The Last Rabbit
Page 16
The rest of it was torn off. That was the part that Bronagh let him have:
I am sending my children into your care. Look after them.
Your daughter
Grandfather pretended not to cry when we read it.
So yes, I’m going to be very careful with magic. Somehow, I’d plucked a vision of my father across space and time, across the very threshold of death, with only a rusted hero’s medal, not to mention the whole turning-my-sisters-into-rabbits thing. But nothing helped me to bring my mother back.
Instead, my grief and guilt created a monster.
The Boy explained it best when he told me about the nature of magic. “Feelings are powerful things, Albie, the most powerful things, actually. Why else would you risk your own future to bring everyone together? Feelings. How else could you have made the Howler? Yes, it was your creation. That’s why you could never outrun it. It was the strength of your emotions. And how did you defeat the sluagh and save the Magician? Feelings. The ability to feel something so strongly as to change everything, well, that is no different from spells and incantations, really. What is magic but one way of doing things? That’s the truth of it.”
There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.
I’d be careful if I was going to dabble in magic again. Who knew what magic I was really capable of? If I were to guess, I would say that I inherited something unbelievably powerful, yet possibly sort of deadly. I was the best and worst of the lot of us. Mum wasn’t here to teach me properly, and though I could ask the Magician, I’d rather spend the time we had left together doing other things. Simple things. The kind of things you might write poems about and read to someone on a summer’s day.
Sometimes we lose things and we are broken.
Sometimes we find things,
and sometimes,
if we are lucky,
we mend.
I’d find magic again. When the time was right, I’d learn the proper way to do things. Of course I would.
From my window, I could see the Sea. And I was sure that my grandmother could see me as well. She waved to me, and I knew it was time to go and listen to her poetry.
I hear her now and then. I’m the only one, though. Even the Magician can no longer listen to her poems.
So I write down the poems from the Sea and read them to him each night. Sometimes we walk slowly together to the beach. It’s quite a ways from the house, and it tires him greatly, but he doesn’t care. He likes to roll his pants up and feel the cold rush of water on his feet. It’s as close to frolicking as he gets.
The war wages on out in the world. It may seem as if we forget what horrors continue outside our little corner of the world. But the truth is, we will never forget. The war took Mum and Papa. They weren’t content to sit idly by and allow the progress of evil. I don’t know if their sacrifice was worth it in the end, though. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? In the moment you never know if what you are attempting will work.
We can only try.
* * *
Sometimes the Boy and Caragh are there when we walk to the beach, working on the Boy’s boat, which is magical and doesn’t really need any work. When they see us coming, they pull apart, as if they weren’t clasping hands.
The Boy keeps asking me what in the world I’m writing in my small book. But I don’t tell him.
“You’re writing, Once upon a time there was a very stubborn rabbit. Admit it,” he says. I’m doing no such thing. And even if I were, that is the most hideous beginning of a tale I could ever imagine.
Sometimes the Sea asks me for a poem. I’m still not as good as she is, but I’m getting better with practice. I’ll never be much of a rhymer, but just as there are different kinds of magic in the world, there are different kinds of poems, too.
Here is her favorite:
The Island of Hybrasil
Once it lived on every map,
drawn or painted,
just off the coast,
a roundish blob of an island.
Everyone knew of it,
until they didn’t.
Until it disappeared into the sea—
vanishing from reality into imagination.
The last visitor found only
a castle,
a magician,
and four silver-gray rabbits.
Curious, those rabbits.
Unlikely seeds for an epic tale.
It isn’t finished yet. And I’m not even sure if it’s a poem, or perhaps the start of something different altogether. The Sea thinks it sounds more like a story, and that’s just fine, she says. Stories and poems come from the same place.
It will probably take me a while to figure it all out.
But I’ve got time.
Author’s Note
Hy-Brasil (also written as Ui Breasail) actually did appear on maps for hundreds of years, just off the western coast of Ireland. There are many legends that surround this mysterious island. It is said that Hy-Brasil only appears every seven years, that it is held down by four iron stakes at each corner, and that when those are removed, the island moves. Some legends claim that Hy-Brasil is the home of ancient Irish gods; others claim that the island is home to monks who preserved the records of an advanced society. But the story about Hy-Brasil that intrigued me the most was the 1674 report by Captain John Nesbit, who apparently visited Hy-Brasil and was greeted by a magician and some rather large rabbits.
Curious, those rabbits.
Sometimes that is all it takes for a story to bloom—a mystery, a legend, and a touch of something curious.
The story of Albie and her rabbit sisters grew from such seeds, but of course, all events and characters are pure fantasy, with a touch of historical inspiration. Albie’s papa is based on decorated pilot Paddy Finucane, one of ten Irish pilots to fight in the Battle of Britain (although he was probably not married to a magical person). Barinthus, the sluagh, and the kelpies are all part of Celtic folklore.
As for the sea, well, anyone who has sat on a beach or a cliff and watched the hypnotic beauty of the waves or heard the poetry in the splashing of the surf knows that the sea’s magic is real. I have tried to capture a small piece of her wonder on these pages.
Acknowledgments
Some books try to kill you when you’re writing them. They make you wrestle each word onto the paper and wring the strength from your heart and soul, page by page by page.
Some books save you. They restore your trust in writing. In story. In yourself.
The Last Rabbit saved me. There are many thank-yous in order, for without this wonderful team, there would be no Albie. And at this point, I can’t imagine a life without my little rabbit girl.
Thank you:
To Jordan Hamessley, my agent, who was the first official reader of the completed manuscript. Her love for Albie gave me faith in this book at a time I so desperately needed it. And to Jo Volpe, the amazing head of New Leaf Literary, who always, one hundred percent of the time, has my back.
To Dana Carey and Wendy Lamb, whose insight into EVERYTHING is something that I value beyond measure. These women. THESE WOMEN!! They are the kind of women Albie and her sisters aspire to be.
To everyone at Random House Children’s Books who worked on The Last Rabbit. The author is not the only one who puts her heart and soul into a book. The behind-the-scenes team dedicate their lives to enriching the literary lives and imaginations of children everywhere. Without these folks there would be no books. Special thanks to designer Michelle Cunningham, managing editor Tamar Schwartz, copy editors Colleen Fellingham and Tricia Callahan, proofreader Annette Szlachta-McGinn, production manager Tracy Heydweiller, and everyone in marketing, publicity, and sales.
To Julie Mellan, whose illustrations captured the magic of the story and left tiny paw-prints on my heart.
To my parents, John and Nancy Moore, for believing.
To my sister, Susan Moore Daniels, and my brother, John Moore III, for standing
by me through childhood and beyond.
To Kathy Duddy and Holly Pence, who remind me that family is more than blood.
To Chris Kopp and Nancy Villalobos, who read the first chapter long, long ago, and never forgot about a cantankerous little rabbit on a sinking island.
To the children of Jefferson Elementary School, who inspire me every day to be better.
And finally, to Noel, Issy, and Cali, the reasons I have any words to give. Despite how much I try to offer my books to this world as some sort of legacy, I know that they will never shine so bright as my girls.
About the Author
SHELLEY MOORE THOMAS grew up in New Mexico, the second of three children. A fan of fairy tales and UFOs, Shelley began channeling her abundant imagination toward writing back in elementary school. Now an elementary school teacher herself, Shelley spends her days helping the best people on the planet (children, of course!) unlock their creativity. Shelley lives in California with her kids and her dogs.
SHELLEYMOORETHOMAS.COM
@story_queen
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