The Fourth Apprentice

that’s why Poppyfrost is so sad, because Honeyfern’s gone.” She let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry for disturbing you, Jayfeather.”

She turned and padded out of the den; Jayfeather pictured her head drooping and her tail trailing in the dust. When she had gone, he slipped inside the storage cleft again and turned over his dwindling stock of herbs. Poppy seed…tansy…borage…No, there’s nothing here that will help a cat who’s just sad. And there was nothing any cat could say or do that would stop Poppyfrost from grieving for her dead sister.

Curling up in his nest of moss and fern, Jayfeather let himself drift into sleep and turned his paws in the direction of Poppyfrost’s dreams. To his surprise, he found himself on the steep, rocky path leading to the Moonpool. The moon shed its pale light over the boulders and moorland grass on either side, and it gleamed on the tortoiseshell fur of the young cat slipping quietly ahead of him.

“Poppyfrost!” Jayfeather called.

The young cat started, then slowly turned to face him; starlight glittered in her eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Jayfeather asked her.

Poppyfrost seemed unsurprised to see that he was the cat who was following her. “I’ve dreamed of this mountain path so many times since Honeyfern died,” she explained. “I want to see her so much, and I can hear her calling to me from somewhere up there.” She nodded to the top of the ridge, silhouetted against the star-filled sky.

Jayfeather pricked his ears, straining in an effort to hear the young she-cat’s voice. But there was nothing except the faint whisper of the wind over the grass. “I can’t hear her,” he meowed.

“I can.” Poppyfrost was calm and clear-eyed as she spoke, though her voice betrayed her longing for her dead sister.

Jayfeather’s paws tingled. Poppyfrost had set her paws on a path that was walked only by medicine cats. “You should come back to the hollow,” he told her. He remembered how he had saved her life a long time ago, by guiding her back from StarClan when she was a tiny kit with greencough. She had come willingly enough then, not ready to leave behind the Clanmates she had only just begun to know. “This place isn’t for you.”

“No, I must go on!” Poppyfrost spun around and ran up the narrow track, faster and faster until she vanished into a swirl of mist. Her voice drifted faintly back to him. “I have to see Honeyfern!”

Jayfeather woke with a jolt, his paws scrabbling among churned-up moss. Warm air stirred against his face, telling him that the sun was already up. His pads ached as though he had really spent the night trekking into the mountains. Yawning, he dragged himself out of his nest and padded into the clearing. Sunrays were spilling through the trees above the camp, scorching the bare ground. Jayfeather tried to picture the hollow as it had been, green and cool, knowing that everything now would be parched to a brittle brown.

A worm of worry was gnawing at his belly. Trying to ignore it, he padded across to the nursery and stuck his head inside the entrance. He could hear the soft breathing of sleeping cats, and he scented Ferncloud, Daisy, and Poppyfrost huddled together in a mound of fur. Slightly reassured, he crept away without disturbing them.

But I’ll keep an eye on Poppyfrost, he decided.

“This is a dock leaf,” Jayfeather announced, snagging it in his claws and holding it up so that all the apprentices could see it.

“Like we don’t know,” Ivypaw muttered.

Jayfeather bit back a stinging rebuke. He knew that the young apprentice was still grumpy because Dovepaw had gone on the mission without her, and he couldn’t entirely blame her. But Firestar had asked him to give all the apprentices some basic training in the use of herbs, and Ivypaw had to learn the same things as the others, whether she liked it or not.

“Dock leaves are good for rubbing on sore pads,” he went on, ignoring the young cat’s bad temper for now. “And you can find them pretty well anywhere, so they’re one of the most useful herbs.”

“So, like, if we went on a long journey, we should look out for dock?” Bumblepaw asked.

Oops, you shouldn’t have said that, Jayfeather thought, as Ivypaw let out an angry hiss at her denmate.

“That’s right,” he replied. “Or if you step on a sharp stone,” he added, trying to take the focus off traveling.

“Wouldn’t we need cobweb for that?” Briarpaw mewed.

“Only if the skin has broken,” Jayfeather told her. “And that’s true of all wounds, of course, especially serious ones where the cat is losing a lot of blood. For smaller scratches and scrapes, we use marigold or horsetail to stop the bleeding. These are leaves of marigold,” he went on, holding one up. “I don’t have any horsetail right now; you should ask your mentors to look for it when you go out for training, and it would be great if you could bring some back.”

“And what if some cat eats bad food, or some nasty Twoleg stuff like our mother told us RiverClan cats did once?” Blossompaw chirped. “What do you give them then?”

“That’s a bit complicated for now,” Jayfeather mewed. “Today we’re learning about soreness and minor wounds. You’ll meet those almost every day, whereas cats are only poisoned once a season, if that.”

“But we should know what to do, right?” Bumblepaw argued.

“You’re not going to be medicine cats,” Jayfeather began. “More serious illnesses-”

To his relief he heard paw steps approaching and picked up Thornclaw’s scent as the tabby warrior poked his head around the bramble screen.

“Are you done?” he meowed. “The other mentors and I want to go out for some hunting practice.”

“Yes! Hunting!” Blossompaw sprang to her paws. “I’ll catch the biggest rabbit in the forest!”

“Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep,” Thornclaw mewed drily. “Can I take them, Jayfeather?”

“You’re welcome to,” Jayfeather replied with feeling. “Remember that horsetail!” he called after the apprentices as they bundled out of the den and dashed off across the clearing.

Once they had gone, Jayfeather padded out and headed for the elders’ den. When he pushed his way under the hazel boughs, he found Mousefur and Purdy still sleeping, curled up companionably near the trunk of the bush. Longtail was awake, and he stretched as Jayfeather entered.

“Hi,” he meowed. “I was hoping you’d stop by.”

Anxiety pricked Jayfeather like a nettle when he heard how frail the elder sounded. He had always thought of Longtail as a young cat, living in the elders’ den only because of his blindness, but now he realized that he was growing old as well.

“What can I do for you?” he asked Longtail.

“I wondered if there’s any news about the cats who went upstream,” the blind warrior replied. “Has any cat discovered what is stopping the water?”

“We haven’t heard anything more,” Jayfeather told him. I’m certainly not going to give away Dovepaw’s secret! “You know as much as I do.”

Longtail sighed. “It’s not enough. No cat will be happy until they’re home safe.”

“I know, but there’s nothing-”

“Jayfeather!” The loud whisper interrupted what he had been about to say; Jayfeather detected Ferncloud’s scent and turned to face her.

“What’s the matter? Is some cat ill?”

“No, but we can’t find Poppyfrost. Have you seen her?”

Jayfeather didn’t bother reminding her that he couldn’t see anything. “She was asleep in the nursery earlier.”

“Well, she’s not there now.” Ferncloud sounded puzzled rather than worried.

“She hasn’t been here, either,” Longtail told her.

“I can’t find her anywhere!” Daisy pushed her way through the branches, nearly knocking Jayfeather onto Mousefur’s sleeping body. “She’s not in the apprentices’ den, and she hasn’t gone to make dirt, and-”

“It’s getting too crowded in here.” Jayfeather gave the she-cat a gentle push back toward the clearing. “If we’re not careful, we’ll wake Mousefur and Purdy, and then we’ll never hear the end of it.” As he herded Daisy and Ferncloud back into the clearing, he turned his head and meowed to Longtail, “If I find out anything about the blocked stream, I’ll let you know, I promise.”