Warriors #2: Midnight ✓

Chapter 20

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"Everything was quiet, leaving Brambleclaw nothing to do but worry about how the journey had gone so disastrously wrong. Most of all, he worried about Tawnypelt [...] How would they cope if [her] bite got infected, or if her leg stiffened so that Tawnypelt couldn't go on?"
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Leafpaw jumped up from her nest in the ferns outside Cinderpelt'sden. The sun was rising, its rays glittering on drops of water that trembled on each fern frond and blade of grass. A chill in the air reminded Leafpaw that leaf fall would give way to leaf-bare before many moons.

At first, she was not sure what had awakened her. There was no sound except for the gentle sigh of wind in the treetops and the distant murmur of the warriors rousing in the central clearing. Cinderpelt had not called her, yet Leafpaw'sfur prickled with the certainty that there was something she had to do.

Almost of their own accord, her paws took her to the mouth of Cinderpelt's den. Peering into the cleft in the rock, she meowed softly, "Cinderpelt, are you awake?"

"I am now." The medicine cat's voice was sleepy. "What's the matter? ShadowClan attacking? StarClan walking among us?""No, Cinderpelt." Leafpaw shuffled her paws. "I just wanted to check if we have any burdock root."

"Burdock root?" Leafpaw heard her mentor scramble to her paws, and a heartbeat later, Cinderpelt poked her head out of the den. "What do you want that for? Come on, Leafpaw, what do we use burdock root for?"

"Rat bites, Cinderpelt," Leafpaw meowed. She sat down and wrapped her tail around her paws, trying to calm her heart, pounding as if she'd just run all the way fromFourtrees. "Especially if they're infected."

"That's right." Cinderpelt slipped out of the den and made a quick tour of the clearing, prodding the clumps of fern with one paw. "No, just as I thought. No rats here," she pronounced at last.

"I know there aren't any rats," Leafpaw mewed helplessly."I just needed to check that we have burdock root, that's all."Cinderpelt's eyes narrowed. "Have you been dreaming?""No, I—" Leafpaw broke off. "I think perhaps I have, but I don't know what it means. I can't even remember what the dream was about."

Cinderpelt's blue eyes considered her calmly for several heartbeats. "This may be a sign from StarClan," she meowed at last.

"Then, can you tell me what it means?" Leafpaw begged."Please!"

Please!"To her dismay, Cinderpelt shook her head. "The sign—if itis a sign—is yours," she explained. "You know that StarClannever speaks to us in plain words. Their messages come in little things . . . the prickling of fur, a tugging in our paws—" The feeling that something's right—or wrong," Leafpawput in.

Exactly." Cinderpelt nodded. "Part of being a medicine cat is learning to read those messages by instinct . . . and we both know how hard it can be to make a leap of faith. That's what you have to do now."

"I'm not sure I know how," Leafpaw confessed, scraping the ground with one forepaw. "Suppose I get the meaning wrong?"

"Do you think I'm never wrong?" Cinderpelt's gaze suddenly grew intense. "You must trust your judgment. Leafpaw, one day you will make a wonderful medicine cat — perhaps even as good as Spottedleaf."

Leafpaw's eyes flew open. She had heard many stories of the gifted young medicine cat who had been killed not long after Firestar had joined ThunderClan. She had never in her wildest dreams thought that she might be compared with her."Cinderpelt, you can't mean that!"

"Of course I mean it," Cinderpelt mewed dryly. "I don't talk for the pleasure of hearing my voice. As for burdock, you'll find it growing on the edge of the training hollow. Why don't you dig up a few roots — so we'll have plenty, just in case."