We Love You, Bunny - 5

“Now, I won’t further dignify this outrageous conversation with my time. But I will say that I , unlike some ,” and here she looked again at Else pointedly, for two could play at this God game, Bunny, “don’t need the Collective to conjure. I much prefer to collaborate directly with the Source itself, just me and it . Otherwise, too many petty human issues come up, I’ve found. Covetousness. Jealousy. Competing ideas. A Cesspool. One can’t think for oneself. One loses one’s soul. Worst of all, one has to share the Result. And I was never terribly good at sharing. I’m still not.”

Else flushed, now, finally shamed. Thinking of our many fights over Aerius. Clearly, we were also not good at sharing, Bunny. Was that why he’d jumped out the window?

We looked at Ursula, still stroking that bunny. Smiling at us now, though her eyes were still dark with anger. And something else. Some other sick emotion swimming there.

We looked away. “Sorry to bother you,” Kyra murmured. “We’ll go now.”

And then, quicker than thought, one of us pulled back the purple velvet curtain. One of our many hands just reached out and yanked it back while we all held our breaths. But there was nothing there. Just a little kitchen area, a blue-and-white Finnish tea set. A chaise longue, velvety purple like the curtain, for lounging or fainting perhaps. No sign of him anywhere.

Ursula looked at us, that quiet rage in her dog violet eyes. The rabbit in her arms doing the same. “Are you quite done?”

“Quite,” we whispered.

10

And so we left, Bunny. Empty handed. Vaguely horny (that scent of him we’d caught in the shed such a mindfuck). Broken of spirit and heart. But together, more so than ever before perhaps. We took slow steps home, walking in a kind of mystical sync. United in that persistent, unquashable feeling that he was out there. That he was in fact quite close. Bunnies leapt out of the dark and followed us home, seeming to corroborate this hunch, their white tails flashing in the dark. Taunting us like he once did so long ago.

Oh Aerius!

Was he not ours after all?

She really made us fucking doubt ourselves, Bunny. As we walked, we raked over all the proofs in the hive mind ( pearls, razor, conjuring dress, Kill Allan ) but the creeping doubt maintained its grip. In hindsight, it was reprehensible of Ursula to gaslight us about our very own creation like that. After much therapy, we now recognize her Narcissistic Manipulations for what they were.

But back then, as you know, we were such Innocents, Bunny.

In Else’s basement, we found our Darlings huddled together among the crushed flower petal and candy wrapper debris, watching Rebel without A Cause . Some were making out with each other, quite lost in that, until we cleared our throats. “Would you care to dance with us?” we asked them shyly. Even though it was not Prom Thursday, Bunny. Or even Touching Tuesday.

They looked up and smiled. Held out their black gloved hands. “Nothing would give us greater screaming.”

Having exhausted the Bush, tonight we turned on the Heart. “Alone.” Put it on repeat because technology. Rocked with them in the dark to this song one of us (she was Music Nazi that spring) loved so. “I love it so too,” they murmured into our necks. Nibbling the flower necklaces we wore for this very purpose. “My favorite also oh yes.”

“Is it?” we said. But we knew better than to push too much. To push was to have them explode on us, literally, and we’d just had our dresses dry cleaned. So we smiled. “How serendipitous.”

“So Serengeti,” they agreed, holding us closer. Rewarding us, or so they thought, with a slight boob crush.

“There must be a way to get him back,” one of us whispered as we swayed in the basement dust, eyes fiercely closed to the girl-rabbit shadows on the wall.

“But why do we need this murderer in our lives?” Kyra asked. Even though she knew. Wanted him as much, if not more, than we did.

“Because he’s the closest we ever came, Bunny,” we replied most reasonably.

“To something insane ?”

“To something real.” The word echoed uncomfortably in the basement as it always did. Our Darlings grew stiff in our arms.

We thought of his vivid eyes full of our shadow selves. Shivered.

We’d go to Ursula’s showcase, oh yes.

He’d be there, we knew that somehow.

Speaking of which, let’s return now to his story. Where was he at this precise moment of our basement musings? Our endless pining? Our newly hatched scheme?

We can see you’re literally dying to find out.

P A R T F O U R

A E R I U S

XVII

Dear Reader,

Please forgive me

It has been a season since we last communed, I know. I have missed you. There is so much I have longed to share with you (for there have been many Happenings) but I could not I’m afraid I’ve not had much Solitude of late, my Mindscape has not been my own

I do hope you have not felt Neglected by me, Friend.

Truly you are my only Friend in the World now.

So much has happened that I am not sure where I should resume my Tellings. The Moon thrice became a Sliver of Herself, then bloomed into a beauteous silver Circle in the Night Sky. Spring arrived in all her Green Glory, melting the Snows and revealing the sweet Grasses and Flowers beneath. The Wind lost her cold Bite, grew soft and yielding as Jonah’s Pelt, making me ache for him (though I dare not dwell on that here). Pony died One day I pulled him from my Pocket, for he would not answer my Good Morrows, and I saw that a sort of Glaze had overtaken his sparkling Eyes

Perhaps he is not Dead, Reader. Perhaps he is merely in a Coma of some kind.

In any case, he ceased speaking to me though I still cried to him sometimes.

Very well, I cried to him often.

Mother reminded me twas not a Matter of Life or Death, for he is a Toy. This I could not believe And so at last she took him from me entirely. Mother has grown much stranger with me. But perhaps the bigger Change is with my Self Within my Self, Reader. Tis hard to articulate it, for tis not a Change visible to the Eye. But I feel it in my Heart as surely as I see the Moon slivering, as surely as I watch the Sun stretching herself in these longer Days, as surely as I watch my new Rabbit Friend eat his rose Petals at my Feets, his Eyes twinkling just like the Immortal’s.

And it scares me.

I am not quite ready to share about this Change yet, Reader.

So perhaps I will begin by telling you about Mother, her new Strangeness.

She leaves me Alone in the Shed less these Days, hence my Difficulties in sharing freely with you. Always poking her Head in the door, wanting to know how my Wound Tapping (she means my Writings of course) is going . “It Bleeds, Mother,” I always tell her. If you would leave me to it , I think silently. But Mother does not leave. Instead it has been her Habit to come into the Shed with her evening glass of Wine sloshing. To step inside my Ring of Fires, sit cross-legged before me and stare. Her Gaze is misty and fixed. Her Smile is sloppy and painted. She is in Love with me, I think.

“You are welcome to sleep in the guest room now, you know,” she says huskily.

“I know, Mother.”

“Leonard,” she says, pointing to the Rabbit by my feet, “doesn’t require a bed anymore.”

I stare into the Eyes of the former Immortal. They look bright and sharp, just as they

did when he’d been a Man, before I killed him with Axe There is so much I know now,

Reader. So much I wish I didn’t So much I wish to know still.

“You do not need to sit out here all Night in the Shed,” Mother whispers now. “Aren’t

you cold?” And she shivers performatively.

“Not at all, Mother. I enjoy the Shed.” I didn’t enjoy the Shed But I preferred it to Mother’s house for twas mine in a way that her house was not. A Room of one’s Own , as my Keepers used to say, is so very important.

Especially for being with you, Reader

But I was indeed cold, I was indeed shivering

In her kitchen, we imbibe her Wine the color of Blood as Mother loves to do in the Evenings. “Isn’t it so much warmer here, Julius?”

“Aerius,” I correct.

Mother frowns. She wishes I would allow her to call me by this Name, her Name for me. Wouldn’t I rather be named for an Emperor, than some… Allergy Medication ? No Mother, I much prefer my own Name. But I do not tell her this. I merely smile. Tis important with Mother, I have learned, to tread very carefully with my Words.

“You are right, it is so much warmer in here, Mother,” I lie. Mother says if I become too warm, I am of course welcome to take my Shirt off She wants me to be quite comfortable. To embrace what she calls my Wildness as it were. Twas Mother who confiscated my old Clothes In their Place, she offered me a Choice between a black Scottish Kilt and some very tight-fitting Pants (I chose the Kilt). As well as a new Shirt which is white and billowy, quite like a Pirate’s, open to the Navel like my old Nightgown, leaving little of my Pelt to the Imaginings Still, twas better than no Shirt at all.

“I’d prefer to keep it on for now, Mother,” I tell her quietly.

“By all means,” she says, sounding somewhat disappointed. She says I am a Free Agent after all. I am not a Prisoner, am I?

“No, Mother,” I say, “I am here quite willingly.”

And Mother smiles again. Her Voice when she speaks to me is silky as the Cowslip. How happy that makes me to hear .

“Do you know why I am here willingly, Mother?”

“Tell me.” And there is a Hopefulness in Mother’s Voice then. She steps closer to me, each Step making a jangling Sound due to her many Jewelries. I smell the faint Witchery of her, the fragrant Fire. I am enveloped in a kind of magenta Fog of the Mindscape. I nearly lose my Voice. But I still speak, must speak.

“Because you have promised to show me the Way Back, haven’t you?”

“The Way Back,” Mother repeats, a Question in her Voice. Like we haven’t discussed this a Thousand Times before, Reader

“To the Lost Place,” I remind her. “The Lost Self, remember?” To say this aloud causes a Stirring inside of me, brings a near Tear to my Eye. Pictures form in my Mindscape. Of Sun-dappled Grasses. Swaying Spring Flowers. A long-eared, hopping Shadow. Ever since I crossed Mother’s Threshold and took Feather Pen to Page, I believe in this Lost Place, this Lost Self, Reader, like never before. That I must go back There. That this is where I belong.

I look at Mother. Because of the Mists in her Gaze, I cannot read what is there in her strange-colored Eyes. “Absolutely,” she says.

“Because you know I can no longer suffer the Pain of being in this Human Body. Which still pines and longs for….” And Mother holds her Breath. Longs for what?

Jonah. My Love. But I dare not speak his Name before Mother. I must tread so very carefully, Reader. “The Lost Self, Mother. You will lead me there, will you not?”

Now Mother appears distracted, murmuring in a noncommittal Fashion. Pouring herself some more Wine from a very large Bottle from a place called Burgundy (How Mother would love to take me there, she says, if I weren’t in such a Rush to leave her ). She pours a very large Goblet for me as well. I watch her drink, thinking of my Goldy Liquid days with the Poets.

“When will you show me, Mother?” I press.

She looks into my Eyes, paralyzing me briefly in her French outfitted kitchen. Copper pots and pans everywhere, some in the shape of Fishes and Birds. An oven that is nothing but a Hole of Fire. For Bread , Mother says, but I have never seen her bake Bread there.

“At Mother’s Showcase, as we discussed,” Mother whispers, sipping long and deep from her Goblet.

“The Showcase, Mother?” I repeat. Though of course she has already told me this.

“A very important Presentation they expect Mother to do,” Mother says. “To show what Wound she has been Tapping during her Season of Freedom.” She smiles at me sort of sourly. “All of Mother’s many Enemies and Friends in Narrative Arts will be in Attendance, not to mention the Warren Community at Large. All of whom wish for Mother to Fail of course,” Mother says quietly, sipping. “But Mother will not fail,” she adds, looking at me dreamily. “Mother will show them all via a Dazzling Demonstration of her Creative Powers.”

“And you,” she says. “Will play a most crucial Role in Mother’s Demonstration.”

I become afeared then “And what sort of Role am I to play exactly, Mother?”

She looks at me over her sloshing glass.

“You will be the Star of the Show,” she says. “Mother’s Great Vindication.”

“Will I, Mother?”

“Oh yes.”

“And then you will send me back as you promised?”

Mother walks over to me then. Comes in close to my Body. She puts her Hands on my Face as she quite likes to do, and looks deep into my Eyes.

“Do you trust me?” she whispers.

I looked into Mother’s misty Gaze. Absolutely not , I could imagine Pony saying if he were still Alive and in my Pocket. In fact, with each passing Day, I grow more afeared of you . But thanks to Mother I no longer had Pony And indeed, thanks to Mother, I no longer had Pockets “Of course I trust you, Mother.”

“Good.” And Mother smiles again. “Now, tell me more about your…Wound.”

The Wound is what Mother calls my Manny Script, Reader. Though she seems to believe tis her Manny Script, that she is the Author Or that tis both of ours, that we are collaborating together, even though, I, Reader, have been doing all the Writings

“It Bleeds, as I have told you, Mother.” Tis the Answer she expects.

“And?” she asks me eagerly, her Hands still on my Face. “Do you conjure the Other World for me?”

This, of course, is what Mother wishes my Book to be, Reader: a Dispatch from what she calls the Other World. Directly from the Source (my Self). In my own Words. From my own Lips, by my own Hand, she often says, looking at my Lips and Hands most hungrily.

But if tis coming from my own Lips and Hands, how is it not mine, Mother? I ask her.

And Mother laughs. This question, she says, is where I show my Ignorance. Not only of what she calls The Process but of Art itself. You, she says, taking my Hand, are a Source. Now as a Source, what is your job?

To bleed for you, Mother , I whisper.

To bleed what ? she presses.

My Heart’s Blood.

Mother beams. She loves this Answer so very much. And what is Mother’s role?

You are the Auteur , Mother , I recite. You will elevate my Bleedings into Art at the Showcase.

Exactly . And in the meantime, Mother will facilitate my Bleedings however she can. Keep me feeling what she calls Happy and Free. For tis Mother alone, Mother insists, who has the Capability of unleashing me. She alone has the Visionary Thinking to put the Pen directly in my Hand. Above all, my role is to trust, just like you. Trust being a most crucial part of the Process, do you understand?

I understand, Mother , I always say, whether I understand or not

“Aerius,” Mother says now, “You’ve yet to answer my Questions. Do you conjure the Other World? Do you Tap the Wound of the Lost Self? Do you Bleed for me?”

“I do, Mother,” I lie. Tears nearly threaten my Eyes. Oh god what a Liar I have become, Reader Love first made me of a Liar, but now tis Fear that keeps me one. Fear of Mother. Fear of what would happen if she knew the Truth

Mother looks at me a very long time. She looks down at the Book clasped tight in my Hands. That I have yet to let her read it is a point of great Tension between us.

“You know of course that Mother’s Showcase is very soon,” she says in a low Voice. She looks out at the Hare Moon, nearly full.

“How time moves quickly in Spring,” she murmurs. “Slow in Fall, fast in Spring. Tis the Rule. And moving ever faster.”

“Yes, Mother,” I whisper. My Throat is suddenly quite dry, Reader.

“And yet,” she says, coming in closer still, “you will only ever let me Read over your Shoulder. You will never let Mother take a closer, deeper Look at your…Work.”

She looks at my Body then, Reader, her Eyes full of Unspoken Appetites. This Hunger of Mother’s, as I have shared, is not at all like my Keepers’ Hunger. Tis Fathoms deep, fueled by Decades of Neglect and unfulfilled Longings. A misbegotten Beast And I have awakened it

“I will when tis Time, Mother,” I tell her, smilingly echoing her own Words back. I clutch my Book closer to my Self.

Mother grips my Shoulders. She reminds me yet again how very pressing is this Circumstance. Her very Legacy at Stake. People have forgotten about Mother, she reminds me now. They have dismissed her Her Literary Agent never calls anymore, stopped calling in the early Aughts. And her Editor, Mother snorts, is a patronizing fool. Condescends Mother Takes many Moon Cycles to read her Manny Scripts if he reads them at all Mother’s Writing Career is now consequently in a Shambles Tis being run by indifferent twelve year olds

“I’m so sorry, Mother,” I say to her as I always do. “It all sounds to me like the very opposite of Sunshine.”

Mother sighs. A Tear trickles down her withered Cheek. I have a way of putting Things sometimes that deeply Affects her. This Showcase, she insists, must be her great Comeback.

Her undeniable Proof of Genie-yes to all who doubt Mother’s Capabilities. Did Mother mention that she has also invited the whole of New York? Oh yes, her indifferent Publisher. The Presses who have long laughed her off (though Mother still has Friends at both the Times and Vanity Fairs, who have RSVP’d). Not to mention the Upper Administration of Warren who do not understand Mother or her Art, who cruelly whisper of Early Retirement Packages. The many Faculties who gleefully wish for Mother to fall flat on her Face. Her copycat Students who steal the very Marrow of—

“Yes, Mother,” I interject, “you have shared all of this with me before. But tis Essential for my own Process that I have some Privacy as I write, you know.” I look to Leonard sitting on the kitchen counter, watching, as he always does, our evening Exchanges. He nods slightly, encouraging me.

“ You must Trust , Mother, remember? Tis your job as Auteur,” I remind her.

Now I feel Mother staring at me very coldly. I am making her eat her own Words and she cares not for their Taste.

“Your only Way Back, remember,” she warns darkly.

“Your Showcase, Mother,” I tell her, swallowing hard.

“Yes,” she says, at last loosening her Grip on my Body. “Well, what I have read of your Pages impresses me. I must trust the Work to reveal himself to me fully in Time. After all, you are not my Prisoner. ”

“No Mother.” Even as I thought, I am, I am .

“I shall let it write itself. As the very best Works do. As my own Works once did.”

And Mother smiles sadly now, recalling her Former Glories, getting lost in her Dreamings. No longer staring at me, just her own aged Face in the window’s Glass. Though I was happy she was no longer staring at me, I was sad to see Mother so sad I knew, of course, what it was like to get lost in Dreamings. Especially Dreamings of What Once Was

So each Night it went thus for many Weeks, Reader

And though I continually asked Mother what to expect at this Showcase, what Role I was to play precisely she told me tut, tut, Trust . I must Kneel upon the X on the Stage, that was All I needed to know. In the meantime, I must Keep Tapping the Wound of the Lost Self, she said. The only Way Back was to Bleed, she said. The Whole of my Heart’s Blood.

Very well, Mother , I said.

And though Mother continually peered over my Shoulder to catch a Glimpse of my Writings (and my Body ), I only ever showed her Bits. A page or two. Whenever she wished to take a closer Look, I shut the Book, I kept it from her. Told her she must please trust as I trusted.

Very well , she said.

And so we both remained in a kind of Suspense, Reader. In a Place of Unknowing as to our Respective Fates. And I perhaps in a Greater Suspense than even she. For there is something I must share with you now about the Book I am Writing, Reader. Something I dared not share with Mother, not yet. Something that afears me Tis the true Reason I won’t let her Read:

I am not Writing the Book she wants

XVIII

Mother, as I have shared, wishes me to write Flashes from the Other World. She believes such a Text (she often calls my Book a Text ) will be Groundbreaking. Visionary. That twill win her many Prizes and Accolades and long awaited, much overdue Respects. Indeed Mother believes such a Book together with her Showcase might very well restore her to her Rightful Place as Literary I Con in the Eyes of All who have dismissed or snubbed or forgotten her.

