Rabbit’s Labyrinth
Rachel Hansen
The labyrinth breathes with me, its walls alive in the twilight’s grip. The leaves shiver as though they murmur secrets only I can hear. Beyond the orchard where the staff quarters end, the hedge maze lies within the heart of Erlewine Estate, carved centuries ago for the lord’s first heir. The fading light tangles itself in the boxwood, casting a dim, golden hue over the maze, yet it is swallowed by the relentless green, a sea of endless foliage that closes in around me.
I am the only son of a seamstress, sold into servitude before I could spell the name of the house I now serve. I wear the uniform of a pageboy, though my years have long since earned me the duties of a chamber servant.
My fingers graze the damp leaves, tracing the veins etched into their surfaces, absorbing the damp coolness left by yesterday’s rain. Each step I take is slow but purposeful; the garden holds its breath, and I do the same. There is no hurry. Not tonight.
I have chased him before—that fragile creature of instinct and fear. He darts through the labyrinth’s twists and turns, slipping from my grasp each time my gaze falters. But tonight, I do not chase. Tonight, I walk.
I want him to hear my footsteps. Steady. Insistent. He must understand that escape is nothing but an illusion. The hedges are no refuge. I am the only shelter he will ever find.
As I draw near the center, a soft, pitiful sniffle reaches my ears, a sound like a siren’s call, enticing me from the depths of the maze.
“Little Rabbit.”
I call for him as I round the final bend. There he is, huddled at the base of the gazebo’s weathered stairs, the dark wood and twisted ivy contrasting sharply against the pallor of his princely form—his fine hair, pale as candle wax, curls like feathers at his nape; his eyes, glassy with tears, are the color of spring rain. He is like a rabbit: too foolish to know that its sanctuary has already been breached.
My voice arrests him. His head jerks up, and though rabbit ears are not truly there, they seem to twitch, as though he cannot help but listen.
“Why do you return here to hide?” I ask, lowering myself before him. “Surely it is not I who has driven you to such sorrow.”
He tries, poor thing, to swallow his tears and wear the mask of a man. He shakes his head, desperate yet insistent.
“No… it’s Mother. She’s angry with me again.” His voice fractures as he stumbles through the remnants of his pride. “She says if I can’t be like my brother, then I’m of no use to her.”
Ah. As I thought.
The Lady has always borne a certain… edge. A woman summoned to replace a ghost, she is not the prince’s mother by blood, only by title—a second wife to a grieving lord whose first love was buried beneath marble and roses. Her place is precarious, her influence borrowed.
Thus, she seizes upon the boy. My poor rabbit.
Just two years younger than the heir by birthright, he has become a convenient vessel for ambition. His elder brother—once the golden son—has soured, taken to shadows in the wake of his mother’s death. A crack in the family portrait. A flaw she believes she can mend by lifting this one into favor, reshaping him into something regal, something useful.
But he is not made for thrones. He hides in gardens and weeps into ivy. He is soft where others demand steel. And still, she dares to mold him.
She dares to mold perfection.
“What would you have of me, my prince?” I ask softly, shifting my hand to rest upon his knee—a deliberate touch meant to breach the feeble walls he has tried so hard to build. “Shall I speak to her on your behalf?”
“No!” His hands dart forward, clutching mine with panic. “You can’t. What if she punishes you again?”
He remembers. He always remembers. The lash across my back, the locked cellar, the weeks I went unspoken to by the others for daring to intervene.
The corners of my mouth nearly betray me. Even in misery, he is thinking of others—too kind for this world, too precious for the cruelty that rules it.
“That would be a small price,” I murmur. “It is my duty to protect you, is it not? If I can draw her wrath away from you and bear it myself, then I welcome it—so long as it wins me your smile.”
His shoulders ease, but his grip tightens around my hands—fragile vines clinging to stone.
“You are more than a servant,” he whispers. “You’re my friend—the only one I trust in this place. I can’t let you be hurt because of my weakness.”
Tears brim in his uncertain eyes—eyes that still do not know how to harden. “What kind of man would I be if I let a child fight my battles?”
I cannot help the sound that escapes me—a quiet laugh, breathless and fond. He blinks at me, startled, and I allow myself a fleeting smile.
A child? I am younger, that is true. But never—not once—have I looked at him and seen a man.
“You say that,” I softly laugh, “yet to any passerby, it is I who would be mistaken for your guardian, and you, a boy yet too young to be left alone in the dark.” My gaze lingers on him, amused. “You’re not even of age to taste wine outside the chalice of a church, my dear.”
His brow twitches—a sting of my jest, though he releases his grip on my hands with reluctant grace.
“You’ve always been more mature than me,” he sighs, eyes cast downward. “I must seem pathetic to you.”
He once wept when a sparrow flew into the windowpane and broke its wing. He would not eat for a day after I buried it. He once gave away his boots to a kitchen maid’s younger brother, and went barefoot in winter until the steward noticed.
“No.” I rise, settling beside him as the gloom thickens around the gazebo like a shroud. “A little rabbit you may be… but a brave little rabbit all the same.”
