Chapter Thirteen
Hyacinth
“And this is our room!” Hyacinth told the bunny as she stepped into her bedroom.
A few hours ago, Austin rushed the rabbit back down into the lab and Hyacinth stayed on his hip every second.
Sebastian inspected the rabbit’s mouth, having to scruff the tiny thing and hold it upside down to properly see.
Then he made a few things in a mortar and pestle.
Just to cover all our bases. Once the little thing coughed up a clump of fur, bones, and something vaguely flesh like, their newest house animal was deemed ‘right as rain’.
While she didn’t know how rain could be right, she didn’t question the doctor.
Especially when the bundle of inky fur settled into her arms like he always belonged there.
“I’ll have Kevin bring up some hay and pellets for him. Why don’t you two get comfy?” Austin spoke from the door. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement but if she was being honest, she was mostly concerned with showing her bunny everything in the room.
She started with the boudoir that Agatha filled with clothes. Then to the bathroom where Melody showed Hyacinth how to wash her hair. Finally stopping at the bed. She crawled up into it, letting her bundle explore. Her back to the headboard, she hugged the werewolf-pelt teddy bear to her chest.
It’s starting to lose its smell. She frowned, looking down at the stuffed animal pressed to her chest. It’s starting to lose his smell.
Hyacinth pouted to herself only till she realized, something did smell like Austin.
Her. She smelt like him. It brought a smile to her lips as she brought her forearm up to her nose.
The metallic scent of a storm that had just passed, fresh dew, and tilled earth, how it washed over her and made her stomach twist up again in happy little knots.
When she sniffed her teddy bear, it was faint, but still there.
“He smells good,” Hyacinth confessed to her sniffling bunny as he came bounding up to her.
She leaned over, extending her arm to the wiggly nose.
“Doesn’t he? I don’t know why, but he makes me feel comfortable.
And I like talking to him. He said we’re friends.
I’ve never had friends before. I was just made the other day, you know. Do you have any friends?”
She inspected her bunny that continued to sniff up her arm, like he was tracking a scent.
It tickled, a sensation that elicited a giggle from her.
My elbowpits are always sensitive… Hyacinth froze, staring across the bed.
That wasn’t me, it couldn’t be, I wouldn’t know that.
Her spine ached at the curve of it as she leaned further over her lap.
The inky fluff continued to wiggle his nose down her arm as she searched her mind for the source. Who are you?
Her gaze traveled to the left, toward the far wall next to the boudoir, where the full-length mirror sat.
It faced her bed and she saw herself on the bed, bunny and teddy bear and a stranger.
A woman lingered on the other side of the bed, all in red.
Long auburn hair, dripping in front of her face to cover everything but the glowing purple eyes.
All Hyacinth could focus on were her eyes.
She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink.
Eyes screaming in pain, dry and itchy, she wanted to tear away.
But the woman in the mirror crept closer to the bed.
To the point she felt the other side of the bed give under the weight of another person.
Hyacinth’s body shivered. Fingers cold, stomach tied in knots, her tongue turned to a sink stopper in the back of her throat.
Long fingers with even longer nails arched over her and she felt little puffs of frozen air against her neck.
There was a flash of teeth, but it wasn’t the woman in the mirror. It was her rabbit.
“OW!” She yelped, jerking out of her trance.
Immediately, glancing to her right and finding the bedroom empty.
No woman in red dripping all over the bed.
Just an empty space and cold air. When she glanced back, her hero was staring at her arm where a tiny bruise was already forming on her glassy skin.
He thumped his back feet against the duvet.
“Did you see her?” Hyacinth whispered to the bunny like he would answer her. Honestly, who knows anymore. But the rabbit stayed silent, thumping the duvet again. “Well, thank you, regardless.”
She pulled her arm back, rubbing over where the teeth indented her skin.
I felt that bite too. Hyacinth furrowed her brows.
There were a few things she’d learned, one being that other than her scars, physical pain didn’t work on her.
Not efficiently. It was muffled like a scream against the pillow.
When she glanced down to her pouting, thumping bunny, she studied him with interest. He was round, soft, and fluffy.
