For Love of Mister Cotton Tail: An Apocalyptic Fairytale (Single) (4 page)

“Everything’s changing.” Candy gestured to her front door. “I went out to get ice cream and
a cake to make myself feel better. Then I remembered halfway home what I was doing.” She rested her head on the window. “They are just souvenirs now.” She looked toward him. “Anyhow, you must be hungry.” She slid away from the window and moved back toward the bags. “I have to try this broccoli stew. The other guy, Cotton, he got it for me. At least he’s halfway nice.” She sighed. “Probably not a good thing though. The last thing I need is to get to know some sweet guy and then have to marry Darren. It’s just twisting the knife, you know?” She shook her head. “I don’t even know his last name yet.”

“I know, Candy.” There was only one real choice. “After a good night’s sleep, you’ll know what to do.” Ever since Cotton met her, he knew how she felt about never having control of her life. Well, it was time to let her be in control. She would know the truth
, and make her own decision. All they had was a name in the prophecy, but that was going to have to be enough because he had to try.

One more night as her big, fluffy Big Bunny. When she came back over, finally eating the broccoli stew, he nudged against her. Putting down her spoon, she scratched his ears.

One more night.

* * *

Candy wiped down the counters, watchi
ng the door. She stayed on the veggie side today, wondering when Cotton would come in already. She heard the front door open, but didn’t see anyone. She figured it was a patron of Sweet Meats that quickly realized they were on the wrong side. Hardly anyone wanted to eat on the veggie side.

Then, she felt a familiar furry feeling
beside her leg. Looking down she saw Big Bunny. “Big Bunny?” How in the world did he get there? “You silly boy, what are you doing all the way out here?” He must have followed her to work. Maybe he had caught a ride in her purse? Well, either way, it was too dangerous for her rabbit to be out at Sweet Meats. When she went down to pick him up though, something happened.

* * *

Big Bunny quickly hopped away with her disoriented and falling asleep.
He needed to keep her asleep. Seeing him in his human form would complicate things and he didn’t want her to see him change into Cotton. Still, he felt bad about how he had to accomplish his goal and soothed her while she slept. “Its okay, Candy. I would never hurt you.” He patted her left ear softly, they were now as large as his own rabbit form’s had been. He quickly headed out the front door and placed her in his truck.

Shutting the door, he quickly took off. He had already used his magic to make sure she didn’t wake up. What he said was more f
or his benefit considering she’d never hear it. “I know that wasn’t what you were expecting. Telling you what I have to isn’t going to be easy.”

Candy lied
unconscious in her own dreamland. Her fur was a soft white with streaks of blonde, and she had the cutest cotton tail he’d ever seen. Her ears flopped over like his, the tell-tell trait of a cottontail and lop eared rabbit.

Cotton kept his eyes on the road though. “Most
times I can change forms, but that day you saved me, it was one of them that I couldn’t. I had spent too much of my power. I know I should have left afterwards, but you were kind to me. I did make a good pet too, didn’t I? I did share that I could talk, it wasn’t completely dishonest, was it?” He stopped though when he saw it had started to snow. Weather used to be more predictable. Those days though, snow even happened in the dead of spring. It made things worse on his family.

Today
the snow was really getting out of control. He could already see it piling up on the sides. It would be cold where they were going. He headed out of town up into Bunny Hills. He drove to the top before opening the door. He changed back into his original appearance as a rabbit and took the sleeping spell off of Candy.

Candy backed up even fu
rther, tumbling down below the front seat under the dashboard.

“Candy.” Candy tried to hop back up on the front seat, but she only managed to hop a little on her back paws. Cotton jumped down to her and gestured toward the opened door.
“Don’t run away, this is temporary. When it’s finished, you’ll still have a big choice up in the air.” Cotton jumped down first. He knew the car was a little high but Candy would need to jump at some point. It’s what rabbits did. “Come on, Candy.”

Candy made a small squeak and jumped down. “You
drove a car, Big Bunny?”

“Yes.” He hopped away slightly, trying to get her to follow. “I have to warn you, my family and our business is
unique. Come on.”

Candy didn’t budge though. “My Big Bunny?
Drove a truck?”

Cotton hopped over to her. “I’m more than a bunny. I know everything about you.”

“That’s because I shared everything with my bunny.” She tried to move back, but hopping backward wasn’t easy. “You said you talked, but you never said that you could drive too. How did you drive?”

“Candy, I’ll explain later.” Candy was still far from cheerful, but Cotton couldn’t stay out there that
long. It was freezing. “Come on. It’s high time I show you my home.”

* * *

Her Big Bunny. Her talking Big Bunny had turned her into a bunny rabbit. It was strange enough dealing with her sweet big guy when she knew he could talk and communicate with her. But this?

Okay. She had to k
eep her head on her shoulders, follow Big Bunny, and get through this. She hopped over to a hole along with him. A deep, dark hole. He hopped in like it was nothing.

Yeah, no, sure.
Who didn’t live in a hole in the ground? Okay, she wouldn’t whine. She hopped in slowly, hoping nothing came out to try and bite her. They traveled down into the hole farther until she saw light at the end of the tunnel.

When she came out, she was stunned. It was a room full of rabbits working on a conveyor belt. Out popped radishes, celery, carrots, and veggies of every kind.

“This way.” Big Bunny poked at her butt with his nose. She looked back at him unkindly. He may be used to that, but no one poked her butt like that. “Come on, don’t be timid.”

“I’m not.”

Big Bunny just hopped past her. “This way, Candy. I will take you somewhere more comfortable.”

