“For a rabbit this size, yes. Normal range is a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty, but this one’s been sitting in my surgery for twenty minutes without any increase. No stress response at all. A rabbit in an unfamiliar environment with a stranger touching it should be at the upper end of the range, minimum. This one’s completely relaxed.”
“Maybe it’s friendly.”
“Rabbits aren’t friendly. They tolerate handling at best. This one…” She pauses. Leans closer. Her frown deepens into something I recognise: the look she gets when the data doesn’t fit the model. “This one is watching me.”
I move closer. The rabbit turns its head to track my movement. Not the startled, twitchy motion of prey responding to a predator. A slow, deliberate turn, followed by a long, assessing look from dark eyes that are, now she’s pointed it out, disconcertingly aware.
“Whose rabbit is it?”
“Maggie’s. She brought it in for nail clipping.” Phoebe sets down the stethoscope. “Roan. Is this a normal rabbit?”
“Define normal.”
“Is this a rabbit that is also sometimes not a rabbit?”
I look at the rabbit. The rabbit looks at me. Neither of us blinks.
“I honestly don’t know,” I say. “Maggie collects strays. Some of them are ordinary. Some of them are... less ordinary.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Welcome to Mistwood.”
She gives me the look. The one that says she’s going to add this to her notebook and cross-reference it with seventeen other observations and eventually corner me with a theory I won’t be able to deflect. I’ve learned to accept this look as an inevitability rather than a threat.
She clips the rabbit’s nails. The rabbit sits patiently through the procedure and then, when returned to its carrier, arranges itself in a position that can only be described as comfortable, as if it’s settling in for a pleasant journey rather than being confined in a box. Phoebe watches it with narrowed eyes.
“Seven,” she says.
“Seven what?”
“That’s the seventh animal this month that doesn’t behave the way its species should.” She washes her hands. Dries them. Turns to me with the directness I fell for in this very kitchen the first time she handed me a cup of tea. “I need you to tell me about the other species. Not wolves. The other things. Maggie’s garden is full of herbs that don’t grow naturally in this climate. That rabbit is not a normal rabbit. The cat I treated lastweek healed faster than any feline tissue should, and it repositioned itself during treatment to give me better access to the wound.”
“Phoebe—”
“I’m the village vet. If I’m treating animals that aren’t what they appear to be, I need to know what they are. Not for curiosity. For their safety. What if I prescribe something that’s contraindicated for whatever they actually are? What if I sedate an animal that shouldn’t be sedated? I need the information, Roan. I need it to do my job.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. The frustration isn’t with her. It’s with the fact that every week brings another layer of disclosure, another set of secrets I have to unseal, another brick removed from the wall between her world and mine.
“Sit down,” I say. “This is going to take a while.”
I tell her about the hedge witches. About Maggie’s lineage, the things she can do with plants that aren’t quite magic but aren’t quite gardening either. About the animals that drift into Mistwood from the deeper forests, the ones that are older and stranger than any field guide would suggest. About the territory itself, the way the land holds memory and energy in ways that science doesn’t have vocabulary for yet.
Phoebe listens. Takes notes. Asks questions that are precise and practical rather than philosophical. Shedoesn’t askhow is this possible. She askswhat are the clinical implications.
This is why I love her. Not the only reason. But the purest one. She encounters the impossible and asks how to care for it.
By the time I’m finished, she’s filled four pages of her notebook. The surgery is quiet around us. Afternoon light falls through the window in long, thin stripes.
“Thank you,” she says. “I know that wasn’t easy.”
“It’s getting easier.”
“That’s because I keep asking.” She closes the notebook. Looks at me. “Something happened this morning. Before you came here. You look different.”
“I went to see my father.”
Her eyebrows lift. Not surprise, exactly. Phoebe doesn’t surprise easily anymore. Interest. “Voluntarily?”
