EOSTER

by Mike Perschon - Copyright © Mike Perschon 1999

Winter refused to die that year. It's reign had stretched from an enormous initial snowfall on Halloween all the way until midway through March. Easter was approaching, but it looked as though there would be no outdoor Easter egg hunts. The snow was too deep; even if children could locate some of the eggs, many would be lost until the spring melt, now long overdue. If the Easter bunny was to leave eggs for children to find, it would have to be indoors.

None of this mattered to Randy Weaver. His winter had been long and cold for other reasons. A reason which was manifesting itself before him, as his wife, his brother-in law and himself were spring cleaning in the garage of the Weaver home.

Randy had looked up from maneuvering the remainder of a dust pile into a dust pan. His wife Kathryn was leaning over a box, packing away winter clothing in an act of faith. Her scoop necked tank top hung low enough to expose the upper slope of her breasts, as well as a flash of white lace. She finished with the box and looked up to meet Randy' stare.

"What are you looking at?" she asked playfully.

"You." Randy replied in a low voice.

Kathryn smiled at him. Randy looked over to see if Kathryn's brother Cory had returned with more garbage bags. "After we're done here, how about I send Cory out to a movie, and we'll-."

The question went unfinished as Kathryn replied curtly, "We'll see."

'We'll see' means 'probably not,' Randy thought.

The Weavers had been trying to have children for about two years when they discovered that Kathryn had a form of endometriosis, a condition where excess tissue grows over the uterus, preventing pregnancy. After several attempts involving surgery and various medications, their doctor had prescribed a drug which causes menopause early. As a result, Kathryn was moody, difficult, and uninterested in sex.

Randy was generally a very patient man, but his patience and long suffering were growing thin. He knew Kathryn loved him, but sometimes the need for the physical was so great it hurt.

Cory entered the garage with new garbage bags. The twenty two year old was a student of forestry and wildlife, and was staying with the Weavers while in school. Randy picked up the bag he had dumped the contents of the dust pan into, then stepped out the garage's back door.

The night air was crisp and cold, very unlike spring weather, even for a city as far north as Edmonton. Randy jogged lightly down the back walk to the garbage bin and threw the bag inside. As the plastic sack landed with a crash, Randy saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

A patchy brown and white form darted across the yard, then around the side of the house where the gate to the front yard was. For a moment, Randy thought of giving chase, but then realized that he would never catch up to the small, furry form. He walked over to where the creature had been hiding when the bag of garbage had hit the bin. There, underneath their picnic table was a round impression, followed by the tracks of it's escape.

Rabbit tracks.

Easter bunny, Randy laughed to himself. His neices would have enjoyed seeing that. He wondered if it might not have been a pet that had been abandoned to the elements, which prompted him to call to Cory.

"What do you need?" Cory asked from the garage's back doorway.

"Rabbits eat vegetables, right?" Randy asked him.

"More like straw or grass," Cory replied. "Why did you want to know?"

"One just came through the yard. I thought it might be good to leave something out, just in case it comes back."

"Sure," Cory said "Take some of the hay from the manger scene we had out front for Christmas and mix in some alfalfa; the kind you feed farm animals, not the sprouts. Put them in a cardboard box. If it comes back, it'll smell the food. But don't bank on a return visit."

Randy quickly threw the food in a box and chucked it under their picnic table. Though it was an odd thing to do, it helped take his mind off Kathryn and sex. The following week proved to be a busy one, and when Randy finally got around to checking to see if the food was gone, five days had passed.

The picnic table under which the box was hidden was discernible only as a white hump. The snow had fallen relentlessly all week, and trudging through the placid and undisturbed white powder was a chore. The pathway Randy had made to access the box was all but gone.

The snow reflected the moonlight, lighting up the yard and revealing a fresh trail leading away from the table. The tracks were strange and unfamiliar, too large to be a rabbit's. Individually, the prints were at least as big as his own feet, which were a size eleven. Randy stopped and studied their path for a moment.

Whoever had made them had entered from the rear gate, keeping close to the line of trees which grew along the back fence. After reaching the picnic table, the tracks ceased, only to reappear in a solitary pair some seven feet from the table before disappearing altogether.

Randy jogged over to the table and saw that the intruder had indeed disturbed the cardboard box, making a hole in the drift from behind the table. The alfalfa was gone. Turning his attention away from the box and table, Randy proceeded across the yard to the second set of tracks.

They were deep in the snow, deeper than the other tracks had been. He could see no others, save these two, large impressions. Leaving them undisturbed, Randy ran back into the house to get Cory.

