Beside him was a crystal bottle and a silver hand mirror. Cath hadn’t noticed either of them before.
She stepped forward and picked up the bottle. Tied to its neck was a paper tag scrawled with large letters.
DRINK ME
“What about this one?” Jest asked. He was on his knees, peering into a long black tunnel made of dirt. “It looks like a mole tunnel. That doesn’t count as a door, does it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Cath, holding up the bottle to show him, “but I suspect the answer has something to do with this.”
Hatta said nothing.
Cath knew that, no matter how Hatta felt about her, he cared a great deal for Jest. She hoped that if they were on the brink of making a bad decision, he would stop them.
For now, though, she did her best to pretend he wasn’t there.
She uncorked the bottle and sniffed it. “It isn’t treacle,” she said, sniffing again. There were hints of cherry and custard, pineapple and turkey, toffee and hot buttered toast. “Shrinking elixir. I’m sure of it.”
Jest came to her side and read the tag. “I’ve heard of it,” he said, “though we don’t have any in Chess.”
She chewed on her lower lip. If they drank the elixir in the bottle and it turned them small—what then? How would that help?
Her eye caught on the hand mirror and she gasped. “That’s it!”
She picked up the mirror and held it up to her face. She looked, and looked deeply. A grin stretched across her lips. For in the glass, beyond her reflection, she saw a patchwork of rolling yellow hills and emerald forests and snowy purple mountains. Chess.
“The Looking Glass! It’s only small on our side.”
Jest wrapped his arm around her waist, beaming. “But the elixir will make us small so we can pass through.”
Raven cocked his head. Hatta remained silent, even when Cath and Jest glanced at him for approval. He lifted an eyebrow—a silent challenge.
Jest deflated, just slightly. “Honestly, Hatta. Why are you acting this way? We’re fulfilling the job we were sent to do, even if it is in a different manner than we expected. And there’s no reason for us to stay here, anyway.”
Hatta’s frown deepened and Cath could tell that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. But then his face softened into something that resembled a smile, albeit a sad one. “I wish for you all the joy this darkened world can employ,” he said, quoting the Raven. His gaze shifted to Catherine. “That, and I expect to be repaid for my assistance in scones and tarts every time I come to visit.”
She sagged, surprised at how quickly he could deflect her anger. “I hope you’ll visit us often.”
He grunted. No commitment. “I am always coming and going somewhere, love. That’s the only way I’ll stay ahead of Time, after all.” He lifted his chin toward the table. “Go ahead, then. Somewhere there is a white crown waiting for its queen.”
Cath and Jest faced each other, holding the bottle between them. His eyes were glowing. Her nerves were vibrating.
They’d made it.
The Looking Glass. Chess. A future, together.
“Don’t drink it all now,” Hatta reminded them as Cath lifted the bottle to her lips. “Raven and I will be following shortly after. Our fates were little better than yours, if you recall.”
Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad.
Cath nodded and had just tipped the bottle against her lips when she heard a scream.
She froze and lowered the bottle.
Hatta grimaced, but he looked like he’d been expecting this. The scream, Cath was certain, had come from the door behind him—an ominous wrought-iron gate. Heavy fog was creeping through the bars, entwining around Hatta’s feet.
“What was that?” she asked, taking a hesitant step toward him.
Hatta shook his head. He didn’t turn around. Didn’t look.
“That,” he said, his voice dripping with ire, “is your reason to stay.”
Cath handed the bottle to Jest and approached the door, but Hatta moved himself in front of her. “Don’t, Lady Pinkerton. Jest said you had no reason to stay, but he was wrong. There is always a reason to stay. Always a reason to go back. It’s best not even to look, not even to guess. Turn around. Drink the elixir. Go through the Looking Glass and never look back.”
She tried to peer around him, but Hatta grabbed her elbow, halting her. “But … that scream. It sounded familiar. I—”
“Remember the drawings. They will be your fate if you pass through this door. Murderer, martyr, monarch, mad. Remember?” Hatta did look on the verge of madness, his violet eyes shining with intensity.
