Engel and the Bloody Hare

Whether you like it or not, there was once a boy called Engel. He was of little consequence, as most children are, but little things often prove themselves bigger by the problems they create. The time had come for his thirteenth birthday and Uncle Reuben had sworn to take him hunting to celebrate the occasion. Engel, himself, could not have wished for anything worse and reasoned that he was not likely to survive the ordeal on account of his weak stomach. He could not bear to witness so much as a chicken’s beheading and cried for hours after his father made respective thighs, breasts, and wings out of his well-esteemed Margaret.

At last, the dreaded day of the hunt came and Engel, being Engel, had risen late. He threw on his clothes with great haste, slung a small satchel over his shoulder, and bid his father goodbye before heading off to Uncle Reuben’s cabin. However, what he lacked in mental aptitude, he made up for in nimble-footedness, and made it across the valley in the blink of an eye. As he entered the forest where Uncle Reuben lived, he recalled the gruesome task before him and terror at once seized him by the spine, rooting him to the spot. The thought of the hunt gave him such a fright that for a moment he thought he smelled blood in the air.

“Nonsense!” thought Engel.

He kept walking, but the smell of blood only grew stronger. It wasn’t long before Engel reached a clearing, and in the center there was a large rock. As he got closer he saw that there were three dead hares lying on its top, their bulging black eyes glazed over like wet stones and their white and grey fur wicked with heaps of their own congealed blood. Engel’s stomach felt as though it were full of ants, and he thought he should very much like to go home, when suddenly an idea struck him. He would take the bloody hares to Uncle Reuben and tell him he had killed them himself. Then they wouldn’t have to go on the hunt at all!

Engel looked around and wondered if it would be rude to take somebody else's kill. Obviously it would be impolite to take all of the hares, but perhaps it would be considered acceptable to help himself to one, in a time of need.

“What a pity!” said Engel loudly, “such fine hares have been killed and there’s no one to eat them!” He figured that if the hunter of the hares were nearby and happened to hear such an exclamation, they would not hold it against him.

Engel plucked a hare from the rock, wrapped it carefully in an old handkerchief, and placed it in his satchel. No sooner had he continued his journey to Uncle Reuben’s when he began to feel awfully strange. The forest floor seemed to swell and warp beneath him, and all of the bones in his body felt tight as bowstrings.

"How odd!" thought Engel.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that his hat had fallen off. “If I stop now, I’m going to be late!” he cried. He looked to the left and saw that his shoes had fallen off. “I will get them on the way home!” he assured himself. He looked to the right and saw that his shirt and trousers had fallen off. “Uncle can lend me some clothes!” he thought, and kept on hurrying.

When at last he saw wisps of blue chimney-smoke curling in the distance he was overcome with relief. It was barely half-past sunrise and poor Engel felt like he had been to the Styx and back twice over. Just before he could get to the door, he heard a strange click.

"Hello!" he called. "Is anybody there?"

Nobody replied.

Suddenly he caught the faint aroma of tobacco and oiled leather, scents once familiar and comforting but now, strangely, setting every hair on bristle point. He turned and scanned the foliage, catching sight of the brim of a wax hat he knew very well.

“Uncle Reuben!” Engel called, darting towards him.

A clap of thunder broke through the air, and something hot razed across his side like the tip of a needle. Uncle Reuben jumped onto the footpath in front of him carrying a smoking shotgun. Engel was so frightened that he could only stare at his uncle and had no idea what to do next.

Click.

This time Engel’s body did not wait for his mind to make sense of things and he felt a surge of prickling energy spur him off the footpath just before Uncle Reuben sent another bullet into the ground where he had been. Terrified, he tried to run but he could not keep track of his legs which seemed to be everywhere all at once. Looking down, Engel found not feet, but two pairs of fluffy grey paws in their stead.

“Ooh!” he cried.

"Good Morning little Hare," said Uncle Reuben as he reloaded the gun.

Engel shrieked and bounded away clumsily into the bushes. “Uncle Reuben, it is I— Engel!” he yelled. Uncle Reuben could not understand him at all and took aim once more with a grin just wide enough that the dark brown saliva he had accumulated behind his chewing tobacco began to leak out of the corner of his mouth and drizzle down his coarse beard.

Engel’s stomach twisted and turned. Realizing his pleas were useless, he began hopping as quickly as his new legs would carry him through the underbrush. Uncle Reuben was a fine shot though, and the first bullet had grazed Engel’s scrawny hind leg badly. Every hop sent a jolt of piercing pain through his body and he could not see where he was going for his eyes were so full of tears.

