But Rebecca seemed tired and when Comfrey asked if she wanted anything, she had looked so sad and lost that he could have killed Rune, if he had known how. But he wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t want Rune to mate with Rebecca, not him. But Rebecca sort of shook her head and looked down at the burrow floor, and Rune looked triumphant and Comfrey knew he would have to fight or go; so he went, because only a potential mate fights.
Why did Rebecca look so sad? And why was there such a feeling of evil in her burrows, which were normally so fresh and alive, or had been until that Rune came back?
From far off down the tunnels came the sound of pups’ cries—probably one of the earlier litters whose pups were already getting out of hand. You expect that by the first week of May.
Comfrey couldn’t face the tunnels, and anyway, he wasn’t popular with the moles there now, so he went slowly on to the surface and looked for a while at the beech branches above him, which were just beginning to leaf at last. Always so late, beech leaves, but what a gentle rustle of a sound when they came!
But it was no use. Comfrey could not shake the misery out of himself, or the thought of Rebecca with Rune in her burrows. He turned without thinking towards the Stone clearing and, as so often before, went to it and crouched by the Stone. Why had he been made so weak and nervous, even when he wasn’t afraid? Why did the Stone let moles like Rune live?
He looked up at it above him, light and still against the tiny, shimmering beech leaves. Always so different and always such a mystery.
Then he heard a rustle from the northwest, which was unusual. He smelt mole, but not mole that he knew. Hesitating over whether or not to find cover, he hesitated too long and the mole came out boldly into the clearing and straight towards him.
‘What m-m-mole are you, and where are you f-from?’ asked Comfrey as firmly as he could.
The mole looked at him calmly for a while and then laughed aloud, not laughing at Comfrey but rather with him, as if the whole world were full of humour and there wasn’t a thing to worry about. And despite himself, despite his thoughts about Rune, Comfrey found himself laughing as well.
‘I used to live here in this system, you know,’ said the mole. ‘My name is Bracken.’
Comfrey’s laugh froze in his mouth; in fact, the whole of him froze. He looked at the mole, who was scarred and looked quite old, his face lined and his fur straggly. He was big and very powerful now Comfrey looked at him closely, and his paws seemed more solidly on the ground than anymole he had ever known, except Rebecca.
‘Bracken?’ whispered Comfrey, without a stutter.
Bracken nodded.
‘Rebecca’s Bracken?’ said Comfrey.
Bracken laughed again. ‘Well, I was when she was alive, by the Stone’s grace I was,’ he said gently.
‘B-but—’ and now Comfrey did stutter and looked confused, because the whole world seemed to whirl about him and he couldn’t catch his breath, and the Stone was towering behind him and he was shaking with a mixture of pride and tears and relief all at once.
‘But she is alive,’ he said, ‘and she’s here, now.’
Behind Comfrey the Stone rose into the sky and Bracken gazed up at it, his head tilting higher and higher as the words sank in. ‘She’s here, now,’ now where the Stone was, now, now where their love was, now. The trees were the same, the sounds were the same, the scent of the leaf litter was just the same as it had always been, so where had he been for so long? The moleyears began to leave him, though if anything he looked older and more solid for the knowledge that she was here, now.
Slowly he began to hear Comfrey’s voice again as he continued to talk, his voice stumbling faster and a mixture of relief and distress running through it.
‘She’s in the old tunnels you burrowed yourself because that’s where she lives, but it’s not right anymore because Rune came back, who was here before, and he’s there now, and I don’t like him because it’s not right, what he wants.’ And Comfrey began to cry, because though he was an adult and a healer, he knew it didn’t matter in front of Bracken because there was nomole in the world stronger than he was, or who could help so much, except Rebecca, and she needed his help now…
Bracken touched him gently. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. Then he turned away from the mole whose sadness he knew so well, and away from the Stone behind him, and without one trace of urgency in his step he made his way towards the nearest entrance to those tunnels he had himself burrowed so long before, thinking it was his home and nomole but Rebecca had the right to be there. Nomole.
Rebecca was suffering Rune’s snoutings with the thought that surely all moles may be loved finally, all arid every one; but that didn’t take away the disgust she felt or the obscenity of it and she wondered whether, if she had not been made so weary by so many moleyears of giving, perhaps she might be bringing down her talons upon him instead of crouching here like this.
