Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Flopsy had arranged to meet her team in the tea house's backroom before Tuesday's write-in, but she had planned to be there before them in order to collect her thoughts.

Unfortunately, Earry was waiting for her, and she stilled her ears to keep her wariness from showing. She had already had to put far more trust in the big-eared rabbit than she should have, but she'd had no choice. The elder archetypes had insisted that Earry and only Earry be the one to report back for her team – which made perfect sense because they would want his reports on her.

If she were perfectly honest, half her desire to be here early was to reassure herself that she had'nt made a mistake by trusting him that way.

Still, it might protect the boys. While Harey and Hopert had been present for her initial comments, they had no opportunity to tattle on her until the mission was over – not that they would – but perhaps could use that as a defense, at least, and avoid blame. And she knew they had had much the same thoughts as those she had voiced. She had decided baring herself that way would make it less likely for Earry to turn them in if he overheard something potentially treasonous. Which he would have, since she had heard them, and he seemed to hear what she did and more.

Flopsy shook herself physically and quickly scratched at her right ear with a hind leg in an attempt to regain her composure and give her a moment's extra time to gather her scattered thoughts.

“Sorry, Earry,” she said. “I'm gathering my own brain carrots. Hi. Are you here early to talk about something specific?”

“I am indeed,” Earry said with a respectful half-crouch. “I know you trust your team, but I have news you should hear with Harey and Hopert – not because they aren't trustworthy, but because they talk too much.”

Flopsy's nose twitched at the irony of the spy sent to overhear treasonous remarks expressing concern that his charges might say too much, but she managed to keep her ears still – only for them to twitch inadvertently with amusement as she saw Earry's own ears move in amusement at the situation.

“Alright Earry,” Flopsy sighed. “What's going on?”

“I went to report to the elder archetypes last night, as usual, but instead of heading straight back ou here, I stopped in to visit a friend of mine. From her, I picked up a message from Bun-Bun – we can talk about that when Harey and Hopert arrive – but she was also able to tell me that not only have we not had a surge in plotlet kits, but we haven't had any.” Earry met Flopsy's eyes squarely and her heart sank. She had hoped it hadn't come to this. “Not a single plotlet kit has become a plot bunny since the start of this mission. Not a single one, Flopsy.”

“Well.” Flopsy let her ears flop in a rare display of dejection and vulnerability. With this news, Earry had earned that much honesty from her – unless, of course, the whole thing was a trap. In which case, appearing unhappy about it was possibly her only hope for survival – and a very slim hope, at that.

Flopsy stared into space. This meant she had been right. The elder archetypes were up to something, and whatever it was, there was no way it was good for the plot bunnies.

“Flopsy,” Earry interrupted her reverie, with another half-crouch. “There's another thing.” He hesitated. “You exposed yourself by telling me your fears; I owe you something in return.”

“No -” Flopsy began, but stopped. If she was to trust him, a sign from him would help. She gave him a half-crouch in return, and settled down on all fours to listen.

“You might have figured it out if you had had more opportunities to interact with the greys,” he said finally. “But you didn't have those opportunities. So you don't know any more than any other regular plot bunny does... but if you are going to do anything with the information I just gave you about the plotlet kits, you need to know this: the greys are not the same greys as they have always been. They live a long time, and most have lived longer than the rest of us, but one died, last year, with all those who ran out of brain carrots after that National Novel Writing Month, because he blamed the greys for allowing so many of us to die over it.

“But the greys favour continuity and didn't want the rest of the plot bunnies to know, so they named a new member to their ranks. It is his plan which we are following now, and it is he who will benefit the most if it succeeds, for he will have cemented his leadership of the elder archetypes.”

Earry paused and looked at Flopsy, and she wondered what he was thinking. This was huge – critically huge – and it shook the foundations of what she had thought Bunniption Base meant. And it did impact on the information he had already given her, and it fit perfectly with the point at which she had begun to feel uneasy about the plot bunny leadership.

But from the way he was eyeing her, there was obviously more.

