The Last Rabbit Read online

  The Magician—always one step ahead. Except he was going on and on. I tried not to yawn (talk about bad manners), but my whiskers started twitching fiercely.

  “I thought we should share some of the magic we had developed with the rest of the world. She disagreed. She thought the world had its chance with magic long ago. The world prefers science. You’ve seen it yourself, Albie. You know it is true.”

  I knew nothing of the sort. I was distracted by something else the Magician had said. Something that started forming a thought in my sleepy brain until snick, there it was, snapped into place. Never told me about our daughter.

  I was the most awake I’d ever been.

  “She took our daughter when she left. But our daughter was of land and sea and magic. Children who are born of magic retain some of it. But of course you know that, Albie. You know it well. So Murien, talented Murien, took our daughter away, before she was born. I would have mourned if I had known about her at all. I would have liked to have met her—my daughter. She was of course also your mother. I heard from her only once. A ripped shred of a note.”

  He pulled a crumpled brown envelope from his pocket and took out a yellowed piece of torn paper:

  I am sending my children into your care. Look after them.

  Your daughter

  I recognized the swirls of her handwriting, and my eyes filled with tears. I remembered exactly the way she would curve the end of the A when she wrote my name.

  I reached up to touch the note. My eyes rested on the words Your daughter.

  “Sometimes I wonder, if she knew about me, why didn’t she ever come?” he whispered.

  “Murien was my mother’s mother. She was my…grandmother,” I said at last.

  The Magician nodded.

  “And that would make you my—”

  “Grandfather.”

  He was looking straight at me, into my black rabbit eyes, expecting…I don’t know what. Maybe that I’d jump into his lap and let him hold me. (I was tempted.) I had always wanted a grandfather.

  But I stayed where I was and whispered, “When were you planning to tell us?”

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “If Murien had wanted me to know about our daughter, she would have told me herself. She never did. She must have thought I wouldn’t be a good influence on any of you. And the truth is that I’m an old hermit living out his days on a sinking island. I’ve nothing to offer the world. Nothing to offer granddaughters. She must not have wanted me involved at all.”

  I twitched a little. The same twitch I do when something sad makes me cry. But it was only a small twitch. Don’t think that I was feeling sorry for him.

  “So why now?”

  His face looked older and more wrinkled and tired than I’d ever seen it, like if you took a piece of paper and wadded it up a thousand times, then flattened it out, then wadded it a thousand more.

  “Why not now?” he asked. “There’s very little I can do to you that you haven’t already done yourself. You are a curious rabbit, more curious than any cat I’ve ever known, that is for certain.”

  His voice was tinged with pride.

  “You’ve only a few minutes of talking left, Albie, until the spell fades. I apologize for the poor state of my spells these days. No matter how hard I try, I’m just not the magician I used to be.”

  He shook his head.

  I said, “None of us are what we used to be, if you think about it.”

  This made him laugh. I don’t think the Magician did that very much these days, for he wheezed like the hinge on an old door.

  But it was good to see him laugh.

  “You’re right. You’re a rabbit who used to be a girl. I am a wash-up who used to be…somebody.”

  We had a quiet moment.

  I wanted to find a question (I had so many!) that didn’t sound terrible or petulant or ridiculous. But instead, I found myself asking the one that had been on my tongue for months. Maybe years.

  “What’s going to happen to us?”

  “The island will sink to the bottom of the sea. I’ll sink as well. It is as it should be.”

  Just as I thought, but hearing him say it was horrible.

  “So that is your plan? You really intend to let Hybrasil sink and go down with it?”

  He sighed. “I’ve tried everything. Sometimes you can’t fight fate.”

  He scooped me up again and held me. “And it’s not your fate to remain here. You and I both know it. You must leave, Albie. Now.”

  I needed a plan. I couldn’t let the Magician, my grandfather, sink into the ocean. I went to my usual spot, but the Sea was in no mood for poetry. I listened for her words, a bit of verse, perhaps a rhyme or two, but she just crashed into the rocks below.

  What was wrong with her?

  Probably nothing. Some days were like that. She had ocean worlds to watch over and didn’t need to be bothered by a rabbit with a problem.

  Still, I stayed. Sometimes when you are lonely, just being near a friend is enough. You don’t need their words or anything they might be able to give. You just need to know that you’re not alone.

  That is one of the best feelings.

  So I stayed with the Sea while she threw a tantrum against the rocks. I understood those well enough. I knew what it was like to be angry about things you can’t change. If my sisters had seen an ocean tantrum, they might have understood mine a little better.

  Eventually, the foam became fluffy and creamy, fading back into blue a little slower than usual.

  “No poems today?” I said, trying to sound jokey and light.

  “I do not feel like poetry today.

  There is only water in my veins

  And today the water

  Is cold.”

  Well, that was a little poetic.

  “My words are soulless.”

  A bit extreme.

  “You tell me a poem, Albie.”

  I was no poet. However, speaking with the Sea was different. There was a certain loveliness and connection, no matter what was said.

