Hare wakes up in the branches. How he climbed up the oak he does not remember. But the view from the top is spectacular, and Hare enjoys it for a while. In the coming moonlit twilight, he can see the cemetery as clearly as his own paw.
Graves overgrown with ivy, old tombstones, paths choked with holly. A pleasure for the eyes! On top of it all, the church bell rattles in the distance. Someone else must have died.
Poetry fills the air.
But the bliss doesn't last long. Very close by comes an annoying dog barking.
Woof, woof, woof.
Woof, woof, woof.
Woof woof woof woof.
And on and on and on. There are now more visitors coming to the cemetery, and a new watcher has taken up residence in the gatehouse. Day Watcher. There's no peace now, day or night. In the sunlight the chainsaw buzzes, which he uses to saw firewood and dry trees, and at night his dog barks. The stupid shepherd is afraid of the dark and therefore ruins not the first night. Silence is very fragile. And dogs are very noisy. The deadies can't sleep and the cemetery wheezes, crunches and clatters with bones. Nothing but bother. Plus it's all happening on the eve of the wedding. Only a curse can save them all. A Big Curse. Besides, there's no better wedding gift. Hare is sure of it. The Black Book is very clear about that.
The Curse requires mistletoe. The branch it grows on extends far above the graves. High above the other trees. It's not easy to get to. Aside from, there are some creepy little ghosts nestled on the path to it. Cold balls of mist, cobwebs and bird feathers. Unborn souls. The most wicked creatures...
They look like chickens. White and fluffy. Until you see their heads. A human, a mole and a rabbit. Hare knows he can't get to the mistletoe as long as they block the path. The Unborn know it too.
That was where it went wrong the last night.
The creatures look at Hare cold and unfriendly. It's getting chilly. But Gothic Hare is warm. He has a pointed felt hat on his head, which is handy when you have such long ears. In the dark, eight other equally frightening hats can be seen far below. Widows, Vampire, Night Watcher, Coffin Maker, Deadly Root, and even the ever-wet Beast. All of them are already gathered at the pile of bones still whitening under the dry acacia tree. Hare counts them by their heads with longing.
Woof - woof - woof.
Woof - woof - woof.
Woof - woof - woof.
The dog's barking is not going to stop.
‘Life is wonderful!’ Hare appeals to the Unborn, trying to make his voice sound convincing.
‘Is that why you live in the graveyard?’ snickers the soul closest to him with scepticism.
All the Unborn break out into a mocking cluck. Gothic Hare is trying to persuade these chickens of the charms of earthly existence for the second night already. For the Unborn, there is only one way off the branch - into the next life. You can't get a free way until they get born... They don’t feel like doing that. The oak is quiet, peaceful, and you can unlimited molest those who happen to be born. And life? Well, we all know about that...
The frozen tree creaks in a soothing way. The Unborn wait with patience for at least one reason to be given. Gothic Hare realises that the reason must be a really good one.
‘Tomorrow is Christmas! Holidays! Presents?’
Hare's words fall down as empty candy wrappers.
‘Going to school or work all year before that. And always end up getting the wrong presents,' snorts the Unborn Human.
‘Eating good food, sleeping sweetly, and not waking up someday?’
‘Digging, digging and more digging,’ sniffs the Unborn Mole. ‘You want to eat, you dig. If you want to sleep, dig. And just when you’re finally getting the sweetest dreams, they stomp over your head.’
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Gothic Hare realises that this is how they can bicker for a second night. Hopeless...
‘Children?’ he looks yearningly at the pale ball of mistletoe against the very round moon. Both so close, so out of reach.
‘There is one plus,’ the Unborn Rabbit remarks. ‘A predator can eat them instead of you.’
‘There!’ Gothic Hare throws his paw pathetically into the twilight sky.
Hope glows in his soul with a rotten swamp fire. Down below, between the graves, Widow floats by in all white. Her veil is like a long, torn web. It sways with every step, and it seems that the night is the sea and the veil is foam. In the moonlight hangs over everything the poisonously sweet odour of love potion. It coils round the oak and tickles Hare’s nose.
Hare is eager to look at the bride. He bounces impatiently on a branch in time with the barking, hoping to shake off the Unborn. No one spoils the beauty of the night like dogs. Darkness looks pitifully at Hare from holes and hollows, from the silent depths of endless graves. Darkness cries out for help.
‘Revenge,’ Gothic Hare raises his eyes and glares at his opponents with triumph. ‘Revenge is definitely worth the birth! To all those who give the wrong presents. To all those who stomp over your head. To all those who bark in the silent cemetery night!’
