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While Sy looked out over the sunny hillocks before
them, Dora cast ahead and found herself not flying this
time but burrowing down among the mounds and into the dark,
loamy earth.
She was glad she could still feel Sy's hand
in hers for this was a strange business and she was not
over comfortable with it.
Though tis more of a mole I'd be
taken for by many I know than for a bird.
She could feel the cool soil, gritty soft, pouring
over her as she waded downwards with wide clawing motions
of her paws and a writhing of her body, snakelike.
There
were roots that she chewed on for a moment before passing
by and stones that had to be shouldered aside.
Once she
came on a beetle a good two inches long and was confused
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for a moment whether to attack and eat it or not.
Dora
that was in the mole decided roots maybe, but beetle, no.
She couldn't see.
Darkness was complete.
But she'd
no need of sight, feeling everything around her with the
delicate hair of her fur and whiskers.
She only followed
the pull of whatever it was she was heading toward and
guided her body by feel around the biggest rocks and roots.
Without warning she broke into open space and was
falling, spread out and flailing panicked in dark air.
landed in a frightened heap on soft dry ground.
She
She still
couldn't see but felt with all her mole hairs on end a huge
space above her, some sort of a cave.
With endless black
prickling her every pore, she was sucked back into her body
next to Sy where she found herself still holding onto her
friend's hand for dear life.
"You went away again?" Sy asked and looked concerned
when she saw how shaken Dora was, caught herself looking
concerned and wrinkled her nose.
Neither of them spoke for
a time, but Sy gently pried Dora's hand loose from her one,
changed hands, and put her arm around her friend's back.
"It b'ain't half bad to be a mole, but I'm tellin ye
tis more unsuspecting, if ye take what I mean.
Birds can
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see where they fly but poor old mole has to feel all and go
inch by inch."
Sy laughed.
"You've been a bird so long you've
forgotten how to see with your skin.
What did you find for
us now dear moledywarp?"
Dora shut her eyes and put her face down into Sy's
shoulder, recalling that long fall and the blackness
without end.
"If we be to go down into that earth--and it do seem
we be--there'll be need for light.
Tis blacker nor
midnight at no moon I can tell ye.
And there be places so
high I couldn't rightly tell whether they do end or no.
I
were so afrighted I'd no time to sense whether twere
friendly."
"So you think we must go down?
we were going down for exactly.
I do wish I knew what
Or why up for that
matter."
Dora opened her mouth to answer, but Sy kept going.
"You won't satisfy me so easily.
I know you tell me I
must trust that my ones will be ahead and not behind.
voices.
I don't trust just like that.
pull the way you do.
My
I don't feel any
The only thing I know for sure is
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that I was sent with you.
That'll have to be enough for
now I guess, but I don't like it."
"You guess," laughed Dora.
me old heart.
back.
"You nothing of the sort
You know well as I do there be no going
What'd we do back there now, the two of us?
no place for us.
B'ain't
We might settle for a bit, but it'd
always be off again."
"Well," Sy put in primly, "I was never settled anyway.
I could always go back to the old life."
But she smirked,
couldn't look at Dora as she said it, and Dora chortled and
patted her friend's hand.
"Right you are, darlin.
So you say.
Well, I'll never
come between ye and what ye desire, that be truth now.
That be truth.
But I do be tended forward myself."
Dora got up slowly and began to gather up her things.
She packed everything away except for some food left over
from supper the night before and she sat to munch that
while she contemplated how they were to make their way in
the dark underground.
"What'll we do about light?
There must be something
we can take'll cast enough to see and won't burn up so fast
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we'd be lost down in the middle there.
We can't go down
without working out that one."
Sy had just about cleared her things away too, so she
sat next to Dora and held out a piece of the lichen Dora
had used to light her pipe when she first arrived on the
plateau.
"What about this?"
"What's that then?"
She held out her hand and took
the brittle stuff from Sy.
so.
Might do it.
"Well, I do think you're right,
Where did ye bring this piece from?"
"I've been carrying it for about a week, maybe more.
Tonight we can see if it still gives off light."
"Or we could do it now if we found a way into the
blackness."
Dora kept her head down as she spoke, not
wanting to look Sy in the face, for she knew very well that
if they didn't go soon she would be less and less willing
as the day went on.
Sy began to hum a slow tune that somehow made Dora
think of earthworms moving through crumbly soil.
Shuddering only slightly, Dora went to her pack and brought
out a fairly large bundle of dried lichen which she tied
around with a string into a neat bunch.
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"Now what'll I do for my pipe lighting in a place that
has no more light than a bat's bellybutton?"
She was
huffing about her pack, grumbling and muttering to herself,
trying not let the fear that was already a black cave
inside her show on the outside.
any excuse for leaving now.
stuff on em about here?
more.
She didn't want to give Sy
"Be there rocks with this grey
If not, I'll wend my way back for
Be bad enough to go underground as tis without
forswearing my pipe.”
For answer, Sy pointed between the mounds to where
several large grey rocks poked up.
The women climbed the
last few feet onto more level ground and trod the springy
turf of the mountain meadow toward the rocks.
farther than it had looked.
The way was
The light angled into the
stones strangely, and when Dora and Sy came up close to
the, both realized that these were giants.
Some of them
rose up perhaps three times the height of either woman.
