Mr. Echo's Arc

Chapter 14 of 25

The burrow mouth waited in the bank ahead, a round dark opening framed by wet roots. Mr. Echo stepped toward it and Clover did not follow. The hooded rabbit stood in the reeds with the pack still slung across one shoulder, ears flat. "I can't go in," Clover said. "Not yet." Mr. Echo turned back. The angle west of north still sat clean in his teeth, but the box hummed only as long as Clover kept walking with him. If Clover stopped, the market inside it would stop too. He knelt in the wet grass. "Tell me what you need." "A sister," Clover said. "Longear. She came in a week before me. I lost her on the second day. I kept the raisins. I did not keep her." Clover's voice went thin at the end and then stopped. "I am not walking deeper until I know if she is standing somewhere." Kate crouched beside the burrow mouth and looked in. Pale roots hung from the roof. Something grew inside in a tidy row, carrots so faint they were nearly clear, their tops the color of old glass. "There's a patch," Kate said. "Ghost carrots. Someone planted them straight." A rabbit did that, Mr. Echo thought. A rabbit who still remembered how a row was supposed to look. He opened the box and thumbed the chamber halfway shut, holding back Clover's market so it would not spill. Then he walked into the burrow alone. The tunnel widened into a hollow lit by the faint roots. Six or seven rabbits sat against the walls in cloaks and scarves and belts, packs at their feet. None of them looked up. They had the same quiet as Clover had in the reeds, the quiet of people counting small things to stay whole. On the far wall, propped against the earth, sat a dark cutout shape, ears long, body human, the kind of shadow a warren pins up to mark that one of theirs is missing. A name was scratched under it. Longear. Mr. Echo brought Clover in. Clover looked at the shadow on the wall and put a paw against the scratched name. One of the seated rabbits lifted her head then, an older doe with a green scarf, and said, "She left three days ago. West. She said she would not sit anymore." The doe's voice was flat, but the fact held. Clover pressed the paw harder against the wall and breathed out once, long. "West," Clover said. "That is our way too." Clover turned to Mr. Echo and opened the pack. "I will walk deeper now. Take the rest." Small things spilled into the box's chamber, a bell, a button, the count of raisins, a baker's greeting. The hum came back full. Behind them the shadow stayed pinned to the wall, and one of the lost ones stood up to follow.