Chapter Three: Like a Rabbit in a Net

Flynn met Estelle several times over the years. Whenever he joined his father on a visit to the lord's manor, she always seemed to sense his presence and seek him out. Every meeting invariably left Flynn feeling unwashed and slovenly in front of her beautiful dresses and delicately styled hair, but she never seemed to mind if he smelled like sheep. Flynn liked Estelle. She was a lot easier to talk to than he'd expect from a noble. Though he couldn't relate to her life in the manor, he enjoyed hearing about it. Stories of balls and lavish parties sounded like something from a fairytale. For her part, she was fascinated with his life in the village and asked constant questions about the care and keeping of animals.

On a warm spring day when Flynn was seventeen, he met her again on the village green. Flynn nearly crashed into her, because he wasn't looking where he was going due to his focus being on the struggling ferret in his arms.

"Hello!" Estelle said when Flynn stopped short a few inches from her. "My goodness, what's that in your arms?"

"He's a ferret." Flynn held the squirming animal against his chest. His forearms had already been scratched by its little claws, but he wasn't going to let it go. "Slippery little guy. He escaped earlier, so I'm just bringing him back to the warren now."

"Which warren?" Estelle began walking alongside him as Flynn crossed the green.

"There's a rabbit warren near the church. They keep destroying the vegetable garden so we're going to drive them out." As they rounded the church building, the warren came into view. A low rise of grass behind the church was surrounded by men and women carefully setting up nets.

"So how does the ferret factor into this?"

"Well, when a rabbit is scared, it runs into its tunnels and we can't get to them. So in order to lure them out, we send some ferrets down the holes and into their home. The ferrets rile them up and the rabbits come running out of the holes, into our waiting nets. Then we'll have rabbit stew for the next few days." Flynn smiled at that; meat so rarely featured in his diet.

Estelle didn't find the thought of rabbit stew pleasing. She pouted when they reached Flynn's father, who took the struggling ferret from Flynn's arms. "The poor rabbits," she said. "They're just minding their own business, and then a scary monster comes into their homes and drives them into a net."

"I suppose it isn't very fun for the rabbits." He watched his father carry the ferret to a group of men holding three other squirming animals. "But the rabbits eat our crops, without which, we'd starve."

"Oh… I suppose you're right. I'm really fortunate that I never have to worry about where food comes from."

Flynn glanced toward the manor on the hill. "It must be nice. What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"My father came to speak with the priest. I saw all of you gathered on the green down here and asked if I could come look."

"Well, now you're getting the chance to learn about rabbiting. Oh, I have to go. I need to man one of the nets at the exit hole."

Instead of saying farewell, she followed him to the hole in the earth. Flynn took a net from the man at the hole nearby and crouched, placing the neck of the net over the opening and holding tight.

"Ready?" Flynn's father called on the other side of the warren. "Go!"

The four ferrets were released into the warren. Flynn braced himself as elsewhere around the warren, small bodies were started to zip out of the holes. Seconds later, a rabbit darted out of his and smacked into the net. Flynn moved fast before the kicking, panicking animal could escape. One hand gripped its thrashing legs and with the other, he gripped its neck. With one firm jerk, he yanked the legs back and snapped the neck with a pop. Only when he'd set the now-dead rabbit aside and positioned his net over the hole again to catch the next one did he glance up to see Estelle's face.

"I'm sorry. I should have warned you."

"No, I… I should have realized… you did say you're hunting them." She chewed her lip and surveyed the scene. Everyone around the warren had a new rabbit every minute, and they all wordlessly snapped the necks before going back to work. "I understand you have to do it. I just think it's very sad. An unfortunate necessity. I feel so awful for the poor creatures who were lured from the homes and right into a trap."


Wind gusted past him. Flynn turned his head, trying to see where he was. Around him were trees, except their vibrancy had been leached out and the outlines blurred like he was seeing them through a wave of radiating heat. The wind kept rushing, fluttering his hair and filling his ears with its howl.

"Hello?" His voice echoed. Flynn looked up, expecting to see the setting sun, but the sky was pure white. "Yuri?!" The howling wind was his only response. The light gleaming on the diluted leaves was throbbing in time with his heart. That was when Flynn realized the source of the light was himself. Dazzling light radiated from his chest, banishing the darkness that pressed in from the towering trees.

