by Erin Hunter
“Can’t Jayfeather give me some medicine?” pleaded Cherrykit, gazing up at her mother with huge amber eyes.
“He said he’s run out of yarrow,” Poppyfrost explained. There was a tense note of worry in her voice, though Hollyleaf could tell she was trying to hide it from the kits. “I’m sure he’ll find some today, and then you’ll feel much better.”
She ushered her kit back to the nursery, leaving Molekit pottering around the clearing on his own. Hollyleaf narrowed her eyes. She knew where there was fresh yarrow growing. She whirled around and ran back to the tunnel. She was used to the tight squeeze now, and hauled herself through without thinking about it. Then she raced through the tunnels, her paws firm and sure-footed on the cool, damp stone. There was no sign of Fallen Leaves as she burst into the river-cave. Leaping over the water, Hollyleaf darted into the woods-tunnel and followed it to the end, plunging out into daylight just as a pale yellow sun broke over the trees.
Thank StarClan!
The clump of yarrow was still growing by the mouth of the tunnel, fresh and green-smelling in spite of the frost. Hollyleaf nipped off as many stalks as she could carry, then headed back into the tunnel, being careful not to step on the trailing leaves. When she emerged from the narrow hole into ThunderClan territory, she put down the yarrow and sniffed the air. A patrol had just passed by, which meant she should have enough time to take the herbs down to the bottom of the cliff. Hollyleaf tried to slow her heart. It was pounding so hard, her paws were shaking in time. It was too early for many cats to be outside the camp, and the patrol was heading in the opposite direction. If she ran fast, and kept to the shadows, there was no reason she would be seen.
She didn’t give herself another moment to change her mind. She picked up the yarrow leaves and hared down the trail that led to the bottom of the cliff. Skidding around the corner, she almost crashed into the brambles that shielded the dirtplace.
A voice growled from inside, “Wait your turn!”
Hollyleaf bit back an instinctive apology and darted around the edge of the barrier. There was no cat on guard now that dawn had come. She dropped the herbs close to the well-hidden pathway through the thorns. The next cat to come out would find them. Cherrykit could be treated before the sun rose any higher.
As she heard a cat pushing through the brambles from the other side, Hollyleaf whisked around and raced back up the cliff. Her Clanmates might wonder who had delivered herbs so conveniently, but with luck they’d assume one of the apprentices had collected them unasked. No cat needed to know that Hollyleaf had returned to help them.
Not all secrets were terrible.
CHAPTER 9
“Cherrykit has stopped coughing! Poppyfrost looks so relieved. She was playing with the kits this morning, teaching them how to pounce on a ball of moss. I remember when Squirrelflight showed us our first pounce...” Hollyleaf trailed off.
Fallen Leaves, sitting next to her by the edge of the underground river, twitched one ear. “The yarrow leaves worked, then,” he meowed.
“They must have!” Hollyleaf jumped to her paws and faced him. “Do you think I should take some more? What about marigold? Or catmint—do you know if there is any growing near the woods-tunnel?”
“No, I don’t know,” Fallen Leaves answered with a hint of impatience. “I don’t need herbs for myself, so why would I go looking for them?”
“But you found comfrey for me, and poppy seeds,” Hollyleaf reminded him. “When I’d hurt my leg.”
The tip of Fallen Leaves’s tail flicked. “That was different,” he muttered. “You were right in front of me. I could hardly leave you to suffer, could I?”
“Well, ThunderClan is right above our heads!” Hollyleaf countered. “The warrior code says we must protect the kits of all Clans, not just our own. If we gather herbs that will help Cherrykit and Molekit through leaf-bare, we are only obeying the code.”
“It’s not my code,” Fallen Leaves mewed, turning away. “Good luck hunting for herbs if that’s what you want to do.” He padded into the tunnel that led back to Hollyleaf’s nest.
Hollyleaf watched him vanish into the shadows. He was behaving very oddly. She hadn’t seen him at all for several days, and the only creatures she’d had for company were her Clanmates when she spied on them from the top of the cliff. Fallen Leaves never shared her nest now, and never came to watch her hunt from the mouth of the woods-tunnel. Had she done something to upset him?
