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[raphiot]

The Little Lop-eared Lady

How does that crazy old lady make a mess like this, day after day? It’s like she runs around the building tossing shit everywhere, giggling about how funny it’ll be when she orders us to clean it up.

I had cleaned the kitchen, the guest room and the hallway. My dress was dirt-black. I’d already smoked three cigarettes and it wasn’t even noon yet. It’s a never ending job keeping up with the crone who lives in this dump, not to mention thankless—how has Ethel put up with this for so long? How has she kept from having a nervous breakdown and stabbing that slavedriver to death?

Beatrix Potter, the loony Lunarian that lords over this little witch’s house. Oh, she acts nice enough—candies peaches for us, made Ethel a nice necklace, has only ever joked about cutting off our feet to make luck charms once or twice—but I see through the facade. That snide, smug, self-satisfied smile. The way she wears her hair in that careless, sloppy bun. The way she holes herself up in her room for days at a time without a word. She’s a self-absorbed, slave driving sponge, leeching off our labor while she lies around and barks orders.

It’s always, ‘You left cigarette butts on the dining table, Matilda,’ or ‘Don’t leave your dirty plate sitting on the veranda after lunch, Matilda,’ or ‘Could you go to the market and fetch some milk since you drank the last of the gallon, Matilda.’ Lazy old bat! Won’t do a damn thing herself! Makes me sick!

“Matilda? Didst thee drop some heavy thing? I heard a banging sound, come from beyond the balcony door,” snaked the muffled, lecherous voice of the Lunarian woman, feigning concern from inside the building.

“I, ah, everything’s fine,” I replied quickly; I had absentmindedly been stomping the ground in my very rightful anger. Thinking fast, I added, “I tripped over one of the flower pots you leave out here. Real dangerous, leavin’ ‘em sitting next to the side ramp. Lucky I caught myself. I could’ve gotten hurt if I fell.”

“Oh, truly? I did hope the ivy might benefit from direct sunlight. Mayhap you are right—do bring them inside, then, wouldst you?”

Gritting my teeth and grumbling, I squatted down to lift one of the oversized plant pots, digging my thumbs into the potted dirt. She grows so many plants here. Fruits and vegetables and all kinds of flowers. I gotta wonder, is it because she’s so disconnected from life and death that she feels a need to watch it all the time, just so she remembers what it is?

Not long after Ethel signed me up for her little lunar coven, I tried asking. Why all these little projects? ‘The fruit of the mind rots eternal,’ she’d pretentiously yarn. Just how old is she, anyway? ‘Old enough to remember, but young enough to forget,’ whatever that meant. If she can’t die, does she really need to eat or sleep? ‘Please just help your sister prepare supper like I asked,’ she ordered, before rudely leaving the room.

Between the ivy leaves scratching my nose, there was a bright light coming from the sidewalk, like someone was holding up a mirror and reflecting the sun. Annoying—as if I didn’t already have enough to put up with, some goddamn hobo was trying to blind me. I put the pot down and raised my fist to yell at them, but whoever it was had already run off.

I set the pot down just inside the door and scanned the room for lurking eyeballs. The moon hag had wandered off somewhere, and I hadn’t seen my sister in a good hour or two—there was always the chance she’d gotten lost in the cupboards somewhere, hunting down every last strand of shed old lady hair.

The balcony entrance led to a mess of a room that Beatrix called ‘the laboratory,’ but the only laboring that ever happened in there was my sorry butt trying to scrape the still-burning embers of her failed science experiments off the walls. Two big tables sat in the middle of the hardwood floor, covered in filthy beakers, dirt and the occasional spot of mold growth. ‘Don’t clean up the dirt,’ she’d tell me. That it’s ‘rare lunar soil.’ How rare can it be if there’s a whole moon covered in it?

I’m not sure what it was about it, but the room seemed to attract plants. Every time I went in there, I’d find another vine growing out of a crack in the wall. One time I found a seed that had started to grow from a single speck of the moon dust that made it onto the floor. It doesn’t concern me much—I just rip them out and toss them.

I leaned into the doorframe and edged my head into the hallway, one ear at a time. Looking toward the library, there was nothing but empty hall and closed doors, lined by that ugly waist-high red wallpaper and those gaudy paintings of Lunarians holding rabbits. They sort of creep me out—are those round little puff-rats how humans really see us? Granted, I dunno what a human sees when I give ‘em the eye, but I always assumed it was something scary. Not whatever that is.

I turned my head to look toward the door, and who did I see but my little goody two-shoes sister. Standing there, with her fluffed-up ears and neatly combed hair, dusting the paintings. So proper. So refined. That tease. That flirt. Standing there, with all the buttons shined up on her green shirt. Oh, I’d seen her, showing off to rabbits passing by the Gallery. She acts like she’s so innocent, but I’m not fooled.

And to think she has the gall to tell me how to take care of myself. So what if I just comb my hair back in the morning? Nobody’s gonna see me anyway. And if I go outside, the wind takes care of the rest.

“Oh, Matilda,” she said, turning her head toward me, those dopey elephant ears of hers flopping around like fish out of water, “did you finish cleaning the guest room? How is the laboratory looking?”

I folded my arms impatiently. Of course! The first time we see each other in who knows how many hours since the slave driver sent us off to till the endless fields and clean her countless cobwebs, and what does she have to say to me? Not ‘good to see you,’ or ‘I’m glad the witch hasn’t made you into rabbit stew.’ No, it’s just the usual lack of trust in my work ethic, as if I’m some freeloader.

Should I not at least expect my own sister to join me in slacking off as a form of consolation? A rabbit rapport that stood tall against the old lady menace? No, that would imply that she and the hag aren’t giggling giddy behind my back, coming up with busy work for me to do. Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

“Is something the matter? Your eyebrow is all atwitch,” she said, softening her voice to sound as innocent as she could manage, clearly guilt-ridden.

“Yeah, yeah, I took care of it, if you couldn’t tell. My clothes are black,” I pointed out the obvious, gesturing to the dirt darkened dress. “I’ve earned a break, ain’t I?”

“It is nearly tea time, so we can all rest a spell. Could you do me a favor first?” she asked coyly, wearing on her face an insincere smile.

“What’s that?” I impatiently demanded. A favor that would take the better part of the next hour, no doubt.

“I’ve not had a chance to tend the garden. If it’s not too much trouble, could you water the flowers?” she asked, touching the tips of her fingers together, transparently faking innocence. The garden was her job, and I wasn’t about to be suckered into taking on extra work simply because she didn’t want to get dirt on her pretty long ears.

As I was placing my hands on my hips and filling my lungs with the air needed to righteously deny her, however, she reached out and grabbed one of my ears.

“Hey! What are you doing?!” I demanded, careful not to jerk my head and pull my own ear off.

“Please, Mattie? I need time to prepare the tea and scones, so I would dearly appreciate your help,” she said, one weasley lie after another. While she had me distracted and fearing for my poor ear, she snaked the fingers of her free hand to my armpit and began to torture me with tickling.

“Stop! Stop it!” I cried between unwanted giggles. “Okay! Okay! I’ll water your goddamn plants!”

“Thank you,” she said with an evil smile. She loosened her grip on my ear and I slapped her hands away. Curling her finger and placing it on her lips to stifle her wicked cackling, she began toward the kitchen. “It shouldn’t take you but a minute, so come back to the kitchen when you’re finished, if you like.”

I scoffed. As if. The last thing I wanted was to play pastry maid; as soon as I was done watering those plants, I’d be off on another date with Mr. Marlboro. I begrudgingly made for the double doors at the entrance, quietly praying that a rainstorm had kicked up while I’d been inside.

Sadly this was one of the few days the big guy in the sky decided our little home sweet home didn’t need a thorough cleansing via torrents of rain and a sprinkling of lightning. The sunlight poked through the trees as if to greet me—what a nuisance. Eventually I convinced myself to trudge down into the mud hole we call a garden and pick up the watering can.

This dress, this field of plants and vegetables, this pail—I felt downright amish. All I needed was a well you pump by hand and I’d be right back in the 1800s. As backwards as things often were in the hermit’s company, though, we at least had running water and electricity.

I dropped the watering can onto the ground, dragged the hose toward me bit by bit, coiled the length of it next to me, and plopped the end into the can. If I wasn’t dirty before, I was then, my hands slimy with grime. I turned the nozzle, grumbling.

“Matilda, what would your mother say if she saw you covered in mud like that?”

A voice called from behind my back. I swung around to see the trees, like skyscrapers, reaching into the sun above me. A figure stood there among the forest, his shoes sunk into an inch of pine needles and shrubs. The hatch that lead into the warren was open next to him. The glare of the sunlight was blinding, but I could see his messy curls of hair, and I could feel his tired stare.

Daddy…?

The man turned to leave, blocking the sun’s blinding glare. Past the gate, standing on the crumbling sidewalk, I could see his shining spikes of golden hair tucked beneath a flat cap and his filthy-looking black leather jacket. The telltale look of a runaway coward who had a lot of nerve to show his face here.

Of course it wasn’t dad. It will never be dad.

“Hey!” I shouted at the golden hobo-hare as he ambled away. “Where do you think—”

He took the brim of his hat between his finger and thumb and covered his eyes, taking off down the street at a sudden urgent pace. I grit my teeth and tossed the still-flowing hose into the dirt. Grabbing my dress and hiking it up to my knees, I darted after the jerk. Once I reached the fence, I squatted down to gather my strength, my legs like coiled springs, and bound over the gate in one hop.

The hem of my dress caught on the gate and I nearly tumbled to the concrete. I managed to jerk it free with only a small rip, but by the time I looked up, there was no trace of that man’s greasy blonde hair.

Any other day I probably would have given up right then. My dress was covered in filth, there was mud in my shoes, and I could hear flowing water as I’d forgotten to turn the hose off—but god damn it, if I wasn’t determined to find that man and make him answer. Who the hell does he think he is, slinking around my home, spying on me and my sister?

So I took off in the direction he’d snuck away, flicking my eyes back and forth like a crazed cat hunting for a slippery little mouse. What hole did you disappear into, Gally? Down the abandoned alleyway next to the Gallery, where the dregs gather because they can smell the moon peaches? Perhaps hiding in the bushes, waiting for me to pass by so you can sneak away like a cornered rat? My teeth were clenched tight as I hunted for him, my fists bound so hard my knuckles were turning white.

Without realizing it, I’d pursued him down to the train tracks at the end of the block. Yellow cat’s eyes looked curiously down at me from the black, empty windowsills of the abandoned houses nearby, and if I was in a mood to care, I might have been concerned about the ever-present possibility of some lecher lurking in the shadows looking for his next taste of hare’s blood.

“Galahad! You coward! Show your face right now, you slimy, slackjawed vermin!” I shouted into the rustling trees. “You crusty old rat! You’ve got some nerve coming to my home, an—”

A hand slipped over my mouth, large enough to grab me by the jaw. It was connected to an arm covered by filthy leather, and above my head there was the blonde beard of the damned codger I’d been shouting at. His palm smelled like tobacco. He put a finger to his mouth and shushed me, which only encouraged me to flail my arms in anger and shout into his hand.

“Be quiet, goddamnit,” he said in a hushed, wary tone. He looked this way and that, probably looking for the shadow people that only appeared in his dried out, elderly mind. Once he was convinced that nobody was there, because of course there wasn’t, he let go of my mouth, spun me around and grabbed my shoulders. “Quit followin’ me. Ain’t safe out here.”

His voice rumbled in that gravelly way it always did, like there was a rock slide in my ears. Every time I heard him talk I could only wonder how he wasn’t dying of throat cancer. Still, as annoying as I found it in that moment, there was something comfortingly familiar about it.

“As if you give a damn about my safety,” I said, hot vapor escaping my nose. I turned my head away and huffed at him; he didn’t deserve the dignity of being looked in the eyes.

He sighed, mumbling grunts as if he had any right to be dissatisfied with me. He let go of my shoulders and gave me a long, hard stare, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. I scrunched up my nose at him to return the displeased sentiment. An uncomfortable silence settled in—which he broke with a fit of snickering.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded, stamping my foot impatiently.

“Oh, it’s jus’,” he pointed at my dirty dress. “They really got you scrubbin’ the floors and pickin’ weeds? I ‘member a time when you used to scream and shout when Charley so much as made you pick up yer toys and—”

“Shut up! What do you know? I did chores! I cleaned! You just didn’t stick around long enough to see!” I turned my back to him and folded my arms, my face red-hot. I thought about leaving him standing there right then, but I stood my ground.

“Alright, alright. Listen, let’s go somewheres nobody can hear us, okay? You can yell at me all ya like, then,” he said, sounding immediately tired of his own concession.

Turning my head enough only to give him a sidelong glance, I nodded shortly. He began to nonchalantly walk away down the train tracks, and would have left me standing there if I hadn’t hurried to follow. I again had a strong inclination to leave the senile old man to his wiles and just go home, but I was determined to give him a piece of my mind.

As we walked the tracks, the guy popped up his collar, lowered the brim of his hat and tried to sink low into his coat like a turtle hiding in its shell. It was ridiculous; as if any of the vagrants hunting the alleys for cans to turn in were going to recognize him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but laugh. “You look like an asshole.”

“Anybody was to see you with me, it’d complicate things,” he grumbled.

“Don’t wanna be seen with a dangerous Separatist criminal like me, huh?” I said before jabbing him in the rib with my elbow. He grunted and shook his head.

“No. If they was to see you, any of Jack’s flunkeys might think they could use you to get to me,” he said, an obvious lie.

Jack is dead, why would the Separatist rabbits still be looking for Galahad? Petty revenge? They were a group of displaced hares looking for a better life; they wouldn’t be interested in ‘getting back’ at Galahad for ridding them of a lying, lecherous, greedy man who promised more than he could deliver. At least, I would hope they wouldn’t—Jack broke up families, destroyed homes and tortured people, and for what? To end up right back where we started?

I found myself staring at the blonde man hiding under his flat cap. A matter of weeks ago, I wanted to see him strung up on a cross, literally bled dry to lead me to a fool’s paradise. Where did that anger go? There on the tracks, I saw his blonde bristles of beard, and for some reason I could not summon that anger. It was simply gone, and all I could offer in its place was annoyance.

“If you say so. Don’t they have better things to do than chase after a scraggly old man like you?” I asked, smirking.

He gave a raspy chuckle. “I sure hope so.”

As the track smoothed out onto road, the old rabbit lead me onto the street, and stopped before an inconspicuous looking little square house, its baby blue paint chipping and its roof looking like it might fall in any day now. Its yard was untended and overgrown, and the windows were shaded and dark. From where I stood, it looked like a drug den.

Galahad climbed the two step stoop made of cinder block before the door, and dug into his pant pocket to pull out a key. He stuck it into the door, and with some jimmying and banging, managed to get it open. I hopped up behind him to follow inside, but he placed his hand on my head as if telling me to wait, and poked his face into the crack of the door.

He stood there for a long while, taking in shallow breaths through his nose and silently scanning the room with his eyes. Finally, he was satisfied, and swung the door wide. He stepped quickly inside, ushered me in, and shut the door just as fast behind me.

I flicked the lightswitch next to the door and was greeted by a dimly flickering lightbulb above my head that provided just enough light to make out a vague amber outline of what lurked in the room. I saw the ceiling, pockmarked with rain damage; I saw cracked walls bleeding plaster onto the barren hardwood floor; I saw empty tables in the adjacent ‘kitchen’ that lacked a refrigerator. In fact, the tiny house distinctly lacked any sort of appliances whatsoever. Save for a couple of lawn chairs, piles of ashes here and there, discarded packs of cigarettes, and a bundled up sleeping bag in the corner, the place was empty.

“You, uh… live here?” I asked, looking at him incredulously.

“No,” he said, pulling a cigarette pack from his coat pocket. “This is an unoccupied house. I’d say it was abandoned, but there’s a guy who owns it. He jus’ ain’t done nothin’ with it in, oh, ten or so years, as far as I gather.”

“So you’re squatting.”

“I like to think of it as recyclin’. I’m usin’ somethin’ that’s been thrown away. Lotta houses in this town just sit empty for years an’ rot, while poor folk who could be livin’ in ‘em are sittin’ in the rain right outside. The guy who owns it ain’t usin’ it, so what am I hurtin’, sleepin’ on the floor every now and again?” he puffed excuses through the cigarette held in his lips as he leaned against the wall. He looked so unconcerned, the owner could probably have burst through the door at that very moment and he wouldn’t so much as blink.

“Then how’d you get the key? You steal it?”

“The owner was in here checkin’ fer squatters a while back. I convinced him to give it to me, an’ as far as he knows ain’t nobody been here,” he explained, shrugging.

“I thought you told us to never use our eyes unless we absolutely had to,” I interjected, attacking a hole in his complacency. “You hypocrite. Not so holy and righteous after all, are ya?”

“You an’ yer friends didn’t leave me much choice. Thanks to what you put the kid through, my old hidin’ place ain’t so secret anymore. I go back there and I’m liable to catch a bullet in my teeth,” he rumbled, lighting his cig. “An’ that’d be inconvenient.”

I nodded absentmindedly; the image of the old coot running from one hidey hole to another, pursued by drug addicts and the people he’d burned sprang into my mind. I put my hand over my mouth to hide a spiteful smirk.

When I was done silently laughing at his misfortune, however, I recalled the annoying reason I was standing in his crummy hovel in the first place. I put a hand on my hip and pointed an accusing finger at him, poised to give him the talking-to that he’d earned from his years of negligence and cowardice, but more importantly, for how he’d irritated me on that particular day by darkening my doorway.

“And so you thought it’d be a good idea to show up at my house, skulking around like a goddamn thief? These people who’re supposedly looking for you, they sure didn’t stop you from showing your prickly prick face did they? What if they showed up there, looking for you?” I stabbed my pointed finger forward through the air until it stopped on his chest, where I harshly poked his leather jacket several times.

He shut his eyes and sighed, likely taking a moment to come up with an excuse. In his position, leaned up against the wall with my finger jammed squarely into his ribs, it was going to need to be a good one.

“Hadn’t seen you or your sister in a fair bit, not since everythin’ went down. Wanted to make sure you was alright,” he mumbled and wouldn’t look at me, instead staring at the blinds in the window.

