Duncton Wood Read online

  On the second day, when far off to the east and up on the slopes Rune and Mandrake were leaving Hulver’s burrows after investigating Rue’s story, Rebecca awoke to a morning when the wood’s floor was draped and decorated with a thousand dew-hung cobwebs. They ran in ladders and cascades of wet brightness up and down the untidy brambles, in and out of the ground ivy, over and around the dead twigs of fallen branches. About them the ground was moist and almost steamy, for it was still warm from the summer, and the sun that replaced the drizzle of the previous few days still had the strength to start drying the moisture on to which its light fell.

  Sometimes, as Rebecca travelled on the surface, a spider would retreat into its silk-lined nest, its front legs poised tense against possible assault as she passed. Sometimes one of her front paws would catch a long anchor thread from a cobweb, which would stretch as she pulled past and then break, the web to which it was attached trembling as one of its supports was pulled away and the dew caught in its symmetry, suddenly dropping and falling to the bramble thorns or fallen leaves beneath, leaving the cobweb bereft of light.

  Later the same morning, in a more open vale of the wood, she found herself face to face with the tiny red fruit of wild strawberries which brightened the shadows of their crumpled and serrated leaves and among which stood a few pink flowers of rosebay willowherb, tall as a small shrub and far beyond Rebecca’s sight. But at least she could sniff at some of the blackberries, still hard and green, whose hairs tickled her snout and stopped her trying to nibble at them.

  Rebecca at once grew happier and more restless with each passing sight, each exciting sound; the autumn made her want to run through the wood as fast as a fox, or be blown about it with the random abandon of the seeds of dandelion, which flurried and floated over the more open space.

  As for the pastures, well! When she reached them, she found that they were fresher up here than she remembered from lower down by the Marsh End where she had said goodbye to Rose. She did not venture out of the long grass and rough hawthorn bushes that lay just inside under the barbed-wire fence that kept the cows out of the wood, because she was a little nervous of doing so—but the more she snouted out through the grass to the vast sky-strewn openness beyond, the more her excitement began to overcome her fear of the pastures or its moles.

  On the third day Rebecca lost all track of time as the autumn continued its slow change about her and, as on different days in the spring and summer, she wandered from one delight to another. Squirrels nervously hopping between trees; starlings flocking and feeding in flurries of squealing sound; leaf-fails from a tall and gentle ash, whose leaves always fall earlier than those of other trees in the wood. While there were some things she had at last got used to and found she could take pleasure in rather than run from—like the crashing about of an old hedgehog at dusk who grubbed about an area of leaf mould she had been interested in and who seemed to make so much noise that she wondered if he would scare away even the trees themselves.

  With her fourth dawn away from Barrow Vale, the dew was thick on the pastures and Rebecca woke in the temporary burrow she had made near them, feeling at one with the change that now moved so excitedly about her, rather than just a delighted observer of it. From its first moment, the day seemed to carry her along so that she surrendered to its will and did whatever it seemed to want. She was as hungry as ever on waking, but this put no urgency at all into her stretching and grooming, which became a timeless exercise in self-content. Time did not matter. Eventually, her coat glossy and her eyes happy, she burrowed about for food before taking to the surface to see the day. And the day seemed so free with itself that it almost asked that she should break free from the grass of the wood’s edge and go out on to the fresh pastures, the cool dew catching her paws and belly.

  Because this part of the wood faced the west, the sun had not yet reached it, casting instead the shadow of the trees way out across the pasture. Beyond, the sun hit the grass and dried the dew, the area of tree shadow receding as the sun rose higher in the sky and swung south. The edge of the shadow and the area still bedewed shrank steadily from west and south as the morning advanced, and in it, near her burrow but now clear out on the pasture, Rebecca stayed, listening, watching and scenting the day. Behind her, the barbed wire marked the edge of the wood, and here and there along it, tufts of cow’s hair vibrated a little, the only evidence of a morning breeze. Even if Mandrake himself had asked Rebecca to move she might well not have done so, for she could smell a scent of such excitement that she knew without thinking about it that it was the one she had been seeking for weeks past. For as the shadow of the trees shrank towards her, two big male Pasture moles followed it up the pastures, down among their tunnels, then up and rolling across the surface, playing hide-and-seek and catch-as-catch-can with each other. It was a morning in which a mole should dance and smile and forget that summer was yesterday and tomorrow may bring an autumn storm. A morning to live in.

