And the pen. I crawled over to it and grabbed it, feeling that warm sensation run through my body again. My fingers were shaking. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead. I wiped it away and tucked my hair behind my ears.
“Congratulations, Alice.”
I spun around and dropped the pen in disbelief. There, leaning against the nearest bookshelf, was a brown rabbit.
Chapter 3
“Born and bred in the briar patch, Br’er Fox! Born and bred in the briar patch …”[iii]
It wasn’t just a rabbit. A rabbit would have been weird enough! No, this rabbit was huge. We’re talking five feet tall, only a few inches shorter than me. And not only was he huge, he was wearing clothes. He had on an old white collar shirt and a brown vest and ridiculous old gray slacks made even more ridiculous by the fact that he didn’t have any shoes on.
“Where are your shoes?” I asked.
The rabbit’s long whiskers twitched. “That’s the first question you have for me? Where are my shoes?”
“You look funny without shoes,” I said. “You’ve just got little paws.”
The rabbit looked down at his brown paws. There were a couple little white spots near the toes, but other than that he was mostly brown except for the white fur around his mouth. His left ear slumped a little and his right stood straight up like it had been starched.
“Ma’am,” said the rabbit, “I hardly think that’s what we ought to discuss right here and now.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “You’re right. Gawd, what’s happening? I’ve gone crazy. I’m hallucinating.”
The rabbit said nothing, watching me clutch my head, pacing back and forth.
“There’s a gas leak down here,” I told him. At this, his little black nose twitched. “I’ve got to get out of the basement.”
The rabbit stuck his paws in the pockets of his pants. “Now you just wait for one moment, young lady. I’ve been waiting a long time to talk to you and the least you can do is listen to what I have to say.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. No. No, Alice, you’re not responding to an imaginary rabbit. That’s crazy. I walked past the hallucination to the staircase, climbing it two steps at a time, not glancing over my shoulder.
Back at the check-out desk, Mary raised one eyebrow, setting down the stack of books she was checking in. “Find something interesting down there?”
“What?” I asked, eyes wide. “What do you mean? How did you know?”
Mary laughed quietly behind closed lips. “Oh, I’ve found dozens of books down there that gave me pause. Only a true booklover sees beauty in those old tomes.”
“Yeah …” I turned, glancing at the door leading to the staircase. It was closed. Somewhere on the first floor, someone was leafing through rough pages of paper and the sound reminded me of the snake, causing my head to feel light for a moment. I turned back to Mary and nearly cried out.
“We really need to talk,” said the rabbit. He was sitting atop Mary’s metal filing cabinet. Right behind her!
Mary caught my eye and turned, glancing in the direction of the rabbit. She turned back to me. “What is it, dear?”
“I …”
“She can’t see me,” the rabbit said. “Not unless I want her to.” The rabbit started laughing, slapping his leg. “Hoo-boy, would that be a hoot! Should I do it?”
“No!” I said, a little too loud. I lowered my voice and said, “Mary, can I go home? I have a lot of chores to do around the house this weekend.”
Mary smiled. “Of course, dear. I’ll see you on Monday, right?”
I nodded, forcing a smile. “Definitely. Thank you.”
Outside, the clouds had parted and the sun’s rays kissed my skin. Back to reality, I thought. A warm sun. A nice day. Almost summer vacation. Whatever had just happened …
“Ahem!”
“I’m not looking,” I said, walking down the sidewalk. The library was located in the center of town, just a mile away from my parents’ house. The sidewalk took me up Mooreland Avenue, a busy street lined with restaurants and a little cream-colored strip mall with a nail salon.
“You need to go back and get that pen,” said the rabbit. He’d caught up with me even though I was moving at a brisk pace. He was walking more or less like a human being would. I was surprised he wasn’t hopping. Rabbits hop. So clearly this was a hallucination.
“I don’t need to do anything,” I said, “except take two Tylenol and go to bed.”
“Good gracious, young lady, I’m trying to help you!”
