The Hovering Hare

It was a Tuesday night in late October, if I recall correctly, about five years ago, when the first incident occurred. I was living alone in a small, drafty cottage on the edge of a feral forest, the kind of place where the trees leaned in, whispering secrets to the wind. The cottage had been in my family for generations, and though it was old and creaked like a ship at sea, it was home. My only companion was a black cat named Binx, a sleek, silent creature who had a habit of disappearing into the shadows only to reappear where you least expected.

That night, I was lying in bed, headphones on, listening to the haunting strains of a cello concerto. The room was dim, lit only by the pale glow of the moon filtering through the lace curtains. My mind was drifting in that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep when something caught my eye. Binx, or so I thought, was perched on the edge of my bed, near the foot, her emerald eyes fixed on me with an intensity that felt unnatural. I frowned, because I hadn’t felt the subtle dip of the mattress that always accompanied her leap onto the bed.

I pulled off my headphones and blinked, trying to focus in the gloom. There was something wrong. Binx’s front paws were planted on the quilt, but her hind legs hung in the air, suspended as if she were standing on an invisible shelf. There was no table, no chair, nothing that could support her backside. Yet her body was perfectly level, her spine straight, her tail curled around her. A chill skittered down my spine, and I pinched the soft skin of my forearm, hard. The pain was sharp, but the vision remained. Then, slowly, as if fading into a fog, the cat dissolved, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air.

I did not sleep that night. I lay awake, staring at the spot where Binx had been, until the first gray light of dawn crept through the curtains. Binx herself had spent the night curled up on the kitchen windowsill, oblivious. I told myself it was a trick of the light, a half-remembered dream, but a knot of unease had settled in my stomach that refused to loosen.

A week later, it happened again. I was in the living room, reading a book on local folklore, when I glanced up and saw Binx sitting in the middle of the rug. But this time, she was floating, her entire body suspended three inches above the floor, her paws dangling uselessly. Her eyes were wide, and her fur stood on end, as if she were terrified. She let out a low, guttural hiss, and then she fell, landing with a soft thud and scrambling away as if a demon had been chasing her.

That was the moment I began to investigate. I dug out old journals from my grandmother, who had lived in the cottage before me. Tucked between yellowed pages, I found a sketch of a hare, but not an ordinary hare. It was drawn with long, ghostly legs that seemed to extend upward, and the caption read: ‘The Hovering Hare. A spirit of mischief. It mimics beloved pets to lure the living into a false sense of comfort. When it appears, the veil between worlds is thin.’

I laughed it off, but the laughter died in my throat when I realized the drawing matched the exact pose of Binx had taken that first night. The hare was not a pet; it was a harbinger. The journal went on to describe how the hare would appear three times before something terrible happened. The third time, it would come for the pet itself.

Two nights ago, I woke to a familiar pressure on my bed. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt the indentations of paws walking up the quilt. It stopped at my hip, and I felt the weight of something not quite solid. I forced my eyes open, and there it was: Binx, again, but this time her body was sideways, her back perpendicular to the bed, her legs sticking out as if she were standing on an unseen wall. She was completely still, her eyes glowing with an otherworldly light.

I sat up, my heart hammering, and reached out to touch her. My hand passed through her, and a wave of cold washed over me. Then she was gone. I scrambled out of bed and found the real Binx hiding under the sofa, her fur bristling, her eyes wide. She was shaking.

I’ve kept Binx in my sight ever since. I’ve stuffed her in a carrier at night, placed it on the bed beside me, and locked the bedroom door. But tonight, as I lay in the dark, I felt a slight breeze, and the door creaked open. In the doorway, the silhouette of a hare stood—not a cat this time—its long ears twitching, its front paws hovering above the floor, its back legs stretched impossibly long, like shadows stretched at dusk. It took a step forward, and the floorboards beneath it didn’t creak.

A cold voice, like the whisper of dead leaves, filled the room. ‘The third time is the taken,’ it said, and I knew it wasn’t Binx it was after. It was me.

I grabbed the carrier with Binx and ran out into the night, but the hare followed, not running, but gliding, its legs never touching the ground. I stumbled to the edge of the forest, where the trees were so thick that even the moonlight gave up. I turned, and the hare was waiting for me. It opened its mouth, and inside was not a tongue, but a void, and from that void, a faint mewling rose—the sound of every pet ever lost.

I looked down at Binx in her carrier. She was staring at the hare, and then she began to purr. A deep, resonant purr that vibrated through my hands. And in that purr, I heard my grandmother’s voice: ‘Fear is a magnet. It draws the thing you dread.’

I closed my eyes and forced my heart to calm. I thought of Binx, of her warmth, of the comfort she brought me. I thought of love, not fear. When I opened my eyes, the hare was gone, and the forest was quiet.

I don’t know if the hare is truly gone. I feel it sometimes, at the edge of my vision, a flicker of wrongness. Binx is still with me, and she no longer goes near the edge of the bed. She sleeps beside me, her small warm body a talisman against the dark. But last night, I woke to find her standing at the foot of the mattress, her front paws on the quilt, her back legs suspended in midair. And I knew, with a sick certainty, that the hare had learned a new trick.