  The two moles were slimmer and more lithe than Duncton moles, but just as powerful as the strongest Westsider, their coats just a shade lighter. They seemed to know each other so well that they did not really talk as they played, preferring to laugh and roll and touch and mock-fight with each other as they made their way towards the dark wall of the west side of the wood, its shadow receding before them.

  The light morning breeze coming up the pastures carried their scent to where Rebecca crouched. The scent was male and new: strong and exciting. It was distant enough for her to want to run out towards it, to increase the chance that the males—though she did not know there were two of them—might scent her out. And run she did, or rather she danced across the dew-covered grass towards where the shadow stopped and the sun started, the male scent fresh like new-cropped grass, different from Duncton scents. As she danced, she did not even think of the risk she was taking, or how dangerous it would have seemed to most Duncton moles. She was Rebecca, there was the massive exhilaration of autumn soaring in the air around her, she wanted a mate, and a male was so near, somewhere near.

  And one of them was. He had run on ahead, in and out of tunnels, towards where the pastures were still in shadow and where the dew had not yet dried out. On and on he ran, laughing and snouting back over his shoulder to see if the other was following near. On and on…

  ‘Cairn! Cairn!’ the one who was lagging behind called ahead, his voice deep and authoritative. ‘Don’t go too near the wood without me, you never know if there are Duncton moles about near the edge. Cairn!’ The name was called with love and good humour and without real fear that any harm was about. This was a morning in which to live to the full, rather than to sneak about.

  Cairn ran on, laughing, snouting over his shoulder to see how far ahead he was and drawn on by such a sweet wildflower smell ahead. When, Oh! And a tumble. And a snarl. And Rebecca. Rebecca and Cairn. Tense and staring at each other, Rebecca’s talons hard in the ground and Cairn looking to see and snouting to scent if there were other males about.

  ‘Cairn… Cair…’ and the other arrived, and all three crouched suddenly tense in the still wet grass as the sun rose on into the sky and the shadow of the trees swept on towards the wood, passing over all three so that they were all in the sun, and Rebecca’s coat was glossy with excitement and bedabbled with dew. And all their breaths were tense with excitement.

  Rebecca moved first. She turned with what was meant to be a mock-snarl, but came out more as a gay laugh, and started for the wood, but seeing the dewy shadows there, twisted and turned in a circle back into the sun; Cairn followed, with deep growls that delighted Rebecca and finally made her turn to face him, talons out, watching him come towards her with exaggerated care, first one paw, then another, snout quivering. He was magnificent; each move he made had a muscular grace that made her want to run forward and push and tumble him, to see him spring up and mock-fight with her.

  ‘My name’s Cairn,’ he said, and snout to snout they looked at each other, Rebecca’s head very slight
ly to one side, her back warmed by the morning sun and her talons shiny with dew.

  The other mole came towards her from her right and looked at them both crouched opposite each other, and then, settling down, said, ‘And I’m Stonecrop, just in case you’re interested.’

  Rebecca laughed, and sighed, and looked at him. He was heavier than Cairn and if anything more powerful and his coat was a little darker. Then she looked back at Cairn.

  ‘What mole are you, and where are you from?’ Cairn asked. It was the ritual question but one that Rebecca had not been asked before, except in fun or mockery.

  ‘I’m Rebecca, of Duncton Wood.’ As she said her name it seemed that nothing had ever been so real to her before and that, suddenly, she was out of the shadows in which she had lived and fully herself. And playing in the light, without waiting for more questions, she ran between them and away, and she heard Cairn say ‘Rebecca!’ and heard him chase after her. Then Stonecrop laughed, deep and strong as she liked to hear a male laugh, and suddenly they were all chasing and running and mock-fighting in the sun, paw on face, face on flank, flank on paw, paw entwined with paw again. And the laughter of one seemed to go into and come out of another, Rebecca’s higher, female laughter mixing a gay silver lightness into their deeper laughs and growls of content.

