My Two Cents: RABBIT BLIND by Desiree Horton

I've probably mentioned this before but I really love Desiree Horton's writing. One of her many strengths as a storyteller is her ability to make even the strange and horrific seem cozy and familiar. Her writing feels both nostalgic and surreal, like paintings by Andrew Wyeth, or more contemporarily, Andrea Kowch, blending liminal vignettes of life in the rural Midwest with dark, sinister elements that lurk in the shadows.

Horton's latest release, "Rabbit Blind" is a perfect example. It's a story without anchors, providing few contextual clues to let readers know when or where it's set. It could just as easily be Indiana in 1982, Missouri in 1965, or Wyoming in 1939. That sense of disorientation immediately instills a sort of dread in the reader as the story opens and we're introduced to a girl named Ester, who wanders into the woods near her home, following a scrawny rabbit.

Much like Alice discovering Wonderland, Ester finds a secret place among blackberry brambles where the rabbit and its kin have dug out a warren. When she explores the burrow, crawling beneath the ground to join the rabbits in their den, she realizes they're all sickly and in need of her help. Kindhearted and earnest, she doesn't hesitate to oblige.

Back at home, Ester's mind soon becomes preoccupied with thoughts of the rabbits, often to the exclusion of all else. She experiences lapses in time, where hours fly past with her completely unaware, and she overhears her parents arguing about her mental state, voicing fears that she's unstable. The reader is left to worry about these things, too, and wonder if something darker and more sinister is at play after Ester's mother insinuates inappropriate behavior between Ester's father and the little girl. This unsettling revelation comes further into play at the end of the tale, when Ester makes a terrible discovery in the rabbit burrow that serves as the catalyst for the story's shocking climax.

As always, Horton delivers the goods at the end, in a culmination of slowly built, deliberately layered tension. As in "The Curse of Marystown," the young protagonist at the center of her story is a tragic, ingenuous figure, one the reader longs to protect, even as the adults around her -- who are charged with this responsibility -- fail her repeatedly. The rabbits, in many ways, are symbolic of Ester's fragile, fading innocence, their "blindness" is her own. In learning to see her world as it truly is -- flawed, horrifying, and tragic -- Ester finds a redemption that feels both heartbreaking and satisfying at the same time. Her future beyond the end of the story may be uncertain, but her newly discovered strength is undeniable.

"Rabbit Blind" is available here.