Duncton Wood (20 page)

On the dawn of this particular day, Rose had been drawn out of her burrow and over to Duncton Wood by an impulse compounded of unease and excitement. She never questioned such impulses – they had a will of their own, and a purpose, too, which it was beyond anymole to fathom. A mole resisted them at her, or his, peril. All she knew was that somewhere in the system there was a mole in deep trouble who in some way needed her help. Where the mole was, what the trouble was, or what mole it might be she had no idea. But the need to pick ramsons was part of the impulse and that in itself was unusual, since she had already gathered her stock of ramsons for drying in June, when they were flowering most widely. Still, with ramsons the fresh plant is always best, and if the impulse said “Go and pick some” Rose would do just that.

She had not been at all surprised when another mole joined her – though she had half expected whatever mole it was to be the one in need of help. That, however, did not seem to be the case.

To add to her puzzlement, and subsequently to create a sense of awe in her, Rebecca said several things that suggested she knew a great deal instinctively about plants and their powers, which she did not yet
know
she knew. Sensing this, Rose had deliberately not elaborated on several of the more important questions that Rebecca had raised almost unconsciously. The question of why the smell of wild garlic may seem stronger farther off than close by, for example, involved explanations of why it is that the smaller the dose of a herb a healer gives, the more potent may be the impact.

Rebecca’s understanding of the fact that plants talked to her was also difficult to explain to her without, in a curious way, jeopardizing her ability to listen.

For knowledge, Rose had painfully discovered, was a very different thing from wisdom and common sense and may often come in the way of both. The sight of such innocent wisdom as she saw in Sarah’s and Mandrake’s child made Rose hesitate to try to explain these things. Faced by it, she felt her own ignorance, not as a negative thing but as a simple fact. And she saw again what her weariness, age and occasional loneliness had made her forget: that each mole is graced with different virtues, just as each herb is. She sensed that Rebecca had many graces and the awe she felt was of the power of the Stone that had put them there.

These thoughts ran through Rose’s mind while she considered Rebecca’s question about the stars. She wished she had more power with words to explain the answer, though it was a wish that did her an injustice, since Rose could often explain things that other moles, who seemed more articulate, could somehow never grasp.

She sighed and wondered where to start. She looked around her, at the ramsons, at the cluttered undergrowth of thorns and dark leaves, and at the light sky above and beyond.

It was the gentle sound of a warm breeze in the trees that helped her. “Do you know what the top of a tree looks like?” she asked Rebecca.

“Well, of course!” said Rebecca. “We’ve all been shown fallen branches with leaves on – they look like that.”

“Can you remember the first time you saw one?” asked Rose.

“Oh, yes, it was disappointing!” She paused, but Rose stayed silent, so she continued. “Well, I mean... before you see them, you imagine them, don’t you? And the roots of trees were so big, and the noise their tops made in the wind so powerful, that I imagined that trees went up and up forever into the sky, and their tops were each as big as the whole of Duncton Wood put together. So when someone said That’s a top of a tree’ I was disappointed!”

Rose laughed sympathetically – she had once felt just the same. “But really, my dear, treetops aren’t just branches and leaves, are they? Did you
see
the noise of the wind, for example? I’m sure you didn’t. Did you see all the branches together? Well, of course, you couldn’t have. There are a lot of things, the most important things, which you can
never
see and can only learn about in your own way. Just as the treetop you saw couldn’t tell you everything about treetops, so the starlike flowers of ramsons only hint at what stars are really like.”

“But how does anymole know what they’re like?” persisted Rebecca. “How can a mole be certain that they’re
there?”

A strange thing happened to Rebecca as she asked this question. As it hung in the air between them, she saw very clearly that it was a question impossible for Rose to answer. Perhaps it was because Rose was not trying to answer it that she saw this; perhaps it was also that she understood instinctively that Rose
knew
there were stars, even though she had never seen one. In that moment, Rebecca understood something quite different from what she had been asking about, that there are a lot of things moles can only come to know for themselves. Why, she had thought she knew all about treetops when she “saw” one, but, of course, she didn’t! Why, they really are majestic and powerful just as I thought they were when I was a pup! she exclaimed to herself. It didn’t matter what stars looked like – Rose knew they were there and perhaps one day she would really know it, too.

“Oh, I wish I could answer your question,” exclaimed Rose, “but there are so many things that a mole can’t explain. You see, if you tried to explain to most moles about plants talking to you, they...”

“I have, and they didn’t,” sighed Rebecca. “I’ve given up trying!”

“Well, it’s like that with most important things. A mole will come to know things if he’s going to, and no amount of talking about it will make him understand if he’s not going to. And even if he or she is going to get to know something, it’s no good trying to hurry the process up – it happens when it’s meant to and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Well, perhaps we can encourage it sometimes.”

Rebecca liked talking to Rose because she talked to her as an equal. She made her feel that she wasn’t just a youngster who hadn’t mated yet. She made her feel that her paws were firmly on the ground.

“Now,” said Rose firmly, “I really must finish these ramsons off. You sit there quietly and listen if you like. You’ll want to ask questions, I wouldn’t wonder, but you won’t get any answers from me while I’m talking to the plants.”

Rose’s eyes twinkled with affection at both Rebecca and the ramsons and she re-entered the clump of wild garlic and began her strange enchanting song again. Her voice went gently up and down, in and out, as if weaving and winding among the stalks and leaves of the ramsons like thin wisps of mist among the trees on an early summer’s morning.

Gradually Rebecca noticed that she seemed to be talking to two or three plants in particular and though Rebecca couldn’t see that they looked different from the others, they definitely were, in some way. They seemed more... more...
there.

