Levi was terrible at picking presents. Especially for children. In fact, when he adopted his two new wards - the next generation of the Baskerville line - he thought, economically enough, of bestowing his trove of childhood toys to them. Inheritance of gifts should start young , thought the creative strand in him that loved framing his life as a story, where signs and portends shaped the actual chaos of their destined, trapped lives.
Instead, he had Celia Baskerville, one of his most trusted household members, go to the town center and buy new presents for Oswald and Lacie.
Celia returned with several different varieties of things beyond the mechanical wind-up animals and automatons he had been obsessed with as a small child.
"What are… these?" Levi asked, amused, picking up a pair of midnight black stuffed rabbits. "No puzzles? No new books? No wooden soldiers?"
"After seeing the horrors those children have, do you think they want something other than comfort?" Celia sniffed.
When Levi offered them rabbits, along a basket of other gentle toys of various stuffed, feathered, and knit varieties, he had to admit that his elder was right. Lacie's eyes lit up as she latched onto the rabbits. "Look, Oswald!" she exclaimed. "Two of them, like us!"
She pressed the first rabbit into her brother's arms, who, after a moment of hesitation, clutched it to his chest. "What're their names?" he asked.
"Um," Levi was also terrible at names, but hated being called out even more. "Well, that's A-Rabbit," he replied immediately, poking the one in Oswald's hold. "And this is B-Rabbit," he added, pinching Lacie's stuffed animal on the nose.
Lacie giggled. "Those aren't real," Oswald accused, the eight-year-old frowning.
"Hey, I'm not in charge of names!" Levi gave an exaggerated version of Oswald's expression. "I only told you what they told me."
"B-Rabbit stands for Best Rabbit!" Lacie declared, waving hers around. She leapt up and started twirling with B-Rabbit in her arms. "Ooo, I have to make some dollie clothes for you, Mr. B-Rabbit." She dashed out of the playroom.
Levi smiled as he watched her leave, then nudged her brother's shoulder. "Are you going to leave A-Rabbit unadorned while she fancies B-Rabbit up?"
Oswald looked as if he was about to give a retort about how A-Rabbit was still a silly name, but instead raced after his sibling. "I want something for A-Rabbit," he called after Lacie.
In the end, A-Rabbit got a blue ribbon bow. B-Rabbit's was red.
Lacie's infatuation with these rabbits far outlasted Oswald's. She kept the rabbits side by side on her dresser facing her canopy bed, and would give each a kiss on the head before going to sleep each night. "One for A and one for B" she would whisper before slipping under the covers. She liked to think that both acted as her guardians, the first defense against nightmares ( always in the form of a long fall, and darkness, such darkness ) and monsters under the bed.
Her guardians were the first she thought of many years later, when she started visiting her friend in the Abyss.
"His name is B-Rabbit," she told her friend, leaving the toy at the edge of a glowing array of stars. "He can be feisty sometimes, but he means well."
Her friend in the Abyss echoed a soft murmur that made the stars about them vibrate. The B-Rabbit swayed in its presence. Lacie reached out and let one of these glowing orbs settle in her palm. She cupped the light on her hand and added, "B-Rabbit is my favorite so take care of him specially, all right?"
Her friend tried. In the vast plains of light and being, her friend reached out and pinned part of itself inside the B-Rabbit. The glow from this world entered the small toy, and, after a time, those glass eyes shone in a way they never had before.
The B-Rabbit didn't understand much at first. Half the time, he saw light, and half the time, he saw…. The same light, perhaps? But stuffed into objects, like how his friend infused a part of itself into him. In the other world, there were things that were hard: stone walls, wood banisters, smooth china, rubber soles on the bottom of shoes. Oh, but softness! Pillows, duvets, feathers from coats, silky textures of wilting flowers, gentle warm touch of the girl with the red eyes and the beautiful voice. In the other world beyond the Abyss, everything had their light hidden inside, but the B-Rabbit could see it all, precious as pearls nestled beneath oyster flesh.
As the girl became taller and more graceful, she paid attention to him less and less. But the B-Rabbit didn't mind. He still saw the light inside her, whenever she stepped into the room.
