Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars by Erin Hunter

her. “We need to know about this island, that’s all. And if you tell us where to find your friends, we’ll fetch them and maybe they can help you.”
    “No bear can help me.” The she-bear’s words turned into a groan, and she closed her eyes.
    “I wonder why she’s ill.” Ujurak pressed forward and gave the she-bear a sniff. “She’s thin, but she’s not starving. . . . You can see she’s full of milk.”
    “But she smells weird,” Kallik added, taking a good sniff in her turn.
    “A bit like that seal,” Lusa agreed.
    As her friend spoke, apprehension began to gather inside Kallik, like a stone in her belly. What if Lusa was right? Can seals make us sick?
    Ujurak approached the mother bear cautiously, sniffing at her fur as if he was trying to work out what was wrong.
    Maybe he knows of an herb that will make her well, Kallik thought hopefully.
    But the she-bear didn’t understand. She snapped feebly at Ujurak and lashed out at him with one paw. Ujurak jumped back swiftly to avoid the blow.
    “Come on,” Toklo said roughly. “We can’t do anything to help her. And our being here is only making her worse.”
    Kallik realized that Toklo was impatient to be hunting seals, but even so she had to admit that he was right. I think this bear is dying. And what will happen to her cub then?
    Toklo led the way along the seal track, heading down toward the beach. Lusa and Ujurak followed, with Kallik bringing up the rear. She kept casting glances back toward the other white bear and her cub, even when they were out of sight. She couldn’t get the tiny cub out of her mind. Its pink, hairless skin looked so vulnerable in the biting cold.
    That night Kallik lay curled up in the snow-den she and her companions had dug out against the cliff face. She listened to the peaceful breathing of her friends, but she couldn’t sleep.
    If the mother bear dies, her cub will die, too. The words echoed through her mind, over and over again.
    No! Kallik sat up, careful not to wake the others. She knew that she couldn’t abandon the cub, not if there was something she could do to save it.
    Nisa didn’t let the orca take me. She gave up her life so that I would be safe. Now it’s my turn; I have to help this cub, whatever it takes.
    The first light of dawn was glimmering on the snow as Kallik carefully slid out of the den and retraced her steps along the seal track to the top of the cliff. Beside the heap of boulders the mother bear lay dead, cold as a stone. Kallik fought with sadness and regret. She had known from the first there was nothing any bear could have done to help the mother.
    But what about the cub?
    Kallik pawed through the dead bear’s belly fur until she came upon the limp body of the cub. He lay so still that at first she thought he was dead, too. Her heart swelled with grief.
    Oh, spirits, no! Please . . .
    Then she saw, as if in answer to her silent pleading, that the cub’s chest was rising and falling as he breathed: a slight movement that Kallik had almost missed. Thankfulness washed over her as she realized the tiny creature was still alive.
    Cupping her paws around him, she breathed warm breath over his body until he gave a wriggle and started to whimper.
    “There, small one,” Kallik whispered, pushing him up against one of his dead mother’s teats. “See if your mother has any milk to give you.”
    The cub latched onto the teat and began to suckle, feebly at first, then more strongly. Kallik waited for him to finish. Then she crouched down beside the cub and nudged him onto her shoulders. When she was sure that he was clinging securely, she turned and padded down the path, carrying the cub to her friends.
    When she reached the beach, the other three bears were emerging from the den.
    “There you are, Kallik!” Toklo called to her. “We didn’t know where you’d gone off to. You shouldn’t—” He broke off, staring. “ What have you got there?”
    “I went back,” Kallik explained,