Duncton Wood (63 page)

As dusk began to fall, Rebecca led them off on the trek again, cutting straight up the slopes to the Ancient System. There, the massive gray trunks of the beech trees soared above as the last light of the sun died in the highest leaves against the sky, turning in seconds from pinks and greens to the rustling warm gray that would soon be a thousand tiny black silhouettes. Nearer the wood’s floor great beech branches looped down from the main trunks and hung still and low, the leaves getting lighter green as darkness fell, for they were set against darkening shadows rather than a lighter evening sky as the leaves high above were.

Occasionally a youngster would stop, from tiredness or plain awe, and look up and around into the massed depths of the trees, like nothing ever seen in the danker closed-in Marsh End. The bleak hooting of a tawny owl cut suddenly through the night from somewhere on the slopes below them, and as they froze to a halt, a distant echoing answer came back from somewhere higher up the hill” toward the Stone.

“Ssh!” hushed Rebecca softly; “hussh,” for she was used to the sound and in a way it gave her confidence. It was the sound of her wood and it was a long time since she had heard it. “They’re no more dangerous to us here than those eerie birdcalls
you
get from off the marshes,” she said reassuringly, though it wasn’t quite true. But if an owl came, well, that was that! But she could feel the Stone get nearer and trusted in its protection.

She ran ahead in the dark, having made them spread out among the roots of two adjacent beech trees, so that she could see if the Stone was clear of mole. When she got there, the light was just as it had been the night before, with a moon beginning to show and cast a thin, milky glare in the Stone clearing. At first she could not see the Stone, but then it was there, stretched up into the dark of the sky, the leaves of the beech tree that stood so near it rustling in the night above. It was the start of Midsummer Night, and the full cycle of seasons had run since the last Midsummer, when Hulver had died. Mandrake. Rune. Bracken. Curlew. The image of them rushed and mixed in her mind – so many moleyears had passed! Why, she was an adult; many of the mothers with young whom she had led up here were younger than she was.

There was an air of expectation in the clearing before her. It seemed to wait as she remembered Barrow Vale had sometimes waited for some old storyteller to set the place alive with the action of a tale of old.

She ran back and brought the marshenders forward to the edge of the clearing, hiding them in the shadows by its edge on the safer side, away from the slopes. They were glad to rest but hungry, and Rebecca let them go into the darkness to seek some food, litter by litter, telling them to be quiet and quick about it. In such a place, and with so much heavy expectation in the air, they did not need much telling. Most of them just stared from the shadows across the clearing at the Stone, and waited.

The night air cooled slowly as the full moon rose behind the trees, its light filtering down into the clearing and making it seem almost bright against the shadows of the wood around, which grew blacker and more impenetrable. None of them knew what they were waiting for and all Rebecca could do was to look up at the Stone in the center of the clearing, now rugged and gray in the moonlight, and pray that in its depths it would find protection for these young. She felt that it was their life that was in her charge, rather than their personalities, and, indeed, she was indifferent to them individually. She comforted them, or touched them, if need be, but it was their force for life that she cherished.

To their left, through the wood and by the pastures at the wood’s edge, the wind stirred high in the branches, running lightly through the trees toward them. Then again, stronger. Then stillness. Then wind rippled away over the slopes, disappeared into the night across the wood to the vales and silent places of the eastside. A youngster rustled and was hushed. Another snuggled closer to its mother, half its face lost in her fur, eyes opening and closing toward sleep.

It was Midsummer Night, and bit by bit the wood was beginning to be alive with the rustles of movement. Wind? Moles? Predators? It was the night the Stone gave its traditional blessing to the young.

If there was one mole who knew what Midsummer meant better than any other, it was Bracken, who had been the fearful witness to the terrible death of Hulver in this very spot twelve moleyears before on the last Midsummer Night. Then he had spoken the words of the Midsummer blessing, moving himself toward adulthood as he said them. Now, Bracken was nearly back, rustling into the long grass and old year’s leaves at the wood’s edge as he re-entered his Duncton Wood.

