Easter Charm
I stared suspiciously at the pastel blue rabbit from my chair on the front porch. It was in the patch of lawn that my circular driveway curled around. It didn’t move, but I didn’t trust it. Even harmless, plush animals could prove to not be what they seemed. And this one had no reason to be in the grass in front of my house.
Sam, the exuberant golden retriever that belonged to my young neighbor Katie, came running around from the side of the house. I relaxed slightly. If Sam was around, he might have found and brought the bunny; he often picked up absurd and unexpected objects that he found.
He ignored the toy rabbit and bolted right up the porch stairs to greet me and my sedate Labrador, Sabryna. She didn’t show it, but Sabryna was fond of us the goofy dog and his antics, as was everyone who knew him.
“Good morning!” Katie came around to the front of the house, having walked the wooded trail from her house that ran between our homes. She stopped with a startled squeak when she saw the rabbit.
“Is that real?” she asked.
“Are you asking if it’s real or if it’s live?”
“Either?” She glanced at me and back at the bunny.
I set my coffee down and stood. “I’m pretty sure it’s real because we both see it. I’m also fairly certain it’s not a real, live, rabbit, because it’s blue.”
Katie gave me a sideways look. “Who are we and where are we? Actual, live, light blue rabbits are not out of the realm of possibility.”
“From that perspective, nothing is.” I descended the porch steps to stand next to her.
Seeing us focus on the plush animal, Sam hurtled off the porch, when a sharp command from Katie stopped him short. He looked at us and back at the bunny, but didn’t move.
Braver than either of us would have been alone, Katie and I walked closer to the rabbit. We paused when Sabryna took an interest and left the porch to walk beside us. Sam whined, but obeyed Katie’s command to stay.
When Sabryna cut in front of us, she stopped; what I took as a silent order to pause until she cleared the animal for danger. Katie and I remained still, while Sabryna approached the rabbit. When she was a few feet away, the rabbit turned its head and looked at us.
Sabryna froze. The rabbit twitched its whiskers. While we were within six feet of the bunny, I still didn’t know if it was a real, live rabbit that was an unnatural color, of made of cloth and stuffing and unnaturally animated.
Still watching us, the bunny slowly moved a few hops away, paused, and then hopped only slightly faster across the drive and into the brush at the edge of the yard. Sabryna remained still; Sam whined again and danced in place but didn’t move closer.
“It laid an egg!” Katie said.
There was a blue, egg-shaped object in the grass where the rabbit had been. Sabryna stepped forward, sniffed it and looked back at me.
“What does she say?” Katie asked.
Sabryna didn’t talk, but she had an uncanny ability to make me understand her thoughts and feelings.
“She doesn’t know what it is,” I said. “But she’s not concerned about it being dangerous.”
Katie nodded as she walked forward and picked up the egg. “It’s not plastic. It feels like a real egg. A rabbit wouldn’t randomly lay and egg and just leave it, would it?”
“Not naturally,” I said, moving next to Katie to inspect the object. “But there wasn’t anything natural about that rabbit.”
She tapped it with a fingernail. “Looks real. Feels real. Wonder if there’s something in it?”
“It’s probably going to hatch an alligator or be filled with spiders.”
“Yuck.” Katie grimaced and dropped the egg.
It broke open on the grass. Katie, Sabryna and I all took a step back, but nothing exploded or leaked out of it.
Either unable to obey Katie any longer, or, more likely, having forgotten he’d been told to stay back, Sam darted forward and flipped the egg with his nose. The dry shell had broken cleanly in half and, as it bounced back to the lawn, something shiny and silver slid out onto the grass.
“Sam!” Katie called the dog away from it, before he could touch the small metal chain.
Sabryna walked forward and carefully looked it over before sniffing at it. She looked over at me, having decided it was harmless. Katie let me be the one to pick it up, but inspected it with me.
“Looks like a plain silver bracelet.” Katie said, as we studied the sturdy chain made of solid, oval links and a simple clasp. “Does it feel weird?”
“It has the slightest bit of energy,” I said. “Too faint to really be good or bad. Sabryna seemed to think it was okay.”
Sabryna had a strong sense of when something was dangerous, or even questionable.
“So, is it safe to wear or take in the house?” Katie was directing her question to Sabryna.
Sabryna cocked her head and after a moment’s hesitation, wagged her tail a single time. She was very understated.
“Why would you want to wear it?” I asked. “It’s obviously something…unusual.”
“Tomorrow is Easter,” Katie said. “So, this is probably one of those Holiday ghost energy things. If it’s not dangerous, maybe it’s just something fun. An egg hunt.”