One night, the girl woke up screaming. The B-Rabbit, if he could move, would've jumped, but he could not. His glass eyes twinkled, however, in alertness, and perhaps it was this spark the girl with the red eyes noticed. She stifled her outcry with a clasp of her hand, and she started shivering all over, uncontrollably, despite the warm summer air. She moved to the dresser and the B-Rabbit left himself being pressed against her chest. He felt the wild beating of her heart, and the clammy sweat that coated her skin.
Immediately, he wished more than anything to make her feel safe again and happy.
He didn't know how to ask her why she had woken up so upset. He didn't understand the drips of tears that fell upon his head.
On the other side of the world, in the Abyss, the other B-Rabbit ( A-Rabbit? ) murmured to their friend: "I want to protect her."
Their friend didn't speak, not exactly. But a piece of their friend moved in sympathy with the B-Rabbit's thoughts. This piece grew claws and fangs and moved inside the speed of a jackrabbit. This piece became large and strong and hardened. This piece ( a chain of myself , came the explanation to the B-Rabbit's understanding from his friend).
Afterward, on the edges of the Abyss, the girl stretched her hand out into the twinkling mass and asked for the power to destroy. A metal linked chain, a dagger-sharp spear, a silent roar and a rolling cloud pierced her palm. Inside it, the B-Rabbit felt part of itself - the guardian self - fly out as part of her command. A trickle of bright red blossomed and she flinched for a moment, before grasping the spear between her fingers.
I will protect her, came this feeling, from her friend in the Abyss and from the B-Rabbit's chest simultaneously.
"Bloody black…." the girl said, as the smear of red darkened in the heat of this bright world.
The B-Rabbit didn't understand that this nascent Chain was not himself - not exactly - but the friend from the Abyss understood that the girl wanted protection, and it loved the girl very much so gave her what she wished.
Much later, on the other side of the world, Lacie made a snow-covered backroad rain blood and laughed and sang as the rain fell upon her, upon dead men, upon the stunned blond boy named Jack.
I protected her , thought the weapon and in a tower far away, the B-Rabbit thought, What a beautiful song.
The song lasted for many years. Sometimes, it was a ditty the girl sang to herself while getting ready in the morning. Other times, it was a companion to the piano her brother played. In the late evenings, while the girl sat and sewed tiny clothes that she put in a great wooden chest, flowing nursery lullabies accompanied her solitary work.
The last time the B-Rabbit heard her song, she could not sleep. The moonlight pooled onto the carpet of her tower room. For the first time in years, he was nestled in her arms. He breathed the soft base notes of her perfume, and a warm feeling grew in his soft plush body. She pressed her nose to the top of his head and the last measures of a soft lyric echoed in his flannel ears.
"I led you all to believe that I was doing fine,
This isn't the way I wanted it to end,
I went to see the globe in glowing gold and vivid reds…"
A wave of her hand, and opening of light, and the B-Rabbit found himself in the Abyss, looking at his twin self, nestled against his friend.
"This is the last time I'm coming here," the girl whispered.
The toy felt something deep within himself tightening.
"I'll disappear… but if you're able to find this child...be friends, okay?"
The B-Rabbit was placed across from his twin body, but knew he felt different from this other vessel. The B-Rabbit felt like he was breaking apart.
Many feelings came to the B-Rabbit after that, mostly because he slowly gained an understanding of what feelings were. Sadness, at the girl's death. Regret, for not being able to protect her in the end, and for not even knowing her name. Gratefulness, for the joy that he now recognized, which the girl had brought into his small life.
And wonder, at the tiny bodies - such softness! so plush! - that the girl had left in her wake for B-Rabbit and his friend to foster and love.
But the grief and emptiness the B-Rabbit felt made the newfound warmth in his body fade. He felt himself drifting into a slumber, where sounds and lights became vibrations and wavelengths of motion. The Core reached out and grasped a bit of the B-Rabbit inside of itself to hold.
...protect… thought the Core, and B-Rabbit understood. A part of the girl remained in his tiny thoughts and the Core wanted to keep that memory close.