Perhaps he doesn’t like the fact that I spend so much time in ThunderClan.
Hollyleaf’s pelt prickled with guilt. It was true that she went back almost every day to see what her Clanmates were doing. Poppyfrost’s kits were nearly six moons old, so they would be apprenticed soon; Hollyleaf wondered which cats would be chosen as their mentors. If she’d been in the Clan, she would have liked Cherrykit as an apprentice, with her spirit and sense of humor. But she would never be a mentor, not now.
Giving herself a shake, Hollyleaf trotted into the woods-tunnel. She needed to catch something to eat, then she’d scout for fresh herbs. Leaf-bare was at its height, so there were few green leaves anywhere, but she might get lucky in the sheltered spots beneath fallen trees. And maybe she could catch something for Fallen Leaves, to make it up to him for all the time she had spent outside. He had never shared fresh-kill with her before, but perhaps nothing had tempted him. There must be some sort of prey, plump from pinecones and fallen nuts, among these trees that he would be willing to eat.
Hollyleaf caught a squirrel, soft and downy in its pelt of gray fur, but Fallen Leaves was nowhere to be seen when she returned to the tunnels. Hollyleaf ate alone in the river-cave, carefully leaving half for Fallen Leaves before rinsing her muzzle in the icy water. She hadn’t found any fresh herbs to take to the Clan, so she headed to her nest, her paws trailing a little from tiredness and disappointment. She curled up on the feathers and tucked her nose under her tail. Tomorrow she’d spend all day with Fallen Leaves—if she could find him—patrolling the tunnels as far as he wanted to go.
She only seemed to have closed her eyes for a moment before Fallen Leaves was nudging her with his paw. “Wake up, Hollyleaf!”
Blearily, Hollyleaf sat up. “Is it dawn already?” she mumbled.
“No!” Fallen Leaves turned a circle, impatience making his fur stand on end. “Two of your Clanmates are in the tunnels!”
Hollyleaf was instantly wide awake. “What? Where? Who is it?”
“I don’t know!” Fallen Leaves snapped. “But they can’t stay down here. I told them how to get out but they didn’t listen and they’re still lost. Go and help them, will you?”
“Are they okay?”
“They’re well enough to chatter like starlings, so I presume they aren’t injured.” Fallen Leaves started to walk away. “Just get them back where they belong,” he meowed over his shoulder.
Hollyleaf hopped out of her nest and ran to the river-cave. In spite of the river noise, it was the best place to hear if there was anything in the main tunnels. She crouched by the water and strained her ears. High-pitched, nervous chatter echoed down one of the passages. Hollyleaf leaped up and raced toward the sound, swerving confidently around corners without needing to see her way through the dark. Suddenly the voices sounded very close. The cats were just ahead, invisible in the shadows but near enough that their scent washed over Hollyleaf: She recognized Ivypool, the newest warrior, and Graystripe’s daughter Blossomfall. She ducked into a crevice at the side of the passage and listened.
“I wish I’d asked that cat his name,” Ivypool was muttering. “We could call for him.” There was a pause before she added, “I don’t suppose he would have come, anyway.”
She must mean Fallen Leaves!
A soft scraping noise suggested that one of the cats had flopped to the ground. “I’m sorry,” whispered Blossomfall, sounding breathless and scared. “This is all my fault. I was the one who wanted to come down here.”
“I could have stopped you,”
Ivypool argued.
“How? By hanging on to my tail?”
Hollyleaf admired Blossomfall’s spirit. She wondered how the cats had found their way into the tunnels. For a moment the urge to reveal herself to them, to be reunited with her Clanmates, was so strong that her legs trembled.
No! You chose to leave! There is no going back, not now.
But she could still help them find their way out. They’d already met one cat down here; as long as they didn’t get too close, they would assume he’d come back to help them a second time. Hollyleaf leaned out of her hiding place and called softly, “Come on! What are you waiting for?”
The air crackled as if both cats had tensed with alarm. Hollyleaf heard Ivypool turn to look down the tunnel, but she knew the shadows would keep her dark pelt safely hidden.
“You do want to get out, don’t you?” she prompted. “You know you shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh yes—please help us!” Blossomfall begged.
