For Anna the first impressions of Ebren Cottage were less than favourable. It failed to live up to expectations in spectacular form. She was flabbergasted and apoplectic with rage. She had been conned, diddled, swindled! Feeling robbed and with the beginnings of a sulk brewing she could do little else but stare. The strawberry blonde rabbit had bought the place with what little money she had managed to extract from her former husband. As now transpired that the money had not got her much.

The cheerful little advert for the cottage had read "For Sale: Charming two bedroom cottage. Cosy, with many period features and glimpses of the sea.  Convenient For local amenities, friendly village atmosphere. In need of modernisation. Set in 1 acre of mature gardens with small orchard to rear." Apparently the cottage had been vacant for a while and the owner was very keen to sell.  Negotiations had been brief. The sale was agreed in a bewilderingly short time. She had felt so proud that she had managed to pull it off this part of 'The Plan' without her philandering, drunken sot of a husband finding out.

She still remembered when she made up her mind to leave the pompous git. It had been around the fifth time she caught him red handed shagging yet another slender, wide eyed, idealistic cafe dwelling revolutionary. He never missed a chance to enthral a nubile, awestruck and above all dim admirer. He could often be seen trying to woo a naive student with fiery talk of revolution. After much discussion of saving the world and a great deal of absinthe the conversation would sooner or later devolve into a grunting, breathless romp between the sheets. He liked them young, skinny and impressionable. Anna was none of these. She was middle aged, plump from a lifetime of passion for food. She had also long since become deaf to the nonsense spouted by her husband and was no longer impressed by his inane political and social rantings.

Anna began to make a few clandestine nocturnal calls to Britain. She made them from the battered pre-war phone at the local cafe. While Henri drunkenly roared politics to his ever tolerant peers and admirers she began seeking out the tinny distant voices of old friends in England. She succeeded. Before long the calls became 'The Plan'. A position teaching French at a school in the Cornish village of Porthleven had been mentioned and swiftly accepted. She spoke French, she spoke English. She was confident she could force a class full of children to do the same.

When it came, the divorce had been less than pleasant. Henri had not taken the announcement well. He had sputtered, raged, lectured and threatened. When that had not worked, he begged, pleaded and sobbed. When she still could not be swayed he sulked and promptly climbed inside the bottle. It was his usual reaction to situations that displeased him. He remained in his angry stupor as his lawyers fought hers and lost. This was mainly thanks to some very incriminating photographs taken through the bedroom window.

The last time she saw Henri had been less than dignified to say the least. He had stumbled towards her with bloodshot eyes and a half empty bottle of wine in one hand. He slurred threats and demanded that she stay. She responded by breaking his nose on the door when she slammed it in his face. Then she had left him and France far behind, stopping in Paris long enough to pay for the cottage with her portion of the settlement.

The first hint that the estate agent had been a little less than honest with her had been when she caught a cab from Porthleven train stating. The taxi whisked a good three miles up a narrow dirt road leaving a plume of yellow dust in its wake. The car was heavily laden. Poking from the boot and lashed to the roof was a vast array of boxes, suitcases, rolled up rugs and a bicycle. The overburdened machine rocked wildly on its suspension with every divot and pothole threatening to upend it. As the hedges swept by, it was with a groan that Anna realised it would be a pretty hefty trek to get to the village. Not exactly convenient as claimed. Unless you were a long distance runner. Oswald, the cheery, ancient badger who drove the taxi had pulled up to a tiny gate. It had been mostly lost in a tall thorny green hedge that was alive with the promise of blackberries.