“The new leader is a vampire,” Earry said, flatly.

“A what?”

“A vampire. He sucks the lifeforce, the energy, from things,” Earry explained. “The elder greys chose him, I believe, because of his work on stories with grand defensive strategies, but they don't know how much he changed from his work on what the humans call video games. And perhaps some of them would have developed his narrative rather than warping it, but instead it developed something that we didn't have in plot bunnies before: vampirism.

“He's also the only of the elder archetypes who didn't allow the narrative power of Bunniption Base to change his appearance completely. They're supposed to be identical, indefinable except as a member of the group. But he isn't. He uses the power to hide who he is, but it's still there underneath. And who he is is a vampire.”

“A vampire...” Flopsy said thoughtfully. “And we're feeding it. Of course that's where the power is going. It's sucking the life force out of its own entire species, the people that it, as an elder archetype, is supposed to protect!”

“Yes, but,” Earry twitched his ears wryly. “He's a new elder archetype, and because of the way he joined the greys, he was never a part of the ceremony that we tell of the greys pledging to protect their people. He has no oath to us to betray.”

“But what do we do to stop a vampire?” Flopsy asked.

“I -”

They both looked up as Harey and Hopert bounded through the walls, Harey doing a somersault across the table to stop in front of Flopsy.

“Hey Flops,” he said, with a flamboyant full-crouch, indicating rather more rambunctiousness than respect. “You're looking mighty serious! And when I was having such a good day, too!”

“Hey Hare, Hop,” Flopsy greeted the boys. “What's got you so happy?”

“You mean you haven't noticed?” Hopert asked incredulously. “It's working!”

“What's working?” Flopsy asked.

“The mission, Flopsy!” Harey told her. “They're dropping like flies!”

“Oh, that,” Flopsy said, pulling herself together. Time to think about vampires later. “Yes, they did seem quite disorganised in the places I visited today.”

“Disorganised? Hah, falling to pieces is more like it,” Hopert chimed in. “I think nearly half the novelists I'd seen at events stayed home instead!”

“That's actually the other point I wanted to address, Flopsy,” Earry said with what suddenly seemed like a very formal tone, although Flopsy suspected it was the same as he had used all along, with the exception of the few minutes before the boys showed up. “As I said, I picked up a message from Bun-Bun last night, and he seemed positively gleeful about what he had managed to pull off with Chris Baty's message. He figured we would see its effects by today at the latest, and I have to say that seems to bear up under what I saw today as well – although I don't think as many as half have dropped so far.”

“Good...” Flopsy said, and glanced at Earry. She wondered if he would recognise her main reason for being happy about the news: succeeding at this part of the mission meant less power would be flooding into the vampire who was now leeching that creative energy from her own world. “Right. Hopefully that continues; I don't see any reason to change our strategy now. But tonight is a different garden of foxes, and we need to get things straightened out before the local bunnies and the novelists arrive.

“There were three key targets last week. I'm told that two of them are writing murder mysteries; boys, that means you are up. I don't want any funny business. They can keep writing for all I care. Those are the two that relate to Alfalfa somehow, and I want them kept happy – at the end, we will split up and follow them wherever they go in hopes that they lead us to him. Hopert, you've always been good with younger writers. You're on the younger of them. Earry, you go with him at the end. Harey will take the older, and I'll go with him. Clear?”

“Yes Flops,” “Aye Flopsy,” “Yes Flopsy,” the three answered.

“Good,” she said. “The third is the one who has written about a plot bunny army. You all know how serious that is.”

Harey and Hopert nodded, but Earry suddenly cocked his head to one side. “Ah, Flopsy,” he said.

“Yes?”

“The elder archetype we were talking about earlier,” he paused until she nodded. “He wasn't worried about the plot bunny army being written.”

“He wasn't?” she said with considerable shock. She was surprised she could still manage such credulity, after this evening's revelations...

“No.”

“Well.” she said. “Any thoughts on what that means?”

