Sighing and roaring amongst the dry grass of Uffington, pulling at tunnel entrances, winding down in scurries into the burrows themselves, a wind prefaced a storm. Such a long winter, such a long time, such a long wait since Boswell had left them; so many prayers said, so many whispered hopes.
Below the hill the wind twisted and blew around the Blowing Stone, which began to moan softly with it as the grass at its base swayed back and forth in the lengthening darkness. A light kind of darkness, the kind a mole finds on some stormy nights in March when the days are beginning to lengthen. The wind grew grimmer and stronger, battering now against the Stone, pushing at it, taking it and shaking at it until the moans ceased, the humming stopped and the Blowing Stone at last let out a great long vibrant note as the wind finally conquered it.
Every scribemole heard it and all stopped to listen. Waiting.
Then a second note came, more powerful than the first, and then a third, clear and strong, vibrating down into the Holy Burrows themselves and shaking chalk dust off some of the walls.
As the third note came, Medlar began moving up through the tunnels towards the surface, while from all over Uffington moles were moving, trying not to run but starting to all the same, moving up to the surface as the fourth note of the Stone sounded. While the chosen moles who were still alive, those who had sung the secret song before, wondered if theirs was to be the honour, theirs now the moment, as the fifth great note came from the Stone, and moles snouted out in awe on to the grassy surface of Uffington Hill, facing the northeast where the Stone stood, listening through the wind that tore at their fur and the grass around them.
A sixth note came, stronger than any had ever heard, and in Medlar’s eyes a look of certainty began to form, a look of joy. He began to say a blessing on his moles, on all moles, his words rising into the wind. As he did so, there came at last a seventh great note from the Stone. As its sound carried about them the winds suddenly died and the grass fell still. Then quietly, here and there, each one of the chosen moles there began to sing the sacred song, its sound faint and disjointed at first, a scatter of song across an ancient hill. Until its rhythm and melody began to become established as other moles began to whisper the words and then to start singing them—young and old, novices and scribes—until they were all singing the ancient song of celebration and exaltation which told that the seventh Book was coming to Uffington and that the seventh Stillstone had been found.
Boswell finally and slowly turned in his burrow and looked across it to Tryfan. The angry wind of a storm on the surface sounded about them.
‘Go to the Stone now,’ he said.
Tryfan did not want to leave Boswell, who had been weak and restless all day, refusing to eat his food and saying hardly a word. Tryfan had watched over him troubled, knowing that something was changing and that what they had waited for for so long was here; troubled by not knowing what it was.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked Boswell. ‘What are you going to do?’
Boswell went over to him. ‘Have trust in the Stone, which will tell you what to do,’ he said. ‘I must go to the centre of the Ancient System where the Stillstone lies and to where Bracken and Rebecca have at last found the silence to return. Pray that the Stone will give me strength, pray that it will send the help I need. Trust the Stone.’
Tryfan watched Boswell turning down towards the Ancient System to where the Chamber of Echoes was, and then turned himself up on to the surface, unhappy to let Boswell out of his sight. He looked so frail as he entered those great tunnels by himself, as if the wind that was growing in strength by the minute would blow him away.
Above Tryfan the beeches were now swaying massively in the wind, and the surface of the Ancient System reverberated to the creakings and knocking of their branches against each other.
The noise was even louder by the Stone, and the wind so wild that it was some time before he saw that Comfrey was crouched before it. He was weeping.
‘What is it?’ asked Tryfan. ‘What has happened?’
‘I d-don’t know,’ said Comfrey. ‘I’m sure I saw Bracken and Rebecca going to the Stone just like Rose the Healer went to the Stone when I was a pup.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Tryfan.
‘I d-don’t know,’ said Comfrey. ‘I’m not sure.’
Tryfan stared up at the Stone, the only still thing on a wild and stormy night. He was in awe of it, and afraid now for Bracken, for Rebecca and for Boswell.
He repeated Boswell’s words to him over and over again—‘Trust the Stone, trust it’—and then he began to pray, his words lost in the wind as Comfrey sat waiting beside him and the trees began to sway back and forth and against each other and there were sounds of falling branches and a whining and howling as the wind was whipped and cut by the leafless branches in the terrible darkness about them.