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. I withdrew my finger, turned around and looked toward the filthy tiles of the kitchen floor. There was a heavy, uncomfortable air in the room that was making my cheeks hot, so I changed the subject.

“Why’re you staying in a shitty place like this? Why not leave town, find somewhere better?” I asked, subtly concealing my desire for him to go away with an innocent-sounding question.

I could feel his yellow eyes pressing against the back of my head.

“I can’t. Not before I find ‘im.”

“Him?” I questioned, spinning around. “You mean… Jack?”

“I know what yer thinkin’—you saw the kid bludgeon him to death with yer own eyes, practically painted the damn floor with his blood. Ain’t no way he survived that, right?” He took a long puff, inhaled, and exhaled the smoke through his nose. “Iffin’ that was the case, his body shoulda turned up somewhere.”

“What? What are you talking about—didn’t the police take it?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that. I did some askin’ around, poked my nose here an’ there. Accordin’ to them, there weren’t no murders in the church that day. Just some injured folk who can’t recall what happened. But you know how it is in this town; they jus’ arrest everyone half-suspicious lookin’ and call it case closed, none too concerned ‘bout who did what,” he explained, and shook his head, disgusted.

“I’m sure the Separatist rabbits took him. They probably just chucked his body in the river,” I said, shrugging impassively. “He may have been a lying scumbag but I’m sure they didn’t just leave him there for the humans to find.”

“Ain’t that simple. If he’s gone, the Separatists should be scattered, disorganized. As it is, I’ve had three run-ins with ‘em just this week, an’ not fer a friendly chat over coffee ‘n donuts,” he said, his eyes tensing on me. “But it seems things’ve changed. They ain’t interested in my blood, not no more. No, what they want is ‘make the traitors pay.’”

I felt a chill run down my spine. That intense stare he was giving me, the low rumble of his words. This was no joke, he wasn’t trying to play some kind of mean-spirited prank. I could be in danger, just by having followed him.

Well that’s just fucking great. ‘Traitors’ like me.

“This gettin’ through to ya? Ya ain’t safe bein’ seen around me,” he said through a sheen of smoke. “Best thing for ya is to stay with that moon crone. Sure, she may be a headcase what’s got you cleanin’ her floors with a toothbrush, but no rabbit ‘round these parts’ll give ya trouble so long as you’re with her.”

“You kidding? That crazy old bag is a danger to herself and others. I’d prolly be safer on the streets,” I sighed, folding my arms.

I could either fear for my life running from the remnants of the Separatists, constantly looking over my shoulder, or I could fear for my life living as a lunatic’s girl in waiting, constantly wondering if her next crazy experiment will turn our house into a crater. You just can’t win in this world.

There was a light tap on the window, followed by several more. I felt a draft blow in from the door—a sudden rainshower. I nearly kicked the door in frustration; if I’d just waited a half hour I would never have needed to water the plants in the first goddamn place.

“Aw hell. That figures,” Galahad grumbled from the wall. He gave me a wry smile, and said, “Least we ain’t in it, huh?”

“Yeah, now I’m just stuck in here with you ‘till I decide I’m ready to get drenched,” I muttered.

“Y’know, I been thinkin’, since yer here, girl—” he rudely began, but I cut him off.

“I have a name.”

Chuckling, he cleared his throat and began again. “A’course, Matilda.” He pushed himself up from the wall and straightened his back. “Since yer here, maybe you could help elucidate somethin’ for me.” He came nearer, his presence akin to a cloud of cigarette smoke. “You were there when they took the emissary's blood, weren’tcha? You was with Jack’s Separatists from the beginnin’.”

“I was,” I confirmed, looking him unapologetically in the eye.

“You watched ‘em as they took a confused, helpless girl who didn’t know up from down and cut her open in the street. You watched as they left her to die.”

“I did.”

We were staring daggers into one another. I was afraid to blink, as it might have made him miss even a moment of my spiteful look.

“Yet they never did kill ‘er, and she was lucky enough for some bumbling kid to come along an’ patch her up. Jack, for all his blusterin’, couldn’t even kill one little moon girl. Ain’t like he didn’t have ample opportunity to finish her off later, either. Why’s that, ya think?” He stood over me, saying whatever he wanted, so satisfied with himself. I wanted to slap him, but I just looked at him and said nothing.

“I don’t think he had a sudden change ‘a heart, or that he didn’t have the stomach for it. No, I think somebody stopped him,” he sneered.

I felt my ears perk, my anxious nerves like needles pricking under the skin. I was an inch from reaching up and tearing his hair out.

“I think somebody stuck their neck out for our little moonie and begged him not to hurt ‘er. Ain’t that right?”

“SHUT UP!”

The words strangled me as they left my throat. My hands were balled into fists around his leather jacket, and I felt my bottom lip rupture as my two big teeth dug into it. Under the thundering beat of my heart, I stopped myself where I was, grabbing him, and repeated myself.

“Shut. Up.”

“... Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean… It’s just, because of you, she’s still…”

I let go of him and turned around, staring at the filthy floor. I sighed a heavy sigh; it’s true—when Jack cut open the lunar emissary, he was going to slit her throat to get the blood for that poison. I begged him not to. She’s a moonie, those holier-than-thou cretins who look down their noses at us filthy half-breeds on the Earth. I should have hated her—but she looked just like us, and she was alone and scared, couldn’t even speak our language. It wasn’t right. So he cut her down the middle instead, where she surely would have bled to death if it wasn’t for some bumbling moron in the night who happened to find her.

So much for me being some bucktoothed paragon of mercy like everyone keeps trying to imply. All my begging didn’t amount to very much.

“Just, maybe you could help me out here, that’s all I’m sayin’. If I’m gonna find ‘im, I need to understand ‘im.” Galahad’s scratchy drawl had a tint of desperation in it. The sound of him at a loss, asking for something only I could give—it was pretty nice, honestly. “What kinda leader was he? What’d he have ya do?”

“You wanna know what happened? I’ll tell you,” I stated, taking a deep breath. “But this is just so there’s no confusion.”

“Right,” he grunted, stuffing his hands back in his pockets and returning to the crumbling wall.

“After we took the emissary's blood... the next step was to wait for you to come out of hiding,” I explained, turning my head to glance at him. “With the emissary’s blood to make skoab, Jack thought you’d have no choice but to show yourself. And sure enough, you did.”

Galahad frowned and glanced down at his feet glumly, but nodded for me to continue.

“There was this old abandoned house we were staying in to make the drug. I’m sure you know how that is,” I said, giving him a knowing look.

Galahad stared back wryly. “You sure it was abandoned? Ya didn’t jus’ eyeball somebody outta their home, didja?”

“I’m sure. The place was a dump. Whoever lived there ditched it a long time ago; the driveway was full of dead cars and rusted old junk. From the way the place smelled I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a dead body in one of the rooms and we just never found it.”

“Some ‘Heaven on Earth,’” he scoffed, shifting his moustache in distaste. “Lot better than livin’ in a place you could call yer own, with people who care about ya.”

“Anyway,” I continued, ignoring him, “it was only a few of us. Me, Jack, Barnaby from the warren, some other people I didn’t know. Jack didn’t want to attract attention, so he only ever had a few of us together at once.”

Except for that time he gathered us all together to terrorize the emissary just because she survived, I remembered. We pushed her into the mud and spat on her.

“He was a real jerkass. Always his way or the highway. Always had some big plan, would never give us all the details. Just ‘trust me Mattie,’ and ‘you know I’m right Mattie,’ and ‘I understand humans better than you, Mattie,’ like the fact that he lived out in the city made him better than us somehow. He even had the gall to make a pass at me,” I said. As my lips shut I put my fingers over them, realizing I’d said too much.

“Did he now?” Galahad questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but I turned him down. He stunk like blood and rotten eggs all the time,” I said matter of factly, brushing it aside. The scruffy old man just grunted in response.

That was a lie, of course. Jack’s ‘pass’ at me was far from an amiable fliration. He deliberately tried to get me alone—I know it was half the reason we were in that abandoned shack in the first place. I still remember the lecherous way he looked at me, the way his clothes stunk like death when he came near me. If Barnaby wasn’t there with us, I don’t know what he might have tried. The thought of it frightened me, but I wasn’t about to tell that to ol’ Gally.

“He had me contacting every drug dealer we could find, trying to get ahold of a sample of your skoab that wasn’t already smeared onto somebody’s face. Then, I heard about some crackpot named Markus Flick. Think you might know him. We arranged a deal with him, and he sent a scraggly looking homeless kid up to give us the goods.” I turned to face Galahad, my arms held playfully behind my back. I was sure I was getting under his skin.

“Mm,” is all he said in return, listening with his eyes shut.

“He gave me a bag with a little jar in it, and he demanded I pay him. And then d’ya know what I did?”

“What’s that?” he asked, sighing.

“I looked him in the eye, and I told him to leave and never come back,” I stated simply, shrugging. “And you know what? He was so scared he fell on his ass, and took off running! Oh, if you coulda seen the look on his face. He was terrified!”

I couldn’t help but giggle. It really was hilarious, watching that guy’s face turn white and open his mouth to silently scream. I don’t really know what it is he saw, but from everything I know about how humans react to the ‘red eyes’ rabbits have, it must’ve been pretty terrible. Then again, he seemed alright when I saw him again later—so no harm, no foul, right?

“So that’s what happened,” Galahad said, exhaling smoke and running his hand down his face. “Goddamnit, you coulda got him killed. After ya did that, next thing he knew he was on the other side ‘a town. Was almost at the damn lake afore he came to his senses. Ya can’t just use yer eyes on folk willy nilly, this is the sorta shit that happens.”

“Hey, don’t gimme that! God knows how many people have been outta their minds for who knows how long, thanks to your little poison ointment! You got a lotta nerve to lecture me,” I shouted back.

I wouldn’t let him stand there and preach to me when the only reason we had access to this leaking hole of a house was his use of his eyes. He just sighed, however, and gave me a defeated look.

“I don’t wanna hear it. I know what I done,” he glumly muttered. “I just... dunno how it all ended up this way. Iffin’ I thought I could jus’ let him go, I’d forget about Jack. I’d go away somewhere that I couldn’t cause any more trouble. I fucked things up too much already.”

“Yeah you have! You made a real big mess of everything! Why’d you have to leave in the first place? If you just stayed in the warren, then Jack wouldn’t have convinced us to do all this stupid shit! Then, dad wouldn’t be…”

We stood there, staring at one another. There was a pained look in his eye, like he knew everything I was saying was true, but there was nothing to be done about it now. I knew that as well as anybody, but it wouldn’t stop me from resenting him. Finally, he broke the silence.

“The rain’s stopped.”

The air around the house was still, and the incessant dripping from the leaky ceiling onto the carpet had slowed. I looked toward the door, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

“After we got the skoab from you… Jack changed,” I said, looking down at my fingers. “I almost never saw him. He locked himself in a room making more and more of it for over a day. And then he was always gone, spreading it around the town. He had me doing it, too, disguising myself as all these different people. He had me put it in old peoples’ food, for Chrissake.

“I saw what it did to people. At the time, he’d convinced me that it was justified. That we had to, because the humans had taken the world all for themselves, and this was the only way to take it back. But…”

“I know. It sounded right. You were tryin’ to do what you thought you had to,” he said quietly. The room fell silent again, until finally he spoke again. “Every night, I find myself thinkin’—wish I could go back homeward. Make things right again. But what’s done is done, there ain’t no goin’ back. What’s left to do is make right of what we got now.

“You oughta leave ‘fore the rain starts up again,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

I nodded and made for the door. With the knob turned halfway, I paused, and turned to look at him again. He removed his hat and wiggled his little ears at me, smiling.

“... I am glad you came back for us. I really am,” I forced the words out as quickly as I could, and slipped through the door.

☆☽☆

With the rabbit girl hopping back home, the gold-haired rabbit stood there a while, staring at the door. For a time, his mind was empty, unable to conjure the thoughts to go along with what he’d just done. Then, his muscles were spurred to movement again. He rose his hands to his head and buried them in his hair, sliding on his back down the wall until he hit the floor.

Liar.

It was only a little white lie, but it was a lie all the same. So much time he had spent surrounding himself with lies. Lies to protect others, lies to protect himself. The faces humans had known him by, lies. The names he’d been called by humans and hares alike—lies.

He was not some gallant, righteous figure whose story rested in exalted tomes of legend. He was not a man who had dedicated to himself to the preservation of his people and culture, nor did he champion the cause of leading those who had been exiled to a new home where they would be welcomed by those like them.

He was just a liar.

From the corner of his eye, the darkness lurking in the lightless spots in the empty kitchen began to bloom and grow. A malignant cloud of shadow, spreading its way over the filthy tiles and spilling onto the carpet. From the black hole, a thin figure sporting a green jacket and long dress emerged. The hare’s thick, blonde eyebrows tightened in anger.

“Whaddya want, witch?” his voice quaked, shaking in the dark.

“What a fine how-do-you-do. Hast thee been afflicted by a malady of rudeness to accompany thy brooding?” the figure in the dark said, its voice flighty and feminine. “I am come merely to see to the wellbeing of my servant, whom you so uncouthly snuck away.”

“You were listenin’ in, were ya? Stickin’ yer nose where it don’t belong again?”

“Oh, but how could I not? ‘Twas such a heated discussion, the atmosphere betwixt the two of you so intense. For a moment, I should not have been surprised if you took her in your great hairy arms and—”

“Shut it,” the hare interrupted.

“Come now, Galahad. How was I to guess that amid thy scruffy exterior, there exist still such a vulnerable creature? ‘I wish it were different. I wish to go home. Oh, little Matilda, the sight of you doth stir the troubled waters of mine heart!’”

The woman threw her head back in laughter, the green ribbon tied around her neck bouncing up and down as she cackled. When she was finished, she pressed the tips of her fingers to her chest as and steadied her breathing, as if relishing each merry breath.

The rabbit sitting on the floor rose slowly to his feet and slipped his flat cap over his stubby ears, adjusting the brim to rest over his brow. He looked sternly into the hermit’s eyes, internally debating whether he need explain anything to her at all. Finally, he let out an indecisive grumble.

“She’s the daughter of a good friend. A’course I care for her,” he stated gruffly.

“Ah, but I tug at your feeble heartstrings merely for a merry jest. Feel howsoever you like, it maketh no difference to me. The girl is mine, and with me she shall stay. The more pertinent matter is that of the falsehoods you hath filled her head with,” Beatrix mused. She pointed a white-gloved finger at the rabbit in the corner, her eyes bright. “Thou wish not to return home to her warren. Thou pine not for a time whereupon you were that girl’s guardian and teacher.”

The hare said nothing, merely reached into his pockets for another cigarette. The Lunarian went on pointing, filling the tiny house with her bombastic claims.

“You are wont to let her believe that, as is convenient, but truly, truly! Truly you wish to put all of this behind you. Long you stare into Luna at night, wishing only to heed her call. To shed your false earthly moniker, and once again be known as the golden sunlight hare! Am I wrong, Heart of the Sunrise?”

Galahad took a long puff from his cigarette, answering Beatrix’s claim with an exhausted stare. For even if everything she said was true, that dream had long gone from the hare’s mind. He looked toward the floor and shook his head in defeat.

“Is that all? I didst hope you at least would have the backbone to fly into a rage and throw me from your…” Beatrix paused to run her gloved finger down the wall, coming away with a small pile of dust, “home. Seems only common courtesy.”

“Feel free to show yerself out,” Galahad grunted, staring her down.

“As you wish,” Beatrix said firmly, holding her nose in the air. She began back toward the darkness she’d emerged, but as she crept away, she flit her gaze back to the hare and quickly added, “but what if I held what you seek? What if I knew thy way back home?”

Galahad glared at her. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“‘Tis true. Knowest I the currents, the stretch of stars that yet lead to Heaven above. Knowest I how to return thee, the prodigal sun, to his long-lost home,” Beatrix declared, each word more boastful than the last. “Doth thee not wish to go home? Be it not all you have ever wanted since you fell upon this muddy, miserable Earth, gold knight?”

“Get out,” the rabbit rumbled, his teeth grinding into the cigarette butt between his lips.

“Thou need only ask, Galahad. Climb aboard my starship, let us sail for the skies.”

“GET OUT!” Galahad thundered. He stomped in anger, the floorboard cracking under the force.

“I shall be waiting. Come, and we shall sail away,” the Lunarian calmly offered, her voice as quiet and wispy as the wind slipping under the door.

The shadows in the kitchen swelled, reaching from the corners to claim the Lunarian woman. They crawled over her form, swallowing her little by little until she was no more, and the blonde rabbit again stood alone on the damp, rotting carpet beneath him.

[raphiot]

The Umbral Forest

The soft thrum of spinning fans came quietly from the corner, made audible against the void of silence that enveloped the room. A black, monolithic machine was the only living presence here, its glowing veins of color the only light. Pulsing blues and quaking greens streaked across the floor and over my face, outlining the shape of the girl sitting on the stool before the machine.

My weary eyes were dusted with sleepless exhaustion; I was nothing you’d call ‘living,’ and the girl sitting in the stool nearby was fast asleep—or something like it. Her shoulders rose and fell slowly as she took silent breaths, and the white faux fur of her jacket’s cuff rested on the body of the console, there with her pale hand. Long lashes covered her fast shut eyes, her lids twitching restlessly—and the long, white rabbit ears emerging from her hair stood half-mast in alert. I thought that maybe it was her long strands of hair tickling her nose and nearly stirring her from sleep, as it often did, but this was no ordinary ‘sleep’ she was consumed by.

Though she sat there in the fraying stool, her mind was somewhere else. The humming machine, with its pulsating streaks of light, had whisked her someplace far away. As she murmured and stirred in the chair, her brows furling anxiously, worry churned in my stomach. Typically when she sat at the machine and slept, she was so peaceful, so serene, but as I looked on her body was tense, restless.

The strobing lights swept over the filthy carpet, its edges rotting and giving way to broken floorboards and lightless pits. It climbed the walls and ceiling, pockmarked with chipping paint and rain damage. I watched the light bend from one corner of the room to the other, saw it peel back the cobwebs and reveal the crumbling ruin—but as it receded, the walls were again white with paint and the floors closed themselves up. I blunk and rubbed my eyes, felt them sting red.