Flynn started to walk, feet sinking into soil black as coal, but his right arm was dragged back. When he pulled it to his face, overcoming the sharp pain from the cut, he could see red threads growing from the bloody wound. They wrapped around his hand, overlapping and tight, and then crisscrossed as they stretched to multiple points behind him, disappearing into the trees. Some were thin like a strand of hair while others were were almost as wide as his pinky finger, and they were coated in blood that made them lump together and dribble thick red liquid into the dark soil. Flynn gasped in shock and used his free hand to grip them and pry them off, but the cords were too tough to snap and hurt his hand trying.

"What is this place? Yuri!" He could move with effort. He dragged his arm, bracing against the pain in his hand, pulling the threads longer and tighter. The bite on his palm, now a swollen red welt, throbbed with every beat of his racing heart. Beneath the net of threads and smears of blood, Flynn made out a web of black lines tracing around his hand, with the bite at the epicentre. As he watched, the black lines pushed closer to this wrist.

"I have to find Yuri," Flynn muttered to himself. He hat to focus on something. His deep breaths filled his lungs with cold, dead air and not a sound could be heard about the raging wind. Flynn fought against it, because it was blowing in the direction his threads led and Flynn didn't think he wanted to know what lay back there. Where was the cliff and the waterfall? He'd been standing front of a crevice only minutes ago, but now there was nothing by white sky, black ground, and trees so faded the brilliant autumn colours had turned the shade of dried blood. The light shining from his chest allowed him to see, but he couldn't figure out what was causing it. Surely if he was wearing a star around his neck, he'd feel some sort of presence. Instead, there was nothing but a steady warmth in his chest.

He staggered forward, fighting against the wind and the binds on his hand. His other hand was pale, the skin nearly as white as the sky. Curious about this, he paused briefly to hold up his hand, and with a stare he saw the outline of a tree through his hand. "I'm a ghost," he breathed.

Did this mean he was dead? His panic spiked as his head whipped around. The spider bite must have killed him and now his spirit was trapped here, wherever 'here' was. It didn't look anything like an afterlife described by the priest, but surely it was closer to hell than the alternative. Was this his punishment for his immoral thoughts about Yuri? It felt so wrong, so backward, that an emotion that could power him through all these obstacles in an effort to rescue someone could be sinful enough to condemn him to this place.

Yuri filled his mind and the warmth and light in his chest grew greater still. He realized what it must be, now: his heart, shining bright, and thumping with life. He was not dead, because a dead person wouldn't be so full of life and breath. He was just… not in his proper body at the moment. Could Yuri be in this place too? Flynn focused on Yuri, focused on his grinning face and his casual kindness, on how warm and strong his arms were when he wrapped them around Flynn's shoulders and threw back his head in a laugh. Thinking about Yuri made it easier to fight the pull on his hand and it even seemed to dull the wind's roar.

Then he felt the tug. So far the pressure on his hand had been a constant pull, but now it jerked him backward. Flynn stumbled to right himself and turned so his arm was stretched in front of him. The threads tugged again and Flynn was helpless to resist. Fighting back sent shocks of pain through his hand and radiating up his wrist, while also not doing a damn thing to keep himself from being dragged forward.

"Stop!" He didn't know who he was talking to, and he didn't think it would listen, but it felt like something to say at the time. His feet dragged through the black earth and blood ran in rivulets down his wrist. Tears filled his eyes, a combination of the pain and panic. The threads, which had previously been scattered, began to coalesce into a single point as they drew him onward. Flynn was pulled past gnarled trees and dying bushes, all shimmering with insubstantiality as the wind rushed at his back.

A root caught his foot and he fell to his knees. The threads didn't care and now he was being dragged, struggling to stand against as his knees ploughed the earth. All the red threads convened at a shining white light just ahead, but Flynn struggled to free his hand because he did not want to meet whatever was at the end of this path.

He couldn't stop it. Thirty seconds later, the threads finally slackened and he fell in a heap before the mass of white. Cracking his eyes against the brightness, Flynn looked up at a towering humanoid figure. Instantly he recognized the figure, for he'd seen it several times throughout the forest. Now it had been inverted, and what had previously been shrouded in darkness now gleamed with pure white. He couldn't tell if it was wearing a dress, or perhaps the drapes of snowy light hanging from its form were part of its body. It did have arms like a human, though they were much too long and thin as bone, with bulging joints at the elbows. One skeletal hand, its finger gnarled like twigs, wrapped around the now very short red threads that still kept Flynn's arm upraised. Last his eyes landed on its face, or at least where I face ought to be. It had a head, and a tangled mass behind it that moved like hair but reminded Flynn of bare treetops in winter. There was a mouth on its face, but above that was nothing but an expanse of white that hurt his eyes to gaze at for too long.