Well, Reader, as you know, I am incapable of writing such a Book To write of the Other World requires a Tongue I no longer Possess A Language I can no longer speak

And so when Mother first told me this is what she wanted the Book to be, I nearly died. Indeed I almost told her the Truth right then. But I worried she would throw me back out into the cold wintry Dark, Reader. I worried that I would never find my Way Back without her, for Mother had already convinced me that she alone held the Key to the Lost Place. And the Flower Book she held out to me, the Feather Pen, the Sense of Meaning and Purpose with which she imbued them, seemed like Salvation. A Home when I had None. A Friend.

So I told her of course I would write it

Leave it to me, Mother , I said Like a Liar.

Like the Fool I have become

And when she shut the Shed door, leaving me to my Darks and to the Blank Page, I wept. It felt like I was once more inside a Fiction, a most terrible Fairy Tale, Reader. Just like the Ones Murder Fairy would read to me in the Attic Times. Like I was being tasked with the Impossible. A Tower full of Straw which I must now spin into Gold.

I cried about this for some Time. I did not know what else to do

How could I go ever Back unless I gave Mother the Book she wanted?

I would remain Here forever, in the Writing Shed, in this Human World. Pining for Jonah. (And oh yes, how I still Pined for him, Reader.)

Then one Night, when I was crying thus alone in the Shed, Leonard came hopping to my Side. His Gaze seemed to tell me that he knew the Source of my Distress. He beckoned me to follow him into the House. I did follow Reader, though in those early Days I was terribly afeared to enter Mother’s Realm. But twas very late and they were all asleep, even her Dog. I followed Leonard’s leaping form into the guest room, to the little cherry wood desk in the Corner. I watched as Leonard hopped up on this desk. The drawer, the drawer , I felt his Body tell my Body. And there they were Inside, Reader: Pages upon Pages in Leonard’s Scrawl. “What are these Pages, Leonard?” I whispered, though I knew, I knew. For I was already Smiling. My Tears were drying on my Face. I felt a Lifting in my Heart as I recalled being transported during his Reading. That Place they had taken me.

I looked back up at Leonard. And his Rabbit’s Eyes brightened.

That very Night, I began to copy his Pages into the Book, Reader. Word by Word. Page by Page. Copied them in the Front of the Book which I’d left Blank just in case Fortune should fall upon me. And since Leonard’s Writings were Poet Trees and Mother does not write Poet Trees , I mended their broken Lines and changed them into Prose, of course Tis my Innovation, my Contribution, so that Mother will accept them as Fiction

These are the Writings Mother espies whenever she looks over my Shoulder and reads my Work. These are the Writings that have kept me from you for tis a lot to Transcribe

And are they indeed Dispatches from the Other World, Reader?

Are they what Mother wants for her Showcase?

The Truth is I do not know

Leonard’s Writings are lovely, they are Transportive, they whisper of the Other World, but they are not in its Language. They are very much in this Language. (Indeed they were Poet Trees until I mended them ). And in the Dead of Night, I also continue (when I can) to write my own Story. I write it in the Back of the Book, upside down, where Mother doesn’t think to check or see. Everything that you are now Reading Clutching my Feather Pen in the Dark, I tell you All. Tis my Book. The Truth of my own Heart as I am able to tell it, the Violences and Wonders I’ve experienced here in this Body, in this World, the Tapping of my own Wound. Tis indeed, its Bleedings.

And thus it went. With Leonard’s help, I wrote the Book Mother seemed to want in the Front And I wrote the Secret Book I felt Compelled to write in the Back

To you, Reader. My Friend

My Great Fear of course was that neither my Secret Book nor Leonard’s Writings would be Enough for Mother to send me Back on this Night of the Showcase But Leonard’s Eyes told me not to Fear.

That is, until the Incident in the Garden

Which I shall now Recount

Twas the Day before the Showcase. An afternoon in May, the Month of the Hare Moon.

I made my way to Mother’s Garden as was my wont, taking Advantage of the fact that she was away from Home, on Campus teaching her last Classes, or as she preferred to call it, Casting Pearls before Entitled Piglets . Reader, I confess that I love Mother’s Garden more than any place in this World (apart from Jonah’s Body). I love smelling the Spring Flowers in their first Flush, the many bright colored Berries gleaming on the Bush Indeed, Mother’s Garden was the closest thing to the Lost Place that I’d yet to Experience.

I took my Book with me of course. Whenever Mother was away, you see, I’d try to give my Self over to my Secret Book. I’d try to Tap my own Wound so thoroughly. Writing to you, Reader, in these Moments of Solitude, was my Great Consolation. Mother, as I shared, had taken Pony from me, which at first I thought terribly Cruelle and I said so and we had quite a Fight But Mother made me see twas for my own Betterment as an Artist. Now I only had one Audience, one Vessel in which to pour my Soul. One Tunnel in the Earth in which to whisper my Truth like Midas. I remained in a Rage when she took Pony away, but tis true that his Absence has concentrated my Creative Efforts. Now my Wound bleeds like never before, because there is only you, Reader, to catch its Drips. With the Showcase tomorrow, I was motivated to write quite hurriedly. And though I knew this was not the Book Mother wanted, I could not help but write it as though it were the Book that would indeed send me back. I must leave no Blood unspilled, no story Stone unturned, Mother said. My whole Soul must be in this Manny Script. The only Way Back , she said.

I could only hope twas true.

But I digress

Twas an unusually warm Day and its blue Sky and bright Sun had me dreaming of Springs gone by, Springs in which I took another Shape. I had taken off my Shirt the better to feel the Heat and Light on my Body, the soft, fragrant Grasses on my Pelt, something I would never do when Mother was around. How those Grasses recalled Jonah, Reader. Their mingled Perfumes were dizzying, reminding me of my hopeless Affection. Rolling with him on the flowery Hillside on that October’s eve, his hot Mouth against mine. A Pain began to possess me that I had not felt in some Time An Ache most visceral I had not seen him since that awful Winter’s Eve when he’d chosen Poet Tree (and the dreaded Bistro) instead of my Self I had not gone looking for him. I told my Self he had made his Choice and where he went I could not follow. And he, clearly, had not gone looking for me either, Reader And so I no longer had Illusions. I no longer had Hope. Only this Ache, reawakened by the Earth and Sun, that made me long more keenly than ever before for the Other World. There, I would not miss him. I would not even remember him or my broken Heart. But in the meantime, here in Mother’s Garden, I would write about our Time together. I would relive it in the World of Dreamings. I would roll around in Mother’s Grass imagining he was here with me. In the throes of such Imaginings, with the Sun on my Pelt, I might even set down my Pen, reach under my Kilt and pleasure my Self among the lovely Flowers Which I did do, on this Day

I was in the midst of such Pleasurings, whispering his Name, when I saw someone staring at me from the Gate. A Stranger. Watching me intently through the Slats. I ceased my Pleasurings and though I did not know this Person, I waved.

“Hello,” I said. For twas a while since I’d seen a Human Face apart from Mother’s and David’s. And they promptly disappeared. Almost like I had scared them away somehow though I’d been most friendly

Twas funny.

People were very funny, I thought.

Just then Mother appeared in the Garden. Back from Campus and bearing a Dandy Lion which I knew was for me. Everything Mother brought Home was for me. Satchel slung around her Shoulder, which she called her Albatross. Full to the brim with Student Stories, which she would not read until the very last Minute. Which would make her cry when she had to read them at last. Because they are so very good, Mother? I would always ask and she snorted.

Her Face, Reader, when she beheld me in the Garden in the midst of my Pleasurings. Awestruck, I knew. Lost in the sheer fact of my Self lying there, Pelt exposed, like a Dream come to Life , she has often said. Like a Dream she believed she had brought to Life. Taking in my muscled Pelt, its inky Universe, Mother went quite red in the Face. Her Mouth opened as if to speak words to me but no Words came out. I smiled at Mother’s rare Loss of Language. Enjoyed that I had this Visceral Effect. Wished uselessly that I could have such an Effect on Jonah But to think on this too much would deepen the Ache no Goldy Liquid could dull

And then I heard the Sound—we both did for Mother’s Hearing is incredible—of female Voices nearby. All too familiar Deep in anguished Arguings Drawing ever closer to us She whipped her Head in the Direction of the Gate then looked back at me.

“Get Inside,” she hissed.

From the second Story of Mother’s house, from the window of the guest bedroom, I watched them enter the Garden, these Shapes of my Nightmares Traipsing across Mother’s Grasses in their pastel Finery, their Hairs shining in the afternoon Sun. And yet how different they looked to my Eye on this Day, Reader. Shorter, I thought, almost as if their Souls had shrunk inside their Bodies. Younger, as if they’d moved backward rather than forward in Time. Their high whispery Voices teeming in my Head. He is Here he is Here. We will unearth him, we will not leave without him, he is Ours. She is hiding him Somewhere, but Where, Where ?

Mother meanwhile had disappeared from View, had crept into her Shed. They seemed to know this, for they went immediately to the door and knocked it down. Though I could not hear or see Anything, I intuited a Confrontation between Parties I intuited twas about my Self

I had never told Mother of my Keepers, Reader. Indeed, I had never told her about the Poets either. Such Confessions were for the Secret Book alone. Such Tellings, I felt, might compromise my Position with her. I had acted instead, like I had only ever belonged to Mother. Like my Existence had begun when I first appeared inside her Ring of Fires that November Eve.

Knowing Mother and my Keepers were together, I was terribly Nervous.

Indeed, twas a Mix of Feelings I had then.

The Desire to run still coursed through me, as it did whenever they were in my Vicinity. It would, I knew, forevermore. But a strange Pity arose in me too as I watched them, many Minutes later, leave the Shed, escorted by Mother. Their shining Heads were hanging low, like so many Spring Flowers gone limp. I heard their sad covetous Thoughts. Not mine? Truly not mine? How could it not be so when I Love like this? I could feel their Hearts breaking inside their small Bodies. And twas funny, but I felt my own strangely break too. So much so that I almost waved to them. Just then Mother looked up at me in the window. And down dropped my Hand, Reader, almost instantly so that I felt like a Marionette on a String. And Mother’s Mindscape the Hand on the String Twas in these Moments that I was reminded of her powerful Witchery. That she alone was the true Mind Witch.

In any case, my Keepers did not see me.

After they’d departed, I expected Mother to run to me and tell me of this Happening. But she did not. Instead she just stood there in the Garden, Reader. I watched her pour herself more Wine from a bottle sitting on the patio table. I watched her drink and stare into Space, the Afternoon darkening around her. I don’t know why but her behavior afeared me somewhat Of course, if I am being honest, Mother’s behavior always afeared me somewhat

This had been a difficult Season for her. She had long been languishing in the creative Shadows. Twiddling her Thumbs, she often said, on the Edge of the Abyss. Waiting for the still small Murmur of the Source to whisper in her Ear. And what whispered? Nothing The Wind hummed, seemingly mocking. The Moon smirked high in the black Sky above Mother’s Head. The Air grew cold and the Leaves fell with such a dead Crackle. By November, she’d begun to wonder if her many Years of teaching Idiots had ruined her Receptive Capabilities. Perhaps her Head was so filled with the Ghosts of their needy entitled Voices that she could no longer hear the Source’s Siren Call Mother often feared this was the Case, that she had Given Too Much There was another Possibility too, which unsettled Mother even more, which she liked to think about even less: that she was perhaps simply…old now Barren Her fevered Days of ecstatically dancing with the Heavens quite behind her She had been readying herself to open her Eyes to this grim new Reality

And then at long last , she said, looking at me. I was Visited . Tears filled her Eyes as they often did. Mother could be very Emotional indeed when speaking of her Visitation.

Meaning me, I suppose

But now, I felt a great and increasing Unease I languished in the house, thinking about my broken Heart, which Mother always said was an excellent thing to do, and would certainly help with my Wound Tapping. I wandered the many rooms looking for a Place I might settle to write. David would be in the living room, sitting on Mother’s fainting couch, reading his Pornographies. He’d raise his evening glass of Chartreuse, smile blandly at me as was his Way. Twas a Smile tinged slightly with Suspicion. Mother has explained to David about me. Well, she has lied to David about me. She told him I was a young Neophyte she’d had the Pleasure of corresponding with of Late, a Kerouac of my Generation. Though my Work shows great Promise, I am sadly entirely without Means, a young hapless Destitute She is thus sheltering me whilst I labor on my great American Fictions I have sheltered many a Duckling in the Past , she said to me. He will not even bat an Eye. If I told him the Truth, it would make him too jealous , Mother says. David, you see, has not been Visited since the Eighties. When I passed the living room, he was staring at me over the top of his Book.

“Hello there, Aerius. Still tapping away at your Wound ?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, I hope it bleeds for you. I hope it veritably gushes forth. What the World absolutely needs is another Wound. Another bleeding Writer sharing their hard-earned Truths.” His Smile grew sharp, sour as Wood Sorrel. But I only smiled back and said, “Thank you.”

Twas the best Way, Mother said, of handling his many psychic Thorns.

I made my way to the Solarium. I liked this room, for there were many strange and pretty Plants to nibble on while thinking. A golden Harp which Mother liked to strum and many framed Pictures of Mother on the wall. She was much younger in these Pictures, they appear to have been taken in another olden Time. She had once been an icy Blonde. She had once lined her Eyes in the Manner of the Poets so they looked like a Cat’s. She had once been quite pretty, twas true. In one Picture, she was in a Garden, the Rose Garden I knew so well. In the Photo, Mother was standing in the Midst of this Garden, holding a small white Rabbit in her Arms, smiling at the Creature like twas such a Gift. Was the Rabbit happy to be in Mother’s Arms or was it afeared? Or was it me who was afeared looking at them, how they stared at me from the Photo In another, she stood in a Field, surrounded by Rabbits the same grey Color as the Sky. In a third, she played the Harp in what looked like a small dark room, two white Rabbits at her Feets. There was an Axe I saw, glinting in the Corner of this room, Blade sharp and spotted with Blood. And though this afeared me, Reader, twas her Expression in this and every Photo that made me most Cold. It said I will plunder. It said All under the Sun tis Mine.

“What are you doing here?”

I turned and there was Mother in the doorway.

“Mother,” I said, “you startled me.”

Though I could not see Mother’s Face in the Darkness, I knew her Question was still there.

“I wanted to eat the Plants,” I lied, and whether Mother believed me or not, she did not say. She only smiled sadly, picking up one of her Photos off the shelf. Who knows what Thoughts passed through her Mindscape as she stared at herself. Mother’s Mindscape was often inscrutable to me, shrouded in Mists like her Eyes. Now she shook her Head drunkenly at her own Image. “Tis no Wonder that as Writers age, their Author Photos become monstrous,” she muttered. “Marguerite Duras, Jean Rhys. So lovely in their Youth and then by the End? All Jowls and thin Lips and dead Eyes. I used to be quite comely in my Day, don’t you think?” she said now, looking at me. “Very Stevie Nicks, many used to say. Kate Bush if she were blonde.”

I did not know who Stevie Nicks or Kate Bush were, Reader, though their names called to mind the Wailings of the Playlist But I nodded. “Oh yes. Very pretty, Mother.”

She back smiled at her own Likeness. She’d reapplied her Lippy Stick, the color of her most audacious Flowers. Doused herself in Diptyque’s L’Ombre dans L’Eau. Its dark Forest and prickly Thorns and strange Berries now enveloped me. She was wearing a long white Nightgown that was alarmingly translucent in this Light. It reminded me of my old Nightgown.

“You’re safe now,” she whispered to me, setting the Picture back on the shelf.

“Thank you, Mother,” I said. Though I did not feel at all safe. Something in Mother’s Voice tonight was chilling me. I sat down on her fainting couch. She took her seat on a little velvet pouf by the Harp and began idly plucking its Strings, an eerie Tune. I did not like this Plucking, Reader. It did a funny Thing to my Body. And how she was staring at me, as if she were searching my Face for something. “What is it Mother? Why do you look at me so strangely?”

She continued to strum, staring at me. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Not telling you, Mother?” I felt my Pelt grow hot. “Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“My Students came to visit me this Afternoon.”

“Your Students , Mother?” My Keepers were her Students then. Somehow this did not surprise me “How terrible,” I said, trying to make Mother smile. But Mother did not smile. Mother looked very grave.

“They seem to think they know you,” she said.

“Do they?” I grew red in the Face.

“They accused me of Stealing you from Them, can you believe that?”

I shook my Head. “That is absolute Madness, Mother.”

Mother sighed with Relief. “Of course it is. You did visit me after all, did you not?” Such Desperation in her Eyes. “You are mine.”

“Of course, I visited you, Mother,” I said. “Twas Fate,” I added, “as you have so often said.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. And if there are some Affinities between their Visitation and Mine, it’s merely because they are influenced by me,” she murmured. “I influence my Students greatly, I always have. Often they arrive already influenced. Often that’s why they apply here in the first Place.” She nodded to herself. Seeming to be satisfied. But her Face was full of Shadows as she plucked the Strings. There have been so many Times during my Season here when I thought I should run, must run. That though every Door was unlocked and every Window open, the Casements right now open and bringing in the fresh Spring Night, Something was holding me against my Will. Something in the Music and the Mists and the lush Garden and Mother’s own Eyes, I did not know What. I told my Self, Reader, that I was imagining this given all my former Troubles. I reminded my Self again that I was here because this Book that Mother had given me was all I had. The only Way Forward. The only Way Back. Which I so desperately longed for I stayed where I was.

At last she stood up and began walking toward me, still frozen on the couch. My Book was lying beside me, turned round and upside down, for I’d been about to write my Story. The Feather Pen I loved best rested between the Pages like a Book Mark. The Ink was wonderfully bright, like Mother’s Lippy Stick.

“Why is the Book upside down like this?” she said.

“No Reason, Mother,” I whispered. Mother stared at me.

“I’d like to take a closer Look Tonight,” she said. And she slid her Hand toward the Book, toward my Body sitting beside her.

Quickly, I took the Book in my Hands. “Tis not ready yet, Mother.”

“Not ready ?” she repeated.

I shook my Head.

“Julius,” Mother said darkly.

“Aerius,” I corrected. And how Mother winced at this Name as though she had eaten a bad Twig “The Showcase is Tomorrow Night. At this Point, tis most important that I see.”

What was it about Mother’s Eyes that made me not trust her in this Moment? What made me feel I must not Relent? Twas not simply that I had lied to her about its Contents. I felt that if I gave her my Book now, if she touched or even looked at a Page, it would no longer be Mine forever after. Twas like she was asking to peer beneath my Pelt, to poke at my Interiors with a Stick. I grasped it tighter to my Heart. “No, Mother,” I whispered. “If I show it now, I will never finish. And then you cannot have your Showcase and I cannot have my Way Back, which you promised to show me, remember?”

And Mother stared at me, saying Nothing at all. Briefly I wondered if she might kill me. Or attempt Seduction. I did not know which afeared me more on this Night

“I should return to it now,” I whispered, picking up my Feather Pen.

