Beware the Little White Rabbit Read online

  And she thought he’d been totally focused on the tent.

  “You’d kind of square your shoulders and straighten your back. And then you’d breathe. It was like yoga, how naturally your finger snapped the pic in time with your exhale.”

  His words burned inside her with a glow too big for her body to contain. Unlike anyone else in her life, Aaron had seen her, known her. She felt more naked, more exposed, than last night half-dressed in the tent.

  And she’d been completely, utterly clueless.

  “But then,” he said, “your pics stopped showing up in the school paper. What happened?”

  “After my dad…” She shrugged.

  He nodded, and Alice knew he got it. She didn’t need to elaborate, didn’t need to talk about how hard it got to simply manage the essentials let alone try to hold down an extracurricular on the school paper.

  “I wanted to see you again after Morris Beach, but I didn’t know how to ask. And since you always kept to yourself, always went home right after school…”

  Aaron Malik, like his Vedic hare: the guy who jumped higher and ran faster than all the rest; who all the girls whispered about in class; the star lacrosse player; the head of the Ecology Club and the Green Movement at school. Just thinking about him made her feel about an inch tall, invisible.

  That Aaron Malik had wanted to ask her out. And it had taken getting stranded in the woods for it to happen. Why? Because she’d been totally spaced, preoccupied with herself and her problems. Wishing for him, yet hiding away all the same.

  “You’re not mad?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m not mad.”

  “So, what do you say?”

  Her brain fluttered as though filled with flapping butterflies. Could this be real? Was she still sleeping? No. In a dream her hair would look good.

  She felt a stupid smile spread across her face, but who cared how dumb she looked. Aaron Malik just asked her out.

  “I guess so,” she said. “After all, we did sleep together…”

  They ate a breakfast of dark chocolate and raisins, and shared her last granola bar. Then Aaron finished the two remaining weenies right out of the jar.

  “Eew,” Alice said. “Cold?”

  “Sorry, but they were saying eat me.”

  They broke camp after breakfast, and Alice followed Aaron through the brush, watching his white rabbit bob and sway until they found the path again. They stepped out of the shade of the trees into the dappled sunlight of a golden August morning.

  Alice turned her face up to the sky, eyes closed, glorying in the feel of the sun and the brush of the breeze across her skin. She breathed deeply, glad she was here. With him. She’d hidden away with her misery for far too long, but no more.

  Without really knowing why, she pulled out her camera and snapped off a shot of Aaron’s rabbit. A reminder to never waste time again.

  “Aaron.” He turned, an eyebrow raised. “Getting stranded could’ve really sucked. But it didn’t. Because I was with you.”

  Alice stretched up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips gently to his cheek. She caught the lingering aromas of wood smoke from his hair and the ghost of cologne from his warm skin. Aaron inhaled in surprise then turned his head so his lips brushed hers. Just the slightest touch at first, like he wasn’t sure.

  But she was.

  Alice put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder, and that was all he needed. His arms went around her. One hand stopped to rest on the small of her back. Fingers tangled in her hair, pulling at the strands like a shivery weight. She pressed into his chest, so solid, so real. He took over the kiss, his lips both soft and firm. She opened her mouth to him, to his taste, and then Alice was falling, falling…

  She pulled away with a shaky breath and rested her forehead against his collarbone where she’d bumped it the day before.

  “When we get back later,” Aaron said into her hair, “maybe I can come over and help you with your Northland application.”

  She smiled up at him, and he kissed the tip of her nose before taking her hand.

  Aaron led Alice down the trail. Where it narrowed, she followed and watched his white rabbit, letting it guide her back to camp.

  Back to life.

  For Jack and Jim.

  Some days I avoid the aviary completely. It’s hard to watch my winged friends wilt to bone and feather. To see them dead among the molding rug of leaves, disintegrating back into earth. Father hasn’t sent anyone beyond the castle walls for nearly a year, and my birdies have all grown ill from thin scraps of cast-off meat.