The chair beneath me groaned as I rose to my feet, its elderly planks creaking at any movement. I began toward the girl in the chair, my steps blind and uneven, with the weight of my exhaustion threatening to drag me to the floor. She inhaled sharply and I froze; she calmed and exhaled a long, sleepy gust through her nose, and my nerves eased.

When she was consumed by that machine, no force on Heaven or Earth could move her, the sleep she took like death. Yet now her ears darted to and fro as I came closer, and her breathing would become quick and uneasy if I made any noise. Her body had become as stiff as a board as I stood behind her, barely breathing.

I reached a trembling hand out to touch her, each shaking inch more unsure than the last, and placed a single index finger on her shoulder.

Her head snapped robotically toward me, her shut lids trembling and twitching as if attempting to gaze blindly through her eyelids. I began to withdraw my hand, but she reached up and caught me, long pale fingers squeezing my wrist in a painful vice. Her eyes shot open to reveal two gaping red voids, an agonizing crimson light that bore into my head. They stared into me, deep and emotionless, and her inescapable grip dragged me closer, slamming my hand onto the face of the black machine.

The room fell away, piece by piece. Crumbling bits of wood and plaster disintegrated all around me; the walls and floor slid away into the abyss, leaving only blackness in their wake. I felt a weightlessness come over me, as if I’d left my body far behind. My mind was sinking, being pulled into the clutches of the machine, but there was another grip on me, tugging at my arm.

The girl’s wide eyes had faded into an inky black, her brows furled with fright around the sightless voids. She mouthed some desperate plea with trembling lips again and again, and though I could not make it out, I knew what she was saying.

Help me. Help me. Help me.

I fell to my hands and knees, announced to the wet space around me with a plop. My limbs sunk into the thick mud below and I felt twigs snap under my fingers. I choked on the moist air as I pushed myself up to stand on my knees, gasping and wheezing, my head awash with cold sweat.

A thicket of gray trees, enshrouded by dark mist, lay all around me. The gnarled wood reached up toward the blackened sky, the dead branches like twisting fingers grasping for daylight. I could see no end to them; the trees stretched on to the edge of my sight in every direction, the light disappearing in the distance as if the horizon fell away into nothingness.

A drop of something wet smacked the top of my head, sending a freezing chill down my spine. Bits of black were falling in drops from the tips of trees all around me, oozing from cracks in the branches. Looking down at my hands, my legs, they were covered in slimy black ink. Struggling to my feet, I slid in the mud and gunk, nearly falling back in the muck, but I managed to straighten my legs and right myself. My muscles felt like rubber, but I took trudging steps forward, carving a path through the slime.

Squish, squish, squish. I could hear soft whimpering, panicked little squeaks, the sound of a tiny thing struggling in the mud. As I rounded a dead tree, I spotted a small, fuzzy white creature jerking and pulling, its hind leg half-swallowed by muck. Its bright violet eyes fell on me, and it squirmed with terrified fervor as I came near, its frightened squeaks echoing through the wood.

“I ran away! I ran away and she knows! She, she will find me! Cannot hide, cannot hide!”

Amid the aching drone in my head, the squeaks came across as words I could understand. The fuzzy creature, with its long, silvery-white ears that stood up straight in alarm, was crying out in panic. A rabbit, the thought formed in head numbly. It’s a rabbit.

Calmly I knelt down in the mire, sinking my fingers into the grime. I felt a desperately kicking leg, caught under a jagged root, and I gently plucked it loose. As soon as the rabbit realized it was free, it made for cover into the trees, leaving a trail of little holes in the black mud.

I spied its white ears poking from behind a gray trunk, just at the edge of my sight. Its violet eyes were as tiny lights in the dark, and they shone on me with quivering uncertainty.

“She will find you! She will find you! Run, run!” it warned me in shrill squeaks. Its ears twitched and waved to and fro, startled by something, and it hopped away as fast as it could manage into the dark.

Howling wind swept the hair from my face, the inky liquid mixing with freezing sweat. My knees shook weakly as I rose to stand, threatening to give way. Determined, I put one uneasy foot in front of the other and followed the white rabbit’s trail of tiny prints, my heavy footsteps filling the dead wood with echoing splashes.

I trudged through the mud and slime for what felt like hours, my legs aching behind the weight of each step. Miles of dead trees behind me, and miles of dead trees ahead until the edge of my sight, where they were swallowed up by the black. No matter how far I walked, there were still more trees—but the trees were changing, becoming more twisted, their long branches sporting bulging pustules that oozed red pitch. They bent and contorted the branch, the unnatural growth covered by layer and layer of dead bark, like rotting flesh. Looking at them made my skin crawl; something about these trees was very wrong.

A branch above my head hung low, as if weighed down by its grotesque red pustule. It twitched and moved ever so slightly, as if it might burst at any moment. Against my better judgement, I grabbed the lowest point and pulled at the branch to get a better look—snap! The branch broke and dangled from the tree, hanging from what appeared to be a slimy tendon, just beneath the bark. I turned the branch this way and that as I looked it over, and found a little hole on one side.

There was a face. White and whiskered and weakly breathing, still alive. The bark around it was slimy and pulsating, as if trying to digest it. Its nose twitched and wheezed; its eyes were covered by the wood, but it could smell me.

Without thinking, I dug my fingers into the hole, clawing my way into the branch. Gritting my teeth and pulling, a disgusting wet noise like the ripping of muscle filled the air. The rabbit’s head slid from the hole in the branch and fell into my hands—several more of its pieces dropping into the ink below. I trembled in horror, barely able to keep ahold of it as the rabbit’s tiny eyes fell on me. They lingered for the briefest of moments, frightened and confused, before rolling lifelessly back. It slipped from my shaking fingers and sank into the slime.

From the base of the broken tree, the red sap was seeping into the ground. The viscous liquid was overflowing from the trunk, pooling around it in a sickening mixture with the muddy ink, rust-red. There was another tree bleeding sap only a few steps away, and another, and another. Their rotten, pulsating branches twitched with meek life being drained away, the excess oozing free.

One tree stood out from the rest, with a massive trunk and a forest of gnarled branches reaching into the void. A mess of chains was wrapped around the base, concealing the outline of an intricate carving. As I approached, I noticed little white rabbits sitting around the tree, sniffing and pawing the tree in a trance. They did not appear to notice me as they weakly clawed the bark, their noses twitching slowly and weakly. More than one was merely lying motionless in the muck and staring vacantly ahead, fur soaked with discolored slime.

I reached out my hand and traced the lines of the carving—they formed the shape of a body under the chains. They stretched up toward the branches, and down toward the trunk in the shape of legs and arms. Above the center, I saw primitive marks scratched into the wood, meant to be human features. A line nose, a circle mouth, and an X where each eye should be.

You should not have come here.

Jilted whispers that came from nowhere. Words that crept into my mind behind the rasp of wind rattling the dead branches. Light slipped through the tangle of trees, cast by the pearlescent moon above, and lit the chains. Beneath them, sickly, graying flesh, falling off the bone. A woman in a torn and molding dress, her arms chained tight to the branches just above the trunk like a martyred saint. Her eyes were sunken, dark, but I could feel them worming their gaze over me.

I am She, the maiden who speaks for Luna. I am known as Chang’e. It is through me that what you see is become a place of great suffering. Once beautiful, it now rots and withers.

A quiet, stilted breath came from the tree, like sobbing. In the pale moonlight, the decaying head of black hair looked this way and that toward the rabbits below.

The little ones revere me still, despite all I have done to them. Trust too freely given, faith in those who come bearing false smiles. I shall never atone for my sin.

I thought to question the woman in chains, but as I opened my mouth to speak its sunken eyes leered at me, bright and white like headlights in the dark, and the voice carried to me again in urgent tones.

This place is home now to a terrible witch. A being of avarice, her form absorbing all she sees. Her presence twists and perverts the land around her, the very trees overcome by her hunger. Leave, child of the Earth. Before she finds you.

The rabbits surrounding the tree turned their heads toward me, ruby eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Their ears twitched to and fro madly, searching for some distant sound I couldn’t detect, and all at once they recoiled in fear, ears standing straight up, before fleeing into the muck in all directions.

As if following after them, the moonlight peeking through the trees dispersed and I was again standing among darkened wood, ankle-deep in rust-red gunk. For a moment, silence permeated the trees and all was still.

A terrible noise bubbled up from the ink behind me. A churning, boiling sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I twisted around to look, my spine stiff in fear, and saw darkness welling up from below. The ink swelled into a bulbous mass before me, melting and burbling black, waves of tar flowing from it in an endless stream. Bony fingers emerged from bubbling abscesses, long fleshless arms stretching from the mass and dripping with ink. They felt blindly through the dark, slow and elegant as if tasting the night air. In its center, a swirling amalgamation of organs and bone with a depth I couldn’t perceive, ink gushing from inside like a bottomless well.

Slimy tendrils crawled from the top, cast wet over what looked to be a face, albeit misshapen and animal. Empty black sockets and a maw of smiling daggers gazed at the chained tree. The mass slid forward and shed the excess tar like a layer of skin, revealing a curved, melting form resembling something like a woman’s body. It paid me no mind as it wormed its way over to the tree.

Petrified, I watched as it clutched the ‘face’ carved into the tree with one of its hands and ran a bony claw down the ‘cheek’ with the other. A sound like laughter mixed with a deep growl arose from its throat, and though there were no muscles in its body to form a smile, I saw in its maw a malicious glee.

Alas, poor lunar maiden. I yet taste your sorrow among Luna’s roots. How sweet it is. Your flock is become mine. The blood of hares belongs to me.

The form shifted, its muck congealing solid for a brief moment as it turned to face me, before it began to again melt without end into the mire below. I felt a hungry curiosity press into me from those empty eyes as it extended a finger, dripping black, to point at me.

The vile stench of the Earth. The sickening rot of earthly soil. You, dog, are filthy with it. And you have something that is mine.

I felt something fuzzy touch the back of my neck. Turning my head, I saw a flash of silvery hair—a little white rabbit was clutching my shoulder, its shining violet eyes looking to me in terrified trepidation. Had it been with me all this time? It ducked its head to hide as the creature before me seemed to ooze anger, though its unmoving skull conveyed no emotion.

Give it to me.

On legs of black slime, it began toward me, rippling waves of muck sweeping over my knees. The trees around us seemed to shudder under the tide. I could feel its growling voice pressing into my head as it drew nearer.

The blood of hares is mine! Mine! Mine! MINE!

Its slimy hands slid into my collar and pressed into my skin, its sharp talons slicing into me with little effort. A terrifying roar came from the bed of dagger teeth just inches from my face. Unable to move or scream, I merely shut my eyes and waited for the end—when a high pitched squeal erupted next to my ear, shaking me from my terror.

“Witch! Usurper! Defiler!”

A golden ball of fuzz landed in the creature’s mop of slimy hair, clawing at its skull with all the fury it could muster. The terrible mass thrashed and writhed, its claws digging into the golden hare on its head, but the tiny thing would not relent. It gnashed its buck teeth and drove them into the bone, forming cracks that oozed black bubbling tar.

The creature became still, suffering blow after blow from the golden hare. The black liquid flowed in a torrent up its arms and arrived at its claws. It sank into the little rabbit’s fur, swirling over its body and enveloping it in black until it had been completely swallowed. There was a crunching noise, like chewing, until finally the thing lowered its dripping hands and the rabbit slid free from the ink, its body broken and twisted.

O hare of golden sunshine. Will you never learn? Your ilk live to serve me. Lie still in Luna’s embrace, give yourself over to me.

A gathering of white rabbits appeared from behind my legs, marred with tar, and watched with low ears as the broken rabbit sank into the mud. They chirped and squeaked in weak, sullen tones, looking to the being of slime and bone in defeat. They bowed their heads, one after another. An uneven, growling cackle filled the wood as the thing’s frame of floating ribs and organs turned to gaze at each one.

The smallest of lights appeared from the spot the golden hare had fallen. Tiny at first, it swelled from the centre of the muck, like a pool of sunlight expanding slowly in the black. The little rabbits took notice of it first and began to squeak in surprise; the creature’s howling laughter slowed to a confused giggle, crooking its skull with bemused curiosity.

Without thinking I dove into the bright pool below, my hand falling on something warm and metal. Wrapping my fingers around it, I lifted it with ease from the swamp’s clutches to reveal a golden hilt that housed a shining blade, emanating a resplendent light. Steam rose from the steel in billows, the filth melting cleanly away. The being of slime before me recoiled, its gelatinous body retreating into the ink.

I felt tiny paws grabbing my legs, little teeth nibbling my clothes. The rabbits around me were climbing up my legs and clinging to my arms, holding on for dear life. Their furry ears tickled my neck as they found places to hide along my shoulders, and before long I found myself housing a small army of white rabbits. The thing in the slime bubbled with rage, and the tar boiled hot around me.

You seek to steal that which belongs to me? I shall take your blood as well. Your eyes, your flesh, your humanity. They will be mine. All will become a part of me!

An eruption of black sent torrents of tar through the air, slapping against the trees. A great wave of the burning hot liquid surged toward me, but I stood my ground and held the gleaming sword aloft—and the wave dissipated before it, evaporating into steam in an instant.

The creature emerged from its dark retreat, empty eyes and vacant face staring me down with murderous intent that I could feel in my very core. It plunged its claws into the muck and the ooze churned in its center, gobs of gunk flowing from its body into the bog. Shadowy hands arose all around me, their twitching fingers adrip with ink, each making grabbing motions as if hungry for my flesh. I flashed the sword this way and that, its light my only shield.

A squeal from behind my ear—I shifted my weight and sliced the air, the sword sinking into a black, melting hand just inches from my face. It dropped lifelessly into the muck, its form collapsing all at once. Another panicked squeak, from my left; I swung again into a razor-bed of claws, lunging for my neck. The rabbits were quick to warn me, and the blade’s light expelled the hands like they were rays of shadow.

Then, several hands flung themselves at me, and I held the sword above my head, ducking in the mud. They grasped the sword, melting under the bright steel’s touch—but as each hand dissipated, another took its place, and another, and another. They surged forth from the mire endlessly and grasped at the sword, congealing solid until the blade’s light had been consumed and I was again enveloped in darkness.

A murmur of gurgled glee came from the slime-creature’s throat, a pleased victorious tune. It slid toward me, hunger in those vacant holes where eyes should be, until I could hear the gunk and organs that made up its being shifting in a disgusting mixture. Its jaw hung open, and a black, oozing tendril flowed forward from it. It ran up and down my cheek, leaving a wet mark; my skin crawled as though I was covered in ants. Its fleshless face inches away, I heard the faintest wisp of a voice, whispering inside my head.

The taste of the Earth. A nostalgic filth. I shall consume it all; all shall be a part of me.

A circle of hands arose from the gunk around me and grasped my arms, restraining me. The muck below congealed into a solid mass, holding my legs firmly in place. Then, the witch of the mire extended one of its claws and dragged it across my neck, breaking the skin just enough to trickle blood onto my collar and chest. My shoulders quivered as the little rabbits shook in terror.

The slime mass cut through my shirt, its fingers like razors, and pressed down my skin as if tasting my flesh, searching for just the right spot. Then, above my heart, it pierced my flesh with little fanfare, diving into my skin effortlessly. Its body pulsed, the amalgamation of gunk and bone and organ churning restlessly, as if excited, and a terrible numbing pain entered my skin. I thrashed and bit my lip and drew blood, I shouted and cursed and shook, but the hands held me firm. As my vision grew dark, I saw twisted glee in the the monster’s vacant eyes.

A shrill sound someplace far off roused me, the sound of a tiny being’s voice screeching in mixture of anger and terror. Muffled squeak-words that I could not quite make out, but could hear plain their desperation.

My hazy eyes, exhausted and muddled, opened to see a white puff of fur standing on my shoulder and glaring violet malice into the ink-spawn, its brilliant orbs like pools of bright moonlight. The creature merely passed the little rabbit a puzzled glance, unphased. Then, another rabbit on my body squealed at her, its red eyes gleaming bright. Another joined, its blinding bright eyes like headlights, and another, and another. My arms were lit bright with red eyes, each squeaking a threat.

The slime-witch withdrew its fingers from my chest, covered in blood, recoiling under the sight of them. Each red eye cast on its form unnerved the creature, and it had begun to back away—but anger soon replaced its confusion, and it bore its claws at the rabbits, meaning to slice them to ribbons. They clung to me desperately, eyes shutting tight as if awaiting the end.

I am the moon! Luna serves my will! And its subjects are mine! You will obey, you will become a part of me! Surrender your flesh to my desires!

My hands were unbearably hot. The hilt of the sword surged with the heat of a weapon freshly forged, so hot it felt like it might sear my skin. Tiny beams of light poked through holes in the grasping black fingers on the blade, growing larger and piercing through the hardened ooze until, in an explosion of mud, gunk and golden radiance, the sword burst free and the hands sunk into the bog. The shadowy limbs grasping my shoulders grew weak and evaporated into steam under the light, and in the sightless husk of the creature before me, I saw something like fear—and burning rage. The gunk all around me had reached a bubbling boil, churning restlessly.

The slime-creature, gnashing its dagger-teeth, filled the wood with a spine-chilling roar. Flashing its claws, it lunged at me with a desperate, animal fervor—and I swung the sword straight down, cutting its arm of bone and slime-sinew in twine.

It stumbled in the mire, confused. A flash of pain in its unmoving expression, a shudder of quaking slime as its body expelled muck through the gaping hole where its arm once was. I grit my teeth and drove the blade forward, piercing its churning core. The darkness inside wrapped around the sheen, the sword becoming as dark as night, then swelling up like a boil, ready to burst. The creature clawed and thrashed at the hilt, beams of light emerging from its body, radiant pools of the sun expanding over the surface of its form. Then, all at once, its body expanded, stretching and contorting until it tore open. It wailed in pain, the screeching voice in my head felt like it might pierce my skull.