The Unborn Souls listen with greed. They even seem to have grown in size. Became too heavy and too alive for the ghosts. They cluck again and it makes the branch shake. Two of the three dive into the surrounding darkness with an ominous howl. The random flapping of wings can be heard. Somewhere in the distance, a dog's barking abruptly stops.
‘And you?’
Gothic Hare is so close to his goal! The Big Curse is begging for his paws. All he has to face is the soul of the Unborn Rabbit.
‘And you?’ he repeats. ‘Have you no one to avenge?’
‘Oh, I surely have,’ Rabbit grins his unexpectedly sharp teeth. ‘In fact, I can get my revenge right now. You're the reason I have to spend Christmas alone now!’
‘At least no one will give you anything wrong!’
Hare tries to attract the mistletoe with his gaze. But alas! Cold chicken wings flap in front of his nose, and a furious clucking sounds. Long ghostly fangs sink into Hare's paws, and Hare feels them freeze and slide off the branch.
He crashes down on a mound of dry firewood piled in a wheelbarrow. Day Watcher doesn't even notice the extra weight. It's dark and cold outside, and he longs for a crackling fire in the fireplace. The damned shepherd messes things up again. His eyes burn like a ghoul's, and his snarl can drown out even the roar of a werewolf. Hare has only a moment to mourn his fail with the mistletoe. The next second, he's darting between graves, ducking into dense thickets and swooping over sagging fences. His cloak flies like a sorrowful flag, his pointed hat slips down at the frantic pace of the chase, the wind whistles in his long black ears. Fleeing had never been so ecstatic!
‘Meyer, stop! What's gotten into you, you stupid dog!’
The heavily laden wheelbarrow rumbles over fresh stumps and snags behind them. Together they rush through the cemetery, waking up the dead who have just dozed off. Day Watcher catches up with them at a high pile of white bones.
‘I pronounce you husband and wife,’ the ghoul's solemn voice sounds over their heaving breaths. ‘Until death!’
Night Watcher himself, bride and groom are drowned in the moonlight glow atop the ominous mass. Vampire's eyes glimmer blood red. A barn owl with a felt pointed hat on her head sits on Widow's shoulder.
Day Watcher and his dog hiccup loudly.
It's out of admiration, Hare understands. He himself can't take his eyes off the young couple. Vampire, like all vampires, is immortal. So someday, perhaps soon, he will mourn his new wife. That's very romantic.
‘Now,’ mutters Deadly Root to no one in particular, gazing somewhere in the bowels of the cold earth, into the empty eye sockets of skulls forgotten in the darkness. ‘Now is the time!’
The hat suits him very well. It makes him a few inches taller, and its black tip touches the lower branches of the acacia tree. The last ones creak and clang evilly with their thorns. There is a rumbling underfoot. As if the earth is opening up. As if all the dry trees are snapping. As if the plates of hundreds of old tombstones are shifting at the same time.
Creak - creak - creak! CREAK!!!
This is followed by the familiar random flapping of chicken wings. Unborn souls! A whole flock of these wicked weird creatures soar out of the dark graves. Out of new ones with candles still burning, out of old ones with gnarled crosses, and even out of those that can't be seen at all under a layer of ivy and earth. They howl, cluck, and gawk their eyes angrily. One of them is the ugliest, the largest, and the whitest, like the apple blossoms in an abandoned wild orchard.
‘Sis!’ cry out Widows in chorus. ‘Sis is with us!’
When dead May spreads her wings they seem to cover the entire cemetery. Coarse snow falls down from her ghostly feathers. Snowflakes swirl like thousands of ghosts, like myriads of cold souls. It snows buckets! It seems that in the snow embraces, the Unborn get icy flesh.
‘You invited - we came!’ comes the grave groan of Bony Root.
‘Welcome!’ the pointy hats that resemble small snowdrifts swing in greeting.
Somewhere in the distance, a church bell begins to toll joyfully, inviting to the Midnight Mass. The circle of the Unborn rushes to the call. The old oak sways from the sweeps of their wings. The Unborn Rabbit is no longer alone on Christmas night.
By the pile of bones, a forgotten wheelbarrow rests alone. Buried beneath the snow are two chains of footprints, a man and a dog. You can't see where they came from or where they went. The cemetery is peaceful again. Silence. Whiteness. Hare doesn't know it yet, but there are two pale mistletoe berries tangled in his cloak, soaking up the moonlight. The Big Curse ripens in them unnoticed. There's no better wedding gift...