Free Bookweirdest by Paul Glennon

no answer to this question. Esme furrowed her brow and twitched her nose, as if trying to puzzle it out.
    “Father, the chronicles tell us of the exile,” she began quietly, gaining confidence as she formed her understanding, “when our ancestors came here generations ago. They passed from a world where the citizens were wise and spoke in many tongues to this place, where all animals are dull and only the two-leggers have the power of speech. Isn’t it possible for a two-legger to go the other way?”
    Norman saw what she was getting at. “Yes, it is possible,” he asserted. “That’s what happened. I travelled to Undergrowth the same way you travelled here.”
    “But that was centuries ago! Our people have been exiled among your kind for centuries.”
    “I can’t explain it,” Norman said. “I don’t understand it, but this travelling between worlds is like travelling in time too. It’s weird.”
    The word seemed to resonate with the rabbits. They mumbled and argued about what it meant.
    “It
is
weird,” Brother Timothy interjected. “No one has ever been able to explain how we came here or why. There are those who think that our exile is a punishment or test. There are those, even after all these years, who think that the old stories are legends—that there never was an Undergrowth and we have always been the only thinking, speaking animals in the forest.”
    His comments were greeted with more shouts of outrage and protest.
    The rabbit monk continued, “Of course no one here questions the chronicles, but you understand our skepticism. For a human boy to say that he has been through the same weirdness—for him to say that he has seen our homeland—it seems a little …”
    Alderman Morgan finished his thought: “A little too good to be true.”
    “I can show you,” Norman protested. “I can go there and bring something back as proof.”
    “Can you take us?” Esme asked eagerly. “Can you show us the way back?”
    The magistrates and monks waited for Norman’s answer.
    “I don’t know,” he answered finally. He wanted to tell them yes. He wanted to tell them he could get them all back to Undergrowth. But the bookweird wasn’t that predictable. He had a hard enough time bringing
himself
to the right place, never mind a whole village of rabbits.
    Brother Timothy nodded solemnly, as if he thought as much. An easy answer would have been too suspicious. “What do you need, boy?”
    They took Norman to the scriptorium. He lay down on the grass behind it, happy to be out of the cathedral. Although the archers on the catwalk had eventually relaxed, he’d still felt vulnerable—and it wasn’t exactly comfortable lying there with his head through the door.
    “Can we bring you some food, boy?” Brother Timothy asked now.
    The offer made Norman nostalgic for Undergrowth. “Do you have any lingonberry pie?”
    “Ha,” the monk laughed. “You aren’t in the Borders now, lad. You’ll have to make do with good old English raspberry tarts. Ambrose, you fetch him a dozen or so. Esme, why don’t you bring your vegetarian friend a dandelion salad?”
    Esme and a young monk hopped off to bring him some food, leaving Norman alone with the older monk. There would be sentries somewhere, of course, but they kept themselves well hidden. Thesun was descending now and just a dim purple light fell through the cracks of the Willowbraid dome.
    “Tell me,” Timothy asked quietly, “the ruin at the great house? Is it really just like the Abbey Church at Edgeweir?”
    Norman nodded.
    “It was supposed to be ours, you know,” he said confidentially. “That’s how the story goes. The brothers accompanied the Rabbit Legion to the Highlands. Once the war was won, we were to finish building the church at Edgeweir and found a community there.”
    “But what happened? How did you end up here in England?”
    “It is the weirdness of which you spoke. Five hundred legionnaires marched from Logarno along with