The Constant Rabbit

The windscreen had vanished, the car’s bonnet had been folded up almost to the scuttle by the action of a large tree that had fared better than us in the altercation, and a wisp of smoke was rising from under the bonnet. I looked out of my window and could see that the car was resting in a cow pasture; three Friesian heifers stared at us with a look of extreme indifference while solemnly chewing the cud. Harvey was conscious and having trouble opening the car door, so he lay on his back on the front seat and gave the door an almighty kick with his powerful hind legs. The door was wrenched off its hinges and landed two dozen yards away.

‘What happened?’ I said, but Harvey just glanced at me and walked around to open the boot of the car.

‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘it’s time.’

He wasn’t speaking to me. He was speaking to another rabbit, who climbed out of the boot. He was identically dressed and, like Harvey, earless. But unlike Harvey, whose ears had recently been cropped – I could now see the stitches, which were of string – these were long-healed. It was Lugless.

‘Change of plan?’ said Lugless in a surprisingly meek tone. ‘That was never eight hours.’

‘There was an unforeseen hiccup,’ said Harvey, ‘but a deal’s a deal.’

Small tongues of flame were now visibly curling around the crumpled bonnet, but I think I was too confused by the turn of events to assess the sort of danger I was in. As I watched from the back seat, Lugless climbed into the car and placed himself behind the wheel.

‘You have them?’ he asked.

‘Here,’ said Harvey, and handed him what looked like two short and very withered scrolls tied up with red ribbon. Lugless took them with the greatest of reverence and held them tight to his body.

‘By the power vested in me by the Venerable Bunty,’ said Harvey, ‘and in deference to the indulgence bestowed upon you, I declare upon the name and spirit of Lago, the Grand Matriarch, that your mortal sins are expunged. You go to your maker as pure, and complete, as the circle of trust that binds us all, which took our saviour, and the unbreakable bond that joins all rabbits.⁵⁴’

I saw Lugless take a deep breath, and bow his head, and Harvey made the sign of the circle on his forehead. The flames were quite high now, and Harvey bowed again, took a step back, coughed and looked at me.

‘Are you staying in there or what?’

I rapidly came to my senses and clambered out of the car, relieved to find I had no broken bones – just a twisted knee.

‘Is he staying in there?’ I asked.

‘He’s at peace,’ said Harvey, ‘and whole. I have to leave now, but you and I will meet again, at the place and time the Venerable Bunty completes the circle.’

‘How do you know I’ll be there?’ I asked.

‘Because Bunty has foreseen it. She foresees everything. When you feel the time is right, tell Pippa that what happened between us was real, and she knows where to find me if she can love a half-rabbit.’

And he then made the circle of trust on my forehead, smiled and vanished off across the fields in a series of rapid bounces, each covering a good twenty yards. I meant to ask him what the two dried scrolls were that he’d handed to Lugless, but I think it was fairly obvious. They were Lugless’s ears.

I turned back to the Eldorado, which was now well alight. Molten plastic dripped from the engine bay as little smoking raindrops of fire, and the heat was blistering the paint on the bonnet.

‘I always knew I’d eventually find a rabbit I couldn’t turn,’ Lugless said, staring straight ahead, ‘and there would always be one who would eventually turn me. But everything comes to an end.’

I put up one arm to shield the heat from my face and stepped forward, stretching out my other hand for him to take.

‘Join me out here,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to do this.’

He smiled as the flames started to lick around him, the smell of singed fur now in the air. Douglas AY-002 turned to me and gave a wry smile.

‘Humans,’ he said, ‘so little time – so much to know.’

He turned back towards the steering wheel and held his newly returned ears closer to him as the flames consumed him.

He didn’t make a single sound. Not a squeak not a whimper – nothing.

Help was not long in arriving owing to the telltale pall of black smoke and the gap in the fencing. I was still trembling when the ambulance took me to Hereford General, accompanied by a Taskforce officer whom I didn’t recognise. They kept me in overnight for observation given the clout on my head, but aside from a few cuts and bruises and the twisted knee, I was unhurt. I was supervised throughout, even my phone call to Pippa, who expressed concern and offered to come and visit, but I told her she shouldn’t.

No one had noticed that Harvey had been a Miffy, except me. As far as anyone was concerned, the earless rabbit who visited MegaWarren was the same one who had died transporting a compromised Taskforce employee back to base.