She pressed her lips together. The scream echoed over and over in her skull.
“I’m not going to go through,” she said. “I just want to look.”
She pried her arm away and ducked around him, approaching the black gate. She wrapped her hands around the bars and peered through. The rolling fog brought goose bumps to her bare skin, or maybe it was the familiar sight that greeted her on the other side of those bars.
The pumpkin patch.
In the distance she could Sir Peter’s little cottage, and to her left were the two enormous pumpkins he’d been carving the day she and Mary Ann had come. Only now, one of the pumpkins was destroyed, great chunks of orange shell and moldy flesh scattered across the mud.
The second pumpkin had two tiny windows. They glowed with candlelight, a beacon in the fog.
A hand was reaching through one of those windows, struggling to find purchase on something, anything. Cath heard a woman’s voice crying. Pleading. Please, let me out. Please!
Horror wrapped around her body, freezing her to the core.
A moment later, the hand disappeared, replaced with a face in the window. Tear-stained cheeks. Frightened eyes. Confirming what Cath had feared.
It was Mary Ann.
The sound of grating metal dragged her attention to the other side of the pumpkin patch and she saw a figure shadowed against the backdrop of the forest. Though it was murky and dark, she knew it was Peter, focused on his work. It looked like he was sharpening a tool of some sort. Or a weapon.
She spun back toward the Crossroads. “Is this real? It isn’t just an illusion, a trick?”
Hatta shut his eyes. “It’s real,” he whispered.
Her blood throbbed. “I have to go. I have to help her!”
“No.” Hatta grabbed her wrist. “You have to go on through the Looking Glass. Remember what will become of you—of any of us!”
She peered at Jest, who looked as aghast as she felt.
She thought of the drawing. His crumpled body. The pool of blood. The hat lying limp beside his severed head.
Her attention darted to Raven. As always, he watched her. Silent. Waiting.
Could he really become a murderer? Could he really hurt Jest?
It was too much of a risk.
“You can’t follow me,” she said. “Not any of you.”
Jest shook his head. “You’re not going alone.”
“I have to.” She tore away from Hatta and reached for Jest’s hand, squeezing it tight. “It will be all right. Those drawings—that’s all they are. Odd little drawings from odd little girls.”
“Cath—”
“I know. It’s too much to risk your life, but I can go. I’ll go and I’ll save her, and then I’ll find the well again. I’ll find the Sisters. I’ll come to Chess and find you. But I … I can’t just leave her.”
“Fine, but if you go, I go.”
“No, Jest. If you’re there, I won’t be able to think of anything but that awful picture. I need to know you’re safe.” Her heart stammered. “Or—fine. You stay here and wait for me. Don’t go through to Chess yet, just wait and stay safe and I’ll come back. I will come back.”
“I can’t—”
She threw her arms around him and silenced him with a kiss, digging her hands into his hair. His hat tumbled off, landing on the tiled ground with dull thud. His arms
drew her closer, melding their bodies together.
“You won’t come back.” Hatta’s haunting words cut through the desperation in her body, the need for this kiss to not be their last, to not be good-bye.
She pried herself away and glared at Hatta. “Have you ever stayed after you heard the Sisters’ prophecy?”
His lips thinned. “Never.”
“Then how could you possibly know it’s real? How could you possibly know what will or won’t happen?” She turned back to Jest, unwilling to hear whatever excuse Hatta would make next. She lifted Jest’s hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. “Stay here,” she said. “Wait for me.”
Pulling away, she faced the massive gate, wrapped her fingers around the bars, and pushed her way through.
CHAPTER 46
HER FEET SANK into the muddied ground of the pumpkin patch. Mist swirled around her, clinging to her skin. The patch felt like a place that had never known light or warmth. She wished she’d kept Hatta’s coat, wished she hadn’t let her emotions carry her away, even if he had been insufferable at the time.
