Alan was seven years old when his younger sister read a book that explained that fish could breathe under water with their gills, and decided that since he swam like a fish in the nearby river, he must have gills, and should be called that. Alan doesn't understand five year old logic, but the name made little Alice smile, so he put up with it.
When he is nine he sees a blond, a few years older than him in the woods near their house. The boy says his name is Oz, and Alan introduces himself, and then added "but everyone calls me Gill."
"Gill, hunh?" Oz smiles, looking like he's remembering something. "I think it suits you."
The two become friends, and Gill, as he has begun to think of himself, wonders why that smile makes him feel happy and sad at the same time.
It's winter and the snow is deep and he worries about Oz, who seems to sleep in the forest, but his father refuses to let him out of the house, saying that it's his job to take care of Alice, since his parents have better things to do than coddle a sickly girl. The one night he does escape he doesn't see Oz, but gets lost in the forest (so different in the snowy moonlight than the green-gold paradise he knows like the back of his hand). He falls asleep, even though he knows he shouldn't, and after dreams of something large and warm and furry at his side, he wakes covered in a warm blanket.
A black rabbit leads him home.
When spring comes Alice has recovered, and Oz is waiting. Gill tells him about his adventure in winter, and Oz smiles, and warns him to not do that again. "After all, the forest guardian can't always keep you safe."
"Forest guardian?"
"Yes," Oz looks sad for a moment, then continues "It's a giant rabbit, black as night, wearing red coat dyed in the blood of its enemies, eyes of fire, and carrying a crimson scythe when it appears in anger or defense of this wood, or the people in the village it protects. It's said to have two other shapes, one a normal rabbit, and another unknown, but anyone who's seen those is long dead."
"Do you think the rabbit that led me home was the guardian?" Gill asks, because Oz seems, to his nine year old perception, to know everything.
Oz gets that look on his face and answers "I'm sure it was, Gill."
The story of the guardian remains in the back of his mind for months.
Gill is eleven when Oz declares that he isn't spelling his name right, and says he ought to spell it with one L instead of two. Oz then begins to tell him a story about a boy with that name and another one named Oz, and a friendship that stretched beyond time. He returns to Oz's clearing every day to hear more of it.
Gil is twelve when he begins to wonder why Oz won't come to the house, and why they always meet in that clearing, but puts it out of his mind when Oz tugs at his hand and drags him off to show him one of his places in the woods. (He can never find them unless Oz is there, even when he has the way Oz takes them memorized.)
Gil is thirteen when he becomes an older brother twice over. The new baby has one red eye and one gold, and their mother's blond hair, like their sister (so unlike Gil's messy black, or Oz's gold), and no one can think of a name that fits. Vincent something deep within him whispers, and he suggests that name.
They name the baby Vincent.
Gil is fourteen and beginning to wonder why Oz hasn't changed since the day he first met him, but somehow it feels so right that Oz would look like that, that he doesn't ask, and just enjoys the time in their clearing. But he begins to wonder, what is Oz? The other boy is so ephemeral and bright and pure that he seems too perfect to be human. Plus, he doesn't seem to have a house. Gil's asked around, but nobody else has ever seen him. And he doesn't age. He briefly wonders if Oz might be the guardian, then dismisses the thought. Oz said, and tales agreed, that the guardian was a rabbit. Oh well, Oz is Oz, whatever he is, and Gil is glad to know him.
Gil is fifteen when the nightmares come. Oz is in them and that is the one bright spot, and he thinks they are dreams of the story Oz told him when he was eleven. There is a loud girl named Alice in them as well, and he wonders why his sister now makes him sad. Vincent is in the dreams, older and damaged. Gil swears he won't let anything happen to his little brother, and tells no one about the dreams, save Oz.
When the nightmares end Oz lay dying, at Gil's hand, at the command of a sad boy. He thought this isn't the story after all; the Oz in the story didn't die.
