Midnight

Chapter 22

Brambleclaw crouched in the bushes and watched the full moon suspended in the dark blue sky. Back at Fourtrees, the Clans would have met for their Gathering. The thought of the clearing thronged with cats, of gossip exchanged and stories told, made him feel lonelier than ever.

For another endless day they had struggled through the Twolegplace, along Thunderpaths, through fences, over walls.

At least they had left the worst of the hard ground behind them; now the Thunderpaths were edged with grass, and gardens surrounded the Twoleg nests. They had found shelter for the night beneath some shrubs, and had even managed to hunt.

Yet the sharp teeth of his anxiety kept Brambleclaw awake.

He still did not know if they were going the right way.

Purdy led them on confidently, but the twisting route he took among the Twoleg nests took no account of the sun, and Brambleclaw felt as if the sun-drown place were as far away as it had ever been.

“I think we’re farther away than ever.” Crowpaw had scornfully echoed his thoughts before he settled down to sleep.

Worst of all were his worries about Tawnypelt’s shoulder. Though his sister was too proud to admit she was in pain, by the time they stopped for the night she could barely walk. The rat bite had stopped bleeding, but her shoulder was swollen and the flesh where her fur had been torn away was red and puffy. Brambleclaw didn’t need to be a medicine cat to know that the bite was infected. Squirrelpaw and Feathertail had taken turns licking the wound while Tawnypelt slipped into an uneasy, shallow sleep, but every cat knew that it would take more than that to heal her.

Brambleclaw jumped at a scrabbling sound close by in the bushes, then relaxed when Stormfur appeared and crouched down beside him.

“I’ll watch for a bit if you like,” the gray warrior meowed.

“Thanks.” Brambleclaw arched his back and drove his claws into the ground in a stretch. “I’m not sure I can sleep, though.”

“Try,” Stormfur advised him. “You’ll need your strength for tomorrow.”

“I know.” With another glance at the moon, he added, “I wish we were all safely back at Fourtrees.”

To his surprise Stormfur blinked at him sympathetically.

“We will be soon. Don’t worry. StarClan are with us here just as much as if we were at the Gathering with the rest of our Clans.”

Brambleclaw let out a sigh. Somehow, tangled as they were in Twolegplace, it was hard to imagine the starry warriors weaving among them. With a last look at the moon, he curled up and closed his eyes, and at last managed to sink into sleep.

The barking of a dog woke him. He sprang up, quivering, only to realize with relief that it was too distant to be a threat; there was no dog scent close by. A gray light filtered through the bushes, and the leaves stirred in a chill breeze with a damp tang to it, as if rain was not far off.

Brambleclaw’s companions were sleeping around him, all except Stormfur, who was not in sight. Brambleclaw braced himself, preparing to wake them and get them moving again, when Crowpaw lifted his head and scrambled to his paws, shaking the leaf mold off his pelt.

“Listen, Brambleclaw,” he meowed, sounding less aggressive than usual. “We’ve got to get out of here today. Things would be better if we could find a forest, or even farmland.

We might need to stop for a bit to let Tawnypelt rest, and we can’t do that in the middle of all these Twolegs.”

Brambleclaw hoped he hid his surprise at how reasonable the younger cat sounded, especially at how concerned he was for Tawnypelt. “You’re right,” he agreed. “But I’m not sure.

We’ve no choice but to trust Purdy to get us out of here.”

“It’s a pity we ever let him come with us,” Crowpaw growled. He padded across to where Purdy was sleeping, an untidy heap of tabby fur, snoring and twitching. Crowpaw prodded him hard in the ribs with one paw. “Wake up!”

“Hey? Wha’?” Purdy blinked and then heaved himself up until he was sitting. “What’s all the hurry?”

“We need to get moving.” Crowpaw’s abrasive tone was back. “Or had you forgotten?”

Leaving him to get some sense out of Purdy, too tired and anxious to go over and soothe the festering quarrel, Brambleclaw went to wake the others. He left Tawnypelt until last, bending over to sniff her wound and examine it closely.

“It’s no better,” Feathertail murmured at his shoulder. “I’m not sure she’ll be able to go far today.”

