In that moment, the figure of a girl came jauntily down the rope ladder and jumped into the Boy’s boat. We rocked back and forth. Caragh and the Boy nearly went over opposite edges.
“Oh, Albie! You foolish little rabbit girl!” She picked me up and twirled me around. “Oh, that I could have someone with your boldness, your courage, your downright sneakiness here on my crew. But alas, that would mean asking you to stay here, and it’s far too dangerous for a rabbit girl.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked, my trembling voice in danger of getting lost in the rising wind.
“Albie, Nodnol has become a place I can’t leave. It’s my home. Caragh told me how you’re going to create a home for all of us again in Cork—how you’re searching across time and place to gather us together, back in that lovely vine-covered cottage. Oh, Albie, only you! Only you could seek to undo your rare and wild curse.”
“You knew it was me?”
“Of course. We all knew. Who else would it have been?”
My heart caught. They knew. “Come with us, Isolde. Come home,” I begged.
“I don’t need to go home to Cork because I already am home. You see, some people are always longing for the one place that feels right. Then there are those of us who carry our home with us wherever we go. I’m always home. And I don’t need a rescue from this foul and violent place—I’ve become a rescuer. Saving others from the scourge of pirates in the sky is what I was born to do.”
I might have cried a little.
“Don’t be sad, Albie, and don’t get angry, either. We all know where that can lead. You don’t get to control everyone’s life and change it just because you want to. You tried that before, and look what happened.”
“You’re not mad at me—for turning you into a rabbit?”
“Of course not. It was an adventure. I do so love adventures.”
She kissed the top of my head and dropped me not so gently to the deck of the Boy’s boat. She hugged Caragh one last time, gave the Boy a wink and was up the rope ladder and sailing off on the Brave Paddy before I could stop her.
She was right, of course, about trying to control everyone’s life.
Maybe I should just admit it. This idea was stupid. I couldn’t save my parents. I couldn’t save the island. I couldn’t save the Magician. And now I couldn’t unite my sisters.
Caragh and the Boy were still looking at me, so I sniffed and wiped my nose with my paw.
“To Rory, I guess.”
The birds, silhouetted against the setting sun, squawked their consent.
Not that I cared what stupid birds thought.
“To Rory,” the Boy repeated.
There was really no place else to go.
Rory knew just where she wanted to go, and it wasn’t a difficult place to find, which makes her story rather short. I hope you’ll see that not everything is ringmasters and pirate airships.
The ocean was gentle as it took us the short distance to Cork.
That’s all Rory wanted. She just wanted to go home.
(Caragh’s eyes widened. Mine did, too. Caragh didn’t know this was also part of my wish.)
“You’re sure?” I asked Rory. “I mean, you could go anywhere in the world, any time. There’s a lot out there to explore. Are you certain that you just want to go back to Cork? They won’t be there, you know. Your parents are…gone.”
Rory was a quiet sort, so she just nodded.
She was, though, a little hesitant about turning back into a girl.
“What if I don’t remember how to be a girl?” she asked. “It’s been such a long time.”
“Not really that long,” I said as the boat glided across the crystal-blue waves. Some days are like that, you know? Where the Sea is almost showing off. Some days the Sea truly wants you to appreciate how beautiful it is.
(Yes, that sounded like the Sea I knew.)
“Besides, how hard can it be to be a girl?” I asked.
“Well, that is a very horrible type of question. You realize how horrible it sounded, don’t you, Boy?” Rory said.
I replayed my response in my head. Yes, I suppose you could take it the wrong way.
“It’s harder to be a girl than to be a rabbit. Just think about that for a minute.”
So I did.
Finally, when even the water that lapped up against the side of the boat was almost silent, she spoke again.
“I just want to be good at this, that’s all.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said, trying my best to be encouraging.
“We’ll see.”
The house in Cork was monstrously overgrown. It was like every gardener in Ireland had not only refused to work there, but had dumped their weeds there, too.
It was so covered in vines that it almost didn’t look like a house.
“How long since you’ve been here?”
“Since before the Blitz,” Rory said.
Two years, more or less.
She scampered about the yard, sniffing madly.
I supposed that everything must have smelled different. However, I’m guessing that not having been a rabbit in Cork, she wasn’t certain herself how it smelled in the past.
“It smells…strange,” she said.
“Let’s go in, shall we?”
Rory refused to transform, but that was all right. She’d do so in her own time.
The door to the house was open.
Not a good sign.
Rory and I exchanged a look. What if we found a stranger in the house and had to throw him out? I was sure that an undersized Boy and a scrawny rabbit weren’t any match for a squatter.
We crept inside, the door not even creaking as we slipped past.
I’m not certain what your home looked like when you were last there, but I can almost guarantee that you wouldn’t have recognized it. It had been ransacked. The table and chairs were turned over, cupboards opened, but there was nothing inside, of course. Whatever had been of any value in that house was now completely gone.
(The most valuable things were not things at all. They left before the Blitz.)
