The hill rose to the right towards its final height, while Bracken now veered a little to his left, stopping him turning that way but too close for him to turn back. So he had to go forward towards the void of the chalk escarpment, his heart pounding in pain and each breath harder and harder to grasp hold of.
Bracken watched Rune ahead of him and saw age creep over him, his coat now ugly and matted, his body twisted with fear. Had he once looked so pathetic to Mandrake when he had been chased, as Rune was now, over these leaves and roots, with the beech branches above, and the sky lightening ahead because there were no more trees left, just the straggly line of the sheer cliff edge?
No, he couldn’t kill him, it was no longer necessary. So he would catch him now and stop him, because killing isn’t the way; couldn’t Rune see? So he raised his paws to stop Rune, while behind him came a shout from Rebecca.
‘Don’t touch him. Don’t hurt him, he can’t harm us…’
Rune heard it, Rebecca’s voice, and hated the love in it which he could not bear to face, and where Bracken had turned once to face Mandrake, Rune ran on, the void of pity behind him far, far worse than the void ahead, which was full of air with a chalkfall far below, nothing under his scrabbling paws and a last terrible look back at moles who pitied him, whose faces and eyes and snouts rose far, far above him into the sky, as his back arched under him and his talons tried to hold on to the sky beyond them. Then darkness blotted Rune out.
Rebecca shook like a pup, and stood as weakly as one, as relief, such a relief, came slowly into her. Bracken was still peering over the cliff edge and oh! she was frightened of him. She was shy of him. He was nomole she knew, and yet she knew him to his heart’s core.
As for Bracken, he was only pretending to look over the cliff’s edge. She was there, behind him, his Rebecca, her voice still in the wood about them.
As he turned finally with such love to her, she said, ‘Bracken?’ and he could hear, and she knew he could hear, that she was calling him, calling out to him and he was coming to her at last.
He could see her, she knew he could see her, and she whispered to herself, ‘I’m Rebecca, my name is Rebecca and I’m not Mandrake’s daughter or Cairn’s mate or the healer, but I’m Rebecca,’ and oh! she could hear the whole wood behind her, rustling and free, and the birdsounds from where the slopes were and they were all part of her and he could see it and it was such relief to be seen like that because at last that’s what she was.
‘Rebecca, Rebecca…’
‘Yes, my love, that’s right, my love,’ she said, looking at the love and beauty in his eyes that saw the love and beauty in her own as they lost themselves at last within it.
There is a point at which the gentlest touch becomes the softest caress becomes the sweetest nuzzle becomes the lightest push becomes the most loving romp in the world: but Bracken and Rebecca never found out exactly where it was.
He would look at her in burrow or among dry leaves, and she at him, and they would wonder at the wonder of where they were. And what words they said, or never finished saying, they never knew. Except that when he said, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ it was never, never enough for him, because what words can satisfy the ache to be so wholly with another mole which even bodies cannot satisfy?
Sometimes playful, rompish, silly, she would ask him again, just one more time, ‘Do you really love me,’ and he would hesitate and sadly shake his head and she would cry out, ‘Oh oh oh oh Oh!’ as he said, ‘No, I don’t think I do,’ with such love that it was better than him saying that he did.
Or she would talk about a mole who wasn’t there, whom she had known, whom she really did love, yes she did!
‘What was he like?’ Bracken would ask, and she would think and nuzzle him and start to say, then stop, then start again, that, well (nuzzling close), describe a mole whose paws and snout and fur and scars and very soul were just like Bracken’s own, and Bracken would say: ‘Strange, I knew a female once, not far from here, who I think I loved…’ ‘Oh, what was she like?’ asked Rebecca breathlessly. ‘And did you love her?’
