So, bit by bit, Rose passed over some of the heritage of her wisdom to Rebecca, who one day, she knew, would take over her task of healing.
By mid-March, the two youngsters, particularly Violet, were becoming increasingly independent. Violet was already growing fast and had managed to make friends with some Pasture youngsters from an autumn litter, so they saw less and less of her, though she came back to sleep in Rebecca’s burrow most days.
Comfrey still liked to stay near Rebecca, though lately he had taken to sleeping in a burrow of his own making. Inspired by Rose, he had grown increasingly interested in herbs and flowers, and was forever asking when he would be able to go out on the surface and see more for himself.
‘You’ll have to wait a week or two more yet before the first ones start coming, my sweet thing,’ said Rose, ‘though I expect you’d find a few snowdrops here and there now. And winter aconite. But soon there’ll be celandine and bluebells, and after that, in April, there’s ground ivy, bugle, all sorts of ferns starting up and oh! you’re so lucky!’ Rose suddenly looked sad and nostalgic, as if she knew that she’d never see such delights again.
‘Of course you will, Rose,’ said Rebecca. ‘The warm weather’s nearly here now. Why, there’ll be the sound of pup cries in Duncton soon, and probably in the pastures as well…’ But Rebecca couldn’t go on. Rose was looking at her with eyes that said she knew how old she was and how near the end. And Rebecca could never say anything but the truth to Rose.
Now, subtly, their relationship changed and deepened. It was as if Rose felt there was no more she could tell Rebecca— her beloved Rebecca—and now she must trust to the Stone that Rebecca could find her own way. There were long hours of silence between them; times when the best words were silent. A time when Rose showed Rebecca that she trusted her and in doing so helped Rebecca learn to trust in life again. A time when Rebecca began to see, and fear, that she might soon have to take over Rose’s task of healing. Oh! She knew so little! A time when Rose’s sleep grew longer and more troubled with pain, and her talk began to wander and her sense of peace to deepen, so that the very burrow seemed to hush and grow more stilclass="underline" its shadows darkening, its aromas and scents more delicate and distant, and Rebecca now rarely leaving Rose alone as she slept in her nest.
The Pasture moles seemed to sense that Rose’s work was nearly done, for they shushed the youngsters in the tunnels outside and the Pasture moles spoke in low voices, and brought food to save Rebecca from having to get it.
Some of what Rose whispered to herself aloud in those last days Rebecca understood; other parts she remembered, and somehow made sense of in later years when she had greater wisdom; and some made no sense at all.
She was old Rose now, her breathing shorter and shallower, her snout hardly moving, the bliss of having Rebecca near her in the dark, moving gently in her burrow, soothing her pains, laughing still with that Violet, naughty minx, and Cairn and Bracken of the Ancient System; ‘My love my sweet thing,’ she said to him, ‘do you remember Bracken? Up in the dark tunnel where I lost so much strength giving it to Bracken so he could learn to love?’ So many moles had come her way one by one so much fear so many unnecessary things. Rebecca knew everything already poor child she didn’t know no good telling her sweet child her Bracken she would love…
‘Rebecca! Rebecca!’ she whispered in the burrow where the scent was sweet.
‘Yes, my love,’ said Rebecca. Her fur on mine, nuzzling me my love my words her love in me Rebecca Rebecca shivering a shiver where’s your Bracken who I saw, where…
‘What is it, Rose?’
…where’s Bracken do you know… ‘Where’s … Bracken?’
‘I told you, Rose, he’s gone, he’s gone, but I know he’s safe. I can feel it like the beech trees, like I knew before when…’
‘I went to him on the hill and you helped me you did…’
‘Yes, Rose, sleep, Rose, sleep, my dearest Rose.’
I stayed by the Stone afterwards looking darkness in the night great trees beech trees sway and roots and… ‘I knew it was you and Bracken around us you and Bracken Rebecca you and Bracken would be around us all…’
‘Yes, Rose.’
You wept at last and I knew it would come like you did to the hill your wet tears had to come on your face on my fur at last.
‘Now, no need my dear no need.’
And her old voice died away, leaving only the sound of Rebecca’s tears, muffled by sweet Rose’s fur.
‘Where’s Rose gone?’ Violet asked the guardmole, who hesitated because he didn’t know.
‘She’s gone to the St-Stone,’ said Comfrey, angry with himself for always stuttering on the word that mattered most.
‘How do you know?’ asked Violet.
‘I just d-do,’ said Comfrey, who did know, because Rose had told him once that all the plants come from the Stone and plants were no different from moles, and he had asked, ‘Where do they go when they wither and die in the winter?’ and she said, ‘They go to the Stone, which is everywhere,’ so they must do, and that’s where Rose had gone. But it was no good telling Violet that, because the words wouldn’t come out right.
But he could tell Rebecca, because she knew and he could find her up by the entrance on the surface in the sun where she went afterwards and was now. He would run, he was running, running into tears, and he couldn’t help it. Oh, where was Rose, he sobbed.
Rebecca would know.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It took Bracken, Boswell and Mullion until the middle of April to make their way to the Nuneham system—a time in which Mullion frequently threatened to leave them because, ‘Bracken obviously does not know the way and all this Stone stuff is a load of nonsense,’ as he put it.
Bracken himself did not say much. He could feel the Stone’s pull but was not confident enough about it to be willing to argue with Mullion, if he did not want to follow him. Boswell had more faith than either of them, and it was his moderation, and occasional calling of Mullion’s bluff— for the Pasture mole really did not want to go it alone—that kept them together.
They faced many difficulties and dangers: the country they had to cross was mainly wet and low-lying and often slow to travel, while since it was the mating season they had to avoid penetrating too deeply into any of the systems they came near. But gradually Bracken found that the pull of the Stone got stronger and stronger until there came a day when they asked a mole they met if he knew where Nuneham was and he answered, with a look that showed he thought they were stupid, ‘Aye, this is it. It was Nuneham you said, warn’t it?’ Bracken immediately asked where the Stone was and how hostile Nuneham moles were likely to be.
‘Oh, well, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Nuneham bain’t what it was, you know. The river’s moved in the last few generations and flooded the place out so much that there isn’t a system worth speaking of any more. Just a few old-timers like me who keep their snouts out of trouble… You’ll find the Stone yonder.’ He waved a talon westwards down the tunnel where they had met and scurried off in the opposite direction.
‘Here!’ shouted Mullion after him. ‘Wait a minute!’ He ran off after the mole and Bracken and Boswell heard him ask, ‘You got any idea if there’s a mole here who’s a fighter, come from the north?’