  I buried the first few, delicately wrapping them in cotton from an old dressing gown. Their graves were dutifully tended, and I cried for each bird in turn. Pearl gray and sky blue and pitch black, all reconvening in the Great Beyond. I long for the din of squawks and chirps and titters. I long for the novelty of death.

  Last night a parakeet died, leaving its partner in mourning. I left his body on the aviary floor, but I realized there are only three birds left. Father’s vacant stare and unpredictable outbursts have kept me quiet, and the cost of my silence has mounted.

  I wait until breakfast. Meals are when Father is most pliant. “I’ve been thinking,” I say. “Is there not better food to send to the aviary?”

  Clarey and Pollock glance at each other. Min stares at his plate. I don’t know why we still use these large plates when portions are so meager.

  “There isn’t any food.” Father finishes his carrot.

  I finger a tear in my brocade gown, because I can’t look in his eyes. Not much fatherly warmth is left in them. “My birds are dying. Can’t we at least let them go?”

  His mouth twitches, and for a moment, I think he might say yes. He stands, his voice throaty and calm. “Would they fare better amidst the plague-worn counties? They don’t know how to forage or avoid predators. They’d never survive in the wild, Alice.”

  “But Father – ”

  “You have my answer.” He turns his back on me to leave.

  Clarey and Pollock slouch, as though we’ve just avoided conflict, but Min’s muscles tense. He knows I’m not ready to give up. “Can’t we just – ?”

  “No.” Father spins back around and charges toward me. My back flattens against the chair, and fire spreads through my chest. Min plugs his ears. This was a bad idea. Bad, bad idea. “We can’t just anything. Shall I tell your mother about this incessant chatter and whining?”

  “I’m sorry, Father.” The response is automatic. Mother is gone, of course, but Father keeps a running list of our transgressions for when we see her in the Great Beyond. His breath smells rotten, like he’s hiding bird carcasses in his stomach. But he can’t be; he’s all bone with nowhere to keep them.

  His arms and legs quiver, a storm of limbs. I try not to flinch. So far he’s only hit the servants, but he becomes less predictable by the day. He turns to the portrait of Mother above the fireplace. “Forgive me, Evie,” he huffs. “I can’t handle them like you could.” When he storms out of the dining hall, the wooden door slams behind him.

  Min frowns and Clarey squints at me, her dark eyes propped up by black under-eye circles. “You should’ve let it go.”

  Pollock’s fork clatters onto the empty plate in front of him. “No one cares about you and your stupid birds.”

  “No one cares about any of us,” I snap, and Min’s frown deepens. Tears shine in his eyes, and I immediately regret my uncharitable spirit. “Except you, Min. Everyone cares about you.”

  But all three of them are done eating, and so am I, and there’s no time to make things right as everyone disperses. They’ll forgive me by dinnertime.

  Alone, my footsteps are light on the threadbare castle rugs. I head to the garden, diverting briefly to my rooms to gather my cloak.

  Mother could’ve defused Father, but I am not Mother. She would’ve said something wise. Her magic was in words, ivy twining around Father’s arguments until the vines slowly overtook him. He was happy to be overtaken. It
had to be magic, the way she soothed Father’s nerves and still managed to nurture four children. But without her, no one can topple Father’s resolve. He is dusty and angry, his heart hidden away like the wine casks in our cellar. He clutches us so tightly we might shatter. Keeping us safe until we can all be with Mother again.

  I trail my fingers along the rough hedges. Clouds cloak the castle turrets, reaching their foggy fingers down to brush the top of the glass aviary. Echoes of our chickens bounce between the dried-out shrubbery and barren plots. The overcast sky saps any warmth from the air, and even vibrant spring sun can’t edge through.

  I note the servant’s position, harvesting carrots in the small plot I built. Not much of our soil is rich enough to support food, but I’ve been rotating the crop across a few different sections of garden. Min is already on duty, holding a woven basket, his thin arms shaking under the weight. Even from here, I can tell he wants to drop the basket, but he will not. I would set the basket down, take a break, but sweet Min can deny himself every comfort if he believes someone else will benefit.

