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.’
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.