Others that lay flat on the ground were even larger, and
there were smaller ones scattered among them in what looked
to be some kind of pattern, but neither Sy nor Dora could
make any sense of it.
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There was lichen aplenty, and the two began stripping
away until each had a bundle of the light brittle stuff
almost half as big as herself.
On some of the stones, when
she tore away the grey covering, Dora could see markings.
“Did ye ever learn to read?”
“I did not.
Not unless you mean cards and palms and
tea leaves.”
No.
Do ye look here at these markings.
Be this not
writing?”
Sy put her bundle down and came over to where Dora was
scraping away at the surface of one of the horizontal
stones.
She ran a finger over the curling designs.
Closing her eyes, she kept her finger moving around the
loops and spirals, across the face of the grey rock.
began murmuring to herself.
She
Dora could see Sy’s bird
fingers begin dancing again, graceful and quck as swallows
over the indentations.
After a while, the fingers slowed, and Sy appeared to
come back from a journey, opened her eyes and smiled at
Dora.
“We can leave the lichen behind dear heart.
the way.”
Here is
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Dora frowned in disbelief.
made
“What be that now?
ten lives ago when these rocks were young?
seen.
There be no folk left in these mountains.
One
I have
The way
to what?”
“Don’t you fret now, Dora girl.
the lichen can stay here.
Dora nodded.
People or no people,
Don’t you remember the bees?”
“I do, but what do bees have to do with
light?”
“Light bringers, builders, honey farmers, hard
workers, queen tenders.
medicine, glue.
They provide light for us, food,
I don’t know whether we’ll find wax
candles where we go, but we are assured of light.”
“There b’ain’t no light down where i fell, I tell ye
that.”
“I believe it only opens for guests.
after all.
A mole is a mole
You saw how we’ve been welcomed already.
They
are expecting us.”
“Expecting we,” mused Dora.
“Now how would that be?”
“I don’t know, of course I don’t, but it makes sense
doesn’t it?” Sy asked.
“Even if they didn’t know we were
coming, they know we are here now.
for Dora?
What are you stalling
I don’t believe you want to go.”
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“Ye be right there.
That I do not.”
muttering more to herself than to Sy.
Dora was
“Twas hard enough to
leave the world behind and clamber up here into nothing.
Twill not ease me to go underground into more and blacker
nothing.”
Sy nodded.
that something?
“Well, you’re not alone now anyhow.
Isn’t
We can descend into the black nothing
together, two moles into the belly of the beast.”
Shaking her head, Dora turned back towards where they
had left the packs.
“Do we go then.
If I stay longer
pondering ye’ll have to drag me pack and all.”
We must look for the best place to begin,” said Sy.
“Better our hands free than stumping around with packs.”
“If ye can read where us’ll have light, can ye not
read where us’re to go down?
I’ll bring the packs.”
Sy went back to the pattern she had been tracing
already and ran her fingers over it again, but she found
nothing new there and nothing to say where an entrance
might be.
There were other rocks with markings on them,
and she was trying each in turn when Dora came back with
the first pack.
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Sy rubbed her forehead in frustration.
nothing.
“I can find
Can’t even read the patterns here now.
have to look after all.
the famous pull.
Maybe we
Come on, you’re the one who feels
You have a try at it.”
“It usually do come when I be not expecting it.
use I’d say in my trying overmuch.”
But Dora stood as she
had in the forest outside the village and waited.
she was a long time waiting.
No
As then,
Sy went and brought her pack.
Dora was placed there among the grey rocks, her head to one
side as though listening.
The morning was heating toward noon, so Sy sat down in
the shade of a standing stone, the only sound the singing
of grasshoppers in the lush greenery and a breeze among the
grass.
She noticed that the place where they were was
indented slightly into the plateau.
From where she was
sitting, she was just a little above Dora’s level and could
see the shape of the place more clearly.
The great stones
that were still upright swirled to form an egg shape with
the largest toward the fatter end.
Dora had chosen to
stand almost in the middle among fallen smaller rocks which
lapped around her like waves.
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Narrowing her eyes to get an idea of the pattern, Sy
suddenly realized there was another reading she hadn’t
thought of.
Keeping her eyes half closed, she began to see
wavering heat lines in the air consolidate into a sort of
maze above the stones and she got slowly up with one hand
on the rock to steady herself.
At first she moved
carefully, afraid she might hit a rock hidden under long
grass and go tumbling headlong.
But soon she lost her fear
in fascination witht he steps of the dance and let the path
of the maze direct her feet as the sun energy in the air
seemed to uphold the rest of her body.
It was a slow dance and a sweet one, moving toward
Dora and then away again.
listening for her guide.
Dora herself was lost in long
Sy felt she was unwinding
something, unravelling it, unbinding Dora from the heart of
a puzzle.
There was something sad to it, and Sy began to
cry again as she moved.
But there was no storm to this
crying, rather it seemed to be bringing Dora and herself
closer to a home Sy could see from far off, a place she had
longed for without knowing it.
Finally she could reach out
and touch Dora, first from one side and then from another.
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She could sense the maze opening like a giant flower above
the two of them as Dora opened her eyes and smiled.
The two women picked up their packs and walked
unerringly toward the great door that had opened in a mound
at the narrow end of the egg.