The Last Rabbit

by Shelley Moore Thomas

  I whipped around, taking in what was left of Hybrasil. He had to be somewhere, didn’t he?

  A large wave knocked me to the ground. Now wasn’t the time for a message from the Sea, but it was impossible to ignore her.

  “Albie!”

  Her voice, a whisper on the wind, came from the east. When I turned, that’s when I saw him.

  The Sea had floated my grandfather to the edge of the Boy’s empty boat. He struggled to hoist himself over but eventually made it. Lifting an oar, he shakily dipped it into the water and began rowing.

  The sluagh didn’t have him at all. He had escaped to the Sea.

  And it was my destiny to let him go.

  Still, I called for him.

  “Grandfather!”

  I might have seen him wave at me, but he was too far away to tell.

  So that was it. He was sailing out on his beloved Sea, and that would be the end.

  “Goodbye, Grandfather.”

  But it wasn’t the end of the Magician. Not yet. It might have been the end he deserved—but what we deserve is not always what we get. My parents deserved better than what they got, but that’s war for you. Everyone who’s been killed by war probably deserved better.

  As if summoned by my calls, the birds that darted among what was left of Hybrasil now changed their target. These were the very same birds Bronagh had transformed into when we banished her from Cork. They headed straight for the Magician.

  And they attacked.

  The sluagh birds went after the Magician like seagulls fighting over a crust of bread on the beach. The squawking and screeching. The flapping and crashing into each other—as if there wasn’t enough of the Magician’s soul to go around. I expected him to bat them away with his arms, but he simply sat in the boat and let them attack. Despite the fact that he’d never hear me over the sound of the howling, I tried again.

  “Grandfather!”

  I thought I was going to throw up as I watched those horrible birds tear off little bits and pieces of his fine black suit. But I calmed myself. That’s not quite true. The Sea calmed me. Soft as an evening breeze, she washed over my feet and ankles, leaving treasures at my feet: more broken shards of shell.

  And in the sky, out past the flock of evil birds, clouds in the shape of a flying ship drifted past.

  “Albie,” the wind called again. But it wasn’t the wind nor was it the Sea. Not really. It sounded more like Isolde. “Be brave,” said the Isolde wind.

  The Brave Paddy was part fog, part mist, part who even knows. But it was there, and her words were stronger than any howler.

  “Courage!”

  I quickly gathered up the shells at my feet, most of them sharp and misshapen, and stuffed them into my pockets. The golden bridle burned against my waist as I pulled it out.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I waded out into the Sea and dipped the bridle into the ocean. The Boy had said that the kelpies were far from here, but if Isolde’s ship could travel across time as a cloud, then maybe I could summon a kelpie to come when I wanted it to. Hybrasil was enchanted, after all.

  And when you are friends with the Sea (and she is your grandmother), then she just might be able to lend a hand…or a wave.

  “Please, please help me…Grandmother Murien,” I whispered. “Bring me a kelpie so I can save the Magician.”

  “Oh, Albie. You call me by a name

  I’ve not heard for a long, long time.

  I am not sure that I am even Murien

  anymore.

  Once upon a time, perhaps…

  but no more.”

  And as she sighed, a big wave crashed against me, drenching me with stinging spray.

  “Please!”

  “It will be dangerous.

  But then, you have never run

  from danger,

  have you, my little rabbit girl?”

  I dangled the bridle into the ocean once again. The ocean sent more sharp shells, creating tiny cuts along my knees and legs, which bled freely into the gray-blue water.

  “That is all I can do

  The rest is up to you.”

  The kelpie was golden green and his mane streamed behind him like liquid copper. It mingled with my blood, and I knew then the reason that the Sea had cut me—to attract the leader of the herd. But he didn’t bite—despite how tempted he might be. The golden bridle prevented that. I slipped it over his face and climbed on his back, all the while the howling continued in the distance.

  The wind called, “Be careful.”

  But I couldn’t tell, was it Isolde or the Sea?

  Or both.

