Midwinter

Spring had come, and with it came the enchanted call of the wood. It whispered along the hills and prodded Rabbit from the darkness of her cottage with the tinkling laughter of nymphs and the silvery murmur of wind among the treetops.

So Rabbit tugged on her mud boots and trench coat and began the first of her favorite walks through the village, down the slope to the river, and into the woods. She breathed in the earthy decay of felled trees and newly sprouted flora. It was here in the wood where she felt she could almost hear the old country calling from a far off, almost reach out and touch the ghosts of yesteryear. It was her refuge, her hallowed ground, but today the forest could not relieve the ache in her bones and the weight hanging from her back and belly. She paused and leaned against the dappled white trunk of an aspen tree, trying to catch her breath, her vision blurry.

That winter had been longer and colder than any in her memory, and on midwinter's eve she had come down with a raging fever. When the chills and burning had finally subsided she'd walked out onto her porch, wrapped in a blanket and looked out at the fields covered in snow, dotted with animal tracks and thin winding depressions from sleighs and sleds. Something was different, something had shifted while she had tossed and turned through the night. She did not know then, but the sickness had already begun to settle down into her feet and rest in the pit of her stomach.

Now she stood, slumped against a tree, staring at the long, winding walk back to her cottage. She had never felt this way before, her heart thumped, manic in her chest. She’d been afraid of monsters in the dark, of the farmer’s axe, of nightmarish rabbits with no eyes and shredded ears, but never of something as simple as distance. She felt, strangely, that walking all the way back to the village would somehow kill her, that the trot she had done a hundred times was completely out of her reach.

It was an unnerving feeling, and when she told her friends later, they laughed. She felt as if the world were tipping and she was sliding off the edge.

A few days later when Lamb invited her to make boats out of leaves and twigs and race them on the water, the same fear started at the edges of her vision and closed in, swallowing everything, whispering, "danger, danger."

She stayed home.

Then summer descended in a sultry cloud of wet grass, and hot afternoons, and Stag invited her to the fair. Despite her body’s aching, and despite the gnawing fear, she went.

It was lovely to be out in the world again, but soon she grew tired, and her ears began to ring, and her eyes ached. Still she stayed, afraid she would miss out on something special. But as the fireworks exploded above her she stumbled home in a fit of tears, keeping to the shadows, afraid someone would see her and try to help, but they didn’t.

That night the illness erupted once more. It spilled out of her bones and bloomed in her chest. It pressed against her skull, and curled up tight in her legs. She fevered through the night, waking with a jolt, soaked in sweat and terrified of the shadows around her bed. Flipping on the lamp, she hugged her knees to her chest and breathed in the sour scent of sickness.

What was wrong with her?

She went to the Owlery - surely a doctor would know what to do. But she was sent home; everything looked fine, they said.

None of her friends seemed to understand when she told them she couldn’t go down to the river, or dance into the twilight. She explained about the fevers, but they felt her head, and it was cool as autumn rain.

They invited her out to dinner on Otter’s barge, and shook their heads when she admitted she couldn’t manage the walk. They coaxed and cajoled her, yet she still felt tied to the darkness of her cottage. In there, it was warm and quiet and safe.

Eventually, the animals stopped checking in, or inviting her on outings, and she sat in her rocking chair, watching them through the window in silence.

She wanted to go out with them, but she was afraid. Afraid she’d slow them down, or interrupt their fun. Her world had shrunken to the space between her bed and the door. It was quieter, she did not belong in the colorful world of the village anymore.

***

It was a foggy, late summer morning when she first met Toad. He was ambling down the road in front of her cottage, whistling softly.

She watched him stop and bend over a patch of morning glory. He plucked a single flower, breathed deep into the soft petals, then, spinning it between his fingers, continued down the road smiling.

Rabbit met him at the fence, and he tipped his broad straw hat.

“Good morning, miss.”

“Good morning. Where are you off to today?”

“Not to, just off.”

She pulled her shawl in closer and asked shyly, “You wouldn’t want to stop for some tea, would you?”

The toad smiled. “There is always time for tea.” So he jumped the fence and followed her into the cottage.

It was dim and drab inside, with the curtains pulled across the windows, but Toad didn’t seem to mind. He sat with her at the little round table, and they talked and drank tea and ate buttered triangles of toast.

Rabbit had forgotten how nice it was to just sit and chat with a friend. With Toad, she didn’t worry that he was anxious to get back to living; he seemed quite content to sit with her for hours.

When at last she told him about the illness, he listened patiently.

“Growing ill,” he said finally, “is much like falling into another world. You don’t know where you are, and you’re not who you used to be, and no one but you can see it.”

“Yes, exactly!” Rabbit confirmed.

“I lost my spots a few years back.” He confided. “I miss them. I hardly feel like a toad without them.”

Rabbit laid a hand on his shoulder.

After that, Toad stopped by now and then, and he and Rabbit did small things. They baked bread, sitting on the porch and breathing in the clean, clear air while the dough rose slowly in the kitchen. They lay out on the dewy grass and watched the stars anchored high above them. They knitted an enormous blue blanket and cuddled under it as the summer days turned to cool, clear autumn evenings.

They baked pies, he brought her pumpkins to carve, and soon the chilly evenings gave way to frosty winter mornings.

Toad marched through the glittering snow, and Rabbit met him at the door with two steamy mugs of hot cocoa.

Some days she was too sick for visitors, so he made her carrot soup, tucked her in tight, and closed the cottage door gently behind him.

There were times when Rabbit watched all the animals in the village gather to celebrate, and she would grow sad. So, Toad took her by the arm, and they would walk slowly out to the fairgrounds and sit and watch the children play, or put their fingers in their ears and watch while all her old friends danced and sang. Usually, she would grow tired early, and he would help her back to the cottage. Then he would read her stories, or sing her lullabies until she fell into a dreamless sleep.

One evening, when they sat by the fire in her cottage, quietly reading, Rabbit asked Toad something she had been wanting to ask for a very long time.

“Toad?”

“Yes, Rabbit?”

“Why do you come to sit with me? Wouldn’t you rather be off doing things?”

Toad was quiet for a long moment.

“Sometimes I do.” He admitted. “I wish we could go on adventures together, perhaps visit the sea.” He sighed. “I miss the sea.”

“Then why do you stay?” Rabbit asked.

He considered this for a moment.

“I’m an old toad." He said finally. "The world is full of broken things and somehow, amongst them, I’ve found a friend. That’s no simple thing."

They sat, listening to the fire ripple between them.

“Thank you Toad.”

“You’re welcome, Rabbit.”

Seasons folded into one another, illness flared and receded, and still he came. Toad and Rabbit continued on, quietly living. She listened to his tales of the adventures he’d had when he was a jaunty, young toad, and she told him about her wanderings through the forest, and how she loved to listen to the trees whisper to each other.

They drew pictures and made origami swans and hung them from the trees so they swayed in the flaxen evenings. Together, they made friends with clouds of lightning bugs, and wondered about the origins of stars. But mostly they sat quietly on the porch and drank tea.

It was many years later when Rabbit was taking care of Toad, instead of being taken care of, that she sat by his bed near the open window, reading from his favorite book of poems:

And so the winter washes in,

A friend to none but me.

I tread into the endless wood,

I wait, and let it speak.

Rabbit closed the book, breathing in the dewy spring wind that wafted through the window, and she thought later, when Toad lay under a patch of grass in the old cemetery, that it was nice to have had a friend.