Mine, mine, mine! The hares are mine… All will be a part of me…

Waves of slime poured over me, gushing forth from the creature’s ruptured body. In the center of the beast was the sword’s resplendence, melting away the mire inch by inch. The slime-witch’s body dispersed into mist, rising into the air as black vapor. It disappeared little by little until there was nothing left.

Soft sobbing, exhausted gasps of breath. A young girl sat on her knees in the mud, her clothes and silver hair soaked with filth, and she wept. The rabbits had gathered all around her, their ears fallen sullenly, looking on in shame. As I wearily took a step forward to approach her, she went silent.

I placed a hand on her shoulder, and her pale face peeked through a mat of wet hair to look at me. Her eyelids slowly peeled open to reveal two violet moons gazing up at me. I fell into them, and the space around us faded away.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the crumbling walls of my tiny apartment, staring at the black void on the face of the monolithic machine that sat in the corner. I withdrew my hand from its body and sighed, shaking my head to get out the cobwebs.

The rabbit-girl sat in her stool, her face wet with tears. Roused from her slumber, she stretched her arms and twiddled her toes. Wiping her face, she gazed up at me curiously.

“Good… morning. Is—ahm—everything? Okay?” she squeaked, noting the disturbed look on my face.

I shook my head. “You were just mumbling in your sleep, that’s all. I think you fell asleep in your chair and were having a bad dream.”

“O-oh. It is—ah—late,” she murmured, her voice one tired note after another. “Yes. I, I should go. To sleep, you are right.”

Still dressed in her skirt and blouse, she scuttled past me and crawled under the blankets of the one bed in the room, curling up until the sheets were balled up around her. The fuzzy rabbit ears on her head dipped and twitched in my direction, and she lifted her head to look at me, still left standing there in a stupor.

“Good-night,” she called to me, sleepily.

“... Goodnight,” I said, my voice an exhausted croak.

I returned to my chair, looked to the humming machine once more, and closed my eyes.

[raphiot]

"I left you far behind, the ruins of the life you had in mind. And though you still can't see, I know your mind's made up, you're gonna cause more misery."

Galahad by ChefHART.

[raphiot]

The Walrus

The garden near the gate of Church Mouse shifted underneath the maid’s fingers, the soil as soft and malleable as clay. The evening rains had softened the ground, and so with the tips of her dress half-dipped in mud, she prepared little beds to tuck the sleeping crowns of dormant strawberries into. Before long, a field of strawberry royalty laid slumbering, not far from the flowerbeds and the sapling peach tree.

The maid girl stood up, brushed off her hands on her white apron, and dug into her pocket for a silver watch. Flipping open the lid, the timepiece told of a midmorning lull. A time when her sister would be taking the first of many breaks from her duties—and the cigarette smoke wafting over from the building’s side entrance confirmed this—and when her master would have finished dissecting her breakfast and, on a good day, gone back to bed.

Sighing, she wiped her brow and pocketed the watch. Hours of working in relative solitude stood before her, as the flowers needed tending, the halls swept, the library dusted and tidied, the details of supper prepared—and her sister was unlikely to be of much help.

Before she could put two feet onto the cobblestone steps that lead into the Gallery, however, the double doors burst open to reveal a tall woman in a sleeping cap and pajamas, patterned with little rabbits leaping over crescent moons. She held with her forefinger and thumb a steaming tea cup, raised in thoughtful trepidation to her mouth. Spotting the muddy maid in the yard, she rose an eyebrow and smiled.

“Goodness, Ethel—I thought to find you planting the strawberries. Ne’er would I imagine you digging a new warren below the Gallery,” she snickered, and took a sip from her cup.

“Lady Beatrix,” the maid addressed her, giving a shallow curtsy. “How did you find your breakfast? Were the pickled goose eggs and blood sausages to your liking? The recipe was new to me, and—”

“Never mind that,” Beatrix interrupted. Draining her cup of tea, she stepped through the garden on her fluffy slippers toward the peach tree. With the teacup held by one finger, she placed her hand against her chin and stared at it a moment, deep in thought.

“Lady Beatrix?” Ethel questioned, her long lop ears pulled by gravity as her head tilted sideways in curiosity.

“Nay—no one, I think, is within my tree. But shouldst they be, ‘twould be high. Or mayhap low?” the Church Mouse hermit mused, tapping the porcelain cup against her lips and looking the sapling up and down. “That is, perchance, they could not attune. Nevertheless, ‘tis no great matter.”

The rabbit maid tiptoed cautiously through the sprouting turnips toward her master, and touched her gently on the shoulder. “Are you quite alright, my Lady? I know it has been a few days since you’ve been outside, and you are not accustomed to being awake at this time of the morning, so...“

“Oh, dearest Ethel. How easy life must be, thine eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see,” Beatrix quipped, patting her servant with an open palm atop her crown. “I do admit, ‘tis difficult, at times, to be as I am. To be someone—yet, time doth push forever on. It matters naught to me.”

“I do not, um…”

“Do for me a favor and humor my musings, wouldst you?” Beatrix asked, staring at the tree. Ethel gave a hasty nod, and Beatrix continued, “Always—nay, only but sometimes—do I think it is but me, amid a quiet dream. A bough of Luna’s tree I have crawled upon, and where I do lay in a long slumber. The Earth far away, and little rabbits to have ne’er found their homes in its holes.”

“I—”

“I should say, I know what is a ‘dream,’ and what is not. That is, I think, I disagree. And as such, my tree is empty,” Beatrix said, taking a leaf of the peach tree between her fingers and feeling its ridges. “Do I live, truly? The question doth weigh upon my mind, though I breathe, and though I eat, and though thine ears do hear my words and responses come in kind. I think I know—but, alas. It is all wrong. The questions, a disquiet doubt. It be not still.”

“What... what are you saying, my Lady? You think me an illusion? That nothing around you is real?” Ethel stammered, her concern palpable. Though the master of Church Mouse was an eccentric, Ethel had always considered her to be of sound mind.

“‘Twas nothing real, shouldst be there nothing to become hung upon. Nay—I am she, as you are thee, as you are me, as we are all together. And here, upon this wet ground, I stand, the walrus in a walled garden. Were I to leave, wouldst I find a burning sun in the dead of night and a giggling gaggle of clamshelled schoolgirls?” the hermit presented her question in a deathly serious tone, and sat her teacup atop the rabbit girl’s head.

“So, you are saying—” Ethel took the cup in her hands to keep it from tumbling to the ground, “You believe yourself to be real, but what surrounds you, perhaps not?”

Beatrix shook her head. “‘Tis an idle musing, nothing more. The pull of Luna would lead me to believe that all I have lived upon this Earth be a dream, and her shores to be the only true life I have within me. A troublesome, tedious thought, ‘tis not? You know it to not be true. Prithee—you do know it, verily?”

The hermit woman regarded her servant with a gaze that conflicted with her confident tone, her cold eyes somewhere adjacent to desperation. Ethel gave a slow nod, unsure what to think, but certain that a delayed response would only make the situation worse. Beatrix drew a deep breath through her nostrils and sighed shortly.

"I shalt be in mine chambers,” she sternly announced, turning toward the double doors of the Gallery. “Pray, Ethel—for tonight’s supper, do instill Matilda with the importance of avoiding setting our kitchen ablaze.”

The oak door to the hermit’s room was shut fast for the remainder of daylight, as silent as a crypt. Ethel went about her duties, cleaning the Gallery from top to bottom. She passed the door again and again as she swept and dusted and flew from one room to the next, straightening cupboards and alphabetizing books in Lunish. She considered knocking a few times if only to reaffirm Beatrix’s well-being, but whatever worries she held for her master were kept in check by the wrath she knew awaited her, should she disturb the hermit’s solitude.

With the night’s meal of vegetable and beef stew, buttered biscuits and tea prepared, Ethel was at a loss for what to do. She sat in a wooden rocking chair in the hall across from Beatrix’s room and waited, her nose buried in recipe book sniffing for simple things to teach Matilda. Just as she’d found a page on an easy peach cobbler, the hermit’s door burst open, and the rabbit girl nearly leapt from her seat.

“Lady B-Beatrix!” she stuttered, standing with startled haste.

The Lunarian woman looked up and down the hall, then down at her fingernails. Her brows shifted in curiosity, as if unsure of what she was seeing. She wore a lavender jacket and gown, the cuffs and hem near her feet stained red. Ethel’s eyes trailed downward—there on the floor was a pool of dark liquid, only just illuminated by the dim light of the nearby lamp. It soaked into the hermit’s fuzzy slippers, their bottoms deeply crimson.

“My Lady... are you quite alright? You look awfully pale, and—”

“Ethel,” the Lunarian curtly cut her servant off, “Fetch your coat and meet me in the garden.”

“Oh... Are you certain? Dinner is prepared. Matilda and I were simply waiting for you...”

“Yes, Matilda. Bring her as well. I shall need witnesses,” Beatrix ordered, her voice monotone.

Without another word, she returned to her chambers and shut the door behind her with a loud clack. Left standing there, Ethel set the book down in her chair and lingered a moment in the hallway, watching dark red liquid seep through the crack beneath the door. She felt her foot thump the floor unconsciously, and made for the dining room in a nervous hurry.

The pines sheltering Church Mouse shook under the wind and rain blowing through the streets, two rabbit girls below them shrouded in hoods. The smaller girl’s face hid inside a cocoon of fuzzy white cotton, but gazed at her sister with an annoyed frown all the same.

“What the hell is taking that crazed moonie? How long do I gotta stand out here in the rain?” Matilda fumed, tugging her hood tight.

“I am not certain—she merely said to meet her here. I cannot deny she has been acting strange; just this morning we had a very odd conversation,” said Ethel, her finger to her chin.

“Oh? She give you that spiel about ‘Lucy in the sky’ again? I swear to God, if I have to hear one more of her stupid poems...”

“It was something about her ‘tree’ being empty. And I believe a walrus was involved? I’m not entirely sure, to be quite forward with you.”

The doors of the Gallery swung wide, the figure of its tall and slim master slipping through the threshold. She had dressed herself in a long, green cloak with a hood, the lavender gown and fuzzy slippers exchanged for a simple brown dress and leather boots. Acknowledging her servants with only a single glance each, she made through the garden with purpose towards the sapling peach tree.

“Lady Beatrix? Are we going someplace, so late at night?” Ethel questioned, her voice a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.

“Verily, we are. There is something I must see—I must know if I am right, and such a chance comes but once a blue moon. Above us, Luna is shone brightly. I must see her again,” the hermit answered, taking in hand a small hedge clipper from her cloak.

“What’re you talking about, crazy lady? Speak sense. If you need to see the moon, just look up, then! Why do I have to get all wet for that?” Matilda grumbled, scowling at her.

“Matilda, open thy ears. If thou dost not know of what one speaks, nor how to appreciate Luna on such a bright and clear night—” Beatrix turned toward her small servant, those cold, unblinking eyes boring holes into the girl, “—then merely keep thyself quiet and do as I say.”

The small rabbit girl shrunk in surprise, her mouth silently agape. Returning to the tree, Beatrix searched the tree’s limbs top to bottom, placing the thin branches between the shears and considering, then moving on to another. She repeated this process several times before finally coming across a bough that split into two smaller branches. Clipping it cleanly from the tree, she carried it to the two obedient rabbits staring confoundedly at her.

“This will do,” Beatrix declared, and handed it to a very confused Ethel.

“Whatever for?” came the servant’s reply, turning the very ordinary tree branch over in her hands to examine it.

“It shalt serve as our link and guide our path,” Beatrix said. She made for the fence gate, undoing the latch and crossing onto the sidewalk. “Do not tarry—we’ve a long journey ahead of us and only so much moonlight.”

The two rabbits looked at one another, bewildered, the hermit’s words only raising more questions in their minds. Ethel’s emerald green eyes quivered with worry, but the perturbed look on her sister’s face spoke clearly she was convinced the exiled Lunarian had finally lost her marbles.

The hermit’s long legs carried her swiftly down the sidewalks, pursuing the end of each street like a woman possessed. The two rabbits hurried after her, in constant danger of being left behind. Beatrix was hardly watching where she was going, her head turned upward to stare at the brightly shining full moon.  They crossed a patch of broken road into a tiny lot preserving a single tree, and descended into the deep, old, forgotten suburbs, past the overgrown, forested train tracks.  

On either side of the street were dilapidated houses, cracking old boards whose painted skin had been long eroded by rain. Yellow eyes leered at them from the dark, curious black cats looking at them behind shaded windows. The streetlights were dim, revealing only a little of the holes in the road and the chunks missing from the sidewalk. Ethel was very careful where she stepped, as it would have been easy to trip over a false spot in the street and fall on her face.

At the end of the road, Beatrix came across a short plain of grass that lead into the surrounding wood. Ethel’s long, sensitive ears could faintly hear the sound of rushing water; they were very near the river.

“Please, Lady Beatrix!” Ethel cried, trying to catch her breath. “Where are we going?”

“Make thyself still. We are nearly there,” Beatrix curtly responded, before taking off into the trees. The two rabbits hurried to follow, Matilda wheezing in exhaustion.

Through a curtain of brush and woods, a wide window of water stared back at them, the moon reflected in its calmly moving current. Beatrix crept to the river’s edge, where she came across a small wooden pier with a little white boat tied in place by a rope. She stepped inside and sat down, and her gaze returned to the glowing white orb in the sky.

“Come, come. ‘Tis a small craft, but there is ample room for the three of us,” Beatrix called to her gawking servants, patting the seat next to her.

The two rabbits exchanged glances once again, with Matilda throwing up her hands in resignation. Folding her arms behind her head, she casually followed the hermit’s path down to the boat.

“A late night boat ride doesn’t sound so bad. I’ll just go to sleep in the boat, and maybe when I wake up we won’t be in this crummy town anymore,” Matilda said, her lack of enthusiasm palpable.

“But...” Ethel murmured, words falling short as she watched her sister climb into the tiny boat.

Ethel sat down next to Beatrix, the boat wobbling in the water as they found their places. She looked to the waving reflection of the moon in the water, and then to her master, frowning.

“The branch, Ethel. Thou didst bring it along, yes?” Beatrix inquired.

Ethel blunk confoundedly and reached into her coat pocket for the sprig. Digging it out, she held it in front of her for Beatrix to take, but the hermit shook her head.

“Taketh in thy hand this end,” she instructed, placing one of the split limbs of the branch in Ethel’s palm, “and Matilda, take the other.”

Matilda grabbed the palmless end of the stick with strained, discontented brows, her eyes flitting back and forth between Ethel and Beatrix. In her mind lurked a sneaking suspicion that she was about to be inducted into the Lunarian’s moon cult and drowned beneath the boat as a lunar sacrifice.

“Gaze at the moon. What dost thou see?” Beatrix commanded, looking skyward.

“Same dumb old rock. What’s the point of this?” Matilda quipped, growing impatient. “I’m tired. Just gonna lay down at the bottom here, if ya don’t mind—whenever Ethel stops pulling my arm. Quit it.”

“I am doing no such thing,” said Ethel, her eyes growing wide.

Their hands gripped on the peach tree sprig, it pulled them toward the moon in the water, tugging their hands subtly this way and that. Neither could be certain it wasn’t the other merely tugging the branch their way, yet neither were truly pulling it.

“Hold it tight. Let it guide you,” Beatrix said, untying the rope from the pier and dropping it into the boat. She took in hand the pair of oars resting at the boat’s bottom and dipped them into the water. “It shalt show us the way.”

The sprig’s long end pointed forward, either with or without the two rabbit servants’ guidance—neither could really say—and tilted toward the reflection of the moon in the water. Beatrix began to row, following after the direction the branch was pointing. The current caught them, and they were soon drifting down the river.

“Oh, the drip of tears flowing from Luna’s eyes. The current is nearby, yea. We need only find it,” Beatrix declared, following the sprig’s movements closely.

“Is that what you call this rain? My ears are getting wet,” Matilda complained.

“The ‘current,’ milady? Is that why we are adrift on the river? And forgive me for saying, but I do not recall any mention of Church Mouse possessing a boat…” said Ethel, her voice a series of concerned squeaks.

“Well. Mayhap it is not my boat, but when opportunity doth come knocking, who wouldst I be to turn it away?” Beatrix said, casually brushing her blonde hair from her face. “Not that it should matter, shouldst my theory be true. There is a place I must again see with mine own eyes, and taste upon my tongue.

“Ethel, know you how the Lunar Emissary camst to this Earth?” she posed a question to her servant, who was a little surprised by the sudden change of subject.

“Not the particulars, I fear. I know it concerned something called the Lunar Flow, as you have told me yourself,” Ethel answered, her free hand to her chin in consideration.

“Just so—she made travel through the Flow and landed in this very river. She wouldst not tell me herself, but there be’est not any other way of making the journey in only a single night. How astute of you to remember.”

“But is that not a simple myth? Forgive me, but I often erred on the side of not taking your stories to their literal meaning.”

Beatrix sighed, her eyelids sinking as though she meant to reach over and slap Ethel’s ears off of her head, if only her hands were not full of oars.

“Be that as it may. Luna and the Earth are connected by the tears the moon doth cry upon us. It is my suspicion that even little Luminous knew not of the how herself, but her masters most assuredly did—for it is the path we sailed to reach Luna’s shores,” Beatrix explained, rowing in earnest. Her eyes followed the sprig closely, adjusting her rowing for each small movement.

“Yes, the tears,” Ethel said, holding out her hand to feel a fat drop of rain land in her palm. “My Lady Beatrix, are you not tired? Might we simply land the boat at the side of the river, here, and go home to our supper? It should still be warm.”

“I must advise against leaving the boat now, Ethel. For if you did, I cannot say what would become of you,” Beatrix said, her lips curling into a wicked smile.

“Wha—” Ethel squeaked. Looking around her, the trees surrounding the river had at same point faded into the dark, the streetlights of the quiet city someplace far off in the distance. Below her, the stars twinkling in the night sky had sunk below the water, itself a sparkling tapestry of tumultuous waves that stretched in a zigzagging ribbon ahead of them, and at its end, a shining white orb, whose soft light warmed the darkness surrounding the tiny craft.

“Where…?! Beatrix, where have you taken us?” the rabbit maid’s voice filled the wet air, a mixture of panic and demand.

