Duncton Wood (43 page)

Rose was too wise to think that jollying Rebecca along to get her out of her depression would be useful. She saw that much of Rebecca’s spirit had been killed and its rebirth was not something a healer could do quickly by herself. As she talked to Rebecca and heard the indifference to life in her voice. Rose saw that the best she could do was to push her in the right direction and trust to the Stone that she would finally be able to find the right way for herself.

When Rose watched Rebecca play with Comfrey, she was pleased to see. that there, at least, was something she wanted to do, though she saw that even Rebecca’s interest in Comfrey was sometimes little more than dutiful. The sounds of love were there, for sure, but spontaneous love, or trust, or faith, or hope, or life? These were the drives that Rebecca had had so much of before,’ but which somehow she seemed not to be able to pass on to Comfrey, for they were no longer in her.

The pup was growing well. Rose observed, but he would need to be given much more than food and grooming if he was to reflect in his life some of the quality that Rebecca had once had in hers, and surely still could have.

“But how?” asked Mekkins, who understood well what was wrong with Rebecca. “What can we do to make her see that, terrible though the death of her litter has been, life, for her, has barely begun?”

“Mekkins, my dear, you have a good heart, I sometimes think better than anymole I know! But Rebecca’s problem lies deeper than in simply having things to live for. You see, my love, she has experienced evil – she has seen it with her eyes, smelled it with her snout, and felt its dark talons tearing inside her body. It tears at her still. She has felt enough of its power to destroy an ordinary mole but, as the coming of Comfrey shows, she is in some ways graced and surely a special mole. The only power that can heal her lies in the Stone – though you must understand she may never be the same kind of mole that you once knew. If a mole feels evil as she has done, only the light in the Stone can erase its shadow. Then may she continue to grow again.”

“But how can she be made to see it?” asked Mekkins.

“There is no way a mole such as I, or you, can predict how the power of the Stone will be felt, or when. Often we may not even know if it
has
been. But Longest Night is coming and I think Rebecca should make the trek to the Stone. Perhaps, if she goes near it, something of her spirit will be reborn...”

“But what about Comfrey, and how will she get there?”

“You will guide her there, Mekkins, and Curlew will take care of Comfrey – something I suspect she has prayed she might be able to do – by herself for a while. He is no longer suckling and she can look after him very well by herself.”

But what seemed a good idea to Rose, and eventually to Mekkins, did not appeal to Rebecca. She simply was not interested. She shook her head. She said she would not leave Comfrey. She said it was too far and Mekkins had done too much. She said there was no point. She grew angry with them all and attacked the idea that the Stone was anything more than mystic nonsense beloved of silly old moles. She had a temper tantrum.

Until, the problem still unresolved. Rose herself had to leave to get back to the pastures in time for Longest Night. Mekkins accompanied her, for she was now growing old and frail. Her last words to him when they came to the woody edge on the west side of Marsh End were “You must try once more to get her to go, Mekkins. The fact that she is so opposed to going convinces me that she should go – even if you have to drag her there!” They both laughed a little at the idea, but their laughter was sad.

“I’ll do the best I can,” said Mekkins.

“I know you will, my love,” said Rose. “I always knew you would. The day will come when all moles will remember you and will take heart from the story of your loyalty and of what you did for Rebecca.”

“Me, Rose? Don’t be silly!” said Mekkins. Adding “Now you take care of yourself on those pastures, and have a good Longest Night.”

“And you,” said Rose, running back and nuzzling him. “And you, too, my love.” Then with a smile of affection they parted. And hour by hour Longest Night crept nearer.

   22  

B
RACKEN
knew when the trek to the Stone on Longest Night had begun by the sound of chitter and chatter and laughter coming from the clearing – he could even hear it in his deepest burrow, to which he moved in a sullen irritation. Somemoles, who evidently did not know the best way to the Stone, wandered over the surface above his tunnels telling their stories, singing ridiculous songs, racing and dancing about, and generally annoying him. He wanted none of it.

But as the evening drew on, the sounds changed from revelry to reverence – for the first moles there were always the ones who came simply for the fun of the trip and wanted to get it over as quickly as possible so that they could get back to their burrows for the real festivities.

Only later did those who were moved by the mystery of Longest Night and remembered Linden, the first White Mole, with real thanksgiving in their hearts, come in ones and twos and crouch in reverence by the Stone.

By this time Bracken was too restless with annoyance at the disturbance of his peace – or what he considered his peace – to be able to stay still, and so crept as near as he could to the Stone to watch the proceedings. He felt alienated from each mole there, and from the Stone itself, and watched it all almost as if he was not breathing the same air or sharing the same cold frosty December night as anymole else. There was moon low to the east which, since the night was clear, cast its light into the Stone clearing, the Stone a black silhouette in the center, the moles forming gently moving shadows around it. The shadow of the Stone ran directly toward Bracken when he arrived, shortening and swinging to the south as the evening passed on when the moon rose and swung to the north in the sky.

Moles continually came and went from the clearing, with a little banter and gentle laughter on the edge, but none at the center itself.