The first question Flynn managed to stammer out was, "W-what do you want from me?"

Instead of answering that question, it said, "You were not supposed to come here." Its voice hit a range precisely between masculine and feminine and though he saw its lips move (and the awful blackness that lacked any teeth behind them), the voice came from all around, thundering on the wind.

"Where is here?" Flynn tried to pull his arm back, but it was no use. His hand was only inches from the bony fist clutching the red threads.

"The spinners wanted you for their own," the ethereal voice said now. The hand not hold the threads moved and a finger, which ended on a sharp point like a snapped-off twig, pressed against the bite on Flynn's hand. Pain stabbed through him and he cried out as the black veins surged toward his wrist. "But no matter. You flesh can be consumed in time. This shall suffice for now."

If there had been any lingering hope that this was a benevolent being, that vanished now. "I don't think so." Flynn pushed against the ground and managed to get to his feet. He gave his arm a great yank and the being jerked forward. Before he could make another movement, its arm snapped up and wrenched Flynn of his feet. He cried out as the pain in his hand spiked. He dangled like a fish on a hook, his whole body weight fighting against the threads digging into his flesh.

"I cannot allow one such as you to leave." Its free hand reached for him. Flynn turned his head away, but the needle-like fingertips touched his cheek and sent chills through his body. "One filled with so much human emotions, locked away in its heart. Ever since I got a taste of you, I knew I must have you." The fingers gripped Flynn's chin, forcing him to stare into the blank face. "There is nothing so succulent as a heart bursting with love… it is irresistible."

The hand raked down his throat to his gleaming heart. Flynn kicked but hit nothing but air. He tried to grab the being's wrist with his free hand, but it was so cold he had to instantly let go. Needles pierced his chest and the palm engulfed his light. There was no blood as the fingers dug into him, but there was pain. Flynn screamed as the being sank its hand deep into his chest, reaching for the heart that was pounding a mile a minute.

I'm going to die here. It was going to eat his heart, and though he wasn't in the mortal realm right now, he had no doubt this would kill him. He was going to die and though he knew he should be spending his final moments praying and repenting all the sins he had not yet confessed, the only regret on his mind was that he'd only ever had one kiss with Yuri. He wanted to live - he wanted to see Yuri again! Damn the consequences; what was the point of life if you didn't live it? All his emotions and love were bottled up inside him, and because of his inaction, they were going to be taken by this being rather than given to Yuri. It wasn't fair and Flynn refused to die without trying every trick he could think of.

There was no way to overpower this being. Nothing that could reach inside him and clench its fist around his heart could be fought physically. But what had it said? He wasn't supposed to be here. It hadn't planned on meeting him in this realm. It must have been the spider's bite that knocked him out - right out of his corporeal body. The spider's venom had brought him here and the threads growing from the wound in his palm gave the being its grip on him. Everything that was keeping him trapped in this hell was centred in his hand, and Flynn didn't take time to think through what he was doing. All he could think was that he had to get back to Yuri and show him how much he loved him before it was all taken away.

He yanked his knife from his belt, closed his eyes, and sliced clean through his own wrist.


Flynn woke up screaming. There was agony in his wrist and he rolled onto his side, clutching the stump to try to stop the blood - only to realize there was no blood. Slowly, his screams faded into confused moans as his left hand clutched a very-much-whole wrist.

"Flynn!" Hands landed on his shoulder and Flynn twisted with a shout. Leaves crunched beneath him.

He was about to throw a punch when the person touching him came into focus and he gasped, "Yuri?" He continued clutching his wrist, certain he shouldn't be feeling it. In fact, he couldn't feel it. His left hand clutched flesh, but his right hand was numb like when he lost feeling in his foot from sitting on it for too long.

"It's me, Flynn." Yuri pinned him to the ground, keeping him from thrashing.

Flynn met Yuri's eyes and then turned his head to see where he was. He lay on a patch of grass next to a small fire. Trees towered over him, their colours dimmed by dusk rather than haze or grey. "I - Yuri, you're - what?" His chest heaved, which highlighted the dull ache over his heart. "Are you real?"

"Am I real? What kind of question is that? Of course I'm real."

He certainly felt real. His fingers pressed into Flynn's shoulders and the face hovering above him was etched with pure-Yuri concern. It was the same look Yuri gave an injured sheep, but Flynn wasn't too bothered by it being directed at him. The grass prickling his back, the cool breeze brushing his face, and the chirp of distant crickets all felt very real. It had worked. He was back. He squeezed his right hand, wishing the sensation would come back there as well.

