medicine cat when Firestar first joined the Clan,” Leafpool explained. “She died before I was born, but she comes to my dreams just like she did with Jaykit.” Hollykit noticed that the medicine cat’s eyes were glittering with excitement. “Spottedleaf was very wise. She’s never stopped looking after her Clan. I guess that’s why she came to see Jaykit, and why she still visits my dreams.”
“Does Cinderpelt visit you too?” Hollykit asked.
Leafpool shook her head. “Just Spottedleaf. She helps me find the answers to questions that are worrying me, and she warns me if something threatens the Clan.”
Hollykit was surprised to hear Leafpool talk so warmly about a cat she’d never met in real life. “You talk about Spottedleaf like she’s a friend.”
“Our warrior ancestors can be our friends.”
Jaykit let out a moan. “I hurt.”
“I’ll fetch more comfrey,” Hollykit offered. She bounded over to the pile of herbs and carried a mouthful back to Leafpool.
“Thank you,” Leafpool meowed. “Can you fetch some poppy seeds, too? You’ll see them at the back. They’re tiny, round black seeds.”
“Okay.” Hollykit hurried to the back of the den and searched among the piles of herbs until she found the poppy seeds. “How many?” she called.
“Five,” Leafpool answered. “Pick them up by wetting your paw and dabbing the pile.”
Hollykit followed her instructions, shaking the extra seeds from her pad, and hopped back to where Jaykit lay. He licked them from her paw, his eyes growing sleepy.
“Is he all right?” she asked, worried.
“He will be,” Leafpool reassured her. “But we should let him rest.”
Hollykit did not want to leave the medicine den.
Excitement was buzzing in her paws. Leafpool could cure sick cats, and share tongues with her ancestors, and warn the Clan leader of troubles ahead. If Hollykit wanted to be important to her Clan, perhaps becoming a medicine cat was the way to achieve it. After the disastrous adventure with the foxes, maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a warrior at all.
She padded away from Jaykit but lingered at the bramble-covered entrance. “Leafpool,” she called quietly.
“Yes?” Leafpool padded to her side.
“When do medicine cats take on an apprentice? Is it only when they get old?”
Leafpool looked seriously at her. “I can take an apprentice anytime.”
“But would your apprentice have to stay an apprentice until you . . .” Died? Hollykit could not bring herself to say the word out loud.
Leafpool’s whiskers twitched with amusement as she guessed what Hollykit was trying to ask. “No,” she purred.
“Once a medicine cat apprentice has learned enough, he can take his proper name and assume full responsibilities, even with his mentor still alive.”
Hollykit wondered why Leafpool had said he. “Do you have someone in mind already?”
Leafpool flicked the tip of her tail. “I’ve not decided anything yet.”
Before Hollykit could say anything else, she heard Ferncloud calling her from the nursery.
“You’d better go,” Leafpool meowed. “You’ve been in enough trouble for one day.”
Her pelt prickling with frustration, Hollykit pushed her way through the brambles and raced back to the nursery. She had just discovered how she wanted to serve her Clan, how to make sure that what she did really mattered. She wanted to be the next ThunderClan medicine cat!
CHAPTER 5
Lionkit woke in his nest. A draft ruffled his golden pelt.
Where’s Jaykit?
Jaykit usually slept beside him, but there was an empty space there now.
Then he remembered.
Lionkit felt sickness surge in his belly as he pictured Jaykit lying limp at the side of the clearing. He’s going to be okay, he reminded himself.
But in the clearing, watching Leafpool and Brambleclaw crouch by his body, Lionkit had thought that his brother was dead. A shiver ran down his tail. He nudged Hollykit, who was still sleeping beside him, her black pelt almost making
Brian Keene, J.F. Gonzalez