Page 47 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
A few minutes later, I’m tearing around the corner, my socks nearly slipping on the worn hardwood floor. Mr. Rabbit is clutched to my chest as I reenter the kitchen to find all three of them gathered around the table. The chairs are pushed to the side. A pair of scissors, a needle, sewing thread, and a pocketknife are lined up with military-like precision at one end. Wyatt’s dragging one of the big old floor lamps toward the table, as far as the cord will stretch.
“Oh, no,” I whisper defensively, wrapping my arms around the plush toy. “I already had to gouge out his eye. You wannacut him open?”
Wyatt switches the lamp onto a brighter setting as Caden snaps on a pair of latex gloves. “We’re gonna take good care of him, I promise,” Wyatt tells me as he approaches, holding his hands out. “And anything we gotta do, we’ll fix him. I swear we will.”
I’m caught between laughter and tears as I nod, handing Mr. Rabbit over to Wyatt. Gingerly, he places the plush on the table face-up. With a serious frown, Caden leans over Mr. Rabbit.
“Scalpel,” he says. Wordlessly, Fallon hands him the pocketknife, which Caden snaps open. I shuffle closer to Wyatt, who immediately wraps his arms around me. When Caden brings the edge of the blade to Mr. Rabbit’s rounded belly, I turn my head into Wyatt’s chest. His large, warm hand cups the back of my head as his brother cuts open the last remaining piece of my childhood. I can’t bear to watch Caden rifle around in Mr. Rabbit’s stuffing, so instead I breathe in Wyatt’s scent—clean laundry and fir trees with a dash of bonfire smoke.
“Abdomen is clear,” Caden says. “Needle.” I turn to look over my shoulder, though I’m covering most of my vision with my hands. Through my fingers, I can just make out Fallon threading a needle. She snaps the thread with her teeth and then ties the end into a knot before handing it to Caden.
“See?” Wyatt murmurs into my hair, one hand rubbing my back. “Gonna fix him right up.”
I don’t know why we’ve all collectively decided to make an absolute production out of this, but I appreciate it so much. If I cry about a stupid plushie, I know no one in this room would mock me for it, and if I burst into hysterical laughter, I have a feeling the three of them would follow me. I suck in a deep breath as Caden pierces Mr. Rabbit’s soft little belly with the needle, deftly weaving the wound closed. His sewing is all tiny, fastidious stitches, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
“He was top of his class in sewing in home ec,” Fallon tells me solemnly.
“Only the best for Mr. Rabbit,” I say with a nod, leaning back against Wyatt as Caden finishes his stitches.
“Now for the cranial cavity,” Caden says, looking up at me.
“Not the cranial cavity,” I gasp, my eyes widening.
Caden winces. “You may not want to watch this,” he says, tying off the thread and handing the needle back to Fallon. “Scalpel.”
Then Mr. Rabbit is face-down on the big table, either end littered with notebooks and hair claws and coffee mugs, though the circle of light from the big lamp halos a section that’s bare and empty, save for the stuffed animal. Caden takes the scalpel from Fallon and then steadies himself, taking a deep breath. The next moment, he’s slicing into the back of Mr. Rabbit’s head.
“Oh, no, I don’t want to watch,” I whisper, turning back into Wyatt. I let him hold me as Caden finishes up his exploratory surgery. What feels like ages later, Mr. Rabbit is given a clean bill of health—no bugs, though he’s got more new scars than I want to acknowledge.
“I’ll knit him a sweater,” Wyatt promises as I take the plush back into my arms. “Then you won’t be able to see any of the scars.”
“Do you knit?” I sniff, shoving tears out of my eyes with the heel of my palm.
“Yes,” Wyatt says at the same moment Fallon replies, “Poorly.” They exchange glances over the kitchen table as Caden rolls his eyes, and I find myself breaking into laughter. Tears stream down my face, too, and I cuddle Mr. Rabbit against my neck, feeling silly and sad and utterly at home. Wyatt finds a way to tuck the stuffed animal into the neckline of my sweater so I can continue making dinner without putting him down. I chop vegetables for Fallon’s lettuce as Caden minces more garlic for the roast chicken she’s making, and then I tell the Hayes siblings all about my run-ins with Sector.
The blog, of course. The threats. The enrollment at OrthCon. We’re all standing around the kitchen island, beers in hand, as we wait for the chicken to finish roasting.
“So they’ve been interested in you for a while,” Caden concludes.
“Seems that way,” I say with a shrug.
“Ever approached you for recruitment?” Fallon wants to know, examining me.
I shake my head. “Nah,” I say. “I think I’m probably too insane, even for them. It’s always just been about keeping my nose clean.”
Fallon nods, her gaze going toward the stuffed rabbit still tucked into the neckline of my sweater. “Sorry again. About Mr. Rabbit,” she says softly.
I shrug. “We had to make sure. I don’t want Sector interfering any more than you do.”
I feel a little better now that Caden also went through the contents of my bag. The entire Hayes family knows what kind of underwear I wear, so I’m glad that’s out of the way. Wyatt wants to check in with Marion tomorrow and see if anything sketchy happened with the room I was planning to stay in. “And if anyof them bother you again,” he adds, his expression suddenly a storm cloud, “you just let me know.”
“Aw, you gonna defend your lady’s honor?” Fallon teases from the oven, where she’s bent double, checking the roast on the chicken.
A blush creeps across Wyatt’s high cheekbones. “Something like that.”
“If Sector fucks with Alice,” Fallon says, her voice muffled, “they’re fucking with all of us. Hope they damn well know that.”
My eyes blur with tears for the second time today, which is too many. It’s not that I’m, you know, not in touch with my feelings or whatever. It’s just that things are really, really fucking hard. If I start to let myself feel too much, then I’m afraidallof it will come crashing down, like it did earlier when I told Wyatt about my grandparents’ farm. I don’t know how to let myself feel everything until we’re living in some kind of utopia, which I doubt will happen in my lifetime. Otherwise, it’s too hard to handle everything about this worldandall the things I feel. I’ll explode.