"Don't feel bad," said a familiar feminine voice. "He almost attacked me when I was just trying to help, too." Judith was perched on a branch over Yuri's shoulder.

Yuri loosened his grip on Flynn and sat back with his hands on his knees. "Now, do you wanna tell me what the hell is going on? Are you hurt? Why were you screaming like that?"

"I… cut off my hand." Both Yuri and Judith turned their eyes to Flynn's hands, resting on his chest and both attached to his wrists.

Yuri put the back of his hand to Flynn's forehead. "Do you feel ok?"

"I'm fine." To prove this, he pushed off the ground to get upright. His head spun with dizziness and Yuri's arm wrapped around his back to hold him up. "I don't think I'm injured." Which was strange, because he remembered the sharp pain of a blade slicing into his wrist. He tried to wiggle his fingers to coax feeling back into it, but they refused to respond.

Yuri plucked a dead leaf from Flynn's hair. "Was it a nightmare you woke up from?"

"I'm… not sure." Flynn used his left hand to turn his right over and inspect his palm. The bandage around his hand had been taken off, and the cut on his palm had at long last scabbed over. There were no black lines radiating from the spider bit, which was just a swollen and painless lump on an otherwise lifeless piece of flesh. He was certain that what he'd seen had been more than just a dream. lay on a patch of grass next to a small fire. Trees towered over him, their colours dimmed by dusk rather than haze or grey. Flynn's left hand went to his chest, which dully ached. "What happened?" He asked, looking up. "Did you get out of the crevice by yourself? How's your leg?"

Yuri frowned. "What about my leg?"

"You were injured. You were in the cave."

Yuri's frown deepened and he looked over his shoulder at Judith. "Uh… no, I'm pretty sure I wasn't. Sit by the fire; looks like we both need to share some stories."

It probably wasn't necessary to sit so close together because the small fire provided more than enough heat. They did anyway. Yuri stretched his legs across the dirt while Flynn sat cross-legged with his hands folded in his lap, close enough that he could feel Yuri's heart radiating against his shoulder. Flynn was still a little shaken, so he made Yuri go first.

"Yesterday morning, someone opened the barn door and let a couple of the sheep loose. They chased them off, not just left them to wander. Whoever did it must have thought it was a clever prank to make me spend all the damn morning rounding them up. When I figure out who did it, you can bet they're gonna get a piece of my mind…. Anyway, I got back some time after lunch and your old man started shouting at me until I managed to explain what was up. After I explained, he asked if I'd seen you, since you'd promised to be back by midday. I hadn't of course, because I had been busy chasing sheep through the meadow all morning. I asked around and Karol said he saw you climbing the old wall early that morning on his way to the chicken coop. I went to check it out and, lo and behold, footprints leading into the forest. I gathered some supplies just in case and set off after you."

Flynn gaped at him. Yuri's story made no sense. Yuri hadn't been going after Flynn - Flynn had been going after Yuri. He'd seen Yuri yesterday morning climbing over the wall and disappearing into the trees. Except… had he? His stomach twisted. He'd seen something that certainly looked like Yuri…. Another image came to mind, this time of a day long ago: a ferret running into a rabbit's home, giving it a scare, and driving it out directly into a net. Flynn swallowed heavily. He'd walked right into a trap.

"This talking bird found me this afternoon. We chatted for a bit and she told me she'd met you earlier, and that she was supposed to be looking for me for you. I thought that was pretty odd, but she was nice enough to show me which way you went. We found you collapsed by a waterfall a few hours ago. Judith got the heebie-jeebies from the crevice you were in front of, and recommended we move away from it. So we're about half an hour's walk downhill from there. I didn't think we could make it out of the forest this evening, so I set up a small camp."

Flynn stared into the flickering flames. The puzzle was coming together now, and he didn't like the picture it was forming. "I see. So, I was a fool all along. I thought I was following you."

"Huh?" Yuri frowned at him. "How would that work?"

Flynn told his story carefully, not sparing Yuri any detail. Yuri listened attentively and held his tongue as Flynn spoke, even though he clearly wanted to comment on some of the more perilous situations Flynn had found himself in. As Flynn spoke, the orange tones of dusk gave way to deep blue and finally black with stars speckling the sky. When he got to the end, he turned his face away from the fire and met Yuri's eyes. "And what I realized then, as I thought I was about to die, was that the only thing I truly regretted in life was not allowing myself to love you."

Yuri's eyes widened and his lips parted in a soft, "Oh."

