Guest Review: Like Bunnies by Cindy Spencer Pape

Star Holiday never paid much attention to her father’s claims that their family was descended from the Celtic spirits of the seasons, and she certainly never expected to turn into a rabbit every time she stepped foot outside her family’s cabin on the weekend of the Spring equinox. Now all she can do is stay holed up with her sexy-as-sin ex-boyfriend, Theo Morgan, until the magic goes away

Or maybe the magic is just beginning as the former lovers have time alone to rekindle old passions and even ignite some new ones.

Many contemporary Americans are ignorant of the fact that many of the holidays we celebrate, while being lodged in the Christian calendar for 2,000 years, really had their inception in the ancient celebrations of nature, some of which are so ancient that their beginnings are lost in the mists of the unknown past. Such is the celebrations surrounding each of the seasonal changes that we ignore so often in our contemporary American existence. Oster, the Spring equinox celebration from which we get our word Easter, is just such an observance, and it is the background of this particular short story.

Star Holiday, whose given name is Ostara, is seeking some solitude on the Spring weekend closest to her birthday. Coming from a closely knit family, she has difficulty convincing them that she just needs some time alone on this significant occasion—something of a rite of passage on the occasion of her thirty-first birthday. Encountering a fierce Spring storm, her car hits mud, she slides into a deep ditch, decides to walk the rest of the way to the vacation cabin—it is not very far by this time—and is unaware that in the process of her walk there, she turns into a bunny, stranded in the center of the road, dragging one of its back legs, a result of a wrenched ankle during her rainy walk.

Six months earlier, Theo Morgan and Star had been lovers in a torrid affair that ultimately ended, and ended badly. Now he is on his way to visit his parents in Greenville, So. Carolina, but Star’s brother, his best friend, talks him into “checking up on “ Star—it was only a few miles out of the way to the family vacation cabin. As the Spring storm continues unabated, Theo struggles just keeping his windshield clear enough to see ahead in the dark, but fortunately he sees an injured bunny in the middle of the country road. He stopped because he couldn’t bypass an injured animal. He was, after all, a veterinarian. And so, unbeknownst to him, he picks up Star, wraps her in a warm towel, places her on the passenger seat in her car, and drives on. Imagine his shock when the bunny he carries into the cabin transforms into the naked form of his former lover.

This is about as close to fun fantasy as it gets! Because Theo and Star resume their physical relationship, there even comes a moment during the weekend when Theo transforms when he steps outside the cabin. But the substance of this short story goes beyond the fun stuff. In reality it is heart warming to see these two intelligent and loving people recognize that while they may have been mating “like bunnies” the previous summer, they had never taken the time to become friends, friends that cared enough to really get to know one another’s joys and strengths, their likes and hopes, their dreams and disappointments. In the short span of time they spent together that weekend, they talked more and grew up more than they had in all the previous time they spent together. Their journey of discovery of each other as well as themselves makes this story a very gentle and poignant love story. It is a short read, but I can’t help but believe that all true romance fans will find it well-worth time spent enjoying it. The story itself is beautifully written and in spite of its bevity really tells all that it needs to give the reader an understanding of these two people as well as the circumstances that bring them together.

I give this short story a 4.25 out of 5.