"Help!" he cried, as he stumbled down a slope deep into the forest.

He landed in a great big thorn bush and no matter how hard he tried to free himself, the thorns poked deeper into his soft fur the more he struggled. Engel was sure Uncle Reuben would kill him now and, not having anything better to do, wept bitterly.

“Who is crying so loudly over there?” a hoarse voice rang out.

Engel could not believe his luck, and called for help once more.

An old woman in strange rags appeared, but her back was so bent by time and wisdom that she could only move very slowly with the help of her wooden cane.

“Hurry!” said Engel.

The old woman smiled a smile of recognition. “So you’re the thief!” she said.

Engel did not have time for riddles. “Cut me free!” he begged. The old woman let out a shrill cackle, her once tooth-filled gaps making gummy whistles for the great gusts of laughter her throat produced. Engel’s blood began to boil, for even though he was only a boy, he would not be made a fool.

“If you are only here to laugh at me, you ought to go away!” he said scornfully.

“Certainly,” said the old woman, and she turned to leave.

“Wait!” said Engel. “Please, get me out!”

“Alright,” said the old woman, “I’ll set you free, but you must do whatever I ask of you in return.”

Engel hastily promised her that he would do anything. The old woman withdrew a small knife from her pocket and, with unprecedented speed, gently clipped away at the thorns until there was enough room for Engel to claw his way out.

“You saved my life!” Engel cried. He thanked the old woman many times and urged her to make her request speedily, as he did not have much time to spare.

“Not far from here you will find a clearing with a great altar in its midst. Because you took what was mine, you yourself must pay the fine. Replace the hare that was stolen, and be quick about it, you don’t have much time” she instructed, pointing an overgrown fingernail at the gaping wound in his side where caked dirt and mud had nearly obscured the continual flow of scarlet.

Horror crept over Engel like a careful spider leaving a trail of silk down his spine and gluing his paws to the ground. What had he done! He had completely forgotten about the hare in the woods.

"What?" said the witch. "Where's your sense of impatience?”

"I'll be right back," said Engel.

He turned and sprinted away down the embankment as fast as his skinny legs would take him, each heavy pant dragging him forward, helpless and nervous. “That old crone will never catch me!” thought Engel. His head became a little giddy at the notion, but he soon remembered that Uncle Reuben was still very close by and he could no more avoid the swelling host of trouble at his heels than the beating of his own heart pounding with futility against its cage of bone and cartilage, betraying him with every drop of blood it beat out.

Engel became very dizzy and despite his best efforts to remember the way out of the forest, all he could think about was which— for there were many — hunting knife Uncle Reuben would use to flay the skin from his flesh. He thought of the long artful strokes he had seen him use on so many of his kind before, and he wondered if the coarse grains of salt he would rub into the pink sinews of his muscles would make him so delicious that Uncle wouldn’t even know it was him. Was he fat enough to warrant the special curved one? The neighbor woman had once told him that lying would turn his blood into limestone, so perhaps Uncle would be better off using the toothed one with the iron hilt.

Engel knew that hares were no good at stitching wounds, and so, deciding there could be no worse fate than being eaten up by one’s Uncle, he headed for the clearing with a heavy heart. By this time the bloody hares had been in the sunlight for several hours and the stone beneath them had become so hot that it began to cook them. The stench of rot and baked flesh was almost unbearable.

“Ugh!” said Engel as he climbed up next to his late brethren and laid down next to a smattering of drowned flies in the pool of sizzling, sticky blood. His stomach was locked up tight, nothing getting in or out. Resolve had set him like rigor mortis, and he was thankful that his teeth were set tight together so that no insects would crawl inside him. As he closed his eyes, he considered it extremely fortunate that he should never have to have another birthday ever again and let the buzzing drone of the flies lull him into a deep, sweltering sleep.

“Engel!”

“Engel!”

Engel woke with a start.

“Where are your clothes, boy?”

A calloused hand brushed the sweaty hair from his forehead and Engel rubbed his eyes furiously with the backs of his fists. Father was crouched next to him holding an oil lamp above his head.

“Father! You came for me!” Engel quickly inspected his arms and legs and did not care a bit that he was naked so long as he was not covered in tawny fur instead. Crying tears of joy, he stretched out his two arms and flung them around his father’s neck, and kissed him.

Engel, being Engel, had not surprised Father in the least. He wrapped his exceedingly odd son in a heavy wool blanket and led him out of the forest.