“Perhaps let’s take a Break first,” Mother said, resting her Hand on my Wrist. Perhaps we could watch a Film together, Mother suggested. Which Film did I wish to watch? I could pick any I liked for Mother had Netflix and the Criterion Collection. “ Bride of Frankenstein , Mother,” I said, for twas my very Favorite. I was surprised she wanted to watch with me. Normally she would retreat to her Shed at what she called this Witching Hour . Normally she would want me to keep Tapping. I my Self wished to keep Tapping. But she insisted a Break might do us both good.

We sat on the fainting couch watching the Film on the wall (Mother had a projector just like my Keepers). And though I was still afeared that Mother might attempt Seduction of my Person (I was always afeared of this), she kept her Distance, kept her Eye on the Film. Though I longed to return to my Writings, I did lose myself in the Story, this being my favorite Film, Reader I loved the Ending best when the Creature screams We belong dead , pulls a Lever, and sets the whole Castle ablaze and crumbling to Dust. As I watched this Scene now, I recalled, with a sad Smile, setting the Poet Tree bar on Fire Jonah’s disappointment in me. Our Night of profound sexual and spiritual Connection, which I can never seem to forget When I close my Eyes tis right there for me to see and smell and touch. To imagine . Or remember. With great Sorrow, I remembered it now, with a Pleasure bittersweet. Remembering , Murder Fairy once said, was always thus. It was perhaps due to this Confounding of Emotions, this Letting Down of my Guard, that I missed Mother attempting to snatch my Book from my relaxed Hands. Quickly I grabbed it back from her, my Heart pounding and pounding. And she, Reader, looking at me so darkly now. How I hugged the Book so close to my Self as though twere Jonah’s Body. As though twere my only Friend. All I had now in the World and I would never let go again. She rose from the couch and walked out without another Word. Without even saying Goodnight to me. And I, shaking and shaking. The Pages clutched in my trembling Hands.

XIX

That Night I had great difficulty sleeping, Reader Between my Keepers storming the Garden and Mother’s attempts to steal my Heart’s Blood, I felt deeply Unsettled I was not safe in Mother’s house, I never was, I’d always known this. But how could I leave, Reader, when Mother was also the only way forward? The only way back In the guest room, I watched the Hare Moon come in through the window. Beautiful, bright and nearly full. Tomorrow Night, the Night of the Showcase, she would be full. Mother has arranged it thus , Mother said. The only Way Back is on this Night , she’d said how many times. After that , she sometimes added ominously, there is no Way .

On Leonard’s bed, I finished transcribing the last of his Writings into the Front of the Book. Then I turned the Book round and upside down as was my Habit. I tried, desperately, to keep on with my own Writings but even to open the Book this Way after Mother had attempted to steal it made me feel so strange. So I tucked it under my pillow, Reader. Attempted to lie back, to close my Eyes. Leonard was at my Side, he liked to make his Way from the Garden up to the guest room in the Evenings. There were still some of his Scally Caps on the dresser, a couple of holey Sweaters thrown over a chair, a black composition Notebook on the nightstand by the Bed. This was his journal, his own Secret Book, which contained but a few Scratches. Lists of Food, mostly. Items he would buy if he won something called the Pulitzer Prize (a bottle of Grey Goose, a new Trenchy, dinner at Le Bernadin). Some Quotes from Allen Ginsberg, the very Poet I had mistaken him for

America, I’ve given you all and now I’m Nothing.

Follow your own inner Moonlight

We’re golden Sunflowers inside

A soulful Writer this Allen had been, I thought. Leonard joined me now, lying on the neighboring pillow. I welcomed him though his Presence always made the Lost Place feel so achingly close. Tonight I felt he was trying to tell me Something. What are you trying to tell me, Bunny? But he couldn’t say or if he could I could not hear him.

“Leonard,” I whispered, “What if it doesn’t work ? What if she can’t send me Back after all?” He only stared at me dreamily with his Rabbit’s Face.

“I am sorry I killed you, Leonard,” I told him now . “I had meant to kill Allan and I thought you were Allan. And I do not even know why I must kill Allan.”

Twas then I felt I heard his Words along my Pelt. Nearly understood in my half-dreaming State. Prefer this actually. Thank you. What every Poem reaches for, I am already now. And his Eyes half-closed.

I looked at his small furry Body, and a Longing consumed me. A most terrible Longing, so different from my longing for Jonah, so different from any Longing I’d ever known. Why, Leonard, when I look at you, do I feel as if I’m seeing Everything that I have lost ? Everything I wish to find again. Why do you look to me like the very Shape of Home? Leonard merely blinked at me, sleepily, perhaps with a kind of Pity.

I spoke earlier, Reader, of a Change Within Me.

Well, perhaps now I shall tell it to you though I am very afeared Not so much for my Self but for you, Reader. For I fear the News may come as a very great Shock to you (twas a Shock to me too) I fear too that it will change Things between us, that you might no longer love me But I cannot contain this Secret any longer. And you are my Friend, are you not? And I have promised to share the whole of my Heart with you (is this not what Friends do?) so share I must. I only ask that you please prepare your Self.

Tis this:

Reader, it has come to my attention that I…

I believe I was once…

That is, I feel I may have once been….

a bunny

There.

I have said it

I know it sounds crazy, Reader. And I’m afeared I have no Proofs for what I can only call this… Feeling . Nor do I know the Reasons why I believe I was what I was. Or how I came to be what I am now (though indeed I have my Suspicions ).

I only know that I feel it to be True.

And I do hope this will not change Anything between us I hope this will not, as Mother says, undermine my Narrative Above all, I hope that you will still be my dear Friend, as I am your dear Friend (and will always be) You have grown very dear to me indeed. You know so much of my Heart. And tis strange to say, for we have never met, but I feel that I know yours too.

Perhaps knowing my Heart as you do, twas not so great a Shock to you after all.

Perhaps you had already guessed, like I did, quite some Time ago.

Perhaps indeed, you, like me, have always known.

There are Days of course when I am less certain. But tis my increasing sense. Particularly when I am with Leonard whose sparkling Eyes, whenever they meet mine in the Dark, seem to tell me what I once was. Was I? Was I? You are. You are. For a while, I confess, the Revelation thrilled me. I knew at last what I was I had a Name at last for the Lost Self Twas Bunny!

Bunny, Bunny, Bunny! I shouted until Mother told me to cease my happy Howlings I even tried hopping with Leonard, until Mother warned that I would break her floorboards Tis one thing to Speak the Lost Self in a Book , she said. Tis quite another thing to behave like some … Animal . For I was a Gentleman now, she said. And a Gentleman walked . A Source such as my Self, he strolled Arm in Arm, she said, with his Auteur. And she held out her Arm for me to take. So I stood paralyzed in my Human Body, Arms locked with Mother, watching Leonard hop away from me.

Bunny , I whispered.

And then this happy Knowledge, having at last surfaced from a buried Place deep within my Heart, sat happily within me no longer For if I had been Bunny once, I was Bunny no longer. I was still lost from this Self. Still lost from the Lost Place.

Still lost

Which brings me to one last Thing I must share with you now, Reader.

Tis a lot to share in one Moment, I know.

Probably I am breaking some cardinal Rules of Story

But tell you I must for having unburdened my Heart this much, I can leave no Shadows lingering, no S tory Stones unturned. Tis T ime to share All.

There was a Shadow Side, you see, to my Revelation. A Dark Wondering came with it. And Leonard’s Company, though I enjoyed it perhaps now more than ever before, though indeed he was saving me, also began to unsettle me deeply. Whenever I looked into his Rabbit’s Face, this Dark Wondering overtook my Mindscape. I felt it in my Body, along my Pelt Hairs. An Awful Knowledge beginning to reveal itself to me. A Terrible Arithmetic adding up in the very back of my Brain Chambers. Mostly I kept it hidden, buried deep beneath my Thoughts where I’d kept Bunny, tried not to give it Space or Words or even Breath. And yet now looking into Bunny’s ever twinkling Eyes, it inevitably rose to the Surface. As it quite liked to do in the Nights.

Twas this:

I had killed Leonard and he had turned into a Rabbit. With one swing of my Axe, he’d assumed a different Shape. One he seemed to much prefer, that looked to me like Home. That was Home, Reader.

If Violence had changed him, then perhaps it followed that Violence might…

And then I thought of Axe.

Mother had confiscated her along with Razor and Pony. There will be no Violences in Mother’s House , she said, except on the Page . Twas somewhere hiding in this house. I thought of its sharp Blade. I thought of my own Neck, white as a Swan’s.

I looked at Leonard now, sitting beside me on his pillow, Eyes fluttering closed.

“Bunny…,” I whispered. “What if I were to…”

But Bunny was now deep in Sleeps.

And so at last I closed my Eyes too, fell my Self into Slumbers. Jonah was there in my Dreamings, as he always was. In these Dreamings, he had no desire to go to the Bistro, had no Manny Script, no love for Sam. Instead he smiled at me in the falling Snow. Held out his Hand, which was furry and white. I will come with you, he said. I wish to go to the Lost Place too. Wherever you go is where I want to be . And he kissed me deeply.

A Sound arose me from my Slumbers. Or was it a Feeling? Was it a Sound or a Feeling?

I opened my Eyes. What I saw was so horrific, Reader, I thought surely I was still dreaming or that I’d moved from Dreamings to Nightmares. Mother in her iridescent Robe, sitting in the Chair by the Desk. My Book, my Heart’s Blood in her Hands. She had taken it from beneath my pillow, Reader. She was turning its Pages. Twas the Sound of the turning Pages that must have awakened me. And Mother herself sitting there, my Book in her Hands. Turned round and upside down. My Secret Book. Open. Open and in her Hands.

My Mouth went terribly dry. My Heart pounded.

“Mother,” I said. But she didn’t look up, she didn’t seem to hear me. Just stared into my Book as though lost. You stole from me, I should have said then. Give it back . Instead I lay there, frozen.

“What do you think?” I whispered at last. “Do you love it?” For though I was overcome with Fear and Anger, I was also admittedly curious. I’d never had anyone read my Words before.

“Do you love my Wound?” I asked. Reader, I was shaking.

Mother was silent. There were Tears in her Eyes.

She must love it very much, I told myself, to be this Emotional. She was gripping the Book, and the Tears were sliding down her Face. If she loved it, that was Wonderful. If she loved it, I should have no more Fear. Then why was my Heart pounding like this, Reader? Why was Bunny now staring at me from his pillow with such Panics in his Eyes?

“Mother, please say Something,” I whispered. “I know it isn’t perhaps quite what you expected but—”

Mother turned to me at last, her Gaze silencing me. Her Look, Reader, was terribly cold.

“Is it Enough at least for your Showcase?” I whispered. “Is it enough to send me Back?”

Mother just stared at me darkly. I felt the Dark through my Body.

“It is Nothing,” she said. And when Mother said this word, Nothing, I felt my Self dissolving, Reader. Everything in the Room suddenly began to ripple like Field Grass in a Great Wind. “Nothing, Nothing,” she murmured, sitting in her Chair and staring out into the Dark.

“Nothing, Mother?” How can it be Nothing when tis the Whole of my Heart?

But Mother wasn’t listening. I watched her convulse in Despair. “ Mother I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure what you wanted so I—”

“So you wrote your own little Fiction.”

“Tis not a Fiction, Mother,” I said. “Tis the Truth of my Experience here in this World. I didn’t tell you because—”

“Tis NOTHING but a Fiction written by a Fiction ,” she roared, and she suddenly threw a crystal at me, barely missing my Head. It crashed spectacularly to the floor.

I stared at Mother, shaking now as I was shaking. Her Face had never looked so Cutting and Cold. Yet hurt too. Tears in her Eyes as there were Tears in my Eyes. She was holding herself in her own Arms, looking miserably out at the Dark.

“If tis Nothing to you, Mother,” I whispered, “Then please give it back. For tis Everything to me. All I have left.” And I felt as if I was coming apart, drowning. What would Mother do with me now? Would she still show me the Way? Would she give me back the Book? Even though she’d called it Nothing, she was still clutching it so fiercely to her Body.

“Was it those Girls?” she said at last. “My… Students ? Do you belong to them?”

“No Mother.” I whispered this even though I suddenly had such trouble speaking, like Mother had made my Lips dead with her Mindscape.

“Who then? Tell me who you belong to.” The Anger and the Pleading were One in her Voice. I looked down at the wavering Ground beneath my Feets. It felt so unnaturally far. And Bunny crouched there, gazing up at me. His Face so achingly familiar in this Moment.

I belong to no one at all , I thought. Tears fell from my Eyes.

I could feel Mother standing beside me now. Suddenly very close. She was Lifting my Face to meet her Gaze. Her other Hand gripped my Shoulder.

“The first half of the Book seems authentic enough,” she said gently. I looked at Leonard staring at me from the floor, his Eyes flashing. “There at least you seemed to have followed Mother’s Direction. Only tell me that this…other…perverse… Story you felt compelled to write in the back is a Fiction. Tell me you are Mine. Otherwise there is no Showcase, do you understand me? And I can’t send you back. And you will never go Anywhere at all.”

Panic gripped me. I felt the Dark closing in around my Eyes. “Never, Mother?”

She shook her Head. “Tell me now,” she said, gripping me. Her H and still holding up my Face so there was nowhere else to look but Mother. Mother the Sun and Moon and Sky. Mother the World. My only Way Back.

“I belong to you,” I lied, looking right into her Eyes . “I am Yours.” Did she espy the Truth of my Heart?

I saw her Face softening. How desperately she wanted, needed to believe I was. “You are? You really are, Julius?”

I nodded, continuing to look Mother dead in the Eyes, not daring to correct my Name, not daring to look away. Even as Mother’s Gaze bore into me, that most terrible Huntress. Her Hand my gripping my Shoulder, she was so very Strong. And I so very afeared in this Moment. That she could take away everything from me. Could she see the lying there in my Eyes? Or did she only see what she hoped was true?

“Well,” she said at last, loosening her Grip, “perhaps we should have a little Dress Rehearsal and see.”

“A Dress Rehearsal, Mother?”

“In advance of the Showcase tomorrow.”

Relief flooded me. There would still be a Showcase. Mother believed me, still wanted me to play my Part. “So there is still a Way Back for me, Mother?”

“If you are mine, there is always a Way,” Mother said.

“With my Book?”

“There is a much quicker Way than Books.”

And then? Mother took a small Key from her Pocket. Walked to the Corner of the room, to a large, dark Wardrobe there.

“Will I be going through the Wardrobe, Mother? Like that wonderful Book about the Lion and the Witch?” Mother are you this Witch ? I wanted to ask. But Mother didn’t answer. She opened the Wardrobe door. I saw my old blue Blazer hanging there. How my Heart swelled at the Sight. Was Mother was going to give it back to me, to ready me for my Journey Home? No. She reached into the Wardrobe’s Dark, and instead pulled out my Axe.

My Insides went cold. “Mother what are you doing?” I whispered.

Mother turned the Handle round and round like twas a Flower. She looked at me now over the Blade. “You tell me.”

There were Tears shining in her Eyes as she walked toward me, Reader. Shining like the Blade now pointed in my Direction, I was its North Star.

“Are. You. Mine ?” she murmured.

And I could not move, could not speak. Mother’s Mind Witchery had frozen me in Place, held my Tongue in a Vise. Or perhaps twas the Shock of seeing my very own Axe in her Hands that silenced me. “Tell me,” she roared, raising the Axe over her Head.

I sat there, gripping the bed’s edge beneath me. Perhaps I should have been happy, Reader. Even relieved. The Awful Knowledge I’d been harboring, the Terrible Arithmetic. Was this what it had been adding up to all along? Was Mother planning to send me back with Axe? But somehow I felt, looking at Mother, her murderous teary Eyes, that this was not the Way to the Lost Place, the Lost Self, Reader. That she might only send me to a Blackness Eternal. A Nothing Place where No Wind Sang or Grasses Grew.

I begged my Mouth to open. To speak the Lie one more Time.

Yes. I am Yours. Of course, I am.

But I couldn’t. I could do nothing but close my Eyes. Brace my Self for the Blade, the Axe now ready to fall upon my Throat. Pray that I was indeed led Back.

So this I did

A Sound like a Roar. Followed by many Bangings on a door.

Oh god was this Death?

I opened my Eyes. Not Death. Or if twas Death then Death was very much like Life. For I was still here in Mother’s guest bedroom, my Head tilted back, waiting for the Strike. But Mother was over by the window now, Axe lowered. She was looking through the glass, cursing softly. “Is there no peace for Faculty?” she murmured. “These Interruptions are precisely why Mother is Dead Inside. Not even the Ghost of her Greatness left.”

“What is it Mother?”

She looked more closely through the glass. Sighed and closed her Eyes. “Oh god not again,” she murmured. “I thought They had long dissembled.”

“They, Mother?”

“No Trust in Adults,” she whispered. “Each Day a new Witch Hunt. Look at them out there with their Props, just dying to be outraged. Positively frothing at the Mouth with their perceived Slights. Such a Performance.”

“Who are they?” I asked again.

And Mother turned away from the window and looked at me now, frowning. “Did you make yourself Visible? Were you Seen ?”

I recalled pleasuring my Self in the Garden earlier that Afternoon. That Face peering over the Fence, how I waved to them. How the Face promptly disappeared, its Eyes going wider than its Sockets. I shook my Head. The Knocking grew louder.

“David,” she called uselessly. But David didn’t respond. Likely passed out from his Chartreuses and now dozing to his evening ambient Music, I could hear its Chirps and Drones in the Distance. She looked at me mostly menacingly. “You stay here and don’t you move, don’t you speak. You are quiet as Mice do you hear me?”

I watched her tuck the Axe back behind the chair. Smooth her Golden Hairs and straighten her Smock. Disappear through the Door taking my Book with her

The moment Mother was out of the room, Leonard and I ran to the window. Through its glass, we saw the Mob gathered outside her house The same Group who had knocked on the Poets’ door so long ago. In those very same black T-Shirts, Reader, those ominous bleeding red Letters glowing in the Dark. AAARV. I could see their many white Necks falsely bleeding. All those Hands waving their toy Axes like Torches. There were more members of this Mob than there had been before, a veritable Storm of them Many were holding up Pictures and Signs.

“Well now what is all this about?” I heard Mother ask sweetly.

“We received a Tip,” one of them shouted, “that you were harboring the Murderer! The Man was spotted in your Garden earlier today.”

“What Man ?”

I watched as they held up a Picture. Though I couldn’t see it, I could tell by Mother’s reply that they were the same ones from before. “What am I looking at?” she snapped. “A Violin?”

Then someone shouted, “There he is!” And horribly, Reader, they all looked up, the entire Mob of Accusers. Saw me in the Window and gasped. Pointed their Axes at me. “Murderer! Murderer!” they cried.