"Yurs nowe than? Mus'n be some sahrt of pie-awh-neer!"  Oswald had chortled in a nigh on impenetrable Cornish accent. Together they neatly piled her belongings beside the gate. It had been wired shut. With a despairing sigh she placed her hands on the rusted metal and with some difficulty heaved her bulk over it. It was less than dignified and very nearly ended with her falling flat on her face. As she struggled over the gate her skirt rode up a little. As a result she treated the taxi driver to a brief unobscured view of her wide rump, knickers and flicking spade of a tail. He looked away and ever the gentleman he did not pass comment. With a blush burning bright beneath the brown fur of her cheeks and inner ears, Oswald passed the rabbit her boxes and bags. Lastly he heaved her bicycle over the gate. He then attempted with much grunting and wheezing to join her beyond it. Sadly a leg crippled in the war made this impossible. Anna found herself wondering just which war he had been wounded in. He looked as old as time itself. She paid him for his trouble and tipped him generously as she could afford. The sett old man then left lamenting that "ee cudden be moar 'elp". She hoped it would not take her too long to adjust to the new dialect as she waved at the departing cloud of taxi dust.

With hands on her curvy hips the rabbit regarded her new home without much humour. The cottage was long and low. It hunkered down amidst a thickly tangled jungle of overgrown garden. It was as if the building itself was trying to hide in shame. She could clearly see that a good few of the old blue slates were missing from the roof. As she watched a small feathered head poked out from one of the many holes. The beady eyes of the crow glared at her before it vanished back inside the darkness. It seemed she had a tenant. Rolling up the sleeves of her blouse the plump lapine left her pile of belongings by the gate. She advanced on the house with grim determination. All around her Waist high grass swayed gently in a welcome cooling sea breeze.

The cottage was a wreck. Anna peered through the broken and ivy covered windows with wide brown eyes. They were the diamond paned type with rusty iron and dull lead metalwork. The surviving glass was thick with grime. Only one of the original wooden storm shutters still slung to the cottage. The rest had rotted away into oblivion or dropped into the jungle. She prodded dejectedly at the whitewashed stone walls. The paint flaked off at the slightest touch to reveal crumbling mortar. Her father would have liked the cottage. He loved fixing things and often brought home damaged or 'buggered' items to tinker with. Her mother had tolerated this with good natured resignation and quietly disposed of the more hopeless cases while his attention was elsewhere.

Anna had been born and raised in England. Up in the north of the country she had lived a simple life as the youngest daughter of huge farming family. The little village she called home was almost impossibly dull. As far as she had been concerned the only interesting thing had been Henri. He worked as a labourer for her father on the farm. He was a hare. Tall, wiry, dark, handsome and mysterious. Her father said he had fled France back in the twenties because of his political beliefs. They had gotten him in trouble. He was something called a communist. That earned him farmer Brown's sympathy. They used to debate the finer points of political reform while tilling the earth. Before long he not only worked in the fields but was part of the extended clan of rabbits that was the Brown family

To the 16 year old Anna Marie Brown, Henri had been something dangerous and exotic. He was a good seven years older than her. Some time in his past he had been shot in the back of the leg. This left his gait bearing a constant faint limp. To her this made him seem rather hardened and tough. For some reason her older sister warned her to keep well away from him. Joanne had never told Anna why. The warning made the gruff Frenchman become instantly the most desirable thing on earth. Anna trailed after him like a loyal puppy. They talked. They held hands. They made love.

Her first time had been a tender affair. During the midsummer dance as the night air had hung thick and heavy she and Henri had slipped off together. Anna had been at the cider and he had been at her body with faint teasing touches as they danced. As they hurried into a nearby barn the gusset of Anna's knickers had been damp as his strong fingers rubbed along the material. She bit her lip to stifle a moan as his fingers slipped inside her underwear and traced a path along the edges of her moist nether lips. She had clung to him as he moved his hand moved slowly beneath her skirt. She whimpered as he teased at her most intimate of areas through her undergarments.

Henri worked strong, callused hands down to her hips. He pushed her skirt down now, not up. She tucked her hands under her chin as he bared her knickers. He had smiled and parted her arms to slide his paws up under her blouse. In her tipsy state she had moaned as he pulled his hands back and Slowly began to unbutton the garment. As Henri worked Anna felt completely vulnerable and did nothing to resist him. She wanted him. She was breathing hard. She tried to calm down as her head swum. She lifted her arms to assist with her own disrobing. He dropped her blouse to the side.

