Long Shadows

Poppyfrost gulped down a mouthful of vole. “Not very,” she replied. “Brightheart suggested I might help clear the bedding out of the warriors’ den—there’s so much of it now, and it’s a hard job when there are only two apprentices. But to be honest, I wouldn’t mind an excuse not to do it.” She swallowed the last of the prey and rose to her paws. “What do you want me to do?”

Jaypaw explained about Briarkit and the need to fetch more catmint.

“Poor little scrap,” Poppyfrost mewed sympathetically. “Of course I’ll help. Let’s go!”

She bounded across the clearing to the tunnel, leaving Jaypaw to follow. Once through the tunnel he caught up to her, and they headed for the abandoned Twoleg nest. Jaypaw felt his paws prickle at the memory of the battle; though the scents of blood and fear had faded, the screeches of fighting cats still echoed in his head. He steered Poppyfrost away from the tunnel where the WindClan cats had invaded ThunderClan territory; he didn’t want to think about what it meant if there was another entrance into the underground caves where he had first met Rock.

He began sniffing for catmint as they approached the Twoleg nest, but instead of the sharp, clean scent of the herb all he could pick up was a musty smell.

“Oh, no!” Poppyfrost halted abruptly.

“What’s the matter?”

“The catmint. Oh, Jaypaw, it’s almost all gone!”

“Gone? It can’t be!”

Poppyfrost bounded forward and Jaypaw followed. He felt soft, thick grass under his paws, then a strip of churned soil where the Twolegs had once grown plants. The musty smell was all around him now, mingled with the occasional hint of fresh leaves.

“What can you see?” he demanded.

“It’s all squashed,” Poppyfrost replied, her voice filled with distress. “The stems are broken down, all black and rotten.”

Jaypaw felt a dark space of fear open up inside him. “That won’t help the sick cats.”

“I know. It must have happened in the battle.”

Jaypaw lashed his tail. “I bet WindClan and RiverClan did this deliberately.”

“Surely no cat would be that cruel?” Poppyfrost meowed.

Jaypaw worked his claws furiously into the earth and felt torn stems beneath his claws. “We’ll have to tell Firestar. They can’t get away with this!”

“No—wait.” Jaypaw had been ready to dash back to camp, but Poppyfrost stopped him with her tail across his chest.

“Cats were fighting all around here. The catmint probably just got trampled.”

Jaypaw grunted; she might be right, but that didn’t stop him from being suspicious. Still, it was more important to see if he could find any fresh catmint for Briarkit and Millie.

Reporting to Firestar could wait.

Tasting the air carefully, he managed to identify a few new shoots of catmint poking through the ground, but they were very small, and there weren’t many of them. He began to bite carefully through each stem.

Poppyfrost was moving around close by, rustling among the leaves. “I’m pulling all the broken stems away,” she explained.

“That way the new ones will have room to grow.”

“Good idea,” Jaypaw meowed. “I’ll help you. Pick any of the new stems you come across, and put them with mine.”

He began clawing away the dying stems and the fallen leaves that clogged up the new growth. He imagined the sun warming the battered plants, encouraging them to shoot up again. But soon it would be leaf-bare, when nothing grew.

Could they wait until newleaf for fresh catmint?

At last there was nothing more they could do. Jaypaw and Poppyfrost divided their gleanings between them, though one cat could easily have carried all they had managed to find.

Then they headed back to camp.

“What happened?” Leafpool’s voice, sharp with worry, greeted Jaypaw as soon as he rounded the bramble screen.

“What took so long? Why haven’t you brought back more than that?”

Jaypaw dropped the herbs at her paws. “This is all there is.”

“What?”

Poppyfrost padded up beside him and added her stems to the pile. Quietly she explained what they had found near the Twoleg nest.

“This is terrible!” Leafpool exclaimed. “That’s the only catmint I know of in our territory.”

“Then you’ve got to give it all to Briarkit.” Jaypaw hardly recognized the cat who had spoken, the voice was so harsh.

Then he detected Millie’s scent, and guessed that she had come to be with her kit. “I’ll be fine, Leafpool, honestly.” She broke off in a bout of coughing.

Jaypaw didn’t believe her. She sounded even sicker than the last time he had spoken to her, and he could sense Leafpool’s fear for her.

“I’ll go and report to Firestar,” Poppyfrost murmured, slipping out of the den.

“You’re not fine, Millie.” Leafpool’s worry made her sound sharp. “Look at all the stuff you’ve coughed up. You have greencough. You’ll have to stay here, where Jaypaw and I can look after you.”

“But what about Bumblekit and Blossomkit?” Millie’s voice rose to a wail that ended in another spasm of hacking coughs.

“Daisy can’t manage to feed them as well as her own.”