"So this is my decision now, Yuri. I know we can't publicly be together, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life pretending you don't mean the world to me. There will always be empty barns, over the walls, and secluded nights. We'll have to be discreet, but if it means being more than just a friend to you… I want to try it. What do you say?"

Yuri sat silently for several very long seconds. "There's nothing to say." Then he leaned in and kissed Flynn.

Flynn could feel his heart shining brighter than the sun, but at the same time, it was dimming. The love that had been wrapped up inside him was finally released into the world - into Yuri - and a weight he hadn't even realized he was carrying lessened its hold on him. It would be better if they could be open about their love, but as long as that could never happen, a secret bond shared between them would suffice.

"Ok, boys," Judith said. "That was very sweet."

Flynn pulled away quickly; he'd forgotten they had an audience. "Ahem. Yes. Right. Er - Yuri, do you have any food?"

Yuri snickered and then opened a bag. He'd obviously come more prepared than Flynn. He tossed a chunk of bread to Flynn, who instinctively raised his right hand to catch it. It bounced off his knuckled and fell to his lap. Flynn frowned and picked it up with his left.

Yuri watched this with concern. "What's wrong with your hand?"

Flynn looked down at the hand resting on his leg. "You know how I told you I caught off my hand to escape? I think that damaged it here, in the real world. It's like… I cut off my mind's connection to it, but not the actual flesh."

"That's… pretty weird."

They had their cloaks and the fire for warmth, and Yuri passed Flynn a flask filled from the stream. It was a meagre supper, but Flynn was starving so he couldn't complain.

"Are you sure this fire is safe?" Flynn asked Judith, who pecked at some nuts Yuri had given her. "It won't attract anything unpleasant?"

"You should be fine. Anything that finds light unpleasant will be frightened off by the smell of smoke. Now that you've dimmed that light in your chest, it's even better."

"That's good to know." Despite the fire and the cloak wrapped around himself, Flynn still felt five icy pinpricks on his skin. He'd checked while telling the story and seen no marks, but the feeling remained. "What I want to know is what was in the crevice if it wasn't Yuri? It certainly sounded like him."

"I'd say it was probably the same thing that you've been following this whole time. You'd just found its lair. The same thing that tried to eat your heart when you were gone from here, but in its physical form."

"So was that the beast?" Yuri asked, munching on some cheese. "A scary ghost thing that eats hearts?"

"I'm not sure," Flynn said slowly. "I was attacked by a huge furry monster… and I was nearly killed by a swarm of spiders. I don't think either of those things were related to the thing that I confronted. It seemed irritated with the spiders for getting involved, actually. It had wanted to meet me in the physical world." Not for the first time, Flynn wondered what would have happened if he'd decided not to risk lighting the lantern and walking into the cave. He shivered and decided he didn't want to know. "I don't think there is a singular beast. The whole forest is just…."

"Hungry," Judith supplied. "It's like I said. The forest hasn't eaten in a long time. What did you expect when you came in here waving around that shining heart of yours? Everything in the area wanted a piece of it."

"Heh. Wow, Flynn, I never knew you felt that strongly."

Flynn looked away and grumbled, "Shut up."

"Well, it's been fun," Judith said, "but I'm pretty sleepy. I'm not an owl, you know. You two should go to sleep, too."

"Wait, Judith," Flynn said. "If you wouldn't mind, you could stay here overnight and help us out of the forest tomorrow? I'm sure you can lead us on the most direct path."

"Ooh, now there's a clever idea. Sure, I can do that. Rest up then because I want to get moving at the break of dawn!"

Flynn and Yuri finished eating soon after. Flynn had been unconscious for much of the late afternoon, but it hadn't been restful so he was still exhausted. The two of them curled up together by the fire, sharing body heat.

"I'm glad you're safe," Yuri murmured in Flynn's ear.

"I'm sorry for starting this. If I hadn't fallen for the creature's trick…."

"Don't worry about it. I fell for it too, I think, because I have a pretty good idea of who let out the sheep."

"Yuri… what do you think I should do now that my hand is dead? It will be so difficult to do so many jobs around th cottage."

Yuri squeezed Flynn against his chest. "You should thank your lucky stars you have a hired farmhand to help you out. Don't worry, Flynn, you'll get by. The important thing is that you only lost your hand, not your heart."

"That's not exactly true." Flynn's eyes were closed now as sleep was coming on fast.

"Oh, yeah?"

"I did lost my heart, because I've given it to you."

Yuri kissed the back of his neck. "Then you can have mine, too."