It wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe if this place was my livelihood I’d start panicking or packing up, but it’s not. I’m a vet, I own my own home, and I’m not hurting if my vegetables get looted. The garden’s a hobby at best, and yeah, maybe it was Grandma’s pride and joy, but I warned her I killed my mom’s geraniums when she told me she was leaving me the house, so it’s not like she has room for disappointment.
If anything, the rabbits are lucky they picked my land to figure out civilization on, because I’m pretty sure my neighbor Carl would be dropping dynamite down the burrows in my shoes.
I won’t lie, I came close. Monster Truck got out while I wasn’t looking, and when he came hobbling home with a goddamn spearhead embedded in his leg, I was about ready to rain my own personal Iliad down on the little bastards. Lucky for them, treating arrow wounds on my cat gave me enough time to calm down and think. I figure it was self defense. I don’t like letting my cats outside off-harness anyway, and I would’ve been plenty upset if he’d come home with a dead bunny in his mouth.
It wasn’t so bad besides that. Was I a little miffed that they figured out metalworking before they figured out agriculture? Yeah, kind of. But you know, I always grew way more zucchinis and tomatoes than I knew what to do with anyway, and they were fun to watch. They had warriors on patrol pretty regularly, and once in a while one of them would stop at the sliding glass door and look in on me while I was cleaning or making dinner or whatever. Sometimes they’d leave little clay tablets out there, and I couldn’t read their writing so I don’t know if they were trying to communicate or ward me off, but either way I ended up with a nice little collection of bunny cuneiform (buneiform?) so there’s that. Hell, one time the kittens were out and about in the evening, and I swear to god it looked like they were playing Sardines. Cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
So we left each other alone. I made sure the cats didn’t get out again, and they stamped and ran down the burrows if I got too close.
About a month after Monster got speared, I started noticing more changes. They’d eased off raiding the garden, and I decided to try replanting my romaine lettuce. They’d decimated my last crop, but hey, hope springs eternal, right?
Sure enough, I was wrist-deep in fertilizer when I spotted three of them creeping out of the bushes. At first I thought they were going for my pumpkins while they were still tiny on the vine, and I was ready to put up a fight, tiny polearms notwithstanding. But instead they just… watched me. All bright eyes and twitchy little noses, looking at me while I got manure under my nails.
I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was the same instinct that makes you want to throw bread crumbs at pigeons, just to watch them run around and eat.
I watched them watch me, opening up seed packets, digging holes, planting. And then I took the last packet, opened it, and tossed it to them.
One of them stamped and bolted. Another made a fake lunge with its spear and barked something, before the third one stopped it, picked up the seed packet, and pointed at me. I went through the rest of the process, planting and watering and mixing in the fertilizer, and by the time I was done the rabbits were gone.
There was a clear patch of dug-up soil just off the warren the next day. I left them a bag of chicken manure, just to be nice.
And then, when the lettuce started growing in my garden and theirs, something new happened. I went outside one morning, and there was a little grass basket between my garden and the edge of the warren, full of fur. Not like pelts or anything, like shed rabbit fur. It was fall, so I guess they’d just molted.
And at first I was like, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? But then the next day there’s three rabbits sitting at the edge of my garden, they’ve all got baskets of fur, and they’re spinning it into thread. There’s a spindle sitting in the lettuce patch—it’s at least three times the size of the one they’re using, so they must have made a big one just for me—and they’re all watching me and spinning and squeaking to each other. Probably gossiping.
It took me hours to figure it out, and I ended up having to Google how to hand-spin. I know they were laughing at me.
The thing about living somewhere rural is, you get to know your neighbors. And let me tell you, at that point those rabbits were better neighbors than fucking Carl. Of course, Carl set the bar in Hell, but still.
I figured that was the end of it. A peace offering for a peace offering. They still snuck things out of my garden sometimes, but more often than not it was so they could add it to theirs. They watched me whenever I was out there, copying what I planted when and where, how often I watered it, stuff like that. They even figured out how to use my slug repellent without, I dunno, eating it and dying or something.
But there was more to come.
At the end of February, I got home late after an emergency shift at the clinic. I wasn’t in a great mood; some family’s outdoor cat had been attacked by a coyote, there was nothing we could do but our best and our best wasn’t enough, and I was torn between just feeling sad for the cat and for the kids, and wanting to shake the parents til their teeth rattled because this is what happens when you don’t keep your goddamn pets inside—
Anyway. All I wanted to do was curl up with Monster Truck and Blackberry and sleep until noon. Instead I got woken up by tapping at my window at three a.m.
There’s a ledge on the outside, where I sometimes leave out seeds and stuff for the birds. When I woke up, there was a little bunny sitting on it, staring at me and knocking. When I turned the light on, it stamped at me and hopped down. It did that twice more before I finally dragged myself out of bed and went outside.
It was waiting for me at the back door, and instead of bolting when I stepped out, it was hopping around my ankles and tugged at my pant leg until I followed it to the bushes. There were three more rabbits hiding in there. Two of them instantly had bows trained on me, but the third was curled up, nose and eyes running, wheezing like it was suffocating. The first rabbit barked something, and once the bows were put away, it started tugging at me and pointing at the sick one.
Well, shit.
