Rabbit Skin

A set of rocks outside the kingdom.

MAY, EVE, and VICTORIA are all seated on the rocks skinning rabbits.

MAY:  …And then he ransacked everything.  Even though I told him the villagers could fight in his army if he just talked to them like a civilized human being.  But did he listen to me?  No.

EVE:  They never do.  They never listen.

VICTORIA:  They think they’re so smart.

MAY:  Is it true your husband banished the hordes?

EVE:  Oh, he banished them all right.  Right after they all died of the wasting sickness.

MAY:  I knew he was telling tales.

VICTORIA:  Beezle came home last night smelling of barbarian blood, even though he knew we were going to dinner with my parents.

EVE:  My parents can’t stand Flinn.  They call him One-Eye.  Or they did, until he cut out their tongues.

MAY:  My father is actually very friendly with Terg, but that’s just because he gave him a wizard’s head for Christmas.

VICTORIA:  An actual wizard’s head or the herb you rub on someone possessed by an evil spirit?

MAY:  Well, my father wanted the herb, because now that’s he over thirty, he’s always getting possessed, but that herb is so hard to find, so Terg just gave him an actual head, and my father really appreciated the effort, so now they go pillaging once a month together.

VICTORIA:  I wish my father could be like that with Beezle.  All they do is wrestle and swordfight and throw each other into ravines.

EVE:  Does Beezle get doctor’s care at Blue Castle?

VICTORIA:  He gets to go twice a year, but only if he’s missing a limb.

MAY:  Terg gets free eye.

EVE:  They have eye doctors at Grey Castle?

MAY:  No, I mean, he gets a free eye whenever he loses one.  They have a bucket of them up in the official chambers.

EVE:  I told Flinn he should have signed up to work at Grey Castle.  Red Kingdom is nothing like where we used to live.

VICTORIA:  Does he still get a bonus for every heretic he enslaves?

EVE:  He only gets the bonus when he enslaves at least four heretics, so now he’s trying to convince prisoners they’re heretics so he can get the credit.

MAY:  That’s terrible!

EVE:  Isn’t it?  We almost couldn’t afford to go to Sinner’s Rock last year.

VICTORIA:  Do they still throw the goats off the rock into the fiery pits every night?

EVE:  Well, because of budget cuts, now they just throw dolls that look like goats.

VICTORIA:  Oh no!  But that’s the best part of Sinner’s Rock!  I never would have gone there on my honeymoon if there weren’t actual goat sacrifices.

MAY:  Everything’s changing.  The other day someone tried to tell me that chewing on pig vein wouldn’t make my teeth any whiter.

EVE:  I can’t stand that New Age nonsense.  My mother rubbed pig vein all over herself every day and her teeth were gorgeous.  She used to wear them on a necklace around her neck right up until she died.

VICTORIA:  I didn’t know your mother was dead.

EVE:  Technically she’s not, but we buried her anyway.  Once you realize the person’s a witch, you might as well have the funeral.

MAY:  I’m so sorry.

EVE:  It’s fine.  She had a good long run.  Thirty-three years of bliss.  I wouldn’t want her to live past that.  The quality of life goes way down.

MAY:  We’re talking about putting my mother into a home.

VICTORIA:  Really?  They have an old age home at Grey Castle?

MAY:  Sort of.  They put them in the King’s Dungeon and then they give you earplugs so you can’t hear the screaming until you’re far enough away.  It’s a whole new way of looking at eldercare.  Very advanced.

EVE:  I can’t believe Flinn talked me into leaving Grey Castle.  I knew it was a mistake.

VICTORIA:  Remember when we all used to get brunch after the Sunday hangings?

EVE:  I barely remember the Sunday hangings.  There’s no capital punishment in Red Kingdom.

MAY/VICTORIA:  What?/Did you run out of rope?

EVE:  The King had a vision of the Lord telling him that murdering his subjects was wrong.

MAY:  So murder the King.  Problem solved.  Terg can do it if you want.  He loves overthrowing royalty.  Especially ones with overcomplicated tax policies.

EVE:  Everybody wants him to be overthrown, but everyone’s scared to do it, because he has this giant portrait of Jesus hanging over his throne.