  I didn’t need to tell the kelpie where I wanted to go, or try to steer him. We raced across the waves to the Boy’s boat.

  The Magician was bleeding and raggedy but still alive. He didn’t even try to protect himself from the birds. And they were vicious. Somehow I’d led the sluagh straight to him.

  The Howler shrieked louder than the screeches of the sluagh birds.

  “Stop!” I cried, as if that would do any good.

  “I banished you back in Cork!” I cried.

  The birds laughed. Or squawked so loud that I couldn’t even hear the howling or the Sea.

  “My sisters forgave me!” I yelled. “They forgave me!”

  Isolde’s cloud ship came into view, and I just might have heard her say, “But you never forgave yourself. She feeds on your grief and your guilt.”

  I felt in my pocket for the shell shards and yanked the bridle off the kelpie.

  “Keep still!” I commanded the water beast beneath my legs.

  And he did.

  Balancing my weight as best as I could and using the bridle as a slingshot, I flung a piece of shell at one of the birds.

  I missed as the birds mocked me with their calls, the howls swirling their taunts around me.

  I took aim with another shell and missed again.

  You never forgave yourself.

  Could I do it now? Could I forgive myself? My sisters had forgiven me; they had found grace. They didn’t hold my mistake against me.

  I reached for another shell, this one stabbing my finger as I pulled it into position. I took aim, but before I let go, I thought deep down in my brain, in my heart, and in my soul and whispered, “I forgive you, Albie. I forgive…myself.”

  The shell was sharp as a razor and sliced through the bird, which vanished from the sky with a haggard cry, leaving only a small shower of feathers to rain down upon the Magician.

  The Howler quieted, just a bit, but it was enough.

  I took aim at all the remaining birds, either minions of Bronagh or bits of the old witch herself, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know how that sort of magic worked. I only know that with every shell that hit a bird, the howling got quieter. Every time I forgave myself, the Howler got quieter still. So I shot them all from the sky.

  Shell by shell.

  Bird by bird.

  They disappeared like snow into the Sea.

  All except one, perched on the Magician’s shoulder like a pirate’s parrot, preening its wings.

  “Go ahead, little sister, sling your shell at me.” Bronagh’s voice came from the evil beak. “You could miss and hit him dead between the eyes. Or maybe right in his eye. Go ahead. Let’s see how lucky you are. Perhaps your aim is better than your spell casting. It could hardly be worse!”

  I reached into my pocket for another shell. But there were none left.

  Waves splashed against the kelpie and me, and I was poked by something sharp.

  I glanced down to see something shiny floating magically in the water by my leg. Impossibly floating.

  Not a shell at all.

  My father’s bronze cross medal.

  The medal was poised in my hand, and I took aim, though my eyes burned with tears I refused to shed. The Magician’s eyes were closed. Whether he was trying to hide his fear or resigning himself to his fate, I couldn’t tell.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t
you?” Bronagh said. “Afraid you’ll miss me. Afraid you’ll never have your sisters again. Afraid of your destiny. You’re a fool and a coward, Alberta O’Brien.”

  Well, she was half-right. I might have been a fool—but I was no coward.

  I let go of the medal, saying a prayer for my grandparents, for my mother and father, and for myself, the poor rabbit girl who had punished herself long enough. The bronze blade soared through the air, finding its mark in the heart of the wicked bird.

  The howling faded to a hiss, then into nothing at all.

  The Magician opened his eyes.

  A rush of water lifted the kelpie and me up over a wave that found its way to the Boy’s boat and the Magician.

  “Look!” the Boy cried.

  I turned around to see the tip of the mountains of Hybrasil sinking into the Sea with a deep sucking noise.

  The Magician closed his eyes and placed his hands over his heart.

  The kelpie nudged my leg with his nose a couple of times, obviously wanting me to get off his back. So I did. He didn’t even try to eat me as I gracelessly dumped myself onto the hard floorboards of the boat.