“I’m dreaming,” Matilda declared out loud. “This is a dream. I ate some beef stew and went to sleep. I’m going to wake up in my bed soon.”

The smaller rabbit rocked back and forth in her seat, gazing left and right at the void of black that threatened to engulf them from every direction. Reflections of glimmering stars could be seen in her wide, unblinking eyes.

“Do calm thyselves. We are in no danger—not yet, at the very least. Remain still, keep the branch aloft,” the Lunarian instructed her shaken servants, eyes locked onto the sprig.

Silence shrouded the craft. Beatrix rowed tirelessly for what felt like hours, and the brightly lit rock in the distance never seemed to grow any nearer. Ethel shut her eyes for just a moment, exhausted, and felt her shoulder touch Matilda’s, who did not pull away or object, for she was fast asleep in her seat.

The rabbit-girl’s large ears twitched and trembled, detecting an odd, foreign sound. The sound of rolling waves hitting the boat, and the coming tide blanketing a nearby shore. This seemed strange to her, as Church Mouse was many miles from the ocean, and it weren’t the crashing waters of her master’s bathtub escapades, either, for Beatrix never bathed this late at night. She might have stayed there longer, not particularly bothered by the sound of water, if she had not felt something that seemed truly amiss—the soft snoozing of her little sister, pressed against her.

Ethel’s nose twitched up and down as she took in the scent of sea winds. Prying open her eyes, a bright, sandy beach stretched out before her, the tide rolling under the boat and onto the nearby white ground. Looking towards the ocean, her eyes were drawn out past the endless sparkling water, toward the swirling orb of blue, green and white staring back at her from the endless void.

“Beatrix…?” murmured Ethel, her voice groggy, but the only response she would receive was a loud snore from the smaller girl seated next to her.

The boat was lodged into a pocket of sand, and looked to be in no danger of being swept away by the water running up the beach. From the side of the boat, a footprint filled with seawater, followed by another and another that lead up the beach and into a grassy field. The hill beyond was dotted with leafy green trees, sporting pink-orange fruits.

“Peach trees…” said Ethel in a sleepy stupor. Something about the bulbous fruits roused her tired mind, like citrus juice shooting into her brain. “P-peach trees! Matilda! Matilda, wake up!”

The maid grabbed her sister’s shoulder and gently shook her, making distressed squeaks about the moon, the ocean and the trees. Matilda weakly opened her eyes a tiny crack, her green lenses focusing on Ethel for a split second before closing again.

“I’ll clean the warren later...” she grumbled sleepily. “Five more minutes...”

Sighing, Ethel set the smaller rabbit-girl down and folded her arms. I suppose I shall have to find Beatrix myself, she thought. Glancing this way and that, taking in the sights of sparkling waves and leafy trees shaking in the wind, she spotted a light in the distance. Squinting, she could only just make out what appeared to be a large structure jutting up from the horizon. Salient and silver, it stood far above the fields of peaches, like a lighthouse in the distance.

Ethel placed her feet in the sand, turned around to glance at her sister and frowned. Will it be alright to leave her here? I mustn't be gone long. She might hop right out of her skin once she realizes where we are...

From the beach’s edge, grass and trees sprouted in abundance from the white soil, growing thicker the farther Ethel wandered from the beach. The wind was warm, sweeping over her skin as if to wrap her in an invisible blanket. She followed disturbances in the grass, spots where the blades had been pressed to the ground by footsteps. Before long, she found herself completely surrounded by trees whose branches were heavy with peaches.

“Lady Beatrix? Are you there?” she called out, cupping her hands around her mouth to extend her voice. “We mustn’t stay here—what shall become of Church Mouse?”

So many trees. I do wonder if moon rabbits eat nothing but peaches, she pondered.

The trees rustled under the wind, and something hit the ground behind Ethel with a thud. Startled, she swiftly swerved around, reaching into her jacket’s pocket for a silver knife she carried with her—but all that was behind her were ripe fruits, falling from their perches. Nerves tingling, she sighed and wiped her brow, turning back around to follow the footsteps in the grass. A chill crawled up the backs of her ears, and she could not shake the feeling that something was watching her, somewhere among the rustling leaves.

In a small, grassy clearing surrounded by trees, cheery hums and laughter found their way to Ethel’s ears. The tall Lunarian woman was picking out peaches, looking for particularly ripe specimens. When she found one she approved of, she pulled it from its branch and nearly danced back to her cloak, spread out in the grass, to place it with her growing collection of bulbous fruits.

“Lady Beatrix!” called Ethel, rushing over to her hermit master.

“Ethel! Brushed the sand from thine ears at last, have thee? Come, come! Be’est here a wealth of ripe moon peaches. Prithee, partake of one! Savor Luna’s fruit,” she happily responded, thrusting a peach into Ethel’s hands.

“A-alright—but my Lady Beatrix, should we truly be here? We do not belong. And, heavens forbid, what if we are discovered? If anything you have ever said rings true, you are the last person the Lunarians wish to see,” Ethel said, running her fingers over the fruit. It was particularly soft and fuzzy, with a rosy pink coloration.

“My dear spritely hare, live but a little! Get around! Get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around,” Beatrix said giddily, reciting a poetic mantra. She nearly giggled as she took a bite of another peach, picked directly from a nearby tree. “Oh, to be bough of Luna’s tree... It hath been too long.”

The rabbit-girl blunk several times at the hermit before her, wondering if perhaps she had lost her mind and replaced it with peach mush. Shrugging, she looked down at the pink peach in her hands. It does look awfully appetizing…

Parting her lips, Ethel sunk her front teeth into the fruit, the juices quickly leaking from the holes and dancing on her tongue. As she bit a small chunk from the peach and began to chew, she felt the warm wind wrap around her. The texture was soft, malleable. The taste, sweeter and richer than any fruit she had ever tasted on Earth. And when she swallowed, her stomach tingled in delight, as if her body had at last gained a part of itself that was missing all her life.

“This—it’s delicious,” Ethel said, drawing quick, surprised breaths. “It is like nothing I have ever had before. It’s... otherworldly. Not even the pickled moon peaches we have at the Gallery are anything like this.”

“Yea, they are diluted by time, and the water. This, it is a taste none on Earth have ever known. One that doth tell me, without a shadow of a doubt, I do live and breathe,” Beatrix confirmed, closing her eyes and inhaling deep the air. Sighing, she went on, “Forgive me, ‘twas a selfish thing to bring you here. In truth, we do indeed place ourselves at great risk by merely standing upon Luna’s soil. Shouldst the Lunar rabbits discover us, such terrible things they will do to thee and thine sister, in effort to purge the ‘impurity’ from Luna. And though I cannot die, they shalt find way to have me wishing I could.

“Fret not, howe’er! For the Lunar Flow didst deliver us to the Sea of Rain, a far cry from the Lunar Capital. We are safe, if for a time. Time enough to gather a few fruits, take in the air and be on our merry way back homeward,” said Beatrix, waving her hand before her face as if to ward away her worries. “‘Tis as I did before—as our hands trailed ‘cross the water, our heads trailed ‘cross the sky.”

“Matilda may well shed all the hairs on her head when she finds out where we are,” Ethel murmured, a concerned grumble.

“Where be’est Matilda, anywhom? Where is thy sister?”

“She would not wake, so I left her in the boat. I imagine, by now, she has taken the boat without us and rowed halfway back home.”

“Then let us be off, lest we find ourselves up a muddy creek with nary a paddle,” Beatrix snickered, gathering her peach-filled cloak from the grass.

Ethel took in her arms a number of ripe peaches that had dropped to the ground, stuffing them into the pockets of her coat. Her eyes so focused on the ground, she did not notice the large, lumbering figure before her that had quietly made its way into the clearing and was staring the two of them down. Finding herself in its shadow, Ethel’s eyes slowly traced the creature up from its large, hairy feet, to its round body clothed in leathers. Its wide, rugged arms were covered in white hair, as was its head, save for the pale flesh of its face. She stared at the slits of its nose, half-sunken into its skin, twitching up and down as if trying to smell her.

“✩☾♫,” it spoke, the words from its mouth more akin to crashing cymbals and xylophone notes.

“Beg your... pardon?” Ethel nervously responded, backing slowly away.

“Hare of the Earth,” a voice unknown to Ethel rumbled in her mind, like quaking gravel. “Believe, did not, would see one of you. Not here. Unwelcome. Unnatural.”

Sprouting from the creature’s fuzzy head were a pair of white ears, their tips black. So too were the creature’s beady eyes, black voids with brown centers that stared holes into the rabbit-girl’s skin.

“I see you have made a friend, Ethel. So too, it would appear, have I,” quipped Beatrix.

Quickly glancing behind her, Ethel saw another large, hairy creature approaching the Lunarian woman, with several more entering the clearing behind it. Their clothes were simple, scrapped together leathers, and reminded Ethel of the rags she was made to wear in her home underground. They were soon surrounded by them, faced with dark eyes in every direction. They leered at the two of them, expressions stiff. Ethel gripped the silver knife in her pocket tightly, her eyes flitting back and forth, uncertain of what to do—but Beatrix calmly approached one of them and offered her hand.

“I am Beatrix Potter, known to the Lunar hares as the Lady of Earthly Seas,” she said, giving a bow.

“I’d never heard that before,” Ethel edged in, giving her master a suspicious sidelong glance. “Do they not merely call you ‘the Earthi—’”

“—’Twas I who made journey to Luna long ago with the figure you now call Andromeda. I dwell no longer within the Lunar Capital, howe’er; mine home is the Earth,” Beatrix spoke loudly over her servant, driving her words with dramatic waves of her hands.

The creature before them grunted in dissatisfaction. All around them, the white-haired figures chirped and muttered at one another, their voices like a disorganized band orchestra. Eventually, the one before them shut his beady eyes and nodded at Beatrix.

“Lunarian. Yes. We know of you. Know of the witch-woman, Andromeda. But know not of us, do you,” boomed the deep voice, inside the heads of both hermit and the rabbit-girl. The creature before them continued to speak in gibbering musical notes as the voice invaded their thoughts. “We are they who do not know serenity.”

The hermit gasped, placing her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were troubled, swiftly looking the creature up and down, taking in its features. Then, staring somberly at the ground, she let out the weakest, saddest voice Ethel had ever heard from her.

“I—I am deeply sorry. I knew not the depths of Andromeda’s cruelty. I beg of you your forgiveness; ‘twas I who brought her here. I am the cause of your suffering.”

“Lady Beatrix?” perked Ethel, confused. “What does he mean, ‘know not serenity?’ What matter is that of yours?”

Beatrix did not answer, her hand covering her mouth as she stared at the ground, eyes wide in horror. The figure before them chuttered slow squeaks at Ethel, like it wished to speak to her directly, but Ethel could not understand.

“Hare of the Earth. Alike, we are, you and I. Different, but alike. Born of humans, blessed by Luna, are you. You know of serenity—gifted to you, it was, by your ancestors. Courses in you, it does, from your ears to your toes. See it, we can. But we know it not. Taken from us by the witch-woman. And, so, we appear before you as this.

“Those who would not kneel. Punished, we were. Severed from one another, sent to the darkest, coldest reaches of Luna. To follow Heart of the Sunrise to the Earth, as your ancestors did... a kindness we were denied,” the thoughts pressed their way into Ethel’s mind, and when they were done, the creature before her bowed his head and grimaced.

“Serenity—the ties that bind us to Luna. The many boughs of her tree. Knewest I that Andromeda would sever it from those who did not bend. And yet I did nothing, not ‘till it was much too late. For that, I may never atone,” said a tense Beatrix, her brows tight. “But thou have not lost serenity in its entirety. Verily, how thee speak to us now is the proof of that. Though it is faint, we are connected still.”

The creature nodded at her. “Stolen it back, piece by piece. Taken many rises of the Earth. Silver armors guard the Sea of Serenity, the witch-woman’s treasure. We hide, and we wait.”

Beatrix curled her finger and pressed it to her lips in thought. After a moment of deliberation, she snapped her fingers and pressed her hands together.

“Galahad’s knights! They live still... Mayhap they were made to drink of the Remedium Serenitatem in order to serve Andromeda forever. If she cannot have true, endless serenity, than none shall any. Oh, Annie...”

“Not why we speak. Anger—such anger, the sight of you. Even if you are not they, you look as them. The rabbits who serve Andromeda. Our rage is quelled for only a time,” the voice echoed, the hairy rabbit-creature glowering at the pair. Its eyes calmed, and the voice continued, “There was a rabbit, traveled the seas to Earth. Belief, there is, that she is the capital’s true heir. Before Lunarians. Before Andromeda. Royal blood rests in she. Whispered, it is, that an Earth rabbit protected her. Our rage—quelled only by this. But not forever. Leave. You leave.”

“You... you’re talking about Luminous,” said Ethel, lips agape. “Then, is she here? Is she alright? And—was there a human with her?”

“His fate is most intriguing indeed. Be it too much to hope he hath not been dissected like a frog, I wonder?” Beatrix tilted her head back and forth in thought, then merely shrugged at Ethel.

“Cannot know. Lunar Capital, forbidden ground,” the voice answered. “Leave. Leave before you are found by them. Leave before our rage finds you.”

The wind blew through the trees with enough force to lift Ethel’s ears. The lumbering white creatures slowly drew away into the trees and hills, disappearing one by one. Left standing there in the grassy clearing, the hermit and her servant stared at one another for several moments, unsure of what to make of the situation. Then, heavy with unease and gathered peaches, they gathered themselves and began back toward the boat, eyes lingering on the bright silver tower in the distance.

On a short hill overlooking the beach, Beatrix stopped a moment to look out over the water. The churning tide rose halfway up the beach, the blue Earth in its sparkling reflection. The Lunarian drew in deeply the air through her nose, and exhaled it wistfully slow—as if she might never return.

“Lady Beatrix,” began Ethel, her hands folded behind her back. “I must admit, there were many a time when I believed your stories to be merely fiction, or failing that, a dream. But, now...“

“Aha, but Ethel, canst thee ever truly say whether you wake or sleep? Consider thusly—mayhap all our lives be but a long dream. A dream of peaches and pies, rabbits and people, of Luna and Earth. If it all lie in the realm of fantasy, then I should hope never to wake, lest such wonderful things as little rabbits cease to be,” Beatrix said, shooting her a radiant smile. “Shouldst I ever fret over such frivolous things as reality again, I needs but remember this moment.”

Ethel could not help but smile in return. On that grassy hill over the ocean, she felt an odd warmth as the air filled her lungs. For the briefest of moments, she wondered if she truly did dream, for the moon reminded her much of a place she long called home.

A piercing screech penetrated the rabbit girl’s long ears, each of their short hairs standing on end. The sound came from farther down the beach, high pitched and terrified.

“Matilda!” said Ethel and Beatrix at once, glancing at one another.

Without hesitation, the maid reached into her coat and withdrew the sharp silver knife. Gripping it tightly at the ready, she leapt from her spot and dashed down the beach, each footfall a short striding hop. As her feet sank into the sand and tide, she caught sight of Matilda in the boat, scrambling away from a large, white, hairy figure.

“What the hell are you? Get away from me! I swear I’ll bite your nuts off if you try anything!” Matilda shouted and threatened, her arms grabbing for anything in the boat she could use to defend herself. She floundered backward and fell into the sand, crawling backward toward the water.

Realizing what had confronted her sister, Ethel calmly put away the knife and approached the large white rabbit. It turned around to face her, its beady black eyes rolling over her form as she curtsied.

“Ethel! Do something! That THING tried to grab me! It’s a monster!” Matilda squealed, pointing wild accusing fingers at the large white rabbit as her fearful eyes pleaded with her sister.

“Hello—might you be one of the rabbits that spoke to Lady Beatrix and I before? This is the boat we arrived on. Please forgive us for disturbing your peace. We wish only to be on our way, now,” explained Ethel, her tone smooth and polite.

The creature squinted at her, spoke in deep, foreign notes, and rumbling words invaded Ethel’s mind.

“Wanted only to know. Know, if she knows where she sits. The shores of Luna, not often filled with hares of the Earth. Not welcome. Leave now, leave. While you still have peace.”

Its black eyes shut, it threw back its head and exhaled a long sigh through the slits of its nose. It grunted at the two rabbit girls, one after another, then began to slowly walk away, one lumbering, hairy foot after another.

Matilda, her hands and knees sunk into wet sand, hid motionlessly at the side of the boat until the hairy rabbit creature had vanished beyond the nearby peach trees. Then, she picked herself up from the ground, brushed herself off and sat down in the boat. She gave Ethel a long, wide-eyed stare, and huddled down to hug her knees.

“Are you alright? How long ago did you wake?” Ethel asked, leaning over the boat.

Matilda’s eyes darted up at her, then dove back down to the bottom of the boat, and she quietly murmured something that sounded like, “Wanna go home.”

“Oh, come now. Do you even know where we are?” asked Ethel, holding back laughter.

The smaller rabbit girl turned her head, taking in the sight of the glowing ball of blue and swirling white filling the void beyond the ocean. She stared a moment, then returned to staring at the floor of the boat.

“Wanna go home. Wanna get in bed,” she mumbled.

“I brought you something—it’s a Lunar peach. You really must try it, it’s like nothing I’ve ever had before,” Ethel encouraged, pressing a bulbous fruit toward her sister.

Taking the soft, pink fruit in her fingers, she gave it a cautious sniff. With a growling stomach, she parted her lips and sunk her teeth into its flesh, taking the smallest of bites. Chewing with the greatest of reserve, her eyes popped open to stare agape at Ethel. Taking another bite, and then another, she wolfed down the fruit ravenously, and as soon as she was finished, she leapt from the boat to ran up the beach, turning around in great circles to take in her surroundings.

“Why?!” she shouted at Ethel from across the sand. “Why are we on the moon?!”

“My, my. Thine eyes see truly at last, Matilda. Maketh pilgrimage to Luna we have, verily. The two of you might well be the first Earth rabbits to set foot on her soil,” called Beatrix, taking her time in walking towards the boat.

“You crazy old hag! What if we’re stuck here? What if we can never go back? What if that THING decided it wanted to know what a little brown bunny tasted like?” seethed Matilda, bounding her way back to the boat.

