The Third Day of Midwinter

When Mei awoke the following day, he was relieved to find that the night had passed without the nightmares that had plagued his sleep the nights before. He went outside and tried to find some edible grass. After digging through many layers of snow, he eventually found some; it was cold, wet and flavourless, but it would keep him fed.

By the time Mei had eaten a full day’s worth of disappointing grass, Gabu was just starting to get up. “Good morning, Mei.”

“Good morning, Gabu. You were out late last night.”

“Oh, was I?” Gabu stood up and stretched his legs. “I guess it’s a little harder to find food in this weather. It’s been a while since I had any practice.” There was a pause as both of them remembered—or in Gabu’s case, failed to remember—the events of last winter. Neither of them was quite sure how Gabu had survived that.

Mei smiled to break the tension. “You’ll get the hang of it. Anyway, what do you want to do today?”

“Hmm,” Gabu said, “it’s been a while since we last saw Janice and Frank.”

“That’s true. They weren’t at Theatre Day,” Mei said. “I doubt Frank is with the other mice, so they must be celebrating with the squirrels.”

Neither Gabu nor Mei knew where Janice and Frank lived, so they went into the forest and started asking around. It wasn’t long before they found a squirrel who directed them to Janice and Frank’s drey, which was in a birch tree on the north side of the forest, on the other side of the river from Moonrise Hill.

“Hello!” Mei called up into the tree.

The reply, to Mei’s surprise, came instead from the foliage at the base of the tree, right in front of where he and Gabu were standing. “Hello,” Janice said, emerging from a burrow that Mei hadn’t noticed until now. “Are you looking for us?”

“Yes,” Mei said. “Happy Midwinter. We didn’t see you at the theatre group yesterday, so we thought we’d come and visit to make sure everything’s all right.”

“Happy Midwinter to you too.” Janice smiled. “Frank’s been feeling a little under the weather lately. I’m afraid this snow isn’t helping at all. I’m sorry we missed Theatre Day.”

“Is that Mei?” Frank’s voice called from within the burrow.

“Gabu’s here too,” Janice called back. There came a rustling noise. “No, no, don’t come out! You’ll freeze to death out here.”

“I’ll be fine.” The mouse’s face peered out at them from the pile of forest debris that concealed their home from unfriendly predators. “Thanks for coming to visit. I’ve been stuck in here since the snow started.” He emerged from the pile and came to stand next to Janice. “It’s not as if I even like living in a burrow these days,” he mumbled to himself.

“Why aren’t you living in the tree?” Gabu said, indicating the abandoned drey.

“My climbing skills aren’t what they once were. Mice weren’t meant to live in trees to begin with; it’s just that I’ve gotten used to it after all these months.”

Suddenly, it hit Mei. He felt silly for not realising it sooner, but it had happened gradually enough that he’d never noticed Frank’s voice developing that low wheeze or the extra wrinkles around his face. Mice didn’t live as long as goats or wolves—Mei knew that, of course—but it was still shocking to see how much someone could change in the few months he’d known them. But it was worse than that. Mice didn’t live as long as squirrels either, and Janice looked the same age as when Mei had first met her. “You’re getting old,” Mei said sympathetically.

“C’est la vie,” Frank said. Now that Mei was aware of it, the age in Frank’s voice seemed obvious. He’d heard that same quality in one other voice, which had belonged to a mouse by the name of Morty. It was a name he would never forget.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Gabu said. Mei forced himself not to draw any further parallels between Frank and the late Morty.

“No,” Frank said, “but thank you for asking. I appreciate the thought.”

There was a long and poignant silence. “Come on,” Janice said. “Let’s get you back inside and out of the cold.”

“We’ll come again tomorrow,” Mei said. “If you want us to.”

“I’d like that,” Frank said, and allowed Janice to help him back into the burrow.

“Thanks again for visiting,” Janice said. “It’s been a pleasure seeing you.”

“You too,” Gabu said.

They walked back to Moonrise Hill in silence. On the way, they saw several small groups of animals playing together in the snow, all in same-species groups. They all looked like they were having fun.

“Frank is going to die,” Mei said. “Probably in the next few weeks, if not sooner.”

“I know,” Gabu said. “It’s awful.”

“It is,” Mei said. “They must have known when they became partners that Janice would outlive him by several years.”

“Do squirrels really live that long?”

“Longer than goats, sometimes,” Mei said. “There were one or two squirrel elders back home who were more than twenty years old, I think.”

“That’s a long time. I don’t think any wolves have ever lived that long.”