Nothing out of the ordinary, not that she would know, but even Austin thought he was an extremely average rabbit.
The bedroom door opened and her time for self-reflection and inquiry fell away as Austin stepped in. “Alright, I’ve got hay, a bowl for water, pellet, and some fresh veg for the little guy.”
Hyacinth grinned, scurrying off the bed.
He set some of it down by the door, but she helped him spread the hay in the large wooden crate.
It said ‘eggs’ on the side and was clearly used for holding a massive amount of farm fresh chicken presents.
However, he’d popped out some of the slits so the hay could be tugged out by a little rabbit.
“He bit me,” she confessed, showing the bruise.
“He bit you!” Austin whirled around without seeing it.
“I think I had one of those bad dreams,” she grimaced as she offered up her arm to Austin again.
That time he inspected the wound slowly, brushing his thumb over the bite mark.
The words didn’t stop, they just tumbled one right after the other.
“I was sat there, thinking how my teddy bear doesn’t smell like you anymore and I saw her in the mirror.
She crept closer and I couldn’t scream or move or do anything. Then he bit me and I woke up.”
Austin’s gaze roamed her face for a long moment before he offered the bunny a small smile. “Thank you, my good sir, for the rescue.”
“You did say the best way to get rid of a bad dream is to wake up.” Hyacinth shrugged.
Austin nodded solemnly, letting go of her arm.
But not before his fingers brushed all the way down her forearm.
There was a moment where those fingertips brushed that all those moths returned to eating her insides and creating a windstorm in her chest.
“You said it doesn’t smell like me?” Austin smiled at her, rounding the end of the bed. He gave the bunny a small boop between the ears before he grabbed the teddy bear. Austin tucked the fluffy creation into the front of his shirt before putting his arms out to the side. “Ta-da.”
Hyacinth sputtered, stumbling to the end of the bed as little, nervous giggles bubbled up through her. “You don’t mind?”
“Mind? It’s your nose; I think I smell pretty good right now. Bathed just this morning!” He grinned, jabbing a thumb at his chest.
Hyacinth hid her giddy grin, scooping up the bunny to give her hands something to do other than helplessly flap at her sides. She pet the fluffy hostage as gently as she could, given the circumstance. “I like your scent a lot.”
“Well, you can sniff me anytime.” Austin sat down on the side of the bed.
“Anytime?” She challenged, raising a brow.
“Anytime,” he chuckled and tapped his chest for good measure.
Hyacinth brought her inky hostage with her as she crept closer to the undead man in her room.
With each step, something woke up in her body.
Something that definitely wasn’t there before, but something that fit.
It made her lungs tighten and she’d nearly chewed a hole in her bottom lip.
But the perk of being undead is if I break my lip or ruin my lungs, they can give me new ones.
Hyacinth stood in front of him, staring directly into his red eyes instead of up into them.
They were the same height when he sat down.
Hyacinth leaned forward, bent at the hips at such a ridiculous pose, she actually felt silly.
The first time since she awoke that she felt heat brush across her face and throat and thought to herself, I’m being ridiculous.
But then she put her nose against the soft cotton fabric covering his massive shoulders and inhaled deep.
Smells just like him. Smells perfect. Smells right.
Hyacinth pulled back, hugging the rabbit to her chest like he might fight off the angry fluttering in her chest with his wiggling whiskers.
“Still like it?” Austin whispered. Hyacinth nodded vigorously, not trusting her tongue in her mouth to work for even a moment.
Austin put his hands out and for no reason other than instinct, she deposited the bunny in them.
He held their shared woodland creature aloft.
“We really ought to name you. Hyacinth, you’re good at naming stuff. What do you think?”
“I am?” She snorted. “I’ve named one thing. Me.”
“And it fits. You’re as beautiful as a bundle of hyacinths. What about this little guy, huh?”
Blink, blink. Hyacinth searched the room for inspiration. Only, her gaze kept returning to him and the sniffing creature hoisted over his head. Hyacinth stared deep into the bunny’s eyes and knew deep in her being what his name was.
“Snuffles.”