Part Three · The count: 14 set out
Thistle’s bedtime legend told of a white chalk hill whose tunnels glow green, where clover grows all winter and no rabbit ever has to run.
Briar Hill is real.
At the door
The entrance to Briar Hill was wide enough for four rabbits abreast.
At home, the way in had taken one rabbit at a time.
It said: we are not afraid of what enters.
“General Thorn has been expecting you.”
For new arrivals
One thump, felt in every chamber at once, marks each change.
The tunnel opens into a cathedral of worked chalk. The moss gives a soft, even light with no shadows in it, and the residents move through it in patterns, making way for one another without looking up.
Orientation for new arrivals
One of the three is assigned at the door.
Assignments are final.
“…structure is what separates survival from endurance. Here, you will not merely survive. You will live.”
Mid-morning
At mid-morning, pairs are escorted up to graze on the crown of the hill. A line of scent posts marks how far a rabbit may go.
“The perimeter is for everyone’s safety, Fern.”
Nettle is put to work copying Briar Hill’s official maps, line for line: tunnel widths, chambers, exits.
From the centre: the main chamber, the feeding halls, the quarters and the maintenance tunnels.
He was not permitted to survey new sections.
He copied.
Where the passages stop
Some passages simply stop, at a wall.
Press and hold, or hold Space or Enter.
You feel vibration. Air moving. Something on the other side.
“Where do the rabbits go who want to leave?”
In the jade light
The largest rabbit Fern has ever seen: dark fur streaked grey at the muzzle, a scar across his left eye. He is vast, and courteous, and he already knows more about you than he should.
“The spaces between you are shaped like the rabbits who should be there.”
“You are free. I don’t keep prisoners, Fern.”
Is a safe place a home if you cannot leave it?
In a corridor junction, a kit who has never been above ground asks Fern what it is like outside. Then:
“What’s a meadow?”
Help Fern answer. Each thing you choose opens part of the chamber onto the meadow.
“A meadow is a field of grass and flowers,” Fern said. “It goes on and on, and the sun shines on it, and the wind blows through it, and sometimes a butterfly lands on your nose.”
“I’d like to see that,” the kit said.
The rest of Briar Hill is in the book.