The house changes from humid to icy and dry on a dime. Irritating as it is, you're grateful to know this; at last, you've been allowed to roam the house all day. Before you'd be sent to the cellar after meals or once Billy and the sheep were catatonic, roaming on some sort of invisible tracks through the halls while that shrieky ballroom music blared from the parlor's phonograph. There must be tracks, anyway; those things are still like the dead when the music comes on, eyes glassy and absent while their arms drag behind them, heads hanging lopsided from their necks.

The rabbit never roams, though. Not like they do. From time to time, it will stalk around the house, eager to catch you out of that dingy cellar and gently send you back, a claw grazing your spine to keep you walking. It won't say more than a sentence when it catches you, not at this point. You've been ushered downstairs by that claw enough times to get the message.

"I told you to stay put," it'll say, if it chooses to say anything at all. The first few times, it adds softly by your ear, "Don't make me lock you up again, little bunny. I know we both hate that."

It takes a few scares now to adjust to your freedom. Every now and then you see the rabbit down the hall to the dining room or lurking in the shadows behind the stairs, its fixed grin burned into your eyes, and you freeze. You relax—as much as you can, anyways—just as quickly when you remember you aren't relegated to the cellar anymore.

It always turns to look at you, no matter how silent you think you're being. You wonder how it's able to see with no eyes, how it hears through its ratty felt ears, how its voice slips so smoothly through those locked teeth, oil between prison bars. But it looks at you—through you, more like—and doesn't say a word.

A bit of a pattern tends to sprout from there; sometimes it will raise a hand and beckon you into the dark, and every time you fear this is the day it'll finally decide to end you. Every time you follow, and it silently motions to a photo on the wall, or a vase of lilies on the table as if you're to gather a story from that.

Sometimes it will just raise a finger to its mouth, even though you rarely speak, and every time you fear something will sneak up and grab you from behind on its command. Every time you hold your breath, and after thirty seconds the rabbit will carry on with its business, pretending you were never there.

Sometimes it just stares. For some reason, that's the one that scares you the most. It stares piercingly, patiently, like you've just interrupted something important and it's silently urging you to leave. The silence between you, even with the music blaring rooms down, is deafening.

You've learned when to stay for the rabbit's silent requests, and when to leave for your own sanity.

You've also learned that the sheep doesn't respond to you. Not on her own, anyway; she needs prompting from the rabbit, even in just a nod or a look or its mere presence in the room. That feels more like a vacuum, though, its presence; it sucks the color out of any corner it settles in to absorb into its own pelt, rendering the room cold, hollow and dry.

You've learned the sheep's name is "Witch"—weird—and that the rabbit is called "Pumpkin"—weirder. The whole Halloween gimmick is grating at this point, especially when your "meals" have only changed marginally from bowls of wrapped chocolate. You've tried breaking into the kitchen. Twice. It's always locked, you realize after wrestling with the shaky handle, and through the crack below the door is a dark void.

You don't believe the rabbit's watching whenever you try, but you don't push it.

You've learned when to stop before you get caught.

—

The mapping machine scuttles past you on uneven green rollers, and you startle.

You don't get a glimpse of its face before it disappears through one of the winding halls out of the parlor. A door slams shut a few rooms away, and you let out a quiet breath. Out of all the residents of this house, that thing is the one you've seen the least, but you can't help but feel relieved whenever it hurries by as if it needs to catch a train, a large and clunky camera clutched in its tinny claws. You haven't seen many rooms beyond the parlor, the dining room, and the cellar—the latter you never plan on going back to.

You only know that robot—who thankfully doesn't insist on dressing like an animal—is a mapping machine because you've seen it take wide shots of several walls in the house. Whenever you approach it, however, its goofy felt antennae shoot straight up, it retracts its ridged metal arms and rolls away without so much as a word. You're not sure it can talk. You wonder how the rabbit and the sheep treat it. Not horribly, you hope; it would be awfully hypocritical of the machines dressed in animal suits to treat it like a servant.

What kind of servant it would be, you can't tell for the life of you. All it does is take pictures and whip around corners, hurrying to some mysterious room hidden in the darkened halls.

You shuffle past the fringed lamp by the sofa and peer through the doorway the machine rolled through. Though you can barely see a foot into the hall, you gather that it leads to some other section of the house. Maybe guest rooms. Maybe a study for this odd little robot. Maybe another dimension.

"I see you've caught him preparing."

You gasp and nearly trip over yourself turning around. The rabbit is looming over you with its arms folded courteously behind its back. You gain your bearings and take a step back.

"I—I..."

You stammer nonsense for a moment before the rabbit seems to sense you aren't getting very far. It gives the doorway behind you a tiny nod.

"TVA works very hard around this season." It raises a delicate hand to its cheek in thought. "I do hope your picture has finished developing. We would all like to see it."

My picture?