“We’ll soon be there, Boswell,” he whispered, “and you’ll see the Stone at last.” Behind them Mullion and Stonecrop crept, wishing they could go straight down to their own tunnels on the pastures but agreeable to sticking with Bracken right to the very foot of the Stone, And anyway, they wanted to see it.

“We’ll approach slowly and silently, because I don’t know who may be up here tonight. If Mandrake has gone and Rune has taken charge, then he may be here. Rune doesn’t like the Stone, especially at this time of old rituals. He’ll want to see that no ritual is said.”

They crept forward so silently that the first Rebecca knew of them was when she saw the shadow of a mole sliding out of the darkness on the far side of the clearing to stand, in bold silhouette, looking at the Stone. Then another mole, smaller, came out, and even in the moonlight Rebecca could tell that he was limping as his snout moved forward and up with each sequence of steps. Then two more moles, one very large, who looked around the clearing a little uneasily before stopping and settling his gaze as well on the Stone.

“Well, I’ve got to say it! You’ve got us here. Bracken!” said the big mole.

The world seemed suddenly an unreal place to Rebecca as the name Bracken came across the clearing to her. She looked in wonder at the four moles, trying to make out from the confusion of their silhouettes whether one of them was indeed her Bracken.

Then the small mole spoke, his calm, clear voice full of awe and reverence as he broke away from the other four and went right up to the Stone. “So I have finally reached the Duncton system,” he said. “So many moleyears in the travel and all of them survived only by the Stone’s grace.”

Rebecca watched him fascinated, while her heart raced for Bracken, if Bracken it was. The small mole put a paw to the Stone, touched it, and then turned and faced the other three and said quietly “You know there is nothing else but the Stone. Finally, there is nothing else.”

His head turned a little toward Rebecca, where she crouched in the shadow of the wood, and for the first time she saw his face. His fur was gray in the moonlight; seeing him for the first time, his eyes clear and soft, his face filled with the peace of the Stone, Rebecca felt she had never before seen anymole who made her sense the wonder of the Stone so much. The three in the clearing seemed to sense it too, for they all stayed quite still, though she could not tell if they were looking at the small mole or at the Stone that soared so high above him.

“Am I glad to be back!” said one of them, moving out clearly into the light. “I never would have known how much!” And Rebecca saw that it
was
Bracken, it was
her
Bracken, safe and well, and back in the wood they both loved. She had come unknowing to the Stone and he had come as well as, if she had thought about it, she should have known he would on Midsummer Night.

In the shadows, the youngsters’ eyes peered at her, trying to see what she wanted to do, wondering if these moles were enemies from whom they should run. She turned to them and smiled, touching the one nearest her, and as they relaxed in her confidence, she turned back to the clearing and started out into the moonlight toward Bracken, her shadow running before her.

It seemed to Bracken, and to the others as well, that Rebecca appeared out of the night and before the Stone as if she was part of a mystery in which all things – the moonlight, the trees in silhouette against it, the wood, the Stone, her presence and the darkness behind her – were at one with each other. It was as if, for a moment, he was able to see beyond Rebecca to the powers of life, and death, that had brought her there at that moment and from which she was not separate but a part.

“Rebecca,” he said, for there was no other word.

“My love,” she said, saying what he felt.

“Rebecca?” he said again, advancing toward her, all sounds and sights of the night but her quite gone from him.

“Yes,” she said softly. Then they nuzzled each other as soft as the softest fur, because he almost thought she was a dream and she knew he was her love, and their touching again was as precious as life. They nuzzled each other’s neck and face, she smiling and he serious, she purring and he growling, his body strong and big to her at last, no more the fugitive mole she once had seen. My love, they said together, where have you been? Where have you been?

Their greeting took no longer than it takes to see the beauty in the moonlit Stone; then she was laughing in the night and saying “Boswell? From Uffington? From Uffington!” and “Stonecrop, dearest creature,” and then to Mullion, shy before her, whom she cuffed gently because there was no need to be shy. And back to Bracken, who was looking at the Stone, touching the Stone as Boswell had done and understanding that there is no love but in the Stone. And thinking that there was nothing that could disturb a love strong and clear as theirs. Nothing!