  Something sharp poked my back as I tried to sit up. As I felt for it, my hand recognized the pointy edges, and I clasped it tightly. So shiny and bright, exactly what courage would look like if you could see it. The Brave Captain Paddy O’Brien’s Victoria Cross medal.

  I kissed it.

  The Magician took it and pinned it to the front of my sweater.

  “Stubborn and brave. An excellent combination in a rabbit girl, don’t you think?” he said.

  I might have wiped my nose with the back of my sleeve. Then something thumped the boat, and I turned quickly. “Here,” I said to the kelpie, holding the bridle in front of his mouth so he could grab it if he chose. “Thank you for your help. No one ever need control you again.”

  He seemed confused, so I dropped the bridle with a plunk into the Sea. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  Like a puppy chasing a ball, the golden-green kelpie sank under the water until I could see only wisps of the copper mane, writhing down into the deep. Then nothing but foam.

  “Now, why did you have to go and do that? What am I going to tell him?” The familiar voice was more annoyed than angry. Whipping around, I found the Boy pulled up next to us on a long, narrow, very grand ferryboat. On both ends were ornate carvings of sea serpents.

  “Your father’s boat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Borrowed.”

  “Of course.”

  The Magician sighed heavily. “It’s time, then, isn’t it? I’ll go quietly. Just make sure Albie gets out of here all right.”

  He rose, preparing to leave the rowboat and step onto the death ferry, nearly tipping us over in the process. Not that he would have minded. He’d have landed in the Sea. But perhaps she wasn’t ready for him yet, for the waves beneath us calmed suddenly and completely, and we didn’t tip.

  “Not so fast,” said the Boy with a smirk so small, a regular person wouldn’t have even noticed it at all. But a girl who spent a great deal of her life as a rabbit would.

  “I’ve been checking Barinthus’s list, and it is true, you are on it. Mr. A. MacConmara.”

  The Magician let out a slow sigh. “Yes. I know. Let’s get on with it.”

  “You know, it’s not really your decision when to die. That decision belongs to Death and Death alone. So you must be like everyone else and live every day like it is important, because it is. You’ve spent so much of your life in hiding—is that living?”

  The Magician’s eyes became huge as he looked at the Boy, whose smirk was no longer tiny; instead it was a full-fledged, sneaky smile.

  “Now, according to the scroll, you’ve some time yet,” said the Boy. “Use it wisely.”

  “What? How?” the Magician asked.

  “You’ve kept your secrets, my friend, and I’ll keep mine.”

  The Boy waved his long oar over his rowboat as if he were the Magician and the oar were his wand. The smaller boat began rowing itself away from the ferry. “I’m guessing you know where you want to go, don’t you, Albie?” he asked.

  I smiled at the Boy.

  Yes. I knew.

  “Come, Grandfather. I’m taking you home.”

  We missed Rory’s Christmas celebration by a month—for the Boy still had difficulties navigating time and space perfectly, but it didn’t really matter.

  It felt like Christmas because we were home. All of us. Isolde, too, but just for a quick visit. She anchored the Brave Paddy behind a cloud and swung down her rope ladder for hugs and tea.

  Around the kitchen table, amid mugs of hot Earl Grey and freshly baked carrot scones (we all still had a love of carrots), I told my sisters the truth about the old man on Hybrasil who had taken us in.

  My sisters were shocked, of course, to discover the truth of their grandparents. And then, in less than a minute, they weren’t shocked at all. When you hear the truth and feel it and know it’s real, everything else falls into place. True, not many girls could claim an ancient Magician (who had lived more years than most people can count) as a grandfather, and the Sea (who once walked the land as a woman named Murien) as their grandmother, but then again, not many girls spent time as rabbits on the hidden island of Hybrasil.