Most likely, during the worst of the war, people needed things and were afraid they couldn’t get them. And your house had been abandoned so…
At least that’s what I think happened.
Rory scampered up the stairs. I thought she might be transforming (it seems to be something people like their privacy for) so I waited downstairs, examining bits of broken crockery and such. I checked the fireplace. It had been a long time since there’d been a fire, which I took as a good sign. Perhaps there weren’t squatters after all.
“Rory!” I called out. “Everything okay?”
She didn’t respond.
I made my way up the staircase to find Rory, still a rabbit, sitting in what must have been her room, for there was a bed frame—no mattress, though—and rosebuds painted on the walls.
Rory was crying.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s going to be all right.”
“It will never be all right again,” she said. “Why can’t it be the way it was?”
“Time doesn’t move that way. It doesn’t go backward,” I said.
“Are you sure?” asked Rory.
The truth of it was that I didn’t know how time worked. Does anyone? Of course, there are scientists who are quite knowledgeable about space and time and how it all fits together. But I didn’t know much about that. I just knew how to navigate the seas.
However, this isn’t my story. It belongs to Rory.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I said. “You haven’t chosen all the way. I can take you anywhere else you want to go.”
She was quiet for a moment, then sniffled back the last of her tears.
“What place is there for me but home?”
We gathered leaves to sleep on, making beds for ourselves downstairs by the fireplace. She still hadn’t changed, but I felt confident she would, soon.
I heard her awake
n at midnight. She shook off the leaves from her fur and ever so quietly, sneaked out of the cottage.
I followed, naturally. Rory went to the small woods behind the house. A squirrel came out from a tree and introduced himself to Rory.
“Evening, miss. My name is Bann.” He bowed deeply. Squirrels are more polite than you might think.
Rory might have curtsied, but I couldn’t tell, since I was hiding behind a tree, trying very hard to be invisible. You might be wondering how I understood squirrel language. The truth is that I had never heard squirrel language before. I think perhaps because Rory understood, I could understand it, too.
Or maybe some other sort of magic was going on. I didn’t think about that possibility, but I should have.
An owl swooped down over Rory’s head. “I’m Hecate,” she said.
And there I was, understanding the words of an owl, too.
I almost called out to Rory, for owls have been known to make a meal of rabbits. But Rory was a large rabbit, and Hecate was a small owl, so I supposed everything could be fine.
“Well, I’m Rory. I used to live here when I was a girl. Before I became a rabbit,” Rory said.
“Ah, it’s you that smells of magic, then!” Bann scampered up to a low branch, a few below where Hecate sat.
“I remember those girls,” the owl said. “My, that was a long time ago.”
“You’re not planning on staying, are you?” asked Bann. His squirrel eyes were wide and panic-stricken. He was a worrier, that one.
“I was. I mean, I am,” said Rory.
“That’s not a very good idea,” said Hecate. “Others have taken over the house. They aren’t very kind, if you must know. I don’t think they’ll approve of having a rabbit in their house, unless it’s in their pot, if you get my meaning.”
I didn’t think these were the kinds of folks we wanted to deal with. I longed to tell Rory. Privately.
“They don’t seem to be here now,” said Rory. “Maybe they’ve gone for good.”
Bann snorted. “I doubt that. Probably just robbing other people’s houses.”
“Oh,” said Rory.
“Now, don’t you worry your fluffy head about it,” said Hecate. “You’ll find the woods a friendly place for a rabbit such as yourself. Rarely do we have any wolves or foxes come for a visit, and, since everyone in the woods minds their manners, you’d never have a wolf at your tree unexpected.”
“Stay? Here? In the woods?” Rory stumbled to get the words out.
When she wanted to come back to Cork, I doubted it was so that she could live in the woods as a rabbit behind what once was her house.
She looked back at me then. She had to know I was there. I flattened myself against a tree, a lot of good it would do me. Rabbits and their ears!
“Would you excuse me, Bann and Hecate? It was ever so nice to meet you. I’m sure we’ll be talking soon.” Rory curtsied, then hopped to where I was standing.
“You’re about as discreet as a herd of buffalo. And eavesdropping is horribly rude,” she said.
“Yes, of course you’re correct,” I said.
She hopped in front of me, back to the house.
Sheepishly I followed.
There were no squatters inside when we got there. Just our pitiful leaf beds, which didn’t make the idea of going back to sleep any more appealing.
“So,” I said.
“So,” she said.
Silence sat between us like an old grandmother knitting a scarf for an elephant, which is to say, things were quiet between us for quite some time.
“So,” I tried again.
“You won’t talk me out of this, Boy. This is my home. I’m staying. I’ll become friends with all the animals of the woods if I need to, and they’ll help me fight off the squatters. Then, and only then, will I change back. So you can go.”
It wasn’t a bad plan. It would put me off schedule, though, and the Magician wouldn’t be happy about that.