  And so I tried a poem:

  “Swish, swoosh,

  The wind blows over the top of your waves

  Exploding into tiny spray babies that find their way

  Across my rabbit nose.

  Diamond dewdrops linger on my whiskers.”

  Her response was quick and surprising.

  “Lovely, my pet.

  We’ll make a poet of you yet.”

  It was nice trading verses with the Sea, but I knew she had more important things do to. The sun was beginning to set, and the yellow glimmers across the water danced rhythmically to the horizon.

  Sometimes, when I’m thinking about one thing, I’ll have a memory of something entirely different. This time, it was when my hair was shortish and brownish, parted on the side and held out of my face by a gold clip, just the color of the glimmers on the Sea.

  There was a hairbrush in my hand, and I pulled hairs off it. We had only one hairbrush between us—one of the few things we packed during our quick exit to Hybrasil. I was sure I had at least one strand from each of my sisters.

  That was what the spell required. At least one strand from each girl.

  I shook my rabbit head. I didn’t want to remember what I’d done and was surprised to feel drops of dew scatter from my whiskers. The Sea had been busy while I pondered.

  The Sea was always busy.

  “Why does the island have to sink?” I asked her boldly.

  “Why do bees buzz?

  Why do peaches have fuzz?”

  “Not all islands sink,” I said.

  “What do you know about the world, little one?

  How many millions of years have you kept the counsel of the Earth and her secrets?

  I am guessing the answer would be none.

  If the Earth wills the island to sink, then that is what will happen.

  The will of a rabbit is nothing compared with the will of the Earth, even if the former is very stubborn and v
ery adorable.”

  At least she had given up the rhyming.

  “Isn’t it magic that makes the island sink?”

  “What is magic, Albie?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”

  “When you have the answer, you will have all the answers.”

  I promise I didn’t roll my eyes.

  “Some things cannot be changed,

  but that does not mean the ending is preordained.”

  Before I could ask the Sea another question, like why don’t you just say what you mean, she sent a wave made almost purely of foam that whispered:

  “There is a place you’ve been before,

  There you’ll find magic, and truth, perhaps more.”

  I knew the place, all right, but I didn’t know that the Sea knew I’d been there.

  It was forbidden.

  If I did go back, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do there.

  There was a howl on the wind, and it gave me a chill, but a bird or two flew across the sky and gave me hope.

  Sometimes hope is a dangerous thing.

  It was stupid to go to the other side of the stick bridge.

  I knew it, and I did it anyway. But I had to before I left Hybrasil. Leaving seemed inevitable—my choices were shrinking—leave or end up sinking. (Now I was rhyming! Spending too much time with the Sea.)

  But first, I had to check every possibility.

  As if pulled by an invisible rope, I made my way to the edge of the stick bridge and prepared myself to cross.

  The first stick broke with the touch of my paw. The river below thrashed ominously.

  This was more dangerous than I remembered.

  I tried again. Better. If I was slow and careful and willed myself to be light, I just might make it.

  I have no idea how I made it across the first time, back when I was a girl. I know I said I’d never gone, but I lied. I clambered over like a chimp, no doubt, because the Magician said, “Never go.”

  I’d just lost my parents, for goodness’ sake. I wasn’t about to listen to some old man.

  And now I was going again.

  When I’d gone before, we hadn’t been on Hybrasil long. The Magician hadn’t been prepared for our visit and had no idea how to care for children. He let us run wild.

  I was the wildest. My knees were forever skinned, my hair a mess, my skirts ripped.

  There was no Howler back then.

  I let myself dream for a minute that if I put everything back, just the way it should be, then I could save the island.

  It was a lovely dream, hopeless perhaps, but it was the only one I had.

  I stepped off the bridge.

  All was still, no breeze. Quiet. It was daytime. The Howler mostly cried at night, when it was dark.

  I was tempted to call out “Hellooooo.”

  But I was too scared. Maybe it was quiet here on purpose, so I could do what I was supposed to do and then vanish back across the bridge as fast as a wink.

  I was quick, jumping from one place to the next, over tree stumps and large, exposed roots. I skittered under fallen logs without breaking my stride. I’d be there soon, if everything was still the way I remembered it.

  Before, I had just wanted to get away. I’d stolen books from the Magician and wanted to see what I might be able to do. But I knew nothing of magic. Our mother, who was quite accomplished, felt we shouldn’t learn magic yet, we were too young. Just because she was a magician didn’t mean that her children should run around casting spells and such. If she had been a doctor, would her children be expected to perform surgery? If she’d been a lawyer, would they be prosecuting criminals? Absolutely not. Magic was a job just like being a physician.

  It was not for children.

  Magic just didn’t seem that special to us. We never used it at home. We had no more idea of what our mother did when she performed magic than of how our father managed to fly a plane.

  But on Hybrasil, I thought maybe I could do a spell to bring her back. I had to try.

