"Yes, yes! What is it?!"

Deep within the rusting guts of the discarded thresher, a metal hatch swung
open impatiently. The harsh orange light of open flame blazed out through the
door; in sharp contrast to the dark and musty corridor outside, the interior of
Mr. Ages workplace was a glowing wonder of boiling beakers, twirling tubes,
brightly colored electrical flashes and such bizarre scientific splendor to be
worthy of the most fabled human mad scientists. Silhouetted in the hatchway by
the flame of the large central Bunsen Burner was Mr. Ages himself, an elderly
white mouse wrapped in tarnished lab smock and adorned with a typically grouchy
expression.

His face softened if only just slightly as he took in the sight of lovely
brown field mouse on his doorstep, the familiar red patchwork shawl draped over
her shoulders and the equally familiar young mouse clinging to her back.
Jonathan Brisby’s widow was getting rich in seasons and it was clear by her
weary expression that the trip, and her burden had taken its toll on her.

"Mrs. Brisby." He turned walking back into the lab, leaving her to
follow or go. "Whatever is the matter now? Hurry up, I’m terribly
busy." He added, "And close the door behind you."

Mrs. Brisby sighed wearily and pulled herself in through the hatch, closing
it as asked, taking less of her customary stare at the marvels around her.
Looking instead, it seemed, for a place to set down her son and rest. Mr. Ages
was not at all surprised that she chose to follow. "Timothy. I think he
broke his ankle."

"Oh?" Ages turned, a raised eyebrow, and walked back towards them
as Mrs. Brisby set Timothy on the only significantly bare portion of the table
nearest to the door.

Timothy returned the look with an anxious excitement, "The Fitzgibbons
have a big pumpkin on their porch," he informed Mr. Ages, holding his arms
out a length to illustrate what he saw. "It’s hollow and has a big grinning
face cut in it’s skin. At night they put a candle in it so you can see the grin
all the way from our house!"

Mr. Ages only feh’ed and turned to Mrs. Brisby. "How did he manage
that?" He looked back at the young mouse, noting first that his tan fur
had begun to grey. It would soon match that his father had, Ages imagined.
Noting second the nasty swelled look of the boy’s left hind paw and the dark
discoloration barely visible beneath his fur.

Timothy looked back with a apologetic, almost guilty expression. Timothy
was, notably not an uncommon reason for Mrs. Brisby’s occasional visits.

"I don’t know." Mrs. Brisby shot her son a disapproving frown.
"He won’t tell me." A worried flutter touched her voice as she
watched Mr. Ages examine her son’s foot. "But he was in the Fitzgibbon’s
yard at the time, and he walked all the way back on it."

Mr. Ages paused in his examinations. "The yard, you say." He
looked up at Timothy with an equal scowl. "You were playing around the
ruins of the rosebush, weren’t you." It wasn’t a question; judging from
Timothy’s tight lipped silence and uncomfortable shifting of weight, it didn’t
need to be. "Come on, out with it. You might as well admit it."

"Timothy!" Mrs. Brisby scolded. "You know better! You
shouldn’t be down there alone. You know that. It’s dangerous!"

"But Mom…"

"She’s right." Mr. Ages turned his attention back to the
discolored skin of Timothy’s ankle. "There still may be pockets of poison
in there, and the farmer has set up numerous traps, in case the rats return. Honestly,
you’re probably lucky to"

Timothy cut him off with a soft, "I wasn’t alone." Aware of the
eyes on him, the lad made hasty explanations. "Cynthia wanted to go
exploring. She would have gone if I went with her or not. I know it’s not safe
for her to go alone so I had to go! OWW!"

"Does it hurt when I press there?" Mr. Ages asked, matter-of
factly. The response was an emphatic yes. He moved his fingers around the
wounded ankle. "And there?" And received another, if less energetic,
yes. Without his eyes ever seeming to leave the boy, his voice gruffly
bellowed, "Don’t touch that!"

Mrs. Brisby pulled away with a start from the metal contraption she wearily
chosen to rest against , eyes wide and heart thankful for the warning as Mr.
Ages explained bluntly, "It’s hot."

"Thank you, Mr. Ages. For the warning and for my son." As she
searched for someplace safer to rest, willing just to settle with a bare spot
of floor, Ages seemed to finish his examination of her son’s ankle.

