When all is said and done, going home is the last thing I want to do. I don't want to go into town just to linger around the gardens and take up my basket and watering can once more. Those are the only real options. 

I move my hair back to where it should be in a desperate effort to conceal the things I am ashamed of (the hair on my arms, the scratches from the bramble on my hands, the bumps of the antlers). I am a monster and I just want to retreat into the woods. I just want the solace of the trees, the feeling of cold water on my toes, and the infinite blue-ocean sky ringed with tidal wave mountains above me. 

I think I just want to be alone. 

It's easy to lose track of time while I'm out there, among the trees and rocks, sitting by the desert-like plants and scrub and skunk cabbage. I spend a lot of time at the shore of the one creek in the area, until the sun is high in the sky and I have lost track of who and what I am. I roll up the hem of my pants, take off my shoes, and put my feet in the water. The cold water adapts to me by rushing over my skin like I don't exist at all. I turn my face up to the sun and let it warm my skin. 

I put my shoes back on and turn my eyes toward the mountain. I want to climb it. I want to look down at the city from such great heights.

I'm not supposed to go up there. The mountain is sacred. To soil it with my unpurified feet would be an act of blasphemy. Going up the mountain is reserved for those who bring back the spring or who, like the prophets of old, went up to have a conversation with God. I am doing neither of those things.

Still, I climb. 

I don't go as far as the summit. Something keeps me from going that far. I can't quite say what. I sop about halfway, until the woods look foreign and I feel even more unholy.

From up here, the world looks so different. If I were to go higher, I'm sure I could see more of the world, like places beyond the city. I'm not that high, though, and I can see my beloved hometown just fine without the interference of the city beyond it. I can see the houses, in more uniform rows close to the church, more spread out and oddly-lined-up on odd, winding roads once you reach the outskirts. 

It never really struck me how White and uniform this town is. I've thought about it before, even when Matt or Maryanne didn't explicitly point it out to me, but it's definitely hitting me harder now. 

It's different, looking own on it from so high up. There are only two families of Black people in this town: the Morgans and the Rows. There are a few Hawaiian and Samoan families that came here way later than the original settlers, but the fact of the matter remains that most of the people here look like me. 

To an extent, we're all the same. We blend in. We all wear the same pale colors. I don't think it's intentional, that we all have the same khakis and floral dresses cut in identically-unflattering ways. Does it matter if it's unintentional, though? Does the intent matter more than the result? 

I never noticed it before. I can't keep myself from frowning. 

Is this it? Is this all that there is to the little world I live in? The boundaries of this town, the road out to the city? The gardens? The bishop's extensive backyard? The imposing figure of my family's unused silo, off in the distance? This is all I have ever known.

There's a whole world out there that I have never met. I have missed every opportunity that young people have outside of this place. I don't even know what most of them are but I am aching for a life outside of all of this.  

But I can turn that into hope. I'll get out of here someday. I'll be free of the things that have held me in this place for so long. 

The thought of it makes me want to cry. If I do end up leaving this church and this town, what will that mean for the people I leave behind? How would the loss of her older sister make Mary feel? How would it impact the rest of my siblings? Father would be angry; Mother would remove my picture from the wall. They would either shun me or try to bring me back. I'm not sure which is worse.

The thought of the repercussions of leaving makes me irreconcilably upset. I have to turn away from what caused it. In this case, it's the view of the town and the mountain itself. Arms wrapped around my body, I begin my descent on the steep, loose dirt.

The sun starts setting; the cold touches my bones. I untie my sweater from around my waist and pull it down over my head. It's warm, but it doesn't stop the chill that goes down my back.

I'm morose at first, but concentrating on staying upright on the descent quickly knocks that out of me. The lack of emotion, though, makes way for other things I don't want to feel or notice. 

The back of my neck prickles. I know why: I'm being watched. I look over my shoulder at the trees behind me. Are those hibernating branches and verdant pine needles, or are they the fingers of something worse lurking in the darkness where the moon can't see? I don't know what's going on back there or what's watching me-- just that it is. 

The feeling doesn't leave me as I keep walking. It follows me down the whole mountain, into the woods I know well. At this point, I'm convinced that there really is something that is following me. Branches crunch when I'm not even walking. 

I am not safe here. This is not a place of honor.

I don't run. I walk with my fists shoved into my pockets. I don't want it to know that I know it's there.