Gil is sixteen when his father (a distant, cold man,) is murdered. His mother forbids him from going into the woods. Gil goes anyway, as dusk falls, and tells Oz about it. Oz's face hardens in a way he's never seen before (yes he has), but it's achingly familiar somehow. He tells Oz that his mother has forbidden him the woods. Oz smiles sadly, and tells him, "I'll wait until you can come again." Then he points at the ground and firmly exclaims, "Make sure you do come again!"
He finds himself relying unthinkingly "Yes, master Oz!" Oz looks heartrendingly sad.
Gil is sixteen when a group of toughs come to the village, demanding food and fire and his brother's death. They make camp in his clearing, and say that they will come for Vincent in the morning. When after the second day they haven't come, someone dares the forest, and returns with the news that they are all dead.
'Twere the guardian that got them, the people mutter, and cast uneasy looks at the woods. Gil remembers sun, and Oz speaking the story, and snow and a blanket and a rabbit. His mother redoubles her ban on entering the woods. Gil ignores it, worried for Oz.
Gil returns to the forest, and is greeted by Oz's relieved smile. Oz says he didn't know anything, and Gil is too relieved that Oz is all right to wonder why Oz had that sad look on his face again.
His mother hits him when he returns. She beats him when he comes back (notHome,neverHome) from the forest (HomewasOzOzOz). She blames all their troubles on Vincent, saying that everything had been perfect until he was born with that cursed eye. Gil rarely dares the forest after he came back to find her beating Vince. While the younger boy had recovered, it was close.
It's all happening again, whispers something inside him. And Oz comes nearer the village than he ever had and tells Gil not to come to their forest if the joy of coming would be followed by grief for Vincent.
Gil is seventeen, and his mother is dead. Alice is away visiting their uncle, so she is safe from the murderers, a pack of men their father had been friends with, but they want little Vincent, and a treasure they think father had. While they bash in cupboards in search of the treasure, and scour the house for Vincent, uttering hoarse words of death, and misfortune, Gil takes Vince in his arms, hushes him, and slips out the window, making for the forest.
He hasn't taken this road in a year and the moonlight makes everything strange but he knows the forest path by heart. Left at the gnarled tree, right at the polished rock, straight past the hollow tree, along the stream to the large pointed rock, and then follow the point to the clearing.
The stream's gurgles sounds like laughter at the hopelessness of this, and he remembers the last time he came to the forest at night. It isn't winter, but this has the same feeling as that long-ago night. He hopes the forest guardian will protect them, and if it doesn't then he would rather die near Oz. Perhaps his friend (seemingly omniscient when it comes to Gil in the woods,) will show him a place to hide. And if he doesn't come than Gil hopes his last sight could be Oz's face. Again, whispers that deep knowledge.
The men follow and Gil realizes that this isn't enough, as a blade is raised over him, then there comes a flash of steel, and with a hiss and rattle the man who had been standing over him is pinned to a tree by a bladed chain. A shadowed figure stands in the clearing ahead their clearing, Oz's clearing and as chains strike two more of the mob and hover in defense behind him, Gil stumbles on into the clearing. Was this the guardian of the forest? Or could it be—
But the guardian's hair is silver in the moonlight, not gold, and as the mob of men gather their courage and rush forward, a scythe appears in the figure's hands.
At the sight of the scythe Gil remembers at last.
Surrounded by blood and death, holding a crimson scythe the guardian, (B-Rabbit, Oz, master, sun, light of the world, friend) smiles at him, even as he cuts down the leader of the mob, and a bladed chain impales the last man standing.
"Oz?" he croaks, still in shock over the influx of memories and the happening of the night.
"It's all right Gil." The scythe vanishes, as do the chains. Cold comfort, given that he had seen them called so easily, and he would be wary, except this was Oz, and even if he hadn't remembered anything, he knew he would have trusted him anyway, because this was Oz. "You're safe."
No, Gil's Alice is not that Alice.