  It took hard work to make the place feel like our home again. (And for us to behave like a family of humans.) The Boy stayed around for a while to help. He liked being noticed, I think, and not fading into the background. (And Caragh certainly noticed him.) Rory thought we needed plants in pots inside the house. She had gotten used to living among the greenery on Hybrasil. And so we worked at making the living room into a garden room. Caragh thought we needed a schedule of chores so that everyone felt included and needed, because everyone was. And she didn’t want things falling to pieces when she went back to cannonballing when her circus finally moved to Cork. I didn’t like the chore schedule much, but she was the oldest…sort of. We had a grandfather now. We agreed to fix up our parents’ room for him, making it far more cozy than that drafty old castle.

  He still had trouble answering when we referred to him as Grandfather.

  “Please forgive me,” he would say. “My ears are old and not used to hearing such a glorious word in reference to myself.”

  “What should we call you, then?” I finally asked. “We can’t go around referring to you as the Magician, now, can we? And it’s not like we know your real name.”

  “It’s Albert,” he said, looking me straight in the eye with pride, and a touch of sadness.

  I’d been named for him and hadn’t even known it.

  * * *

  And then it was summer.

  Summer in Cork is especially magical. The meadows are green and the sky and Sea compete to see who can be the most blue. (The Sea wins most of the time. Of course she does.)

  Grandfather’s garden was coming up lush and vibrant—even more so than the garden on Hybrasil. Rory was helping him to care for it. He complained occasionally that he’d like to have his journals back, he’d kept good records on gardening, but all the Magician’s books went down with his library on Hybrasil. Hundreds of books now rested at the bottom of the Sea. I liked to picture the Sea reading some of the tales to the turtles or dolphins—not that they’d be much interested in sitting around and listening to stories. That’s unique to humans, I think.

  And rabbit girls.

  Caragh and the Boy—well, we all saw that one coming, didn’t we? He came around on his boat whenever the seasons changed and did all sorts of things to impress Caragh, like pushing up his sleeves when he rowed so she could see his muscles. It was ridiculous and it made me laugh. But I did hope they would find a way to be together. Perhaps it wasn’t possible, with him being the son of Barinthus, and Caragh being, well, Caragh. But she was no ordinary girl, and not just because she spent a lot of time as a rabbit.

  Isolde continued to visi
t from time to time, always bringing treats and gossip from Nodnol. There was a new kind of curse the pirates were using in battle that could turn you into a newt! Luckily, Isolde told us, she was too crafty and stealthy with her ship to have been hit with it. I asked her about her “crafty and stealth” appearance in the clouds on the day I had faced the sluagh as Hybrasil sank into the ocean. She said, “Why, Albie, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  Liar.

  But I’ve told my share of lies, and I’ll not hold it against her. It proves she still uses her magic a little, and I think our mother would be proud.

  As for Rory, each week she cooked a Sunday dinner of vegetable soup, homemade bread, colcannon, and chocolate crème cakes. It was the kind of meal that warmed your heart as well as your stomach. Bann and Hecate usually dropped by for a nibble or two. They had long conversations with Rory, though none of the rest of us had any idea what they were saying. (Not surprisingly, only the Boy and the Magician ate the colcannon. Yuck.)

  Actually, we all had a bit of magic from Mum. I hadn’t thought of it earlier, but each of us had a special talent. Caragh could make herself invisible. Isolde could be in two places at once. In addition to talking to animals, Rory always knew how to give her sisters the compassion that they needed in any moment. Perhaps that is the best kind of magic.

  My sisters were special indeed.

  My mother knew it. We found the other half of the letter Mum had written to the Magician, back when she’d sent us to Hybrasil. Bronagh had tried to destroy it, but we found it stuffed in Mum’s books, which Bronagh had hidden in the attic.

  Dear Father,

  I hope this letter finds you well, for with it comes very precious cargo. Each of my daughters, Caragh, Isolde, Rory, and Albie, possesses unique gifts. It is possible with proper tutelage at the right time, the older three might be able to develop their gifts. Or they might not. It is difficult to predict. This is not the case with Albie. Already her abilities are apparent, and potentially dangerous to herself and others. Her passionate nature married with her unbridled talent should not go unwatched. I hope to be able to retrieve my girls someday, but the reality is that it may already be too late for me. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that