As she spoke, Tawnypelt opened her eyes. “Brambleclaw?

Is it time to go?” She struggled to sit up, but Brambleclaw could see that her leg would barely support her.

“Lie still for a bit,” Feathertail told her. “Let me give that bite another lick.”

She crouched down and her tongue rasped in a comforting rhythm over the swollen flesh. Tawnypelt let her head drop onto her paws again. As Brambleclaw watched, Stormfur reappeared with a mouse in his jaws, which he dropped close to Tawnypelt’s muzzle.

“There you are,” he mewed. “Fresh-kill.”

Tawnypelt blinked up at him. “Oh, Stormfur… thank you.

But I should catch my own.”

Brambleclaw’s belly clenched with pity. No cat had ever looked less able to hunt.

Stormfur just touched her ear with his nose. “You eat that one,” he murmured. “You need to keep up your strength. I can catch more later.”

With a little nod of gratitude, Tawnypelt began to eat.

Ignoring the argument that was developing between Purdy and Crowpaw, Brambleclaw went to see what Squirrelpaw was doing.

The ginger apprentice was sitting up in the nest of leaves she had made the night before. She was muttering something under her breath, and she kept passing her tongue over her lips as if she could taste something foul.

“What’s the matter?” Brambleclaw asked. Trying to joke, he added, “Have you been eating your own fur?”

For once Squirrelpaw did not react. “No,” she replied, still licking her lips. “It’s just this funny taste. I keep thinking I should remember what it is.”

“Not salt, I hope?” Brambleclaw suggested lightly. He had never thought he would miss Squirrelpaw’s smart remarks, but this seriousness made him anxious.

“No… something else. Just let me think about it, and I’ll remember in a bit. Something tells me it might be important.”

They set off again, with Purdy in the lead. The night’s sleep seemed to have helped Tawnypelt, and she limped along valiantly, managing to keep up with Purdy’s ambling pace.

Brambleclaw kept an eye on her, determined to stop for a rest if he thought his sister needed it.

The old tabby led them through more Twoleg gardens and out onto a narrow Thunderpath bordered on one side by a wooden fence and on the other by a high wall. Two or three monsters crouched at the edge of the Thunderpath, their huge eyes gleaming. Brambleclaw eyed them suspiciously as he and his companions passed, ready to flee if they roared into life.

The Thunderpath bent sharply to one side; Purdy rounded the corner and Brambleclaw saw Feathertail halt and stare disbelievingly in front of her.

“No!” she spat with uncharacteristic fury. “That’s too much! We can’t go that way, you furball!”

As if in answer, a dog started barking on the other side of the wall. Brambleclaw glanced around in alarm, but he could see no way for the dog to reach them. Anxiously he bounded forward, and when he reached Feathertail he saw what had upset her. A few foxlengths in front of them the Thunderpath ended abruptly in a high wall, blocking the path ahead with the same dull red stone that had surrounded them for days. They couldn’t go any farther that way. Every muscle in Brambleclaw’s body shrieked in protest at the thought of having to retrace their steps.

Purdy had stopped to look back, an injured expression on his face. “There’s no call to be like that, now.”

“You have no idea where we are, do you?” Feathertail demanded. She had flattened herself against the hard surface of the ground; Brambleclaw wasn’t sure whether she was trying to hide, or preparing to attack their hopeless guide. And if she did, would he stop her? “We’ve got an injured cat with us. We can’t spend all day traipsing after you up and down this… this vile place!”

“Steady.” Crowpaw came up and bent over Feathertail, rasping his tongue over her ear. “Just ignore the old fool.

We’ll make a plan to get out of here by ourselves.”

Feathertail bared her teeth at him. “How can we? We don’t know where we are.”

Behind the wall the dog was going crazy, letting out a flurry of high-pitched barks. Brambleclaw tensed, ready to run if it found a way out of its garden. Behind him, Stormfur bounded around the corner, checked his pace as he realized the dog was no immediate danger, and went over to his sister.

A moment later Squirrelpaw arrived with Tawnypelt.