"The good news is it’s not broken." Mr. Ages gathered ice in a
cloth, not looking to either of them. To Mrs. Brisby, he didn’t seem to really
addressing either of them, or anyone for that matter. She listened just the
same, ears perking and sighing with some relief. She had gotten used to Ages
tendency to talk at people rather than to them.

"The bad news is that it is quite badly sprained. I’m going to wrap it
in ice, and he’ll need to stay off of it until the swelling goes down and the
color returns. It shouldn’t be long, but will be at least a day or two."

"Yes I…" She stopped suddenly, feeling an odd vibration, very
slight and nearly unnoticed. But then, Age’s old thresher was always full of
odd noises and vibrations. "…will make sure." She noticed the Mr.
Ages too had stopped, but only for a moment.

Mr. Ages returned to Timothy with the cloth icepack. He had just barely tied
it around the swollen flesh when a heavy metallic thud sounded. Once. Twice.
And again. Someone was at the door. With an exasperated growl, "Oh what is
it NOW?"

As if one visitor wasn’t enough. Now he certainly wouldn’t get anything
done. Not that a visit from Jonathan’s widow or her son was unwelcome, but it
seemed they were always so untimely. With an exasperated humph, he lifted the
latch bar and swung open the hatch. "Yes…?"

Arms reached from the darkness outside and hefted him up violently,
smothering him against the cloth of a tunic in a surprise attack hug. He
recognized the smell of his assailant. "MMMmPHBT!" Pushing his muzzle
free, "JUSTIN!"

Mrs. Brisby had been staring a long and sad stare at her son, who had in
turn been keeping his eyes everywhere else in the room; that name pulled her
abruptly away from her thoughts. Mrs. Brisby’s head turned with a pleasant gasp
and a twinkle fell upon her eyes as she watched the animated rat let Mr. Ages
back to the floor and give a flourished bow.

"In the flesh." Justin beamed. "And it’s good to see you too,
you old…" His voice stopped as he looked into the room beyond. And an even
broader grin broke out on his face. "Mrs Brisby!"

Mr. Ages arranged his smock and recovered his dignity while Justin glided in
past him. "Justin! You featherhead, what on earth are you doing
here?!" He paused, caught with the desire to close the hatch lest anyone
else choose to sunder in, then hurriedly followed the youthful rat. "Don’t
you have a community to be running?"

Justin, on the other paw, was not paying him much attention, his fascination
caught by the beautiful female spectacle in the room. With a ginger gallantry
he lifted Mrs. Brisby’s paw and kissed it. "It is a distinct pleasure to
meet you again, my dear lady."

Mrs. Brisby sighed and blushed. "Oh Justin." Timothy watched and
squirmed.

"I’d hoped to live long enough to see you again some day." Mrs.
Brisby pulled herself to her feet from the thimble she’d finally found to rest
on, and wrapped her arms around her friend with a much less engulfing hug than
Justin had bestowed upon Mr. Ages. "What brings you back from the Valley?
Do you have long? You must come by and see the children."

Justin smiled. "Of course. I dare say I’m seeing one right now."
His smile fell to the young mouse. "You must be Timothy." He was
greeted with a smile and an embrace.

Timothy nodded. "I sprained my ankle while looking around where the old
rosebush was. Cynthia wanted to see if you’d left behind any old drawings of
each other. She has a hard time remembering what you look like sometimes. Did
you know that the farmer has put a pumpkin on their doorstep with a grinning
face carved in it?"

Justin chuckled. "And do they put a candle in it at night?"

"um-hum" Timothy nodded, fascinated that Justin would know about
such things. "Why do they do that? No one else I’ve asked has been able to
tell me?"

Justin waves his fingers. "It’s a Jack-o-Lantern. Ooooooh!" He
spoke in a mock-spooky voice. "It’s to scare evil spirits away on All
Souls Night."

The word "rubbish" sounded behind them as Ages walked towards the
trio.

"All Soul’s Night?" Timothy leaned forward. His face was alight
with curiosity, much unlike his mother’s who apparently found the subject a
little more ghastly and seemed on the urge of requesting a change of subject.
She soon didn’t have to.

"All Soul’s Night. Halloween. The humans believe it’s a night when the
dead come back and haunt the living. So they put grinning pumpkins in front of
their doors and wear strange costumes to keep them aw…"

Justin was interrupted as Mr. Ages finally caught up, "I hate to break
this, but I assume there’s a reason you came? Other than to spread joy and
cheer." His voice lacked sarcasm, but he tried to impress through it a
sense of impatience. The second vibration had been closer, even though it
seemed that in their reunion none of the others had sensed it this time.

