Cutting off a mole’s feet and hanging them around the neck will relieve toothache, and slicing the tip off a living mole’s nose to let the blood fall upon a lump of sugar can cure stomach-ache. Moleskin on the chest will ease a cough.
The widow Temperley is teaching me how to cure various ailments. It is surprising how many of her cures involve moles. But it is good, because many moles live in the field between her house and mine and are easy in the catching. I do feel quite sorry for the moles this Christmas. My dear father is unwell and he complains of pains everywhere. I must have used up a whole mole town by this time. I have stitched a blanket of moleskin and laid it over him, but he does not improve, and Mrs Temperley told me to start feeding him the moles direct, in a stew, or even raw, for potency.
My mother says looking after my father is all I’m good for with my face. Christmas cheer never seems to come to her, even when I keep the cottage warm and hang mistletoe from the ceiling, at which she scoffs. There’s no time or inclination for kissing in this house, she says, not with your father coughing up that green slime and pieces of mole to boot.
I have to agree. I only peck him on the cheek once on a Sunday morning, and then take the long walk to church where Reverend Balliwick suspects my less Christian thoughts about my parents and produces a sermon that reduces me to tears for the walk back again, with my mother by my side, alight with her own faithful glow.
I am Mary Fletcher, living quietly on the outskirts of Tetbury, unnoticed by all but the moles. I think I must be infamous in their community. To them, I am Mary Mole-Butcher. They scare their mole children to sleep with stories of my ugly countenance. Mary Mole-Butcher. I think I like that better than plain Mary.
Christmas Eve morning. Still too early to see the welcome threads of first sunlight weave through the sky.
My father cries out. He sleeps alone in his bed; my mother sleeps by the fire which is the cosiest spot in the house. I wait for a moment to see if she stirs, having warmer limbs to obey her, but she does not and so I climb out, and light a candle, and belt my dressing gown around me. The floor is icy, and I tiptoe from my little room as fast as I can, past my mother’s prone form, to his side.
The candle illuminates the shape of him in his bed: a hump, his back curved as he crouches, his head under the pillow. The blanket of moleskin is a black rippling river over the sheets as he squirms against his pain.
‘Is it very bad, father?’ I ask, softly. I sit beside him and lift the pillow. He turns his head to me; he moans, a strangled sound that is not a word; he has no eyes, I see his face, his face has sockets where eyes should be, just holes, holes. There is a skittering from under the bed, and my first thought is that his eyes have been stolen; I crouch down and pull up the sheets, and I know something is there. I feel it. I feel them.
My father groans, a sound like a yawning door. The candle’s weak, flickering light struggles to penetrate the darkness; I reach forward a trembling hand and brush against a warm living softness I know well.
Mole.
I thrust the candle further forward and see a flash of pink, and hear the rasp of claws. There is a gleam of liquid light, reflected, moving quickly - then another. Two balls being rolled, and then they disappear from view. My father’s eyes. Then soft thumps, fleshy toys being dragged. I cannot make sense of it, but I know many moles are moving, taking away parts of my father. I scream, and they are gone.
I straighten. My father is so still. I think he must have fallen into unconsciousness. His eyelids are closed, but the horror of those empty sockets will not leave me, and it is compounded as I lift the sheets up and reveal his feet without toes, the toes simply gone, five small knobs of bone revealed, but the flesh taken, and no blood, no blood at all.
I hug him to my chest, and I call for my mother, over and over again, as the December dawn light seeps through the window. She arrives in the room with her sleeping gown askew.
‘For heaven’s sake, what is it?’ she says. ‘Can you not see to his needs?’ She spies his feet, and yelps, and runs from the room. No amount of calling can persuade her to return.
In the silence of the house in the early morning, my mother fled to church no doubt, I nurse my father as best I can, and I think of how I’ve brought this misfortune upon him. So many little bodies skinned, diced, noses and feet dangled from charms, worn, rubbed, and the blood drunk, the flesh eaten. I cannot blame the moles for taking a revenge.
But what if this is not enough? What if they return the next night, and the next? What if they dismantle my father into pieces and take a little more away with them every night? He will suffer and suffer, until he is dead, and then I will be alone.
There must be a way to let them know that I am sorry, and that I do not want this war to escalate. Or if I cannot apologise, then I must end what I have started.
