Rose began each of her tales the same way—‘From my heart to your heart I tell this tale, that its blessing may touch you as it has touched me’—and Comfrey would snuggle down, while Violet looked all expectant as the magic of the story wove them into its fabric.
Although Rebecca was not aware of it, it was almost unknown for a mole to enter Rose’s burrow, and word quickly got about among the Pasture moles that ‘that Rebecca from Duncton must be very special, because Rose the Healer lets her inside her burrow. Inside!’
They were right to remark on it, for to Rose, Rebecca was very special. She had seen the power for life in Rebecca from the first, and valuing it as she did, understood better than any mole, better even than Mekkins, how near to a death of spirit the murder of her litter by Mandrake had brought her.
Even in Rebecca’s care of Comfrey, which could hardly have been more tender and loving—and now, in her acceptance of Violet—even now Rose could see that Rebecca had lost much trust in life. Sometimes there was a far-off sadness in the way Rebecca caressed Comfrey, or a sudden frailty in the laughter that had once always been so full and free.
So Rose opened her burrow to Rebecca and the youngsters, knowing that with the Stone’s grace, Rebecca might find again some of the life she had lost touch with. Rose did not waste time or breath on regretting what had happened. She had known since their first meeting that Rebecca would be a healer, and she knew that healing can only come from a heart that has seen the dark as well as the light. She feared that for Rebecca there was more to come, far more than she herself had ever known, and she silently prayed that the Stone would help her give to Rebecca the strength and trust to find her way alone when she, Rose, was gone.
It was for this reason that Rose was insistent that the youngsters should, for a period every day, leave her together alone with Rebecca—indeed, she made sure that the more friendly of the Pasture guardmoles, who still hung about, took Violet and Comfrey under their care and kept them occupied.
These were times of talk and silence, times in which Rose imparted to Rebecca her knowledge of herbs and healing lore and a trust in the Stone—a time in which there continued inside Rebecca the healing that had started with her communion with Bracken on Longest Night, in the silence of the Stone.
She taught Rebecca by instinct rather than by design, for her mind was as delightfully illogical as her burrow. Rhymes and sayings, thoughts and words, ideas and laughter, all came at their own pace and in their own way, and Rebecca was barely conscious that she was learning anything. Like the old flower rhyme that Rose taught her one day to illustrate the herbs that give a burrow a nice, long-lasting scent, and which Rebecca only discovered she remembered many moleyears later:
Germander and marjoram,
Basil, meadowsweet,
Daisy-tops and tansies,
Fennel with burnet;
Roses in August,
Lavender in June,
Maudlin and red mint—
None will go too soon.
They talked about a thousand things, but what Rose most put into Rebecca’s mind were seeds of thought to grow, rather than finished plants to fade. And she waited for Rebecca to ask the questions.
‘Rose?’
‘Mmm, my love?’
‘How do you know how to help a mole when you think he needs help?’
‘You don’t know, my dear. You never know. You may have an idea but you don’t know. No… you see, they tell you. What you have to learn is to understand what they are trying to say, because if there’s one thing certain, they won’t know themselves! In fact, Rebecca, one of the burdens healers have to bear is most moles’ inability to say what it is that’s wrong with them. Mind you, if they knew—really knew—then there probably wouldn’t be anything wrong.’ Rose crouched in silence, Rebecca letting the words sink in. Then Rose added: ‘The best way to start is to touch them gently with your paw just as you touch Comfrey when he needs comforting. Touching tells you far more than words ever can.’
Another time, Rose suddenly broke a long silence in which she had seemed to be sleeping and said, ‘You can tell what’s wrong with a mole by the way they stand. Illness and disease, even that which starts in the mind, always shows in the body. The easiest things to heal are injuries after a mating fight—give them a push here, a shove there, and a word of encouragement all over and they’re soon as right as rain. How I used to love to get my paws on those rough Westside males!’ They both laughed at the thought, and Rose explained: ‘You see, they use their bodies for fighting so much that they can feel what’s wrong better than most moles, and they soon go back into place. As a matter of fact, fighting isn’t as bad as some moles make out. It teaches a mole to appreciate what he’s got. Too much fear and too little action spoils a body. That’s what was wrong with that Bracken of yours!’
As the weeks passed and February reached its chilly end, Rose began to encourage Rebecca to make sure each day to find time to crouch by herself and ‘not think’ for a while.
‘What do you mean, Rose?’
‘You just do it, my love, and don’t think about it. You’ll find that every burrow has its best spot for crouching and doing nothing and in my burrow it’s over by that plant where the horehound scent’s so pleasant. You can start right now. You just go over there and close your eyes and don’t think, while I do my best to tidy up a bit. But don’t mind me.’
As Rose slowly moved about, Rebecca tried, but after a few minutes her voice came to Rose across the burrow. ‘It’s impossible not to think! Thoughts keep coming to replace the ones I’ve just got rid of!’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Rose unsympathetically, ‘it is trying. But you won’t find it helps to talk.’
That first time Rebecca managed it for only ten minutes before she gave up in exasperation, claiming that she had better go and see what the youngsters were up to. But Rose kept her at it and gradually, as March progressed, Rebecca found she was positively looking forward to her time of not thinking every day.
When this happened, Rose, who was only repeating what her own teacher had taught her so many years before, started to suggest that instead of thinking of nothing, she try thinking about one thing each time. It was the spear thistle that grew on the pasture above Rose’s tunnel and would soon be showing life again that she had to think about the first time. Then, variously, such things and ideas as oak trees, owls, stones, the Stone, darkness, talons and warmth.
One day Rebecca started to weep when she was doing this, and Rose let her, glad to see that at last some of her grief was leaving her. Later, Rebecca spoke about it, saying, ‘I remembered running up the hill one day, after Cairn had left to fight Rune—I told you—and it was raining and I was running. I was so confused, running this way and that until somehow I found I was up at the Stone…’
‘Somehow?’
When Rose interjected like this, Rebecca knew it was important to find an answer. How had she found her way up the hill? She thought back, and she was among those great grey beech trees again, with the rain falling between them and she was turning, running… why, it had been the beech trees swaying with her, urging her this way and that, swaying her back to the light at the top of the hill where the Stone was, as if they knew where she should go and were telling her…
‘Was that it, then?’ she asked herself and Rose.
‘Only you can really tell, my dear. But I know that the trees and plants tell me things I wouldn’t otherwise know. Sometimes I think they help to guide me to a mole who needs help—otherwise I can’t think how I’ve so often found my way so quickly to a mole. If you doubt me, go on to the surface in Duncton Wood after a really bad storm, when the trees have been whipped and shattered by the wind, and branches have fallen: you can feel that the trees are shaken and desolate by what has happened, for their feeling is in the very air, mixed with relief as well.’