In a hole in the ground there lived a Cassidy…

*  *  *

“I should have known,” Merry sighed.

Sam Cassidy had himself a gen-u-ine hobbit hole.

Into the banks of the cottonwood-lined creek that bordered the far side of Dolly’s property, Dolly’s nephew had dug himself a Tolkien-worthy den, complete with round wooden door and sloping turf roof. Merry looked down at Cleese and sighed.

“Well, boy, shall we see what quest awaits?”

The turtle, along for the ride in its clear plastic travel terrarium, nodded slightly. He seemed more ready for their excursion than Merry was. She hadn’t wanted to leave him to his own devices overnight, though the truth was she didn’t know what might be in store for the terrapin—or for herself—on this mission.

“Alrighty then.” And Merry grasped the brass knocker set into the middle of the green-painted door. It swung open upon the first strike, all of its own accord.

“Oh, for the love of literature,” she sighed. “First Tolkien, now Lewis Carroll?”

For a bunny stood, nose twitching, at the door of the hobbit hole. A plain brown bunny, with one lop ear, rather fat.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” asked Merry—as she thought, facetiously.

“Come in already,” it boomed.

Merry staggered backward, unbalanced both by the enormous picnic basket Dolly had sent her over with and by the travel terrarium she carried. And, oh, yeah, by the rabbit that had just talked to her.

“Are you deaf? I said get in here. Time’s wasting.”

What was it with bunnies and time? She searched for evidence of a top hat or pocket watch, but the rabbit was pretty ordinary, not counting its powers of speech. It turned and hopped back into the house, and, bemused, Merry followed.

Cassidy (presumably the actual source of the irritable command) was nowhere to be seen, but that was okay. Merry needed time to take in his habitat. She gaped around her. The great room’s central feature was a tree. A huge, knobby-barked tree—a cottonwood, Merry thought—whose ancient branches, no longer living but no less imposing for that, arched toward the ceiling, while a clever spiral staircase climbed its bole. At the top, what looked to be a loft bedroom had been nestled into the fossilized tree’s crown, and hanging plants trailed down from the railings that bounded the little aerie.

Rough-hewn latillas wove chevron patterns along the ceiling, while thicker beams of gnarled wood with the bark still on supported walls of whitewashed adobe that had clearly been plastered by the loving hand of an expert. Free-form archways made from more plaster-and-tree-branch construction led off in several directions toward what looked to be a kitchen, a bathroom, and storage closets. The living room sported padded benches tucked against the thick-paned passive solar windows that made up one whole wall of the house, offering views of the creek, the not-so-distant mountains, and the rolling, alpaca-dotted pastureland of Dolly’s ranch.

It was Wonderland meets Middle Earth.

“Hoooo, boy, Cleese,” she muttered to her turtle. “We are not in Kansas anymore.”

Merry could swear the turtle snorted. Sorry, boy. Too many metaphors, I know.

“Where’ve you been, Wookiee?” Sam appeared in the doorway of what looked to be the kitchen, judging from the copper pots hanging from a ceiling rack behind him. His ever-bare feet were so quiet on the packed-earth floor she hadn’t even heard him approach. He was wearing a shabby pair of Oshkosh overalls over a faded yellow western shirt that had what might once have been tiny flowers or horses or cowboy hats printed on it. His hair formed a nimbus of I-don’t-give-a-fuck around his head. He had the bunny in the crook of one elbow, and he was stroking its lop ear absently as he scowled at her. “Half the morning’s gone already.”

Merry ignored his surliness, too amazed by his abode to let him rile her up. “Holy crap, Sam. How on earth did you ever find such a house? Was the ranch built around it? Did Peter Jackson film a scene from LOTR no one knows about here?”

Sam eyed her as if he couldn’t tell whether she were complimenting or insulting him. He shook his head. “I didn’t find it, I made it,” he mumbled.

“Like, made it, made it? With tools and all that?”

He rolled his eyes, but he still looked a bit shy, as if nervous about her reaction to the home. “With tools and all that,” he confirmed.

“Daaaamn, Llama Boy.” Her pirate brow rose. “You’ve got some seriously hidden talents.”

He snorted. “Seriously hidden, or seriously talented?”

“Bit of both,” Merry said, her lip curling up.

Sam let the bunny down gently at his feet and crossed his arms, but he was only reluctantly scowling now. Merry didn’t fail to notice how his biceps and pecs stretched the fabric of his shirt. He turned and gestured for her to follow him through the house, bunny hopping at his heels as if carrots would sprout from them. They might too, thought Merry. Sam swiped his hat from a hook on the wall and smashed it over the haystack on his head. “C’mon, we’d better get out back and greet our guests. I’ve already kept them waiting too long because of you, and they’re probably getting hungry.”

She hefted the substantial wicker basket as she hurried after him. “Who’re we feeding today anyway, a pack of ravening wolves?”

“Pretty much,” Sam said. “Come meet them.”

And he led the way through the kitchen, past the mudroom, and out the back door. Where the hungry wolves awaited.

Merry’s guts went cold.