And so I must to church. But it’s not God’s help I’m after.
Reverend Balliwick takes one look at me and ceases in his prparations for his sermon. He comes down from the pulpit and tells me that I am cursed, and a disgrace to God for torturing my father so. He goes on and on. I feel myself shrinking. By the time he is done with me, I am no bigger than a mouse.
He looks around himself, bemused by my apparent disappearance. My mother, however, sees me clearly. She stands up from the pew, where she has been on her knees praying throughout my admonishment, and comes to me. She scoops me up in her hands.
‘Mary, Mary, you have become a witch,’ she whispers. ‘You chopped off your own father’s toes to use in your evil spells.’
‘It was not me,’ I tell her. My voice is piping high; I have to shout, and even so she must lean in close to hear me. ‘You always look to believe the worst in me,’ I squeak.
‘No, explain not your evil nature and tell me no lies, you heathen wretch,’ she says. ‘I cannot begin to think where I went wrong with your upbringing. My child must have been stolen in its crib and replaced with you, a changeling, a demon in hideous human form.’
‘Enough,’ I say, and I make the short hop to her mouth, grab her tongue, and give it a quick heave-ho with all my strength. It pops free and slithers about in my grasp, flapping and slapping with gusto.
My mother yells and throws me to the ground, but I am lucky. I land on her spongy tongue, and bounce, and roll away. Then I take up my prize, tuck it under my arm, and run from her strangled cries and curses, and from the booming censure of Reverend Balliwick, out into the graveyard where it is easy to find many molehills into which I can plunge.
It is dark. Too dark to see an inch in front of my eyes. The tunnel leads down and to the left, down and to the right, meandering, moist, fetid, sweet in smell, and I am tiny but I must try to make amends even though I am so very afraid.
‘Please,’ I call out as I inch forwards, my mother’s tongue wriggling for its freedom under my arm, ‘Please, moles, please listen to my apology.’
But what is this? Light, very faint: a gleaming, undulating stripe up ahead. I run to it, and find a fat worm travelling through the tunnel, taking its time, and from within it there is a pink glow; it suffuses its body, and it is beautiful. I run past, so that I can see the head of the worm. There are no features to its face, but there is a slit which might be a mouth.
And it wears a crown of stone, a rudimentary circle that sits atop its blind head. I imagine I’m in the presence of royalty.
‘King worm,’ I say, ‘Where do you go?’
I think it will not answer me, but then, from a rumble deep inside, words are formed and issue through the slit of the mouth. ‘To the party,’ it says, ‘To the party.’
A party! Do underground creatures enjoy festivities? Such a thought increases my guilt at my butchery of them in the past, but if ever there is a time when bygones can be bygones, then it is Christmas. ‘May I walk along with you?’ I ask, and the worm nods.
We continue on in companiable silence. In the rosy light emanating from the worm I can see how the tunnel of earth widens, and how other, smaller, tunnels feed off from this main pathway. The soil itself is like a body, and we travel along an artery from which little veins spread. Whence do we go? To a brain, or to a stomach? I am seeing this in a whole new manner.
We approach a cavern, and from it pours a sweet singing. Carolling, I should say, for it is a merry song of good cheer, although there are no words to it. The worm slows a little, and then surges ahead, its segments expanding, then contracting. I hurry to keep up with it, and we emerge into a vast cavern which throbs with music. The light from the worm shows me only a small distance around its form, but on the outskirts of our path I make out many moles, lifting their noses high, swaying in unison. What a jolly bunch they are. My shame is complete.
They are also playing as they sing; I see them toss little balls and sticks high, and catch them with glee. I smile until I realise they are tossing my father’s eyes and toes around quite freely in the darkness, and then I feel slightly less ashamed of my own behaviour.
We near the centre of the cavern, King Worm and I. And there is a blanket of moleskin, not unlike the one I made for my poor father. But no, as the singing and playing comes to an end, the blanket shifts and moves, and unfolds to become the haunch of a giant mole, and then the pink light catches the razor claws upon its feet, nearly as big as a man, and I am unable to speak in its presence, so massive and foreboding is it. It turns, and the cavern quakes with its monstrous effort; it faces me, and lifts its head, and its nose is a star, a bright fleshy star, that draws all my attention. It sniffs at me.
‘Worm,’ says the mole, and its voice is deep.