I stopped and turned to him, jabbing a finger at his face. His whiskers twitched fiercely. “You don’t exist!”
“I’m afraid I do,” said the rabbit. “That’s the problem.”
“That’s one of them,” I muttered, starting forward again. Just five more blocks, a quick right down Augden Drive, then three more blocks. I needed a nap. That was the problem here. The science exam had taken a lot out of me. It had been easy, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t worried myself nearly to death the hour before we arrived at class. Edward, Tricia, Seth and I had approached the school as if we were heading to a funeral. Tricia especially had looked more pale than usual. Edward … not so much. He was always confident about the classes.
The rabbit caught up again. “Boy, you gave that snake a lickin’.” He popped his paws in front of him. “Pow! Right in the old kisser. Just in time, too. That sucker was getting bigger and bigger, so help me.”
“You talk like you’re from the South,” I said. “You have a southern accent. That makes this whole situation even more ridiculous. I’ve never been to the South!”
“I am from the South,” the rabbit said, laughing. “And I’ll have you know over the years I’ve made a point of tempering my so-called accent. I slip sometimes when I get excited, though.”
“This is insane!” I shouted to the sky, picking up my pace.
“Now you slow yourself,” the rabbit called out.
“No!” I began jogging. The soles of my feet hurt. Of all the days to wear flats. Behind me, I could hear the rabbit huffing and puffing, trying to keep up. I ran faster.
At home, I locked the door behind me, then ran through the dining room into the kitchen, locking the sliding glass door that led to our little wooden porch. My parents weren’t home, of course. Every free morning they had, they played 18 holes of golf. They would be gone all afternoon, which meant I would be alone for the entire afternoon. With my crazy, crazy thoughts.
I went to my bedroom and opened the window a crack to let in some fresh air. Mom had made my bed, tucking the dark gray sheets tightly into the mattress. My bedside table had been cleared of makeup, leaving only my black alarm clock and my collection of feathers sitting in the green vase I’d made my freshman year. The eggshell carpeting was freshly vacuumed. All of my bras that had been lying on the floor were gone, presumably in the pink hamper in my little closet.
“Mom,” I muttered.
“She likes a clean house, I guess.”
I spun around. There, leaning against my dresser next to the window, was the rabbit.
“I’ll call the police!”
The rabbit chuckled. “Boy, what a sight that would make!”
“Look,” I said. “I realize something’s going on here, OK? I accept it. This is real. But … but I still have an exam to worry about!”
The rabbit waved my excuse away. “Oh come now. Your last exam is your fencing class, and we both know how good you are.”
I was momentarily taken aback. “OK, well, I didn’t think you would call me out on that lie. Still, I can’t deal with this. That giant snake I just killed? That’s a lot to take in.”
“Agreed,” said the rabbit. He looked around. “Where are your parents?”
“They golf,” I said. “All the time. All the time. Any day they’re both free for any reason and it’s not raining, they’re golfing. It’s the thing to do when you hit your
mid-forties, I guess.”
“Golf,” the rabbit said. “Never tried it.”
“Look, can I please just take a nap?” I asked. “I really need sleepy time.”
“Tell you what: let me tell you a story and then I’ll be on my way. How’s that for fair?”
“Fine,” I said, sitting on my bed. “Tell your story.”
The rabbit stood straight, smoothing out his brown vest with his paws. “Well, I think we should introduce ourselves first.”
“Are you kidding? Fine. My name is Alice.”
The rabbit bowed low. “Br’er Rabbit, at your service.”
“Br’er Rabbit?” I asked. “As in the old fairy tale rabbit that always tricked Br’er Fox?”
The rabbit nodded. “The very same, young lady, although my friends call me Briar. A little nickname from where I was born and bred. And it’s a pleasure to finally meet you, by the way.”
I laughed. “Unbelievable. Are you kidding me?”
“I enjoy a good joke as much as the next person,” the rabbit said, “but right now’s not the best time for tomfoolery. Can I tell my story now?”