"Oh yes!" And within a heartbeat, Justin was back at the open
hatch. He disappeared through, and with a grunt returned, hauling on the
harness of a loaded wheelbarrow. He turned, facing backwards now, trying to
pull the wheelbarrow over the lip of the hatchway. He braced his hind paws
against the hatchway and hauled.

And the wheelbarrow came over the hatchway, crashing to the floor inside
with a resounding thud and sending Justin sprawling. Mrs. Brisby and Mr. Ages
both moved to help him up; Timothy stepped down from the table to follow and winced
at a spike of pain from his ankle.

A few chuckles and a brushing off of dust later, and Justin was back at the
wheelbarrow, now biting through the ties that held the tarp over the bulk of
its contents. Within seconds, the protective sheet slipped away.

"A candle?" Mr. Ages looked from the wax column in the cart to
Justin in non-comprehension. He took a step closer, looking the candle over,
Justin doing the same from the other side of the wheelbarrow. The candle was
large enough that it overhung the back of the barrow by several inches, and was
covered with strange carvings that Mr. Ages was at a loss to decipher. But the
script was clearly by the hand of their old, departed companion Nicodemus.

"It was amongst Nicodemus’ personal belongings," Justin explained,
looking it over opposite Ages. Mrs. Brisby watched from some inches away while
Timothy tried to scoot along the table to a better vantage point, clearly
wishing he could get away with walking up to it. "There was a note with
it."

"A note?"

Placing his hands above the candle, Justin stooped under where it overhung
the cart, looking at the underside. "Yes. In case…" He stopped,
looking forward, past Mr. Ages. To the contraption Mrs. Brisby had so recently
been warned away from. A grin broke across his face. "Mr. Ages! You got
the still working!"

Dodging under the candle, and brushing past Mr. Ages, Justin brought himself
up to the distiller, giving it a winning appraisal. "You old dog. No
wonder you’ve been staying here."

Another humph. "I built it to distill alcohol for medicinal purposes
only. I couldn’t very well go about stealing it from the humans. You know how
we feel about that."

Justin folded his arms and winked. "Medicinal purposes. Of
course." Looking around he pulled up an empty bowl from one of the nearby
benches, tilting it to the light to make sure it was absent of dust or residue
from any of the old mouse’s putterings. Then he stuck it under the spout of the
still and, much to Ages protest, filled it. "You have no idea how much we could
use this in the Valley…"

He lifted the bowl in a grandiose gesture. "To old friends!" And
took a swing of the clear liquid, holding the bowl in both paws.

And immediately broke into chokes sputterings, passing the bowl quickly into
Ages’ paws. The mouse set the bowl aside in the wheelbarrow as Justin succumbed
to a fit of coughing. "What did I just tell you?"

"Justin," Mrs. Brisby moved to him, patting him sternly on the
back. "Are you all right?"

"God, Ages, that stuff is AWFUL!"

"Serves you right too." Ages tapped his left foot impatiently.
"Now, you said something about a note?"

Upon recovery, Justin nodded. "In case Nicodemus died before he could
share this. We found Nicodemus will," A melancholy had crept into Justin’s
voice. Ages had only heard such twice before, the last time when Nicodemus had
died. The memory still brought rain to his own heart; to Justin it was clearly
even more tender a sorrow. "When we went through his things… to decide
what should be kept for the journey… to Thorn Valley." Justin’s shoulders
slumped and his whiskers drooped. "He left in his will that should he not
have already burned it, he wanted a select group of his closest friends to do
so. On the last night of the human’s month of October, before the
harvest."

Mrs. Brisby stepped forward whispering Justin’s name, and offering a
shoulder. Her own memories of Nicodemus came flooding back and she strangled
back a sob, tears softening her eyes. She felt a soft paw take her own
comfortingly. "Mom?" Timothy had slipped his way to her, ankle and
all, seeing her distress.

Justin let out a sigh that seemed to shake his whole body. "Of those
friends, old mouse, you and I are the only ones that remain."

Mr. Ages nodded. For once, he had nothing gruff to say. He stared mostly at
the floor, occasionally up to the candle. Timothy, hobbling, lead his mother to
a seat, coaxing her to rest.