“Very well. Follow me.” Hollyleaf spun around and ran back down the tunnel, judging by the sound of paw steps behind her how fast she needed to go to stay out of sight, but slow enough that the others could follow. She led them on a deliberately confusing route, down side passages and at one stage crossing a tunnel they’d already been through, in order to discourage the cats from coming back. One of the cats—Hollyleaf thought it was Blossomfall—started to walk more slowly and her breathing grew louder.
“Is it much farther?” Ivypool called.
Hollyleaf didn’t reply. Around the next corner, the tunnel sloped steeply up to an old fox hole, long abandoned, that opened into one of the less trodden corners of ThunderClan territory. There was nowhere for Hollyleaf to hide inside the tunnel, so she would have to risk going out ahead of the cats and hiding in the undergrowth. She raced the last few paces to the entrance, then darted across the short clearing and pushed her way into a clump of ferns. Turning as quietly as she could, she waited, her heart pounding, as the two cats limped out behind her.
Ivypool stopped and looked around. “Where did it go?” she meowed.
Blossomfall looked too worn out to speak. She dragged herself into the open and collapsed into a patch of sunlight beside an oak stump.
Very slowly, Hollyleaf eased herself farther back into the ferns. She froze when Ivypool’s ears twitched and she seemed to look straight at Hollyleaf.
“Thank you!” Ivypool called.
Anything for my Clanmates, Hollyleaf replied silently.
Hollyleaf didn’t go back to her former home for many moons. She knew she had hurt Fallen Leaves with her constant visits to spy on the hollow, and he deserved more than that from her. They spent the days patrolling the tunnels for unseen enemies, and lying in wait by the river for minnows to slip past. If they spoke less about what had happened in their pasts, or what lay in the future, Hollyleaf told herself it was because they were more comfortable with silence now, like a pair of elders enjoying a quieter, easier life. She still hunted in the woods when she couldn’t stand to eat another fish, but Fallen Leaves didn’t watch from the mouth of the tunnel, or comment when she came back smelling of blood and feathers. Hollyleaf never tried to catch something for him again, since he hadn’t touched the half squirrel she’d left for him on the night Ivypool and Blossomfall got lost. Fallen Leaves wasn’t weak with hunger, so he obviously preferred to eat in private. It was one more reminder that he wasn’t a Clan cat, but Hollyleaf had chosen not to live as a warrior, hadn’t she? She and Fallen Leaves had more in common than the stone roof over their heads.
Leaf-bare yielded to the determined warmth of newleaf, and then greenleaf crept into the woods to leave trails of tempting prey scents and damp green smells. Hollyleaf started to spend longer outside, running through the trees with her whiskers quivering from all the fragrances, or lying on the open grassland to let the sun warm her fur. The days grew hotter until she longed to walk beside the lake and let the waves wash over her paws. The upper slopes of the ridge were her favorite place to cool off in the gentle breeze, until one day she strayed too close to the WindClan border and almost ran into a patrol. She raced back over the crest of the hill and dived into the trees, panting with fright.
When her heart had slowed, she made her way back to the woods-tunnel, keeping to the shadows in case any WindClan warriors had come in search of the stranger on their territory. Hollyleaf hoped they wouldn’t accuse ThunderClan of trespassing. There had been enough trouble between the two Clans since they arrived at the lake, even though the elders told of a time when Firestar and Onestar had been good friends across the Clan divide. Hollyleaf wondered how the ThunderClan cats were dealing with the scorching weather. Were the apprentices on full-time moss duty, bringing water up from the lake? Had Brambleclaw ordered dusk hunting patrols to avoid the worst of the heat?
The woods-tunnel appeared in front of her, but Hollyleaf stopped. Stronger than the sun, she burned to know how her Clanmates were. Almost without thinking about it, she swerved around the entrance to the tunnel and headed up the slope. Trees grew all the way to the top of the ridge here and down the other side, providing cover right to the ThunderClan border. In fact, Hollyleaf almost missed it completely, until she picked up the faint scent of a border mark on a moss-covered tree stump. The markers would dry fast in the sun, and needed replacing more often than once a day. Checking her pace, she crept through the bracken toward the hollow.
