Bunny, he thought. I will name her Bunny.
Spring coiled into summer and summer into fall, and everything was different and yet the same for Dennis, because the rabbit had appeared. Every morning, he sat in the same hidden place, and as long as the back door stayed closed, the rabbit ventured from the bush and began to nibble. As soon as the door opened, she was back like a shot down her hole.
Dennis knew now why he had never been able to spot the rabbit from his window. The long grass hid her. When a rare eagle passed overhead, Dennis frowned, and when hawks circled, he forced them away with his mind. Worried she would get hurt, he asked Ralph if there were coyotes in the brush and wolves in the mountains.
In school, he drew rabbits.
“Ralph?”
Dennis found the custodian pulling on heavy gloves in his closet.The winter rains were upon them. There was more rain than Dennis remembered ever having seen, but maybe he just hadn’t noticed before. Dennis was worried for the rabbit. What if the rain ran into her hole? Bunny might drown.
“Don’t worry, that rabbit has been through a lot of seasons,” Ralph told him.
Now Dennis had a new worry.
“How long do rabbits live?”
“I don’t know,” Ralph said. “Can you ask in school?”
“I asked Ike for a book on rabbits, and he laughed.”
“I’ll get you a book.”
The book was calledThe Care and Feeding of Your Pet Rabbit, and Ralph got it from the library in Wheel Stone, carefully peeling away the library sticker before giving it to Dennis so Dennis could keep it forever. He told Dennis that this was not stealing, but more like permanent borrowing.
Dennis took good care of the book. He hid it under his covers during the day, and when the custodian warned him in advance of a room search, Dennis wrapped the book in a plastic bag and hid it in the woods. There was no safe place inside the center.
He read every chapter, obsessively.
Chapter One: Introducing Your Rabbit. Chapter Two: What Makes a Rabbit a Rabbit? That one had drawings and all sorts of fascinating history and facts, like the difference between a hare and a rabbit (hares can run faster, for one). Chapter Three: Bringing Rabbit Home. Chapter Four: Cage Facts—Everything You Need to Be a Good Rabbit Owner. Chapter Five: Training Your Rabbit. Chapter Six: Breeding. Chapter Seven: Diet and Exercise. Chapter Eight: When Rabbit Needs the Doctor. And so on.
Now Dennis spent his quiet time reading, even finding paper to use in tracing the images in the book. He learned that his rabbit was a brush rabbit, indigenous to the Oregon Coast.The brush rabbit is a quiet soul who rarely strays far from his den,he read, slowly, laboriously at first.He makes hidden paths in the brush to his feeding areas, so he can easily run back home.Dennis’s mouth moved as the words got easier with practice.Can you tame a wild rabbit? Unfortunately for pet owners, wild rabbits cannot be domesticated. They do not take to captivity, even when captured young. Please do not take rabbits from the wild, or release your pet rabbit into the wild. Domestic rabbits are bred for captivity. Wild rabbits will not survive it.
Dennis read names of diseases and worried about salt licks. He had nightmares where he ran away to buy a salt lick for Bunny, but when he finally found a pet store, they laughed at the name tag sewn on his shirt, and he turned his pockets inside out to find that they were filled with the eyeballs of other boys.
In the mornings, he crept outside in the cold dewy grass to be alone with the rabbit. He sat in the bushes, losing all sense of time, and it wasn’t until he saw the long shadow of Ralph, letting him know that he needed to go inside or he’d get caught, that Dennis came back to himself.
When the rabbit came out, browsing along the grass, it was like the first time he lost himself. Everything was right in the world because Dennis was not there. He was caring for Bunny.
9
Amanda woke up to a deep fog. The fog was so thick, it seemed to pulsate at the hotel room’s windows.
She got dressed and wandered out into the bright, metallic mist. Walking in it, she felt unearthed. Her feet moved on the beach road, unseen. She lifted her hands out of the gloom. They looked like pale ghosts, attached to her frame.
Foghorns echoed up and down the coast. If she got turned around, Amanda thought, she might just walk into the sea. She could not see the ocean, or the mountains, or even five steps ahead of her.
She walked through the town, the salt-pitted street signs rising out of the mist, going past the market, which showed itself as one gloomy light, until she finally found Barker Road, and from there she climbed into the mountains. If there were birds, they were as silent as the dew on their wings.
The road, still littered with tree branches, crunched under her feet. Trees marched out of the haze before disappearing. It was an eerie feeling, like she was climbing inside a cloud.
She was warm with the exercise by the time she reached the gates to the center. The metal was slick under her hand. A breeze was pickingup, moving the sparkling mist around her. The wind blew away a snatch of fog, and she could see the center rising above her.
She froze.
Looped across the front door was a string of mussel shells. She stepped closer. Someone had drilled small holes in the shells and strung them together with twine. When the breeze touched the shells, they made a clattering noise. It reminded her of the sounds prey animals make when threatened. Like the warning chattering of teeth.
Amanda turned. There didn’t appear to be anyone around, but she could not tell.