‘Master Mole,’ says the worm. ‘I come to you as per our Christmas contract.’
‘Indeed,’ says the mole. Then it turns to me. ‘What brings the mole butcher of Tetbury to our party?’
There is a shocked gasp from the assemblage.
‘I come to apologise, and to ask for the return of my father’s possessions,’ I say.
‘You are truly sorry for the killing you have wreaked upon us?’ asks the mole.
‘I am,’ I say. ‘I will never do it again.’
‘No,’ agrees the mole. ‘You will not.’ He stretches out one giant claw and I know he means to murder me. But this is why I brought along my mother’s tongue; there is no sharper weapon in this world. Quick as a wink I place it on the ground, and it says, ‘You call yourself some sort of grand mole, do you? I’ve seen bigger moles in my back garden, and better looking ones too. I’m sure nobody here thinks much of you at all, lazing around all day, far too fat to dig.’ On and on she goes, and I have never been grateful of her nature before, but I am now.
The mole cowers. It tucks its shining star of a nose away, and cries out, ‘Stop!’
I hold my mother’s tongue. It ceases its onslaught. The mole says, ‘That is a powerful tool to have at one’s disposal. Would you consider a trade, perhaps? That strange talkative sword for the return of your father’s eyes and toes? And a promise of no more bloodshed?’
‘I accept,’ I tell him, relieved beyond measure, and the cavern is filled with the cheering of many happy moles.
‘Christmas Eve is the time for the keeping of our most solemn vows,’ says the mole. ‘Just as the King of Worms must present itself and be eaten each year as sign of their subservience to moledom, so we will now honour the Butcher of Tetbury by inviting her to try a slice. It’s very good.’ And the mole brings down its huge claws and slices the King of Worms through, over and over again, until it is a pink glowing pile of diced meat, the texture slimy, with a stone crown atop it.
‘Help yourself,’ says the mole. So I take a piece and chew it. It is a little like Turkish Delight and a little like marshmallow and a little like the contents of my father’s handkerchiefs before I wash them. It is delicious. The moles move forward, timidly, taking care to keep their distance from me, and help themselves in an orderly fashion. As they swallow, the rosy light of each wormchunk is visible inside them, and their little stomachs shine out, turning them all into living candles. How delightful they are as they finish their meal, take bows to each other, and link their claws to dance a reel.
All in all it is the most wonderful Christmas Eve I have ever experienced, but there comes a time when all good days must end. And so Master Mole tells me I will be escorted back to my house, along with my father’s eyes and toes, and I hand him the tongue, which flaps free for a moment in the exchange and says, ‘Well that’s just typical, you ungrateful child, leaving me down here in the dark,’ before it is silenced by being placed firmly in the mole’s armpit.
‘Goodbye,’ I say, ‘Goodbye,’ and wave to the moles. A party of six return me through the tunnels to a hole directly underneath my father’s bed, where it is night, all is dark, and he breathes evenly. The moles aid me in placing his toes and eyes back where they belong, and then slip quietly away. Only the soft glow of my own stomach lights the room. It is nearly Christmas morning, and I will be beside my father, curled up upon his pillow.
I sleep, and when I awake to the ringing of the church bells he is looking at me with his own loving eyes. ‘You are so very small, Mary,’ he says, his voice a little hoarse, but with the promise of growing strength to it.
I tell him all that has happened, and he smiles. ‘What a wonderful child you are,’ he says. ‘A good, good child. My saviour.’ As he praises me, so I grow, bigger and bigger, expanding until I am myself once again, and I can go and fetch him some breakfast.
My mother is in the living room, huddled by the fire. She throws me a look filled with fear. ‘What’s the matter, mother?’ I ask her.
She, of course, cannot reply.
‘In that case,’ I say. ‘Run along and make some food for father. Hop to it, or I’ll chop off your toes for spellmaking.’
And she does. She does as she is told all day, and for all the days that follow, and it is a most pleasant arrangement. Father recovers enough for us to go out into the garden come the spring, and we run around like children over the grass. We always take great care not to step on any mole holes.
We are happy. My stomach still glows, just a little, in the evenings, and I remember the moles fondly, and their Christmas celebrations. I wonder if Master mole is beneath me now, still holding my mother’s tongue tightly in his armpit.
I can’t help but feel that I got the better end of this bargain.