‘Cairn… Cair…’ and the other arrived, and all three crouched suddenly tense in the still wet grass as the sun rose on into the sky and the shadow of the trees swept on towards the wood, passing over all three so that they were all in the sun, and Rebecca’s coat was glossy with excitement and bedabbled with dew. And all their breaths were tense with excitement.
Rebecca moved first. She turned with what was meant to be a mock-snarl, but came out more as a gay laugh, and started for the wood, but seeing the dewy shadows there, twisted and turned in a circle back into the sun; Cairn followed, with deep growls that delighted Rebecca and finally made her turn to face him, talons out, watching him come towards her with exaggerated care, first one paw, then another, snout quivering. He was magnificent; each move he made had a muscular grace that made her want to run forward and push and tumble him, to see him spring up and mock-fight with her.
‘My name’s Cairn,’ he said, and snout to snout they looked at each other, Rebecca’s head very slightly to one side, her back warmed by the morning sun and her talons shiny with dew.
The other mole came towards her from her right and looked at them both crouched opposite each other, and then, settling down, said, ‘And I’m Stonecrop, just in case you’re interested.’
Rebecca laughed, and sighed, and looked at him. He was heavier than Cairn and if anything more powerful and his coat was a little darker. Then she looked back at Cairn.
‘What mole are you, and where are you from?’ Cairn asked. It was the ritual question but one that Rebecca had not been asked before, except in fun or mockery.
‘I’m Rebecca, of Duncton Wood.’ As she said her name it seemed that nothing had ever been so real to her before and that, suddenly, she was out of the shadows in which she had lived and fully herself. And playing in the light, without waiting for more questions, she ran between them and away, and she heard Cairn say ‘Rebecca!’ and heard him chase after her. Then Stonecrop laughed, deep and strong as she liked to hear a male laugh, and suddenly they were all chasing and running and mock-fighting in the sun, paw on face, face on flank, flank on paw, paw entwined with paw again. And the laughter of one seemed to go into and come out of another, Rebecca’s higher, female laughter mixing a gay silver lightness into their deeper laughs and growls of content.
Until, when the morning was fat with the September sun and the shadows of the trees by the wood had narrowed down to a sliver of dark, they were all still again, crouching under the protection of some faded common thistle, well out on the pastures and quite near one of the entrances to a tunnel the two males had used on their way up towards the wood.
‘So you’re Pasture moles! They said you were all vicious and dangerous!’ exclaimed Rebecca, content and safe in their company.
‘And they said you were all dark and broody and lived in shadows weaving spells,’ said Cairn.
Then they talked and asked so many questions of her that she couldn’t find time to answer them all. They were fascinated by the fact that Duncton Wood had a central place for moles in Barrow Vale because, according to Stonecrop, ‘We don’t have such a place at all, except where a couple of communal tunnels meet and you can have a chat down there, if you feel like it.’
But they knew more about Duncton than she had expected, given that there was so little contact between the two systems, and that she, herself, had learned nothing about the pastures. They knew of the Stone, ‘though it’s very dangerous and is protected by dangerous Duncton Wood spirit moles who could turn a Pasture mole into the root of a tree by a glance and imprison him there for ever until the tree dies and his spirit is released,’ explained Cairn.
‘What happens then?’ asked Rebecca, thinking that roots had never seemed sinister before to her but wondering if now she could ever look at one again without wondering if a mole was imprisoned inside.
‘Nomole is sure,’ continued Stonecrop. ‘And I personally don’t believe it. Have you been to the Stone?’ he asked Rebecca.
‘No, it’s a long way from where I live. I was going to it, well, sort of heading in that direction, when I stopped by the pastures. But it’s not an evil place. Well, it can’t be, because the Stone’s there and the Stone protects us.’
‘Is it true you’ve got scribemoles living in Duncton Wood?’ asked Cairn.
‘Scribemoles?’ Rebecca wasn’t sure what he meant. She had heard of them in stories Sarah had told her, but they didn’t exist anymore. ‘No, we haven’t any of them. That was long ago and they only ever came here for a short time.
‘What lies beyond the pastures?’ asked Rebecca. Even asking the question made her nervous.
‘Never been down there, have we, Stonecrop?’
‘Nope. Too dangerous. But I’ve always said I would go—it’s no good living in fear of things, is it?’
‘Does Rose live in the Pasture system?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Rose the Healer?’
‘Down near the marshes, isn’t she, Cairn?’
‘That’s right,’ said Cairn, ‘though you never know where she’s going to pop up next.’
Rebecca laughed—at least there was one thing in common between the two systems.
Behind her, the wood murmured with birdsound. The morning was warm and they had talked enough. Two magpies played at the wood’s edge, chuckling to each other. One took off from the shadows into the sun out across the pastures below them, and then its mate followed, their flight swift and direct, as if each second of life was precious and not one should be wasted.
With a laugh and a tumble, Stonecrop was suddenly gone, back to the tunnel, ‘because it’s time I found more to eat and you two found yourselves a burrow. I’ll remember not to tell anymole, Cairn; you don’t want gossip!’
Rebecca ran after him, rough-tumbling her farewell to him and feeling suddenly his solid strength. Cairn had a lightness of spirit and a grace that Stonecrop lacked, and yet she felt, as she pushed at Stonecrop and she seemed to make no impression on him, that there was only one other mole who had felt so solid and strong, and that was Mandrake, but his strength was corrupted while Stonecrop’s was pure.
Stonecrop turned and looked down at her. His gaze was very direct. ‘Take care of him, Rebecca, because I love him,’ he said simply, his voice strong as roots.
Cairn watched them both, wanting and yet not wanting his brother to go. Rebecca turned back to him away from Stonecrop, whose sudden sombre solidity had frightened her just a little, and made her want to run even more with the lightness of Cairn, which seemed to match the day so well.
They mock-fought and play-scratched their way to the wood, twisting and turning their snouts into each other, fur mingling with fur; now Rebecca leading, and now Cairn. She loved the way his shoulder bore down on hers because he was so powerful and big, and she loved the lightness of his spirit mingling with the powerful desire that lay behind the stronger and stronger way he touched her and pushed against her.
They ran from the warmth of the middle of the day to the warmth of her tunnel, down and then along into the buried darkness of its burrow.
He snouted her deliciously so that she sighed and gasped and cried out with pleasure, while his breathing became heavier and he moaned into her and his talons rough-scratched her back as she surrendered to his pulling of her this way and that and he gave himself to her rounder, deeper warmth and softer caresses.
Where she had been tensely expectant with Rune, she was gently relaxed with Cairn. First one flank was hard against hers, then another, then his paws and talons up her back and his belly sliding over her fur, higher and bigger and his scent all around her and his talons softly into her shoulders and neck and his snout down towards hers from above, but most of all his flanks behind, over and between; as his paws possessed her in front his flanks possessed her from behind, and they were both together, his talons her exquisite pain, his breathing her sighs, his fur her fur, her warmth his heat, her softness his joy, her depths his light, his power her power, and their power her light.