by S D Smith
“Is Airen home?” Helmer asked.
“Who’s asking?” She nocked another arrow.
“Her brother,” Helmer said.
“Not possible,” the doe said, her face fixed in worry as she stared at them, glancing nervously at the swords at their sides. “Her brother’s dead.”
“I’m not dead, girl. Who are you? Where’s Airen, and where’s Snoden?”
“Father’s dead,” she said. “Been dead for years. How could you not know that and say you’re Mother’s brother?”
“I’ve been gone a long time. I’m very sorry about your father,” he said, and Picket could hear the sadness in his voice. “Sno was a good rabbit.” She seemed to relax at this, her anxious face less tense.
“Father told me about a time you two got in trouble,” she said. “Did a thing that nearly got you booted from the army. What was it?”
“We swam to Forbidden Island.” He smiled at the recollection. “Airen was furious for a month that we didn’t include her.”
“You really are my uncle,” she said, lowering her bow. He crossed to fold her in a hug. Picket smiled at this reunion. It made him all the more eager for more like it.
“Now, child, where’s Airen?” Helmer asked.
“Where she always is,” she answered, “inside, sitting and knitting.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Louise, but they call me Weezie.”
“All right, Weezie,” Helmer said, “I’m going to see your mother.”
She nodded, and Helmer hurried up the front steps and entered the run-down house.
Picket stood in silence for a little while, unsure what to say.
“Where are you from?” Weezie asked.
“I’m Picket. And I’m from a place called Nick Hollow,” he answered. “Up northwest pretty far.”
“Picket?” She laughed. “Like the song? You think I’d believe you came from the outside? Nobody’s come from the outside for a very long time. You tell some stories, don’t you?”
“I can also fly,” he said, smiling as he set down his pack. “Do you have any water?”
She laughed, shook her head, and motioned for him to follow her inside.
They walked down a corridor and entered a small room with a wide window. Picket stopped and gazed out at overgrown fields leading up to a riverbank. “It’s lovely,” Picket said, accepting a mug of water dipped from a big pitcher.
“It used to be,” Weezie answered. “Now I can barely keep the lawn around the house tame.”
“You don’t have any help?” Picket asked. But before she could answer, he heard loud weeping. Weezie frowned and hurried from the room. Picket followed her through a hall and into a wide space, where Helmer knelt in front of a thin fragile-looking rabbit whom he held tightly in his arms. She stared off, her eyes wide and distant.
It was Helmer who wept.
“Are you the only ones here?” Picket asked quietly.
“Have been for some time,” Weezie answered, “since they killed Sissie.”
“You had a sister?” Picket asked.
“My twin,” she answered. “They took her on Victory Day, almost two years ago. Mother’s never been the same since. Now all she seems to do is worry they’ll come for me.”
“Airen,” Helmer said tenderly, “I’m going to take care of you. We’ll make this right.”
“They’ve taken Layra, Helm,” she said, her voice flat and emotionless. “It can’t be made right. First Sno, and we survived. But Layra too. Just a child.”
He held her tight, his eyes overflowing with tears. “I’m home now, Sis.”
“You’re too late,” she said, and Picket’s heart felt as if it had been harpooned. “You’re too late.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FLICKER IN THE EYES
Picket went outside. It was too much to listen to the weeping and the regret, the sad weight of grief that hung in the house and on every soul inside. But looking around outside, from the nearest farms in disrepair to the tops of the buildings in the distant square, he saw a city sick with sadness. It seemed to drip from the buildings and ooze through the fields. Since his naive childhood ended when his family was attacked in Nick Hollow and he became aware of the truth of the broken world, he had felt the collective despair at the heart of rabbitkind. But now he saw how different life at the secret citadels was compared with the sullen slavery of First Warren. Compared to this city, Halfwind Citadel was teeming with hope. As was Cloud Mountain, the bright bastion of the heralds of the Mended Wood.
He missed those places then, thinking again of the rabbits who, for him, belonged in each place, following their own callings and sharing life. He had not realized how good he had it. Had not realized what a privilege it had been to be there among free rabbits. To have been free himself.
I’m still free. And I’ll die fighting to free the rest. For Airen, for Weezie. For Father, Mother, Jacks. For my dear Heather.
He heard the door open behind him, and soon Weezie was at his side. “You hungry?” she asked.
“I don’t feel like eating,” he said, turning away to hide his face.
“Lots of bucks leaking from the eyes today,” Weezie said, punching his shoulder. “Someone should call a doctor.”
Picket smiled, turning to her. “How do you keep your spirits up?”
“You really from the outside?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Well, outsider,” she said, motioning vaguely around. “I’ve never known anything but this. I get that it’s a sad situation, especially since my sister’s been gone and Mother’s gone to pieces, but that’s how it is here. That’s normal life.”
“It’s not normal,” he said. “And I’m so sorry that it feels normal to you.”
Weezie took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks, Picket,” she said, smiling. She pulled him toward a path, and they were soon on a walk around the farm. They said nothing for a while, and Picket examined the old place and all the signs of its fading fortunes. What had it once been? It was easy to imagine the pleasures of life here in simpler, safer days. Freedom and a farm, surrounded by loved ones, sounded like the pleasantest dream he could right now imagine.