B-Rabbit felt himself drifting away…
….until…
"It's awake!"
Sharp noise! A pull on his head. The B-Rabbit's eyes flickered.
What. Was. That?
A long, loud scream of delight! The B-Rabbit twisted about by his ears and as his body rotated toward the sound, he saw the girl again. The tightness in his chest jumped. The girl! Alive! But so small.
The B-Rabbit gazed into both worlds. This was a black-haired girl, so much like the one he knew. But, also, a white-haired one, with a calm expression on her face that reminded B-Rabbit of his friend in the Abyss. His friend who somehow… seemed to become the same as this white-haired girl.
On the other side of the world, two men stood before them, both equally flabbergasted.
One of them gasped. "Lacie…?" The B-Rabbit's eyes twinkled in vague recognition for the brother.
"No!" The girl propped her hands upon her hips, squishing B-Rabbit against her. "I'm Alice!"
"Alice…" The black-haired man seemed stunned but the other one, all pale and white and covered in bandages, only smiled.
"Well, in any case," he gave a little bow, "First things first. Please find yourself welcome, Alice."
The B-Rabbit knew his existence now was much different than before. This Alice resembled Lacie at her brightest. She was brash and demanding and hyper. She did not sing, however. And the B-rabbit's ears never hurt so much while he played with Lacie… (but, then again, way back then, the B-Rabbit hadn't understood what pain even was until Alice came along!)
He missed Lacie and longed for her, but every time black-haired Alice smiled, he caught a flicker of the girl with the red eyes.
On the other side of the world, the B-Rabbit was held by a different Alice, the white-haired one. While black Alice laughed easily and had endless energy, Alyss was somber and quiet and would spend endless hours stroking B-Rabbit's soft fur. She moved as if she contained a very, very full pitcher inside her and was afraid of spilling a single drop. Most of the time, she simply watched, and played with the orbs around her, and slept, and sang to herself, waiting for her sister to switch bodies. The other Baskervilles anointed her the name "Will of the Abyss," and if B-Rabbit looked very hard, he saw his old friend, the Core, beating in time with her heart.
The Core knew no age, and it bestowed this quality upon Alyss's mind. She seemed much more knowledgeable than her younger twin sister. Maybe she was aware of her isolation, and of her timelessness, and that gave her the facade of maturity. Alyss was lonely, as if she had inherited the inner darkness that her mother had harboured all of her life.
Both daughters took after Lacie so well, observed B-Rabbit, but he had no words to express precisely why.
Eventually, Alice found Lacie's wooden chest and took out the tiny clothes she found inside. "Oooo, they were made just for you!" she exclaimed, fitting a red and white jacket over his arms.
The B-Rabbit wished he could imitate that same smile Alice had on her face. What kind forethought , thought the B-Rabbit, for Lacie to think of us.
He wondered if there was a blue jacket somewhere inside there too, and pushed the thought away. He always enjoyed red the best.
"I'll name you Oz," she said, fastening the bow around his neck. "You're someone special."
Oz… the name formed a space inside the B-Rabbit, and he felt recognized in the same way Lacie recognized him.
"A dear, precious friend."
For a moment, a shadow passed over Alice's face, as if she remembered something from long ago. A recollected feeling surged inside the B-Rabbit's - from Oz's - heart. He recalled the darkness, and Lacie's tears, and how much he wanted Lacie to only smile forever. Somewhere in the Abyss, he felt the cold links of the chain weapon clank in the blackness and he longed for the chance to make him strong and piercing as the tip of a spear.
As if hearing her sister, Alyss reached out in her slumber and nestled the twin toy to her side.
He told Alyss, "I'll protect you both," and watched a soft smile form on her sleeping face.
Alice tilted her head and rubbed the silk interior of his flannel ears. "So promise me," she pressed her mouth to those ears, and Oz willed himself to listen as much as he could as that simple stuffed rabbit.
"If I'm suffering...if someone's hurting me, you'll the come rescue me."
"I will," promised Oz, silently. "I will be your best rabbit."