Red Rabbit

by Alex Grecian

And so, with my inheritance in my purse and my uncle’s parting words in my heart, I set out to hunt these fearsome creatures that walk the Earth as if they were men. The witch, the ghoul, the invisible devil. I knew not where my journey would take me, but I knew I must find their dwelling places and cast them out or else I would die in the effort. —Ubel H. H. F. Crane, The Call of the Nightfall King (1861)

She’s got a little piece of herself in everything around here. Little hooks in me, in you, in the land.

Ned Hemingway leaned in close to the tree where a crude straw doll was fastened to the trunk at eye level. A tenpenny nail had been driven through the middle of the doll’s chest. Ned stepped back and tapped the head of the nail. “Moses, you reckon that’s where a witch’s heart is?” Moses shrugged. “Never met a witch.”

“I’m sorry,” the farmer’s wife said. “We’ll pray for you.” “Please,” Sadie said. “There’s no need for that.”

“Well, there’s the law and then there’s justice. They ain’t always the same thing.”

“Superstitious poppycock. Be afraid of real things, Mr Duncan. Real things can kill you.

His hatred of witches impressed Duff tremendously.

I thought the needs of the living must come before the needs of the dead.

“I wished I knew for sure if I was going crazy,” he said. “That might be a comfort.”

It pleased her to think the enormous ash would outlive everyone in the nearby town.

You hope to find something in the midst of all this nothingness, and that’s where I thrive, Mr Cassidy. I live in the hope.”

“But that wasn’t magic,” Rabbit said. “That was the wind.” “What do you think magic is?”