They were both silent; no words were necessary. Both of them knew what the other was thinking, because it was also what they were thinking. They had already discussed, long ago, what spending the rest of their lives together would mean in practice; it had been a relief to learn that both goats and wolves lived for roughly the same number of years, and with luck, they would have many happy years together yet to come.

Mei couldn’t imagine how Janice must be feeling.

Some time later, when the sun was lower in the sky and Gabu and Mei were relaxing in their cave, Takkan paid them a visit. His ears were slightly flat, and his tail sagged low to the ground. “Good evening, you two,” he said. “I was wondering if you had time to talk?”

“Of course,” Gabu said. “Have you had a difficult day too?”

“It’s the philosophy group.” Takkan sighed. “I don’t think I can keep up with it.”

“Teaching is becoming too much for you?” Gabu asked.

“Teaching? I haven’t taught the philosophy group in weeks. Linda’s running it now.”

“Huh,” Mei said. “I didn’t know that.”

“So, when you say you’re having trouble keeping up with it…” Gabu said.

“I don’t understand it,” Takkan said reluctantly, as if admitting a great wrongdoing. “The lessons she’s teaching are beyond my understanding.”

“I thought you knew everything there was to know about philosophy,” Gabu said.

“I did, until suddenly she started inventing more of it.”

Gabu and Mei looked at each other, neither of them understanding.

“Our knowledge of philosophy has been handed down from scholar to scholar, originating from the ancient great thinkers,” Takkan said. “It’s not something you’re supposed to just invent on a whim because you think something sounds like a good idea.”

“But,” Mei said, “isn’t that exactly what those ‘ancient great thinkers’ did when they invented those things in the first place?”

“Yes,” Takkan said, “but they knew what they were doing.”

Mei wondered how clever you had to be to be considered a “great thinker,” given that neither Takkan nor Linda apparently qualified, at least to Takkan’s mind. He decided to let it go.

“Okay,” Mei said. “So Linda came up with an idea that you disagree with. So what? You’ve disagreed with moral theories in the past, like that one Greta uses, for instance.”

“It isn’t that I disagree with it; that wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just… I don’t understand it. She must have explained her ‘prima facie duties’ idea five times and I still haven’t the faintest idea how to apply it to ethical problems.”

“How does Linda know so much about philosophy?” Gabu asked. “Who taught her before you did?”

“That’s the worst part; she learned it all from me,” he looked away and said quietly, “…and now she’s better at it than I am.”

“Maybe she’s just not good at explaining things,” Mei said.

“Everyone else managed to understand it after hearing it enough times,” Takkan said sulkily.

“Well…of course they did,” Gabu said. Mei and Takkan looked up at him in surprise. “They’re all used to not understanding things. I expect they’ve been not understanding what you’ve been saying for months now, so they’ve already figured out how to understand it anyway. But you’re new to it, so you don’t know how to do that yet.”

Takkan blinked at him. “I must say, it’s becoming a more familiar experience by the minute.”

“No, Gabu’s right,” Mei said. “I felt the same way when I tried to learn philosophy. If you approach it thinking you already know everything, you’ll end up learning nothing. Explaining it to other people helped a little, at least for me.”

“Fine. Okay. I’ll give that a try.” Takkan stared into a corner of the cave.

“That’s not the only thing you wanted to talk to us about, is it?” Mei said.

“I guess I just wanted someone to talk to. With Kuro-san gone, Linda and Greta running my groups, and everyone busy celebrating Midwinter, no one really needs me anymore.”

Gabu and Mei looked at each other. This was worse than they thought. “Of course people still need you,” Gabu said. “There’s no way Greta could write all those songs by herself. There’s no way anyone could, other than you.”

“All the songs for Greta’s play are already written.”

“Okay,” Mei said, “who do you usually spend time with outside of the groups?”

“A few people, but they’ve all been busy with their own species since the snow started.”

“You can’t join in with the other foxes?” Gabu asked.

“They never invited me,” Takkan said simply. “I don’t spend much time with them.”

“That’s a shame.” Gabu said. “Well, you can stay here for as long as you want.”

“Thank you,” Takkan said, and settled himself down. “Did you say you had a difficult day too?” They told Takkan about their visit to Janice and Frank. “I see. Tell Frank I wish him well; he was one of the best singers we had.”

The three of them continued to talk until sunset, at which point Takkan decided to leave.

“You don’t want to sleep with us?” Gabu asked innocently.

“I think word might get around if I did that,” Takkan said, smiling faintly. “Thanks again, you two. See you around.”