“By all means,” I said, waving him on. “Continue, Briar.”
“Thank you.” Briar’s whiskers twitched. “Now, where to start … where to start. Ah-ha!” He held up a paw. “Of course: the beginning.”
“Always a good place to start.”
The rabbit—Briar—walked over to the window, glancing out and taking a deep breath. “A long, long time ago, two brothers named Jacob and Wilhelm began collecting stories.”
“The brothers Grimm?” I asked. “Is that who you mean?”
Briar’s fur bristled. “If you please.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
He—at least I assumed it was a he, since he had a somewhat gruff, low voice—glanced out the window again. “Now, these brothers weren’t just good writers. They were darned good magicians too. They liked to get themselves all dressed up in funny masks and black overcoats and put on some of the most amazing acts you ever did see. They were better than everyone because they had the best tricks. And they had the best tricks because they knew a little bit of real magic.”
“Real magic?”
The rabbit nodded. “So one day Jacob got himself an idea. It was an awful idea. He decided to put some of his real magic knowledge to use and started tinkering around in the family attic. No one knows what he did or how he did it, but when he came down two days later he had a stack of paper. He told his brother to start collecting all of the best stories they’d written down while he went into town to find the perfect pen.
“So Wilhelm started digging up all the stories he’d ever heard, and when Jacob returned from town he went back up into the attic with the pen. He came back down two more days later.
“Now here Wilhelm was getting more than a little annoyed. ‘What are you doing up there?’ he asked. To which Jacob replied, ‘Changing the world, brother.’ He pulled out the pen and told Wilhelm this was a magic pen. It could do magic things. And this paper? This paper was magic paper, too. ‘Whatever stories we write,’ he told his brother, ‘they’ll come true.’ So they started rewriting all their favorite fairy tales. They wanted to make the world a magical place.”
“So they were the brothers Grimm,” I said.
Briar nodded. “The very same. And as they wrote down their tales, and sure enough the characters in the tales started appearing all over the countryside. One day a handsome prince rode into town. A couple weeks later, a young boy began boasting he was afraid of nothing, challenging anyone to prove it.”
“That sounds … nice,” I said.
Briar’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what the Brothers Grimm thought, too. They thought they’d done something truly nice for the world. They thought they’d made the world a more magical place. Only there was a problem. See, those fairy tale characters didn’t belong in our world. And the magic that had brought them into this world wasn’t good magic, either. In order to get that paper all spelled up, Jacob Grimm had used a fair amount of black magic too. Bad stuff. He didn’t tell his brother out of fear his brother would destroy the pages.”
I leaned forward. “So what happened?”
“If you let me tell my story, you’ll know.” Briar’s whiskers twitched. “Anyway, the fairy tale characters, they started getting downright troublesome. And I’m not just talking about the big bad wolf, either. I’m talking about all of them. Rapunzel. Cinderella. Prince Charming. The old Miller. Bad things were happening and everyone started getting scared. So the brothers, they finally did the right thing and burned the magical pages.”
“And everyone disappeared?” I asked. “Just like that?”
The rabbit shook his head. “Not a dang thing happened! The brothers Grimm didn’t know what to do, so they just stayed holed up in their home. It was one of their servants who got a hold of their magic pen. He took it thinking he could sell it for food, only on his way into town, he got chased off the beaten path by a rabid dog. And wouldn’t you know it, he ended up face-to-face with the big bad wolf.”
“The big bad wolf?” I asked, leaning even closer.
Briar nodded. “The very one. The young man turned to run but the wolf chased him down. They both went tumbling!” The rabbit bounced away from the window, eyes wide. “Over and over they went, the wolf’s jaws snapping at the tasty soft flesh of the poor servant! The servant knew he only had one chance: the pen. Maybe he could get lucky before the wolf ate him up but good. So he stabbed the wolf with the pen right in the stomach!”