When I look over my shoulder, there is nothing. There's just darkness and trees. There is just the thin, near-new moon over the mountains.  

I keep walking, then pause and look again. There's nothing but darkness. Step after step, I keep walking. 

A few minutes later, I do the same thing. That's when I see it.

It's large. Gangly. Slouching. With a body textured with fur, fuzz, and mange, it shuffles forward. Branches break under its bare feet. I can't tell what it is at first. 

A cloud over the dying moon shifts and I catch a glimpse of this thing in all its disgusting glory.

There is no other way to put it. This is a giant anthropomorphic jackrabbit. 

Or, rather, a jackalope. Antlers protrude out of its head. I think of my own, still stuck under the skin. I do not want to think of my own.  tto 

This is him. This is the man who has been watching me for months. I know it as soon as I see him in the thin beam of light through the pine needles. 

I would be freaked out enough if it were just an anthropomorphic rabbit standing at full height, but the sight is made worse by the fact that it seems to be dead. Parts of it rot and sag, heavy with exposed muscle and bone. Gangrene turns its skin and maggots writhe under matted fur and torn ligaments.

I turn around like I did before, trying to make it seem as though I didn't see it. I may be great at pretending, but I'm better at running from what ails me. The latter instinct breaks out of the former and leaves my attempt at staying under the radar completely bunk. It was pointless.

As I dart through the trees and tripping over small bits of underbrush, it gives chase. I can hear it behind me, when I check over my shoulder. It's all on all fours, racing after me, near-human mouth frozen in a slobbering rictus grin. I know I should scream. That's what a normal person would do. The scream dies in my chest, though, and I keep running.

I don't know what this thing is, but there's no way in hell that I'm going home with it following me. The problem is that I don't know where to go. There is nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.

So I keep running.

And I don't stop. 

I turn in the woods until I don't know where I am and I don't know where the path between my house and the church is. I am totally lost. 

And that's when I see it.

It's a lake just out of the edge of the trees. There is a small dock and cottage with a cobblestone path; it has a single shattered window. There is another cabin across the water, with its lights on and smoke piping from the chimney. 

This monster can not go to that second place. I won't let it.

The abandoned cottage seems like my best bet, despite the broken parts of it. I swing myself inside and slam the door behind me. I know I only have seconds to find somewhere to hide and some way to defend myself.

At first, I don't see anything. I know I'm running out of time. Breathless and two seconds of disintegrating into a puddle of panic, I run to the back of the house, as far away from the front door as possible. There is only one window in the back room. It still has glass in it, though it is cracked beginning from a golfball-sized hole. I can't get through there and I know it. I need to find a place to hide. A closet, a trap door-- anything will do.

I get into the closet. It's the only place that will work, and it's a horrible idea. Still, I shut the door behind me and try to make myself as small as possible. There are a few old moth-eaten clothes and broken pieces of wood in here.

Maybe I can blend in.

No, that's stupid.

Footsteps approach on the creaking floor; animal paws and bones scrape against stone and tile. I can't tell if my hiding is successful or not because I am not outside of my body. I am sitting there, eyes blinking silently, holding my breath.

It doesn't leave, though. It stays where it is. Its feet face away from me under the door.

I wait. I stew in the agony of fear and anticipation.

Is this what I am becoming? I was afraid that that I was becoming something terrible and monstrous, with all the hair and the antler bumps. Is this what it is? Why didn't anyone warn me? Why wasn't this in the information packet? And when will the rot set in?

The sound of another creak in the floor snaps me back to the scene. My breath catches in my throat.

Who was I kidding? There was no way that I was going to be able to stay hidden. I'm just sitting on the ground.

The door opens.

The jackalope man looms over me, ears and nose twitching. Its eyes reflect nothing. They are surprisingly human and bloodshot, and there is no light behind them.

Slowly, it lowers itself down to meet me. It squats like an adult trying to comfort a child.

Lip quivering, I shrink further back into the corner. It does not help. The rabbit reaches out its large, furry hand; though I try to angle my head away from it, it still reaches out to push back my hair. It cocks its head to the side as it takes in what I have tried so desperately to hide. It lingers there for a second, and I'm on the verge of hysterical tears.

It backs away without harming me and shambles out of the room. I can hear it leave the cottage.

I stay there for a moment with my arms wrapped around my knees, trying desperately not to break out into unbridled hyperventilating. Through it all, only one thought repeats in my mind.

What was the point of that?