More Wisdom From Mister Mole: The Root That Remembered
With joy—here is a second story in Mister Mole’s Earthbound Tales:
The Root That Remembered
It was a quiet morning—the kind Mister Mole liked best.
The sort of morning where even the worms moved slowly, where the dew hadn’t quite lifted from the moss, and the air still held the hush of night. Mister Mole had finished his tea (nettle and mint today, with just a drop of honey) and was ready for a bit of gentle digging.
“Not to go anywhere in particular,” he said aloud to no one in particular, “just to stretch the paws and see where the soil’s feeling talkative.”
He chose a tunnel he hadn’t visited in some time. The earth felt different there—more compacted, older somehow. As he padded forward, paws brushing the walls of packed clay, he noticed a root—thick, knotted, familiar.
He stopped.
The root curved upward like a beckoning finger, worn smooth in one spot where someone—or something—had passed by many times before. Mister Mole placed his paw there and closed his eyes.
“Ah,” he murmured, “I know this place.”
This was the old path that used to lead him to Bramble's den—a badger of few words and warm fires. They had once shared many seasons of tea and mushroom pie and quiet evenings swapping stories. But as time went on and tunnels shifted, they’d seen less of each other. Not out of disagreement, just... distance. Earth moved. Lives bent in different directions. And somehow, he’d forgotten the way.
But the root had not.
Mister Mole ran his paw along it once more, then began clearing the path gently, careful not to rush. Inch by inch, memory returned: the way the clay darkened before the fork, the faint scent of thyme Bramble always kept near his entrance, the little shelf of stones they’d built together to mark the turn.
By the time he reached the edge of Bramble’s den, his heart was thudding—not from exertion, but from something else. A quiet hope.
He knocked once, twice, then waited.
There was a pause. Then the sound of slow, steady steps. The door—just a slab of wood leaned against the earth—creaked open.
“Well,” Bramble said, blinking in the dim light. “Look what the ground brought back.”
They didn’t say much at first. They didn’t need to. A second cup was poured, a fire was coaxed to life, and the familiar smell of root stew filled the den. They sat together in the warmth, paws wrapped around their mugs, saying more in silence than they had in years.
That evening, as Mister Mole made his way back home, he paused once more at the place where the root had remembered.
“Some paths may fade,” he whispered, patting it gently, “but they never truly disappear. They’re just waiting to be walked again.”
Craft Your Own Mister Mole
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