“Not yet,” he responded.

“Who, exactly?” Harey broke in, looking back and forth between Earry and Flopsy, who were still staring at each other.

“Let me think about it, Harey. We'll meet again tomorrow – after we know about Alfalfa, or what more we can find out from the novelists tonight – and I'll tell you boys everything. Deal?” Flopsy said, in tones that meant that it had better be a deal, and since the write-in was supposed to start any minute, that made sense. Harey nodded.

“Even though he doesn't think it's a big deal, we still do,” Flopsy said decisively. “Christie tells me that the novelist's narrative is about a youngster's quest, and that fits with my narrative well enough, so I'm in charge with him. Earry, you keep an eye on the others at the write-in, and on the other bunnies – I told Christie to have a couple of hers go and make the rounds, so we shouldn't be too crowded in here, but I want you to stay sharp.

“Harey and Hopert, if one or both of the targets doesn't show up, make another sweep. See if you can follow a trail of the one who does show up, or just check the area – maybe we'll catch a break.”

Flopsy looked around at her team. She trusted all of them now, she realised, and it actually felt like a real team again... but she felt a slight pang at that thought. She had worked with Alfalfa for years, and it felt almost like a betrayal to have a team without him.

I'm holding a place for you, Alf, she thought. There's always space in my crew for you. But as her gaze swept the three bunnies in front of her, and her eyes locked briefly with Earry's, she knew that it would never be the same.

“Alright, team. Let's do this,” she said, and a moment later, Christie hopped in through a window.





Patricia blew into Steeps Tea, pushing the door closed behind her to keep the chilly night breeze out. Daylight savings time had ended on the weekend, and it seemed both much colder and much darker now than it had when she had come to the write-in with May. As Winnie the Pooh would have it, it was a blustery day, she thought, and ordered herself a warming cinnamon-flavoured herbal tea before heading to the back room.

She was a little late, but the group who was there was much smaller than it had been the week before. Jeff was sitting in the same place as last time, and he scowled a 'hello' as she greeted him. The Japanese girl whose name Patricia still didn't know wasn't there, and neither was Chance. She supposed that, even if Alfalfa had wanted to come, it wouldn't have achieved much, if Chance wasn't coming. She thought he was the only one trying to write anything romance-related in this group.

Thankfully she seemed to have done well enough the day before, and earlier, after she finished the paperwork for the senior centre and made excuses to go home and work on her book – which she had, just not the one she had started on day one. Patricia had started a completely different story for Alfalfa's sake, but she hoped she would get some more work done on the murder mystery at the write-in. Without feeling desperate to add in bits with jealous husbands and wives and cheating or perceived cheating and all those other wonderful elements of a love triangle. No, she was ready to dive back into the naive young wife looking to the hard-boiled detective and the jaded police officers for advice. She had even come up with the perfect names for the two characters she thought would show up in her protagonist's life today: Forby and Saguro.

She smiled a cheerful 'hullo' to Sarah, Jamie, and Zale, and settled herself into the chair next to the latter.

“No May tonight, Patricia?” Zale asked, perhaps with a trace of disappointment.

“Not tonight,” Patricia smiled. “She does need to spend some time this month attending classes in Victoria, which unfortunately makes it a bit difficult to attend this write-in.”

“I suppose,” Zale said with a trace of wistfulness, then perked up into her usual cheerfulness. “How is your novel going?”

“Quite well, actually,” Patricia answered. “I've actually started another project on the side, which is exciting, but I'd really like to finish this one up before I devote much time to that other one. I have an idea for tonight already, so I'm excited to get working on it... How about yours, Zale?”

“Not as well as yours, it sounds like,” she said. “But Jamie says just to keep plugging away at it and something will click eventually, so I'm trying. My word count is pretty low, though.”

“Not to worry,” Jamie put in. “It's like that the first year for a lot of people. Even if this one doesn't turn out very well in the end, it's the practice that will be valuable for you later.”

“Thanks, Jamie...” Zale said.