“What’s going on?” asked the ThunderClan apprentice.

“Where’s Purdy?”

Brambleclaw realized that the old cat had vanished. He wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or angry.

“Good riddance,” growled Crowpaw.

The words had hardly left his mouth when Purdy’s head reappeared, poking through a gap beside the wall that Brambleclaw had not noticed until now.

“Well?” the old cat meowed. “You comin’ or not?”

He withdrew again; Brambleclaw padded over to the broken fence panel and looked out. He was ready for yet more Twoleg nests, and gaped in astonishment. Across a narrow, dusty track was a grass-covered slope dotted with clumps of gorse, and beyond that—trees! Trees as far as Brambleclaw could see, with not a Twoleg nest in sight.

“What is it?” Squirrelpaw called impatiently from behind him.

“A forest!” Brambleclaw’s voice squeaked like a kit. “A real forest at last. Come on, all of you.”

He slid through the gap to stand beside Purdy. The old tabby was looking at him with a knowing gleam in his eye.

“Satisfied now?” he purred. “You wanted out; I’ve brought you out.”

“Er… yes. Thanks, Purdy, this is great.”

“Not so much of the ‘stupid furball’ now, hey?” Purdy asked, with a meaningful look at Crowpaw as the WindClan apprentice slipped through the gap.

Brambleclaw and Crowpaw exchanged a glance. Brambleclaw suspected that Purdy had been as surprised as the rest of them to find the way out of the Twolegplace, but the old cat would never admit it. Anyway, it didn’t matter now.

Twolegplace was behind them, and they could start looking for the sun-drown place again.

They crossed the track and began to climb the slope.

Brambleclaw reveled in the feel of fresh grass on his pads, and the forest scents wafting toward him on the faint breeze.

When they stood underneath the trees, it was almost like coming home.

“This is more like it!” Stormfur meowed, gazing around at the clumps of bracken and the long, cool grass. “I vote we stay here for the rest of today and tonight. Tawnypelt can get a good sleep, and the rest of us can hunt.”

Brambleclaw bit back a protest; his compulsion to make for the sun-drown place was growing stronger as time slipped away, but he knew they would make better progress if they stopped to recover their strength.

The other cats murmured agreement, except for Tawnypelt. “You don’t have to stop for me.”

“It’s not just for you, mouse-brain.” Squirrelpaw pushed her nose affectionately into the ShadowClan cat’s fur. “We all need to rest and eat.”

Slowly the cats began to move deeper into the wood, clustered together and alert for danger as they looked for a good place to rest. Brambleclaw stopped every few paces to taste the air, but he could not scent fox, or badger, or other cats—nothing that was likely to give them trouble. But the air was full of prey-scent; his mouth began to water at the thought of sinking his teeth into a plump mouse, or better still, a rabbit.

Before long, they came to a spot where the ground fell away toward a thin trickle of water beneath dense hawthorn bushes.

“Couldn’t be better,” Crowpaw meowed. “There’s water and shelter, and if there are predators about they won’t find it easy to sneak up on us.”

Tawnypelt, who was limping badly again, half slid, half scrambled down the slope and dragged herself into a mossy nest between two twisted roots. Her green eyes were clouded with pain and exhaustion. Feathertail settled down beside her and began to lick her wound again. Purdy flopped down on her other side and immediately curled up and went to sleep.

“Right, you three stay here,” Crowpaw mewed, “and the rest of us will hunt.”

Brambleclaw opened his mouth to challenge him for ordering everyone else around, then decided it wasn’t worth it.

Besides, it made a nice change not to be expected to make all the decisions for once. Instead, he padded over to Squirrelpaw.

“Fancy hunting with me?” he asked.

Squirrelpaw just nodded, as if half her mind were on something else. She followed Brambleclaw up the stream, and they were hardly out of sight of their temporary camp when Brambleclaw spotted a mouse scuffling among the grass near the water’s edge. In one smooth movement he dropped into the hunter’s crouch and sprang, killing his prey with a swift blow. Turning to show Squirrelpaw, he saw her standing with her head lifted and her jaws parted to drink in the forest scents.

