For Love of Mister Cotton Tail: An Apocalyptic Fairytale (Single) (9 page)

“Leave.”

“You have to be with
him
!” Her mother whispered sharply in her ear. It was loud enough though that Cotton heard it. Candy didn’t care. “Candy!”

“The apocalypse is not about me and Cotton doing it, it was about helping bunnies save the world by entertaining children!” Candy yelled at the both of them. Candy looked toward Cotton
, and then back at her family. “It’s because of you two that I can’t be where I really
want
to be.” Candy left out the door. There was nothing more Cotton could say.

* * *

Cotton strolled over to Momma and Poured Sweet with
purpose. “What prophecy? What have you been doing?”

“Everyone knows it. You should know it too
, it’s just that no one knew who it would be for. Or, exactly what it means sometimes.” Momma Sweet sighed. “It’s been around since civilization began.”

“Every prophecy isn’t how it sounds,” Cotton argued. “Tell me it. Pretend I’m an idiot.”

“I think Candy is the idiot,” Poured interrupted. “Even she knows it. There’s nothing about bunnies or anything. Nothing except the name. How did she come up with helping bunnies?”

“Prophecy,
now
.” Cotton didn’t have time to waste.

“Sweet Candy, Candy Sweet. Delicious power with Vegan treat.”

Candy’s name was in it, but Cotton didn’t hear anything else in it.

“That’s just part one
of the currently accepted translation. Its rhyming in parts, mostly its just mish mashed words. It’s complicated, and the translations are what most people go by in the back. Whoever came up with it was mad.” Poured moved over towards the counter and brought a large book over to Cotton. “Here you go.”

“This whole book?”

“Yep.”

That wasn’t a prophecy
, it was a book. It was decorated with a religious flair and inscriptions on the sides. He opened it and flipped through the middle.

“Candy coated chocolate bunnies. Egg. Ending. Hole. Bunny Hill. Queen. Not mad. Mirror. Fall. All fall. Fire. Winter. Egg. Chocolate. Candy.
Wonder. Rabbit. Hatter. Red. Hearts.” Cotton handed the book back. “Who wrote it?”

“No one knows. It’s the oldest piece of literature we have.” Poured placed it back behind the counter.
“It’s like that through most of the book, but there are some sections that make sense.”

“
There is a part of the book that predicts that a woman named Candy Sweet must be with a man named Cotton Tail,” Momma Sweet answered. “It could have been anyone, but at five years old my little girl had a vivid dream no child ever should. She had never even known about the book of prophecy at that age.”

“Spring is Winter, Winter is Spring. Time was getting closer,” Poured said softly. “It’s all over if she marries the wolf.”

Cotton shook his head and headed out the door. The book was definitely by someone who had written their own prophecies, but they were focusing on different sections. Whether it was Candy’s world’s prophecy, or the bunny’s prophecy didn’t matter. He just knew he couldn’t lose Candy.

* * *

Even though it was cold outside, children were hanging by windows and by their doors, showing off their baskets.

“This is crazy,” she heard one mother note. “It’s a candy filled basket. All the kids have them.” Candy noticed
the mother glance at her. “How?”

“It’s all over the TV,” another one commented “Worldwide. Baskets filled with candy and eggs hiding around the house.”

Candy couldn’t help a small smirk. Egg hiding, how ridiculous, but everyone followed Cotton’s mother. Eh, might as well call him by his real name. When her family said they were going by prophecy, she knew it was Cotton Tail. Odd name, unless you were a rabbit. She never saw him transform, but there were bigger areas in Bunny Hill that they could pass through. Something humans could move through. The fact that Big Bunny never came out when Cotton came around. A part of her, maybe an inkling, always had suspicions, but when her family revealed they did it for the prophecy, that was it.

Cotton Tail was Big Bunny. He tried so hard to save her from the wolf, but that rabbit didn’t understand. She watched another kid come running out of the house, miraculously not falling on the ice.

The concept had been brilliant. People still didn’t know who sent it, but everyone did comment on the large chocolate bunnies. It might take some time for the branding to seep through, but people would soon associate those Easter Bunny baskets to Easter Bunnies. All those magical rabbits. For a short time, she even got to be one.

She dismissed the
thought though and watched as Darren came toward her. Momma and Poured Sweet were wrong, the rabbits had the real prophecy. Candy’s world had never made sense, just loose translations. The rabbits though, they had more concrete pieces. Maybe the whole thing used to be one long ago when everyone had been the same? She didn’t know, nor did she care. Candy stopped as Darren came up to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Darren.”

“I was on my way over.” He rubbed his hands together while his breath hung in the air. “You got the fifty
fifty contract? Because Posh was willing sixy forty. You are beautiful, but I’ve got to make sure. My family begins cutting me off next year.”

“
Suing for currency rights may have been a bit showy I suppose?” He didn’t answer back. “Fifty fifty,” Candy agreed. “Walk with me, it’s only a few more blocks.”

“Are you sure you don’t want an extravagant ceremony?” Darren asked.

“No need to, that’s just wasting money.” Candy shrugged. They both walked side by side. The snow was coming down harder, but it made no difference to her. Her mind was set.

She put the ball
in Cotton’s court, whether he knew it or not.

* * *

Cotton moved as fast as he could heading down the blocks to the court. If Candy was going to marry Darren she wouldn’t bother having a big ceremony. Signed papers, that was all it took. The weather didn’t make it any easier. The snow had become a blizzard again and the sidewalks were getting buried. He kept his eyes open though, knowing she would head to the closest place.