Besides somehow being randomly involved in, often seemingly targeted by, supernatural beings and events, we had learned that ghosts and spirits were active around holidays. Some seemed agitated by them and the significance people placed on days, even Halloween and St. Patrick’s, or just wanted to be friendly and part of festivities. Sometimes the strange things that happened, even when meant to be playful or harmless, could produce unexpected things that weren’t always positive.
Katie shrugged, and with the adroitness I couldn’t easily manage, clasped the bracelet on her wrist. We both held still for a moment, as if waiting for her to turn into a fairy, or grow horns.
“You don’t look different,” I said.
“I don’t feel different. Not yet, anyway.”
I looked around, but didn’t see any more colored rabbits or eggs.
“What brought you over?” I asked.
She said, “The weather is gorgeous and I thought we could go riding. I know Nell is out of town and might like Lucy to get some exercise. Have the mares had breakfast?”
“Good plan.” I glanced at the PJs I was wearing and over at my coffee cup on the porch.
Katie laughed. “I will go feed the horses; you get dressed.”
Sam had followed Katie down to the barn, but Sabryna had waited in the yard till I came back out of the house. We walked the wide path the short distance through the trees between the yard and the horse’s pastures, down the alley way between the fenced paddocks, to the barn.
Katie was sitting on the bench near the barn, playing with the two chocolate barn cats. She looked over at me and then past me to the riding arena. I looked over and saw a pink rabbit sitting in the sand, next to one of the jumps.
“I really want to pet it and see what it feels like,” Katie said. “Some plush toys look and feel so much like real fur. I want to know if it’s a real rabbit that turned an unnatural color, or an animated stuffed animal.”
“I find both those ideas equally disturbing, and I don’t care which it is.”
Katie casually walked over the rabbit, which let her get close enough to suggest it wasn’t a wild creature. As she got within a few feet, it slowly hopped away into to the grass outside the ring. It left a pink egg where it had been sitting.
She gently picked up the egg and brought it over to me. “That rabbit was so weird. Everything about it seemed natural, even the way it moved, and how its ears flopped a bit when it hopped, but its eyes didn’t look real. They didn’t move at all.”
She handed me the egg. “Probably not snakes.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Might be a baby rabbit.”
“No!”
I carried it over to the driveway and bent down to gently drop the egg on the gravel. This one also cracked clear around the middle and spilled out a small, silver trinket.
“It’s a charm,” Katie said, lifting it up. “What do you call this symbol?”
“An ankh. Egyptian symbol for protection, I think.” To be sure, I pulled out my phone and googled it. “Called the ‘key to life’. Most commonly believed to be a symbol of life and health, and carried or worn for protection.”
“Sounds safe,” Katie said, deftly attaching it to the silver bracelet.
Her cavalier attitude worried me the smallest bit, and I gestured to Sabryna. Katie held her wrist toward the dog for inspection. Sabryna sniffed the silver and then touched it with her nose. She looked curious about it, but gave the dog version of a shrug.
“Still safe,” Katie said. She shook her wrist, admiring the accessory and headed into the barn.
Our ride was uneventful, apart from a green rabbit darting out of the brush, running out into the path in front of us. It paused right next to a tree next to the trail to leave a green egg. The horses were so accustomed to Sam, who zipped in and out of the trees around us, the sudden movement of an off-color bunny couldn’t surprise them.
Reminding me of the speed my vampire housemate, Patrick, Katie was off the horse, tossing me lucy’s reins, and picking up the egg before I realized she moved. She paused in surprise when the rabbit remained right by the tree next to her foot. Katie nudged the rabbit with her toe, and it didn’t even twitch.
Sabryna was standing quietly next to the horses, but Sam, who had been running around in the woods, bolted onto the trail next to Katie and grabbed the bunny. The mares didn’t react, but Katie gave a surprised squeak.
Without being told, Sam apologetically dropped the green rabbit. It’s complete lack of animation gave it the unmistakable appearance of a stuffed toy. Katie reached down and lifted it up.
“Fake,” she said, waving it at me.
Sam sat at her feet and whined, so she tossed it a few feet down the trail, and he sprinted after it. The rabbit landed running and disappeared into the brush, leaving the dog bewildered.
“That’s too wired,” Katie said, adding an adjective her mom would not have approved of. Besides the fact she had picked up her colorful language from me, I thought the phrase was appropriate in this instance.
Katie looked at the egg in her hand and then tapped it gently against the tree next to her. It cracked neatly and she shook the silver trinket out into her other hand. It was a silver arrow, the loop to hook it to the bracelet in the middle of the shaft.
I had pulled my phone out and had it looked up on google before Katie asked. “Arrow, displayed sideways and not from either end, is said to protect from evil forces.”