My hand finds his shoulder, coaxing him gently until he leans into me. His slight frame yields easily, as though he has always belonged there—in the hollow between my shoulder and my heart. “It is because I admire you that I ask you not to carry this burden alone. Let me carry it for you. Let me be your strength.”
He tries, for a moment, to hold back the storm behind his lashes. But the dam breaks, as I knew it would. Tears spill freely, soaking into my uniform as I draw him close, pressing him into the crook of my neck.
He weeps with all the honesty of a child, the kind of grief that knows no performance—pure, unshielded, and painfully sincere. That is the nature of my dearest. He believes in goodness. He trusts in promises. He weeps when others are hurt.
“What can I do for you, my prince?” I whisper, though I already know the answer. “Shall I end this pain? Shall I tear down these walls that cage you and burn the roots of this cursed garden to ash?”
He cannot answer—not yet.
But he does not need to.
From the moment I first laid eyes on him eight years ago—curled in the greenhouse with a book far too heavy for his wrists, his nursemaid shouting from across the lawn—so fragile, so small, so terribly human—I knew what must be done. I must make him mine. Mine alone.
“Just three more years,” I murmur against his hair. “Hold on for me. On the morning of my nineteenth birthday, the contract that binds me here will snap like brittle thread.”
I take his hand—softer than it ought to be for a boy meant to inherit a throne—and weave my fingers through his. I raise it to my lips and press a reverent kiss to his knuckles.
“I swear to you, on that day, I will come for you. I will free you. And I will make certain that you never shed another tear again.”
He releases the breath he was unknowingly holding, as if loosening the knot that strangles his chest. His voice cracks as he speaks.
“Am I…” His voice breaks. He tries again. “Am I allowed to hope? Is it wrong for me to long for such a future? To believe it could be real?”
“My prince. What else do we have but yearning?” I assert. “It is our yearning that binds us—the ache, the waiting. It is proof that we are still alive.”
A beat of silence.
“Carlyle?” he exhales.
“Prince Harley.” I inhale.
“Do you mean it?” he doubts. “All of it?”
“I do.” I reassure.
He turns to me fully now, as though turning toward the future itself. His gaze—bare, desperate— is utterly dependent on my promise.
“Swear it to me. Please. I need to hear it.”
I take his hand and press it to my chest. Beneath his palm, my heart beats a solemn rhythm, steady and sincere.
“This is yours,” I say. “And I swear on it. I swear on all I am.”
I could swear it a thousand times over, whisper it from sunrise to sunset. But oaths, no matter how tender, wither without proof.
It must be action.
Repetition.
Transformation.
Love is not a promise—it is a becoming.
I would give him my life without hesitation.
But not freely.
No.
Only if, in turn, he gives me his.
…
[ Five Years Later ]
…
The labyrinth still breathes with me, though its air is colder now— its silence deeper, more devout. These walls are no longer hedged in sunlight, but carved from frigid stone, cloaked in moss that quivers in the torchlight, whispering secrets only I am meant to hear. Shadows pool across the narrow corridor, swallowing the flickers of gold that dance and die along the curve of the passage.
There is no sky here. No twilight. Only its echo, embalmed in memory and ritual.
My fingers trail the slick, timeworn surface, tracing the cracks where roots have broken through. Each step is deliberate, unhurried. And as before, there is no need to rush. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever again.
The little rabbit no longer runs. My gaze may wander, but he cannot. I want him to hear me coming—footsteps slow, steady, inescapable. He must remember: the world beyond is dust and lies. There is no sanctuary but this. No shelter but me.
As I draw near the metal that separates us, a soft, lonely sniffle reaches my ears, a sound like an angel’s song, enticing me from the depths of my lair.
The door groans as I push it open, revealing him at last—curled at the foot of his bed, framed by velvet and stone. A prince as always, even in his cage.
Yes.
This is where he is meant to be.
“Little Rabbit.”
My voice arrests him. His head jerks up, and though rabbit ears are not truly there, they seem to twitch. He cannot help but listen.
“Why do you still weep, my dear?” I ask, lowering myself before him. “Surely it is not I who has driven you to such sorrow—”
“—Why did you leave for so long?!” He interjects, sniffling through the remnants of his independence. “I thought you’d left me for sure this time…”
Ah. As I expected.
His need for attention. His desire for affection. I am the only one who can grant it to him.
“What would you have of me, my prince?” I ask softly, shifting my head to rest upon his knee—a deliberate action meant to overwhelm him in the blanket of my presence. “Shall I reward you for your patience?”
“Yes.” His hands drift forward, clutching mine with desperation.
The corners of my mouth betray me. Even in misery, he is thinking of me—too kind for this world, too soft for the cruelty that now rules it.
“Anything for you, My Prince.”
A beat of silence.
“Carlyle.” he exhales.
“Prince Harley.” I inhale.
“Don’t call me ‘Prince’.”
His hold on my hands tightens unexpectedly.
“Just call me ‘Harley’.”
Rachael Hansen is a student at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, class of 2026. Born and raised in Manassas, Virginia, Rachael grew up captivated by the ghost stories and cryptid legends of Appalachia, which sparked a lasting fascination with the horror and thriller genres. In addition to writing, she crafts stories through visual art and short films.
Rachel wrote this piece in a course taught by Lindsay Haber, who selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.