“Good luck, Zale,” Patricia said. “We first-timers have to stick together, you know. Not like these people with loads of practice...” She glanced darkly at Jamie, and Zale laughed. “Seriously though, Jamie, how is yours going?”

“Quite well, I think,” he said. “I've still got all these bunnies floating around, which is starting to get on my nerves -”

“Starting?” laughed Zale. “Patricia, he won't stop complaining about how they keep breaking into his scenes.”

“Oh yes,” Patricia said. “Your army of plot bunnies. Why not have them start writing novels in the background or something? Maybe like the Shakespearean monkeys?”

Jamie laughed. “That's a great idea, but somehow I doubt they would be particularly interested. They seem to have minds of their own – they don't like getting written much – and yet they keep breaking into scenes where they aren't wanted!”

“Sounds like plot bunnies,” Patricia laughed. “Aren't they supposed to annoy authors with specific ideas until the authors write them into their stories?”

“Something like that,” Jamie agreed. “But it would be so much easier if they would just do something useful instead of just letting themselves be seen from a distance. I'm not even sure if my protagonist knows they're there, which is strange since the book is mostly from his point of view. But oh well. What can I do but just keep writing, right?”

“Exactly,” Patricia nodded. “Are you still having issues with your plot, or is your dragon managing to move on without too much interference from that remembered dragon?”

“It's actually been going quite well, Patricia,” Jamie told her. “Aside from the rabbits marching through the background at odd intervals, the whole thing has been going quite smoothly. I haven't heard anything from that memory or anything else particularly out of the blue since last week.”

“Really?” asked Jeff incredulously from the other end of the table. “I haven't had anything go right this whole week! My characters have decided to start a fashion show, and all the ideas I've been getting are about the clothes they're designing, but I don't give two hoots about clothes! I'd rather give this whole thing to my little sister and start over again, but when I tried starting with new characters, they ended up wanting to go to the stupid fashion show! I am so frustrated I could burst! But I've done NaNoWriMo for five years, and there is no way that I am going to lose in year six because of some stupid clothing ideas.”

“That sounds incredibly frustrating, Jeff,” Patricia said sympathetically.

“Oh, don't patronize me!” Jeff flared. “All my problems started when you started coming to these write-ins!” He shook his head, angrily, pulled on a pair of sound-muffling headphones, and started to type furiously into his laptop.

Patricia stared at him, stunned into silence. How was it her fault? But, she supposed, sometimes people just needed someone else to blame. She shrugged mentally, and pulled her notebook out of her bag, just as the girl from the front desk came in with her French press and tea cup. She thanked the girl, opened her notebook, and started to write.




Perhaps half an hour had passed when Sarah stood up, tossed her head, and stalked out of the room, leaving her laptop and other stuff behind.

She came back in a few moments later, still in a bit of a huff, and sat back down, pounding out a few more words.

The girl from the front counter came in a minute or two later, with another French press and tea cup, this one filled with lovely light greenish-aqua tea, and placed it beside Sarah, “apologising again for not bringing it in sooner”. Sarah just shook her head, not even looking up at the girl, who left again quickly.

No one else said a word, and soon pencils and word processors started scrawling letters across pages again.





“No,” Sarah said suddenly. “No, no no no NO!” And she sat back from her keyboard, staring at the monitor sulkily.

“What's wrong, Sarah?” asked Zale. “Stuck?”

“No! I'm not stuck!” Sarah half-shouted, then continued more quietly. “It's just not the right story. I had it back on track, it was going quite well along the path I had set out for it – granted there was a Victorian romance happening at the edges that I hadn't planned, but part of the fun of NaNoWriMo is finding out more about your characters than you know in your outline, right? Except,” she waved her hand at the monitor, “this time it's more than that! My characters are turning out to secretly be robots, and there's this butterfly-embossed comb that was supposed to be a token of affection and is now turning out to be the key to the secrets of an alien civilization, and it's all very futuristic, and that might be okay for someone else, but I don't even like science fiction! And I don't want to know anything about robots, but tonight I've been using my word processor's comment feature to add notes to myself telling me to look up things about processing power so that I can figure out how much energy they need and how long they can survive without sunlight to recharge, which is important because now there's some sort of chance that there might be an alien ship hovering over the city and blocking out the light – and I know what you are probably thinking. It all sounds very cool,” she sneered the word. “But it isn't my novel, and I don't want to write it!”