You blanch and step back again. "My...?" you barely manage. Your picture. What picture? When did that happen? While you were asleep? During a meal? While you were wandering aimlessly around the house? The flash on that thing's camera is too bright for you not to have noticed. Why would the rabbit want a picture of you? It's had you in its clutches for days. Weeks. How much longer could it want to keep your image for?

The rabbit has extended itself to full, frightening height, its shoulders relaxing. Its gaze meanders about the parlor, as if at a loss for action, and eventually settles on the dusty phonograph by the wall. Slowly, it turns its head back towards you, and brushes your shoulder with a claw.

"It would be best," it says, even quieter than usual, "if you stayed downstairs tonight."

You don't respond. It won't get you anywhere. But your muscles seize for a second when it utters that word, downstairs. That rabbit and its goddamn euphemisms. You would rather sit chained to the dining room table across from Billy the whole night than sleep in the cellar again, surrounded by all those dead children. The skinned head flashes in your mind like an interruption in a radio signal, and your mouth twists into a small, involuntary grimace.

The rabbit retracts its hand and tilts its head. Maybe you should have hidden your thoughts a bit better.

"You don't like that idea." A trace of amusement slips into its voice and your jaw locks. No, you think, I really fucking don't, and you wish you could just say that but your stomach churns at the very notion. You haven't said more than five words to this thing in the past however many days. You can't muster the courage to stand up on your soapbox now.

"You should have behaved a bit better, then," it says in a chilled drawl. "After having to send you back so many times—"

I'm sorry, you nearly blurt.

"—how can I trust a naughty thing like you to stay put now?"

You stay silent. You fold your hands and surreptitiously press a thumb to your inner wrist. Your pulse is pumping so fast it might just explode out of your veins.

It can't hurt me, you feebly remind yourself, and swallow down nothing. It won't hurt me.

The rabbit brings a hand to its chest and leans down again to level its empty gaze with yours.

In the darkness, just for a moment, you think you catch two hooded eyelids.

"My Witch and I will be welcoming guests in a few hours," it says. "And I plan to make their stay as pleasant and comfortable as possible."

"I won't..." escapes you in a breath before you can stop it. You clench your jaw and purse your lips as tight as you can. The rabbit pauses, then just by your luck, leans in closer.

"Won't what?"

You clutch your hands to your chest and lock your thumbs together. "I won't—I won't make it..."

All words have left you again. Does it even expect you to speak? Maybe you'd be better off cutting yourself short any chance you get. Feed its ego a bit. Nevermind that the rabbit is already every ounce as terrifying as it thinks it is.

The rabbit extends its hand after a minute of silence, unwavering.

"Give me your hand, little bunny."

No. You know what's about to happen now. Fuck. Maybe you should have kept talking.

"I—"

The rabbit's claws furl and then flex as if to beckon you, and anything you'd planned to say stops at your teeth.

It doesn't speak. It doesn't move, doesn't give you so much as a cheeky tilt of the head like usual, or even keep beckoning. It just stares through you in waiting. It won't move until it gets what it wants.

Though it'll never happen, you wish it would stop smiling.

Warily, you reach out and rest your hand on the rabbit's cold steel palm, averting your gaze to the horrid purple carpet. Maybe it'll be gentler if you give yourself up now.

The rabbit curls its claws over your hand and stands straight.

"Ordinarily," it says, and gives your hand a small tug—you wince as it feels like your skin is caught between gears—"I would have Billy bring you down. But I don't think you would have liked that."

I don't like this either.

It begins to walk across the parlor. You don't bother trying to loosen your hand; it could probably crush it in half a second if it chose to. You stumble along in its wake, keeping your hand close and holding your wrist in a way so that it doesn't feel like the rabbit's jointed claws will rip into your skin.

You exit the parlor and continue past the stairs, past countless framed photos that are nearly impossible to make out in the darkness growing from every corner of the hall. The way to the cellar is winding, perplexing, and the way the house's walls seem to lose color and peel off the farther you go gives you a twinge of sickness. Soon all that surrounds you is aged drywall speckled with grime, and the thin scent of old blood.

You arrive at the cellar door. The rabbit's hold on your hand has only tightened, and you clench your jaw to keep a small whine of pain from slipping out. It cocks its head in your direction, and you feel that maybe it should have added a movement mechanic in the ears if it wanted to come off as more charming. By now, though, you doubt that there's a point to charm.

"Am I hurting you?" it asks. Every passing second the joints in its hand seem to pinch you harder and harder, and you suppress the urge to rip yourself away. After a moment, you nod, eyes locked on the rotting wood of the door.

The rabbit pauses, then grabs the rusted knob and pushes it in. Something clicks in the walls.

"Then let's hope I don't have to do this again."

It twists the knob and opens the cellar door, which is a bit stubborn and releases a crack as it opens, unstuck from the casing. The rabbit gestures politely to the decrepit stone staircase plunging into darkness before you. It hasn't let go of your hand.

