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Haddie walked through the woods, taking care not to let the yellow lace of her dress snag on any bushes, walking carefully through the leaves and debris, stepping around the places she felt the weight of a snake, or the nest of mice, or the heavy plants she knew were dangerous to touch. Everything had weight and even though Haddie hadn’t spent her short life in or near a forest, she found it very easy to measure. The more time she spent there, the more she could tell that different things not only told her of their good or bad intentions, but they told her what they were.
Except the horned thing. Except that.
The snakes in this forest, for instance, were light as long as you stepped around them. But if you got too close, their weight began to change. So Haddie backed away when she was “asked.” Yes, all things had weight, but weight could sometimes shift.
She wondered if that was true of people too. She wished she could ask someone. She wished she could ask her mommy, but Haddie knew her mommy didn’t feel weight like she did, and Haddie didn’t know the words to use to explain it to her.
It made Haddie feel lonely.
It made her feel different.
She was different. She knew that.
She stepped out of the trees, making a beeline straight for the gazebo, breaking into a run when she’d made it past the house, hoping her mommy didn’t choose that moment to look out the window.
Her book was still sitting there, a story she’d just started called, The Night Fairy. She reached for it, drawing in a startled breath when she saw movement just under the bench where she’d been about to sit.
Haddie stepped back, squatting down, her eyes going wide when she spotted the tiny tan body of a baby rabbit. “Oh,” she breathed. The little thing was curled up on its side, staring at her with wide, scared eyes.
Haddie reached in, scooping up the bunny as gently as she could and bringing it to her chest the same way she’d held the kittens in the hardware store. It whimpered softly. “It’s okay,” Haddie whispered. “You’re going to be okay.” The bunny stared up at her for another moment and then closed its eyes as though it had decided it trusted her enough to sleep.
Haddie turned and headed toward the house, calling for her mommy.
“Haddie?” her mommy called back, walking from the direction of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway of the foyer when she spotted Haddie, her eyes going from her face to the animal in her arms. She blinked. “Haddie, what is that?”
Haddie stood still, stroking the velvety ear of the tiny creature. “A bunny.”
Her mother walked toward her, her shoulders lowering as if with a long exhale. She came to stop right in front of her, still gazing at the baby. “A bunny,” she repeated. “Oh Haddie. Honey.” She blew out another breath and looked off to the side for a moment. “I can’t keep taking in baby things from the woods.”
“But, Mommy,” Haddie cried, pulling the bunny as close as she possibly could. “He’s all alone.”
“Baby, are you sure his mother was nowhere to be found?”
Haddie shook her head, picturing where the bunny had been left in the gazebo where her book was.
Her mother shook her head, pursing her lips. “It’s just . . . we’re not an animal hospital, Haddie.” Her mother sounded a little mad now but her mommy’s weight always stayed the same even when her words sounded mad. Wherever weight came from, her mommy’s didn’t shift like a snake’s did. “I’m trying to start a business, Haddie. I don’t have time to be nursing sick forest creatures. We’re going to have to put it back in the woods.”
Haddie’s heart felt crushed. “No! Mommy, we can’t. It will die if we don’t help it. I named it, Mommy,” she said on a whim. Maybe if her mommy knew it by name, it would be harder for her to turn it away.
Her mommy pressed her lips together again. She reached out and ran a finger over its ear, sighing. “What’s its name?”
“Her name is Mopsie.”
Her mother’s lips tipped and inside, Haddie let out a sigh of relief. “Mopsie, huh? It’s a good bunny name.” She sighed again. “I guess our feathered friend is doing well enough that we can take on one more.” She reached out, taking the baby gently from Haddie’s hands. “Let’s go get my computer so we can figure out what baby bunnies eat.”
Haddie grinned, following her mommy from the room.
Later, after the baby bunny had eaten a small dose of heavy cream, Haddie’s mommy had sent her to wash up and change into her PJs. She pulled on her pink nightgown and walked from the bathroom back into her mommy’s room. Her mommy sat in the rocker by the window, the baby bird in his cradle next to her, the bunny nestled in a towel in her arms. All three of them were sound asleep.