Oh god, Reader I looked at Leonard sitting on the Windowsill, his Nose twitching wildly. His Eyes saying, Run, run .

XX

A Forest was where we found ourselves. Very Dark, though a high Moon shone through the Trees. I did not know the Hour but twas late. Or was it early? Late or early does not matter here , Bunny said. He seemed to know the Ways of the Forest. We had been running for I knew not how long. Wandering here, Reader, in this Darkness. At first I was very afeared to be alone apart from Bunny At first I felt so lost

And then?

I was still lost, Reader

Not lost , whispered the Moon. Or was I only imagining she whispered to me? She gave the Trees such a silvery Look. Even in my Despair, my Heart brightened. It reminded me (and I am sometimes wont to forget) that the World has many Beauties, even as it holds so many Griefs and Terrors. Mother with my Axe in her Hands for instance The Violent Mob that is now pursuing me for instance That I lost my Book and now I have no Way Back. For instance That Jonah and I are never to be

Leonard hopped at my Side. I was glad for his Company though he wandered away from time to time, in search of whatever Forest Wonders, and I worried, deeply, that he would not return, that he would leave me here. But he always did return, usually with a bounty of Flowers to share with me. Dandy Lions, other Forest Confections whose names I knew not.

“Have you seen anyone afoot?” I whispered to him. “Does She come for me? Does Anyone come for me?”

Bunny looked at me. No one comes for you , I felt his Eyes say.

“Oh good.” Twas good, I kept telling myself, that no one was looking for me. That I was completely utterly a lone here in this endless Darkness, among these silvery Trees. Birch , Mother once said they were called. And suddenly I felt sick. Thinking of Mother again

“What am I to do?” I whispered to Bunny and to the Dark. “How will I ever—” But Bunny merely blinked at me. For he was well beyond the World of Books now, in another Realm altogether, the realm of Bunny. And moving deeper into this Realm, it seemed, the deeper we moved into the Trees. Going where I could never follow on my Human Feets, with my Human Thinking. Almost like he was becoming more Bunny with each step. And I becoming more a Stranger to him

Pony is back with me, which is little Consolation. I found him in the Pocket of my Blazer which I snatched in my Escape (sadly, he still appears to be in his Coma). I took Axe too, of course. She’s back in my Coat, hanging on her hook, where she most likes to be. Unlike Pony, she seems wide awake. Hums with a new Energy tonight, her Blade sharp against my Heart. Her strange Song like an Answer to all my Dark Wonderings. If only I would hearken to her Call. The Awful Knowledge, the Terrible Arithmetic, it was thrumming through me now. If you want to go back, there is another Way, she seemed to say. Right here.

And then I saw a Shape in the Dark.

A man-shaped Shape.

Walking ahead of me. Whistling among the Trees, who was this?

Axe began to hum very loudly. Literally vibrating in my Blazer, Reader. As though she knew who twas. Recognized him before I did. I looked at his tall hulking Frame. His shaggy Hairs going red in the Moonlight. In my pocket, I felt Pony miraculously awaken.

Oh my god , he breathed. Him.

And then I too knew who twas, Reader.

Of course I did.

“Allan,” we all whispered together.

Just a little ahead of me in the Forest. The very Allan I had first seen long ago in the Garden, walking toward his Subaru. His swinging Satchel and his leaf-crunching Step, this was he. Whistling a Tune to himself, the very Tune of Axe. Allan whom I have always wished to kill though I do not know why, still don’t know why, and yet at the Sight of him now, I suddenly felt filled with Fatal Purpose. I followed the Shape of Allan through the Trees, Axe humming hot against my Heart. Allan , she breathed. Kill Allan, Kill Allan, Kill Allan.

He froze up ahead of me. Almost as if he’d heard her Chantings. Slowly he turned round. And there he was in the Flesh. Gripping a mug full of some steaming Concoction.

How funny, Reader, that he did not seem at all surprised to see me there. Axe in Hand, her Blade bright in the now breaking Dawn. We were of the same Height, he and I. We met nearly Eye to Eye. Alan’s Eyes were the Color of wily Foxes. There was a Smiling in them, as if he’d known twas only a matter of Time before we would meet, Reader And I would kill him.

“Allan,” I said.

And he smiled at me in the first Glimmers of Morning. “So you’re the one who’s been causing the recent…Trouble,” he said in his Allan Voice that for some Reason, Reader, I hated so very much. “I thought those Experiments were behind us. But it appears someone has awoken the Hare God. And now he wanders among us again.” He looked down at Bunny at my Side.

“Leonard,” he said, nodding. And Bunny, strange to say, seemed to nod back.

I did not like that he knew Bunny, Reader. And that Bunny appeared to know him too.

Kill Allan, Kill Allan , whispered Axe.

“You should not go walking through the Woods at so late an Hour, Allan,” I told him, tightening my Grip.

“So early an Hour you mean?” Allan corrected, still smiling. Strangely oblivious to the Threat to his Life. “Well, Allan has always risen with the Cock. He enjoys the Solitude, the opportunity for Reflection before he deals with his Inbox. He enjoys wandering the Woods around Campus. You never know what you might find there.” He bowed at me slightly. “And what brings you here, may I ask?”

“I have to kill you,” I told him. Thinking surely Allan would cry. Run. But he didn’t move. Didn’t even blink, Reader. Just stood there, looking at me.

“Of course you do,” he said.

This Response unsettled me, Reader. Deeply. For a Moment, I nearly lost my Grip on Axe. Do not lose your Grip! she cried in a Voice most familiar. Kill Allan, Kill Allan!

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“I’m a Writing Teacher, aren’t I? This isn’t the first Time I’ve been… approached , let’s say. By someone like you.” He smiled a little more tightly now.

“What do you mean, someone like —”

“And what did I do this Time, I wonder?” Allan interjected. “Give too much Critique on a Fiction? A Novel I assigned traumatized one of them? Something I said offhandedly in Class was triggering ?”

Axe was slipping from my Fingers. What are you doing? Kill Allan Kill Allan Kill—

“I don’t know,” I stammered at last. “I only know that I must—”

“Kill me, yes, yes, I heard,” he muttered. He pulled a Cigarette from his Coat and lit it. “Almost impossible to be a Teacher these Days,” he muttered. “Wonder why I even fucking bother.” He stared at me and Axe through his Smoke and sighed. “So what’s your Name anyway?”

“Aerius,” I said.

And the Look in his Eye shifted.

“The Allergy Medication.” He smirked, shaking his Head. “Of course. Aerius , do you have any Idea at all why you must kill me?”

“No.” Axe seemed to grow hotter in my Hand. I could feel her Impatience gathering mightily. Why had I not already struck?

“And don’t you think it’s strange that you have this… Directive inside you? When you don’t even know me? Don’t you find it odd that you have no Reason ?”

What does Reason have to do with it? Axe hissed. KILL ALLAN KILL ALLAN!

“I—”

“Of course you do. Because it’s a Flaw in your Design, you see. Authorial Intent clumsily attempting to wrangle the Free Spirit of Creation. I see it in Workshop all the Time.”

I didn’t understand what Allan was talking about, Reader. I could barely hear him now anyway over the great Roar of Axe. Her Voice had grown more and more familiar to my Ear, was positively ringing through my Brain Chambers. I raised her over my Head, which made her shudder with Joy.

“Aerius, wait—”

“An ASSAULT!” I shouted before I could think.

“ What ?”

“I was violated!” I cried. Violated?

What was I saying, Reader? Tears fell from my Eyes then and I did not at all understand their Falling. Words fell from my Lips and I did not understand their Meaning. But I was speaking them along with Axe for now her Voice and m ine were One. “That first Day,” we whispered. “When I shared the Heart’s Blood. So very vulnerable and afeared. You and your red Slashes. All over my Story.” What?

But Allan seemed to understand. He contemplated her Blade, shining sharp under the rising Sun.

“I didn’t assault . I offered , what I felt at the time, was very valuable Feedback. Which is my Job , by the way. As a Professor, I—”

“Stop condescending us!” I shouted through my Tears. Us?

“ Us?” Allan repeated. “Are you more than One?” He looked at me again and his Smile faded at last. “Oh god, you’re all of them aren’t you?”

And as he said this, I felt their Ghosts stir inside of me, Reader. Their shining Hairs and hungry Eyes. Their balmy Lips mouthing the words Kill Alan, Kill Allan . Those Words now on my own Tongue, coursing through my Blood and making Axe scream. I had a painful Flash then, Reader. A Memory. Of being in the Rose Garden. My Body once so much smaller and closer to the Earth, One with the Petals and the Grass Blades and the Light. Their girl-shaped Shadows suddenly falling over me. Oh look, what an adorable—

“No,” I whispered, shaking my Head, even as I felt their Pearls cold on my Throat.

Even as the Flashes kept coming, Reader. Their Keeper Hands reaching out to grasp my Body. The Darkness that followed, swallowing me Whole. And then? I was back in the Garden again. The bright blue Sky above and the grassy Earth beneath, yet my Orientation to them had suddenly shifted. To Everything had shifted. I had shifted, Reader. The Grasses were so far below me now, so achingly far from my Nose and Eyes. The Wind cut through my Pelt, suddenly so thin and smooth and useless, and I could no longer hear its Song. And how cold and alone and afeared I was. Alien to my Self. Yet I was smiling. For the World was newly Wonderful. There were new Wonders to behold all around. My Hands were turning a Dandy Lion Stem in their slender Fingers. Just as now they turned an Axe.

I looked at Allan.

He stared at me, Pity in his Eyes. The Smiling there now tinged with Sorrow.

“They may have conjured you, Aerius,” he said quietly. “But you are also a Free Spirit. With your own Heart and your own Mind and your own Soul. Your own Desires, too, I’m sure.”

Jonah flashed briefly in my Mindscape. My Heart ached. I thought of the Grasses to which I longed to return, from which I felt forever banished. I stared at Leonard, sitting in these Grasses, looking up at me like a Stranger.

“Surely you’re more than just their Henchman,” Allan pressed, his Voice so terribly gentle.

“I do not know what of me is mine anymore,” I said. “I don’t know where I am going anymore. I don’t even know what I am.” More Tears fell and if they were my Tears, I did not know either. I stared at the Sea of silvery Trees. The high cold Moon and the rising Sun. Axe was growing heavy in my Hands. Do not drop me, she growled.

“I am…lost,” I said.

“I think you are less lost than you imagine yourself to be,” Allan whispered.

Imagine. That Word again. “I am done with imagining,” I told him. Pony sighed a little now in my Pocket.

“Perhaps I can help you find your Way,” Allan said, his Eyes on Axe. “I’ve been teaching Fiction for thirty years now, you know. Perhaps we could do some Exercises together. We could—”

NO NO NO, Axe shrieked through my Skull.

“Enough, enough!” I shouted as if to shout her out of my Head. But she would never go, I knew She would stay Forevermore, Reader. Keeping my Hands clenched round Axe, ever ready to perform her Violences. Her Banshee Cry coursing through my Blood. Her Dark Grip on my Heart.

“I have to kill you,” I told Allan quietly. “Now. I’m sorry .”

YES , hissed Axe and I felt their Wills coursing through me in one singular Purpose. I clung to it, Reader, this Purpose, as I clung to Axe though she wavered mightily now in my trembling Hands.

Allan just smiled as if I’d told him a sad, dark Joke.

And then?

He tilted his Neck back as if to help me. Closed his Eyes, rather dramatically, Allan did, as if it would be his last Moment in the Sun. I stared at this Sun, rising redly behind Allan, his Throat exposed to my Blade. And suddenly the Awful Knowledge, the Terrible Arithmetic revealed itself to me. Of course it would not be Allan’s last Moment. After his Head rolled away from his Body, twould become a fuzzy Bunny. And he would enjoy this Sun in a new Way, I knew. He would open his new Eyes to a new World, the one I so longed for. He would hear the Wind singing to him through his long furry Ears, and hop happily in its Breezes. He would speak the Language of Grasses I could no longer speak. His human Pain, the considerable Pain of being Allan, would cease entirely. And then the Question arose: Why, Reader, would I ever give him this Gift?

I lowered Axe.

Allan opened one Eye. “Problem?”

I nodded. Hating that Allan was right. That he had so precisely articulated my Feeling. The Sun had now risen above the Trees. Under her soft pink Light, I held forth Axe.

“Kill me instead, please,” I said. NO! NO! NO!

And I sank down to the damp Grasses, Reader. Tilted my own Head back.

Allan stared at Axe like twas a Trick. “Why would I do that?”

“Tis the only Way Back for me,” I said. “I was afeared to do it before. But I’m afeared no more,” I lied. For I was afeared, Reader. Terribly

Allan breathed a small Sigh of Relief. There was Triumph in his Expression. Which almost made me stand up and raise Axe again but he quickly snatched it from me. Turned it round slowly in his Hands, shaking his Head. And then? He threw it away. Quite far away from himself and my Self. Bunny and I watched its silver Blade wink in the dawn’s Light. Watched it fall into a nearby Pond—making its surface ripple, the swans there glide away. My Heart sank. “What have you—”

“I can’t send you back, Aerius,” he said, shaking his Head. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not Mine. Only your Creator can send you back. And if you are a Creation, you can send someone back as you’ve learned.” He smiled at Leonard, crouched beside me in the Grass, Ears twitching. “Otherwise…”

“Otherwise?”

“It’s just Murder, Bunny,” he said.

I thought of Mother then. Her desperate Face. Only tell me that you are mine. Otherwise

I cannot send you Back. I recalled her holding Axe, the Blade sharp and wavering above my

Head. “Then I am doomed,” I said.

He smiled down at me kneeling in the Grass. The rising Fire of the Sun behind him, blinding me. Casting him in such professorial Silhouette.

“Violence isn’t the only means of Transformation, Aerius. There are other Ways Back. A Book is an Axe too. For the frozen Sea within us . The Pen is mightier than the Sword and so on.”

And in my Mindscape, I saw my Book. Now in Mother’s Hands. How she’d hugged it so close to her Body even after she’d called it Nothing, a Fiction. My Book a Way Back all on its own?

“A Book,” I whispered. “All by itself?” My voice echoed in the Forest, small and alone.

Allan looked down at me, suddenly quite enchanted. “All by itself,” he repeated softly. “They are one of the oldest forms of Transformative Magic. They have the Power to change Everything. Hearts. Bodies. Minds. Souls. Whole fucking Worlds. People burn them for a Reason, you know.”

I thought of my Self writing in the Dark. The Changes I’d begun to feel Within as I shared my Story, deep in the very Essence of my Self. Truths that afeared and excited me rising to the Surface of my Mindscape, bleeding onto the Page. And Mother desperately looking over my Shoulder, Hands always reaching to take.

“But Mother has stolen my Book.”

Allan nodded. He took a long drag of his Cigarette, which he had been smoking slowly all this Time. “She has her big Showcase tonight, doesn’t she?” he said.

The Hare Moon, I saw now, was still high in the morning Sky. Nearly Full.

“Yes,” I whispered, looking at this Moon. “I am supposed to be in it. I am the Star of the Show.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “You’re what she’s wanted for so long. What we all want frankly.” And he looked at me, Reader, quite longingly himself. I felt a Moment of Fear. Then he lowered his Eyes. Took another drag.

“I was wondering what she was going to do for that Showcase of hers,” he murmured. “They used to be notorious back in the Day. She was always trying to incite a Riot. Always going for The Rite of Spring. I guess it’s just her Relationship to…the Process.” He gazed down at my Body. “It’s always been deeply intimate. Violent. Dare I say a little delusional.”

Tell me you are mine.

“Truly, I wonder how she or anyone else survives it.” He shook his Head. “Well, you should go.”

“I can’t go back there,” I whispered, thinking of Mother wielding Axe. “She will kill me.” Then I thought again of the Book. My Way Back. In her Hands.

Allan smiled at me darkly as if to say What choice do you have?

“There are Other Dangers,” I said. “I am wanted by an angry Mob.”

“Oh, right of course. For your…Murders.” And he winked at Leonard, still sitting by my Feets. “The students take Violences so seriously these Days.”

“I am wanted by Others too,” I added quietly, picturing my Keepers. The Poets in their Trenchy Coats surrounding me like Vampire Bats. My Heart glimmered briefly at the Thought of seeing Jonah there.

“There will always be Dangers, Aerius. This is Art School, after all. But perhaps you’ll find a Way. You’re charmed, you know.”

“I am?”

“Of course. You’re a Fiction. Serendipity is naturally on your Side. The Universe, if you like.” He smiled again. “Goodbye, Aerius. Good luck.” And then he sauntered away, Allan did. Into the morning Fog broken here and there by beams of Sunlight.

Bunny and I watched him go whistling away. Allan, unkilled by me. Axe, no longer pressed against my Heart or heavy in my Fist, but somewhere far away in the silty bottom of the Pond. And my Hands, Reader, for the first time, light and empty and free.

XXI

Twas Twilight Time when I returned to Narrative Arts.

Entered the Rose Garden with careful, quiet Steps.

Axeless. Pony still Comatose in my Pocket. My Hands empty, my Heart full. Of Fear, Reader. I stared at the Entrance to Narrative Arts from the Garden’s mercifully lengthy Shadows. SHOWCASE: RIOT OF SPRING it said in big Letters on a glossy Poster on the door. Twas a Poster of Mother, much younger than she was now, smiling at something just beyond the Frame. How I shivered, Reader, at the Sight of her. Grew angry and more afeared all at once

But this Poster was the least of my worries.

The Mob, Reader, surrounded the Entrance. Wearing their bleeding T-shirts, covered in their False Bloods, waving their Axes. Screaming “She harbors a Murderer! Do not see her Showcase!” Some were holding blown up Pictures of me, the infamous Drawing and Photograph. Everywhere I looked, I saw these “Representations” of my Self, Reader, beneath the words HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Twas lucky I did not really resemble the Man in the drawing at all. (It truly did not look like a Man so much as a Violin.) But I did somewhat resemble the Photograph of Jacob Chamalord with the Rabbit’s Ears on his Head To make matters worse, the Mob themselves were surrounded by Polices and Reporters. Indeed the Mob’s Leader, the Girl with the sad Pony Tail and the Eyes of Fire, she appeared to be shouting at the Cameras. “The Murderer is being housed by Narrative Arts! Narrative Arts is Murder!” she cried.

“Murder!” intoned the Mob.

Reader, how my Heart pounded wildly within me.

And then, as if to multiply my Nightmares, I saw them.

My Keepers in the Perfumed Flesh.

