Hatta stood and raised his piece into the air. “A toast to Lady Pinkerton, the finest lady to ever grace our table.”
Cheers resounded throughout the shop, but died out as they started to eat.
Catherine listened to the licking of fingers and sucking of teeth.
Jest’s eyes settled on her again, shining like candlelight, a finger caught between his lips. He blinked in surprise.
Cath beamed and placed her own sample on her tongue. The macaron was sweet and decadent and smooth, with just a tiny crunch from the meringue, and a subtle floral moment from the distilled rose water, all melting together into one perfect bite.
She listened to the gasps, the moans, the crinkle of parchment paper as someone scooped up the buttercream that had gotten missed.
This was why she enjoyed baking. A good dessert could make her feel like she’d created joy at the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, the people around the table were no longer strangers. They were friends and confidantes, and she was sharing with them her magic.
“Well done, Lady Pinkerton,” buzzed the Bumblebee. Then there was a round of huzzahs bouncing up and down the table. In the renewed chaos, the Dormouse awoke and looked sleepily around the room. Someone had left a crumb on his plate, which he popped into his mouth without hesitation. He chewed and swallowed, grinned dreamily, and returned to his nap still licking his lips.
The Hatter alone was not cheering. Rather, he had tilted back in his chair and covered his face with his hat.
Cath’s elation received a momentary chink. A notch of rejection.
But then Hatta lowered the hat and she saw that he was smiling, and his smile was heart-thumpingly open, honest, beautiful. His lavender eyes sparkled as they found her, then shifted to Jest.
“Fine. Fine!” he said, holding a hand up in surrender. “I suppose I will allow her to stay.”
Cath dipped into a curtsy, still flushed with success. “You are too gracious, Hat—”
The shop suddenly rocked. She slipped, toppling into Jest, whose arms encircled her.
The guests gasped and scrambled to gain their balance. Something clomped on the roof, followed by scratching, like talons scrabbling for purchase. The shop rocked again, sending an array of dishes over one side of the table, tea and cookies splattering onto the floor.
An ear-bleeding screech made the hair stand on the back of Cath’s neck.
Jest glanced up, drawing Cath’s attention toward Raven. The clown bust he stood upon had changed, the jovial grin turning down into a mockery of fear.
Raven tilted his head, as if his black eyes could see right through the beams of the ceiling, and recited in his somber cadence, “’Tis the nightmare of the borogoves, the terror of the slithy toves. Though long believed a myth by all, the Jabberwock has come to call within our peaceful grove.”
CHAPTER 20
JEST TURNED TO HATTA. “We must make a run for the Crossroads. The beast will be too large to follow us through.”
Cath gaped up at him, her heart squeezing tight. “You mean for us to go outside?” She turned toward Hatta, whose face was drawn, his jaw set. “Wouldn’t it be more prudent to stay put and wait for the beast to tire? Surely it will get bored and leave if it can’t get to us.”
A window at the back of the shop shattered. The Porcupine and the Bloodhound scrambled away from the scattering glass.
Two clawed fingers pushed through the destroyed window. The remaining glass shards scraped over the scaled skin as the fingers writhed and searched for a way inside, drawing charcoal-colored blood from the wounds.
Cath shuddered and pressed herself into Jest’s arms. “It can’t get to us here … can it?”
“These walls are but wood and nails, Lady Pinkerton,” Hatta said, his voice low. “The Jabberwock may not fit through the door, but it can doubtlessly open a new one.”
Her mouth dried.
The claw disappeared from the window. The shop rocked and trembled again as the monster paced to the other side of the roof. Searching. Through a gap in a set of drapes, Cath saw a slithering tail flick past.
Fear wrapped around her, encasing her limbs in stone.
She was going to die. Here, among strangers, in the middle of the night. She would be a feast for the Jabberwock, and her parents and Mary Ann would never know what had become of her.
A sudden gust through the chimney extinguished the fire that had been blazing in the corner hearth. The air filled with the smell of smoke and embers.
Hatta, the only one still sitting, pushed himself back from the table, the legs of his imitation throne scratching against the floorboards. He grabbed his cane and pressed his hat onto his head before surveying his guests. His attention landed on Jest.
“Think of it like being at home, mate,” he said. “Haigha and I will go out first to distract the enemy with a clear target. You and Raven helm us on the sides. Protect the others while they run for the Crossroads.” His gaze slipped down to Cath and he seemed, briefly, to find something amusing in their situation. “As always, we must protect the Queen.”
Jest flinched, his fingers digging into her arms.
A deep voice rumbled across the table. “I will bring up the rear.”
Cath turned toward the Lion, who stood regal and imposing in the dim candlelight, his orange mane haloed around him, although the look was diminished by the carousel hat clopping around his head. His tail flicked as he scanned the other creatures, all smaller than he was. “I will not enter the Crossroads until we all are safe.”
Hatta tipped his hat. “You are a brave soldier.”
Overhead, the Jabberwock screamed again. It was followed by the sound of splintering wood and creaking nails. The walls trembled.
