“I could have stopped you,” Ivypool argued.
“How? By hanging on to my tail?”
Hollyleaf admired Blossomfall’s spirit. She wondered how the cats had found their way into the tunnels. For a moment the urge to reveal herself to them, to be reunited with her Clanmates, was so strong that her legs trembled.
No! You chose to leave! There is no going back, not now.
But she could still help them find their way out. They’d already met one cat down here; as long as they didn’t get too close, they would assume he’d come back to help them a second time. Hollyleaf leaned out of her hiding place and called softly, “Come on! What are you waiting for?”
The air crackled as if both cats had tensed with alarm. Hollyleaf heard Ivypool turn to look down the tunnel, but she knew the shadows would keep her dark pelt safely hidden.
“You do want to get out, don’t you?” she prompted. “You know you shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh yes—please help us!” Blossomfall begged.
“Very well. Follow me.” Hollyleaf spun around and ran back down the tunnel, judging by the sound of paw steps behind her how fast she needed to go to stay out of sight, but slow enough that the others could follow. She led them on a deliberately confusing route, down side passages and at one stage crossing a tunnel they’d already been through, in order to discourage the cats from coming back. One of the cats—Hollyleaf thought it was Blossomfall—started to walk more slowly and her breathing grew louder.
“Is it much farther?” Ivypool called.
Hollyleaf didn’t reply. Around the next corner, the tunnel sloped steeply up to an old fox hole, long abandoned, that opened into one of the less trodden corners of ThunderClan territory. There was nowhere for Hollyleaf to hide inside the tunnel, so she would have to risk going out ahead of the cats and hiding in the undergrowth. She raced the last few paces to the entrance, then darted across the short clearing and pushed her way into a clump of ferns. Turning as quietly as she could, she waited, her heart pounding, as the two cats limped out behind her.
Ivypool stopped and looked around. “Where did it go?” she meowed.
Blossomfall looked too worn out to speak. She dragged herself into the open and collapsed into a patch of sunlight beside an oak stump.
Very slowly, Hollyleaf eased herself farther back into the ferns. She froze when Ivypool’s ears twitched and she seemed to look straight at Hollyleaf.
“Thank you!” Ivypool called.
Anything for my Clanmates, Hollyleaf replied silently.
Hollyleaf didn’t go back to her former home for many moons. She knew she had hurt Fallen Leaves with her constant visits to spy on the hollow, and he deserved more than that from her. They spent the days patrolling the tunnels for unseen enemies, and lying in wait by the river for minnows to slip past. If they spoke less about what had happened in their pasts, or what lay in the future, Hollyleaf told herself it was because they were more comfortable with silence now, like a pair of elders enjoying a quieter, easier life. She still hunted in the woods when she couldn’t stand to eat another fish, but Fallen Leaves didn’t watch from the mouth of the tunnel, or comment when she came back smelling of blood and feathers. Hollyleaf never tried to catch something for him again, since he hadn’t touched the half squirrel she’d left for him on the night Ivypool and Blossomfall got lost. Fallen Leaves wasn’t weak with hunger, so he obviously preferred to eat in private. It was one more reminder that he wasn’t a Clan cat, but Hollyleaf had chosen not to live as a warrior, hadn’t she? She and Fallen Leaves had more in common than the stone roof over their heads.
Leaf-bare yielded to the determined warmth of newleaf, and then greenleaf crept into the woods to leave trails of tempting prey scents and damp green smells. Hollyleaf started to spend longer outside, running through the trees with her whiskers quivering from all the fragrances, or lying on the open grassland to let the sun warm her fur. The days grew hotter until she longed to walk beside the lake and let the waves wash over her paws. The upper slopes of the ridge were her favorite place to cool off in the gentle breeze, until one day she strayed too close to the WindClan border and almost ran into a patrol. She raced back over the crest of the hill and dived into the trees, panting with fright.
When her heart had slowed, she made her way back to the woods-tunnel, keeping to the shadows in case any WindClan warriors had come in search of the stranger on their territory. Hollyleaf hoped they wouldn’t accuse ThunderClan of trespassing. There had been enough trouble between the two Clans since they arrived at the lake, even though the elders told of a time when Firestar and Onestar had been good friends across the Clan divide. Hollyleaf wondered how the ThunderClan cats were dealing with the scorching weather. Were the apprentices on full-time moss duty, bringing water up from the lake? Had Brambleclaw ordered dusk hunting patrols to avoid the worst of the heat?
The woods-tunnel appeared in front of her, but Hollyleaf stopped. Stronger than the sun, she burned to know how her Clanmates were. Almost without thinking about it, she swerved around the entrance to the tunnel and headed up the slope. Trees grew all the way to the top of the ridge here and down the other side, providing cover right to the ThunderClan border. In fact, Hollyleaf almost missed it completely, until she picked up the faint scent of a border mark on a moss-covered tree stump. The markers would dry fast in the sun, and needed replacing more often than once a day. Checking her pace, she crept through the bracken toward the hollow.
A faint, tempting prey-scent drifted toward her. Hollyleaf parted the stems in front of her with one paw and saw the soft brown outline of a rabbit nibbling at a clump of green plants. Hollyleaf’s mouth watered but she knew there was no way she could hunt here. She was about to turn away and leave this plump treat for the next patrol when she recognized the scent of the plants that the rabbit was devouring. Marigold! Precious for healing wounds and keeping scratches clean, and rare so close to the hollow. Hollyleaf couldn’t let the rabbit eat the entire crop. She leaped forward, hissing and baring her teeth. The rabbit froze, then scampered away, its bobbing white tail signaling a warning through the trees.
Hollyleaf fought her instinct to chase after it and focused on the marigolds. Nearly all of them had been eaten down to the roots. Hollyleaf couldn’t stay here and guard them, and the rabbit would be back to finish them off as soon as she had left. She had to find a way to keep the last plants safe. Looking around, she spotted a deep cleft between the branch and trunk of a nearby tree, not too far from the ground that it couldn’t be seen by a passing cat, but too high for a rabbit to reach. She quickly nipped off the remaining flowers as close to the ground as possible. With her mouth full of juicy stalks, she climbed the tree and placed the flowers in the cleft.
She narrowed her eyes, thinking. In this sun, the plants would soon wilt. They needed water to keep them fresh. Hollyleaf jumped down from the tree and paused for a moment to listen for approaching patrols, then set off through the woods toward the border with WindClan. There, she soaked a ball of moss in the stream and carried it carefully back to the marigold patch. When she scrambled up the trunk again, water dribbled onto her chest and belly fur, making her gasp in shock. But the moss held on to enough to fill the cleft with a tiny puddle, which would keep the marigold stems wet until Leafpool or Jayfeather came looking for more supplies.
Hollyleaf leaped down to the ground, paused once to check that the marigolds were safely in their hiding place, and raced back to the tunnel. She may not be a part of ThunderClan anymore, but if she could help them, she would.