My alleged Creators

All Four walking up the Pathway toward the doors, where Mother’s Poster Face glowed most threateningly, like a wrong Sun. Their shining, knotted Hairs and Cruelle Eyes. Their heady Scent of bogus Grasses. Each wearing the same sort of horribly adorable Dress, even Insatiable, whom they appeared to have groomed for she looked washed and trussed up in a new Way. And they were not alone, Reader. They were with four male Companions, quite like the American Psychos I’d seen them with once before. All tall like I was. Suited in deep blue. Pale eyes that glowed in the Twilights like mine did, these Men could very well have been my Brothers. My Keepers were holding their Hands, tugging them toward the Entrance like unwilling Toys. Meanwhile these Men looked as afeared as I felt in my Heart. And then in my Heart I knew: my Brothers were being held quite against their will, Reader. Kept Perhaps they too were Creations. How cold I grew within me then.

“I thought we were going for Pinkberry first,” I heard Murder Fairy say. Twas strange, Reader, that I could hear them from where I stood the Shadows, through the Mob Shoutings. Could hear them as if they were indeed quite close. Twas as strange as how these Garden Shadows seemed to so perfectly conceal my Body.

“We’ll go after,” the Mind Witch snapped. Her silver Hairs spiky with hot house Flowers. Her Eyes cold and sharp. “Remember if you see him, grab him.”

“Grab him,” they all echoed, nodding.

“Do you really think he’ll be there, Bunny?” Goldy Cut asked, looking around quite wildly. Bunny . To hear her use this Word now caused a Rage within me, though she’d said it, they’d all said it, countless Times before. I looked at her Dress bright with Flowers not in Nature, the furthest Thing from the Petals and the Light I had ever seen.

“Of course he will,” the Mind Witch said.

“And we’ll be waiting.” This from Insatiable, who grinned. “To fuck her Shit up. Take back what’s Ours.” Not yours , I thought. Never yours again. And yet, in this Moment, I contemplated running to them. Begging them to please take an Axe to my Neck. Please do me this Kindness. But I could not bring myself to approach them, Reader. For one, the mad Throng would have likely descended on me before I could reach them And in truth, to even look upon them from this Distance made me ill Of course they would never be willing to kill me What they wished to do, I knew, was to keep me Carry on with their terrible Revision And anyway, I didn’t know which of them to beg for I did not know who among them was truly responsible for my Entry into this World. They were always quibbling about this amongst themselves back in the Attic Times. He is mine, no he is mine! Whose was I, Reader? Which Hand among their many could successfully wield the Axe in my Favor? Which Hand would be my Death?

I did not know

And so I kept my Distance as they made their way through the doors. Sighed with Relief as they disappeared at last through the Entrance.

They were followed closely by the Poets, muttering in their Trenchy Coats, taking last Drags from their Cigarettes, their Talons painted and sharp. They were looking for me too, I could tell by their searching cat-lined Eyes, ever glancing over their Shoulders. I did not see Jonah among them Nor did I see that Girl. Sam. Sam doesn’t really go to Things , I remember Jonah said. Perhaps they were together right now. But to think on this would only increase my Sufferings, Reader. And they were already quite Immense

Then Mother herself appeared in a shimmering Caftan. She was with a small group of grave-looking Elders in dark Suits. The Administrators, I guessed, who were there to evaluate Mother though they have no Respect or Understanding for my Art . Mother was smiling at them, making Conversation, ingratiating herself. She seemed very nervous. Of course she would be, she did not know where I was. “Looking forward to this,” she was saying. “Should be very exciting.” Making her way along the Path through the mad Throng, who screamed most dramatically at the Sight of her. She smiled patiently as Polices held them back, allowing her, the true Criminal, to make her way to the door with her grim Entourage. My Book was somewhere on her Person, I knew, though I could not see it I felt its Presence as surely as I felt the pounding of my own Heart. She too looked over her Shoulder as she approached the doors. Paused there, as if she saw someone. Did she see me, Reader? No. Only Allan, walking up the Path towards her. Tall and hunched by his own Allanness. Hairs wild as they had been in the Forest. His Eyes smiling with Secrets.

“I’m looking forward to your Showcase this evening, Mother ,” he said to her.

Mother? Mother’s Eyes seemed to say. She stared at him, suspicious.

“Are you?” she said in a low Voice. “Well, I’m very looking forward to showing you.” She smiled. I saw a Glimmer of Fear in her Eye then, the Fear of the Thief. I watched them disappear through the doors together while the Mob roared

Reader, how could I ever hope to cross this Threshold? When literally Everyone hunting for me was now assembled in the same Place?

WANTED it said beneath the pictures and photographs. MURDERER.

No , I wanted to cry. Not me! My Keepers are the Murderers! They wrenched me from the Garden. Planted their Violences deep into my Heart like so many false Flowers. Made me kill Allans until Allan himself took Pity on me, threw away my Axe. And now I am lost in your Human World of Thieving Fictions and Soul-sucking Poets. Lost perhaps forever.

Security Guards now stood unsmiling on either side of the doors. Guns in their Belts.

Oh Reader

The Moment I was spotted, I would surely be arrested. Killed. Or worse yet, kept

There was no way I could go through this front door. No way I could enter the Theater like the rest of them. Storm the Stage and snatch the Book from her as I’d been thinking. I would have to go through the Back Way, as Mother had instructed, the hidden door from the Garden that leads directly to the Stage. Indeed, the only way to my Book, I realized then, was to be in Mother’s Showcase. To get on Stage with Mother. To play my Part (whatever it was ) until I might get close enough to the Book to take it from her and run. Twas the only Way Back. Even then, I might get discovered. Caught by one of these Factions. Or die by Mother’s Hand

I crouched down to Leonard, sitting beside me in the shadowy Grasses. Though he continued to follow me, he’d grown more distant since our Time in the Forest.

“Leonard,” I said softly. “If I run into trouble, will you save me?”

Leonard looked at me. His Eyes flashed.

And then?

He hopped away from me, Reader, deeper into the Dark of the Garden.

XXII

Mother had never been willing to bring me to the Theater. Too risky , she said. We might be discovered . Instead, she’d shown me some Photos she’d taken of the Stage, drawn some crude Maps. And though Mother was not, by her own Admission, the best Artist or Photographer, this combination of Visuals did help me to find my Way through the snaking Dark. There will be a Costume waiting for you on a chair in the green room, Mother said. You will put on the Costume, Mother said. You will make your way backstage. You will find the X on the floor and kneel there.

And then what, Mother?

I will be waiting for you there. Like Providence.

I found the Costume right where Mother had said it would be. A black Suit, a grey Shirt which I quickly put on. Surprised that for once Mother wanted so very much of my Pelt concealed. When I entered the back of the Stage, I found my Self in a kind of Garden, Reader. Though twas dark, I could see Bushes all around me. Many Beds of tall bright-colored Flowers. Small, strangely twisting Trees. Grasses at my Feets. It all looked so Real that I thought I had taken a Wrong Turn somewhere, that I was back in the Rose Garden outside. Or indeed back in Mother’s Garden. But then I saw the Red Curtains, I heard the Crowd on the Other Side. I saw the X where I was to stand, marked with Black Tapes on the Grasses, just as Mother said it would be. On this X lay a Mask. A Rabbit’s Mask quite like the one I’d once worn at the Greek house. Yet this one was entirely white and featureless. No Lashes or Whiskers. Two black unadorned holes for Eyes. Long Ears sharp like Swords. Twas formidable. Yet I was relieved to have it. Perhaps together with the Suit, it might save me from Notice.

I slipped it on.

And then I saw Mother herself among the false Trees and Flowers. Pacing the Grasses nervously. She had a little Microphone taped to her Mouth and she was whispering into it heatedly. Pressing her Hand to her Ear. She stopped when she saw me standing me there in my Suit and Mask. I could not tell what was in her Face then as I couldn’t see her Eyes. But I felt her Smile in the Dark. Could feel her great Relief coursing in my own Blood.

Fate , I could feel her thinking. Serendipity. Here I was at last, in all my Beauty. Evidence of her Genie-yes. Her Vindication. Almost mine.

“Where is the Book, Mother?” I whispered.

For I saw it nowhere on her Person. I would have taken it from her then. I would have run out of the Theater, run out of this World of Writers forever. Just the Sound of them on the Other Side of the Curtain was enough to put Fear in my Heart. But Mother didn’t answer. I felt her Face frown in the Dark.

I would have to play my Part for now, I knew. I would have to wait for my Moment.

“Kneel,” she said in a low Voice.

So I kneeled, Reader, upon the X in the Grasses.

And Mother smiled again. Whispered something into her mic.

Out went the Lights. Smoke filled the Garden like a Fog.

And the great Red Curtains were drawn.

Twas so Dark that at first all I could see was Mother, standing beside me on the Stage in her Fineries. Her Hairs a great Goldy Cloud, her Caftan glowing importantly in the Light. I kneeled on my X, still swallowed in the Black. The Audience could see me not, though I could begin to make them out in the Dark. An endless Sea of Heads What Mother called “the whole of New York,” which amounted to a few bored looking young People in Blacks slouched in the front rows. Assistants , I heard Mother whisper beneath her Breath. A couple of them (the Presses perhaps) holding Cameras ready to click. Beside them, those grave Administrators I’d seen Outside, who did not understand Mother’s Art and wished for her to Retire, the Faculties who wished for her to Fail—all these Aged Ones seated dourly in the front rows, all frowning apart from Allan who seemed to espy me kneeling in the Dark. Who seemed to smile. My Keepers and their Psychos seated just behind, wide-eyed and waiting, I knew, for any Sign of me The Poets glowering in their Trenchies on the opposite End of the Theater. The Mob standing grimly in the back, the Security Guards at every door And Jonah? Jonah nowhere at all among these Factions

My Heart sank even though how could I possibly run to him in these Circumstances? I was grateful for the Darkness which concealed my Body. At least for now

Mother stood at her Podium, a single deep blue Light shining down on her like she was God. Smiling out at the Dark, like the true Mind Witch she was.

She welcomed everyone. Thanked them all so very much for coming Tonight. “I am most humbled by your Attendance,” she said, beaming at her many Enemies and Friends. “You will forgive me if I am a bit nervous tonight. I have not had a Showcase in some Time.”

She sighed quite performatively. Gave a great Speech then, Reader. About Creativity, the Process. And all the while that she was speaking about Bleedings and Wounds, I kneeled beside her in the Dark, looking, looking for the Book. Twas difficult for the Eye Holes in my Mask narrowed my Vision There was a Smoke too, continually filling the Garden, obscuring all Shapes But twas nowhere on her Person or on the Stage

There was only Mother in her Caftan, standing most theatrically in the Fog

Attempting to Enchant. To Captivate.

Thus I had no Choice, Reader, but to stay kneeled upon the X. And listen. And wait

“I came to Warren long ago as a Student,” Mother was saying. “Now I am a Teacher here. For me, Warren has always been a Charged Place. A Magic Place. Or perhaps there is a Magic made between my Self and it. A Serendipity , if you will.” She smiled. “I was Fortunate, in my long Career here, to be visited many Times over. Indeed, the Transformative Powers of Creativity seemed to course through my very Body like Blood.”

She held up her Hands to the Heavens. Quite dramatically, Reader.

“But alas, of late, if I am being Honest, it has not come so easily.”

Mother lowered her Arms sadly now. Bowed her Head in an Attitude of Great Humility.

“It has been a Struggle,” Mother admitted. “Perhaps,” she mused, “because my Process is so deeply tied to the Natural World. And as the Earth struggles to survive, to thrive, so do I. As its Rivers run dry, so too does my own Blood. As its Soil Corrodes, so too does my own Heart.”

She pressed her Hand emphatically to her Breast. I heard some Coughs in the Audience.

Oh my fucking God , came a whisper from my Pocket. Where is the Book already ? Let us take it and run.

My heart soared. Pony! Awake again Right when I was in most need of him, twas a Miracle! Pony, thank god! I have missed you so terribly. Thank god, thank god I am in such— but he shhhed me

“But thankfully,” Mother thundered, “by the Great Generosity of my Warren Fellows who perhaps sensed that my Creative Journeyings were not over yet , that I had still more to bleed, to give, I was able to take a Leave last Fall. To Tap the Wound again.” She smiled again at the Audience.

“Nothing happened for a Time,” Mother confessed, her Face falling. “I worried indeed that the Wound had gone Dry. That I was doomed like the Earth Itself. And then, most unexpectedly, I was Visited. By a most vital and dynamic Source.”

And now she beamed at me in the Dark. My Blood, Reader, went cold.

Dear fucking Christ , Pony whispered.

“Beautiful,” Mother said. “Primitive. Wily and Mysterious as Nature itself. And Wounded, deeply. Brimming with Heart’s Blood. What could I do, but Tap?”

I looked out at the Audience. My Keepers, I saw, were on the Edge of their Seats now. The Poets too, were leaning forward in Anticipation. The Faculties and Administrations in the front rows were glancing at their Watches. New York looked mildly amused. The Protestors lining the walls were Ready to cry to Murder, while the Security Guards were yawning by the Doors. Allan meanwhile watched me intently.

I looked back at Mother, smiling most triumphantly. Basking in this Tension. “This Source,” Mother said, “provided me with the Purest of Language. A Dispatch from our precious, much endangered Natural World.”

And here at last she pulled it from her Caftan, Reader. The Book, the Book! Pony cried.

My Book. Right there in her Hands. Those Strangling Flowers which had always afeared me catching the Light. Could I grab it now?

Not now, not yet , Pony whispered. We could be intercepted .

I looked back at the Audience, all of whom were now watching Mother as intently as Allan. Some of New York, I noted, were rolling their Eyes.

“I shall read it for you now,” Mother cried, waving the Book in the Air. “Direct from the Source’s Lips to your Ears! Untainted by my Authorial Hand. Before I begin, let me say that I know many of you expect a mere Reading .” Mild Laughter now in the Audience.

“Just you wait,” Mother said, gripping the Book, my Book, so tightly in her Hands. So close but so far away from my Reach

And then? She opened it.

She began to read Leonard’s words in a great booming Voice. I could almost feel Leonard somewhere cringing at her Fiction’s Cadence. But she did not get very far, Reader. For a great Murmuring erupted as soon as she began. A buzzing like a Drone from the Audience.

The Poets.

“What is she doing?” I heard them hiss. “What does she think she is doing? Those are not her Words!” I looked back at Mother, who was pressing on despite the Murmurings. She could not or would not hear them. On she read until a great Shout cut through the Theater.

“PLAGIARIST!”

Mother looked up from her Readings. “Excuse me? What do you call me?”

“You are plagiarizing Leonard Coel! Those are his Poet Trees!”

Twas the Leader. Risen from his chair in the Theater. Gunnar and Colby and Matthias scowling beside him. “ Plagiarist, plagiarist !” they now began to cry.

Mother looked at me kneeling in the Dark. And I knew she knew everything. Her Eyes went hard as Stones. The Mists there grew thick. She looked back at the Audience. The Presses were snapping Pictures. The Poets were all on their Feets now, pointing at her, chanting madly now, “PLAGIARIST, PLAGIARIST!” even as the Administrators and Faculties told them to settle. Settle down, please .

“YES!” someone else shouted. Twas the Mind Witch, rising from her seat, surrounded by my Keepers, all on their Feets too. “She has also stolen from her Students! Plagiarist! Thief!”

Chanting and chanting, the whole Throng while the Presses clicked and New York cringed and the other Elders in the Audience continued to make lame Gestures for Order, Order, please. Except for Allan. Who only sat there, smiling.

And Mother watching it all, horrified. Mesmerized. Defiant. Still gripping the Book that I must take from her, Reader.

Now, Pony whispered. Now, Now, Now.

I began to reach out my Hand from the Dark.

“SILENCE,” she suddenly cried. And she held up the Book then. High above her Head. I froze. All froze and fell quiet for a Spell. Mother’s Anger was quite formidable in this Moment. Mother herself was formidable. A Book is an Axe , I remember Allan said. And indeed, Mother held up my Book like she could strike with it. Like she could kill.

And yet she was smiling.

“It seems,” she said, “that we must have ourselves a little Witch Hunt tonight. Very well, this is Warren after all. I shall accept your Slings and Arrows. I am used to playing Monster, Medea, Mother. I’m a female writing Teacher after all. I am used to your Projections, your INGRATITUDE. Even though I MADE this Place what it is! I first brought its Magic to Life and any of you who now reap its Gifts are but PALE IMITATORS! So go ahead. Go ahead and BURN ME. I have been Burned many times before. But before you tie me to the Stake, HEAR ME NOW.”

Silence in the room. Mother was Smoldering them with her Gaze. The Mists in her Eyes had never been so Thick. When she looked at me, I saw a Stranger. Lost in her own Performance. Too late , said her Eyes. Too late to Turn Back now.

“WORDS. ARE. NOTHING!” she cried. “You actually think that there is Ownership over WORDS ?” She snorted now like a Pig. “Words are such feeble Representations of Experience. What really matters is the F LESH. What matters is the HEART. THAT is my true Medium. I wrote these Words in Ink, but make no Mistake, I work in BLOOD.”

And she turned to look at me in the Dark. As though I were a Great Exhibition, Reader. As though she were about to unveil me. “The Heart’s Blood is what my Work Gushes Forth,” she whispered.

My own Heart, Reader, was leaping inside of my Body.

“I know many of you doubt my Creative Powers are Real. Well after Tonight I can promise you, you will doubt no more. For I will demonstrate them to you right here, right now on this Stage! I will show you the transformative Wonder of Art. The Violence and then the Transcendence. And is there a Risk?” She looked back at me now. Her expression lit up by Madness, a most disturbing Ecstasy “Of course there is. All Art is Risk! Without Risk, we give Nothing! Without Blood, there can be no Wonder!” And with that, she threw the Book down onto the Stage.

The Book, The Book!

And then she and her Podium were swallowed in Darkness.

A Light suddenly filled my Eyes. It shone down on me, surrounded me like a Sphere. I was blinded by it, Reader. Twas a Light brighter than any I’d ever known. So bright I could see Nothing at all. Not the Audience. Not the Stage. Only this Light and then the Great Darkness beyond it. A Fog surrounding me like the Mist in Mother’s Eyes.

I heard gasps in the Audience. Sighs and Murmurings.

For there I was, Reader, suddenly terribly visible to Everyone Alone Kneeling before them all. My Mask hot on my Face. My Heart leaping and leaping in my Body. They were all staring at me, and though I could not see, I could feel their Eyes. I heard more Murmurings, Whisperings among them. “Who is this? Who is this?”

Oh god, did they recognize me?

The Book , Pony whispered, look for the Book! Our only Way Back.

But the Light still blinded me, Reader. Smoke still filling the Stage like a Fog. Twas then I caught a Scent of Wild Flowers. Forests. Close to me. The Book.

I began to feel around for it on the Grassy Stage below, my Fingers searching its false Blades. I began to smell for it. My nose twitching, coming alive beneath my Mask. But I was too far from the Ground. I hunched down lower to the Earth. There the Scent of Wildness grew stronger. The Book was near me but where, where? “Where are you?” I whispered.