  They are engaged in the harvest, and I slip through a hole in the hedge, branches scraping across my gown and snagging on my cloak, until I’m in Mother’s sanctuary. If anyone remembers this small, hidden garden is here, they’ve not said as much. I’ve not seen a soul here after Mother passed away. The fountain is green with algae, but this sanctuary has the only blossoming flowers that remain. Violets and Bleeding Hearts. They come each spring, and I think Mother is still here somewhere, willing them to sprout.

  Ivy tangles around the dirty birch trellises. A thin floral scent lingers, barely detectable, but enough to dredge up the fragile memory of Mother’s skirt folds. The overgrown greenery reminds me, despite stagnancy inside the castle, life marches on.

  I pull my cloak tight around me, like an embrace, and sit on a stone bench to wait.

  A few moments later, the tall outer hedges rustle and then a whisper: “Alice?”

  “Diana?”

  “King Jasper, King Luca, Queen Wen in a trance…”

  I smile. It is Diana. I whisper back my half of the rhyme. “Ate all of the banquet and split down their pants!”

  We stifle our giggles. It’s immature, at our age, to delight in such drollery, but there’s little amusement to be found elsewhere. My hand finds hers through the prickly hedge, and we link pinkies. Her skin is velvet against mine. The first time we held hands, when we were younger, I washed ten times. I thought I brought plague into the castle, and I was up all night, watching for fever or skin lesions or ragged coughing. But now I trust Diana.

  Anyway, we’ve never spoken of plague. She doesn’t ask why I’m behind these walls, and I don’t ask why she comes to visit me. I know when she first found the hedge and heard me crying in Mother’s sanctuary, she envied me for living in a fairy tale. I envied her adventures. We wove our experiences together and built beautiful stories through the hedge. Faraway lands and brave knights and lost girls.

  “I thought of you yesterday,” she tells me. “I swam at Cherry Lake and anchored myself behind the waterfalls. The mist sprayed my face. I remembered what you said about missing the rain.”

  “Father doesn’t like us to get cold and wet. After Mother, he worries,” I say absently as I try to imagine Diana in the lake. It’s been so long since I’ve seen waterfalls, but I can still picture them – rushing water, sliding around rocks and flinging itself off cliffs. It’s Diana I can’t picture. Is her hair silken draping over her shoulder? Would her hips curve beneath my hands? Are her eyes as warm as her skin?

  Her voice is doleful and delicate, like the minor keys of my piano. “I wished you were there beside me.”

  My heart skips, and I’m thankful she can’t see the flush creep across my cheeks. “Finish telling the story from last week. The one about King Jasper and the bird.”

  And as she does, my sorrows unfurl and slip from my body. Thoughts of dwindling food supplies and plague and dying birds can’t reach me inside the story. I find my way into her words and live there.

  Diana never comes two days in a row. Her family shares a single horse among nine people. On the days she skips, my lungs take a dramatic pause. Air is thinner. Our tapestries more faded and my hunger more pronounced.

  I check the hens’ nests for the twelfth time this week. Still empty. My stomach bubbles. Without eggs, without chickens – can we subsist on only carrots and cabbage? The next step is scouring nearby villages for food left behind, but can we be sure it’s safe to eat? Would Father even let anyone leave the walls?

  As the oldest, it feels my duty to fill in the gaps between Father’s resolve and our familial well-being. But then Father will do something stupid, like kill our last rooster, insisting it would taste worse the longer it lived. Now we’ve no way to breed our remaining chickens, and the ones we have aren’t laying.

  My body cannibalizes itself; the deep pain gnaws my insides. I need my flock. Their twittering helps turn the gears in my brain.

  When I walk through the glass aviary doors, familiar musty air greets me. My yellow parakeet alights on a branch beside me, desperate for company now that his friends have passed.

  After a few minutes, I find my two cockatoos conspiring in the upper corner.

  But something is amiss. All three birds are accounted for and still alive, and I can’t figure out why I feel something is wrong until I see it – a brilliant blue macaw. Vibrantly colored among the brown and gray.