VICTORIA:  That old tactic.

MAY:  It always works.

EVE:  A great big portrait of Jesus and you’re safe until you die of the blood-cough.

VICTORIA:  I don’t know if I want to raise children in a world like this.  All the traditions are going right out the window.  I can’t even find an endangered Moon Wolf to slaughter for Harvest Night.  My kids might have to eat Moon Duck, and you know how I feel about serving them anything with that much fat.

MAY:  You can’t even overthrow a kind and pious ruler anymore.  It’s sad.

EVE:  It is sad.

VICTORIA:  It’s very sad.

MAY:  I’m glad I’m on my way out.  Two more years and I’ll be as old as your mother was, Eve.

EVE:  Have you talked to your children about your end of life wishes?

MAY:  I did.  Most of them involve poisoning me without my knowledge, but I told them if that was too hard, they could just leave me at the bottom of the well near our summer cottage.

VICTORIA:  I told my children that when the time comes, they should lay me gently down in the forest and allow nature to bring me back to its bosom.

EVE:  And what did they say?

VICTORIA:  They said that was stupid and can’t they just donate my body to the village scientist?

MAY:  Kids are so ungrateful.

VICTORIA:  Aren’t they?  I had to forcibly rip three out of the seven of them from my body with nothing to numb my pain but chewing on the scalp of an eagle, and they could care less.

EVE:  Little terrors.

MAY:  Vicious monsters.

VICTORIA:  I think I may have left one of them in the woods the last time I went berry-picking.

EVE:  When was that?

VICTORIA:  Five years ago.  I keep telling Beezle we had eight children, and he keeps saying, Oh, you women and your hysterical inability to count, but I’m telling you, little Morgana had a twin brother.  I would bet my life on it.

MAY:  Look on the bright side, he was probably kidnapped by fairies.

VICTORIA:  I suppose that’s the most realistic way to look at it.

EVE:  I hope one day there won’t be three women like us sitting around talking of such things.

MAY:  Is that really what you hope?

EVE:  Yes, it is.  Skinning rabbits by a fire on a cold autumn night before the Harvest is no way to carry on with life.  We should be enjoying ourselves.

VICTORIA:  Oh, but I am enjoying myself.

MAY:  I am as well.  I haven’t gotten out of the house since the mouthpox quarantine was lifted.

EVE:  I just hope it gets easier—if not for us, then for our children.  Or for their children.  Or for their children’s children.

MAY:  I hope that when they tell their husbands not to ransack a village, their husbands listen.

EVE:  I hope they get to do some ransacking themselves.

VICTORIA:  I hope they never have to see their husbands throw their fathers into ravines or gulches or any hole in the ground really.

MAY:  I hope they can have wizard head whenever they want, not just when the lord of darkness consumes their soul for a fortnight.

EVE:  I hope when their husband tells them they’ll like moving to another kingdom, they tell him ‘No,’ and he heeds their warning so they don’t end up living in a drafty chamber near the south end of the castle next to the room where they keep the werewolf children.

VICTORIA:  I hope they don’t have husbands.

            (MAY and EVE look at her in shock.)

I mean…not unless they want them.

MAY:  Why would they not want them?

VICTORIA:  Well—

EVE:  Well, because…maybe they won’t?

MAY:  But then how will they have children?

VICTORIA:  Well, maybe they won’t want children either.

MAY:  This is causing an incendiary feeling to radiate throughout my skull.

EVE:  Your mind is blown?

MAY:  YES!

VICTORIA:  All sorts of things are going to happen.  That is the beauty of time.  It has so much room to surprise us.

EVE:  One day when I was a child, my mother looked at me and said—It is so much more unlikely that you would be here than that you would be here.  Remember that when you feel afraid.  You have already beaten the odds just by standing here in front of me.

MAY:  What a remarkable thing to say.

EVE:  Yes, well…She was a remarkable woman.

VICTORIA:  May there be many more like her.

MAY:  Here, here.

ALL:  Here, here!

            (With that, they go back to skinning rabbits, waiting for the night to turn to day.)

            End of Play