“But—”
“No buts,” she said. “I’m sorry you’ll have to stay so long, but this is the only way I can see to do it.”
And so it was. We stayed in the house for several days, clearing out the leaves, branches, and other things that had taken residence within the walls. Your house was ever so creaky. I’d hear noises upstairs, like steps upon the floorboards, and bolt up there only to find not a trace of anyone or anything. Houses settle, I’ve heard. I just hadn’t spent much time in an actual house to recognize it.
We didn’t see the squatters once.
And when I say that we cleared out the house, I really mean that I cleared out the house. A rabbit, though fast and clever, isn’t helpful with things that require hands.
Rory made friends with other animals outside while I worked. Not just Bann the squirrel and Hecate the owl, but also a weasel named Wat. None of them ever spoke directly to me, although they had to have seen me working my fingers to the bone each day, trying to make the house livable again. They ignored me altogether, pretending that I didn’t even exist.
At first I didn’t mind. But after a bit, I did.
Feeling invisible is rather…horrible.
Everyone wants to be seen.
On the day when we (ahem, I) had finished painting the inside walls with a new coat of whitewash, and had pulled all of the weeds from against the house and burned them in a bonfire, I asked Rory if she was finally ready.
She was about to answer me when we heard it.
It was an animal noise—a loud one. The kind that makes the ground beneath your feet vibrate.
That type of sound gives a person a chill.
“Is that…are those…sheep?” Rory said, peering through the window as the last dollop of sun disappeared over the hill.
“Sounds like sheep to me,” I said.
“Those are some angry-sounding sheep.”
She was right. I’d thought if indeed there were sheep, they would be friendly sheep, like the owl, the squirrel, and the weasel. Those were kind animals.
What was the problem with the sheep?
They rushed the front door.
“If we don’t let them in, I think they’ll break it down,” I said. “Then we’ll have to fix it and be even further behind schedule.”
Rory agreed. She hopped over to the door, jumped up and opened the latch, and pushed it open with her hind legs.
The sheep slowed down.
There were three of them. It sounded like a hundred, but there were only three.
They nosed their way through the door.
“Hey, who ruined everything? We had things set up so’s we’d like it,” said one of the sheep.
“Yeah. Looks like a dog’s breakfast in here. That’s not a good thing, you know,” said another one of the sheep.
The largest sheep was silent. He surveyed the place. His black eyes locked onto Rory for a moment, then moved on to me.
He started toward me.
I don’t know if there were sheep anywhere near your house in Cork or not, Albie. I’m thinking that it’s probably impossible to live in Ireland for a while and not have some sort of relationship with sheep, though I could be wrong. But these sheep, well, they were the kind that called the shots. The kind that terrified shepherds and sheepdogs alike.
Rory was frightened by their size, I could tell. It had been a long time since they were trimmed, and the wool flowed off them like waterfalls. No, that’s not quite it. They were like thunderclouds. And dingy gray, too, for these sheep were not clean.
“So,” said the first sheep. “Hurry along. Out with you. Find your own cottage.”
I was tempted to do just what that sheep said. But Rory said, “This is my cottage. My family’s cottage. And I’d appreciate it if you left.”
The sheep started laughing. Not a pleasant sound.
“Who ever heard of a rabbit owning a cottage?” they laughed.
“I think it’s more likely a rabbit would have a house than a sheep. Especially if you c
onsider the intelligence level…” Rory left that dangling. She didn’t like insulting people, or animals. It wasn’t in her nature.
The sheep glared. Did you know that a sheep’s eyes turn red when it is angry? It’s true. Red, glowing and demon-like. I’ve seen many frightening things in my life, but those three sheep from Cork were among the most frightening.
“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?” the first sheep sang in a growly voice. Made the hairs on my arm stand up.
“No!” said Rory. “I do not have any wool! And you’re not going to either if you don’t leave this house right now!”
A rabbit, no matter how angry, is still just a rabbit.
“And what are you going to do about it, sweetheart?” said the second sheep.
Rory jumped up on the table so she could be above the sheep. “Have you never heard of the Demon Hare?”
Her voice was a hiss of steam. I’ll admit it. I was impressed.
The sheep laughed. “If it’s anything like a black sheep, luv, you’re still going to get sheared.”
“I am the Demon Hare. I am the messenger.” Her voice sounded odd. Not like her own.
The sheep laughed louder.
That didn’t stop Rory.
She stood on the table, looking down at the sheep, pointing her paw at them.
“Yes. I am the Demon Hare. And I am the messenger,” she said, her voice only a whisper that flew around the room, then floated out the window into the dark of the night.
“Messenger of what?” the sheep said, exasperated.
It was silent. It seemed like she wasn’t going to answer.
But of course, she did.
“I am the messenger of Death,” she said.
That shut those sheep up quick, I can tell you.
It shut me up, too. Because I knew she was lying. First, she was a rabbit who was really a girl. Second, well, you know about me and Death.
But she spoke with conviction.
The Last Rabbit Page 11