“Squirrelpaw, are you okay?”

The apprentice jumped. “What? Oh, yes, fine, thanks.

There’s something I can’t quite…” Her voice trailed off and she licked her lips again.

Guessing that he wouldn’t get any more sense out of her, Brambleclaw scraped earth over his fresh-kill to keep it safe until he came to collect it, and padded farther into the wood.

The whole place was rich in prey, and they hardly seemed to know what a predator was. It was one of the easiest hunts he had ever known.

Squirrelpaw helped, but it was clear her mind wasn’t on the task. Usually she was a skillful hunter, but today she let a black-bird escape by hesitating too long, and completely missed a squirrel that was nibbling a nut barely a foxlength away.

Then as Brambleclaw was stealthily creeping up on a rabbit, she cried out, “That’s it! Over there!”

At once the rabbit shot upright in the grass, and a heartbeat later all Brambleclaw could see of it was its white tail bobbing up and down as it fled.

“Hey!” he exclaimed indignantly. “What did you do that for?”

Squirrelpaw wasn’t listening. She had darted down toward the waterside, where clumps of tall plants with dark green leaves were growing. As Brambleclaw stared, mystified, she began to scrape vigorously at the base of the stems.

“Squirrelpaw, what are you doing?” he asked.

The apprentice paused long enough to give him a glance from green eyes that glowed with triumph. “Burdock!” She panted, attacking the stems again. “It’s what Tawnypelt needs for her rat bite. Help me to dig up the roots.”

“How do you know?” Brambleclaw asked as he began to dig.

“You know that taste I told you about? I’ve been trying to think of it all morning. Leafpaw must have mentioned it when she was saying good-bye to us.”

Brambleclaw paused and looked at her. Leafpaw had certainly told them about several herbs that she thought they might need, but he couldn’t remember burdock root being one of them. Then he shrugged and dug harder. There was no other way that Squirrelpaw could have found out about it.

Once they had dug up three or four of the roots, Squirrelpaw pushed them into the water to wash off the earth and then gripped them in her teeth to carry them back to the camp. Brambleclaw followed more slowly, collecting as much of their prey as he could carry.

When he reached their resting place again he found that Squirrelpaw had already chewed up some of the root and was gently pressing the pulp onto Tawnypelt’s injured shoulder.

The ShadowClan warrior lay still, watching, but as the juice from the root seeped into her wound she relaxed and let out a long sigh.

“That’s better,” she mewed. “It’s going numb. I can’t feel the pain anymore.”

“That’s brilliant,” Brambleclaw meowed.

“I think you must be a secret medicine cat,” Tawnypelt said to Squirrelpaw, settling herself more comfortably into the moss. “Perhaps you’re carrying a bit of your sister’s spirit.”

Blinking drowsily, she sank back into sleep.

Squirrelpaw was watching Tawnypelt with shining eyes, and Brambleclaw felt his fur prickle. Had Leafpaw really mentioned the burdock root back in the forest, or was there something more mysterious going on between her and her sister?

He went back into the wood to collect the rest of the prey.

By the time he returned, Stormfur and Crowpaw had also brought back a good catch. For the first time in many days, they were able to eat as much as they wanted. Purdy woke up and gulped down the fresh-kill enthusiastically, as if he found it much tastier than the kittypet food he was used to.

They all slept well. When he woke, Brambleclaw saw that the clouds had vanished and sunlight was angling through the trees, bathing the forest in a reddish glow. Springing up, he climbed as high as he could above the stream and managed to find a gap in the trees so that he could see where the sun was going down.

“That’s the path we have to take.” Stormfur scrambled up the slope to stand beside him, and his voice was as calm and determined as if he had shared the visions himself. “That’s where we will find what midnight tells us.”

Brambleclaw’s paws itched to race toward the setting sun, as if he knew for certain that Bluestar was waiting there to tell him exactly how he could save the forest. But he knew that it was more sensible to stick to their original plan and spend the night in the wood. Carefully noting the direction they needed to travel, he went back to his friends beside the stream.

Tawnypelt was tearing ravenously into a rabbit. She paused to nod a greeting at Brambleclaw as he appeared. “I’m famished,” she admitted. “And my shoulder feels much better.

