It is raining outside, but the coffin is warm and cozy.

The drops clatter funereally on the lid. When the coffin drives into another puddle, there is a splash. Whatever you say, travelling can be a pleasure. Especially for some grim business.

‘Rooty,’ Hare inquires in an intimidating whisper, ’doesn't it bother you that during the day, in the coffin, it's like we're buried alive?’

Root thinks for a moment.

‘Not bothering me, no. Unless, of course, I sprout.’

There is a chaotic dripping from the branches of some tree. Wet grass skids along the coffin sides.

‘Hare,’ Rooty lowers his voice in an ominous tone, ‘doesn't it scare you that if I do sprout, I'll sprout through you?’ There's not much room in the coffin.’

‘For that case I have a will in the lining,’ replies Hare serious. ‘According to it we shall be buried in a seedbed. There you can grow on in peace.’

‘Thank you,’ Root changes colour to sky blue. As he always does when he thinks he's very lucky with his friend.

‘Do you have a will?’ Hare listens carefully to the hammingas.

The gravestones' ghosts are wheeling ever slower. The coffin gets more and more bogged down in the mud. So they're almost there. Means night is coming soon.

‘I have nothing to bequeath,’ yawns Root.

‘You can always bequeath something to someone,’ admonishes Gothic Hare. ‘If you outlive me, I'll bequeath you my barberry bushes. You'll have to take care of them as well. That's the funny thing about wills - they give the dead power over the living.’

Hare squints in a dreamy amusement.

After some swaying, the coffin is lowered onto the molehills. The lid opens. Rain rushes inside. The water is cold and very wet.

‘After a day's sleep, there's nothing like an evening shower,’ Root comments.

Both enjoy the prickly swarms of drops for a while.

In front of them, protruding from a thicket of wild grapes, a high wrought iron gate stick out. Hare pulls a white bone from the soaked coffin. Maybe even of a hare. His soul grows warm. He knocks on the black twisted iron.

‘Knock, knock, knock!’

The gates respond with a grumpy chime. The red autumn leaves of the woken grapes rustle displeased. The ivy squints sleepily.

‘Knock - Knock - Knock!’

From the dense thickets hanging on the fence, small birds scurry into the twilight. However, the rain immediately steals all sound. Only drops and branches remain. The mailbox hatch creaks rusty in the wind. Gold embossed on black reads:

Night Dwellers…

‘A lovely name. Such would welcome an unexpected nighttime visit.’

Gothic Hare pushes the gate without a doubt. It opens. Ahead of them is a dark, wet walkway. Gloomy elms, crooked willows, overgrown junipers. Macabre silhouettes of sprawling hollies. The grey shadows of mice cross the wet gravel.

The house must be in the centre of the estate. The way to it is long and confusing. Or are they lost? Hare stops in the middle of a deep, cold puddle. He gazes inquisitively into the wet darkness.

A large family of giant hogweed stamps on their path. Root examines the dry stems of the monstrous plants with interest. He feels more and more at home in this garden.

‘If you touch this hogweed in the sunlight, you get burns. Like a vampire from the light,’ he marvels.

The giant hogweed rustles with flattery. Poisonous seeds shower down on Hare.

For a while longer they wander and wander and wander. The gravel is replaced by wet moss. The rain dies down. A dripping gloom reigns.

In front of them is ... a house.

The roof of the house barely reaches the tips of Hare's ears. It is covered with tiny black tiles and lichen. Out of the roof stick two small chimneys. Out of both of them narrow streams of smoke creep into the cold air, smelling cosily of juniper. The windows, the size of Hare's paw, are tightly shut. Green ivy leaves lay as a mat at the front door. The door itself is too small even for Root.

He and Hare go round the house three times clockwise. Then three more times counterclockwise.

‘So it was four small graves after all, not a quartered one...’

Both recall four remarkably green little mounds behind a patterned fence. Black with gold embossing.

Before Gothic Hare decides to knock, the door of the house opens. And closes again. The rain can be heard, but there are no drops. Hare and Root stare in vain into the darkness in front of them.

‘We should have brought a lantern,’ blinks Hare.

‘Absolutely not!’

A silver shining powder falls on the tips of his whiskers. It dusts off the wings of a plump night moth. All of the sudden, the space in front of the house starts to shine with a haunting light. It's the glow of rotten stumps surrounded by mushrooms.

‘Have a seat.’

Hare and Root finally spot a small, hunched figure. The kind that blends easy into the night shadows and the shadows of night shadows. The house's occupant looks most like a crooked spruce cone. On his face, covered with grey fur, eyes burn an ominous green. And you can clearly see small, sharp teeth.

‘Are you Night Dwellers? ’ Gothic Hare sits down on the glowing stump with dignity.

‘Night Dweller, at your service,’ the house master snaps his fingers.

The plump silver moth lands on the top of his head. It wiggles its thick, fluffy antennae with impatience. Night Dweller gets a ball of poisonous hogweed pollen from his cape pocket and treats the moth.

‘Night Dwellers. According to the parish book,’ Hare corrects him.

‘That's because we never appear alone. If there's one, there are others,' Night Dweller gives them a sinister smile.