  I creep toward the strange bird, careful not to spook it.

  Even as I reach out my hand, the bird is still as a statue. I stroke a feather, and he presses against my fingers. “This is no place for such a beautiful bird. Do you belong to one of our neighbors? Have you lost your family to plague?”

  The thought makes me wince, but I can’t move away. Plague or no plague, the blue macaw draws me in. His eyes are icy blue, dancing with life. I touch his head, then his beak. He’s docile. Submissive. And then he’s not.

  Squawk. Squawk.

  I stumble backward, and the macaw spreads its wings, flapping wildly. Feathers fall away, scattering along the aviary floor, revealing tan skin underneath. Wings stretch and thin until they resemble arms. That can’t be right.

  His talons lengthen and become toes; thin bird legs puff up until they’re meaty, and it’s really happening. The macaw is becoming human.

  It only takes a minute, and then instead of a bird, a young girl stands before me. Golden curls cascade down her front, hanging past her waist. The macaw’s frosted blue eyes are hers, and I back up and up until I am against a dead tree trunk.

  Her plain blue dress is faded, stained, but it doesn’t matter. She is exquisite. Rounded cheeks and long, thin frame. Rosebud lips. I can’t stop staring at her lips.

  “Alice,” she says. I’d recognize that minor-key voice anywhere. But it can’t be. How?

  My whole body shivers and darkness creeps in at the edge of my vision.

  “You don’t recognize me?” Tucked into her leather belt is the small stuffed rabbit that Mother sewed for me out of scrap cloth. An offering of friendship passed through the hedge when we were children, when I took Mother’s gifts for granted. It’s still white. Clean. Taken care of. Black button eyes peek out at me.

  She steps forward and I try to step back again, but there’s nowhere to go. I trip over the trunk’s roots and tumble to the ground, my hands jabbed by fallen branches. She reaches out to help me, but I rear back.

  Plague. Plague. Everyone outside is infected, Father said. Not Diana. I never believed it about Diana, and this girl sounds like Diana, but how hard is it to imitate a voice? She has my rabbit. I’m afraid to let myself believe.

  I pull myself up to stand. “King Jasper, King Luca, Queen Wen in a trance…”

  The girl stops. “I thought you’d know me. I knew you right away.”

  “Are you infected?”

  “Infected?”

  “Plague.” I examine her flawless skin and
the whites of her eyes.

  She cocks her head, compassion drawn on her features. “Is that why you never leave? Plague hasn’t been seen in the High Counties for nearly five years.”

  “You’re lying.” I straighten my back. “I’m calling the guard.”

  She sighs. “Ate all of the banquet and split down their pants.”

  “What did you say?”

  Neither of us laugh this time.

  “Ate. All. Of. The. Banquet – ”

  “I heard,” I say. “But it can’t be you.”

  A smile tugs at her red lips. “Why not?”

  “Diana is not a bird.”

  “I saved money. Bought avian elixir from the mage. I came here to rescue you and take you home with me.”

  “Rescue me?” I laugh.

  “You’re locked in this castle. Even you said you missed the outside world.”

  “I’d rather be safe inside these walls with my family than risk dying.”

  She shakes her head. “I told you. Plague is long gone.”

  “Father would’ve told us.” Yes, he was wrecked with grief after Mother’s death, but with the food shortage looming, all of our animals dying around us – he talks of keeping us safe until we can be with Mother, but he wouldn’t keep us barricaded in the castle without reason. Would he?

  “I’ve brought elixir for you, too. We can fly away together. Swim at Cherry Lake. Feel rain on our cheeks.” As if on cue, her cheeks pink.

  “What about Min? Clarey and Pollock? Father?”

  Diana looks at the mottled floor of decomposing leaves. “This isn’t about them. This is about us.”

  Her spearmint scent is intoxicating; I’m dizzy.

  “Us?” I echo. It’s the first hint she’s ever given that us might mean something bigger. That she might be staring too long at my lips, too. In my fantasy world there is an us and a happily ever after, but I never imagined there could be an us in the harsh light of day.