Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
And now’s as good a time as any to get up. I pull the cat out of my lap and hand it to him. “Dakota sleep Rabbit now.”
He says nothing. I go inside the store, shutting the door quietly behind me and then putting my hand on the wall. In the darkness, I feel my way along to Rabbit’s “room.” Her candle is out, and I nearly trip over a stack of books. I catch myself before I fall over, but not before I cuss at it (and at myself for wandering in the dark).
“Mom?” she whispers.
“It’s me. Go back to sleep.”
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“I’m not.” I sit down against the wall, my back to it, and feel around for the bag I placed here earlier. My crossbow is nearby and I set it down next to my legs. “I’m going to play guard. You sleep, though.”
“You don’t need to guard. We have Murr. He’ll keep us safe.”
I’m sure she’s right, but my instincts tell me to be on alert anyhow. Just in case we’ve let a threat in glasses and a frizzy blonde wig into our territory. “It’s fine, honey. Go to sleep, okay? I’m not tired anyhow.”
She yawns in the darkness. “You sure? I can share my blankets. Kermit’s under them but I can make him move.”
I wince. “He’s under the blankets? He might have fleas, Rabbit.”
“He doesn’t. None of them do. I think it’s Murr’s smell. It scares the fleas away. None of them scratch, haven’t you noticed?” There’s a happy note in her sleepy voice. “I love the cats, Mom. Just as much as Murr does.”
“I know, sweetie.” Her happiness makes me ache.
She pauses, and then whispers, “I think I want to stay here. Forever.”
CHAPTER 28
DAKOTA
I freeze at her earnest words. Rabbit wants to stay. Rabbit has never told me before that she wanted to stay anywhere. She knows as much as I do that a permanent location usually isn’t in the cards. “You want to stay because of the cats?”
“Not just the cats.” I hear her shifting under the blankets, and a soft meow floats up. She chuckles, and I can hear the joy in her voice. “Sorry, I woke Kermit up. I think we should stay because Murr needs us. He needs a family. I think Aggie and Dottie need a family too, but at least they have each other. Murr doesn’t have anyone to talk to but us. We can all stay here and make our own little fort, you know? Someplace safe for all of us to be together and look after one another.”
She really is the best kid. “Let me think on it, Rabbit. I like being here too, but we don’t know Dottie and Aggie very well. Murr, either.”
“Murr is Murr,” Rabbit says, as if that answers everything. “What’s there to know? He’s a good guy and he’s lonely. And he likes you. He watches you all the time.”
He does?
Before I can ask about that, she continues. “And the ladies remind me of my grandma. Well, not Aggie. My grandma wouldn’t have said half of what she does. But Dottie reminds me of Gran. I haven’t seen her since…well, Before.”
I reach out for her hand in the darkness, wanting to comfort her. All I find is a foot under the blankets, but I give it a squeeze anyhow. Back when I first found Rabbit, she was a kid with a pink rabbit backpack and a lost expression on her face. She was completely alone, save for the curling, much-abused nametag sticker on her chest that said, “HELLO MY NAME IS EVERLEIGH.”
That sticker told me that she was loved, as had the backpack full of toys and children’s books. That someone had been looking out for her when she appeared. And because I was alone, too, I went up to her and offered my hand. I called her Rabbit, because her shirt and backpack both had cute pink bunnies on them, and she seemed as small and sweet and helpless as a rabbit.
We’ve been together ever since, about eight years.
It makes sense that my sweet daughter wants to take care of others. That she wants them to have people to count on. “Let me think about it, honey.”
“Of course, Mom. Love you.”
Somewhere under the blankets, Kermit lets out a muffled meow, as if agreeing.
I smile into the dark and fall silent. Rabbit goes to sleep and all is quiet. I can’t sleep, of course. I’m too aware of the strangers sleeping under our roof, and how we don’t know that much about them. Aggie and Dottie could be friends, but they might also be looking out for themselves. I wouldn’t blame them if they were, but I have to think of Rabbit first. The hours creep by in the darkness, but I’m not tired. My brain won’t calm down. Half of it is trying to replay Dottie and Aggie’s conversations, the looks they shared with each other, the dribbles of information about the bike-stealing bully they’d hired to transport them.