"Can you read tracks?" he asked.

Cory nodded. "Why, did your bunny come back?"

"I doubt it. Just get your jacket and come outside."

Brandishing a big flashlight, Cory traced the prints. He wore a puzzled look, but said little to his brother-in-law aside from comments that he figured someone was playing a big joke on them. That was, until he saw the second set of prints.

"Well I'll be damned." he said, and bounded over to the fence beyond the direction the tracks faced. "Come here." he shouted to Randy.

They both climbed up onto the fence and stared down at the freshly fallen snow on the sidewalk and street.

The tracks continued on, spaced further and further apart down the road, some appearing to indicate whatever it was had bounded completely over parked cars..

"How big was that rabbit you saw?" Cory asked.

Another two days went by, and the temperature, rather than rising, dove once again to a record low of minus forty. The cold snap brought another snow fall, and Randy and Cory found themselves outside shoveling the driveway and walks. It took almost an hour, but a flask of Jack Daniel's kept them in good spirits. The combination of hard work and liquor served to distract Randy from his sexual frustrations, as well as the mysterious tracks. By the time they reached the back walk, he was feeling a buzz coming on.

The light stupor made him oblivious to seven foot shadow falling across the snow. It wasn't until Cory glanced at where he was throwing the shoveled snow that either became aware of their backyard visitor.

"Holy shit." Cory whispered.

When Randy had put out the cardboard box with alfalfa in it, he never expected the rabbit which showed up to claim it would be over six feet tall. But here one was, standing in his back yard, looking worried as hell, hopping lightly from huge hind foot to hind foot.

"It's cold," the rabbit said, almost apologetically.

Neither of the two men reacted, but stood with jaws agape. Cory closed his eyes, then reopened them. The rabbit was still there.

"My name is Dieter," the huge rabbit said, extending a paw in greeting.

Before he knew what he was doing, Randy's habitually did likewise and shook the giant's hand. The rabbit's tangibility brought Randy from his stupor. "Did you say your name was Peter?"

"Wrong rabbit," Dieter replied. "Dieter. It's German."

"I'm Randy. . ."

"I know," Dieter said, putting Randy back down. "I've been watching you for about a week now."

"Watching us?" Cory asked, trying to come to grips with the moment.

"I'm in a bit of a bind." Dieter told Randy. "You see, my wife's been kidnapped, and I need to get her back."

"Your wife?" Randy asked.

"Yes, my wife, Eoster."

"Don't you mean Easter? As in the Easter Bunny?" Cory blurted.

"No. I meant Eoster. I think I know my wife's name." He made a face at Cory which Randy could only guess was disgust, but which amounted to a slight twitching of whiskers and furrowing of brow.

"Pardon me for asking, but where the hell did you come from?" Randy asked.

"I don't have a permanent residence," Dieter told them, "I spend the entire year, roaming the earth with Eoster. And each time we circle the planet, we make love. The result of our lovemaking is a child, which you would call Spring."

"You've got to be kidding me." Cory rolled his eyes and took another shot of whiskey.

"Well, we have sex more often than that, but. . ."

"No," Cory snorted. "I've got a six foot rabbit telling me his sex life is the reason for the season! So the reason we've had such a shitty winter is because you haven't gotten lucky?"

"That's correct." Dieter replied.

Cory shook his head and sat down in the snow.

"So what do you want from us?" Randy asked.

"You're going to help me find her."

Cory threw his arms in the air in mock surprise. "Why us?"

"You," Dieter said, pointing at Cory, "are a tracker. You will help me rescue my wife."

Cory shook his head. "Rescue?"

"She's been kidnapped by some of Saint Nicholas' elves."

"Santa Claus?" Cory said incredulously, and downed the rest of the flask.

"Yes." Dieter replied gravely. "And while their employer is benevolent, the elves are generally a bunch of malcontents. What with how many hundreds of them dispersed from their homelands by humans, moved onto a reservation in the most God forsaken wasteland on the planet. This is their way of demanding their rights."

"How so?" Randy asked.

Dieter sat down in the snow beside Cory, who offered the big rabbit a pull of whiskey. Dieter shook his head, then began. "A while back, the elves implored Nick to hold out that year's toy shipment so you humans would be forced into letting elves regain their place in society. With your best interests in mind, Nick refused the elves' request. Now they're desperate. So when Eoster and I went to visit Nick and his wife, a group of elves followed us south and kidnapped her while I was sleeping. I received a message by reindeer that they will hold her hostage until I convince Nick to concede to their demands."