And with that, she threw on her coat and started shoving her laptop into its sleeve, ignoring the “wait, Sarah -” that floated through the door after her.

Jeff hadn't even looked up, Patricia noted, but Jamie and Zale both looked at her with stunned expressions. She suspected her own face looked much the same, but what could they do? She shook her head and looked back down at her notebook. Her own story was going well – more fedora-sporting, dark-haired men, one of them enormously fat and reminding her quite strongly of the man who had headed the group trying to get hold of the black bird in the Maltese Falcon – and she might as well get back to it.




There were no more interruptions after that, until Jamie stretched his arms over his head and yawned.

“Just about time to head out,” he said, looking at his watch. “What a great writing session – I don't think I've been that productive before this entire month!”

“Wow,” Zale said. “Really? I don't think I've had two coherent scenes this whole night – especially since Sarah left.”

“I agree with Jamie,” Patricia started, then paused to look at Jeff, who was packing up his laptop but who hadn't taken his headphones off yet. “How about you, Jeff? How'd it go?”

But he didn't answer – simply walked out the door.

“Oh dear,” Patricia said.

“No, don't feel bad, Patricia,” Zale said. “He's been a bit of a sourpuss the whole time – he takes this too seriously. Let him walk it off and he'll be fine.”

“I agree that he's taking it a bit overly seriously,” Patricia admitted. “But I don't like serving as a focus for his anger. I suppose he just needed an external focus, though... and I had a great night of writing, I don't mind saying, so I'll just be pleased with that and hope that Jeff's experience improves over the rest of the month.”

“Indeed,” said Jamie, starting to pack up his things. “It was good to see you again, Patricia. I admit, I didn't think you were going to start at all when I first sat down with you at the kick-off party. I'm glad I was wrong.”

Patricia laughed. “Not to worry, Jamie; I thought the same thing myself. I was busy wondering what I was doing there, rather than thinking about how to make myself more involved. Thank you for coming to talk with me – if you hadn't, I doubt I would be here tonight, or even have started writing anything at all.”

“I'm glad you're here too, Patricia,” Zale piped up. “I like your company. Even if I don't get much writing done, it's nice to see you getting so much done. Your pen was flying across the page!”

“Perhaps,” smiled Patricia. “But this time I don't have my granddaughter at home to type it up for me before I move on to the next piece. I suppose I'll have to leave this on paper until I have more time to type it at the end of the month.”

“Oh, I wish Jamie hadn't closed up his computer! I would have typed it for you right now, Patricia!” Zale said enthusiastically. “I'm a fast typer, right, Jamie?”

“Typist, Zals,” her older brother grinned at her.

“Sure, sure, typist. Maybe if you come a little early next time, I could type it before the actual write-in starts?”

Patricia couldn't say no – Zale sounded so eager. “Alright, I'll try, Zale.”

The group pulled on their coats and headed to the front of the tea shop.

“Say Patricia,” said Zale tentatively. “Are you on the forums at all?”

“The forums? My granddaughter was telling me about them,” Patricia said. “But no, I don't think I'm 'on' them.”

“Oh,” Zale said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, if you were, then I could add you as a writing buddy, and then I could see how your word count is progressing.”

“Is that so?” Patricia asked. “Well, May might come to visit me again soon, and when she does she said she would show me the forums. So perhaps you could give me whatever information I would need to add you as a buddy, and then we can go from there?”

“Okay!” Zale grinned enthusiastically, and wrote her forum name – Zalster100 – onto the back page of Patricia's notebook. She added Jamie's too, “leprechaun”, and wrote their first names beside the forum names.