What did you say that was you put on it, Squirrelpaw?”

“Burdock root.” Brambleclaw noticed that Squirrelpaw did not try to explain how she knew that burdock root was the right remedy for the infected bite. Perhaps she was wondering about it, too.

She began chewing up another of the roots, and when Tawnypelt had finished eating she applied more of it to her wound. Brambleclaw noticed that the swelling had gone down and the angry red color had faded. He breathed silent thanks to StarClan—and to Leafpaw—for his sister’s recovery.

By the time they set out the next morning, after another good meal, Tawnypelt looked almost like her old self. She was barely limping at all and her eyes were bright again.

Long before sunhigh they came to the edge of the forest. Ahead of them was open country for as far as they could see.

The ground rose and fell in a series of gentle slopes. Wind rippled over short, springy grass interspersed with creeping trefoil and wild thyme. It looked to be easy going, and the air had a fresh tang.

“Like home!” Crowpaw murmured, obviously remembering the open moorland of WindClan.

Unlike the WindClan apprentice, Brambleclaw was reluctant to leave the trees behind. The shelter of the canopy had been comforting. But the food and rest had given them all new strength, and he hoped that at last they were coming to the end of their journey.

To his surprise, Purdy said good-bye to them before they left the trees. “I don’t feel right under the open sky,” he confessed, echoing Brambleclaw’s own thoughts. “I guess I’ve had too many Upwalkers chasing me. I like to be somewhere I can hide. Besides, you don’t need me anymore. StarClan, whatever they might be, won’t be waiting for me at midnight,” he added with a glint in his eye.

“Maybe not,” meowed Brambleclaw. “Thanks for everything, anyway. We’ll miss you.” Surprisingly he realized that was true; he had come to feel something like affection for the exasperating old cat. “If you’re ever in our forest, you’ll be welcome to visit ThunderClan.”

As he finished speaking, he couldn’t help hearing Crowpaw mew under his breath to Tawnypelt, “Your brother might miss him, but I won’t!”

Brambleclaw curled his lip in warning at the WindClan cat, but Purdy hadn’t caught the apprentice’s muttered words. “I’ll wait here two or three days for you,” he promised. “In case you need help to find your way back.”

Brambleclaw glanced at Crowpaw in time to see him rolling his eyes at Feathertail, who just shrugged.

“Always supposin’ you come back of course,” Purdy went on as he padded away with his tail high. “You wouldn’t catch me so close to the sun-drown place. Shouldn’t wonder if you all end up drowned.”

“That’s right,” Squirrelpaw muttered into Brambleclaw’s ear. “Way to keep our hopes up!”

But by the end of that day, even Brambleclaw’s hopes were fading. The heat of the sun had drained his energy, and with no water on these rolling uplands his mouth felt like the floor of the sandy training hollow. His companions were no better off, plodding along with their heads down and tails drooping.

Tawnypelt was limping again; though she didn’t want any cat to examine her wound, Brambleclaw could see the swelling had returned, and wondered how much longer she could keep going. There was no more burdock root here.

Straight in front of them, the sun was sinking in a blaze of scarlet fire, tongues of flame spreading halfway across the sky.

“At least we’re heading the right way,” Feathertail murmured.

“Yes, but how far do we still have to go?” Brambleclaw had tried not to share his doubts, but his anxiety was becoming too much for him. “The sun-drown place could be days away.”

“I always said this was a mouse-brained idea,” Crowpaw remarked, though he sounded too exhausted to be aggressive.

“Well, how long do we carry on?” asked Stormfur. As all the other cats turned to look at him, he went on: “If we don’t find the place, sooner or later we have to decide… do we give up or keep trying?”

Brambleclaw knew he was right. At some point they might have to admit defeat. But what would that mean for their Clans, to ignore the will of StarClan and go home with the journey unfinished?

Then Squirrelpaw, who had been facing into the wind to drink in the scents it carried, spun around to face the others, her eyes blazing with excitement.

“Brambleclaw!” She gasped. “I can smell salt!”