"You could pick up cable television with those things," Cory said, pointing at Dieter's ears. "Didn't you hear them sneaking up on you?"

"They're elves. I could hear you coming for miles, but elves don't make any sound when they're on regular terrain. They have extremely close ties to the earth. But so did your ancestors, and you have enough of their blood left in you to allow you to do the same."

I assumed Dieter was talking about the Blackfoot strain which ran in Cory and Debbie's family. "I still don't see why you can't do this yourself," he commented.

"The Pole would be on the lookout for me. They'd sense my presence. A normal human going 'trapping' is another story. I can take Cory most of the way there, and then he'll have to go on his own."

"Okay," Randy agreed, "so where do I come in?"

"You're going to take away the elves' bargaining chip: you're going to bring spring while we're gone."

It was four days since the conversation with Dieter in the backyard. Randy wondered how Cory and the rabbit were doing, since it kept his mind off of the absurdity of his own predicament. He and Kathryn were in the Rocky mountains, hiking in deep snow along a series of trails in Waterton parks. Kathryn had strangely accepted Randy' spontaneous decision to take a vacation. The day of their hike had dawned quite sunny, and strangely warm. Randy had an idea that he knew why.

"You and your wife need to take Eoster and my places in out hutch to bring Spring." Dieter had told him.

"You mean have sex?" Randy had asked.

The big rabbit nodded, and Randy shooed Cory away. When it was just the two of them, man and hare, Randy said, "That's going to be a problem. My wife's on medication right now and she's not interested in sex right now on the best of occasions. The floor of a cave is going to be far from ideal."

Dieter paused thoughtfully. "You mean she doesn't initiate, or she just doesn't want to at all?"

"It's very uncomfortable for her - painful, she says."

"That is a problem. When was the last time you copulated?"

"Several months ago." Randy admitted sheepishly.

Dieter paused again, his whiskers twitching. "I think I can help you," he said at last. A furry paw reached into the leather satchel and produced a rock, which was handed over to Randy. "An amulet," the rabbit told him.

"Is it magic?" Randy asked.

The rabbit said nothing, his ear twitching. Then he nodded. "Oh yes. It will make you all but irresistible to your wife. But," he added, "there are a series of rituals which must be performed right prior to copulation. They have to be done so the woman can see them done or the amulet won't work."

That moment hadn't arrived yet, and Randy was beginning to worry that it wouldn't happen either. They had arrived at the top of one of the smaller peaks; a huge mountain lake covered in ice stretched out before them. Randy looked hard for the opening to the cave Dieter had told him about, yet could find nothing.

"Why a cave?" he had asked. "Why can't we just have sex at a hotel and consecrate it to the seasons?"

"You need to be connected to the earth in a very strong way when you bring a change of seasons. If your body isn't in contact with the earth when you copulate, the earth won't know that it's supposed to tilt it's axis or anything. The deeper into the earth you are, the stronger the signal to bring Spring."

"This is wonderful honey," Kathryn said, breathing in the sharp mountain air. "Can you imagine the lake in the summer?"

"Yeah, there'd be a waterfall going down the slope. . ." Randy' last words ran into a mumble, but when Kathryn looked over to ask him what he had said, she found her husband running back to where the trail lead back down the mountain.

All the way up, Randy had been aware of the grooves worn by repeated water falls eroding the stone. Right before reaching the top, the couple was treated to a vision of massive icicles where the lake's run off had frozen. He ran to the edge of the falls, laid himself down, and leaned over. Sure enough, behind the wall of ice was a passage retreating into the earth.

Kathryn was apprehensive about entering the cave, but seeing that Randy was determined, she acquiesced. The passage was quite large, and ran for about fifteen feet before it opened up into a large, stone room.

Randy lit a Coleman lantern, eliciting a gasp from his wife. He looked up to see that the room was actually quite homey; an old wooden table with chairs sat in the center of the room, and there was a stone bed at one end.

"How did you know about this place?" Kathryn asked, awestruck.

"A friend told me about it." Randy said, then changed the subject quickly. "Are you hungry?"

"Sure," she replied, taking her pack off. "Will we be staying long?"

Randy nodded, and set about to lighting the camp stove he had lugged up the mountain. It had been a tremendous pain in the ass, but the first ritual to make the amulet work was to prepare a special meal for Kathryn. Dieter had provided the spices, which Randy assumed were some sort of aphrodisiac. As he began preparing the meal, Kathryn sat down beside him.