I heard little Gasps in the Audience. “What is he doing now?” “What is this?”

I hunched down lower still, pressed my Face into Mother’s False Earth and sniffed. Now I caught the Scent of true Flowers amid the Fake Grasses. I caught the Scent of Blood. My Blood, Reader. Closer, I was getting closer.

Suddenly the Light began to pulse above my Head.

The Audience gasped. “Oh my god oh my god.” “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Which was most strange, Reader. I could feel them Squirming in their Seats watching me now. Wincing as though they were truly a feared. Why do you all seem so afeared?

And then in the Pulsing Light, I glimpsed the Book lying in the Grass just ahead of me.

I held out my Arms to reach for it. More Gasps from the Audience, paralyzing me.

“Oh my god, oh my god DON’T!” someone cried.

Don’t? Did they not understand that this Book was my only Way Back?

I lunged forward now, reaching for it once more.

That’s when I heard Mother hiss. “Stay on the X! Stay on the X as I told you.”

I turned and then I saw her. Standing behind me in the Fog. A large Axe raised mightily in her Hands. “Don’t move,” she murmured. Her Eyes on the Lights, her Smile for the Theater.

“Mother, you cannot send me back,” I whispered to her. “I am not yours, I am not yours.”

But Mother was not hearing me. She was too lost in playing her Part, relishing the Horror and Wonder of the Audience, their Gasps and Murmurings. Drunk on this Demonstration of what she believed to be her Powers. Her Gaze was for the Cameras and the Crowd alone, many of whom were now shouting Thief, Murderer, Liar, Genie-yes, Witch, while the Security Guards looked alarmed, awake now. Caught between Fear and Curiosity. Was this Real? Or was this merely more of Mother’s Art? And Mother delighting in it all. No one dared to approach the Stage for Mother’s raised Axe was most formidable. Larger than any I’d ever seen. Certainly larger than my own, lost somewhere in the watery Depths of the Forest Pond. It shone in the blue flashing Light like a Thing Irrefutable, a most Dazzling Truth. And Mother lost to it. Nothing in her Eyes but Defiance. Shining, blinding as the sharp Blade itself.

Which was now poised over my Neck.

And looking into Mother’s Eyes I knew that she could send me Nowhere.

That she could only kill me.

That she would rather kill me than admit Defeat in front of these Factions, her many Friends and Enemies in Narrative Arts. New York. These Presses with their clicking Cameras. These Faculties and Administrators, some of whom were now looking quite nervous, some of whom were looking bored. Allan meanwhile was watching me closely. Not smiling anymore.

The Book, was lying just ahead of me on the Stage floor, Reader. Smelling of Wild Flowers and my own Heart’s Blood. Just out of my Reach. Too far for me to grasp with my Hands alone. Mother had done this on Purpose perhaps. So that in my Reaching, in my Longing, I might extend my Neck most beautifully, most dramatically for her Strike.

So that I might be best Positioned to receive her Blade.

A Sound of Crying now in the Audience. Roaring above the Human Sounds. Male, Animal. Strangled. Mother’s Axe above my Head wavered at this Sound. She herself wavered, her Smile cracking, looking out at the Dark. Most annoyed. Who was intruding upon this Moment of her Authorial Thunder? Upon her Murder?

I looked out at the Audience. Twas then I saw my Keepers’ Dates, my Brothers, were risen from their chairs. Screaming up at the ceiling and freezing Mother in her Strike. Allan’s Eyes caught mine in the Theater. I felt his Message like a Lightning Flash through my Pelt . Just as I felt Pony stirring in my Pocket.

Now.

And looking from Mother’s Blade to the Book, I jumped, Reader.

In the flashing blue Light, I took a Great Leap toward it, into what felt like the Void.

A hop, if you like.

And everyone screamed and screamed.

Time suddenly began to move slowly, Reader. Just like one of those Moving Pictures my Keepers used to play for me on the Attic wall. I had never quite believed Time could move like that in what we call Reality. It seemed like an all too Human Manipulation. It seemed, indeed, like Art. I had never believed it, that is, until this Moment.

Then I learned Time could move very slowly indeed.

It could stand as still as I did on the now bloody Stage, after my Great Leap.

Frozen. Feeling and Seeing so many Things at Once.

The Whoosh of Mother’s Axe, like a most terrible, sharp Wind. How it roared past me as I’d leapt, cutting so very Close. My Mask suddenly felled and lying by my Knees on the Grassy Floor. Its long white Ears severed by Mother’s Blade. Splattered with Blood as if they were my true Ears, Reader, for Mother had nicked my Flesh. The Blade of Mother’s Axe now stuck in the Stage floor. The Press Cameras clicking and clicking as she, cursing, attempted to wrench the Blade from this False Earth where Nothing grew.

And then the Screaming.

All of them screaming so very wildly.

Screaming my Name. Screaming “Murderer.” Screaming “Muse.” Screaming “Mine.” Rushing toward the Stage, toward me Believing they owned me, Body and Soul, each one had a Claim They would take me back to Attic, to the Den of Oblivion, to Prison Securities and the Administration and Faculties attempting to hold them back, to block their Ways to the Stage, even though I could tell they themselves did not know, was the botched Swing, was this Chaos part of Mother’s Showcase? Or was it simply Chaos now?

I braced my Self for Capture. For the greedy Grab of the Keeper or the Soul-sucking Poet For the Mob to storm the Stage and Arrest me Allan seemed to have vanished from the Theater. Stupidly, I hoped for the saving call of Jonah’s Voice. And underneath these Human Sounds, those strange Animal Cries from my Brothers rising to a feverish Pitch. Suddenly, I felt a hot Breath on my Neck. Mother. She’d wrenched her Axe free from the False Earth, she’d raised it high again, she was going to kill me this time. She no longer cared. Not about Creation nor Vindication. Only Blood. My Blood. And this time, Reader, I tilted my Head back. Extended my Throat to her. Alright, Mother. “Kill me,” I said. For I would rather die here, Reader, than be caught by any of these grasping Artist Hands. I waited for Mother’s Blade to descend upon me, to put us all out of our Misery. Braced my Self for the Black.

But something stopped her. A new and great Chaos now rising behind us.

And Mother was beholding it, a true Horror on her Face.

I turned, ready to meet the Horror head on, whatever twas. Mob, Keeper, Poet, I was ready. What I saw were the Rabbits. Pouring into the Theater from all doors. Storming the Theater floor. Hopping through the Auditorium like my very own fuzzy Army. And Everyone pointing and cooing or else struck dumb by the long-eared Creatures. Twas like the Rabbits were casting a kind of strange but potent Glamor over the Throng, Reader, for they no longer seemed to notice Mother or my Self at all. I thought I saw Leonard among them, bounding happily down the Aisle.

Leonard , are you saving me?

Perhaps he was, Reader.

Or perhaps twas my Brothers who had summoned these Rabbits with their Cries. They were still shrieking up at the Ceiling, their blue Eyes glowing as more and more Rabbits stormed the doors.

Or perhaps twas something to do with what Allan had said. About my being a Fiction. Serendipity naturally on my Side. The Universe, if you like.

I will never know, Reader.

I only knew Bunny.

Bunny everywhere.

And the Book. My Book. No longer out of Reach.

But back in my Hands.

“Aerius,” I heard now in a Whisper. My Keepers standing at the Foot of the Stage. Staring dead at me and Mother. Immune to the Rabbitry. Immune to the Axe. Immune to Everyone and Everything but my Self. Kneeling before them.

The Lights went out in the Theater.

Under cover of Darkness, I ran.

XXIII

Narrative Arts, Reader, is a Labyrinth. I do not know how long I ran, breathless, through its twisting Dark. Up and down its ever-winding Corridors and Staircases. Gripping my Book close, twas all I could feel now in the Black. How dearly I wanted to escape Mother, my Keepers, this terrible World for good. Leave and never look back. Yet there was no End The building seemed to go on Forever, to extend infinitely, twas a Maze of Halls and Doors. And none of these Doors leading to the Outside And each one more terrifyingly named than the next, their Signs glowing in the Dark Halls.

GALLERY OF PARADIGMS.

THE METAPHORICAL CHAMBER.

POETRY LIBRARY.

Oh, Reader

Serendipity, the Universe—had they deserted me?

As I ran, I could hear my Name being screamed somewhere in the Labyrinth. I saw another Door up ahead. HALL OF INFINITE REFLECTION, read the Sign. The Words gave me a very bad Feeling, Reader. But of course, all of Narrative Arts by then gave me a bad Feeling

We must go through , Pony whispered in my Pocket. There is nowhere else to Run. Speaking my exact Thoughts. Twas strange, I thought, that he should have awoken Tonight, to reassure me with my very own Words. But I could not wonder on this Miracle now. For we must go through this Door. And so we did, Reader.

A Chamber, dark yet luminous. As I entered, strange-colored Lights bubbled down from the ceiling. I found my Self surrounded by Walls of Glass, a Sea of tall young Men. All of them looking at me very curiously through the falling Bubbles of Light.

“Who are you?” I asked them.

But they seemed to be asking me the very same Question, Reader. Their Mouths moving in Time with mine. Each one clutching a Book to his Chest like I was. Gasping for Breath like I was. Who are you who are you? though our Answer was now clear as this Sea of Glass.

My Self.

My Self a Thousand Times over, Reader. Irrefutably Human. Reflected all around me, seemingly to Infinity, twas quite literally a Hall of Infinite Reflection . DO NOT TOUCH read a Sign on the wall by the door.

Oh god, Pony whispered now. Will the Artistry never cease? Do not look, Mirrors are very dangerous. And Artist Mirrors worst of all.

Yet how could I help it, Reader? These Mirrors were all around me. I was all around me.

Beautiful, how many times had I been told I was? And I was, I knew, even in my Ruin I stared at my Selves now in the Dark, bleeding, breathless, broken—their muscled Bodies in their torn Clothes that Mother had chosen, their Actor’s Faces a product of my Keepers’ lust, their Pelts so eerily smooth and their Ears so terribly small—and the Word that came to me was not Beautiful. Twas Conjured . Hunted. Lost. So that I stared at these Selves in a kind of Horror through that falling Light. And they stared at me just the Same. Our Hearts leaping in our Chests. Our Arms still hugging the Book so tightly to our Bodies. And then I remembered.

My Book, Reader.

My Friend.

I had taken it back from Mother.

I had it in my Hands at last.

I looked down at those strange Flowers on its Face. How disturbingly small and light it felt in my Hands now. Almost like Nothing at all. The Way Back , Pony whispered. Was it? And there among the Bubbles of Light, surrounded by my Reflections, a Coldness began to spread through me, Reader. A Doubt I dared not name.

Go on then, Pony whispered. Open it. Quickly, before we die here, please.

Again, echoing my very Thoughts. Just as he’d done in the Theater. Which should have been a Comfort to me, a Balm. But it only made this Doubt grow in my Heart. My Hands trembled mightily as I opened the Book.

Just as I did, I heard a Sigh. Which was curious. Had the Book sighed at my opening? Was my Friend so happy to see me?

“Aerius,” said a Voice.

I looked up, knowing what Horror my Eyes would meet. For it seemed I must meet them, Reader. Thousands of them. All around me. Four for every One of my Army of Reflections. Dresses torn and Hairs wild from giving C hase. Eyes fevered and brimming with what they called Love. Whispering, “Oh my god. You.”

And there was Nowhere to run, Reader. For they were Everywhere. I was frozen, paralyzed before this Sea of my Keepers. And they appeared paralyzed before this Sea of me. Dazzled by the illusory Plentitude of my Self. They stood there, turning dumbstruck Circles, hunting wildly for my actual Flesh among the Reflections, who were all shaking their Heads like I was. Mouthing my own Words as I spoke them. “No. Please. Let me go.”

Tears shone in their Keeper Eyes as if I’d slapped them.

“But I love you,” all the Goldies whispered. “So much, I can’t breathe.” Her many Mouths trembling. Her Voice sounding so very raw and pained. She shook her Goldy Heads, none of which looked so Goldy anymore.

“We all do,” they said. And their Thousands of Bodies began to approach me, Reader. Step by terribly tender Step, I felt each Click in my Bones. A thousand Mouths now trembling. All this monstrous Love moving toward me, encircling me, all of my Selves now frozen in the Glass.

“We love you, we love you,” they whispered wildly. Eyes bright as if they were deep in Dreamings. As if we were right now in a Romance and this was the Moment of our Great Union. And whether I wanted to be in such a Story did not matter to them, Reader.

“I am a Free Spirit,” I whispered, all my Selves whispered, petrified before this Awful Sea. “I have my own Story.”

Shh , Pony said. You will discover us. But my Keepers didn’t seem to hear me, Reader. Or if they did, it did not matter. They were coming for me anyway, I knew, whether I loved them or not. Not to kill me, never to send me back. But to torture me and themselves in the Dark forever. I could already feel their Attic Ropes encircling me. Yes , I heard them say somewhere in my Mindscape. No choice, Bunny. We’re Writers. Can’t help the fucking creative Heart. The Heart that Loves, oh it Rages wildly within us. Possesses us. So we must Possess you. Please God let us.

“But what of my Heart?” I shouted, and again they seemed to hear me not. So lost they were in looking for me among the many Reflections. Perhaps more Lost than I ever was. And yet they did not seem to know which Face was truly Mine, which was Real. Where to direct their most terrible loving Energies. Where to reach out their Hands.

“Where are you?” they called, touching the Glass, only Glass. Only my horrified Reflection looming there. They began to whimper in Frustration.

“I LOVE you,” they cried. “Please.” Pressing on the Glass. Tapping on it like a Door that must open. “Where are you, where ARE you?”

Well, this is very inappropriate, Pony whispered. They are not supposed to touch, there is a Sign right there that says so. Can they not read?

It seemed they could not, Reader. They were banging their Fists on the Glass now, on my Faces, all of whom mouthed Please let me go. Banging on them so very hard we at last began to crack. Yet they didn’t stop.

“I LOVE you,” they shouted, pounding, “Where ARE you? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, BUNNY? I FUCKING LOVE YOU, CAN’T YOU SEE? YOU BELONG TO ME, I MADE YOU. I MADE YOU AND YOU MADE ME! AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH CAN’T EAT CAN’T SLEEP EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE A MURDERER, BUNNY! AND YOU HATE ME WHY DO YOU HATE ME WHEN I LOVE LIKE THIS OH IT PAINS, IT PAINS, BUT DON’T CARE, DON’T CARE, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, BECAUSE YOU’RE MY MURDERER, BUNNY! YOU’RE MY HEART MY HATE MY BLOOD MY SHADOW MY DREAM MY ECTASY MY SOUL IN ALL ITS DISEASE, MY FUCKING MAGIC, BUNNY, YOU’RE MINE! ME, MY HAPPY ACCIDENT. THE VERY BEST AND WORST OF MY HEART ALL SHINING THERE IN THE DOG AND WOLF HOUR OF YOUR WONDROUS EYES.”

And so it went. And so I watched as they beat wildly at my Reflections, at the cracking Glass, their Hands growing bloodier and bloodier. And whether twas me or themselves reflected in the Glass, they seemed not to know any longer. Blind to the Difference. I watched Goldies make out with her now shattered Likeness, even as she was screaming. Insatiables writhing pervily on the floor with giant Shards of her own Reflection. The Mind Witches, ecstatic with Rage and Blood, stabbing at her many Faces with her many Daggers singing LOVE LOVE LOVE. The Murder Fairies meanwhile just stood there. Watching the Violences like I was. I wondered indeed, if she were watching me, Reader, the Real me. For she seemed to be looking right at me, at my actual Body in this cracking den of Illusions. Suddenly, she pulled out her thousands of Axes. A sea of Blades surrounded me, surrounded us all. Her many Hands gripping, all of her Faces very solemn indeed.

“What are you doing?” the Goldies cried, her Mouths full of Blood and Glass bits.

The Murder Fairies turned to them all. “Sometimes you have to kill your Darlings, Bunny,” she said. “Before they destroy you.” And then she turned back to me and smiled.

“NO,” they all shouted.

I looked at her gripping the Axes. Was she really going to do it? Was she going to at last take that Blade to my Throat? Could she even do it? Could her Hand alone send me Back? Or could she, like Mother, only kill me? I did not know. I knew Nothing in that Moment. Only that I did not want this, Reader. Not anymore. Certainly not by her or by any of their Keeper Hands. Not with my Book pressed against my Heart like this. Not with A Way Back that was mine. Finally mine alone.

Not like this , Pony whispered. Please .

“Please,” I whispered to her.

She raised her Blades in the Falling Lights.

My Breath froze in my Body as they all screamed for her to fucking stop STOP STOP .

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, shaking her fairy Heads, and whether she was saying it to me or to them I shall never know. “But this is for the Greater Good.”

“No,” I whispered. Not this Hand. Not this Hand.

“NO NO NO—” they cried.

We all braced our Selves as with one great Swing, a thousand Blades struck the Great and Illusory Sea of me and my Keepers. This Sea came raining down on their Heads in so much shattered Glass, our infinite Eyes and Hands, Bodies and Mouths. A sharp and painful Storm. A most Pathetic Fallacy , Pony whispered. A literal Mirroring of the Atmosphere and the Heart. And in the raining Glass, I saw my Mouths were now smiling, Reader. As my real Mouth was smiling. For as the Mirrors all came crashing down, laying my Keepers low and leaving me miraculously standing, I saw a Sign at last, Reader, glimmering and red, of Serendipity. The Universe, if you like. Right there on the blank walls that lay behind the Illusion, that lay behind Everything.

EXIT, it read.

XXIV

I left them, Reader. Drowning in their Sea of Glass.

Ran though my Legs could run no longer. Ran though my Heart was giving way. Found my way out of Narrative Arts once and for all. Into the Outside World at last. An Alley, grim and dripping. Crushed Cigarettes at my Feets. Sirens wailed and blue Lights flashed. Yet the Night air was Cold and Sweet.

With Freedom, Reader.

Or near Freedom.

Tears stung my Eyes to taste it.

My Arms were still wrapped around the Book. The Book, the Book , Pony said weakly. He was in his Death Throes, like I was. This Night had surely been too much for his poor Heart. Or was it my Heart, Reader? Had it always only ever been my Heart?

I thought of my Keepers kissing their broken Reflections and felt cold.

The Book , Pony whispered again now, in a Voice so like my own. Desperate. Shaking his Head as I shook mine. Hurry, hurry , he said, even as the sinking Doubt returned to me, even as I sensed twas only my own Voice speaking to me in the Dark. I looked round the Alley, then down at the light and flowery Book still clutched in my Hands.

Reality hit me then, a Blade to the Throat. For how the Book worked, I knew not. Had indeed never known, for neither Mother nor Allan had ever explained and I had never asked Had only ever trusted Like a Fool

I don’t know, I don’t know , I told Pony.