To her left she could see the enormous pumpkin with its carved-bar windows. Mary Ann’s cries had quieted, but Cath could still hear her sobs carrying over the otherwise-silent patch.
To her right was the cottage, this time without the smell of wood smoke and the welcoming light behind the windows. It seemed deserted.
She could no longer see Peter in the distance.
Picking up her skirts, Catherine trampled through the overgrown vines, hurrying toward the pumpkin where Mary Ann was being kept prisoner, casting terrified glances over her shoulder at every noise. The shrieking wind. The rustle of leaves. The squish and slurp of her nicest boots pulling from the mud.
The Sisters’ refrain haunted her thoughts.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a pet and couldn’t feed her;
Caught a maid who had meant well—
What became of her, no one can tell.
She tripped suddenly and fell, sprawling into a mud puddle. Her hands sank to her wrists, filth coating the front of her dress. Cath sat panting for a moment, feeling the hectic thrum of blood in her veins. Her teeth chattered. Pushing back onto her knees, she glanced around again and tried to catch her breath.
Still no sign of Peter.
Then her eyes took in the uneven ground that had caused her to trip.
Catherine scurried backward, hoping her eyes were mistaken—but no. It was a footprint planted into the mud, the edges dried and cracked. It could have been days old, or weeks, undisturbed until Cath had tumbled into it.
A three-clawed footprint was pressed into the mud. The puncture of talons dug deep holes into the ground. Pumpkins and vines had been crushed beneath the weight of some enormous creature.
Heart galloping, Cath scrambled to her feet and wiped her hands as well as she could on her ruined gown.
Mary Ann’s cries had dwindled to sniffs and wavering gasps.
Cath lifted her skirt and ran the rest of the way.
“Mary Ann,” she whispered, throwing herself at the window with its pumpkin-flesh slats. “Mary Ann! It’s me!”
The sniffling quieted and Mary Ann appeared at the window, her eyes bloodshot. “Cath?”
“Are you all right?”
Mary Ann pushed her hand through the bars, reaching for her. “It’s Peter. He put me in here and he—he has”—her voice broke—“the Jabberwock.”
Jabberwock.
Somehow, Cath had already known it. The beastly footprint. Peter’s determination to have the Vorpal Sword from her. The tiny wooden horse from the Lion’s hat.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater …
Cath shook her head to clear it of the haunting melody. “How do I get you out of there?”
“There’s a door in the roof that opens,” said Mary Ann, pointing up.
Cath stepped back and paced around the pumpkin until she saw it, the jagged saw-cut that made a small square opening beside the pumpkin’s prickly stem.
“Cath?” said Mary Ann, as Cath started looking around for some way to get up to the door. A ladder. She needed a ladder … or a saw to cut off the window’s bars so Mary Ann could climb through.
“What is it?” she said, pressing her hand against the pumpkin’s outer flesh. The wall must have been nearly a foot thick, but if she had a blade that was sharp enough …
“It’s his wife.”
She met Mary Ann’s gaze through the window. “What?”
“The Jabberwock. It’s Lady Peter. I saw her going into the powder room at the theater, looking like she was going to be ill, and then … the beast came out.”
Cath frowned, thinking of the sickly woman who had been so very desperate for more pumpkin cake.
“Are you sure?”
Mary Ann nodded, her expression taut. “There was no one else in the powder room, I’m sure of it. And also … the pumpkins…”
Cath shuddered. “The pumpkins,” she breathed. Lady Peter had won a pumpkin-eating contest. And at the theater, she’d been so desperate for the cake that Cath had made, the cake that …
She swallowed, hard. “They changed the Turtle too.”
Mary Ann whimpered, guilt mingling with her distress. “We shouldn’t have stolen that pumpkin. It’s our fault. I came here hoping to find a cure, or some evidence that I could take back to the King. Woman or Jabberwock, she has to be stopped.”
“You came here alone?” Cath said. “What were you thinking?”