"Cooking me supper," she said, "what's gotten into you?"

Randy shrugged his shoulders. "It didn't look like winter would be ending all to soon, so I thought why wait for spring to take a vacation."

As Randy cooked to Dieter's specifications, he and Kathryn talked about the house, the renovations they wanted to make to it, and their hope in the medication to give them a child. Finally, the meal was ready and they ate in silence, looking at each other occasionally, speaking with their gazes.

"That was wonderful," Kathryn said when they were finished. "What's for desert?"

"The second ritual," Dieter had told Randy, "is to rub this ointment all over your wife's body. This will remove the pain she normally feels during sex."

The ointment was an oily, translucent liquid which was somewhat brown in color and smelled like chocolate. Randy produced the bottle and smiled at his wife. She raised here eyebrows and asked, "What's this?"

Instead of answering, Randy began laying out their sleeping bags on the stone bed. He didn't exactly know how much of his body needed to be touching the earth when he and Kathryn finally had sex, but he wasn't interested in trying to make love on cold stone. This accomplished, he went back to Kathryn and helped her to her feet. Then, slowly, deliberately, gently he undressed her.

"While you're undressing her, don't go groping her breasts or putting your hand between her legs to try to get her excited," Dieter had told him. "That will ruin the magic. It, uh, rushes the power and interferes with the positive energy."

Randy had to restrain himself from not doing either of those things. In the light of the Coleman, she was so beautiful it was breathtaking. Randy remembered the levity of the task at hand and laid Kathryn down on the stone bed.

The smell of the oil was wonderful, filling the cave with it's thick, sweet scent. Randy's hands worked up and down the entire length of Kathryn's body. At times, she made little noises of pleasure, making it all the more difficult to complete the ritual. Finally, her entire body covered by a light layer of the oil, Randy was ready for the third ritual.

"Can you sing?" Dieter had asked him.

"I used to sing in the boy's choir in church," Randy replied.

"Good. Then you're going to sing her a song."

"Which one?"

"A love song. One she likes."

"But she only likes country."

"Then that's what you'll sing."

Kathryn's eyes were still closed when the first notes emerged from Randy's vocal chords. Slowly, her lids raised and she turned her head to look at her husband, who was standing with his eyes closed, singing the words to the song which had been the first dance at their wedding. He was shaking from nervousness. He was a bit off key. He was beautiful.

Randy was absorbed with completing the third ritual that he jumped and cried out when Kathryn kissed him. Deeply. Passionately. He opened his eyes to see her, one of the sleeping bags draped around her shoulders for warmth.

"I'm cold," she said in a husky voice. "Come warm me up."

Randy nearly lost complete control, but remembered Dieter's warning that if the act of love took any less than one hour then the entire act would have been for nothing. So began a long, slow and languorous session of foreplay. Then, the lovemaking became more aggressive. Randy had to pull back many times to avoid climax, and had brought Kathryn to the brink twice.

Finally, looking at his watch, Randy realized it was time. Both of the were hot to the touch, and had lost the sleeping bags more from intensity of the act than any intention on their part. Randy laid Kathryn down on the smooth stone and raised her hips to his.

"I love you," he whispered in the darkness.

They slept in the womb of the earth that evening. In the morning, they woke to the trickling of water at the front of the cave. Spring had been born.

"The amulet worked," Randy told Dieter as they stood in the backyard of the Weaver's. "Was Cory as useful as you hoped?"

"Yes," the big rabbit replied. "Your brother in law did very well at penetrating the elves defenses and returning Eoster. So well in fact, that Nick gave him a job as one of his spies."

"Spies?"

"You know: 'He sees you when you're sleeping' and all that. Nick's only an elf. He's not omniscient. He just has a large network of employees."

"Wonderful," Randy said. "I'm just glad everything worked out all right."

"Indeed," Dieter agreed. "How is Kathryn?"

"She's been incredible. I'm just sad I have to return the amulet."

Dieter chuckled. "You could keep it until the end of time - but you don't need it."

Randy looked stunned. "What?"

"The rituals, the special spices - all fakes. The oil was a product called 'Joy Juice' that I ordered out of one of those love aid catalogs. All you were doing was treating your wife the way she needs to be treated before lovemaking. You treated her like a queen."

Randy stood, silent. "So I didn't need the amulet?"

"Not for what you thought, no."

"What then?" Randy asked.

"For something else," the rabbit replied enigmatically.

Randy got his answer nine months later in a hospital delivery room. It was a much milder winter that year.