Suddenly Rose’s words became more distinct and Rebecca heard her singing

Wild flower, kind flower

Petals for the sick;

Wild plant, kind plant

A healing for the ill.

Leaves for the sorrowful

And stem for the sad

Bless them with your essence

And their bodies will be glad.

As Rose sang these words, she picked a stalk from each of the plants she had been concentrating on, touching the rest of each plant gently with a paw. Then she brought the stalks over to where Rebecca was and placed them on the ground by her.

“All over, all done,” she said, yawning. “Oh, I am tired today!” Then she told Rebecca, “Now, don’t you forget about picking plants at the right time, although you already seem to know something about that.”

But before Rebecca could ask herself if she did know something about it. Rose continued: “And never pick too many, because you won’t need them. The less you use.

the further they go – that’s why you can smell them better from farther off than near to.”

“But I don’t understand what you mean at all,” said Rebecca, “or what you meant before when you said..

Once more Rose didn’t let her finish. Instead she laughed and said, “Now, Rebecca, my love, you take ‘understand’ right out of your vocabulary as quickly as you can and then you’ll understand all the faster. I don’t understand anything myself, my dear, not one single thing. Well, of course, I
do,
so that’s silly. I understand that when you pick plants you must get on and use them, otherwise you’ll lose so much.”

“I don’t understand again... sighed Rebecca. Rose didn’t seem to answer any of her questions. “What do you
mean,
Rose?” she asked finally.

“That’s better I What I mean is that generally when plants are ready to pick, they’re ready to use, which is what I’ve got to do with these now. There’s a mole that needs me in Duncton and I really only came here just to pick these and take them with me.”

By now it was midafternoon and the wood had a warm, sleepy air about it. There was little birdsound, for with the passing of spring and early summer, their calls and songs had died away, leaving only the trills and whistles of yellowhammer and greenfinch along the woodland’s edge. Sometimes, as now, the distant harsh call of a crow would come cawing through the wood high above their heads, making it seem vast and roomy in the summer stillness.

It was hard to think that anymole could be ill on such an afternoon, but as Rebecca automatically followed Rose as she made her way toward the wood’s edge, she wondered again about the unease she had been feeling for so many days.

“Rose?”

“Mmm, my love, what is it?”

“Can I come with you?”

“No, my dear, not yet. I’ll let you come one day when you’re ready.”

“Rose?”

“My love?”

“Which mole is it that’s ill? There was real concern in her voice, for the unease she had felt seemed now to turn into a sense that a mole
was
ill and was calling her from somewhere in the wood, for she could feel the suffering almost as if it was her own. She looked about as if expecting to see some suffering mole right there before them both.

“I don’t know,” replied Rose quietly. “I often feel the call for help long before I know what it is, or which mole is calling.”

By now Rebecca’s afternoon content had been replaced by a restless unease as the strange feelings of distress she had felt, and which she had put aside, returned ten times more strongly. Oh, she could feel another mole’s pain and it was drawing her somewhere... where? She looked again about the still wood where only ants stirred and bees and wasps hummed.

“Rose?” She spoke the name almost as a call for help. “When a mole is ill how can you feel it? Is it like... a... well, like a restless breeze that pulls you along, or a tunnel sucking you into its darkness, or a storm rising in the sky higher and higher until you feel you’ll burst with it? Is it like that. Rose?”

As Rebecca spoke. Rose felt a great releasing flow through her body, as if she was returning to a welcoming burrow whose nest was warm and where she could lay her head and sleep at last. She had only ever once heard another mole describe the force of compassionate love that pulls a healer from her burrow, however weary she may be, so that she may find the strength to tend and cherish the distressed and sick. The last mole that spoke such words to her was the old female who had first taught her about healing. In all those long and often lonely mole-years since, she had forgotten how gentle was the sound of a healer’s voice when it sounded in her own ears.

From the moment she had scented Rebecca coming with the wildflower smell of her kindness and youth, Rose had sensed, but not dared to believe, that another healer was near. Everything Rebecca had said to her had shown that her instinct was right, but again and again, as they had talked. Rose had not dared to accept the idea, for fear that it was her own hopes rather than the Stone’s desire talking. But now, hearing Rebecca describe the restless impulse that leads a healer to the sick, she knew that her instinct about Rebecca had been right from the first.

“Yes,” she said, “that’s what it’s like, Rebecca. That’s what it will always be like.”

If only she had the power to save this young creature from the pain and suffering the process of becoming a healer seemed so often to bring. But she had learned long ago that there were things no mole could change – a mole’s freedom lay only in finding the courage to face with truth the darkness and light which the Stone would bring.

“Well, if it’s like that,” said Rebecca firmly, surprising herself with what she was saying so boldly, “then I think the mole you’re going to is called Bracken. You’ll find him somewhere up on the Ancient System. He was a friend of Hulver’s when Hulver... before my... before Hulver... He told me to take care of Bracken but I didn’t know what he meant, since I didn’t even know him and have never met him.”

Rebecca continued, less excitedly and more slowly as, with a brief glance to the south where the Ancient System lay, she turned to face her own part of the wood. “Hulver did say to take care of him but, well, perhaps he just meant for me to mention his name to you so you’d know. Mekkins told me he was dead, but I knew he wasn’t. In fact, I thought he was all right at first, but now I think something’s wrong – I’ve been feeling that restless feeling for days, but I didn’t know what it was. It’s what brought me over here today.”

She finally stopped and Rose could feel how troubled she was. “I’ll take care of him, my love, just as you would – try not to fret about him, for he will be safe.”

“Who is he, Rose? Why is he special?”

Rose could only shake her head, for she did not know the answer. She only understood that Rebecca, too, was special, more special than anymole in Duncton could know, thought Rose, looking at her passionate innocence and watching her light-hearted ways.