After the rustle of the fabric hitting the floor Anna was not sure how she had ended up on her back in the hay. Henri was knelt between her legs and caressing his hands over her lower abdomen. She had sucked in the curve of her tummy as much as she dared, thankful when he soon moved his hands up to her bosom. She moaned then. After tenderly caressing her soft bosom through her bra Henri gently pulled the garment down and moved his mouth toward a dark nipple. His eyes locked on hers as he did. She had puffed her chest out to him eagerly. Henri's lips found her dusky flesh. He started with a delicate nibble. He went on to tenderly woo her body with lips, fingertips and tongue. She ran her fingers through his hair and moaned for him.

His hand moved slowly across her midsection. They slipped into her underwear. His lips never left her breast as he rubbed gentle orbits against puffy little mound before moving down to stroke along her already moist crease. He massaged her only long enough to part her lips and find her entry before sliding a long finger within her. She had leant up and bit his shoulder at that point. He teased his digit in and out slowly and softly. Then he pulled his hand away.

Henri had reared up on his knees and unfastened his belt. He shoved his trousers down past his strong, lean thighs. He unbuttoned his shirt but kept it on. He seemed massive as he advanced on her, laying his weight over her and nestling between her spread legs. He pinned his erect shaft between their two bodies. He moved slowly, teasing her with his girth. He ploughed the tip up and through her puffy mound and crease in the same manner that he had just done with his finger.

Each trip down, his blunt tip ever so subtly probed her entrance before slipping out to nudge at her little hooded bud. Each time she held her breath her heels pressed into the hay as she parted her legs wider. Finally his flesh found a home. She felt the entrance of her tunnel stretch to receive him as he began to slide into her. Despite her wetness and desire, Anna experienced a sharp stabbing pain. She had moaned. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Feeling her flinch he pulled back. He waited a moment. He had studied her flushed face in the gloom before he tried again. He pushed in slightly further before she gasped again and dug her fingernails into his shoulder. He stopped again and pulled back. He waited longer. Then he pressed forward again but more firmly this time.

Anna had cried as he suddenly sank fully into her. She experienced a sudden feeling of being split in two as he filled her sex for the first time. She threw her arms around his neck and trembled madly under him. It took her a while to get used to having him inside her. Mercifully he did not move while she sobbed into his neck. The stabbing pain in her loins began to subside. As the discomfort faded she began to savour the feeling. Her already warm insides were being warmed further by his firm flesh. She felt so full. So complete. So alive. Henri lay motionless atop her. She began to flex her walls around his shaft. She felt over his back. She felt over his taut hindquarters. She felt his scar. Eventually Henri had pulled her arms from around his neck. He laid her back on the hay. He lifted her arms above her head and laced his fingers in hers. He began to make love to her. He pulled himself back from within her. When he curled his spine and slowly pushed back into her the pain fleetingly returned. Anna gasped. Henri had stopped. Looking up into his dark eyes she had nodded. She had submitted herself to him. He had smiled softly and began to move his hips again.

Henri steadily increased his tempo. He began pounding her with powerful strokes. She gasped. She cried. She moaned. As his flesh glided back and forth within her silken walls an ember that had begun to smoulder when his lips were first on her breast broke into a full flame. The inexorable sensation overwhelmed her. Her body convulsed. Her insides felt like they were exploding and contracting at the same time. Her eyes and mouth had flown open at once. She was not sure what had happened. She was sure that she had liked it. Henri felt it. He felt her throb and twitch around him and he picked up the force and pace. Her body rocked under his lust, her bust bouncing wildly. He watched this and grunted. Suddenly he had reared back and pulled from within her. She was startled at this sudden withdrawal. Had she done something wrong? Anna looked down just in time to see the first burst of white seed spray from the tip of his flesh to spatter over her bared belly and bosom. It soaked into her pelt, matting it. She was still watching when the next burst struck her squarely below the chin. She looked on, entranced as his flesh pulsed and bobbed before him, glistening in the night.

That had been her first time. It was not to be her last with Henri.

