A thrill shot up Mothwing’s spine. Whether she quite understood about StarClan or not, she valued Mudfur’s opinion of her. I’m already becoming a medicine cat!
A few days later, a full moon glowed above the forest as RiverClan left the Gathering. Mothwing couldn’t stop shaking. The Clans had been so angry.
Leopardstar had introduced her and Hawkfrost to the Clans, and for a moment, Mothwing had been proud: in front of cats of all four Clans, while the full moon shone overhead and the shadows of Fourtrees fell over them, Leopardstar had called out Mothwing and Hawkfrost’s names.
And they hated us!
“Rogues!” some cat had yowled, and even a few RiverClan cats had growled at Mothwing and Hawkfrost in disapproval. But Leopardstar had stood up for them, pointing out that there were former rogues in ShadowClan, too, and that ThunderClan’s leader, Firestar, had once himself been a kittypet. As the gathered cats settled, Mothwing and Hawkfrost had exchanged a look of half-frightened relief.
And then Leopardstar had announced that Mothwing had begun training to be a medicine cat. The cats had howled in protest.
“What do rogues know of StarClan?” Blackstar, the ShadowClan leader, had growled, outraged, and a chorus of snarls had echoed him. Surrounded by glaring eyes and unsheathed claws, Mothwing had been afraid. What if they attacked her? Mudfur sat beside her, silent. Would he protect her? Could he?
Hawkfrost, among the warriors, had been quivering with rage, digging his claws into the dirt.
At last, Mudfur had gotten to his feet, and the other cats had quieted—no matter how angry they were, they would listen when a medicine cat spoke. He had said that Mothwing was talented, and pride had warmed her, protecting her from the cold sneers of the warriors. And then he had said that, because she was not Clanborn, he was waiting for a sign before making her his apprentice.
This wasn’t the first time that Mudfur had said that he wanted a sign from StarClan about her. But it hadn’t really struck her that if he didn’t get one, there was no chance of becoming Mudfur’s apprentice. No matter how hard she worked.
As she followed Leopardstar toward RiverClan territory, Mothwing’s paws felt heavy and cold.
Mudfur laid his tail across her back, and she looked up at him. “I’m sure you will be a medicine cat, Mothwing,” he meowed comfortingly. “You’ll prove them all wrong.”
“What if StarClan doesn’t give you a sign?” she asked, her voice sounding small and afraid to her own ears. “What happens then?” Maybe there was a way around this.
“I’m sure they’ll give me a sign,” Mudfur told her briskly. As they reached camp, he dropped his tail from her back. “I’ll see you bright and early in the medicine den. We’ll make a sore-throat poultice.”
As she watched him disappear into the medicine den, Mothwing’s heart sank. Mudfur seemed so confident, but what if that sign from StarClan never came? What if StarClan doesn’t even exist? Quickly, Mothwing shook off the idea, glancing around as if some cat could have heard her thoughts.
If StarClan was real, she needed to be careful not to make them angry. I need to become a medicine cat. I can’t let my Clan down. And Mudfur stood up for me. I can’t let him down either.
Chapter 3
Before long, Mothwing managed to push her worries away. Surely, if she worked hard enough, StarClan would decide she should be a medicine cat.
And she loved working in the medicine den. Happily, she inhaled the mixture of scents, many of which she could identify now: marigold, ragweed, borage, tansy, feverfew. Each plant had its own smell, appearance, and use, and Mothwing was proud at how quickly she was learning them. Tansy for cough, marigold for infection, she thought, sorting them into their places.
There were no sick cats in the medicine den now that Blackclaw had recovered, but Mudfur had told her that, in quiet times like these, it was the medicine cats’ job to prepare for the patients who would inevitably come. So Mothwing packed mixtures of herbs into beech leaves so that they would have the perfect amounts of catmint and tansy ready if greencough broke out in camp. She put fresh moss into the nests each day and laid herbs out in the sun to dry for storage. She foraged around the territory, looking for strong cobwebs to slow the bleeding of wounds. She listened as Mudfur told her how best to take a thorn out of a kitten’s paw or strap reeds to a broken bone to keep it in place.
Mudfur moved around the medicine den with confidence: he never forgot the name of an herb and could put his paw on any one of them with instant accuracy. He seemed to know everything, and Mothwing could not wait to become just like him.
As Mothwing sorted the herbs, he curled beside her, his eyes half-closed and his voice content. “Now, helping a queen birth kits is one of the most important jobs a medicine cat does, and it can also be the happiest—or the saddest. You need to be sure to have a good supply of chervil on hand, and raspberry leaves if you can get them. The first sign …” A cloud must have swept across the sun, because the medicine den went dark for a moment, and Mudfur stopped talking.
I hope it rains, Mothwing thought. The drought had gone on too long. RiverClan had the river, but water sources were drying up in the other Clans—WindClan had even gotten permission from Leopardstar to come to the river to drink.
Mudfur was still silent, and Mothwing looked up from the herbs to find him thoughtfully staring out the door of the den at the sky.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Mudfur blinked at her as if she was a long way away. “I have to ask you to leave the den,” he told her after a moment. “I think this darkness may have been a sign from StarClan, and I need to be alone to interpret it.”
“But it was just a cloud,” Mothwing protested, and then, at Mudfur’s look, hunched her shoulders in embarrassment. I don’t sound very much like a medicine cat. “Sorry. I’ll go.”
She hurried out of the medicine den, almost tripping over her own paws. By the time she reached the fresh-kill pile, she had gotten over her embarrassment. But when she thought of Mudfur, trying to decide the meaning of a cloud, she still felt uncomfortable, as if she had earth stuck between her paw pads.
Hawkfrost was picking through the prey, just back from a patrol, and he looked up at her in surprise. “What’s up?”
Mothwing told him, glancing around first to make sure that no cat could overhear them. “It just seems so stupid to me,” she confessed. “And Mudfur’s the smartest cat I know. It was just a cloud passing over the sun. That happens every day! It can’t always mean that StarClan has something to tell us!”
Hawkfrost shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “Mothwing, you can’t talk like this.”
Mothwing’s pelt prickled with annoyance. “Well, what do you think? Is StarClan in charge of everything that happens?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Hawkfrost mewed firmly. “I don’t know if StarClan is real, but if I have to pretend to believe in them to be part of RiverClan, I will.”
“You will?” Mothwing felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She had never considered lying about believing in StarClan. Reflexively, she flinched and glanced at the sky—what if even talking about this made StarClan angry?
“And you will, too.” Hawkfrost stepped closer to her, lowering his voice to a dangerous whisper. “It was mouse-brained of you to become an apprentice again after you’d already been made a warrior. But we can still make this work. Every cat respects a medicine cat. If Mudfur decides to make you his apprentice, they’ll all forget we weren’t born in the Clans.” His blue eyes met hers. “We’ll belong. If you’re a medicine cat, we can stay here forever. We can be important. You don’t want to be thrown out to be a rogue again, do you?”