Finally, "I hadn’t known he had written a will."

"Nicodemus had been thinking a lot about death, it seems." Justin
looked at the candle again, paws on his haunches. "Studying human
religion, their spirit lore and burial ceremonies. He believed in the
afterlife. I know he did." He lowered his voice, attempting to speak such
that only Mr. Ages would hear. "He often spoke to Jonathan… after
Jonathan’s death. As if Jon could hear him."

Mr. Ages nodded with a scowl. "As much as I admired Nicodemus, he had
some very bizarre and outlandish ideas."

"…" Justin walked with Mr. Ages across most of the length of the
laboratory without saying a word. Finally, he lowered his voice again, "I
think he just felt people more strongly than the rest of us." He didn’t
bother to explain at the mouse’s questioning look. "The instructions said
to light the candle as the night fell. It would burn until the sun rose. That
we should light it in remembrance of those we have love and lost, of dearly
departed friends and enemies. He wanted tonight to be a day of remembering… the
candle, he says, will help us reconnect with those our hearts cry out to
most."

Mr. Ages’ eye clenched. "Sentimentalistic hogwash!" He turned,
walking quickly away. "I don’t have time for such nonsense. I am quite
busy."

"But Ages!" Justin called out after him.

Mr. Ages walked steadily away, not giving any of his visitors another look.
"Thank you for dropping by Justin. Now go away."

"But Ages, it was Nicodemus will!" Justin pleaded, walking back to
the candle.

Mr. Ages sighed. "Fine." He waved his paws in the air in
exasperation. "You can burn your candle here. I’ll give you one of the old
storage compartments. Just don’t get in the way." Not, he supposed, that
it mattered. At this rate, he certainly wasn’t going to get any work done.

A creaking metal flap revealed a room of cramped darkness. Mr. Ages tugged
heavily on a nearby lever on the floor, greeted by sparks and a smell of ozone.
A dingy brown incandescent flickered above, fading in and out of
semi-brightness as it illuminated the large, dusty alcove. The room was
cluttered with nameless heaps under cloth. There was, Justin noted however,
enough free space to set up Nicodemus’ candle.

"There. Now try not to smoke everything up." Ages looked around
then noted the second door leading to the other storage rooms. "You can
sleep in there if there isn’t enough room here. All those rooms were cleared
out when you led the rats to the Valley. I’ve been wondering if you were ever
going to send someone to get the rest of this junk."

Justin peeked under the tarp. Tables, benches, chairs designed for the
comfort of rats. Things constructed in anticipation for the great move, but too
heavy or cumbersome or simply unimportant enough to be left behind in their
hurry. "I’m sorry, Mr. Ages. There really hasn’t been time."

Ages voice lost it’s edge. "Things, I take, haven’t been going
well."

Justin straightened up, back to him, and shook his head. "Not well at
all. The weather has been terrible. It hailed last week. I’m afraid we may have
lost nearly half our crop. They’re salvaging what they can as we speak. And
Ages… Ages, we’ve lost people." Desperation crept into his voice.
"And it’s not even winter yet." He spun to Ages, arms raised to his
side in a helpless look. "I’m really not cut out for this."

"They’re beginning to doubt you?"

Again he shook his head, leaning heavily against a tarped bookcase.
"I’m beginning to doubt myself. I don’t know what made Nicodemus think I
could lead the rats. I’m not him."

The elderly white mouse frowned. "Sounds like you’re suffering a bout
of depression more than anything else. I can give you something for that by
morning." He turned back to the door, looking over his shoulder, "You
knew that the move would be rough. They all did. There were no guarantees.
There never are with a new life.

"Ages, old friend, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe…"

Ages spun and snapped. "DON’T. Don’t even think that." He held the
metal flap open. "Now I would suggest you get your candle then get some
sleep. I’ll have something mixed for you in the morning."

Justin nodded. "Anything you can spare. We’re out of medicines up
there." He paused, looking around the room again, looking at the candle.
One paw reached out and absently grasped a nearby tarp, draped over a packing
crate. "Ages?" He wasn’t really looking at the mouse, nor did he wait
for an answer, drinking in just enough of the silence before speaking.
"All Soul’s Night… do you think maybe the candle could be some of
Nicodemus’ magic? That somehow it will let us speak to the spirits of the
dead?" He turned to Ages with an awed expression, "I had heard of
human’s doing rituals called ‘seances’ in which they lit candles and talked to
the dead. Do you think maybe…"

He stopped as the old mouse rolled his eyes. The mouse brushed the dust off
his smock, muttering something about "…youth…" and clambered out into
the laboratory. After a last pause, Justin followed. "Personally, I would
welcome it. The one my heart calls to most is you, Nicodemus, my old friend. I
really need your help right now. Your insight. Before everything falls apart,
and we prove Jenner right."

