In the wake of the plague, whose worst horrors were now beginning to be forgotten (or turned into a tale of the past), litters had been especially large—and a relatively moist summer made it easy for youngsters to burrow and find new territory in the devastated systems, so that survival rates were unusually high. Which made it more curious and more magical that so many youngsters, and some older moles from nearby systems, made the trek over to Duncton, perhaps sensing the great peace that was coming, and about to come, to the Ancient System of Duncton Wood.
The fame of Bracken and Rebecca and their loyalty and love seemed to have spread far and wide, though as August crept into September and then on towards the tail end of autumn, they were seen less and less, as they kept to their tunnels beyond the Stone and to themselves.
It was in December, when a cold and chilly winter had already set in, that Tryfan reappeared. They heard of him first from Comfrey, to whose burrows on the slopes he had gone, and then, one evening a few days later, he came to Bracken’s burrows. He had been down to what had once been the Marsh End, he told them, and then over to the pastures, living alone and ‘thinking,’ as he quietly put it.
He had changed. The last of his puppishness had gone and Bracken saw that he was now large and powerful—larger than Bracken himself—and that his unusually dark coat was full and glossy, while he had about him a calm that Bracken had never had at his age.
Yet he seemed to have suffered. There was a restlessness in his eyes, and a searching, and Bracken knew that he had come back to seek answers to those questions that may be raised in a moment and yet not answered for a lifetime.
‘Why do you believe in the Stone?’ he asked Bracken after they had greeted each other and eaten food together.
‘I can’t give you a reason, Tryfan, or reasons, for that matter, and I know it won't be enough to tell you that I simply do. I remember moles saying that to me once, and not being satisfied. But you know how Rebecca and I love each other…’
Tryfan nodded. He knew.
‘Well, you know how that “feels”—you can’t give it reasons but you know it’s there, as solid as rock. That’s how my belief in the Stone feels as well. I know it’s there. My belief in the Stone started when I began to see that really I’m nothing at all against the flow of life into which I was born and that will continue after I’ve gone. Yet I felt its wonder in me, not any other mole, and without me the flow of life is nothing, as well. This feeling gave me a sense of wonder which we say comes from the Stone and is part of what the Stone is. Each of us is nothing—and everything—and only believing in the Stone makes sense of it.’ Bracken sighed with frustration; he had never been much good at talking about it.
‘Rebecca might be better than me at telling you about it, though I doubt it. You’ve missed your chance! She hardly says a thing these days!’ Bracken laughed and ran down his tunnels towards Rebecca’s, calling out her name.
‘Look who’s here! Come and see!’
Rebecca looked at Tryfan for a long time, almost drinking in the sight of him before she smiled and came forward to touch him. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, in a way that said, ‘There’s no need to tell me, my love, I think I know.’
The three of them talked for a long time, over several moledays, and they told him things they only half remembered, or had never spoken of before. Both of them felt it was right to tell him of the seventh Stillstone and the wonder of what they had seen together, and he listened to them in awe, for as they spoke he felt he had been there before… and knew that he would go there again.
He asked about Uffington, and Boswell, and scribemoles—just as he had when he was a pup. And one day, finally, he told them he wanted to be a scribemole like Boswell had been and that perhaps he should try to make his way to Uffington.
They nodded, though Bracken warned him that winter was not the time to travel so far and that if he was going to go, then there were things about travel, about fighting, about route-finding that perhaps he ought to teach him.
But Tryfan shook his head, and looking at them both where they crouched close together, said: ‘You’ve both taught me more than all those things, and surely the Stone will teach me the rest. The Stone will show me the way and it will protect me if I need to fight.’
How big he was now, how strong and young, and Rebecca could not help smiling with love at the contrast he made with Bracken, whose face and sides were scarred with the fights he had been in but whose eyes held the clear light of peace Tryfan’s did not yet have. But how hard-won had Bracken’s peace been, and how much courage a mole needed to hold on to it! Rebecca knew that the times Bracken spent with the Stone were not always easy for him. They weren’t for her.