“Maybe we should tell them where we’re going,” he said.
“You’re probably right,” she answered. “Mother’d lose all connection to the world if anything happened to me.” They stood within sight of the house but didn’t turn back.
“What happened to her—to your sister?”
“The secret police took her. Prince Winslow’s Black Band, his own private death squad. It’s operated by his lieutenant governor, Daggler, a handpicked assassin whose life is spent making sure there are no disturbances.”
“Disturbances?”
“Like yesterday. That’s what Daggler does. He keeps that sort of thing from happening. Wait,” she said, as if struck by a new thought. “Was that you? The bombs?”
Picket nodded, frowning. “It’s how we covered our entrance. If we had known the cost, we wouldn’t have done it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” she said, patting his hand. “They will take any excuse to reinforce their control.”
“So your mother has been ill since your sister’s disappearance?”
“She was so strong for so long.” Weezie sighed. “And it was understood that she was being watched by the Black Band and that if she stepped out of line there would be severe consequences. She was on their list from the beginning. Rabbits of Extreme Interest. She didn’t do anything. She never stepped out of line. But they took Layra anyway, the villains. They took her from us, while the three of us were on a walk, and she was just gone.”
“Maybe she’s still alive?”
Weezie shook her head. “Mother went to the governor’s palace, pleaded with them for any news of Layra. She got nowhere. On her third visit, it was represented to her, in brutal clarity, that her Layra was dead and that Layra’s twin would join her if she came asking quest
ions again or if she made the slightest move that seemed to support the resistance.”
“So this hangs over your family—this warning.”
“Yes. And I’m all she has.”
They walked back to the house and tiptoed inside. They found Helmer bringing Airen some food and trying to coax her to eat. Picket signaled to Helmer, indicating they were taking a walk. Helmer nodded, his face twisted in an anxious expression. Picket put his fist over his heart. Helmer nodded, gratefully returning the salute.
When they were outside, Weezie grabbed her bow and quiver, then led Picket down a new path away from the house. “You love my uncle.”
“I do. Very much. He’s my master but also a dear friend. He’s been a father to me while my own has been absent.”
“Did your father abandon you?”
“No, he was taken. I hope he’s still alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You know, I’m from a place kind of like this,” he said, bending to pick up a twig. “Far away from the hurry and worry, a slow place with wide fields, ample orchards, and good neighbors. I thought I only missed the ones I love, but I miss the place, too. The way of living.”
“And here I thought you were some exciting soldier with tales of adventure,” she said, laughing.
“I have those,” he replied. “But it’s no way to live.”
“Adventure is no way to live?”
“Not always, Weezie,” he said, tossing a stick into a thicket. “You want rest at some point.”
“You don’t seem like you’re ready to rest.”
“Not yet,” he answered. “Not while the world’s as it is.”
They moved through an overgrown path, then into a fence-lined field, over which continued to climb the sun. Weezie smiled at Picket and nodded at the sun. “The world as it is,” she said.
“Dark as it gets,” he said, gazing at the light breaking over the fields, “there’s always a dawn.”
“And always another night looming,” she mumbled.
They were quiet for a little while, enjoying the modest glory of the country sunshine. Picket breathed in deeply. He felt, even amid the pain behind and ahead, that this was a moment to savor. He closed his eyes and breathed it in once again. He felt the sun on his fur and listened to the whisper of the swaying grass, bending gently in the easy breeze. It felt so familiar. It was a little like going home. He felt if he opened his eyes he might see Heather streaking past him to grasp the starstick. He might at any moment hear Mother call them in for dinner, and Father would be there with his stories, while Jacks played at his feet. How old was Jacks now? He must be walking and talking and reading and writing by now. Where were they all? What had happened to them?
And what would happen to him? Would he ever have a home again?
“I know they took your daddy, but do you have any other family?” Weezie asked.
He opened his eyes and saw Weezie staring at him. He had almost forgotten her for a moment, thinking of his family. Seeing her leaning against the fence, he sensed her intense connection to this place. Picket nodded, then swept his gaze once more over the stretching fields, down to the river, and back to the forest behind them.
“My family. Yes, I have more. Father and Mother and my little brother, Jacks, were taken by Morbin’s wolves. My sister, Heather, was taken more recently. So, other than my Uncle Wilfred, Helmer is the closest thing to family I have, along with Emma—and Jo and Cole.”
“It seems you have quite a band of family substitutes,” Weezie said, smiling at him. “Tell me about Emma.”
Picket laughed. “Well, that is a long story.”
Weezie looked down, then out across the fields. “I have no friends,” she said. “I have only these fallow fields, this empty sky, and a mother whose soul is broken beyond repair.”
“I’m sorry, Weezie.”
“It is what it is,” she answered.
“True. But it’s not normal,” he said, “and it’s not right.”
“It’s normal here. It is what it is.”
Picket took her hand and said, “It is what it is, but it is not what it shall be.”
“You believe the stories about the mending?” she asked.