Stepping into the laboratory after Mr. Ages, Justin closed the metal
flapdoor. He looked at it, a strange, sorrowful longing creeping over him. And
patted it twice, hearing the hollow metallic thud. When he turned back, Mr.
Ages was already scurrying Mrs. Brisby out the front door, Timothy riding
piggyback (an odd human term as he’d ever heard; strange that they had never
found a suitable synonym for it) his foot wrapped in gauze that held a fresh
icepack tight.

"Now get along you two, before it gets dark. You don’t want to be
navigating the fields at night, especially with the extra weight burdening you
down."

"I’m not heavy!" Timothy retorted with the indignity of a
mouseling.

Justin couldn’t help a smile. With animated strutting, the brought his
demeanor back to the exaggerated cheerfulness that had all but become his
trademark. And followed them out into the hall, Mr. Ages in the lead and the
Brisby’s between them.

Along the way, as the light of the lab grew dim behind, Justin heard Timothy
ask his mother, "Mom, do the dead really come back?"

Mrs. Brisby stopped. Memories of a long night flooded into her head. The
longest night of her life, cold and crisp outside, with the starts blinking
down from the black void of the heavens, as she stood in the chill and waited.
And waited. The night that Jonathan didn’t come home.

No. No the dead don’t come back. You live once, then you move on. Of that
she was sure, although she could never quite grasp where you moved on two.
Perhaps is was her limited intellect. Something her children one day would be
able to explain to her. But not now… for now it was just ‘move on’. And that
was enough. Enough to know that Jonathan wasn’t here anymore, and was never
going to come back home, even for a night. What was left of him she kept
wrapped safe and warm in her own heart. As did the children, and those whose
lives Jonathan touched. In a way, maybe that was the ‘moves on’, for in a sense
he did live on through them.

Mrs. Brisby opened her mouth to speak. But the word ‘no’ failed on the tip
of her tongue as other memories mediated her response. Memories of Nicodemus,
whose candle had brought Justin back, who though not dead was thought gone just
the same. Whose voice had spoken softly to her in her minute of greatest need,
even though he himself lay crushed under the machinery that had failed to move
her house. Before Nicodemus, she had never imagined that her home could be
moved, even though the Great Owl had told her so. She had never opened her mind
to the truth that Jonathan, her loving husband, had been so much more than she
had been able, or maybe willing, to see.

She certainly had not believed that the courage and will of a single field
mouse such as herself could be channeled and focused to such power as to move
an enormous cinderblock.

The silence of his mother had alerted Timothy. "Mom?" his voice
whispers softly.

Mrs. Brisby smiled. "I don’t believe so, Timothy. I’ve never known them
to." She began to walk again, hurrying, though it wearied her, attempting
to catch back up to Mr. Ages.

By the time Mrs. Brisby had reached Mr. Ages, he had come to a stop. Upon
reaching them, Justin immediately saw why.

The sky outside had shifted to a think, murky charcoal and water lashed down
from above with a steady fierceness. A small pool was forming in a rusty dent
in the metal floor, captured from a peephole in the wall above.

"Well that settles it. You two are staying here tonight." Mr. Ages
turned and began heading back. "I thought I felt thunder."

"But Mr. Ages!" Mrs. Brisby protested. "I have to get back to
the children!"

"Martin can take care of them, mom. He’s old enough."

Mr. Ages spun. "You go out in that at you could catch your death. And
if you don’t, he surely will. A fat lot of help to your children that would
be."

Mrs. Brisby started to respond, but the conversation was abruptly ended by a
start flash of light through the peephole above and a crashing roar of thunder
that shook the thrasher underneath their feet with it’s power.

Mrs. Brisby looked to Justin, who looked back at her. Timothy cringed and
looked up at the hole.

"Come on. I’ll take some of the tarps and make a bed for you two in one
of the empty storage rooms." Ages was already walking away. "Well,
don’t just stand there, come on."