You give the rabbit one more discomforted look, settled in the valley between pleading and challenging. It doesn't seem moved. It doesn't move, either, and you get the feeling it won't as long as you stand in this hallway.

You swallow back your fear—It's just for one night—and take a tentative step into the doorway. Then down one stone step, then another, at a snail's pace, heart pounding in your ears as you descend. The rabbit moves as you do, lingering just a moment as you take the first few steps so that it's blocking the door from behind you. It keeps its abrasive grip on your hand all the way down.

You reach a second door at the bottom of the steps, this time with a series of three latches on its right side. The dim amber light from upstairs casts a shadow of the rabbit over you. The hair on your neck starts to rise and you choose to focus on the latches. You make up a story of this cellar to tell yourself—how there must have been a happy family who lived here once, and how the father must have been very busy and kept a sweet little workshop down in this room. The older his children got, the easier it was for them to reach the latch on the door and interrupt his work, so he kept having to get more installed to keep his children out of the shop.

Your story is rudely interrupted by the rabbit reaching over your head to slide each latch to the side. It does this slowly, almost making a show of it. Maybe it's trying to intimidate you. Maybe this is some kind of added punishment, drawing out this trip to the cellar to pique your nerves.

Maybe it doesn't want to leave you here. Not really.

Oddly enough, the thought makes you bite back a laugh.

The rabbit opens the door and ushers you inside. You keep your eyes glued to your feet. You don't need to be reminded of everything you've seen down here.

Its grip on you loosens, and your hand slowly slips from its claws.

The rabbit leaves, closes the door behind itself and slides the three latches back into place. You don't hear it ascend the stairs—how does it creep so silently like that?—but after a moment the door at the top creaks shut, and you're alone in the dark.

You rub your freed hand tenderly. Then a bit harder. Then harder, pressing your thumb into the dents in your skin to flatten them out, nearly bruising your fingers to rid yourself of any sensation of those claws digging into you. You grip your hand tighter than the rabbit ever did, rubbing burns into your wrist, squeezing the life from your fingers and cracking them three times over, just to make sure it's still your hand.

You shut your eyes and lean against the wooden door, hunched into yourself. You hold your sides with trembling hands. You'll make it through this. It's only one night. You'll be fine as long as you don't look behind you.

The skinned head's empty eyes are looking straight through you.

You hold yourself tighter and suck in a shaky breath from between clenched teeth. You're alive. You're lucky. Of all things, you should be the least afraid of those bodies. You don't understand why you have to keep reminding yourself that.

The doorbell reaches your ears from upstairs, a drowned and distant noise. It snaps you awake.

You start to digest what the rabbit had said about guests.

You lift your head, eyes still closed, and concentrate. You hear the strange but sweet hum of Witch's voice.

"Come inside," she seems to be saying. You don't catch much other than that.

A giggle. The rustle of a bag. "Thank you," says someone you don't recognize.

The click of a shutter. A small gasp.

You hear the rabbit's low, muffled apology, and sense it doesn't mean a word of that.

You press your ear to the door in hopes of catching anything more.

"We like taking pictures of our guests every year.

"That way we will never forget them."

—

And for some reason you aren't there.

There's nothing holding you to the ground. There is no ground beneath you.

Your eyes are open and you see nothing. Not darkness, but nothing.

Your head is filled with cotton and you're lying apart from yourself in empty space. You hear something. Who knows what it is; the noise is soft and muffled like you're submerged in water.

A voice is drawing closer. Something cold is pressed against your cheek.

"—very well."

The cellar melts back into view. You're whole, paper-light, on solid ground; it's as if the world had rushed to meet your back. Air blooms in your lungs again.

You're sprawled out on the mildewy tiles, your neck craned against the concrete wall. You slowly blink the sand from your eyes and open your mouth to breathe.

The sharp stench of blood hits your tongue and you squeeze your eyes shut, letting out a weak cough. It's fresh. Very fresh.

The rabbit is crouched in front of you, delicately stroking your face. The chill of its claws on your cheek wakes you quick.

"I must thank you for being so quiet tonight," it murmurs, its wide, crooked grin inches from your face. You freeze, breath short, just barely able to make out the rabbit's individual fake teeth in the dark. It doesn't seem to realize you've just woken up. You want to rip its hand away from your face, or yell at it to back up, or kick its muzzle in with all your remaining strength. But you feel it won't take too kindly to any of that.

It hooks the tip of its claw beneath your chin and tilts your head up. Your gaze snaps to the side as the rabbit looks through your skull again, and from the sliver of light trailing across the cellar floor you see a grubby, bloody hand, limp on the arm of a chair.

The rabbit tilts its head. It's looking at you fondly.

"Who knew you were such a well-behaved bunny after all?"