“I apologize for leaving you here alone, Matilda. You were fast asleep, and I did not wish to wake you,” Ethel calmly explained, a hand to her chest.

“Can we just get out of here before that thing comes back? Like, now?!” Matilda demanded, planting her seat firmly in the boat once again. “And gimme another one of those peaches! I’m starved.”

Beatrix pulled one of the fruits from her cloak, turning it between her fingers and analyzing it with a scheming, mischievous smile.

“Nay—we wait until we are safely home within the walls of Church Mouse. For upon our arrival, dear Matilda, you shalt learn to bake a pie.”

[raphiot]

The Alchemy Room

There was a room of the Church Mouse Gallery that saw little use. Tucked away in the corner, past the chambers of its hermit master but before the library filled with Lunar scribble-books, its mahogany entrance lay slightly ajar, and the quivering nose of a curious rabbit was poised to poke its way inside.

The dim light coming from the hallway revealed little of the room, save for hardwood flooring and wispy darkness. The sound of metal tinks crept toward the rabbit’s ears, which rose inquisitively from their lazy beds on the girl’s head.

The little rabbit gathered a fistful of her pale green dress in each hand; the hermit-master of Church Mouse, Beatrix, had not shown herself the entire day. Her two servants had deduced she was not in her room, as they had not found themselves scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes for the crime of knocking on her door during the time of her mid-afternoon nap, nor was she to be found in her other usual places, such as in the dining room to demand her multiple-course brunch. If she had not abandoned the Gallery entirely, the rabbit was certain she lurked in this darkened room.

“I am keenly aware of thy presence, Matilda,” came a calm but chilly voice from deep inside the room. “Do you intend to shadow the doorway ever long? If thou be not busy, might you prepare the kettle for evening tea?”

The rabbit’s ears twitched upon hearing her name, and a chill rose from her center. Not to be dissuaded, her shoes tapped noisily against the floor as she entered and shut the door behind her. Matilda’s eyes gradually adjusted to the cascading shadows, cast by a single light from atop a table on the far side of the room, and looming over it was the tall figure of the hermit-woman. Lining the walls were wooden tables covered in papers and instruments, shelves lined with beakers, some empty, some containing dark substances. Her nose curled at the scent, somewhere between musty wood and heated metal.

“Be’est something the matter?” questioned Beatrix, but she did not turn from the table.

“I—we wondered if you’d ran off somewhere,” Matilda said, her voice cracking as she uncomfortably spoke up. “You’re usually ordering us around like your slaves.”

“Were I to leave the Gallery, I should hardly think I would go alone. But, were I to do so, I would be certain to let the two of you know—lest Church Mouse descend into chaos in my absence,” the hermit answered, sighing.

“What is this room? What’ve you been doing in here all day?” Matilda pressed.

Sitting on one of the tables near Beatrix was a glass jar half-filled with candied cherries, their volume appearing to have been recently worked down. The rabbit-girl dipped her fingers into the jar and came away with one as quietly as she could, so as not to alert her master.

“I doth believe it to be the laboratory of an alchemist, or it were afore the Gallery came into my possession. A number of these instruments were left here, mayhap in hopes the owner would not be discovered for their work. A dubious thing, yea, for a place that was once a church,” Beatrix explained, her shoulders shifting as her hands worked with something in front of her. “But for now, let us call it my workshop, or such as like. Nay, I am no alchemist, but my work is something akin to that.”

“Your ‘work,’ huh. Like making luck charms from rabbits’ feet?” Matilda sneered, putting a hand to her hip and turning up her nose. “I guess a moonie like you would have plenty of time to practice.”

“This long life of mine hath given me many years to hone myself, yea. Not all my time can be spent in repentance,” Beatrix calmly responded, ignoring her jab.

“So then, you really believe it—that you’re some hundred years old immortal or whatever. I thought that was just some dumb superstition. Ethel didn’t tell me I was working for some senile old lady!” Matilda jeered, holding back laughter.

Beatrix said nothing, and when Matilda quieted, the soft tink of metal on metal was the only sound in the room. The hermit placed a chisel down on the table and took in her fingers another, smaller instrument, before returning to her unseen work.

“If you really believe all that junk about the moon, and stealing heaven… Then, some job you’re doing repenting, living with two little rabbit maids. No, you humans are all alike—stomp on what others have built and say it was yours all along. I bet you don’t regret it at all,” Matilda accused, venom on her tongue. She folded her arms and stood behind the hermit as defiantly as she could manage.

Laying down her tools, Beatrix held something up to her mouth and blew, once and then twice, as if to blow away dirt. Then she placed the object on the table, and laid her hands flat on the edges, taking a deep breath. Composed, she turned and faced the rabbit servant, her icy cobalt eyes searching Matilda’s face.

“Thou doth not know the depth of my regret, and loathe I am to explain it to you. For whilst there is much I wish could be undone, such are there too many fine things that would not be, hadst humans ne’er touched Luna,” Beatrix stated coolly, staring directly into the girl’s eyes.

“What are you trying to say?” Matilda questioned, but Beatrix merely shook her head.

“Methinks thy queries hath been misplaced. What of you, little lady Matilda? Doth regret not linger from the tips of thine ears? ‘Tis no simple whimsy that dresses you in the same cloth as your sister, I should think,” Beatrix countered, and rose a finger to postulate a point.

Matilda recoiled, glancing quickly down at the green dress and serving apron she was garb in, the very same attire Ethel wore. She frowned and bit her lip, and thought briefly for escaping out the door—but chose to stand her ground before the so-called Lunarian hermit.

“These are just the clothes I wear to work in—I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this anywhere else. And I can’t help it if my slavedriver wants me to dress up like a doll while I’m scrubbing the floors,” she said, looking at the floor.

Beatrix rose an eyebrow and smirked. “Be that so? Shouldst I assume Ethel’s musings on how fetching you look in it are of no consequence? Come, now. Surely, you recall a time whenst the pair of you were not so cordial.” She leaned forward, her gaze closing in on the girl, watching the discomfort grow in her eyes. “I recall a village beneath the earth, filled with little children. Though they would laugh and play and hop about, one among them were all alone, made a leper for her birth. Pray tell, are you familiar with this girl?”

The Lunarian reached her hand out to touch a lazy lop-ear atop Matilda’s crown, but the small rabbit-girl quickly jerked her head away, scowling.

“What do you know? You—you weren’t there, you don’t know what it’s like to live in a hole with nothing. We never knew what tomorrow would bring. We were always afraid of being found by the humans, or running out of food, or…” Matilda spat excuse after excuse, feeling her face become red, hot and flustered.

“E’er troubled and living with very little of their own, such was the plight of forest-dwelling rabbits, yea. One made all the harsher when thought to be a curse, I should think.”

“Yes, it’s true!” Matilda shouted, stamping her foot. “Yes, we were cruel to her! Yes, it was wrong! Yes, we abandoned her to that hole in the ground! Is that what you want me to say?!”

Beatrix straightened her back and folded her arms, watching the little rabbit suck in air. Her face was stone, her eyes cold. Matilda put her hands to her chest, surprised even with herself, but the rabbit-girl did not relent, her face tightening in anger.

“Do you want me to get on my knees and beg Ethel for forgiveness? I won’t do it! I am here, doing your bidding so I have a place to stay, and that is the best you’ll get out of me, moonie,” Matilda growled, and turned to open the door.

“Nay,” Beatrix called to her, her voice devoid of emotion. “I do not wish you to beg. Merely to hold out your hands.”

Matilda paused, her hand on the doorknob. The girl’s head looked cautiously over her shoulder, her ears raised ever so slightly in alarm. The two stood there a moment, as if in stalemate, until finally the rabbit-girl approached her an inch at a time, heart thundering in her chest.

“Wh-what…?” she murmured, her voice filled with trepidation.

“Hold out your hands,” Beatrix repeated.

When Matilda finally complied, her hands atop one another in front of her, the Lunarian turned around and gathered something from the table, hastily working her hands. For nearly a full minute, Matilda stood there waiting with her hands before her, afraid to move a muscle. Finally, Beatrix turned around, holding something behind her back.

“Now, shut your eyes,” she commanded, and Matilda obeyed, albeit one eye at a time and swallowing as if she were about to receive a grave punishment.

What she felt touch her fingers and palm was not a heated iron or a rusty nail, as she feared, but rather a cold, metal circle, with a small chain following after it. She ran her fingers over its face, confused and bewildered.

“You may open them,” Beatrix directed.

Matilda found in her palm a round, silver pendant, with an intricate design in its center—three rabbits, joined by and sharing an ear, hopping along the edges. She withdrew the pendant she wore around her neck and examined the two side-by-side. To her utter disbelief, the new pendant was all but identical to her own.

“But... but how? Why?” Matilda stammered, desperation in her stare.

Beatrix smiled at her. “Ethel often wished for a pendant like yours, that she might be closer to you. I want you to give that to her. If she asks upon its origin, merely say you had it commissioned for her.”

Grasping the pendant to her chest, Matilda began to back away, one uneasy step at a time, until she felt the doorknob graze her back. Lost and staring at the tall hermit-woman looking back at her from the work table, she slipped through the doorway as quickly as she could, and quietly closed it.

[raphiot]

This is an updated version of the Moondust Easter story I did last year, with a few adjustments to make it more standalone.

The light of day disappeared behind me as I entered the labyrinth of steel and stone. Temporarily blinded by the dim, artificial lights inside, the checkerboard floor appeared to me as though it stretched on forever into the dark. Far above my head, a monitor displayed my unkempt hair and filthy flannel jacket, bestowing the grim knowledge that I was being watched.

I gazed left and right in a dizzy haze as walls rose tall to block my path. I stumbled through between them into makeshift halls, other lost souls drifting blindly past me. The walls were lined with cheap, packaged foods and foreign trinkets, tempting me at every step. I had become lost in a maze of processed meals and sugary stimulants.

In the middle of one of these darkened halls, a white rabbit sat upon a high perch and locked me in its chilling gaze. Red eyes, beady and bright, stared me down in a mix of disgust, judgment and coercion. Transfixed and unblinking, they filled me with a terrible dread—and an admittedly silly feeling of indignance.

The rabbit in question was part of a cardboard candy stand that housed many small, tinfoil-wrapped eggs. Blown up in an emboldened comic sans near its fluffy neck-puff was the passive-aggressive, condescending slogan, “Nobunny knows Easter like Cadbury!” The nerve. The very idea that this little cardboard animal knew more about an excuse to gorge oneself on candy than I did was enough to incite me, and I felt I had no recourse but to walk right over and pick up a chocolate candy egg and buy it. That’ll show the smug little bunny.

It was a rare occasion in my backwater little town when the sun dared to show its face in the sky. It was still half-hidden behind a veil of white clouds, yet even half a ray of sunshine was enough warmth to dry up the post-winter downpour of nights before. For the first time in a long while, I wouldn’t be dripping wet when I walked through my door.

Under the blankets in the bed at the middle of the room lay a familiar shape. Little ears poking out of the covers, darting around like antennae, searching for signs of intruders. As soon as I shut the door behind me, the sonar system in the bed had picked me up and activated emergency waking mode.

“Oh—good morn-ning…!”

A small, bright-haired person rose from the blankets and set her violet eyes on me. Though I had no qualms referring to her as a person, if someone else got a good look at her long, thin, fluffy white ears, they might think it odd. Her ears fluttered about as she addressed me, as if finding feeling among the stale air of my apartment and rousing to wakefulness. Once she had wiped the sand from her eyes, those lively ears fell lazily to rest against her head.

“Hey,” I said, and sat down in my creaking chair next to the counter before taking the plastic shopping bag out of my jacket.

The rabbit-girl came before me, her nose subtly twitching with curiosity.

“Did you go? Somewhere?” she asked, ears perking.

“Just went to buy a couple things,” I answered, pulling my usual can of premade coffee from the bag to set on the counter. With a sly grin, I took the tinfoil-wrapped chocolate out as well and showed it to her. “I thought you might like this.”

“What, what is it?” she asked, bouncing in front of me.

“Hold out your hands,” I said. She curiously obeyed, blinking quizzically.

Holding the candy egg above her head, I dropped it into her waiting palms. She rolled it around between her fingers and took in its texture, eventually puzzling out that the colorful packaging needed removing. She meticulously pulled at one of the loose edges and removed it little by little, revealing the oval chocolate confection.

“Oh. It is—ah—can-dy,” she deduced, sniffing it.

“Take a bite,” I told her, “there’s a surprise inside.”

The rabbit-girl’s ears crooked to me inquisitively, as if trying to form a question mark shape. Without much hesitation, she sank her teeth into the chocolate confection and pulled away with a sizable chunk of it, chewing reservedly—and her eyes opened wide.

“This! This fill-ling...” she exclaimed, her mouth full of chocolate. Looking down at the egg, she found the interior to be filled with a white and yellow cream filling, resembling that of an egg white and yolk. Just tasted like sugar, though, I’m sure.

“Yeah, it’s like an egg,” I said from the mouthpiece of my coffee can. “I thought of you when I saw the little bunny that lays them at the store.”

“Lay…? Rabbits do not—do not lay eggs,” she said with a confused murmur. She gave me a familiar look of perplexity, but had not stopped eating the chocolate.

“During Easter, they do,” I remarked, smirking at her. “Little bunnies hide in the grass and lay colored eggs for people to find, filled with candy.”

The questions were boiling over in her head as she become confused. She gave me a troubled look. “But! Eggs…? That, that is r-ridiculous! I cannot lay any—ahm—eggs...” She gazed down at her body, which was largely covered by a white button-up shirt I had given her to wear, her legs bare as she had forgotten, in her grogginess, to dress herself after getting out of bed.

“Ah!” she squeaked in alarm, quickly turning red as she scurried into the bathroom to dress herself, her ears bouncing atop her head.

Those strange thin ears coming from the sides of her head—the puff of white cotton fur poking from her tailbone—simply by looking at her, you could see she was something more than human. The musical verve in her voice gave that much away. Yet no matter how she claimed to be the ‘Lunar Emissary,’ a visitor from the moon, I couldn’t see her as anything but an ordinary young girl.

When she returned, her wild hair had been tamed into its usual tied twintails, and she had adorned herself with her pale blue skirt, her hooded denim jacket, a pair of my long socks and her denim-color sneakers. Though it took her an eternity each time, she emerged from my filthy bathroom like a dainty flower springing from a pot of dirt.

“Ahm,” she began, her hands together at her waist, “what is Easter?”

“Oh, well,” I floundered, scratching the back of my head, trying to think of a way out of explaining the awkward practices of Christian holidays and how rabbits had become related to the concept of hidden eggs that bear treasure inside. “It’s a time when, err… When rabbits become really popular on Earth, I guess.”

“R-really...?” she chirped, mystified. Her bright eyes hid briefly behind her long, silver eyelashes as she blinked in wonder at me.

The idea of humans and rabbits openly celebrating one another’s company was probably not something she thought was possible; she had regularly expressed that those like her held a loud distaste for humans, and part of her mission on Earth involved finding some kind of common ground.

“Yeah. And so, uh, we make these baskets with food—and rabbit eggs—and we share them, in celebration of humans and rabbits coming together.”

“If, if that is so… Then why do Earth rabbits not live openly? With, with humans?” she puzzled, touching her forefinger to her lips in thought.

Shit, she’s got me there.

“Well, it’s because humans think rabbits are animals… like, fluffy animals that live underground. Rabbits like you—they’re sort of like a fairy tale to them,” I weaselly answered, stretching the truth. I was never was very good at lying, but I still preferred it to attempting to tell her that Easter was about a bearded arab who rose from the grave.

“I am no fairy,” she said, and outstretched her ears. “I am Luminous, the Lunar Emissary.” She proudly puffed out her chest.

Luminous was not actually her name, but rather a nickname I had given her in place of a series of rhythmic chirps that I had no hope of pronouncing. Still, she seemed to like it. I typically shortened it to just Lumi.

“I think I know a way to show you. Come with me,” I said, and outstretched my hand to her, the other reaching for the door.

The rabbit-girl timidly placed her long, thin fingers in my palm and followed after me as I turned the knob and guided her out. A light drizzle had come to accompany the sun, so I pointed to her head and she complied by covering her ears with her hood.

It had been many years since I had attended an Easter celebration at a church. I figured there wouldn’t be a better place for Lumi to see what it meant to people with her own eyes than an official gathering for it, and there were certainly plenty of places in town to do so. I wasn’t sure which to attend, not being bent to any specific branch, so I thought first to go to a place that was a church in name only.

    “Easter? To think the crux of thine Earthly faith shouldst lead thee to mine doorstep. A funny thing, t’would be, were it not so queer.”

The hermit woman laughed plainly in my face from her carpeted threshold, beyond the wide double-doors of the Church Mouse Gallery. Her loose, blonde bun bounced to match her chuckling.

“Right, I forgot a wicked old witch like you has no time for lowly mortals such as myself. I just thought you might have gotten Ethel to lay some eggs,” I said, annoyed.

Beatrix was her name, a self-proclaimed denizen of the moon who had supposedly been banished to the Earth, and just an odd old kook besides. Seeing her for anything related to religion was probably not a wise decision, but I still had reservations about taking Lumi to any public place, where many people might see her funny ears and kaleidoscope violet eyes.

The building itself laid between a thicket of trees on the corner of a forgotten old street, the well-tended garden and ornately painted double doors standing out sorely from the crackerjack houses and broken sidewalk just down the road. It nearly had the look of a church with its tall white cross jutting into the air, but aside from that, nothing resembling a gathering place of the Lord remained. The name Church Mouse Gallery was a dubious misnomer, as it was neither a church nor a place where mice were put on display.

“On occasion, Ethel doth lie in a bed of whimsy and foolishness, but ne’er so deeply she had a mind to lay an egg,” she retorted, and wrapped a finger in one of her blonde curls as she spoke. “Verily, thy head seem to crack like that of an egg, shouldst thee believe such a thing.”

“So you guys don’t celebrate Easter. I probably should have known better,” I sighed, rolling my eyes at her. She was so old—and probably so senile—that she might not have heard about rabbits ‘laying eggs’ during Easter.

