The Rabbit Hutch

The noise in the Rabbit Hutch is so loud that Reggie and Ida, the elderly couple a few floors above the foster kids’ flat, call the police. Meanwhile, Todd is brandishing a knife, and Moses is trying to resurrect a body with his trench coat belt. Later, at the police station, everyone reports seeing a flash of light, owing to Moses’s glowing aspect.

Malik has posted a video online. It includes horrific scenes, including a rope-bound goat and a white-haired girl matching Blandine’s description with blood on her stomach. Sapphire, Malik’s former foster sister, sees the video on social media. She thinks that “Malik always loved attention; she believes that he is capable of hurting someone for it” (371). She reports the video.

This chapter illustrates what happened from Todd’s point of view. We see the knife brandished and the goat tied up, and then a man tied up in its place. There is a picture of a shirtless Malik with his phone out and another of a girlish silhouette, apparently dissolving. Then, a phosphorescent Moses stands above a reclining Blandine. Then, there is a man who has Blandine on his back and is brandishing a knife. This is followed by a struggle in which a man appears to be stripping off Blandine’s clothes. Finally, the naked silhouette of a woman comes to Blandine’s rescue.

Jack gives the facts of how they heard and found the goat and tied it up. Todd retrieved the bongo drums for the ritual, while Jack got the knife and Malik reached for his phone. Jack and Malik bully Todd into taking the knife against his will. While they do not like the goat’s fearful bleats, one of them must kill it. Blandine emerges and gets between Todd and the goat. She is furious. Jack tries to tackle her, but she shields the goat with her body. Jack rips off her dress, and she kicks him in the balls. Malik is filming the whole thing. Blandine reaches for Todd who has the knife and screams “why do you have to kill everything” at him (390). Todd turns on Blandine and stabs her instead. Blandine’s blood is all around him. In the doorway, there is a glowing stranger (Moses). He ties Blandine’s stomach with his coat’s belt and tries to rescue her. Malik films the whole thing, grinning. Then sirens are heard, and the police arrive.

James Yager’s ex-wife wants to know what Tiffany Watkins meant to him. From his cheap, riverside apartment, Yager knows that Blandine was stabbed in the stomach three times. While Yager tries to dismiss Tiffany as unimportant on the phone with his ex-wife, she maintains that she thought he was Tiffany’s mentor. The news of Tiffany’s being stabbed in the stomach forces him to “admit that it was possible to wound Tiffany Watkins” (395). Meg is morbidly curious about the stabbing. He breaks down in tears, and Meg asks him to pick up their daughters from school.

Jack puts on a good show at the police station after he relates the facts; he has been crying intermittently. Observing him, Officer Stevens “is reminded of a white rabbit, pulled by the scruff from a magician’s hat, frightened and surprised” (399).

Hildegard has a vision of “a light-filled man” who “pour[ed] his brightness over the aforementioned darkness” (400). She feels touched by light and fire and the power to communicate a message. While the language describes a medieval vision, it could also apply to Hildegard the goat seeing the glow-stick daubed Moses.

Joan goes to the intensive care unit to visit Blandine on Friday, two days after the stabbing took place. It is the first sick day Joan has ever taken from work. The receptionist at the hospital asks her how she is related to Blandine. Joan explains that she is Blandine’s neighbor and that Moses was aiming to stab her but got the wrong apartment. The receptionist reveals that no one has visited Blandine yet and that she has no emergency contact.

As she waits to be allowed to visit Blandine, Joan opens the local gazette and learns that all three boys were arrested on charges of attempted second-degree murder and complicity. While all three are due to plead guilty at a trial, their fates depend on their intent to kill.

When Blandine recognizes Joan, she asks her how the goat is doing. Joan says that the goat is doing well and that she has been to the vet. The goat has become an Internet sensation with memes made about her. Joan longs to connect to Blandine and tell her that she has no emergency contact either. Instead, she only finds that she can comment “you’re awake” (410). Blandine replies affirmatively and asks Joan if she is also awake.