We must try. For what else can we do? Where else can we go? Please , Pony whispered. Or was it I who whispered? For me.

Once more, I opened the Book. Flipped to the very last Page, which strangely contained all of my Happenings to this very Moment, Reader. How was it possible? But there it all was, scribed in my own spidery Hand.

Tis a Magic Book, Pony said. Was it Pony who said this after all? It writes itself, you see.

I thought of Mother’s Words. I shall let it write itself. As the best books do. And there in the dark Alley, my Heart brightened a little. Its Wild Flower Scent called to me. Go on .

I closed my Eyes. Tried to imagine . The Song of the Wind through the Grasses. The Moon speaking to me, no longer Mute. The tender Cowslip on my Tongue. And no more Human Pain or Sadness. No more Unbelonging. No more Dreamings and Longings for things that could not be. No more Artists above all.

I longed for it to swell all around me, this Other World.

To envelop me like an Embrace, this Lost Place and its Light.

But Nothing came, Reader.

Nothing but the great Dark that lay behind my own closed Eyes. The Sirens were growing louder now. I heard Cries of petty Anguish. Felt the fact of my own Human Flesh sitting so heavily on the Earth. The dull lone thudding of my broken Heart. Dread filled me, Reader. A sick feeling like Drowning in Black.

Nothing is happening , Pony said.

Not Pony, Reader. Me. I said this to my Self. Again and again and again in the Dark. Alone in the Alley with a Toy in my Pocket. And in my all too Human Lap, a most useless Book. Whose Magic was a d oor I could never open. No Way Forward. No Way Back. “Nothing, Nothing, Nothing,” I said. And I was drowning, drowning in the Black.

“Aerius,” said a Voice. My Voice, Reader?

I opened my Eyes.

Dandy Lions.

Earth and Grasses.

His golden Face like a Sun in the Dark. Smiling, impossibly, like he was so happy to see me. For a Moment, I forgot the Black, I forgot Everything.

“Jonah,” I whispered. “Are you Real?”

He smiled at me through the Smoke of his forever burning Cigarette.

“I was just asking myself the same Question,” he said. “About you.”

So beautiful in that Alley. His Face so close to mine that surely I must be dreaming him. Like I’d dreamed so much else. “Probably I am just Imagining again,” I said, shaking my Head.

He reached out and touched my Face. A Warmth spread through me, cutting through the Cold. “If you are,” he said, “I’ll take it.”

He kissed me then, Reader. Right there in the grim and dripping Alley. His Hand on my Neck, drawing me close, crushing his soft Mouth against mine, the most perfect Flower that ever was. And whether twas Real or Not, I cared no longer. For Nothing, Nothing, had ever felt more Wonderful.

“Oh my god, Aerius,” he whispered.

“Jonah,” I murmured.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, touching my Chest.

I saw that indeed I was. A Gash where a Shard of Glass must have cut me. Right across the inky Sun that smiled over my Heart. He ran his Fingers gently over the Cut. Kissed it lightly. And I breathed sharply from the Pleasure and Pain.

“What happened to you? Tell me. Did you go to the Showcase? I was going to but it sounded Intense in there.”

And what could I say, Reader? Where could I even begin to begin? I only shook my Head. “Please just kiss me again,” I whispered. “Then let’s get out of here.”

And he did kiss me, Reader.

And then, Hand in Hand, we ran.

XXV

Love, Reader.

Tis a Word that holds so very much inside of it. It can make you kiss broken glass. Have Impossible Dreamings in Rose Gardens. Gush your own Heart’s Blood and not even feel the Wound. It can make you forget who you are. That you were ever Bunny. That you will never belong here. It can make you forget the Drowning Black that waits behind all our closed Eyes.

And then, just like that, Reader, it can make you remember.

Tis a Mind Witch like no other, really.

As Confounding to me as Real.

Love is what I felt when I kissed Jonah in the Alley. His lovely golden Arms around me as I’d so many Times dreamed in the Shed, in the dark Den of Oblivion. Telling me all the things I’d so longed to hear. How much he’d missed me. Regretted how we parted that last Night, he’d been so stupid to walk away. He’d been a Fool. Lost in his own Book. His own stupid Dreamings, you know?

“I do know,” I said. My Chest hurt terribly, twas a mighty Gash, but I told my Self I felt not the Pain, or if I did, that this was Love. Jonah kept saying we should go to something he called Health Services. He was very worried about my Bleedings.

“Let’s stay here for a little while,” I told him. For we’d left the Alley together, left Narrative Arts forever I hoped, arriving at a quiet Stretch of Green before a great, grey Building. Philosophy , Jonah told me. I guess it’s not very popular. Nothing here but ancient Trees and their leafy Shadows swaying in the Wind. Untouched Grasses and dew-Slicked Flowers shining under the Moon. The Sight tugged at my Heart, made it ache. Though why should it ache, Reader? When I was here with my Love at last, who I kept stopping to kiss for surely this would make the Pain go away. My Love, Jonah, who was squeezing my Hand, apologizing again, unbelievably, for that Night.

“It’s just Poet Tree’s e verything to me, you know?” he said. “It’s saved me, I can’t tell you how many Times. It’s how I stay Sober. How I stay Sane really.” And he laughed like he’d told a Joke. And then I knew how true twas. True and painful.

“But you,” he said to me, stroking my Face. “You’re another kind of Poet Tree, Aerius. And only a terrible Poet would have chosen the Page over you that Night. Nights like that are what make the Page worth Anything at all.”

Was there a Word, Reader, for when you felt so much Joy and so much Pain at the very same Time? And the Joy is Pain and the Pain is Joy? Like a thousand sharp Pinpricks of Light waterfalling through my Body. Love, of course. Love was the Word for what I felt then. So why then did I also feel a Shadow still circling us? A Darkness hovering just on the Edge.

“Oh hey isn’t that your Friend over there?” he said.

“Friend?”

He pointed to the Rabbit now sitting in the Grasses near our Feets. Leonard. Like he’d never once left my Side. His ever twinkling Eyes shining up at me. Watching me with his Rabbit’s Face.

And that, Reader, is when I remembered everything Love had made me forget.

I looked back at Jonah, now lighting another Cigarette.

“What about Sam?” I asked him so uselessly.

“Sam’s all about the Page,” he said. “I guess we are all in this Place.” He looked at me clutching my Book. I was still clutching it, Reader, after all this Time. “Aren’t we?”

The Pain in my Heart suddenly grew sharp. I met his Gaze through the Smoke. I knew then there was no way I could stay in his World. Twas a terrible Place where everyone was Lost in their own Tunnel of Dreamings, their own Manny Scripts. And they’d commit all Manner of Violences to make those Dreamings come just a little more sharply into Life, to make them Real. I knew this, hated this, even as I held my own Book to my bloody Chest. I’d held it tighter than I’d held Jonah’s Hand though twas unfinished and leading me Nowhere at all. Nowhere but that drowning Black.

“Speaking of the Page,” he said, “what were you doing with that Book in the Alley? I heard you whispering.”

“I was trying to go Somewhere with it,” I told him. My Voice cracked on Somewhere .

He did not say With a Book? He just looked at me, very seriously. “Where were you

trying to go?”

“This Place,” I said, looking away.

“What Place?”

I gazed down at Leonard. His Eyes flashed at me.

“Where I belong,” I said. “More than I’ve ever belonged here.”

I could not bear to look at Jonah as I spoke, Reader. But I felt him listening, watching me. “I was trying to get there,” I said, shaking my Head now at the Grasses, “but I couldn’t find my Way. I really thought my Book might lead me there. But now…”

“Now?” he said.

“Now, I don’t know if it’s a Way,” I said. “Now I don’t think there’s any Way at all.” I felt the Moon come out from behind her Cloud. At last , I looked back up at Jonah. His luminous Face was full of Tenderness. “I get it,” he said softly. “I really do.”

“You do?”

“Of course. It happens to me all the time with Poems.”

I frowned.

“Books, then.” He smiled. “It’s so hard to not have Expectations. To not think

about the Outcome. To let go. Then I remember something Lenny Coel used to say.”

Leonard, who was chewing a Clover nearby, perked up his Ears. What did I say?

“Ultimately, your Book isn’t for you,” Jonah said.

“ What ?” My Friend? Not for me?

“It’s not for you to keep or get something out of it, I mean. It’s for Someone Else.

A Stranger maybe.”

And I wondered, Reader, if he meant You

“May I see it?” he asked me. And so I let go, I handed it to him. Blood had seeped from my Wound, onto its flowery Face. I smiled darkly, thinking how much Mother would have loved to see it.

“Creepy Flowers,” he said, grinning. “I dig it already.”

And watching him flip the Pages, his Eyes falling on my Words, I felt my Heart swell

in a new Way.

“Wow. I didn’t even know you wrote like this,” he murmured.

“Me neither,” I said. I was smiling now. I felt light as Air, Reader, as though this were

a new kind of Dreaming. One I’d never experienced.

He looked up at me. “This looks fucking amazing,” he said. “Hey do you think I could

read it Sometime?” Dandy Lion Hairs glowing beneath the Moon. Those kind Eyes of

Earth and Grass. Eyes that always seem to say, Yes. Whatever you are, my Heart is open to you.

“You can have it,” I told him.

“What? No, really?”

“Tis for you.” And somehow when I said this, I knew twas true.

“For me? Oh my god. Thank you.” He hugged it to his Chest. Tighter than he’d ever held me. But I could strangely feel the Embrace around me all the same. My Chest ached with the Joy/Pain Feeling. Certainly it ached with the Wound But it ached with Love above all, Reader.

“I should go,” I said.

He reached out a Hand to me, still clutching my Book to his Heart. “But I want you to stay.”

I stared at Leonard, gorging on his Grasses ecstatically. “This isn’t the Place for me.”

Jonah sighed. “Right, I guess now that the Semester’s ended, you probably do have to go back to Argentina. Or Morocco. Or Japan. Or the Isle of Man.”

I smiled sadly. “Exactly.”

“It feels like whenever we run into each other, one of us is always leaving,” he said. “Almost like we’re in some weird Romance or something. Like we’re Fiction.”

“Perhaps we are,” I said.

He smiled and hugged my Book. “Thank you for this. And for the new Friend.” He looked down at Leonard, who’d hopped over to him. Was now sitting at his Feets.

“He’s actually a very brilliant Poet,” I said. “He may give you Feedback yet. Just listen to him.”

“I don’t know that I speak or understand Rabbit,” he said very earnestly.

“Oh I think you can,” I said.

And I kissed him gently, Reader, one last Time.

XXVI

And now?

Now I have no Way Back, Reader.

Now I am writing to you with my Mindscape alone.

I am only hoping Someone can relay these Words of my Experience—of walking along the Path called Philosopher’s Walk, into the big wide Night, away from Jonah and the Horrors of Narrative Arts and Mother and my Keepers. Having literally shed my Heart’s Blood. And still shedding it, it seemed, though I no longer felt the Pain. I felt light as Air. Hands empty of Axe, empty of Book, empty, empty, under the Light of the low Moon. She seemed to shine a little lower to the Earth Tonight.

I almost felt her smile upon me.

I almost felt a kind of Warmth from her Light. Felt it on my Pelt and all around me, illuminating my Path, my long lone Shadow there. A little long-eared, twas. Like perhaps the Shadow knew of my Lost Self. Perhaps he and the Moon would lead me there.

I parted ways with Pony. Set him down by a Hare Statue I passed along my Path. For wherever I was going, I knew he could not follow. Tis for the best , I told him gently. For it might be dangerous. It might be dark . Here, at least, he was far from Narrative Arts. He would have a beautiful view of the Grasses and Flowers and the Skyscape. Could hear the pretty Musics coming from the nearby Conservatory windows. Tis pretty here , I told him.

Yes, I knew now that I was Imagining our Connection. Thanks to my Keepers, I began to understand all too well, the difference between Imaginings and Reality.

But it did not matter to me, Reader. For I loved him all the same.

Goodbye, Pony , I told him. I love you very much.

And I love you , he said.

And whether I imagined he said it made no difference at all.

Twas Real enough for me.

And then, on the Path, I noticed I had two Shadows.

The second Shadow was nearly the same as my own, Reader. Tall and sprightly. And a little long-eared too, like there was Bunny in this Shadow too.

I turned. A Man walking beside me, walking in time with my own Steps.

He appeared startled by my Presence. As if he too had thought he’d been walking alone. He too had suddenly seen two Bunny Man Shadows on the Path. When his Eyes met mine, when mine met his, we startled at the very same Time.

For we were not Strangers, Reader.

He knew me just as I knew him. Tears filled his Eyes as they filled mine.

“I have jumped with you,” he whispered, “to many a jumping Song.”

“And I have jumped with you, Wrong Allan,” I said, through my Tears. For that’s who he was. Wrong Allan, with a Patch over one Eye just like he’d had the Night we met, though no Bird on his shoulder now. Reader, how happy I was to see him again. Alive! With his Head affixed to his Body But Wrong Allan seemed very sad.

He nodded sadly now. “Twas fun until you tried to kill me,” he murmured. Still continuing to walk by my Side.

“I know,” I said. I shook my Head at my Oops. “Twas my own warped Wiring. But look,” I pleaded with him. “You’re alive again.”

“Yes,” he agreed, nodding at the Dark ahead. “But I am so very lost.”

I took Wrong Allan’s Hand. “I am lost too,” I told him.

We wandered through the Dark for a silent Spell, looking up at the Moon, now warming us like the Sun. “She smiles on us Tonight,” he whispered.

“She does.”

“I used to know her Language,” Wrong Allan said. “When I was Bunny.”

“I knew it once too,” I said.

“I shall know it now Nevermore ,” he said pointedly.

I reached down and pull a Dandy Lion from the Grass, and handed it to him. “I am so very sorry I killed you, Wrong Allan.”

He snatched the Dandy Lion from me. “Tyler,” he said to the Flower softly. “My name was Tyler.”

“Tyler,” I repeated softly. “Twas an Accident.”

He nodded. Ate the yellow Petals sullenly. “Please don’t kill me ever again.”

“I promise,” I said.

And he squeezed my Hand. “I actually dug where you sent me,” he said. “It was a beautiful Plane of Existence, in some Ways way better than this. But then I was…brought back here.” He looked afeared suddenly. “And now?” he shook his Head. “I can’t take Intro to Philosophy seriously at all anymore.”

“Twould be difficult after all you’ve experienced,” I agreed gently.

“Whenever anyone mentions Reality, I laugh and laugh. Also, how can I ever go back to playing Beer Pong when the Wind has sung her song in my Ears?” He sighed longingly at the Moon. “Now I feel I am neither Here nor There.” He shook his Head again sadly. “Actually even before you killed me, I felt that way,” he murmured, turning the Stem of the Weed prettily in his Hands.

“I have always felt that way also,” I told him.

“I want to go back,” he whispered. “But I do not wish to go by Axe ever again,” he said, looking away. “Once was quite enough, thank you. And also what if—”

“There is only Black?”

He nodded. I did not tell him I was afeared of that too

“I know what you mean, Friend,” I said. For we were Friends now, weren’t we? “But perhaps there is another Way,” I felt compelled to say for he looked terribly afeared. I wondered if I was lying. Or was I dreaming again? Being hopeful? Braver than I felt for my new Friend?

“A Friend once said there are many Ways back,” I said, thinking of Allan. His professorial Words in the Forest. Though could I really call Allan a Friend?

“Many ways,” the Wrong Allan repeated. “Really?” And he smiled a little. I watched our Shadows now swinging held Hands. Were our Shadows growing shorter or was I imagining this? Furrier? Our Ears lengthening? Something, anyway, seemed to be happening to our Shapes on the Path.

“Yes,” I said. “So we only have to find one Way.”

And holding Hands with my Friend, I felt we were getting closer.

Are you still with me, Reader?

I hope you are. I really do.

My Pelt began to hum strangely. I smiled as he smiled. Our Shadows seemed to be rethinking their Selves. And I knew we were not quite as Lost as we felt. I knew we were on our way Somewhere. Where I did not know, for the Moon was illuminating only a few Feets ahead of us at a Time. But I felt she might shine us There.

And then he whispered—or was it me who whispered: “Shall we jump again, together?”

“But there is no Music.”

“There is the Wind. Perhaps if we jump together, she will play for us.”

And so Hand in Hand, we jumped. Hopped, Reader. Me and the Wrong Allan. Tyler.

Whom I no longer wished to kill.

Whom I knew I would never wish to kill again.

And as we hopped along the Path, giddy, laughing, I forgot my Wounded Heart and the Wind did suddenly begin to sing. The Moon too, above us, and the Grasses at our Feets. All chimed in, a Song that was always there for the Hearing if only we had the Ears to hear it, Reader. And now as we hopped, our Ears stretched to hear it. And it sang through our Pelts, which grew suddenly softer, our Hands furring back to themselves, and we met our own Shadows, now so much closer to the Earth, no longer a Stranger, and my Heart was full, Reader, no longer broken, as the Wind’s wondrous Music grew and grew in our growing Ears……

P A R T F I V E

B U N N Y

Hey.

Are you still with us, Bunny?

Are you awake?

Pretty hard to sleep with a blade at your throat like this, right? But let’s lift that chin up with our sharp little friend here, push the bitch curtain back and see.

Oh wow.

More than awake looks like.

Your eyes, Bunny, we’ve never seen them quite like this. It’s almost like you’re… not being a bitch in your mind right now or something? It almost looks like you’re… moved .

Are you really, Bunny? Moved?

Is your heart fucking breaking like the dawn? We’re so glad. That’s all we can hope for really, as artists. As storytellers. To move people, right? To connect. Reach out a hand (or an axe) in the dark, just like this. (Not that revenge isn’t great too, Bunny.) It is a lovely little story isn’t it, about the wonders and terrors of creativity?

About learning to let go, really.

The dawn has come at last, Bunny, look. Right there in the triangle window. Finger by pink finger, isn’t that how you described it once in your little novel? So pretty to watch it break, right? We bet you thought it would never come.

We never thought the dawn would come that night either, did we? The night we tried to take back what was ours. The night of the Showcase. You didn’t even go did you, Samantha? Off in your own god damned world somewhere probably. Probably better off. It was a hard night for us, obvi, Bunny. A dark night of the soul so to speak. Well, you know. We do have to say that he exaggerated that final moment in the mirror room, Bunny. He makes us sound so Violent and Delusional, which is like insane , you know? He’d no doubt been poisoned against us by the Word Witch. For really we were most loving and writerly about the whole thing. A little turned around by those fucking mirrors, sure. Who wouldn’t be? That’s the mindfuckery of Art. But the physical injuries we sustained were totally superficial, Bunny. In fact when we went to Health Services, they only rolled their eyes as they unspooled the gauze. “Narrative Arts,” the nurse guessed almost immediately. “Hall of Infinite Reflection.” The injury to our Hearts, on the other hand, when he so cruelly left us again?