“Oh, hello, Lady Emissary,” a calm and youthful voice called from behind Beatrix. A young woman in a maidservant dress with long brown locks that flew down her back took her place beside the hermit. She gave a polite bow—and much of her hair tumbled over her shoulders to reveal that it was, in fact, not hair at all, but very long lop rabbit ears. She rose and smiled at Lumi, looking glad to see her again.

“In truth,” the servant rabbit began, “I had proposed the idea of painting eggs to my Lady Beatrix, but she thought it a silly waste of time. ‘Why should a rabbit be concerned with the contrived rituals of humans,’ she said. Far be it from me to inquire upon a ritual that involves my kind, of course.”

“Be they your kind, dear Ethel? The rabbits seen in human eyes are not they with human forms. Nay, they bethinks you a furry animal bred for thy meat and thy feet,” Beatrix countered, and took Ethel’s long ear between her thumb and forefinger. “Though I am loathe to admit, I have many times borne the thought of the fine leather belt that might be fashioned from thine ear...”

Ethel merely tilted her head to the side and gently tugged the long appendage out of her master’s clutches, who chuckled into the back of her hand. The lop rabbit maidservant took a dainty stance in front of us, feet together, and looked to Lumi.

“Emissary. Perhaps I am being presumptuous, but you are interested in Easter too, are you not?” she asked warmly, giving a small smile.

“I—ahm—I wanted to, to know. During Easter… do Earth rabbits really lay… lay eggs?” Lumi timidly repeated what I had told her, turning pink.

“Lay eggs?” Ethel’s eyes widened in confusion, and she looked at me to see the dumb smile on my face, which she returned with a reserved giggle. “Oh, I see! Yes, it’s true, Lady Emissary. In fact, I was planning on laying a whole batch today. Would you like to join me?”

“Ahm! I do not know if, if…!” Lumi protested, even as Ethel took her by the hand and lead her into the building. The sound of Lumi squirming and squeaking could be heard all the way down the hall.

“Oh, fie. The frivolity of little hares, dug into earthly holes. Prithee, spare me your pagan rituals...” Beatrix grumbled to herself as she waltzed back inside, nearly shutting the door before she realized I was still standing there. “Methinks you await some invitation? Pray, come inside afore I lose what graces of hospitality I can bear to muster.”

The hermit hostess showed me to the dining room, with its mahogany table and rainy window that overlooked the dilapidated houses nearby. The table had been decorated with a few new books, such glowing titles as Alice and the Machina Mirror, the cover bearing some young girl in a trance staring at a computer screen. Some social commentary, I imagine. There was also And I Don’t Have a Gun: How One Woman Changed the Music Industry Forever. I wouldn’t have figured Beatrix would be interested in human celebrities. Maybe she just liked the cover illustration—a shotgun lying on a table covered in heroine.

“Careful, Emissary. We shall need each and every one of those eggs,” Ethel’s voice carried down the hall.

Lumi soon came shuffling past the dining room door, dressed in a white apron, holding a basket full of white eggs. Ethel followed closely behind, her arms loaded with painting utensils.

Beatrix’s lids strained as she glared at me, her ice cold irises nearly aglow with malice. “Now listen here, boy. Didst thee conspire to pilfer my kitchen stores, as if Church Mouse a veritable hen house? Ethel most certainly did not lay those eggs!”

Eventually, the two rabbits emerged into the dining room, bearing plates full of painted eggs and a bowl with a golden mixture of yolk and potatoes. Ethel set the painted eggs around the table, between each of our plates, and then disappeared for a moment to retrieve a metal tray with yet more plates; a plate of egg white slices with the devil’s filling of yolk and mayonnaise, a plate of chocolate pie that I’m told is made from turtles, and a plate of pink, soft-looking meat that practically begged for teeth to sink into it. It was a feast fit for a king.

Lumi sat next to me, still wearing her apron and looking a little flushed. The white garment was covered in smears of mayo, paint, and cream that was likely meant for the pie. I wondered briefly if she’d ever cooked like this before.

Ethel quickly made a small plate for each of us, and sat down herself. Beatrix, stabbing her finger into one of the deviled eggs, looked pointedly at her servant.

“Pray tell, was it very much trouble whenst you thrust the eggs from your being, Ethel?” she sneered, none too amused, even as she stuffed the egg white into her mouth whole.

“My Lady, if I were to cook only when commanded, we would be eating breakfast at dinner time for the rest of our days,” the lop eared rabbit quipped.

Ethel wore a satisfied looking grin as she poked a small chunk of pie with her fork and lifted it smoothly into her mouth. Lumi followed suit, and her ears flew up like party streamers before falling weakly onto her head.

“Ohh,” she whimpered. “It is so, so sweet...”

Ethel saw us out and bowed politely to the two of us as we left. As we left the gallery’s fence gate and shut it behind us, Lumi licked some stray chocolate from her fingers, oblivious to the smudge of cream on her cheek.

“She—ahm—she did not lay them,” Lumi said, as if she needed to confirm it with me. “I do not under-stand. Why eggs? What, what do they have to do with rabbits?”

“When you paint the eggs, it’s as if you’re creating something new. So you and her did ‘lay’ them, sorta. Easter is all about spring, a new start—and that’s what rabbits represent to humans. The start of something new.” My thoughts streamed unfiltered from my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

“A new… start,” she repeated, a curious whimsy in her tone.

Emboldened by my full stomach and Lumi’s curiosity, I gave in to a foolish desire to take the rabbit-girl to a real church and show her what an Easter gathering looked like. I didn’t really expect her to absorb any of the religious meaning of the event, nor did I have any interest in trying to impart it on her, but I thought it might be fun to take her to a place with lots of cheery people and free wine.

On a road leading south into untended hills overgrown with tall trees and wealthy houses, there were two churches on opposing sides of the street. One housed a glass enclosure with a bronze statue of an empress bearing a cross in her arms, Saint Helen. It overlooked the street, as if to pass judgment on each passerby. The place was crowded with old folk in black suits and ties, exiting their fancy cars, looking as though they were attending a funeral rather than a celebration.

The building across the street threatened to pierce the clouds with its high-rising cross, far above the power lines and the tallest trees. A stained glass angel observed us as we crossed the brick entrance and approached the multicolor tile door. Some scruffy-looking men with heavy overcoats were being welcomed inside by a white-collared pastor who seemed to be assuring them there’d be something to eat inside.

Yeah, this is the place.

It was a humble place on the inside, stark contrast to the bold cross that dared raise itself into the heavens. A simple carpet along the runway with a hardwood floor under the pews; white walls, lightly decorated with simple red tapestry; ordinary people in ordinary clothes sitting among the pews and listening to the pastor blather on about this arab guy and how the rock in front of his tomb was impossible to move. I wasn’t really listening, more interested in the people than the message. Lumi was clamming up and hiding herself in her hood, sitting as inconspicuously as she could at the corner of a pew.

There was a table covered with colored eggs, pastries, wine, and other generous offerings in the middle of the aisle, along with a basket for people to share donations. A thin looking woman, her hair hidden in a nun’s coif and her body in a conservative blue robe, took a bottle of wine from the table and began handing out small glasses of the red colored grape juice, along with little pieces of bread. When she had gotten around to everyone, she came to Lumi and I, but instead of handing us our share she sat down next to us.

“Here,” she said, offering Lumi and I our glasses.

The rabbit-girl looked to me for what to do, and I just knocked back my glass, downing the booze in one go. Lumi elected to take reserved little sips.

“It’s nice to see you again, emissary’s lapdog,” came a tantalizing whisper in my ear. Electricity shooting through my nerves, I turned my head in a panic to see the nun flashing me a toothy grin.

“Who—who are you?” I whispered back in a panic.

“You don’t remember me? Aww… I’d never forget you,” she said, a seductive coyness to her words. She covered her mouth to hide her smug smile, scooted next to me and rubbed her shoulder against mine, as if we were old friends.

The woman’s eyes were a bewitching gemstone green. As they peered back into mine, a chill ran up my spine—the terrible feeling I had seen them before.

Her frame was small, but not as tiny as Lumi’s, and her face was surrounded by the coif in such a way that her hair was perfectly hidden. She tugged at the piece that hugged her forehead, pulling it loose from her head—and a little brown lop ear fell out.

Oh, it’s her.

“Matilda,” I said, nearly accidentally. “What do you want?”

“An Earth rabbit! What, what are you up to?!” Lumi cried in a hushed fluster.

“Calm down, moonie. I didn’t come here for you,” the disguised rabbit-girl said disarmingly. She turned her head and looked toward the other pews. “You and I aren’t the only rabbits here.”

Matilda shrugged off our surprise and stuffed her ear back into the coif, and was about to walk away when Lumi stopped her.

“I do not... understand. Why, why do Earth rabbits come to a human place? Like this?” Lumi’s voice trembled and shook, but she locked eyes with the Earth rabbit-girl in determination.

Matilda sighed, staring back with an uncertain gaze. Finally, she answered, “This place, it brings people together. Human or rabbit, you come here, and you are accepted. You feel like you belong, I suppose. And I guess I just think, isn’t that what I’ve been trying to do? What we’ve been trying to do, all along?”

Lumi and I stared at her, at a loss for words.

“Maybe during Easter, we’re all rabbits. Earth rabbits, moonies like you—humans, too. Maybe we’re not so different. That sounds like a Heaven on Earth to me,” Matilda went on. She paused a moment before shaking her head and amending herself, “But you didn’t hear me say that.”

The rabbit-girl in the coif stood up and clasped her hands together in front of her, taking on a pose befitting a sister of the faith. She began to take slow steps away, before turning around and shooting us a nod and a wink. And we silently nodded back.

  On the way back to the apartment, my feet felt light, the weight of the world not so heavy upon my shoulders. Cars passed us in a blur of light, and the wind tasted sweet. My head buzzed with appreciation for the dull colors of the gray mid-afternoon of early spring, and I couldn’t help but bend my lips into a smile. I was practically walking on air.

Hours later, in the sleepless depths of the night, I would sit glued to my rickety rocking chair, clinging to the armrests for dear life. As Lumi’s ears snaked their way out of the blankets amid her snoring, it occurred to me just why Matilda had stopped to talk to us.

There was something in that drink she gave me, and I don’t mean the blood of Christ. Rabbit ears poked their way from the walls and beady red eyes peered in from the window. Fluffy creatures with long ears crawled over me, sniffing and chewing, and I could not so much as move my stiff arms to brush them off. My eyes hung open in terror, and I knew I would never get to sleep.

[raphiot]

A very confused Lumi, confronted by a strange vegetable.

Artist’s twitter: https://twitter.com/chefdrawfag/

[raphiot]

A hint of rain, tapping on the broken glass and the boards covering the window. A light gust of wind, pushing the cardboard fetters against the curtain. A cloud of intoxicating smoke, billowing its way toward me with malicious intent. I buried my head under my blankets and searched for sleep, though I knew I wouldn’t be finding any.

    “They’re all asians, even the Americans.”

    “Well, they’re just who’s the fastest.”

    “Yeah, I guess, but lookit them gooks. Real skinny ‘an shrimpy, even the men. Ya’d think olympic athletes would hafta eat, yano?”

    Two voices, one young and aloof, the other mature and filled with tobacco rasp, carried through the cobweb cave we called our living room and toward the television set. I lowered the blankets to the bridge of my nose and peered warily at the screen, its dim glow the only light penetrating the choking darkness of the room.

    Men and women in warm clothing, emblazoned with the logos of various sponsors, dug into the snow with oversized ice picks and slid on long sticks of wood down a frozen track. They drifted over the sleet and ice to edge their way between flags of red and green, gliding over the course as if flying.

    My eyes ached, heavy with the sand of a sleepless night. I glanced at the digital clock above the television, its thin red numbers reading 8:34 AM, and my head fell heavy onto my pillow. I’d only slept three hours.

    “... Thought I heard somethin’ in the attic earlier…”

    “There’s a cat that sleeps on my windowsill, I hear it all the time.”

    “No, this wasn’t like no cat. It was hoppin’ around, like a bunny rabbit or somethin’...”

    The voices passed through the air, floating over my head, and only a few managed to penetrate my sleepy skull. I tossed this way and that, throwing my blankets over my body and enwrapping myself in a cocoon of donated quilt and recycled dryer lint. Any drowsiness remaining in my head was soon shaken, however, as the flimsy door was rattled by the sound of knuckles on the wood.

    The older man, his face covered by an unkempt grey beard and his balding scalp covered by his black hood, approached the door with all the wary unease of a drug lord fearing a bust. He gripped the doorknob, held it still in trepidation, and then opened the door a tiny crack.

    “Ho there. Figgered you folks’d be watchin’ the oh-limpicks by now.”

    The voice from the door was nervous, accentuated by an uncertain chuckle. The man holding the door open stood there silently, staring into the crack.

    “An’ who said some goddamn illegal just over the wall could come here ta watch it? Get outta here, wetback!” the man shouted, mocking. He opened the door wide to let in the visitor and a torrent of cold wind.

    The visitor, in his faded green windbreaker, plain black hat and scruffy moustache, shuffled into the room and sat down at the armchair in the center of the filthy carpet. He lowered his backpack to the floor—clunking heavy against the floorboards—and looked this way and that anxiously, running his hands over his jeans repeatedly as if not sure what to do with them.

    The hooded man, his balding scalp shining against the lightbulb, retreated to the side of the ash-covered stove so he could continue to sear his skin and resist the cold wind coming from the many little cracks in the walls. Silence permeated the little cave of rickety boards and leaky ceilings for but a brief, blissful second, before the aimless murmuring continued.

    “Lookit them little asian boys go. Skinny little things…”

    “The only feed ‘em in rice an’ soy over there, after all.”

    The hooded man and his rotund companion snickered to one another back and forth for a while. Gathering his courage, the visitor raised his frail voice to join them.

    “This a Chinese-only event or summat? Everybody’s a slanty,” he commented.

    “Nah. If was a Chinese thing, they’d round up all the foreigners ‘an throw ‘em in a camp,” the hooded, bald man responded.

    My oily hair tendrils fell over my face in clumps. I brushed them aside and forced myself from the sinkhole of my blankets, a quiet but no less disgruntled acceptance of the fact that any further sleep was not likely to come. Slumping from one foot to the other like a shambling cadaver toward the bathroom, the two people standing in the hallway—a tiny space containing the wood stove, more akin to an ashtray with its strewn about cigarette butts—moved silently aside.

    The curtain of recycled lint covering the entrance to the freezing cavern of my kitchen parted, a short, homely fat woman emerging from beyond the threshold. From inside her mess of black and gray hair came a sound somewhere between vomiting and a cat coughing up a hairball.

    “Sorry,” she said, swallowing what she’d coughed up, “some crap stuck in my throat.”

    I tapped my finger against the tiny touch lamp that lit the bathroom and saw in the mirror wrinkles forming on my forehead, staring back at me. Behind my head in the reflection was a wall covered in ceramic butterfly and flower directions, covered in dirt and cobwebs from years of neglect. The floor was like a sliding tile floor from a funhouse, as it was covered in loose boards to protect you from falling into one of the holes in the floorboards and breaking your leg.

The only outlets in the room were near the light switch—a relic from a time gone by when the fluorescent light spider nest above my head was functional—and one of them powered the refrigerator in the next room. This meant the other outlet was for either the lamp or the heater, and in the freezing temperatures of mid-February, I would much sooner choose to sit in the dark than sit in the cold. The outlet itself was worn and burnt black, looking ready to burn this place to the ground any day now.

Thump, thump, thump. Above my head, the sound of something small moving around and waking the dust from the ceiling. A more paranoid person than I might have worried their house was haunted, but this place was too cold and miserable for any poltergeist with standards. The attic was no stranger to small animals seeking shelter from the rain; it was probably a cat.

I sat on my throne for a while, listening to the rain hit the tarps covering the leaky roof. The two men toasting their bodies next to the stove had gone back to their endless, aimless muttering at one another.

“Yeah, boy, I tell ya. Can’t take it when it gets this cold. Should only be this cold in my grave. You can’t get but a few feet away from the stove, ya just freeze if ya do,” came the older voice, strained by lungs full of smoke. I heard him exhale a cloud. “My dad, he said back from where he came from, it was three months of summer and nine months of winter every year, freezin’ temperatures the whole way. Yeah, hell, shit-fire. I couldn’t take that.

“But that’s what’s gonna happen, y’know? Once they bomb us, gonna be a nuclear winter. It’s best we start gettin’ used to it now, an’ it won’t even seem that bad when folks start beatin’ down our door for our guns an’ water. If I could just win the lottery, I’d build us a shelter, out in the woods somewhere…”

“Hey, I got this here pack ‘a grass I chewed up on the way here. You all wanna smoke a bowl?” the visitor asked, his squirrely, slurred voice edging its way in between the mutters.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

And then came the coughing. Raucous hacking and wheezing carried down toward me, carrying the noxious smell of their vice. The hooded man coughed like he meant to vomit his lungs onto the floor.

I chose to remain in the bathroom for a while, hoping to wait out the smell and the smoke. While I could have easily sat there long enough to fall asleep and spend the next four hours sleeping on the toilet, a loud knock at the front door roused me from any potential bathroom dreaming.

“Who’s there?” the hooded man called into the flimsy wood of the front door.

“It’s Dan,” was the response of a much younger sounding man.

“Dan’s not here, man!”

“No, it’s me, Dan!”

“Yeah, like I said, Dan’s not here!” the hooded man shouted back, mocking.

I heard the sound of the door thrust from its latch, the hinges whining. The house nearly shook as the two stomped against the floorboards and made their way into the tiny house, then exchanged quiet murmurs I couldn’t quite make out.

The smell of smoke and soot consumed me into its haze as I made my way back into the small space the other occupants of my tiny shack dwelled. I gripped the coffee pot, grimy with black stains from overflow, and tipped it toward my similarly stained mug. A tiny trickle of the liquid swirled around the bottom before slowing to a drip. Sighing, I set the pot back down.

A dirt-encrusted hand gripped my shoulder and jerked me toward the stove. The beady eyes of the hooded man settled onto my face, his balding eyebrows shifted in distress.

“Hey, uh, you wanna…” he began, his pale green eyes shifting over my face skittishly, “you wanna go to the store?”

