sounded so bright when she had spoken to Cloudtail.

Unnaturally bright, as though covering doubt. Jaypaw picked up a bundle of coltsfoot and headed back into the store. He hoped that Leafpool was right about Cinderpaw’s injury.