Bracken heard snatches of their conversation: “You here as well this time?” “Why, bless me, I ain’t seen you since July, and what a good time
that
was.. “Bit bloody parky up here, isn’t it?” “Goin’ to be a cold winter if you ask me...” Each phrase that came to him reminded him of how alone he was and without a friend. He thought again of visiting Rue, but somehow she wasn’t what he wanted on Longest Night, though what that was he didn’t know. He scratched himself miserably, looked balefully at the moon through the trees and turned his attention to the moles in the center of the clearing near the Stone. There was silence and a great sense of awe in their communal presence. Some crouched peacefully, occasionally raising their snouts slowly to look up at the Stone, almost as if they thought that something so awesome might suddenly go away. Others intoned prayers to themselves which Bracken could not hear, while some, mainly eastsiders he guessed (for theirs were the traditions nearest to the ancient ones) half sang, half intoned their prayers in a dialect Bracken could not understand.

Others spoke prayers of unaffected simplicity loud enough for him to hear. “Thank you. Stone, for the joys you have given and for the strength I have been blessed with.... Take care of Duncton and let it see your light.... My heart is in thy silence. Stone, only let me hear it....” Again and again he heard moles, both males and females, whispering the same final little prayer, “Only take us to the silence” – words he had heard Hulver himself say from time to time.

Occasionally several of the moles there would appear to start saying the same prayer simultaneously; their voices would join in unison, creating a kind of spoken song of great power which would, for a moment, take Bracken’s heart out of himself and transport it into something of the mystery of Longest Night.

As the night wore on and grew colder, the moon rising and the Stone’s shadow turning toward the lower part of the wood while growing smaller at the same time. Bracken was touched by something of these moles’ faith, and the Stone began to seem less distant from him than he had thought. He wanted to run out into the center and ask one of the older ones to explain about the Stone to him; he thirsted for knowledge of it. But he did not have the courage. Sometimes he wanted to join in their prayers, but he did not know the words.

Slowly, the numbers in the clearing declined until he began to have to search its shadows to locate the few moles left, mainly the very old ones, and he realized that the Stone trek was almost over. From down on the slopes even the sound of the songs and revels of departing moles faded, until as one by one all the moles in the clearing left and Bracken was left quite alone.

A bleak despair began to creep over him, for he felt he had seen, a glimpse of some sweet mystery into whose light he wanted to go, but for which he needed a mole to guide him. He had never missed old Hulver so much as at that moment; surely, thought Bracken through tears that stopped him even seeing the Stone, he would have shared his Longest Night with me. Self-pity mixed with a real sense of loss as he crouched in the shadows beyond the clearing, and he sighed for the burden he felt himself to be carrying, and the night deepened into a still, cold silence all about him.

The moonlight was now strong enough to catch the condensation of his outward breaths into the cold air and the wood fell very still. The dead brown beech leaves on the floor of the Stone clearing looked pale white, and the surrounding vegetation was black around them.

On impulse. Bracken advanced toward the Stone, out of the undergrowth in which he had been hiding, not sure what he was doing but very conscious of himself alone in the wood. He wanted to say something to the Stone, not a prayer so much as an affirmation that he was there before it, waiting for something to happen. He felt he had been waiting a long time. He also felt unsettled and angry and very conscious of his own lonely existence.

For lack of anything better to do, he went up to the Stone and touched it with his paws to see if, after all, there was more to it than there seemed to be. But there was nothing but its unyielding rough surface, nothing at all.

He waited like this a long time until, somewhere in the darkness beyond, not far off in the shadows by the clearing’s edge, past the great tree whose roots encircled the Stone, he heard a scurry and a slide.

A whispered “Ssh!” came out of the darkness into the moonlight where he lay. He turned his snout toward it aggressively, wondering what it was. Then he sensed mole.

A deep silence fell as Bracken waited, every sense stretched, his snout poised still as stone and his face whiskers stiff as pine needles.

But not for long. For very soon the anger that had been building up all night replaced the defensive care with which he had first responded to the noise.

“What mole is there, and why?” he demanded, getting up from where he was and approaching through the moonlight toward the impenetrable shadows around and beyond the tree roots.

A rustle. The sneak of a talon. A whisper again.

“I said what mole is there!” Bracken said again, his talons tensing and his body angry beyond his mind.

A movement, a scurry, an intake of breath and as a snout pushed out from the blackness half into the shadow, a voice accompanied it saying “‘Ello, Bracken. It’s me, Mekkins. You know! We met...”

“What do you want?” demanded Bracken, tensing even more. Mekkins’ friendliness upset him more than if he had been hostile. He wanted no part in friendliness.

“I’m Mekkins. I met you in Rue’s burrows...”

Bracken was getting more angry by the second, an irrational anger born out of despair. At that moment he would probably have been angry at anything that moved. Bracken could feel anger overtaking him and was almost enjoying the feeling, even though the anger was absolutely real.

“Look, Bracken,” said Mekkins, advancing toward him in a conciliatory way, “it’s Longest Night and a time for celebration, not...”

“I don’t care if it’s Longest
Minute,”
shouted Bracken. “I don’t want you here. There’s been enough moles up here disturbing me...” He was shaking with anger and began the ritual advance on Mekkins that prefaced a fight – paws stiff, tail high, snout pointed stiffly forward.