Meanwhile, the Stone Mole rumour was resurrected periodically by glimpses of Bracken, who now had such a command of the Ancient System—except for its most central part, whose exploration still defeated him—that he did not mind taking a few risks. In fact, for him it was quite fun. But he was seen only down on the slopes, for as the atmosphere of fear in the wood increased, nomole ventured too far from his burrow, and none up on to the hill itself.
Bracken’s visits to the slopes were principally to see Rue and her thriving litter—Violet, Coltsfoot, Beech and Pipple.
Bracken had tried several more times to find his way through the Chamber of Roots but finally gave up when, one windy day when the roots were viciously active below ground, he got cut off by a deep and treacherous fissure that appeared in the floor and took a long and dangerous time to find another way out again, while the roots got noisier and noisier and seemed to want to entwine themselves about him and take him for their own. He was determined to return one day and find some way of completing the exploration, but meanwhile decided to create tunnels of his own.
He established his tunnels at the wood’s edge beyond the Stone clearing, quite near the spot where Cairn had died. His choice was decided principally by the existence of the second tunnel leading out of (or into) the circular tunnel around the Chamber of Echoes. The tunnel was a slight affair, meandering here and there and eventually petering out to the west of the Stone. Bracken constructed a clever series of tunnels that connected up with it in a deliberately confusing and roundabout way, designed to put off any inquisitive mole who found his own tunnels. He liked the idea of having access to the Ancient System underground but saw danger in creating a direct route.
Meanwhile, Duncton Wood declined towards winter. The winds off the pastures grew greyer and colder, and the last of the leaves blew in desolate flurries off the trees, leaving just a few dead ones hanging on the beech and oak trees as a reminder of the summer now long gone. The only green that remained was the ivy that hung off some of the older trees, some mistletoe that had colonised the occasional oak on the lower Westside, and near Barrow Vale a holly tree or two, whose shining, prickly leaves and clusters of red berries seemed the only splash of colour in the whole wood.
Creature after creature disappeared from sight. Most of the birds had gone, while the grey squirrels, who had scampered their way over the trunks and branches of the oaks or across the wood floor between the beeches all spring and summer, began, one by one, to disappear into the nooks and holes in which they hibernated and would see the long winter through.
A colony of pipistrelle bats found out the hollow dead elm in the lower wood and, after wheeling and circling round it dusk after dusk, settled down to sleep the winter through in the safety of its dark inaccessibility. Insects like wasps and ladybirds crawled away under the looser patches of tree bark while hedgehogs, after growing slow and dozy, finally chose their spots for sleep as well, curling up under a cover of leaves and mould with only the very slightest trembling of their snouts to tell that they were still alive.
Then, as November gave way to December, the Duncton moles responded to winter by clearing out their deeper runs, shoring them up where necessary, blocking off colder entrances, and crouching still in the cold darkness of a system, and a season, bowed down by gloom. For hours a mole’s only movement might be the shivering of flanks or a sullen search for food, while the only sounds carried in on the wet, cold wind were the crackings and fallings of twigs and branches, or the flap of a magpie’s wings, whose black sheen reflected a grey sky.
Yet, however bowed down a system may be, nothing can quite destroy the spark of excitement that comes to everymole’s breast with the start of the third week of December and the approach of Longest Night. For even in the darkest hour there is a distant star, a tiny light of hope whose glimmer, though far off, is enough to thrill the most despairing heart.
Longest Night! The time when youngsters grow silly with expectation and adults grow young with memory. The time when a mole may forget the icy months still to come in the knowledge that the imminent passage of Longest Night means that the nights are beginning—however unlikely it seems—to shorten once more. Longest Night! The time when darkness and light hang in a balance and the mystery of life is remembered again.
Then are the old tales told and the ancient songs sung. Of the coming of Ballagan; of the finding of the first Stone, of its splitting into the seven hundred Stones; of Ballagan’s mate, Vervain of the West Stone; of their struggle with darkness on the first Longest Night; of their sons and daughters and the founding of the first system; of Ballagan’s discovery of the first Book, and Vervain’s discovery of the second. But most beloved tale of all, and the one all moles like to hear again on Longest Night, of how Linden, last son of Ballagan and Vervain, made the trek with the Books to Uffington and then learned to read them, and in the course of one Longest Night, became a White Mole, thereby allowing the Stone’s healing power of love and silence to pass through him to all moles.
In honour of Linden at least some moles in every system traditionally trek to the Stone (or whatever feature in their system represents it) on Longest Night. And what an exciting memory that is for those who take part, as jokes, smiles, giggles, whimsies, buffoonery, tomfoolery and games mix with prayers, silence and mystery in an evening of pilgrimage. Then back to the burrows for a feast and a chatter and a tale well told; and then sleep, if there’s time, before waking at last in the knowledge that Longest Night has been survived and the long journey towards spring has begun.
As this particular Longest Night approached, many Duncton moles thought to themselves that one way or another they ought to make the trek to the Stone this time, having been deterred from doing so by Mandrake’s outright threats on the previous Longest Night. This time their fear was greater and morale lower—yet it is just at such times that thoughts turn naturally to the Stone, and the need to ask for its help. So many moles secretly intended to make the trek, though few admitted they were making plans to do so. As December entered its third week, the system began to buzz with excitement and chatter as moles cleaned out their burrows and made their plans, and laughed with pleasure at the prospect of Longest Night.
But there are always moles—and always will be—who, through character or circumstances, decide they cannot join in the gregarious fun at the approach of Longest Night. Bracken was one of them. He could, it is true, have spent a little time with Rue, assuming she would have allowed it, but the spirit was not in him. At the very moment when most moles in the system were finding a little relief from the shadows of winter in the celebration to come, he found himself falling into an uneasy sadness.
Some days he would go to the edge of the wood and look across the pastures and wonder if, after all, his first impulse on coming to the Stone might have been the best—to leave the system altogether and make his way to whatever lay beyond it in the direction of Uffington. Other days he found himself crouched in anguished silence in its shadows, wondering whether, after all, its power was imaginary— demanding then to see the power, to feel it. Or again, he would think about the Chamber of Roots and wonder why he could not cross it—and then ask himself how he could consider leaving the system if he had failed even to explore the system’s most secret part. ‘What will I find out there,’ he would whisper to himself as he looked across the pastures, ‘if I can’t even follow my snout in here?’