‘Twelve moleyears ago, before you were born, there was an elder meeting. It was the June meeting like the one about to be held. Much was said at it, though you needn’t worry about that. But during it, your father became the leading elder and his real sway over the system began. There were threats, dark talk, much sadness over the system for some of us, as there still is. For a time I felt full of despair and wanted to die. I saw that your father would destroy the system and there was nothing I could do about it. I went back to my burrow and sat in silence. I would have liked to have talked to another mole, but even my dearest friend, Bindle, was too afraid to talk to me. Now he no longer attends the elder meetings. Anyway, I was alone. Everything seemed bleak, although outside the June wind was warm, the worms were plentiful and the youngsters were growing fast down in the main system. But I didn’t eat. I crouched alone and silent.
‘The only thing that kept me alive was the knowledge that I alone knew the full Midsummer ritual and although Mandrake said he would kill me’—here Rebecca gasped lightly, and Hulver put a paw on her shoulder for a moment—‘if I went through with it, yet I knew I had to.
‘Then one of the old legends came to me; you know it, I’m sure—Groundsel the Owlkiller. You remember how he saw that it was better to die than to live in the thrall of fear? I began to feel the same. I went out on to the surface and looked up at the great trees above me, listening to the wood all around and waiting for first light. June! What a time! How happy I suddenly was as the light overtook the dark wood, cutting away its darkest patches, turning black into grey and then grey into the colour of summer! When night came around again, I climbed the hill to celebrate Midsummer. The fear that had been hanging about seemed to have gone and, of course, I wasn’t killed by Mandrake. As I set off I knew I wouldn’t be killed, even though I was followed from the moment I left my burrow. I’m not sure by whom, but seeing how things have gone since in the system, and who is Mandrake’s most active henchmole, I think it must have been Rune. He probably thought I didn’t know he was there, but you don’t live as long as I have without knowing what or who is nearby—especially somemole as unpleasant as Rune!’
Here Rebecca sighed and nodded. She knew what he meant.
‘Anyway, I went through the ritual carefully, not missing out one bit. I also said a special prayer and I said it in the direction of Uffington—I asked that Duncton might be visited once more by a scribemole. There was something funny about that prayer, something powerful that made me know that the Stone does listen. One day you’ll understand what I mean.’
As he said this, Hulver looked full on Rebecca and into her eyes, which were alight with life and love, and for a moment it was as if his old body had stopped and was hung suspended in a place of wonder, for he knew that this mole, this female, was special and that in some mysterious way the Stone was speaking to her through him. And that thought caused him to think of Bracken, who had looked so frightened when he left him up on the slopes, and made him see that there was a connection between the two. He felt as if he were crouched between them and that there was a power, a force, an enormous, troubled strength that was coursing unknown between them and taking its path through him! He shook himself and continued his story.
‘When I had finished making this prayer, I turned back to my burrows on the slopes, feeling, I must admit, somewhat cast down. I felt Rune’s evil presence near me and this time I couldn’t resist it in the way I had when I went up the hill. Perhaps the ritual had drained me: such things are very tiring, you know. I could feel his evil coming into me as fear, as aching, as ageing.
‘Now what has all this got to do with Rebecca the Healer? Listen carefully. As the days went on, I felt sure that Rune had put some kind of curse on me, or left something of himself about my tunnels. Yet, though I felt tired and ill, my old head began to see things more clearly than before. What did I see? I can’t possibly explain it all—I forgot things that ran so clearly before me almost as soon as I saw them. But the most important thing I saw, or rather felt, was that Rebecca the Healer was in the system: she was here. Now that’s different from hearing a tale told, and enjoying it, about a mole who once stayed in the Ancient System. I knew she was here. What’s more, I could feel she was still here—I should say is still here. I lived totally by myself for molemonths on end, or perhaps it was moleyears—I’m not quite sure—but I wasn’t alone. Rebecca was there as she is with you, her namesake, or up there,’ he waved his paw in the direction of the slopes, ‘with… with Bracken!’