“See you next week?” Jamie asked Patricia as they stepped out into the cold dark night.

“Sure thing,” she said, pulling her coat tightly around herself. “Have a good night, both of you.”






Only one of the novelists who echoed with Alfalfa's influence had been at the write-in, so Flopsy had sent Hopert out to scout the area and look for Alfalfa. He had seemed enthusiastic about the idea of tracking where the elderly woman had come from, but Flopsy was less sure – Alfalfa had ways and ways of making himself hard to find. Still, it was worth a try.

She had told the black rabbit to be sure to be back before the end of the write-in, but he hadn't come in yet, and she couldn't afford to wait for him. Stay together, her instincts told her, and she told both Harey and Earry to come with her to track the woman. Surely this way they would be able to find Alfalfa – the sound of him on the woman was very strong. It was obvious that he had been working with her intensely. Flopsy knew that if anything like this level of collaboration had taken place the week before, the echoes would have lasted the whole week, so she knew it was a new development, and she wondered what could possibly have caused the echoes the week. It didn't make sense that if Alfalfa was this compatible with the woman's writing that he wouldn't have been able to start harvesting at this level right away – he was a skilled plot bunny. He was used to convincing stubborn writers to at least try writing his narrative, and as soon as they gave in, anything like this would be instantly clear.

Which meant that he could not have been fully collaborating with her. Either she had resisted, or something else had happened. But she had said that she had just started a new project in the past week; perhaps that new project had something to do with Alfalfa. Nothing else made sense – but nothing else about the whole situation made much sense either.

She would figure it all out soon enough. The woman's echoes made that clear enough, Flopsy thought with satisfaction as they followed her through the night breeze.





The light Patricia kept in the living room on a timer offered warmly inviting light as she entered her apartment and locked the door behind her. She was humming to herself again, and she wondered if she should stop herself – but this was her own apartment, so why bother? If she knew how to waltz, she would have waltzed into her living room, but she didn't, so she just added a bit of a bounce to her step.

She dropped her notebook in front of her computer and settled into her rocking chair without even making herself a cup of tea – wow, she was tired, she realised. It had been a long, productive day, and she was almost ready for bed.

“Hello, Alfalfa,” Patricia said, reaching down to move the blanket – but he wasn't in his cage. Well, she had told him he needn't remain confined to it. She frowned slightly, glancing around the room, but didn't see him anywhere.

Strange, she thought. He must be somewhere, but what right had she to look? He was her guest, so she didn't want to pry, and besides, he was a rabbit of sorts. Rabbits liked to burrow, didn't they? He'd likely be out and about in the morning. Patricia shrugged, stretched her arms out in front of her, and decided to go to bed.





The world seemed shrouded in light.

Patricia felt like she were someplace familiar, but there was too much light covering it up; she couldn't see. She reached up to rub her eyes, but she didn't feel the knuckles on her lids, and besides she could see through them – inasmuch as she could see.

“You knew we'd find you,” she heard, but didn't recognise the voice or see the speaker.

“I wasn't hiding, Flopsy,” another disembodied voice came, but this one was familiar, and it warmed her heart with the echoes of Alfred in its depths. “You know I could never hide from you. I'm surprised you took so long to come.”

“To come? Come where? How was I to know you were to be here, Alf?” the first voice sounded ... something, but Patricia couldn't figure it out. Perhaps tired. She wished she could see the speaker -

- but there the voice was, embodied, and Patricia wondered at the exquisite softness of that velveteen brown, a darker, warmer brown than Alfalfa was – and there he was too, crouched down on all fours. Patricia blinked. Where was she? But that question did not become clear at the thought.

“I sent a message!” he said.

“You did? When?” she asked, and Patricia saw the lovely white softness of her tummy as she turned as if to look at someone else – and she wished she were stroking that softness – when she was, the fur even softer than she'd imagined, silk slipping beneath her fingers -

“Alfalfa?” the velveteen rabbit asked.