That cut deeper than any fucking shard.

And yet, we didn’t give up, did we? After we’d gathered ourselves, we looked for him all over campus like the true artists we were. Our Drafts (we’d left them grazing in the rose garden) were screaming for Pinkberry because we’d promised and we had to be like fucking wait, while we searched every flower bed. Poked through every bush. By the night’s end, we reeked of spring time and we were fucking wet with dew. But our bandaged hands came up empty, Bunny. Except for Pinkie Pie, of course. Whom we found exactly where he’d left him. The hare statue beside Philosopher’s Walk.

Coraline immediately sniffed the horse like she was taking a hit, we all did. And for a flickering trancey moment, he came back to us. A million fucking field and forest flowers, we could smell them. The sky in its many shades of Day and Night, we saw them all at once. Sun warmed fur, we felt it in our hands. Evidence of God, Bunny. Evidence of us. Our magic.

Our most wondrous love.

And so many tears filled our eyes, we thought we might never see again.

At last, we fell into a heap in the rose garden. Collapsed there after god knows how many hours of hunting. Awoke with the sun the next morning. That Dawn we never thought would come. We all opened our eyes at once to its pinkening light. And we knew that he’d gone for good. An emptiness suddenly not only in our hands but in our Hearts. Our Drafts were gone too for it was only the four of us left in the garden. They’d run from us perhaps. Or turned back into bunnies we had no fucking idea.

Or?

Or maybe we’d dreamed the whole thing, we contemplated this. That we were actually fucking crazy. Which, of course we weren’t. You know because you joined us soon after, didn’t you, Bunny? Saw what was possible in the Attic with your very own eyes. But that’s another story. On that morning, we didn’t know anything anymore.

We only knew there was no one left to hold but each other.

So we did, Bunny.

Even though, ow .

Ursula extended a kind of olive branch through email. Invited us over for fairy tea and krumkake or whatever. After everything that happened, we were certain she’d be fucking fired or something, you know? That all of New York would be burning, the whole of the literary world aflame. But um, no. New York was fine. Warren was fine. Just an echo in a teacup, Bunny. All had blown over apparently, passed off as part of the Show, as Art rather than Life, it’s a very fine line we’re learning. And she? Was nicer to us actually, after that. Oh yes, much. More subservient eye contact and everything. Ever so anxious to refill our cups, which we did enjoy. And so, over tea, we just sort of danced around any residual awkwardness. Like she never stole from us. Like we never broke down her door. Never accused her of plagiarism and watched her take an axe to our boy’s throat on a stage in Narrative Arts. All the violent vicissitudes of The Process, ours and hers, seemingly forgotten. All of the chaos of the Showcase, she said, was really meant as a teaching lesson just for us. To model the chaos of the artist’s life.

“An important lesson,” we said. “Thank you so much for teaching us that.”

“Did Vanity Fair contact you by chance?” she asked us over her cup.

They hadn’t, but we sipped our cups cagily. “Not yet,” we said.

“Well, it’s still very possible they might reach out. For a quote. Should they decide to run a story about me.”

“Oh yes?” They never ran a story, Bunny.

“But you really shouldn’t indulge such requests. The outsiders, the machinery around the arts, you see, they don’t understand us.” And here she sighed, stirring.

Us, Bunny.

“We artists have to stick together. You’ll learn that such relationships will serve you far more than any flitting bit of fame.” Serve me and I’ll serve you , said her eyes.

And we smiled. “Absolutely.”

There was of course, a very large part of us that thought all of this was bullshit, Bunny. That knew she was a thief and a liar and maybe even a bit of a hack now. But then we thought of the dark windows of her writing shed, those pictures of herself in the solarium with her many rabbits and we smiled at her all the same. Delighted at the thought of how she might serve us.

Friends close, enemies closer, Bunny , we observed in the hive mind.

We are so very grateful to have another year with you, we told her. So very lucky. We watched her exhale with audible relief. Sip happily from her cup.

“And who knows?” she said. “Perhaps you will be visited again next year.”

“Perhaps,” we agreed. “Though we think we’ll probably just go back to writing now,” we remember we said. “For real.”

“Real,” she repeated and smiled.

We smiled too. Because what a funny word that is, Bunny: Real.

Sometimes when we say it, we really just have to fucking laugh now. Don’t you?

Speaking of writing for real ? The Book, Bunny. You might well wonder how we got it back. We’d noticed it at the Showcase, how we could miss it? Saw those strange sea witch flowers on the cover—it looked like a mind vagina at the hot pink height of its flourishing. Saw him snatch it from the stage. Saw it again in that room of mirrors. Our boy, a thousand of him, clutching it so tightly to his Chests. Holding it like we’d wished he’d held us. Just fucking once. We asked Ursula about it when we saw her and she predictably gaslit us. I don’t know what you’re talking about , she’d said, stirring her tea. But her eyes grew rabbity and frightened. She fucking knew. And we took mental note. For what else could we do at the time?

Our boy speaks of Serendipity being on his side, the Universe if you like. Well, turns out it was on our side too, Bunny. And you actually played a little part in that. Because fast forward to an afternoon in late May or was it early June? Just before we parted ways for the summer, anyway. That summer was so existential for us, by the way. We were wandering the city like the zombies we’d become. You thought you were the only lost girl in town, well you fucking weren’t, Bunny. We saw you that afternoon, by the way, we did. Walking by on the street, you didn’t see us. But boy did we see you. Tall as fuck. In your usual funeral wear. But smiling, quite uncharacteristically. Because you weren’t alone for once, Bunny. You’d found a friend it seemed, good for you. Another weirdo, by the looks of it. Cooler seeming than you though, in her fishnet veil and ripped black dress. Taller too, which, creepy. Bleached feathery hair, a townie maybe? Or was she something else? Something about her, the way you were looking at her, Bunny, gave us pause. Like you were a fucking goner. Enchanted body, mind and soul. Like she was your dream come to life. We looked at this strange girl more closely and then we looked back at you. So happy and lost. No fucking clue. And then we knew. We knew exactly what sort of um, friend she was, Bunny. The hive mind flashed with electricity, with possibility then. Our fingers and napes tingling. And we thought, huh . Interesting . Perhaps we’d say hi to you next fall after all. Get to know one another a little better, you know? We might have approached you right then, for we were just about to cross paths, but you were just so oblivious (we’ve been there, trust) that we were sort of embarrassed for you. Also we wanted to sit on this for a bit, let it cook, this tasty morsel, this new knowledge of you. So we ducked into a used Book and Record Store before you or your friend spotted us. So very uncharacteristic of us to thrift, we know (the germs and finger grease of the preloved object made us far too sad in our souls). Yet we did it on this day. And how amazing that we did, how serendipitous. Because there in that dank hole of a store was the fucking Universe, Bunny. Aka Jonah. Flipping through the saddest pile of dog-eared books and jazz records you ever saw. Smiling his Poetry Cloud smile to no one but himself. We wouldn’t have talked to him, honestly, except that luckily he saw us and waved. And then, Bunny, as we approached, had no choice but to approach now because we’re actually really very nice and polite people, we fucking smelled it. The forest and field flowers of Aerius. Suddenly all around us in that musty store. Jonah was blah blah blahing at us, but we didn’t hear a god damned word, Bunny. Because there was all this glitter in the air now, we could see it. And then we saw something else. Poking out of a knapsack at his feet.

The Book. Those strange sea witch flowers. Stained with blood. His blood, Bunny, we could smell the beautiful Wound of him as if it were still freshly bleeding.

“How’s your summer going?” Jonah was saying to us or some such.

“Fantastic,” we told him. “So amazing.”

But the only word in our hearts was Mine .

We distracted him with, we don’t even remember what anymore, isn’t that funny? Who cares about logistics when the Universe is right there beside you, in all its glitter and blood and flowers, basically saying take . Maybe Else lead him away, offering to buy him one of those sad records or a used book about magic. Maybe Coraline and Kyra covered for Vik as she crouched down and nabbed it from his knapsack, that sounds about right. Yes, even goody goody Kyra, was in on it. Even she saw the Universe was at work, Bunny. Not stealing at all. Stealing back.

We all knew what it would contain of course. Exaggerations, sure. Lies, definitely. Some very damning and flagrant and embarrassing. But also: Evidence. Nestled there among the prickly, tricky thorns of Fiction.

It is a Fiction is it not? (Are we not?) Just like you and your little novel, Bunny.

Except this one’s ours. Our Fiction.

And he’s lovely, isn’t he?

We’re so very glad you agree.

And this brings us to a bit of an awkward place, Bunny. In fact, let’s lower the axe from your neck for just a sec, k? Because there’s something we sort of want to ask you before we kill you. I mean we were actually really thinking of killing you, Bunny (we still might). But um, seeing your reaction to the literature we made has given us pause . Made us, you know, wonder something.

If maybe…

I don’t know.

You could show this Book of ours? To like your hotshot agent or editor or whatever?

I mean it’s sort of the least you could fucking do, right?

And you love it, right? The story? We saw you were moved so don’t fucking pretend you weren’t now. We saw the emotion on your face. We see it now. It’s still there in that weird eye of yours.

Also we think this deserves to be in print, hello. Don’t you? Because it’s such a—wait, is that a…nod, Bunny?

Okay, that was fast. Wow.

Bunny you’re not crying again now, are you? Oh my god you are. Well, fuck. Thanks. That touches us, it really does. That’s making us cry too for real. What’s that, Bunny? You really look like you’re dying to say something. Alright, fine, we’ll take the gag out for a sec. We’re actually kind of dying to hear your words about us.

“Wow,” you say, sort of hoarsely.

Yes, that’s right Samantha. Wow is right, we’re so glad you—

“Wow, wow, wow,” you whisper. Nodding like crazy now. “Um, maybe let me go? So I can show it to my very hot agent or whatever. I’d really love to.” And we’re not dreaming, Bunny. You’re really saying it. Your mouth making those shapes and the words are like music to our ears. Like the jumping song of the wind to our ears.

“Wow. Okay, Samantha,” we say.

So we untie you, Bunny, we do. Most lovingly. As lovingly as we tied you up, we untie you now. And you’re fucking giddy in your chair watching us, making these weird whimpering little noises that are sort of like restrained squeal-honks. They sound like happy squeals though, they do. And we’re feeling so happy too. Because we made a mess of your soul with our words, didn’t we? With our Fiction. That you’re now going to help us publish, Bunny, you fucking agreed, remember? We should probably talk about the logistics of submission, right? Like who among us should type it up and what font should we use and should we keep his weird capitalizations for the sake of authenticity or no? Too literary? (We think we’re actually pretty commercial, Bunny, like we have wide appeal!) And should we include our own stories in there? Weave them in as we told them to you tonight, what do you think? Too bad we didn’t have like a recorder, you know?! Omg it’s all so fucking exciting, Bunny! Now we’re going to be the famous ones finally! We’re crying nodding messes too now at the thought of that. Our turn at last! Our turn to go on tour! Our turn to make the weird squealing sounds as we untie that last cord from around your throat. And once you’re free, well, you kind of jump right up, don’t you? I guess we don’t blame you at all. You have been sitting down for a while, in your own pee no less. We forgot how tall you were, Bunny, like a fucking tree, aren’t you? Amazonian like in a scary way. And that long dark Cousin Itt hair that hides one eye. We don’t love it. Should have braided that bitch curtain back when we had the chance. Even though your eye, the one we can see, well it also betrays nothing now. Just a sky-blue void. Did you always have blue eyes, Bunny? Isn’t it funny how we don’t remember? That’s how much you’ve hidden behind your hair historically. Looking up at you, we’re a little nervous now. A thrum of panic inside us as we face your just now liberated body. We wonder if you’ll punch us or something. But you open your branch arms wide and you just fucking hug us. Rocking us from side to side, really putting your boobs into it. Lifting us up off our feet (we forgot how strong you are) and sort of spinning us round like in a movie or music video. It’s nice but a little scary (and smelly). We have to remind ourselves that you’re overcome right now, quite violently, by Literature. Our literature. And while your response is a bit much for us, it’s beautiful too. We fucking moved you. And we’re moved by having moved you, wow. That’s the magic of reading, isn’t it? That’s how it works. The wonder of the author reader fucking relationship. And that’s how—

Wait.

What the fuck are you doing with our axe, Bunny?

Oh my god, Bunny, how the fuck did you get our axe? ( How did she get our axe?)

Oh my god. During the hug, wasn’t it?

In the ecstasy of our trusting embrace with you, wasn’t it?

Yes. It must have just slipped from our so trusting hands. Along with our book, fucking christ you took our book too, you bitch! We see it fucking tucked there inside your coat like a fucking baby, oh my god, what the fuck, Bunny?

Empty now, our hands.

Shaking now, our hands.

Cold suddenly. Cold all fucking over.

And you, smiling so widely. Gripping the scratched handle of the axe tight. The blade shining over us like the most god awful sun.

Why are you raising your axe over your head like that, Bunny? We don’t like that, look in your blue eye at all, it looks fucking crazy, it—

Oh my god, what are you doing now?

NO!

No no NO! Don’t walk to the window, Bunny, why are you walking to the god damned window? Stop, stop, STOP—

But we can’t stop you, can we? We’re fucking paralyzed, hands empty of book, of axe, our bodies so small in the dawn light. No choice. No choice but to watch you skip to the window, are you fucking skipping? Stand giddily by our very own triangle of glass . Waving that rusty blade so wildly around. Still laughing-crying like fucking crazy. Screaming, “Thank you thank you ! I am free, I am free! There are many ways back and your tale is the Way, your tale is changing me, Bunny. Thank you for telling me about the wind.”

What the fuck are you saying, Samantha? We’re asking you, but you’re looking at axe now, your eyes brimming with another kind of tear.

“The tale is a Way,” you say.

What?

“A way out of being Samantha.”

What do you mean a—

“Just this one stop,” you whisper, “Just this one hellscape stop on the New England tour leg, and she said you do it for me. You go there for me, Bunny. You take the train to the town named after God and Fate. You go to that accursed campus, to the Warren Bookstore that is right beside Narrative Arts, and you walk the gangplank to the podium. You smile and do your reading (no q & a, no signing) and you make no eye contact and then you uber back to your haunted hotel by the pretty river. And if I don’t hear from you, Bunny, we go to Plan B. Because I? Can’t fucking go back there, sorry. I have enemies, I have four enemies. And ghosts, too many ghosts. Too much murder and love’s memory in every swan gliding on the water, in the light on the leaves and on the rooftops and my heart breaking all over again. Took so long to mend it, Bunny, but I’ve left these fanged shadows behind me now, I’ve left them all behind me now. My love and my enemies. I’ve shed the heart’s blood, turned it into a book. But I know, I know, that somewhere out there my enemies are seething. Waiting for me to come back, to show my face if I dare. Of course I’m fucking afraid of them, Bunny. Because what I wrote in that book? It wasn’t Fiction at all. It was real. All of it from the bunnies to the boys to the axes to the blood, so much blood. How they’re fucking psychopaths. How much I miss her, I’ll never forgive them. How in the end, I chose the mud. I’ll always choose the mud, Bunny. So you’ll be brave for me, won’t you? You’ll go to this one place in the world I can’t go, with its wrong trees and its mind-fucking light. Here is a black dress, here is a toothbrush, here is a google doc from my publicist. Please be careful, promise me. Please know I’ll be here cheering you on in the dark. Please know I’ll save you if I have to, Bunny, I’ll take the train, I’ll run from the station, we’ll go to Plan B. Please remember I love you. And if you see them tonight? And they smile and offer you a drink? You fucking run, Bunny. Run like the wind that once sung in your ears that sings no more. I will bring you back there, I promise. I’ve learned the Way. It’s in your tale, I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

“Oh my god, what are you talking about, Bunny?”

You look up at us, snapping out of your trance for a second. Remembering we’re here with you in the attic. “But your tale is changing me already,” you whisper, turning the axe round and round in your hands. “It’s already happening just like she said.”

We watch as you burst into tears we don’t fucking understand anymore.

“So long since I heard the song of the wind,” you whimper. And raise your axe high, what? Oh my god oh my god, Samantha NO.

But what can we do, Bunny, but watch, as you strike the window glass with the axe. It makes such a shattering sound. And we scream and you laugh and cry what seems like more joy tears and shout “FREE FREE FREE.” And you stare at the shattered window, at the creeping dawn, with such a dreaming happy face and God it frightens us, you’ve never frightened us more than in your ecstasy. “Stop it, Samantha, STOP IT,” we scream at you. “What are you doing? What are you fucking—”

“Goodbye, Bunny,” you say, smiling like crazy.

Goodbye, what do you mean GOODBYE?

“The tale is the Way,” you whisper in some creepy joy trance.

No, Bunny. Don’t jump. Don’t you fucking jump with our book, that’s OUR BOOK, you BITCH! You’re supposed to send it to your agent, hello? Bunny please don’t jump don’t jump don’t—

And then? It’s like a dream, Bunny.

Are we dreaming, Bunny? Sometimes we still think we are.

We run to the god damned window. Expect to see your shattered body lying there on Kyra’s poorly cut grass. Your long limbs all twisted and broken among the dandelions cold with frost. Your blood pooling beautifully around you in the fiery sunrise. We really don’t want to see that, Bunny, even though we’ve seen much worse, trust. But something compels us, doesn’t it? We have to see the Evidence. Or maybe you aren’t dead after all. Maybe you can still show the book to your agent. If you’re only very critically injured, there’s a chance, right?

One last step to the broken window, shards still hanging there like the open jaws of some terrible beast. We poke our heads through the jaws, into the sweet cold gusty morning air. Bracing ourselves, we look down. Nothing. Just fucking grass, what the fuck? Oh god. Oh god what—

Then we see.

Sitting there in the grass right on top of our book.

Unbroken. Alive. Small and furry and looking up at us with large shining eyes.

Still fucking smiling in the bloody light of the rising sun. Long ears tuned and twitching to the song of the wind.

And then in the wind, another sound suddenly.

A crunching foot. A drawn breath. Someone else is out here in the blowy dawn. We feel them skulking in the trees. Feel their wild, rageful heart beating in our heads.

You.

You, Bunny.

Slinking out of the shadows now in a long black coat. Bitch curtained. Breathless. Like you’ve been running all fucking night. You dash toward the little rabbit in the grass, thank god, thank god, at first she’s all you can see. But then you look up . See us standing in the jaws of our shattered heaven. And we see you, don’t we? Finally. For real. Right there on Kyra’s lawn in the literal fucking flesh. That fire and fear in your eyes, it never left. The roar of your ever breaking heart, we hear it from here as you gather first the beaming animal, then the book into your thieving arms. Smiling just like a Fiction. Just like the rabbit in the wildly blushing dawn.

And then you run like the wind.

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