A faint, tempting prey-scent drifted toward her. Hollyleaf parted the stems in front of her with one paw and saw the soft brown outline of a rabbit nibbling at a clump of green plants. Hollyleaf’s mouth watered but she knew there was no way she could hunt here. She was about to turn away and leave this plump treat for the next patrol when she recognized the scent of the plants that the rabbit was devouring. Marigold! Precious for healing wounds and keeping scratches clean, and rare so close to the hollow. Hollyleaf couldn’t let the rabbit eat the entire crop. She leaped forward, hissing and baring her teeth. The rabbit froze, then scampered away, its bobbing white tail signaling a warning through the trees.
Hollyleaf fought her instinct to chase after it and focused on the marigolds. Nearly all of them had been eaten down to the roots. Hollyleaf couldn’t stay here and guard them, and the rabbit would be back to finish them off as soon as she had left. She had to find a way to keep the last plants safe. Looking around, she spotted a deep cleft between the branch and trunk of a nearby tree, not too far from the ground that it couldn’t be seen by a passing cat, but too high for a rabbit to reach. She quickly nipped off the remaining flowers as close to the ground as possible. With her mouth full of juicy stalks, she climbed the tree and placed the flowers in the cleft.
She narrowed her eyes, thinking. In this sun, the plants would soon wilt. They needed water to keep them fresh. Hollyleaf jumped down from the tree and paused for a moment to listen for approaching patrols, then set off through the woods toward the border with WindClan. There, she soaked a ball of moss in the stream and carried it carefully back to the marigold patch. When she scrambled up the trunk again, water dribbled onto her chest and belly fur, making her gasp in shock. But the moss held on to enough to fill the cleft with a tiny puddle, which would keep the marigold stems wet until Leafpool or Jayfeather came looking for more supplies.
Hollyleaf leaped down to the ground, paused once to check that the marigolds were safely in their hiding place, and raced back to the tunnel. She may not be a part of ThunderClan anymore, but if she could help them, she would.
All that night, Hollyleaf couldn’t sleep for thinking about the marigold plants. Had Leafpool found them? Would the Clan be able to protect the rest of the patch from the rabbit? After two more anxious sunrises, she decided to go back and see if the plants had been taken from the cleft in the tree. She ran along the woods-tunnel, feeling light-headed with nervousness. Beyond the entrance, the trees were quiet and greenleaf-heavy, with only the slightest breeze to stir the leaves. Hollyleaf stayed clear of the trails
as she pushed her way through the bracken to the place where the marigold grew. Suddenly she heard voices coming toward her, young and excited.
“Watch this, Molepaw!”
Hollyleaf padded to the edge of the brittle ferns and peeped out. A small ginger she-cat was crouching down with her tail stuck in the air.
“I’m going to attack that stick!” she declared.
“Don’t forget you’re supposed to close one eye, Cherrypaw,” mewed the cream-and-brown tom. “Brightheart said we needed to practice all the moves as if we’ve been injured.”
Hollyleaf let out a purr. She remembered being trained by Brightheart in moves specially designed to cope with the loss of sight on one side. She studied Cherrypaw’s position. She wasn’t doing too badly, although she needed to shift her weight onto the paws on the side of her good eye to improve her balance.
Suddenly Hollyleaf’s nose twitched. A new scent had filtered into the bracken, above that of warm young apprentices and green leaves. A scent that made Hollyleaf’s fur rise and her claws extend: fox! Before she could call a warning, a huge russet shape crashed out of the trees and loomed over the apprentices. Hollyleaf braced herself to spring, but Brightheart, Foxleap, and Rosepetal were already launching themselves from the bushes on the far side of the clearing.
The three warriors raced at the fox with their teeth bared. “Get out of here!” screeched Rosepetal.
The fox jerked its head up, its eyes widening in alarm. It snapped at Foxleap, who was nearest, but the reddish-furred warrior ducked away and came at the fox from behind, raking his claws down its flank. Brightheart flung herself onto the fox’s ear and hung there with her teeth clenched fast. Rosepetal flailed her paws at its nose, sending scarlet beads of blood flying onto the grass. The fox struggled briefly, then whipped around, flicking Brightheart into the bracken, and raced into the trees. The warriors pelted after it, still yowling.