“This is Patricia, Flopsy. I told you she was more than you'd think... Patricia, this is my team leader, Flopsy.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Flopsy,” Patricia thought, still stroking, fascinated by the softness. Velvet. Not silk.

“Could you please step back a bit, Patricia?” the bunny asked her, somewhat nervously.

“How?” Patricia asked without thinking, and Alfalfa laughed.

“Just think yourself into your rocking chair, dear Patricia,” he said, sounding so much like Alfred that she gave him Alfred's face, then sat back into her chair.

There were four rabbits now, in a semi-circle around her, one with her husband's face, and she wondered which one the mad hatter was, and which the white rabbit, and when she herself had fallen down the rabbit hole... and the two newcomers were suddenly sporting new clothes; the left one, who was the darkest black rabbit she had ever seen, now sported a matching black top hat, and the right, with the rather large ears, had a waistcoat and a gold-chained pocket watch.

“Patricia, you really don't need to do that, you know,” Alfred told her.

“But where is the tea?” she asked, wanting suddenly to get it right. Surely there must be tea for the Mad Hatter and his friends – and there was.

The velveteen one blinked, and turned to Alfred. “Alfalfa, how do we stop this?”

“We can't, Flopsy. It's her dream now, and you saw how much creative force was stirred up from her writing with me...”

“I suppose you're right. Blast. I had hoped to speak with you before we left here – I saw that you have the good set of protections arranged here, after all, that makes it easier. But we'll just have to make it to our team's meeting space.”

“No,” Alfred said, and Patricia shook her head in confusion. How did Alfred know these rabbits? “No, I can't leave Patricia in this state. Now I've opened the door for the foxes – I can't just leave her to face them alone.”

Flopsy turned up to Patricia and gave her a long stare. “She might not need it, if she has this much, but I agree. It's dangerous. And there's more going on than you know, to make it even more so.” Flopsy glanced at the White Rabbit. “I think we tell them both here, Earry.”

The White Rabbit pulled out its pocket watch. “We're late,” he said.

Flopsy gave him an odd look, flipping her ears slightly, and Patricia wondered why she seemed puzzled. It was exactly the sort of thing the White Rabbit always said, wasn't it?

“I'll make it fast, then,” Flopsy said, splitting the difference between asking and appeasing the White Rabbit for his comment, glancing at the Mad Hatter. “Harey, just take this in stride as much as you can, okay? We're still going to talk about it tomorrow with Hop, so save your questions until then, since Earry seems to think we're on a time limit – I'm not going to argue.”

“You're the boss,” the Mad Hatter said, and drank some of his tea, or at least tipped the cup. Patricia wasn't sure if he drank it or poured it onto his hat – all the black was somehow as hard to see as the light had been at the beginning of this.

“Right. Here's the situation: the mission is going as hoped, but the elder archetypes are seemingly under the thumb of a vampire no one knows about but us. He's using all the extra energy from the first week of NaNoWriMo for his own ends, and plotlet kits have stopped becoming plot bunnies. There's a novelist who is writing an army of plot bunnies, but he hasn't figured out what to do with them yet, thank goodness. There was talk of frying them with dragons, so I'm glad that hasn't happened yet, but we need to do a better job of making sure it doesn't happen. I might have to do it personally; I managed to keep them out of his writing tonight, but who knows how long that will last with one of the local rabbits in charge.”

The velveteen rabbit paused, then nodded. “That's the situation. Any questions?”

Alfred's face faded, leaving a small brown rabbit, crouching on all fours. “We need someone to protect Patricia. We need to discuss it somewhere she doesn't know... She might be on the side of the novelists.”

“That might be our side too, if necessary...” the voice of the velveteen rabbit faded out, and so did the rabbit.

“We're late,” said the White Rabbit again, and he ran into a swirl of light.

“Wait for me!” shouted the Mad Hatter, and he followed.

Patricia blinked. All the rabbits were gone, and she was surrounded by soothing light, soft light, and it was warm, so warm...