Behind him, the large man named Dan shuffled back and forth anxiously, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargo shorts. He wore a camo-pattern hoodie and cheap looking rubber sneakers, his toes exposed through a hole on his left foot. What skin wasn’t covered by his clothes was instead covered by tattoos.

“Dan needs some money…” the hooded man said, stuffing a twenty dollar bill into my pocket. “Break that, wouldja? An’ give him ten.”

“What should I buy? Do we need anything?” I asked.

“Uhhh… zingers. Get some zingers,” he responded. I rolled my eyes at him.

“Thanks Eugie, I really ‘preciate it,” Dan said to the hooded man quickly, already halfway out the door again. He pointed at me, but he was looking outside. “I’ll, I’ll meetcha out in the car, okay?”

A lucky drop of rain found its way between the holes in the pines above and fell onto my head, mixing with the grease on my scalp. White steam puffed from my nostrils as I left tracks in the mud, trudging through the wet swamp outside the front door.

There was a path of stone steps that lead to the driveway like little islands in a tar ocean, but using them was to postpone the inevitable; at some point, my socks were going to be soaked with muddy rainwater. Leaning against the chipped and rotting boards that made up the house were various knick-knacks the homely woman had collected: porcelain figures, like a little farmer boy and a white bunny rabbit, an angel statue missing its wings, beaten from its body years before, painted rocks that the stoned hippies around town liked to leave for people to find and all manner of other bits and bobs covered in dirt and forgotten.

Half of the driveway was occupied by firewood, the tiny shack’s only source of heat. It was slick with rain and sure to rot before winter was through. I crossed the pile of dead trees and passed the old man’s old beat up pick up truck to find a sorry looking red car sitting in the mud at the end of the front yard.

The paintjob was chipped and worn, lines of rain erosion and scratches everywhere you looked, until it ended abruptly in a large dent, the metal twisted and sunk into a crater. I leaned over to open the passenger door—only to find it had no handle. I tapped on the window to gain the attention of Dan, already inside and fingering his smartphone.

“Oh, sorry. Lemme get that for ya…” he mumbled, opening the door from the inside.

The interior was littered with trash. Candy and fast food wrappers, discarded mail, beer and soda cans. I sat in the fraying passenger seat, dragging the ends of my flannel in with me, as the car was so low to the ground we were nearly sitting in the puddle below us.

“You like it?” he asked, looking up from his phone for but a fleeting second. “Found it at the side of the road on the highway, just had to fix it up. So it was basically free, ‘cept for what I paid for new parts.”

He tapped his index finger against the cracked glass of his phone, cycling through text messages. Before I could reply, he had begun to slowly type something himself, methodically poking one letter at a time.

“Yeah, it’s... uh, cozy,” I remarked.

We sat there in silence for several moments as he tapped his finger against the notches in the glass. Eventually he stopped, murmuring to himself, “Fuckin’ bitch.” He set his phone down in the cup holder and looked around as if he’d forgotten where he was, and found me staring back impatiently.

“Err, sorry. Was talkin’ to the ol’ lady,” he said, giving a nervous laugh. “You know women—you’re gone for five minutes and they suspect ya of seein’ some other bitch.”

“Yeah.” My response was automatic and monotone.

“Maybe I have been gone for a while, I guess. I just need to get outta the house sometimes, get away from ‘er. She’s so demanding, ‘an it don’t matter how much I do, it ain’t ever enough. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, look at this,” he said presenting his hand to me. While his entire arm was covered in tattoos, most of them appeared to be years old while the inked skulls and snakes on the back of his hand looked fresh and new. “Just had it done. Ain’t it cool?”

“I guess.”

“Hurt like a bitch gettin’ ‘em on my knuckles. You ever thought about gettin’ a tattoo?”

“No.”

“Oh, well, that’s cool. Yeah, I suppose they ain’t for everybody. Did you see that new Avengers movie? Thought it was really dumb. I mean, the way they did Wonder Woman…”

He ran from one topic to the next, watching my reaction uneasily. It seemed like he decided to switch to something new whenever he thought he was boring me. I quietly looked on and nodded my head to signify I was listening, but his words were drifting in one ear and out the other.

It had been a month or two since he last had his head buzzed, judging by how his short hairs had begun to jut in a uniform point away from his forehead, and how his goatee had begun to escape his chin. It had likely been longer, still, since he had done his laundry; his camouflage-pattern hoodie was smattered with mud stains and his white wife beater had taken on a filthy grey color.

For a moment, I looked at him and saw a younger man, sporting fewer tattoos and fewer lines on his face. His expression was bright, his eyes full of hope for all the things he had to look forward to. A decade earlier, when I was a small and before he had gone to slave away in what they called ‘tours of duty’ in the desert. Though hints of this young man still lingered, that hope had since vanished.

He reached below the steering wheel and took two frayed wires between his inked fingers, touching the loose copper ends together.

“Never did get the ignition workin’ right. Gotta, uh, gotta do this…”

The little car sputtered to life for a moment, then choked on its exhaust and died again. He touched the copper wires again and pressed down on the gas, causing the vehicle to lurch forward and nearly collide with the bush in front of us before he hit the brake.

“Shit! Shit, uh, woops. Forgot to put ‘er in neutral. Sorry about that,” he mumbled his apology.

Putting the car into reverse, he backed up until branches from the bush were no longer scratching his hood, then spun the steering wheel to aim the car at the street, and pulled away with a sudden forward kick that pushed my back against the seat.

“So… Yeah, my old lady’s givin’ me trouble,” he said as his phone vibrated loudly against the cupholder. “Yeah, women, man. They’re nothin’ but trouble, am I right?”

“Yeah,” I replied flatly.

“You, uh, you probably have lots of girls givin’ you problems, don’tcha?” he said, giving his nervous chuckle as he tried desperately to force a conversation.

“No, not really.”

“Oh…”

A forest of overgrowth hung over the hill, roots and branches reaching down into the swamp like gnarled fingers. Raindrops dripped from their tips and disrupted the filthy water leading away into the sewer drains. At the edge of this verdant pile of dirt lie the local grocery store, a pile of cobblestone where the poor folk went to spend their food stamps on fat bathed in grease and sugar baked into more sugar, momentary little escapes.

“I’m gonna look if anyone left some cans...” murmured Dan, climbing out of the little car. He strode quickly over to the aluminum recycling machine to join several other vagrants in digging through the garbage.

Fluorescent lights and aisles of packaged plastic. Empty checkout lanes, save for the deep black wells under the checkers’ tired eyes. A giant display of little packets with one tiny confection each, a dollar a piece. I picked up what I’d been asked to get, a ‘Zinger,’ which was a little red tube of car seat foam covered with coconut shavings and filled with cream.

I presented them to the nearest checker, who stared back at me with eyes that had crossed the threshold to an infinite gaping void and could only groan in zombielike animal demand for my paper money. The transaction complete, they handed back a fistful of change, covered in torrents of drool flooding from their gaping black maw.

Dan then appeared behind me as if summoned, and asked, “Do you have the money?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

He stared at me for a moment, his expression somewhere between desperation and hunger.

“Can I have, it please?” he asked, his voice quiet, tone near begging.

I dug the money out of my pocket again, handed him a ten, and he departed for the alcohol displays as fast as his inked-up legs would carry him. Stuffing my hands into my flannel’s pockets, I rolled my eyes and left to wait near the door.

He just wanted the money for beer and smokes.

The rain, swept by the wind, thundered against the glass double doors. Occasionally they would open to let in a warmly dressed vagrant and a torrent of droplets would hail onto the welcome mat. Few things ever changed in this place, and the endless falling rain was no different.

Eventually I spotted Dan spending the entirety of the money I’d given him on cheap beer and cigarettes. He lumbered toward me with a grocery sack in hand, his expression as dour as ever. Plainly written on his face was the fact that there was no joy in those bags, only a temporary reprieve.

“You know,” he said, looking over his shoulder at me as we left out the sliding doors, “they really rape ya in places like this now. Can’t believe how much this shit costs. Six bucks for a pack of cigarettes?”

“Yeah, they suck,” I gave my automatic, flat response.

“Fuck ‘em. Fuck these shit shops—it’s all fuckin’ Chinese anway. They own the damn world.”

“Yeah.”

“An’ fuck women too! So demanding, so bitchy. Always givin’ ya shit. Why do I put up with ‘em?”

“Yep, they suck.”

“You know, all that’s left in this town I really like are you ‘an yer little group of people. Your folks are the only nice people around.”

“Nah. They suck too.”

“Thanks fer helpin’ me out. Maybe one day we’ll have to get you a tat too, huh?” Dan chuckled, smiling anxiously. “You, you see what I did there? You see… Ah, well, see you.”

“Bye,” I said impassively.

He stirred up the gravel in the driveway, the wheels spinning in place as they dug themselves out of the rocks and mud before speeding away down the street. Smoke from his exhaust flooded the air. I shook my head and turned around to cross the yard and go back inside.

Thump, thump, thump. The sound of something moving around in the attic—I could hear it even from where I stood outside as the rain pounded the top of my head. Curiosity getting the better of me, I circled around the muddy path and listened.

Old discarded furniture and bulging garbage bags lined the house from the side. Moldy old tables, dead television sets, appliances rusting in the rain. The bushes growing over the fence were slowly swallowing up the path, leafy green branches that swarmed with insects in the summer. They brushed against my arm as I passed, headed toward the backyard.

A ladder red with rust rested against the side of the moldy old house, leading to a moss-covered roof. Its rickety rails clattered against one another in protest as I lifted it from its spot and carried it with me to the side of the house, where the door to the attic could be found.

Each step up the ladder was more precarious than the last. It shook and shuddered as I climbed, feeling full ready to fall to pieces with each little movement I made. The door itself took some convincing to open, the ladder’s feet squirming and hopping as I pulled the wood free from its frame. The hinges wined and threatened to drop the door as it slid open.

A small square of an entrance, just enough for me to crawl through into the darkness and the dust. Boxes of discarded clothing, holiday ornaments, old electronics. The people here never threw anything away, they merely stuffed it in a corner somewhere to be forgotten. Inhaling a speck of dust, I sneezed loudly several times and kicked up an entire cloud.

Thump, thump, thump. Something moving, further on inside. I inhaled sharply—painfully sucking in dust—and the sounds swiftly stopped. Creeping forward, the boards groaned under my weight. The attic was not so large that I would need to look far to find whatever was hiding, I merely hoped I wouldn’t scare some animal into leaping from the attic and breaking its legs.

A chirping noise like a scared mouse came from the dark, soft and quiet. Squinting and following my ears, I knelt down and put my hands on a large box. The sound grew louder as I began to move it; a squeaking, squealing chirp that grew faster the closer I came. The box tumbled over as something moved behind it, dumping Christmas tree bulbs all over the floor.

Two red lights filled the attic. Difficult to see, yet blinding in their brightness. The chirping, the sound of rain, my breaths all grew quiet and faded away into those lights. Deep, dark pools that drained away everything around them. Whiskers and hair, fur and teeth—it was a rabbit, with dull, red eyes, and all my thoughts disappeared into those crimson voids.

Then, sitting on the boards in front of me, I could make out a man who looked to be around my age. He was covered in dirt and wore filthy clothes, rags that looked like they’d been fished out of one of the donation centers. He gazed at me with desperate eyes.

“Please don’t tell anyone I was here,” he pleaded, inching closer. He put his dirt-encrusted hands together and begged. “I was just usin’ your place to get outta the rain. I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

I was dumbstruck. The words had fled from my head. I could merely sit and stare at him and his disheveled hair, sporting what appeared to be long brown ears… like a rabbit would have. They were standing straight and taut, as if in alarm.

“Jack was looking for me. If he finds out I was here, you’ll be in trouble. I’m so sorry. Please, just forget you saw me,” he mumbled one apology after another.

Before I could stop him, he crawled toward the attic exit and disappeared through the square entrance. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, unsure of what I had just seen. I managed to fumble to the exit soon enough to spot a brown rabbit leaping through the grass and out of sight.

[raphiot]

A droplet of rain rolled down a field of fuzzy brown clumps, stuck to the drooping ear of young girl. She was leaning against the wooden railing of the side entrance on a peculiar building, half-hidden among the trees and bushes of an unassuming street in an unassuming town.

    The girl looked to the rumbling sky, a void of rolling white, and another droplet struck the top of her nose. Sighing, she brushed the moisture from her face and leaned back against the building to hide from the threat of rain. Raising her cigarette to her lips and taking a shallow puff, she felt melancholy fill her lungs.

    I hate the rain.

    A gust of wind nudged the side of her face and brushed her wild, untamed bangs from her forehead. She wore a plain, long green dress, its accompanying apron slung over her shoulder. It was a garment she was none too fond of, but one she wore out of the insistence of her older sister. It was ‘proper and ladylike,’ according to her. The girl rolled her eyes, thinking about it.

    She watched the smoke rise from her lips and be swiftly carried away by the wind. Cigarettes were not something she was very fond of, either—merely a habit she had adopted to help her deal with the daily stresses. They tasted bad and smelled worse, but they calmed her down. As she couldn’t stand tea, they would have to do.

    Across the cracked road, there was a white picket fence guarding a tiny, humble home. A little girl was prancing about in the yard, clad in warm clothes and rubber shoes, stomping her feet in mud puddles and kicking up water. She giggled as the drops of rain touched her coat, and spun around with her arms held out wide, as if to embrace the falling water.

    The girl’s ears tilted forward, tugged by gravity, as she hiked up her dress and looked down at her own feet, clothed in frilly socks and black buckled shoes she felt more befitting of a doll than her. It had been quite some time since she felt mud between her toes. The rain never did reach the warren, she thought. Dad made sure it didn’t leak.

    The girl’s ears raised in surprise as the door gave way behind her, stumbling as she clung to the doorframe for leverage. Behind her, another politely dressed girl in a dress, apron and maid’s hat had swung open the door with little warning.

    “Mattie,” she began, helping the girl to her feet, “I was wondering where you had gone off to. The day grows long and the chocolates are yet undone. I had hoped you should like to help me.”

    The girl in the doorway was taller, with much longer ears. They hung over her shoulders and behind her back, and could easily be mistaken for long flights of brown hair, if seen from afar. As the smaller girl found her footing again, she gave a wistful look back over the wood railing and found the child running into the arms of a much older man, likely her father.

    “... I’m coming. Just let me finish this cigarette,” said Matilda finally, staring into the distance.

    “You really ought to stop that, Mattie. It’s bad for your skin. You’ll get wrinkles…” The older girl spoke out of sincere concern for her younger sister, coaxing a wry glance from her. Matilda puffed a ring of smoke toward her.

    From the doorframe, a tall blonde woman poked her head from behind the older girl’s shoulder and out into the moist air. The older girl recoiled, surprised, and the younger rose her brow, annoyed.

    “Are mine ears in a twist? A gathering of hares, squeaking in romantic wist,” the strange blonde woman mused, edging past the lop-eared girl in the doorway. “Matilda, Ethel. On another day I might find this recess to be quite amiss, but on a day such as this, to reprimand thee would be remiss.”

    “Her ladyship is in a good mood, it would seem. No other time do you see fit to speak in rhyme,” the elder sister, Ethel, responded with a smirk.

    “One must speak in rhyme when dealing with the speed of spacetime. Herein do we stand with the world as our oyster, yet from within the Gallery’s shaded cloister. A veritable passage betwixt Heaven and Earth, ‘tis not?”

    This tall, blonde woman, known as the hermit Beatrix, spoke with flamboyant enthusiasm. Matilda couldn’t help but scoff at the garish display.

    “Lady Beatrix, we were just about to begin—” Ethel began, but was swiftly cut off by the hermit spinning on her heel toward her, sliding against the wood.

    “Yea, the two of you mean to entwine. For a romantic dish, for Saint Valentine’s. It doth sound right to me, so should it please—whenst you are finished—please join me for some red wine.” Beatrix tossed her hair and sauntered theatrically away back through the door, shutting it behind her.

    Silence hung heavy over the two girls standing near the wooden railing, the rain soaking wet marks into their dresses. Matilda leaned against the rail and took another puff of her cigarette, as if nothing had happened.

    The young, lop-eared girl spoke with trembling lips, nearly under her breath, “I miss him.”

    Ethel momentarily did not understand, but she followed the drooping ears and pointed stare of her younger sister across the slickened, cracked road, over the white picket fence and to a middle aged man carrying a little girl into their house to escape the oncoming rain.

    “I miss him, too, Mattie. Very much,” Ethel whispered in response, her voice only just carrying over the sound of rain. With little warning, she closed in on her younger sister and enwrapped her arms around her, gently pulling her closer, and rested her chin atop the girl’s head. “But so long as you are here, it is not so bad.”

    Without another word, Ethel let her go and retreated slowly back behind the door, closing it shut quietly.

[raphiot]

Luminous, the Lunar Emissary.

Shy and reserved, but so curious. Sent to Earth on a dangerous mission, this white rabbit of Luna journeys in the name of peace.

Artist: chefdrawfag

[raphiot]

Some concepts for the maddening gaze of the Moondust rabbits.

[raphiot]

Lumi in the sky with diamonds.

Art by chef.

[raphiot]

A Cup of Moondust alternate ending: the MC has a final showdown with Jack.

But it turns out all the rabbits were actually literal bunnies the whole time, and he’s been walking around chasing bunnies and talking to them.

(Just kidding.)

Art by my good friend chef.

[raphiot]

The Lunar Emissary, Luminous, the prim and proper maid Ethel, and the rebellious runaway, Matilda.

Some finished design concepts from chefdrawfag. Except for Ethel... I think he just wanted to draw her in her underwear. Maybe this is what she does when her master isn’t around.

[raphiot]

Ethel is a little early for Halloween. Maybe that exiled moonie set her up to this?

Art by chefdrawfag.

[raphiot]

Lumi has a little trouble eating a raspberry.

[raphiot]

“This is an Earth peach? It has sharp taste. Not sweet like a lunar peach.”

“Carrots? You mean those things you dig from the ground? Rabbits do not eat such impure things.”

Lumi, the Lunar Emissary, doesn’t think much of typical earthly stereotypes about what rabbits eat.