“Snuffles” is a really cute name for an illness, and it’s easy to treat if you catch it early. I was not catching it early in this rabbit.
It was a bad night. I ‘d just woken up from dreaming about Monster Truck getting mauled by coyotes. I didn’t even know if I should step in, because vegetable seeds are one thing but they’re bunny-millennia away from cracking germ theory and antibiotics, and I don’t know if I’d be violating some kind of Prime Directive if I gave it to them now, but you know what? Fuck it. I just had to tell two grade school girls that I couldn’t help their cat, and I wasn’t about to tell Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail that I wasn’t even gonna try.
So yeah, I scooped up that wheezy, weepy little rabbit and drove her back to the clinic.
I ended up having to keep her for a little while, because she was in bad shape, and a full course of antibiotics doesn’t happen overnight. She became the darling of the vet techs while she was there, especially after she started feeling better and I brought her a spindle and some leftover fluff to pass the time. I also bought her some craft clay so she could write notes home that she was okay and to please not riddle me with arrows when I came home without her.
Eventually I brought her home good as new, stood back and watched the happy reunion, and left it at that. I wasn’t expecting them to throw me a party or anything; the thing about being a vet is that your patients don’t always thank you for it, and that’s fine. Things were quiet after that.
And then July 4th rolled around, and fucking Carl carted out the illegal fireworks again.
I swear, everyone who lives around here hates this time of year because of him. Most of us have animals, some of us moved out here for the peace and quiet, and none of us appreciate him setting off amateur explosives when we’re surrounded by trees and dry grass in July.
Last year the rabbits holed up underground and didn’t come out all night, but this year—I dunno. I just wish I knew enough buneiform to tell them the world isn’t ending, it’s just the asshole neighbor unleashing his inner pyromaniac.
Turned out it wasn’t the rabbits I needed to worry about.
I just opened the door for a second, just to empty out the compost container. I didn’t see Blackberry creeping up behind me before another explosion went off, and she was out the door and bolting into the night before I could stop her.
I swear I screamed so loud I must have spooked Carl, because he didn’t set off another one for a full ten minutes.
Blackberry isn’t like Monster. Monster was one of those pain-in-the-ass tomcats that got in fights and caterwauled late at night and filled the neighborhood with kittens before I finally caught him, fixed him, and taught him some manners. Monster can take care of himself, and if he can’t, he’s strong enough to cut and run.
But Blackberry’s my baby. She won’t go after mice or spiders, she lets Monster walk all over her, and she hides at the first sign of trouble. I know she only ran outside because it happened to be the direction she was facing, because she never wants to go out unless I’m with her. The last outdoor cat I’d seen at that point was the one that died on the operating table.
I was out all night that night, either looking for my cat or screaming at Carl to quit setting off fireworks so I could find her. He finally stopped around midnight, but it didn’t make finding Blackberry any easier. I didn’t give up until almost four in the morning, and by then I was exhausted, in tears, and ready to wring Carl’s neck. I went home and slept.
The next morning I went out again, with a stack of bowls, a liter of water, and some of my dirty clothes. I set up little stations for her, clothes with my smell along with water bowls, and remembered where they were so I could check for her throughout the day. I set them away from the warren, but I remembered what happened to Monster and kept checking back around the burrows, just in case.
It was nearly noon when I heard it.
Off in the distance, on public land to the west of my house, I could hear animals screaming. A lot of people don’t realize how close coyotes come to sounding like crying human babies, and the sound was unnerving enough on its own. In seconds, the screaming became snarling, and I was already running.
A rabbit met me halfway. I could tell he’d been looking for me, because as soon as he saw me, he turned right around and led me the rest of the way.
I’ve seen plenty of nasty stuff in my line of work, parasites and injuries and more than my share of vomit. It’s still easy to get squeamish when it’s animals you know.
Blackberry was at the foot of a tree. From the looks of it, she’d tried to climb it but got caught by the leg and dragged back down. Her leg was shredded, and she wasn’t moving much besides breathing.
There were six rabbits between her and the coyote, and of all the animals in that scene, you’ll never guess which one was the dead one. They’d fought the thing with swords, for Chrissake.
One of the rabbits was on the ground, even bloodier than Blackberry, and a second one picked him up and carried him over to me. I recognized both—she was the doe I’d nursed through snuffles, and the injured buck was the one who’d led me to her. I’d been calling him Cottontail in my head.
I wish I could say I didn’t break down sobbing in front of a bunch of rabbits, but it is what it is.
I checked the coyote before we left. Cottontail was the only one with a bow and arrows on him; plucky little bastard got a couple right in its eye. I swear, when I picked him and Blackberry up to carry them out of there, he was grinning.
They’re okay now. Blackberry’s miserable with a fully bandaged leg and a cone of shame, but she’s on the mend and Monster’s been real sweet with her. I just let Cottontail back out into the yard—unlike Blackberry, I’m gonna trust him to know not to rip his stitches, and he better not disappoint me.
I picked up some alfalfa seeds on the way home. I figure I might as well try growing it, now that we’re working out a sort of trade system. Rabbit wool’s soft as hell, and they’re better at spinning it than I am anyway.
So help me God, if Carl fucks with these rabbits, his ass is grass.