  The Magician’s books were hard to understand. I was a pretty good reader, but magic books are filled with all sorts of unusual nonsense words that sound like someone wrote down the sounds a person made when they gargled.

  What I understood from the spell that was called Reditum Vitae was that if I did everything correctly, I could return my mother to life, and then she could help me do the same for my father.

  But I had a little problem with the words hair and hare.

  * * *

  Down a narrow path, on the far side of the island, there’s a shack made of stone with a holey thatched roof.

  I had gone into the shack and put the spell book I had stolen on the table. No one would think to look for me there, and I’d have the time I needed to perform the magic.

  How hard could it be?

  I pulled out the four hairs from my pocket. (There were other things, too, but those are secret. We can’t have children everywhere transforming people.)

  As soon as I said the last word, I turned all four of us into rabbits.

  Becoming a rabbit felt odd: smooshy and soft. I suppose it could have been much worse. And if you’re thinking that I didn’t try to change us back, you’re wrong. I tried everything I knew, which wasn’t much. I searched that stupid book over and over again, but turning pages in secret are hard with only paws and a nose.

  Clearly, I failed.

  The howling started that very day and continued into the night.

  My spell had made something here very angry. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it wasn’t too long after that the Boy showed up and started meeting with the Magician. Eventually, the Magician talked with us about our destinies, the Boy’s boat, and the sinking island. Now things clicked together in my brain, making perfect sense: I made something on Hybrasil angry enough to sink it.

  Maybe I could do something to make it happy so it would stop howling and stop sinking the island. While I couldn’t return the magic, maybe I could trade with the Howler—something else really special for the magic I took without asking. Something the Sea had given me only recently—a hero’s medal from the prime minister.

  I rubbed it once more for luck. It had gotten me back across the stick bridge, and though I didn’t want to give it up, it was time to let it go and make the trade. I slipped the medal’s ribbon from my around my paw and let it fall onto the same table where I had cast the spell two years ago. It should have been a small sound, but an ominous clank echoed throughout the room.

  “Hellooooo!” I called, cocking my head from side to side. I wasn’t surprised that I had an actual voice here, for things across the stick bridge were always different indeed. “It’s me, Albie. I’m the one who cast a spell. Anyway, I’d like to give you something to replace the magic I stole. I didn’t mean to steal it.”

  There was a slight whooshing sound. It might have been the start of a howl.

  “I’ve got this for you. It was my father’s, but you can have it.”

  The wind rustled, a whistle-y noise. I shivered as the sound deepened, slowly and lyrically turning into a song.

  It was a tune my father used to whistle, back when we lived in Cork in the overgrown cottage.

  The whistling got closer, and the door of the small shack creaked as it opened.

  “Well, hello, my little bunny,” a voice said.

  A man in an RAF uniform scooped me up and held me against his chest.

  “I have missed you so much,” my father said softly into my fur.

  No, magic can’t bring people back once they die. I knew this to be true. Yet, here I was, sitting on my father’s lap, on the forbidden side of Hybrasil.

  Somehow I’d conjured something I wasn’t supposed to. Again.

  His hand stroked my back and stilled my quivering. I melted into it.

  “How are you a rabbit, Albie?” he said. “It is you, I know it is.”

  It was a long story, and one I was sure we didn�
��t have time for.

  “How is it that you are…here?” I finally asked. It didn’t seem to surprise him one bit that the rabbit he held spoke back to him. That should have been my first warning.

  “I was out on a training flight. Had a bit of trouble with the engine, so I put her down here.”

  He motioned to the medal on the table. “That’s a fancy thing. Where’d you get it?”

  “It’s yours. You wanted to keep it in a box because you said it was showy to wear a medal, but Mum liked it pinned to your uniform. Remember? ‘For protection,’ she’d say.”

  She’d probably cast a spell on it or something. A lot of good it did. Sometimes bullets and bombs are stronger than magic.

  “I only just learned to fly, Albie. You know that. How would I have earned a hero’s medal?” he said, looking wistfully at the medal, then out the window at the sky.

  I stared at his profile. His nose was the same, but his hair was a little longer than I remembered, and there were no little gray hairs like there were the last time I saw him. He was thinner, too.

  “Papa?” Even though I knew it was him, it had to be, at the same time, he just wasn’t the same. He seemed much…younger.

  Perhaps…it hadn’t happened? The shooting-down part.

  Not yet.

  My mind was spinning. From what the Boy told me of his boat, and of the island itself, maybe Hybrasil had moved to a time where my father was still alive.

  And if so, was there even the slightest chance that I’d get to keep him?

  He hadn’t stopped petting my back and between my ears. He didn’t seem to mind at all that I was a rabbit, which should have warned me for the second time. But I was too happy; there was no room in my brain for rational thoughts. (To be fair, a rabbit brain is a little smaller than a human brain, so there is that.)

  “Are you…Oh, Albie, this is ridiculously hard to ask. Are you a dream?”

  “Well, no, I’m not a dream. And maybe you aren’t, either.”