When the war came the village escaped virtually unscathed. No errant German bombs came its way. There were no factories, harbours or cities nearby. All there were was fields of black soil, rich with potatoes and cabbage. Following the fall of France Henri become something of a local celebrity. The villagers saw him as a person worthy of their sympathy and awe. From the way they saw him sneaking about in the dusk and dawn, a rumoured spread that he was somehow assisting the resistance back in France. Perhaps tongues would not have wagged so much if they knew he was in fact slipping away to see Anna. This carried on for the entire six year duration of the war.

When the war ended things changed. Many young men did not come back. Communism became the enemy now that the Nazis were defeated. People began to talk and whisper about the foreign hare and his late night excursions. Was he a spy? Hadn't he freely admitted to following the teaching of Marx? Anna heard the whispers and felt the growing suspicion and resentment. Before long Henri begged her to come with him back to France. She agreed. On the way they were secretly married and she eloped with him. She became Annamarie DeLeon. This was thanks to a hurried mistake on her new papers. It was a name she was to keep when she divorced him nearly ten years later. It would serve her well in her new role as a French mistress.

It took Anna a good long while to find her new front door. Ivy had spilled thickly over it blocking it from view. Reaching into her handbag she produced a bunch of old iron keys.  The estate agent had sent them to her along with the deeds before she left France. One by one she tried the keys. The last one she tried turned but only slightly. The lock must have seized long ago.

Quite suddenly the rabbit heard a faint far-off growl. Turning her head away from the door Anna perked up one of her long ears. She swivelled it back and forth as she tried to pick out where the sound was coming from. She turned and looked back towards the gate in the hedge. Above the gently swaying greenery she spotted something. A little black dot was moving against the blue sky. It was travelling so slowly that at first she was not certain it was moving at all. All of the sudden the growl turned into a furious roar. She gasped in shock as a vicious dark shape swept overhead, blocking out the sun for barely a second. It was so low that she felt she could reach up and touch it. As suddenly as it had appeared the aircraft was gone.

"What a nice surprise." she panted to herself. Placing a paw over her madly hammering heart she abandoned the front door. She fought her way around the edge of the walls to the rear of the cottage. The 'orchard' turned out to be two very wizened and sorry looking apple trees. They were accompanied by a sickly half dead cherry. There was a large shed with double doors at the bottom of the jungle. Getting to it would be a fight. Some of the plants back there had grown to chin height. 'Mature garden' must mean 'terra incognita' in estate agent. Poking from the tussocks of swaying grasses and weeds was what looked like a water pump. Like the lock at the front door it looked like it had rusted solid. A spider was using the aged metal handle as an outpost and built her web between it and the pump itself.

Further investigations to the rear led her to be rotten looking outhouse. She strongly suspected that one hard shove would topple the rickety wooden structure leaving whoever was spending a penny at the cruel mercy of the elements. It would be no fun in the winter that was for sure. Anna did not even want to think about the state the septic tank was in, if indeed there was one.

That back door was of the split, two part kind. You could leave the top portion open in the fine weather without leaves or creatures swirling into the house on the wind. The bottom half of it had been kicked off its hinges. This was just as well as the lock in the top portion was stubbornly unmoving. Just how long had this place been derelict? Dropping to her paws and knees she crawled into the cottage.

Inside the cottage all was gloom. As Anna got to her feet it took a while for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw bare stone floors and wooden beams. There was also dust, soot, cobwebs and bird droppings. Winkling her nose in disgust and taking care to breathe through her mouth the rabbit began to explore. There was a disgusting kitchen with a rusty sink beneath the window. It was surprisingly large and led through to a living room with a great stone fireplace. Judging by the pile of feathers and avian filth in the hearth, she would have to get someone to sweep the chimney before she dared light a fire. For some reason all of the interior doors in the cottage were missing. Rusty hinges lingered on rotten frames. These were the only clue to their previous locations.