* * *

“This way.” Big Bunny led her straight through some large pathways. “This is home so far. It’s warmer down here, but there’s not much sun. You can go to the surface, but the special amenities you are used to aren’t here.”

Yes, including bathrooms or being human. She figured that out
quickly. Candy scratched her head. “It’s different.”
Real
different. “Okay, you live down a rabbit’s hole and conduct some sort of veggie business?”

“Sort of.”

“Candy!”

Candy heard her name and watched a woman hop over to her. “Candy of legend!”

Candy of legend? Candy looked over at Big Bunny. “What does she mean?”

“Oh, it is an old saying. Our purpose here is unclear,” Big Bunny said. “
A sweet person named Candy is supposed to help us find our purpose again to save everything.”

“Is that why you stayed and kidnapped me?”

“Kidnap is such a strong term,” Big Bunny said scratching his neck.

“Yes.”

“Mom,” Big Bunny said to the woman.

“Not complete though,” his mother added. Her foreign accent and incorrect grammar
was heavy, but Candy couldn’t place it. “Found Candy in accident. Once we put names together, we figured out.”

Unbelievable. Not only was Candy stuck in the hardest month of her life, she was
expected to save some other business.

“It is another option,” Big Bunny reminded her. “Instead of Sweet Meats, you could do something else with your life.”

There was nothing else beside Sweet Meats. She would help her Big Bunny with whatever his business was, but after this, he would be on his own.

She was a pro at business, had several sessions with the best there had been, and had top notch teachers hand-picked for her.

She would save Big Bunny. Herself though? It would be a fifty fifty chance.

Still, it was better than having to release him out in the wild again.

* * *

Of course, she realized that Big Bunny’s situation was
extremely
different as he opened the door to the next room.

Chicks. Hens. Ducks. A
ll of them about the size of her. All around them were eggs. Several hundreds of thousands of eggs. They were normal sized eggs, but there was such a massive amount of them. “What’s with all the eggs?”

“When a
hen likes a rooster . . .” Big Bunny waved a hand through the air.

“Okay, but why so many eggs?”

“My kind does not like eggs.”

“Vegan? I thought unfertilized eggs were okay.”

Big Bunny chuckled. “Candy, if you have not guessed yet, we are vegan, but we aren’t really Vegan. We are not from your world.” He gestured to her. “But, you are connected to us. The regular people with no power were born in this dimension. What you call Sweet, Vegan and Spice users were not meant to be here. Your great ancestors are our great ancestors, and you simply mixed.”

“You mean, magic users were not originally from here?” Candy asked. “Then what was I?”

Big Bunny gestured to the chicks coming over to cuddle. “The saying ‘as sweet as a baby chick,’ is half right. You’d be a hen. Maybe a duck.”

“Vegans are rabbits,” his mother added, “and Spices are-”

“Wolves.” Big Bunny growled. “I hate Spice.”

“No son, love all.”

“Sure, it’s why my great grandparents had rescued the pure Spice over?”

“They not risk their life, be civil.”

Hen. Candy would be a hen. “I would be a hen?”

“Like human is all so important?” A hen nearby her squawked.

“Be nice,” Big Bunny said to the hen. “Candy is what your great descendants will be like.”

The hen didn’t say anything else.

Neither did Candy.

* * *

“We don’t know what world we came from originally. Other worlds gave my ancestor’s names,” Big Bunny began. “The most familiar was Easter Bunny.”

“Easter Bunny?”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter what he was called though, my ancestors all did their part. We hand out baskets to good children. We travel from dimension to dimension, doing this simple deed.” He looked back toward her. “It worked fine here when we came, at first, but then things got rocky. Our special baskets became ho-hum gifts people called fruit baskets. It doesn’t matter what kind of magic we have paired with it.”

“Husband gone, six years,” his mother said, trying to communicate to Candy again. “World cruel. No hire without certify.”

“Oh, I know that firsthand.” Candy nodded, understanding enough of her broken language.

“We mostly live on veggies, so it wasn’t that hard to adapt,” Big Bunny said, “but life could be so much better if we had our
purpose back.”

A fruit basket. They were known for a fruit basket. Candy rubbed her head, wondering how a fruit basket could ever
seem magical. “How was it magical?”

“
Well, we have powers to distribute easily.” He waved his hand and blue sparkles came from it. “Children would wake up and see a special basket just for them.”

“This was your business? Nonprofit, or was there some profit? How do you fund it?”

“With our bare hands. With our bare magic.”

“Okay, then obvious question.” Candy threw her hands up in the air. “Why?”

“Well . . .” He Paused. “Candy, our kind, we have been moved around several different dimensions. Our original world held many more like us. This world is not our first try.”

“For what?”

“Magic. Do you not get it?” Big Bunny asked.  “The
mystery
of magic makes the dimensions tick. Every time more magic is lost, more must be made up for it. It was my ancient great grandfather that chose special baskets for good children. Because children? They believe in the impossible.”

“So you have been to
multiple dimensions?”

“Yes, to try and save them.”

“Magic and faith stop apocalypse,” his mother added as glittery waves of magic sprang from her hands in the form of a rainbow. “We try.”

“So magic bunnies want me to save their business, that is nonprofit, to save my dimension from an apocalypse?” Candy really tried not to laugh. “Big Bunny, have you seen any signs at all that the end is coming? Fire? Brimstone?”

“We pick a special time to distribute baskets because it is the last time to become affected.” He sighed. “Have you noticed snow outside? It’s Spring.”