Clover Longear's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Clover dug until her paws bled. The first collapsed mouth gave way under her claws, and dirt came loose in wet clumps. She worked fast, drumming a soft beat against the wall with her heel so the shadow among the ghost carrots would stay penned. But every time she stopped drumming to dig, the beat died. And every time the beat died, the ground trembled again. She looked up. Past the mound, the faceless shadow no longer sat still. It drifted from the garden back toward the burrow mouth, drawn to the quiet of her digging. Where it passed, the fresh dirt she had cleared slid back into the hole. Her work undid itself. She could not dig and drum at once. Stop drumming to dig, and the shadow returned to eat the tunnels. Keep drumming, and the trapped kin stayed buried. Clover pressed her paw to her chest and found the beat Tsuki had left inside her. The spirit's voice rose plain from memory. Rabbits are prey. Keep them moving. She had used the beat to walk the shadow out. Now she needed the beat to hold without her hands. "Tsuki," she whispered. "I only have two paws." The memory answered flat, as the spirit always had. The beat is not yours to hold. Give it away. Clover understood. The drum did not need her heel. It needed a keeper. She ran to the caved mouth and dug with both paws now, no drumming, racing the slide. Dirt poured. A gray paw broke through from the far side. Then a face. A rabbit folk, thin and dust-caked, clawing toward the light. Behind her came more, six of them, scarves torn and satchels crushed. The trapped kin, digging toward her from below. Clover hauled the first one free. She shoved the moon-faced drum into the rabbit's paws. "Beat it. Steady. Do not stop." The rabbit stared, then struck the pale drum with a shaking fist. One knock. Another. The luminous face glowed under each blow. The shadow froze mid-drift. Its long ears turned toward the new beat. It swayed and stepped back toward the garden, following the sound away from the tunnels. Now Clover's paws were free. She dug while the freed rabbit drummed, and the ground held. She cleared the second mouth, then the third. Rabbit folk crawled out, blinking, coughing dirt. Their faces were gentle and worn, wistful in the carrot glow. Not her mother. Not one she knew. But her kin, the scattered ones, alive. The Burrow Elder stood at the door, coins for eyes. He watched the drum pass paw to paw among his people. "You mended it," he said. He did not smile. "The drum stays with them now. It is theirs." Clover's chest went cold. The drum was Tsuki's path home. Now it belonged to Hollowburrow. She had freed the warren and lost her way to find her mother in the same breath.