She found two other small rooms. One was nearer the size of an ambitious cupboard. The larger one had a small fort like construction in the middle of it. It had been well made out of the missing doors from the rest of the house. It was decorated with fabric and a treasure trove of junk. Anna giggled. It had been a long time since she had been inside a den. She crawled into it and found faded comics on yellowing paper and discarded sweet wrappers. Taking care not to upset anything she backed out the way she came. She squirmed out of the back door and with a soft 'harrumph' set to work.

It took Anna the best part of an hour to drag everything that would fit through the bottom of the back door into the cottage. As she worked, jets regularly screamed overhead. They came in all shapes, sizes and speeds. It tended to be the smaller ones with straight, dagger-like wings that blasted in from nowhere to whoosh just above her hedges and chimney. She shook a fist at their retreating forms from time to time and before long ceased to tense and jump when they hurtled overhead. Like the movement of the sun and wind, jets gradually became something that simply happened.

Anna propped her bicycle against the front wall and changed into her scruffiest dress. It was a shapeless, long sleeved horror. Made from thick black material it was the garment that she always wore while doing filthy, messy or unpleasant tasks. When she went to investigate the shed, its indestructibility would serve her well. While changing under the sun, she spotted something that she had missed. There was a window set into the side of the roof. It overlooked the back garden and pointed up at the sky. Upon further investigations she found that the smaller room had a set of steep wooden stairs hidden behind a tiny door at the back. Cautiously she climbed them. The wood creaked deafeningly with her every hesitant step.

Anna found herself in an attic room with a low beam ceiling. The centre of the room was high enough to stand up in, but only just. Set into one side of the sloping ceiling was a window that gave a wonderfully unobstructed view of the sky. The glass was unbroken and she managed to open the window enough to peer out. She saw that her little patch of wilderness was surrounded by rippling fields of golden wheat and barley. "This shall be my bedroom." she decreed to herself heartily. As she walked away from the window her foot bumped against a previously unseen besom broom.  Picking it up she turned it round and round in her fingers and grinned. It was ancient and tipped with straw. Not only did it look like something from a fairy tale but it would also come in handy when she started to clean up.

A scuffling noise from downstairs made the lapine tense. Eventually she assumed it was the crow she had seen peek out of the roof. Determined to chase him out for good she clutched the broom and headed down the stairs. She went as carefully and quietly as she could manage. The noise was coming from the room with the makeshift den. It was not just scuffling now. She heard voices. Anna peeked round the door frame. Three young pups were clustered around the den. The oldest was a confident, pugnacious looking black Labrador. He was a broad fellow and seemed to be the leader. He looked about six. The other two were slightly younger twin Border Collies. They had identical black and white markings with short muzzles and wide golden eyes. One was a girl. The other a very timid looking boy.  

Stepping into the room, Anna propped her broom against the wall. The rabbit folded her brawny arms over her rather hefty bosom. She cleared her throat noisily. The three children whirled round in surprise. The Labrador was clutching a harassed looking toad in his hands. Apparently he had been using it to frighten the little collie boy. The three looked from the rabbit, to the broom and back again. The disgruntled amphibian croaked in annoyance and regarded Anna critically. The grin slowly fled from the black furred puppy. His blue eyes went as wide as saucers. Nobody dared to move, except the toad which blinked with eye bulging indignation and began to wriggle. It was the noisy fluttering return of the crow to the attic with a loud and angry caw broke the spell. The male collie clapped his paws over his eyes and his sister unleashed a piercing scream that could have shattered glass.

"Witch!" the puppies howled in unison. The startled rabbit opened her mouth to utter a spirited denial of the occult accusation. She did not get much of a chance before the Labrador dropped the toad and the three howling, terrified children fled past her. They scampered into the hall and scrabbled under the broken door and away. They sprinted into the jungle as fast as their little legs could carry them. Their tails tucked firmly between their legs.

Anna looked behind herself at the broom. She then brushed some of the dust and cobwebs from her grubby black dress. She smirked. Ever playful and unable to resist she tilted her head back and let rip with a mad, high pitched cackling laugh. Somewhere out in the garden a trio of fading, frightened yelps let her know it had been effective. She began to laugh properly and was soon doubled over with helpless joy with her paws clutched to her plump belly.