Nothing? There was a crashing through the wood from the pasture’s edge, a running and drumming of mole paws, and each one of them was suddenly tense and separate, turning to face the noise, with great Stonecrop moving to their front. Moles were coming, but the nearer they got to the clearing, the more Stonecrop relaxed, as Medlar had made him understand he must. Boswell was the same, his eyes clear into the darkness of the rustling sound, while Bracken sighed and stepped forward to be beside Stonecrop. The three had learned their lessons well. Behind them Mullion stood more tensely, uncertain what to do, while Rebecca silently crossed the clearing to where the youngsters lay, staying in the light and unable to see them, but signaling with a smile for them to stay still and feel safe.

The advancing moles came quickly and, without even a pause, broke cover from the wood into the clearing, only then stopping to look at where Bracken and the others stood ranked by the Stone. There was silence on both sides as each took a moment to recognize each other.

It was Brome and Mekkins, come from the pastures with pasture and Marsh End moles, but it was one of the Marsh End females in the shadows behind Rebecca who broke the silence.

“And where the ‘ell have you been, Mekkins my lad!” she said ironically, breaking cover herself.

Mekkins smiled but ignored her, turning instead to Brome and saying “There you are, Brome, me old mate. I said they’d be here, and they are. And where’s Rebecca? Come on, she’s not normally bashful!” Rebecca moved forward and laughed and everymole relaxed. And then Mekkins was surprise itself when he saw Bracken, and Brome was lost in delight when there were Stonecrop and Mullion before him.

There was relief and reunion, levity and laughter, but not for long. It was Mekkins, speaking in a. whisper to Bracken, Stonecrop, Brome and Rebecca, who gave them the warning that, in his heart. Bracken had feared.

“There’s a bloody army of henchmoles coming up here with you know which mole leading them. Brome put a couple of his moles over by the wood’s edge at dusk, just to see if they could learn anything and they did. Them henchmoles are the worst blabbermouths you could wish to meet and they found out that, sure enough. Rune is planning to bring the whole lot of ’em up ‘ere to see that there’s no way anymole can celebrate Midsummer Night.”

Mekkins looked round at them all and grinned. “Well, of course there ain’t no way I’m going to leave ‘ere and since by some miracle of the Stone’s magic we seem to ‘ave none other than Bracken ’imself come along ‘specially for the occasion, the only mole in Duncton who knows the blessing, I suggest we sit tight, get rid of Rune when ’e comes, get on wiv the ritual blessing and show these Marsh End youngsters what tonight’s all about.”

They all turned to Bracken who, not for the first time, was surprised to find that they were looking to him for some kind of lead. It was as if, by virtue of his having lived near the Ancient System for so long, they regarded him as in some way the guardian of the Stone and all its secrets. It was a role he felt inadequate to play, since he did not think he knew enough about the Stone, and was very conscious that what little he did know came from Hulver, who had known so much more. Boswell sensed his doubt, and to encourage him said “What do you think we should do. Bracken?”

Bracken looked up at the Stone for a moment and then said simply “We must say the blessing. Hulver said it twelve moleyears ago, with only Bindle to help him and myself – though I was too young to protect him, just as these youngsters are too young to protect us, though one day theirs will be the strength to decide and to do what must be done. May the Stone give them its help as it has helped each one of us.”

He looked slowly at them all in turn, his eyes falling finally on Rebecca’s and staying there longest. As he spoke, his voice had gradually grown more powerful and now, as he continued, its strength and force brought all the moles gathering around him in silence.

“In another hour or so, when the moon is at its peak, it will be the moment to say the blessing before our great Stone. Its power travels to all the other stones set up in the chosen systems by Ballagan, the first Holy Mole. This is not a night for fighting, but for peace and blessing. But the time in which we live is strange and troubled.” He turned and pointed up at the Stone, whose crevices and facets seemed infinitely complex in the moonlight. “Look at our Great Stone,” he said, feeling as he did so its power flowing into him, and his ideas, his very voice, taken over by it as they had been once before when he had spoken to Cairn about Rebecca, and found his words flowing from a source beyond himself.