Katie nodded, attaching the charm to her wrist while walking over to take Lucy’s reins from me. “I’m sensing a theme here.”
“I’m worried about what the entity gifting these things is offering protection from.”
“Dangerous, evil forces,” Katie said, grinning at me.
She gracefully re-mounted the seventeen-hand mare, without needing use of a tree stump as a mounting block. I stared at her, but she didn’t notice the anomaly. I was a solid six feet tall, with long legs, and could get on either mare from the ground, but not that gracefully. Katie was six inches shorter and I had never seen her get on without having to stand on something to reach the stirrup.
“Impressive,” I commented.
Katie looked pleased. “It was!”
She must have been unaware of how fast she had moved, getting off Lucy and over to the egg. I couldn’t decide whether to be alarmed or not. It was something supernatural, but was it a bad thing?
I didn’t like that the bracelet seemed to give the wearer supernatural abilities, however slight. As Katie had said, wherever it came from, it represented some kind of protection, and not accepting that seemed unwise. I decided not to question it out loud.
“Lucy didn’t act any different,” Katie said, when we returned to the barn.
“Different from what?” I asked.
“From usual.”
Katie took Thea’s bridle and saddle from me, while also holding Lucy’s and carried it all effortlessly into the tack room.
She came back out and saw me staring.
“Because of the bracelet,” she clarified. “And horses can be more sensitive than dogs about stuff.”
“Do you feel any different, wearing it?” I asked.
She frowned. “Not really, but kinda. I feel more…agile? Coordinated?”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.
Her phone pinging and she check it. “Mom would like both of us to go to my house for lunch. She brought home a lot of food from her brunch meeting and doesn’t want it in the house because she will eat it all.”
I never turned down food, so we quickly brushed down the mares, gave them treats and turned them back out. We debated walking to Katie’s; the riding trails all through the land around and between our homes would get us there as quickly as driving. I opted to drive, and Katie followed me and got into the truck.
We were at Katie’s house before I realized I had spent the whole drive, which by our country roads was about five miles, looking for pastel rabbits. I considered that the reason I wanted to drive was so that we wouldn’t see any. Ridiculous. If whatever was doing this wanted to keep presenting gifts, it would find a way.
Teri Carson, Katie’s mom, had scored several pieces of quiche and blueberry muffins.
“No one wanted to take any of it home themselves and said, since I have a teenager, I should get it all,” Teri explained.
“No complaints,” Katie said, cramming the last of a muffin in her mouth, while I was still spreading butter on one.
“Good ride?” Teri asked.
“Excellent!” Katie said.
She didn’t mention the rabbit, egg or bracelet charms. She glanced at me and I shrugged. Teri had become open minded about the strangeness that sometimes occurred around us and the community in general, but she was understandably protective of her daughter. We tried not to worry her unnecessarily.
Teri sat at the kitchen table with us and looked out the window. “Look at that! That rabbit next to the daffodils must be super white. Being so close to those flowers in the sunlight makes it look yellow.”
Without pausing in our eating, Katie and I both admired the bunny. It was a pale enough yellow, that Teri could believe what she thought.
“Pretty,” Katie said.
We watched the rabbit hop lightly across the grass and out of sight. It left a yellow egg next to the flowers, which Teri failed to notice. “Those daffodils better hope we don’t get another frost.”
We helped her clear the table and clean up the kitchen.
“Do yall have plans for the rest of the day?” Teri asked.
I said, “I have three chapters left to edit in my current novel.” and Katie said, “Math.”
I laughed. “I don’t like editing, but I like Math less. Thank you for lunch, Teri.”
Katie followed me to the front door. When Teri returned to her own work in her home office, we snuck around to the back yard to collect the egg and see the new offering.
Katie took out her phone, letting me open the egg.
This ornament was a sword, silver, as expected, with the clasp attached at the hilt.
“Represents power and protection,” Katie declared, reading from her phone.
I attached the charm to her bracelet and gave her a hug before setting off for home.
I was on a three-way call with my older sisters, Julie and Karen, when Patrick made his appearance. I had gone to feed the horses dinner when it was light, and the sun had barely set when I got back to the house.
“You didn’t see any rabbits in the yard or around the barn this evening?” Julie asked.
“No, but I wondered if it was because I was looking or expecting one…?”
Patrick sat next to me on the library couch, though he could have heard our entire conversation if he were outside the house or still in the cellar. I glanced at his phone as he perused some of the images I had mentioned to my sisters.
“Did you look for meanings other than protection?” Karen asked. “Many symbolic things have different meanings attached, often between different cultures. They could have opposing meanings among different cultures as well.”
Patrick shook his head. “Not really any conflicting symbolism or beliefs.”