  Until, when the morning was fat with the September sun and the shadows of the trees by the wood had narrowed down to a sliver of dark, they were all still again, crouching under the protection of some faded common thistle, well out on the pastures and quite near one of the entrances to a tunnel the two males had used on their way up towards the wood.

  ‘So you’re Pasture moles! They said you were all vicious and dangerous!’ exclaimed Rebecca, content and safe in their company.

  ‘And they said you were all dark and broody and lived in shadows weaving spells,’ said Cairn.

  Then they talked and asked so many questions of her that she couldn’t find time to answer them all. They were fascinated by the fact that Duncton Wood had a central place for moles in Barrow Vale because, according to Stonecrop, ‘We don’t have such a place at all, except where a couple of communal tunnels meet and you can have a chat down there, if you feel like it.’

  But they knew more about Duncton than she had expected, given that there was so little contact between the two systems, and that she, herself, had learned nothing about the pastures. They knew of the Stone, ‘though it’s very dangerous and is protected by dangerous Duncton Wood spirit moles who could turn a Pasture mole into the root of a tree by a glance and imprison him there for ever until the tree dies and his spirit is released,’ explained Cairn.

  ‘What happens then?’ asked Rebecca, thinking that roots had never seemed sinister before to her but wondering if now she could ever look at one again without wondering if a mole was imprisoned inside.

  ‘Nomole is sure,’ continued Stonecrop. ‘And I personally don’t believe it. Have you been to the Stone?’ he asked Rebecca.

  ‘No, it’s a long way from where I live. I was going to it, well, sort of heading in that direction, when I stopped by the pastures. But it’s not an evil place. Well, it can’t be, because the Stone’s there and the Stone protects us.’

  ‘Is it true you’ve got scribemoles living in Duncton Wood?’ asked Cairn.

  ‘Scribemoles?’ Rebecca wasn’t sure what he meant. She had heard of them in stories Sarah had told her, but they didn’t exist anymore. ‘No, we haven’t any of them. That was long ago and they only ever came here for a short time.

  ‘What lies beyond the pastures?’ asked Rebecca. Even asking the question made her nervous.

  ‘Never been down there, have we, Stonecrop?’

  ‘Nope. Too dangerous. But I’ve always said I would go—it’s no good living in fear of things, is it?’

  ‘Does Rose live in the Pasture system?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Rose the Healer?’

  ‘Down near the marshes, isn’t she, Cairn?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cairn, ‘though you never know where she’s going to pop up next.’

  Rebecca laughed—at least there was one thing in common between the two systems.

  Behind her, the wood murmured with birdsound. The morning was warm and they had talked enough. Two magpies played at the wood’s edge, chuckling to each other. One took off from the shadows into the sun out across the pastures below them, and then its mate followed, their flight swift and direct, as if each second of life was precious and not one should be wasted.

  With a laugh and a tumble, Stonecrop was suddenly gone, back to the tunnel, ‘because it’s time I found more to eat and you two found yourselves a burrow. I’ll remember not to tell anymole, Cairn; you don’t want gossip!’

  Rebecca ran after him, rough-tumbling her farewell to him and feeling suddenly his solid strength. Cairn had a lightness of spirit and a grace that Stonecrop lacked, and yet she felt, as she pushed at Stonecrop and she seemed to make no impression on him, that there was only one other mole who had felt so solid and strong, and that was Mandrake, but his strength was corrupted while Stonecrop’s was pure.

  Stonecrop turned and looked down at her. His gaze was very direct. ‘Take care of him, Rebecca, because I love him,’ he said simply, his voice strong as roots.

  Cairn watched them both, wanting and yet not wanting his brother to go. Rebecca turned back to him away from Stonecrop, whose sudden sombre solidity had frightened her just a little, and made her want to run even more with the lightness of Cairn, which seemed to match the day so well.

