The Stone Hare

I was thirty-one when I moved to the Isle of Man, seeking quiet after a decade of noise. My cottage sat at the edge of a misty glen, and the only company I kept was a gray tabby named Moss. Moss had been with me through everything—my mother’s passing, a bad breakup, the move itself. When he fell ill that spring, I knew the end was near. The vet said kidney failure, and I held him as the injection took him, his rough tongue brushing my thumb one last time.

That night, I dreamt of the glen behind my cottage, but it was wrong. The path I knew led to a stone circle I’d never seen, and Moss sat in the center, his fur silvered by moonlight. I knelt before him, and though I knew he was dead, I asked, ‘Are you all right?’ He nodded slowly, then turned and trotted toward a crack in the earth that split the ground like a wound. I followed, and the crack opened into a cavern filled with stone animals—hares, foxes, owls, all carved from the same gray rock. In the center, a hare the size of a dog stood on a pedestal, and Moss rubbed against its base. I woke with a start, my heart pounding.

A week later, I found a small stone hare on my doorstep. It was crude, barely recognizable, but I kept it on the mantel, thinking it a prank or a gift from a neighbor. That night, I dreamt again. This time, I was in the glen, and Moss was waiting at the stone circle. He led me to the cavern, and now the stone hare was missing from the pedestal. Moss sat where it had been, and when I touched him, his fur was cold and hard. I woke with my hand aching, and found the stone hare moved from the mantel to my bedside table.

I tried to dismiss it as sleepwalking, but the dreams persisted. Each night, Moss would lead me deeper into that cavern, past rows of stone creatures, their eyes glinting in torchlight. I began to notice that the statues were not all animals. Some were human, twisted mid-scream, their hands reaching out as if begging. I asked Moss what they were, but he only padded forward, his tail flicking. In the dream, I followed him to a chamber where a woman sat on a throne of rock, her hair flowing like frozen water. She was beautiful, but her eyes were black, and she held a stone heart in her palm. She looked at me and smiled, and I saw Moss’s face superimposed on hers for a split second.

I stopped sleeping. I thought that if I stayed awake, the dreams couldn’t take me. But exhaustion has a way of breaking will. On the third night, I fell asleep in the armchair, and Moss was there, but something was wrong. His form flickered, and I could see the cavern behind him, and the woman’s voice echoed: ‘You brought him to me. Now he must serve.’ I looked down at my hands, and they were turning gray, hardening, a fine dust spreading from my fingers. I screamed, and Moss’s eyes glowed red, and he spoke in a voice that was not his: ‘Every heart that loves leaves a stone behind. I am the keeper of the stone hearts, and you have given me yours.’

I woke with a gasp, my hands covered in a thin layer of gray dust. I washed them franticly, but the skin felt tight, stiff. I went to the mirror, and my eyes seemed darker, deeper, like hollows. The stone hare on my bedside table had grown, its legs longer, its ears taller, now standing two feet high. I threw it into the garden, but by dusk it was back, sitting on the doorstep, facing the door. A neighbor, an old man named Callum, saw it and crossed himself. ‘That’s not a hare,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘That’s a fetch. It’s a thing that comes to take your soul.’

I laughed, but a cold dread curled in my stomach. That night, I dreamt of the woman again. This time, she rose from her throne and walked toward me, her footsteps echoing like chisels on rock. She placed her hand on my chest, and I felt a weight settle there, heavy and cold. ‘You will join my menagerie,’ she said. ‘You will sit eternal, and your cat will guard you.’ I looked behind her, and saw Moss, now a stone statue, his eyes locked on me, a silent sentinel. I woke screaming, and my voice came out as a rasp, like stone grinding.

I knew I had to leave the island. I packed my bags, but as I reached for the door, the stone hare was there, blocking my path. I kicked it aside, but it was like kicking a boulder. My foot throbbed, and I fell. When I looked up, the hare had grown, now reaching my waist, its head tilted, its eyes glinting with a malicious intelligence. I scrambled backward, and the front door slammed shut. A sound rose from the garden, a low grinding, and I peered out the window. The stone animals from my dreams were emerging from the earth—hares, foxes, owls, all moving slowly toward the cottage. Behind them, the woman walked, her black eyes fixed on me.

I retreated to the bedroom, barricading the door with the dresser. The grinding grew closer, until it was outside the door. Then silence. A scrape. The door flew open, and the stone hare stood there, its head level with mine, its mouth opening to reveal a dark void. I screamed, and the last thing I saw was the woman’s face, superimposed over the hare’s, and she whispered, ‘Moss was the first. You will be the last.’

They found me three days later, sitting in the armchair, my skin gray and hard, my eyes vacant, a perfect statue of a man. On the mantelpiece, next to the missing stone hare, sat a small stone cat, its tail curled around a heart shaped rock. The note on the table read, ‘For the keeper of the glen, with love—your cat, Moss.’ And outside, the glen was quiet, but the stone circle had grown by one. In the center, a new figure stood—a woman with flowing hair, her eyes black, her expression one of eternal contentment. The man who found me later told police he heard a cat purring, but when he turned, there was nothing there. Just the wind, and the distant sound of chisels.