I waited. When the rabbit didn’t continue, I asked, “Well, what happened?”
“What do you think happened?” Briar asked.
I shrugged. “The big bad wolf ate him up and lived happily ever after.”
Briar’s whiskers twitched. His mouth cracked into a little smile. “Nope. The wolf didn’t move. Didn’t cry out. Didn’t bleed. He just slowly burned away. No smoke. No smell. Just a pile of ashes. And the servant, kneeling in front of it, clutching the pen.” He stepped closer, eyes wide. “The very same pen you found this afternoon.”
And with that, the rabbit disappeared.
Chapter 4
In a certain mill lived an old miller who had neither wife nor child, and three apprentices served under him. As they had been with him several years, he one day said to them, “I am old, and want to sit in the chimney- corner, go out, and whichsoever of you brings me the best horse home, to him will I give the mill, and in return for it he shall take care of me till my death.”[iv]
The next day was Friday. Our last day of exams. I had two: History and Fencing. The history exam seemed so easy that I began second-guessing myself halfway through. Our teacher, Mr. Martin, sat at his desk with his old wrinkled face resting squarely on one fist. I caught him glancing outside more than a few times.
No one else seemed to be having such an easy time. It almost felt like a trick. What’s worse, some of the questions seemed to have two right answers:
The U.S. entered World War II because:
A. Germany attacked the United States.
B. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
C. The Nazi Holocaust needed to be stopped.
D. Britain asked for help.
Didn’t Britain ask for help? Didn’t the Holocaust need to be stopped? I chose B only because it seemed like the correctest answer.
When I was finished, I put the paper on Mr. Martin’s desk, gave him a smile (which he didn’t return) and walked out into the hall. It smelled like the cafeteria, which was right below us in the basement. If there was more time, I would have stopped down there for a grilled cheese sandwich, but I’d spent way too much time second-guessing myself. The Fencing exam started in twenty minutes.
“Concentrate,” I told myself. “Definitely don’t think about the rabbit’s story.” It was hard not to, though. It had been a good story. And I loved a good story.
A few students walked out of the classroom on my
left, laughing about something that had happened during their Chemistry exam. I followed them for awhile, aware that this was part of the popular clique. Jennifer and Roman were going steady. The other two girls—Cherry and Latrice—had boyfriends waiting for them in the cafeteria, according to their dialogue. When the girls glanced back and noticed me walking a few paces behind them, they smiled and gave a quiet “Hi.”
I fell back a few paces, not interested in making small talk. This was Edward’s clique, not mine. There was a boundary here, and I wasn’t comfortable crossing it—the only reason they said hi to me was because I was dating Edward. It made me uncomfortable … like, here’s this power. You can totally abuse it, Alice, and join up with them right now and exchange phone numbers and text each other and they’ll do it. They’ll do it simply because you’re dating Edward. I didn’t like that.
The hallway was shaped like a horseshoe and the gym was located on the other end. I stopped at my locker—1164—to put away my backpack so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. I gave my neck a squirt of perfume, knowing full well that whomever I fought for my exam wasn’t going to be easy and I didn’t want to stink up the joint. Mr. Whitmann didn’t give me the easy fights anymore.
I closed the locker, thankful that the hallway was empty now. Most of the freshmen and sophomores were already done with their exams, and soon the janitor would be rolling by with his floor buffer. I started walking again, then stopped.
Something was on the tiled floor up ahead.
I stepped closer. It looked like a trail of something, like oil leaking out underneath a car. Only this trail was slightly golden in color, starting at the doors that opened into the staircase and leading down the hall.
I followed it, kicking it with my shoe every once in a while to see if I could disturb it. I couldn’t—my shoe just went right through it. The trail was dim but definitely glowing just a little bit, as if someone had drizzled some glow-in-the-dark paint on the tiles. A practical joke? An end-of-the-year joke? A lot of the senior boys liked to pull some kind of senior prank after exams were done … marking their territory before they graduate, I suppose.
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