Candy’s family made her mad, and when they did that, she tended to beco
me reckless and not think things through. Seeing how having a successful magic basket day didn’t do a thing for the weather, Candy’s recklessness may result in the ending. It wouldn’t be the first ending Cotton had seen, but he’d never lost anything precious in them. Not since he was young and went on his first dimension skip.

Holes. Holes in the ground
, spread out all around found the dimension holes faster. If the weather didn’t fix itself, his kind would be heading out again. Candy would be left behind. “Candy!”

There
in the distance hiding by a building with Darren was Candy. Cotton hurried even faster, knowing the weather would prevent her from doing anything else. “Candy, I said we need to talk and I meant it!” Cotton raced with everything he had. In this form, he couldn’t run half as fast, but he had to make it to her. “Candy.” Now bent over, catching his breath and staring at her feet, he was nearly at the finish line. “I’m sorry about what happened. We can give it another chance.”

He looked up toward her, but she didn’t have love shining back in her eyes.

“You need to stop this. You made your choice,” Candy answered. “I made my choice. There is no going back.”

“There is always time to go back.”

“Not now.”

“Nothing can make me believe that.”

“I’ve already been caught by the wolf.”

That phrase made him stop. Was he too late, did they make it to the courts? “Did you get married?”

“I got caught. I got caught a long, long time ago.” Candy shook her head. “You only assumed you were saving me if I waited five days from having Darren in control.”

Cotton felt his mouth go dry. “The wolf had you.”

“Yes, silly rabbit.”

He looked back at her again. She knew. Somehow, she had put it together. “I’m sorry for lying. I jus
t
―
”

“
―
it doesn’t matter. At least you know the truth. At least I know the truth.” Candy looked away. “Why my heart was so confused between two people that weren’t even people.”

“When?”

“When I found out about what Momma and Poured were up to. I had some funky suspicions but nothing I would let myself believe. Oh, but Cotton Tail, dead giveaway.” Candy placed her hand over Darren’s mouth as he complained senselessly about wanting to know what was going on. “Funny thing is, if you just would have told me, we could have saved so much time.” Her eyes met his confidently. “I already knew you couldn’t stand wolves as a bunny, but as Cotton, you couldn’t even accept a glass of water that he touched.”

He should go crawl back to his hole. Darren had already won.

“Just tell me,” Candy said. “Did you believe the same things? Was the goal just to get me to trust in you, to let you save me from the big, bad wolf so the world would be saved?”

“No.” Cotton walked up closer to her. “No. My family didn’t even plan on
me getting caught in a cage. When it happened, we just went with it. I swear. It wasn’t until after we met that I figured out your role, but just as the one to help save the business. I never even looked at the book of your world.”

“Yeah, well.” Candy shrugged. “What can you do? I hope your business is successful now because we’ve crossed that threshold where I have to say goodbye to you. Our relationship can never be the same before. Big Bunny.”

“I know.” Cotton didn’t even know how to react. Darren held out his hand toward him in a friendly shake but he batted it away and glared at him. He’d never shake hands with a . . .

with a wolf? “Did it matter? That I was half and half, Candy?” He needed to know as he reached his hand out, grasping her arm gently.

She took his hand off of her arm. “Love is strange.” That was the only thing she said before she turned away from the building, grabbing Darren’s arm again. The snow was getting lighter again, enough to escape. Cotton stood there several seconds, thinking what she said through. She rejected being a rabbit. She rejected Cotton. All because the wolf already had her. He remembered the water incident clearly. It was in his nature to hate wolves, but experience just deepened it.

Candy didn’t reject him
, she knew that he would reject her.

The only thing that had kept
them apart was him. His lies and his blindness. He looked at his feet, wondering how people could ever see them as lucky. Not that they were rabbit feet right now, but he was one in the same. So was Candy. He liked her as a human or as a rabbit. She took care of him. She saved his life. She even tried to save his family’s business, whether she understood the true impact of it or not.

Darren may have had her once, but he wouldn’t let him win again. “Candy!” He rushed up toward her again. “I don’t care!”

Candy turned around. “What?”

“Darren Manner.
” Cotton watched Posh come straight for Darren. She was waving a contract. “Seventy thirty!” Behind Posh was Momma and Poured Sweet. They snitched. Not because they cared, but because they were trying to prevent the end too.

“
Seventy thirty?” Darren asked as he went toward Posh. “Who gets the seventy?”

“You, you dweeb.” Posh grabbed him and kissed him on the lips. “Knock it off, let’s go. I’m tired of this. You won
, you get your seventy. Happy?”

“
Eighty twenty,” Candy came back on her offer.

“No.” Cotton pulled himself to the front of her. “You don’t need him. You don’t need Sweet Meats. I don’t care. I mean
, I do, but . . .I care too much for you to let you go.” He touched her cheek. “I have been a jerk not telling you everything. You haven’t done anything wrong. If I found a carcass left behind that a wolf devoured, I would still have the decency to bury it.” Was that the right way to put it? “I mean. I told you to stay before I knew you had been with Darren. I still say, stay.”

“As a rabbit.”

“Whatever you want. We can work from your apartment. Rabbit, human, I don’t care.” He preferred his rabbit form over his human, but for her, he’d change that.

“Would I have to stop eating meat?”

“Rabbit senses would say yes, but if you don’t want to become one, that’s fine. Keep the Vegan power, dump the vegan taste.” It was still so risky. That look in her eyes. All the times he had lied to her, they were coming back into them. His past actions were being judged for and against him in her decision.

“Do you really think you deserve that? After all of the lying?”
Candy looked over toward Darren and Posh. Neither of them understood a thing. She drew her attention back to Cotton. “Do you have the power to forget?”

“No.” Cotton didn’t know what she’d want with that power.

“Does your friend, Matt?”