  They mock-fought and play-scratched their way to the wood, twisting and turning their snouts into each other, fur mingling with fur; now Rebecca leading, and now Cairn. She loved the way his shoulder bore down on hers because he was so powerful and big, and she loved the lightness of his spirit mingling with the powerful desire that lay behind the stronger and stronger way he touched her and pushed against her.

  They ran from the warmth of the middle of the day to the warmth of her tunnel, down and then along into the buried darkness of its burrow.

  He snouted her deliciously so that she sighed and gasped and cried out with pleasure, while his breathing became heavier and he moaned into her and his talons rough-scratched her back as she surrendered to his pulling of her this way and that and he gave himself to her rounder, deeper warmth and softer caresses.

  Where she had been tensely expectant with Rune, she was gently relaxed with Cairn. First one flank was hard against hers, then another, then his paws and talons up her back and his belly sliding over her fur, higher and bigger and his scent all around her and his talons softly into her shoulders and neck and his snout down towards hers from above, but most of all his flanks behind, over and between; as his paws possessed her in front his flanks possessed her from behind, and they were both together, his talons her exquisite pain, his breathing her sighs, his fur her fur, her warmth his heat, her softness his joy, her depths his light, his power her power, and their power her light.

  ‘Rebecca, Rebecca,’ whispered Cairn, her body as big and warm to him as a home burrow, his body as strong and safe to her as a whole system. Their words of love like no other words either had spoken before, each one a sigh of happiness. Two innocent moles in the darkness of a burrow, whose mating is the joy in the colour of a wild flower, or the changing light of sun on dappled water.

  ‘Rebecca, Rebecca,’ sighed Cairn.

  ‘Cairn, oh, Cairn,’ she echoed in reply as they shifted caressingly into each other’s paws and fur and their bodies were full of the content of satisfied surrender.

  Evil. It snouts out good as a stinking hellebore finds out the sun in the very darkest part of the wood where it grows.

  Evil. It hides in the shadows near which innocents play in the light, taking a thousand forms, some as hideous as disease and most as subtle as snakes.

  Evil. No better name for Rune, who could sniff out the scent of goodness and convert it to the stench of corrupted innocence.

  Rune. He sno
uted out with dark knowledge that somewhere, away in the Westside, there was something pure and good to get his bleak talons into, something to do with Rebecca, who had left Barrow Vale before he came back from Hulver’s tunnels and who had not returned to her own tunnels, according to the henchmole he had sent there to see. So Rune set off for the Westside.

  How did he know? Who can say why shadows pass their way? Except that a mole like Rune can always stick out a talon and find trouble—for a mole like him is trouble.

  So secretly and like a shadow Rune left Barrow Vale and set off for the Westside, snout poking into tunnel after tunnel and burrow after burrow, not knowing exactly what he sought but knowing he would find it.

  And find them he did, scenting her deliciousness in the shadows of the wood’s edge and then cutting back and forth along towards it like a fox quartering a wood. Until he found what he was snouting for—the entrance to a burrow from whose depths came the smell of Rebecca and the smell of a male. Rune smiled, stretched his talons, and started down boldly into the tunnel without any other thought than the pleasure of killing. There was only one mole in Duncton he was afraid of, and that was Mandrake.

  Rebecca tensed the moment she smelt his odour, turning to face the burrow entrance, even before Cairn knew there was trouble.

  ‘Is it another male?’ asked Cairn quietly and calmly, coming to Rebecca’s side and then easing himself ahead of her nearer the entrance, where he could defend his right.

  ‘No, it’s Rune. A Duncton elder. He’s dangerous, Cairn, and he’ll fight to kill.’

  Cairn laughed out loud, just as Stonecrop, his brother, had laughed the several lifetimes before when they had all met out on the pastures. A deep laugh that mocked the sly odour of Rune’s coming.

  Rune said nothing, but came to the burrow entrance slowly, his eyes taking in the size of the tunnel, the possibilities of blocking and turning, and the size of the entrance where Rebecca and her consort lay hiding from him. He liked a fight, especially one which he knew before he started that he was going to win.