The Bunny in the Fox's Palm novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Orchard

I walked down the alley with Rue's note in my fist and stopped in front of him.

Soren was drenched to the skin.

A rabbit boy had left a bruise on his shin, and he hadn't so much as limped.

"You stayed," I said.

"You hadn't come out."

I held up the scrap of brown paper.

He read it in the rain, and his face went through several colors.

"The old orchard is the oldest part of our land," he said slowly. "My uncle has kept it for himself since I was a boy. No one hunts there. No one is allowed."

"Tonight," I said.

"I have to sit at the Council dinner until midnight or he'll smell it on me."

"Then I'll go without you."

"Hazel."

"My sister wrote 'he keeps us there.' Do you want me to wait for you to finish your soup?"

He shut his eyes.

"Take Fenella," he said. "I'll come the second I can get free. If you find anything, do not touch it."

I took Fenella.

We went out through the scullery at eleven, in dark coats, with a lantern we didn't light.

The old orchard sat at the very bottom of the MacMahon woods, in a hollow ringed with stone.

Twisted apple trees stood in rows, bare as bones against the moon.

It smelled of cold earth and old fruit and something else.

I knew it in my bones.

"I've never been past the wall," Fenella whispered. "Four years in the house. He told us it was where the dogs were kept."

"There are no dogs."

"No."

We walked between the trees.

Our breath smoked.

At the far end of the orchard, under the last tree, the grass had been cut in a neat square.

Three stones sat in a row there, each as tall as my knee.

They were fieldstones, piled and mossy.

Fenella stopped breathing.

I stepped up to the first.

A leather collar hung from a nail pounded into the top stone, cracked with age.

Its brass tag was stamped with a letter and a year, eleven years gone.

The second collar was newer, with a tag marked eight years back.

I walked to the third stone with my legs gone to water.

This collar was red, and soft, and had a tiny silver buckle.

I had bought it myself at the Hollow market, with a month of bread money, and I had put it in Rue's hand the day she left.

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