Chapter 6: The Stuffed Rabbit Left Facing the Cellar Door
The kitchen adjoined the marble hallway through a wide opening, and the cold light above the counters made everything look harder than it was. Lily lay on a folded cloth near the edge of the kitchen table, one hand resting against her chest. Her breathing had steadied after the inhaler, but it still came unevenly, catching at the end of each breath. Leo stood beside her, close enough to reach her without crossing the room. He watched the rise and fall of her small body with the same fixed attention he had given the cellar lock.
The pink inhaler case remained in my left hand. I kept my thumb pressed against its smooth lid, checking its presence without looking down. My cheek had begun to throb where it was split, and the torn edge of my uniform dragged against my knee whenever I moved. None of that mattered while Lily's breathing could change again.
The stuffed rabbit was not on the cloth beside her.
I found it near the threshold between the kitchen and hallway, lying on its side with one long ear bent underneath its head. Its pale fabric had picked up gray dust along the belly. The rabbit faced the open cellar door across the marble floor. Beyond it, the darkness of the stairwell held the flickering bulbs and the cold stone steps where Lily had been curled around it.
I crouched and lifted the rabbit by its middle. One of its stitched paws hung loose, brushing the floor. I remembered seeing it against Lily's chest when the light first reached her. She had held it even while she could not answer us, her fingers closed into the worn fabric as if letting go required more strength than she had. Now it had been left behind somewhere along the route from the cellar.
I carried it back to her.
Lily's eyes opened before I reached the table. They did not focus on me at first. They moved past my shoulder toward the hallway, then fixed on the rabbit in my hands. Her breathing quickened in three shallow pulls. I stopped beside her and lowered it within reach.
Her fingers closed around one of its ears. The grip was weak, but immediate. She drew the rabbit against her ribs and turned her face into its flattened head. The next breath came more evenly. Then another. Her eyelids fell, though the muscles around them stayed tight.
Leo saw the change. His gaze moved from Lily to the rabbit and then across the room toward the open cellar. He did not step away from her. He did not look for an explanation in the hallway or at the lock. His hand remained on the table near Lily's shoulder, open and still, while I tucked the rabbit beneath her arm so it could not slide away.
A tremor passed through her. She pulled the rabbit closer and twisted toward the soundless direction of the cellar. The open door stood beyond the kitchen, its iron edge catching the light. I could see the first steps descending, then the lower darkness where the flickering bulbs had failed to reach. The distance between the rabbit's place on the floor and Lily's place at the table was short, but it gave me a sequence I could not dismiss.
She had not simply been found with the rabbit. Somehow, it had been left along the path.
I looked back toward the cellar entrance. The deadbolt hung open. The door had been forced wide enough to keep anyone from being shut in again, yet the space around it remained untouched. No one had moved the dust on the threshold except us. The rabbit's gray-streaked belly suggested contact with the floor, but not how it had traveled there, or why Lily had released it.
Leo followed my attention. His face tightened, though his focus returned to Lily before it could become anything else. He adjusted the cloth beneath her shoulder and checked the space beside her hand. When the rabbit began to slip, he caught it and placed it back against her chest.
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For several minutes Lily stayed calmer. Then her fingers loosened, and her eyes opened again toward the open cellar. I reached for the inhaler case before she could struggle, keeping it beside me on the table. The rabbit remained in her grasp, its face turned outward now, toward the hallway and the iron door beyond.
I watched that direction with her. The door was still open, the lock still unanswered. The rabbit had marked one part of what happened below. The rest waited in the cellar.
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