“Could be a good thing,” Julie said.
“I hope so,” Karen said. “If it has the kind of power you and Katie think.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” I said. “Love you.”
I disconnected and looked at Patrick. “Thoughts? Ideas?”
“Have to wonder who or what is sending you talismans for protection, that are meant to be worn.”
“I’m more interested in why,” I said.
“If you knew what, you might know why. Or vice versa.”
Patrick said, “Sabryna.”
The big, black dog looked up from her bed by the fire place and Patrick pointed at the library doorway, where a purple bunny sat. As Sabryna got up, the rabbit scooted away toward the kitchen.
I had an irrational worry about rabbit droppings. “Its not real, is it? The rabbit isn’t a live rabbit?”
“No heartbeat, not breathing,” Patrick said. “And it has no scent like a rabbit. I would say synthetic material.”
Sabryna gently picked up the egg and carried it over. Patrick cracked it with his fingers and caught the charm that fell out. He handed it to me.
“Celtic knot,” he said, not having to look it up. “Protection from evil and in battle.”
My phone dinged with a text from Katie. It was a picture of a shield charm, with delicately scripted IAC. The text said, “Sam brought this to me. I didn’t see the bunny, but the egg looked white. The shield goes with all the other stuff, but what’s with the letters?”
I sent her a pic of the charm we had from the purple bunny. I glanced at Patrick’s phone where he was sending a text to our friend Maybelle. She had some kind of connection to magic and supernatural events that none of us understood, but it was often useful and informative.
I forwarded the picture of the shield to Maybelle and told Katie we were looking into it.
Maybelle’s response was startling. “I’ve seen those letters written just that way, somewhere. I can’t remember where or what. Give me a few minutes.”
I called Katie. “How was math?”
“Ugh!” Katie replied. “It was math.”
“Still a struggle?”
“Why would it not be…? Oh, Dang! That would be cool, but, no. Charms don’t protect me from math-brain deficiency.”
“Maybelle’s calling,” I said. “I’ll get back to you soon.”
Maybelle was talking before I even picked up the call. “—this is a good thing? Maybe it’s from her?”
“What? Back up,” I said.
Patrick showed me a picture Maybelle had texted to his phone. It showed the bottom of an unlined page of writing I couldn’t make out, but it was signed with the initials IAC in the exact script on the charm.
“Who is IAC?”
“Isobelle AnnaLee Cork,” Maybelle said. “This is a page from her diary.”
Patrick grimaced at the reminder that Maybelle was still in possession of private books and diaries she had borrowed from the house of our late neighbor, Elder Cork. We had discovered that he was the last of a family with powerful dark magic abilities, who had lived on the property adjoining mine.
“Do we think she sent the charms?” I asked. “Or that they belonged to her?”
“Whether they were hers or not, I feel like she is the one who sent them. Or someone connected to her.”
“Connected to her means one of the Corks,” Patrick said, still frowning.
“Yes, but meant for protection,” Maybelle stressed. “I’m confident of that.”
“To protect who?”
“Whoever wears it.”
“It’s not meant for a specific person?”
Maybelle was silent for a moment, consulting her innate gift that provided her with random facts about magical things and situations.
“Not only one person,” she said. “It will protect whoever wears it. And I think it was sent by Isobelle herself.”
“Do you think that because of some feeling you get from the item or because you have been reading her diaries?” Patrick was trying not to sound displeased about Maybelle having kept and studying the private papers of the Cork family.
“Both.”
“Why is Isobell sending talismans of protection?” I asked. “Is this a timely gift? Is there trouble coming around?”
“There’s always something coming around,” Maybelle pointed out. “I think this is just to have in case of need.”
“Why now?” Patrick asked.
“Tomorrow is Easter. Presents from the Easter bunny.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Yes. We know that spooks like holidays. If Isobelle wanted to give a significant gift and wanted to be sure it was noticed and understood to be something special, this is the perfect way to do it.”
She wasn’t wrong. We did notice and recognize that it was meaningful and tried to learn about it.
“True,” I said. “I will pass this info along to Katie, with the charm we still have. Do you think it needs to be worn by someone all the time?”
After another pause, Maybelle said, “No. I think it should be kept safe and used whenever it might be needed.”
I didn’t ask how we would know. We had experience recognizing when supernatural energies were active, or when we were dealing with a person or being with evil intentions.
“I never thought I would be visited by a real easter bunny, leaving eggs as gifts,” Katie said, when I called her back. “Kinda fun.”
“Until we need it,” I said.
“Still fun,” Katie said. “Spooky mayhem is gonna happen. Things to make it easier to solve and manage are a bonus. Happy Easter.”