Mary Ann’s blue eyes began to fill with tears. “I know. It isn’t logical at all, but I thought … I thought maybe I would be a hero. I believed I could stop the Jabberwock. Me. Then I could ask the King for a favor and I thought … I thought I could get him to pardon your joker. Then maybe you would forgive me.” Her voice dissolved into renewed sobs. “But Peter caught me and now he … he means to feed me to her, Cath. He’s going to kill me.”
“Oh, Mary Ann.” Her gaze flitted up to the soiled bonnet on Mary Ann’s head.
Hatta’s bonnet. The one that turned logic into dreams.
Resentment shot through her, mixing with the fear and the panic and the need to get both of them away from her as quickly as possible.
“I forgive you. I do. But you need to be calm now. Take off that bonnet and try to be sensible, if you can. We need to find a way to get you out of there.”
Mary Ann untied the bonnet and tore it off her head.
Cath gave the bars one good shake but if Mary Ann couldn’t pull them open, she had no chance. “I need a ladder. Or something that can cut through these bars.”
Sniffing, Mary Ann pointed toward the far corner of the pumpkin patch. “There was a shed on the other side of the cottage. There might be something there.”
“Right. I’ll be back.”
“Be careful,” Mary Ann cried as Cath turned away and started picking her way toward the darkened cottage. Her skin was covered in gooseflesh, her gown made heavy by the drying mud. Her gaze searched the patch in desperation, looking for any sign that Peter or the Jabberwock might be near.
A whisper drifted past her ears and she froze. Her pulse drummed as she turned in a full circle, searching.
The whisper came again and this time she was ready for it. The familiar poem turned her organs to ice.
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater …
She forced down a gulp.
Had a wife but couldn’t keep her …
She spun around again, her legs trembling. She wished she’d taken Jest’s scepter or Hatta’s cane, anything to use as a weapon.
He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well.
She turned again and spotted the destroyed shell of one of the enormous, house-sized pumpkins. It was the one she and Mary Ann had seen before, the one they’d heard the strange scratching from. Now the shell lay in gigantic pieces scattered across the pumpkin patch, as if some beast had destroyed it from the inside.
Some beast. Lik
e the Jabberwock.
Cath pushed ahead. The sooner she got Mary Ann out of here, the sooner she could return to Jest and begin her new life far away from the Kingdom of Hearts.
“He’ll take you too.”
Cath yelped. The voices were louder now—right at her feet. She jumped back and looked down at a knee-high pumpkin that sat off the path. As she stared, its flesh peeled back, revealing two triangle eyes and a gap-toothed mouth.
“Run away,” the pumpkin told her, still whispering, as the carved pupils of its eyes slid from side to side. “Run away.”
“Run away before he finds you,” warned another Jack-O’-Lantern two rows over.
“You … you’re alive,” she stammered.
“He’ll kill you,” said the first pumpkin, “to feed the insatiable Jabberwock.”
“He killed our brothers, blaming us for what became of her.”
“It wasn’t our fault.”
“It wasn’t our fault.”
“It was those other pumpkins. Those cruel pumpkins.”
“The ones that came from the Looking Glass.”
“They’re to blame, but we’ll all suffer for it.”
“You should run away, run away with your human legs, run away…”
Cath hurried on, as much to get away from their nerve-tingling words as to heed their warnings. She thought of the Jack-O’-Lanterns spiked on the wrought-iron fence and bile rose in her throat. She choked it back down as she rounded the corner of the cottage.
No ladder. No saw. No ax.
But there was a woodshed, not much farther, the door ajar and black shadows spilling out. She lifted her skirts and jogged toward it, her eyes beginning to water with the suffocating presence of fear.
Something grabbed her and slammed her back against the cottage wall so hard the wind kicked out of her lungs. A scream died in her throat.
Peter hunched over her, eyes ablaze and a gleaming ax in his hand.
CHAPTER 47
“SO YOU CAME BACK to finish it?” Peter growled, his lips curled back to show yellowing teeth. Cath recoiled at the smell of rotting pumpkin on his breath, but he held her firm against the cottage’s side.