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More and more glowing eyes appear all around. They are seen between the spruce branches. They flicker dimly in the snags. They wink from behind pale mushrooms. They shine through the blue smoke of juniper wood. It becomes clear that it is not rain that rustles. It is the footsteps of many small feet in the rotting foliage.

‘Gothic Hare and Deadly Root,’ Hare politely introduces himself to each pair of burning eyes. And to the moths under the rhododendron leaves, just in case.

‘We are here on important cemetery business.’

‘You are the first visitors in many years,’ Night Dweller admits. ‘To what do we owe the honour?’

‘In our cemetery,’ Hare taps his hind paw on a stump at the pleasure those words give him. ‘In our cemetery...’

The stump beneath him responds with a nagging, rotten crackle. Night Dwellers scoot closer with interest. This makes Root hiccup and change colour to a nervous green.

‘What is it in our cemetery?’ he interrupts Hare's nostalgia and taps on the stump too.

Hare's eyes are suspiciously watery. It must be from the smoke.

‘In our cemetery,’ he dabs them with the tip of his cape, ‘there are four graves. Very small, green even in winter. That's where all sorcerous herbs grow best. Night Watcher used to pluck them for different potions.’

‘That's Grandma and Grandma. And two great-grandmas. And more relatives on the far side,' Night Dweller's lighted eyes turn warmly yellow. ‘You should see how high thistles used to grow at their care!’

‘Yes, yes,’ Hare and Rooty nod. ‘Night Watcher has sent you a list of seeds. Would you be so kind to soon reseed the graves of your dead? Widows are going to brew a Cemetery Charm Potion.’

Hare gets a wet piece of paper from under his cape. The plump, fluffy moth lowers onto his shoulder. He studies the list with some interest. Rooty strokes the moth's fuzzy silver wings. He, too, is eager to try the hogweed pollen balls.

‘Why does Night Watcher need Cemetery Charm Potion?’

Hare could swear he hears a snake hissing.

‘Our cemetery is about to be closed,’ this time the words leave a bitter taste of inevitable loss. ‘The potion is needed to attract the living to the dead. If they love our cemetery as much as we all do...’

‘It's going to be crowded,’ Deadly Root finishes for him, with scepticism.

‘Hmmm,’ echoes out from under snags, spruce paws, and mushrooms. ‘We'd be happy to help. Besides, we miss our grandma and great-grandma and another great-grandma. But we don't leave our garden for many years.’

‘It's beautiful!’ lovingly exclaims Root and strokes the luminous stump.

On the eve of winter, the Night Dwellers' garden exudes an extraordinary power. Root wouldn't mind staying here for good.

‘That’s true,’ Night Dweller nods with pride with a mop of hair that looks like a tangled spider's web. ‘But there's a spell on the gates. They only open inward at night and only open outward during the day. And during the day we all sleep. If we could only get to the mailbox! We're waiting for a new ordinance from the mayor's office. The last mayor forbade Night Dwellers to leave the estate. However, he died quite accidentally and extremely untimely. Years ago,' Night Dweller's teeth bares in a gloating grin.

Gothic Hare and Root find the Night Dwellers' eyes staring at them a little too intently. Rooty is late to give a warning quack.

‘We'll bring the mail!’ Hare rises from the stump, his dark soul trembles in excitement. ‘Even if we have to confront the daylight!’

And so it happens.

A thick mist spills over the wildled garden. The first rays of sunlight flounder weakly in its nets. The gate creaks again. Two shadows slip out.

Root clutches a large sack of poisonous balls of hogweed pollen. The sack gets a few balls lighter while Hare fiddles with the mailbox. Like everything else around, it is overgrown with wild grape twigs. At last a Letter appears in his paws. A thick, yellowed envelope with a seal. The seal bears the imprint of the mayor's ring.

To the cawing of frozen crows, the Letter falls heavily on the other side of the fence. It is immediately covered by fog and a living carpet of ivy....

***

‘It feels good after all,’ Hare utters into the black satin padded coffin lid. Somewhere far beyond it the day is shivering in the cold.

‘What?’ mutters awakened Root.

His stomach is warm and full. The coming dreams tickle him like the poisonous leaves.

‘It feels good to do good deeds,’ replies Hare. He smiles in his sleep.

When the hammingas open the lid once more, the homey comfort of the cemetery piles into the coffin. It is dark, the sombre silhouettes of dry trees against the sky.

Only the usual peace is rudely disturbed by a gloating howl of the wind. It is followed by a triumphant laughter. Noise. All the snags seem to crack and all the dry leaves rustle together.

‘Free! Free at last!’ laughs the graveyard night.

The cemetery turns out to be full of visitors. Small as spruce cones, with burning eyes. And once again it seems to be raining.

But soon it do start to rain.

It's now pouring hard. Flooding the graves, the gravestones and the tomb. It's the first stormy night of the season. The storm fast outgrows the cemetery. It roars, rages, turns everything into chaos and a wet whirlwind.

The roof of the tomb leaks. Drops fall straight into the boiling kettle.

‘The road to hell is paved with good deeds,’ Rooty enjoys sipping the black hogweed tea.

Gothic Hare nods satisfied.....