“We’re living those stories,” he said. “And it’s time you saw your part.”
“What will we do?” she asked. “What can we do against such powers?”
“I’m not sure, Weezie. But we will never do nothing, until the mending comes.”
He looked at her face, saw the sun reflected in the deep green of her eyes, and saw there a flicker of a fire that seemed certain to grow. She, like her mother and uncle, was not naturally meek and yielding to this evil regime. She needed very little, Picket thought, to burst into fiery resolve. He saw it smoldering there.
“It feels wrong, but I want to leave her, Picket,” she said. “I want to go with you and join your cause.”
“We are bringing the cause here,” Picket answered. “And you are welcome to it.”
They heard a snapping limb behind them. Glancing quickly at each other, they burst away, rushing up the path back to the house. Picket ripped free his sword, and Weezie nocked an arrow as they ran.
Picket saw ahead the narrow path between thick brush on both sides and called to Weezie, “Is there another way?”
“No!” she shouted, and they sped on, rushing into the dense thicket’s path.
Weezie was just ahead of Picket, so he saw the black-clad rabbit dart from the brush. She loosed her arrow, but it missed as she was tackled, rolling into the brush on the other side of the path. Picket leapt in after her but was himself tackled, his hand pinned to the ground and his sword knocked free. Seven rabbits at least, all dressed in black with black masks covering all but their eyes, had them subdued in seconds.
Before they could cry out, gags were forced around their mouths. Picket looked at Weezie. Her eyes were wild in terror, then slowly sank in grim resignation. She had expected this for a long time.
It was normal here.
The fire in her eyes was gone.
Chapter Thirty
NO, ESCAPE
Picket was dragged—gagged and bound—down a slim forest path. He saw Weezie’s face and felt a keen stab of guilt, knowing well what fresh wreckage this would bring to Helmer’s home. He saw Weezie’s withered look, the beginnings of the hopelessness that had so seized her mother. Then a black bag was forced over his head, and he could see nothing. He felt the agony of helplessness added to his mounting guilt. He was dragged down the path, forced along by firm hands. At first he fought back, making everything hard on his captors, but after a while he tired and surrendered to the reality that they, in fact, had him.
Picket remembered his training then and tried to calm his head to find a solution to this situation. The greater part of his mind insisted that none was possible, that there was no real tactical solution available. But he pressed on, thinking of what small openings there might be to effect an escape.
He became docile then, walking without resistance, needing no further prodding as they hurried along. He would pick his moment. He would save his rage. They would think he had surrendered, and then, when they least expected, he would lash out with savage fury.
Picket listened. He pretended to stumble, feeling with his bound wrists the equipment with which his nearest captors were armed. He did this several times, pretending to be nursing an injured leg so that they came closer and aided him more. He set his mind to work. After a march of fifteen minutes, they turned left, and Picket could feel the air change. It was cooler now. Perhaps it wouldn’t be long before his opportunities were gone. He affected to weep beneath the bag over his head, and the grip on his arm loosened ever so slightly. It was now or never.
Picket lunged hard to the right, knocking into the nearest bandit, whose grip had loosened. He felt the crunch and separation as the bandit fell away with a startled curse. Picket balanced against the blow and stood steady, gripping in his hands the bandi
t’s belt knife. He made quick work of cutting his wrists free while running hard to his right. He hoped there were no trees immediately in the way. He tripped into a thicket, low limbs scraping against him as he freed his hands and tore the bag off his head.
They were coming, of course. Black-clad bandits tore after him. He couldn’t just run off and leave Weezie, but he had to make them think he would. It was one of the few advantages he had. They didn’t know what he would do and would have to base their tactics on obvious expectations. He would have to counter those with his own precise schemes. Taking in the scene before his eyes in a fraction of a second, he leapt away, tearing off the gag as he ran.
Holding the knife tight, he planned as he ran, arcing back toward the group in a seemingly frantic flight. Picket could not, would not, leave Weezie to these thugs. But he had to be careful. Everything depended on his execution of a perfect plan. The scene he had just left, and was carefully bending back toward, was set in his mind. Several black-clad bandits, perhaps three, surrounding Weezie and gripping her arms tight. The rest, maybe four, tearing through the woods behind him. He marked the location of the limbs, the play of the sunlight through the trees, and a thousand smaller details that fed into the machinery of his mind.
In a minute he had almost made his way back to the scene of his sudden flight. Ducking and dodging through the forest, he found Weezie much as he had left her, but now only one bandit held her, and one other stood guard.
Picket sped toward them, securing the knife in his own belt. After leaping over a leaning branch, he ducked beneath another, then darted hard at the guarding rabbit in black. The guard gripped his sword and pivoted back and forth, ready for the attack. Picket made as if to dodge around, as if he were surprised to find he had returned to this spot. Then he sprang up, reached for a low limb, and, taking it in his hands, swung forward with tremendous force to find his enemy’s chin with his powerful sweeping feet.
The bandit’s head snapped back, and he buckled, falling in a heap. Picket landed, spun on the guard who held Weezie, and charged in wild fury, ripping out his dagger as he came.