“Everyone into position,” Hatta yelled. “Prepare to run for the Crossroads entrance. We must move as one.”
Jest pulled back, gripping Cath’s shoulders. His brow was drawn with fear and apology, but she stopped him before he could speak.
“It was my choice to come,” she whispered. “You couldn’t have known this would happen.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I will get you home safely.”
She nodded and, despite the fear coursing through her veins, she trusted him. “Impossible is your specialty.”
His eyes softened, barely covering his distress. “So it is.”
“Are we ready?” asked Hatta. He had moved toward the door, ready to pull it open. Haigha stood opposite him, his large ears quivering.
Cath glanced around. The old lady had climbed onto the Bloodhound’s back, gripping her knitting needles like daggers. The Squirrel had taken hold of the fishbowl, with the two Goldfish cowering beneath an overturned sugar dish that had fallen inside. The Boa Constrictor had the snoozing Dormouse cradled in his jaw. The Parrot and Cockatoo were ready to take flight; the Chameleon had colored himself to match the grass and wildflowers of the meadow outside; the Bumblebee was brandishing his stinger; the Porcupine had puffed up his barbed quills; and the Turtle had drawn his head into his shell.
The sight of them, who had been so merry and carefree minutes before, filled Cath with dread.
“Run fast,” Jest whispered against her ear. “Head straight to the Crossroads and try to stay near the middle of the group if you can—it will be safest.”
“Why?” she said. “My life has no more value than anyone else’s.”
Jest’s eyes darkened and she thought he would refute, but he seemed to reconsider. Finally, he said, “Just hurry, and don’t look back. I’ll be right behind you.”
Cath swallowed and nodded.
His hands fell from her shoulders. Raven swooped toward them and propped himself on Jest’s shoulder.
With the bird’s ink-black feathers and Jest’s ink-black motley, they looked like shadows come to life.
“On the count of three,” said Hatta.
More scratches across the rooftop. Another scream from the monster outside.
“One.”
J
est pressed Cath forward, urging her to stand with the others. Though her legs were shaking, she willed them to be strong as she placed herself between the Porcupine and the Bloodhound. The gray-haired lady met her eyes and gave a nod that was perhaps meant to be comforting, though to Cath it seemed like a look passed between soldiers being sent onto a battlefield.
“Two.”
Something cracked like splitting timber—the roof being ripped from its trusses.
At the back of the group, the Lion growled.
“Three!”
Hatta yanked open the door and he and Haigha charged forward, leaping clear of the wooden steps. Their feet thumped onto the grass outside and they took off in opposite directions—Haigha bounding full-speed toward the Crossroads, his powerful hind legs propelling him fast over the meadow, while Hatta took off toward the nearby tree cover. He propped his hat on the tip of his cane and extended it overhead.
The shop erupted into chaos. The animals rushed out the door in a tight pack. Cath gripped her skirt and hardly realized she’d started running until there was soft ground under her feet. Ahead, she could see Haigha waving to them from the brush, coaxing them toward the entrance of the Crossroads.
A shriek rattled the meadow, followed by the beat of thunderous wings. Cath imagined the Jabberwock launching itself off the rooftop of the traveling shop and diving toward them from the sky, but she dared not look back.
The monster’s scream was met with the caw of a raven—no, two ravens—and a thrumming, rumbling roar from the Lion, and Hatta yelling something she couldn’t make out.
Cath was already out of breath, her legs shaking so hard she thought they would collapse before she reached the brush. But they didn’t. She bounded onto the pathway only a few steps behind the Bloodhound and felt an instant sense of safety from the tree cover.
Haigha stood beside a tree trunk, ushering them through the Crossroads doorway. The door was narrow, though, and after their rush from the hat shop, they had bottlenecked to a standstill.
The Squirrel and Goldfish disappeared into the shadows. The Boa Constrictor slithered through. The Bloodhound leaped across the threshold, carrying his charge to safety.
A whimper made Cath glance back.
The Turtle had frozen, not quite to the end of the clearing, and withdrawn all of his limbs into his shell. She could hear his sobs echoing from inside.
A shadow soared over him and the grasses bent back under the beat of the monster’s wings.
Cath shrank down into the shrubs, her heart throbbing, and dared to look up at the beast that had once haunted her nightmares. Talons long as butcher knives. Slithery, writhing neck. Burning embers in its eyes. The creature was made of inky shadows and fire and muscles trapped beneath taut, scaly skin.
Two birds were flocking around it, circling its head, trying to keep it distracted from the creatures below. Diving, clawing, then darting out of reach.
Raven … and Jest.
Hatta was standing on the far side of the clearing, his hat still perched on his cane and eyes wild. Whatever distraction he’d first offered, he’d been forgotten now.
“Get up!” the Lion yelled, pounding on the Turtle’s shell with his paw. “You’re almost there. You must keep moving!”
“I’m … too … slow,” the Turtle cried. “I’ll never … m-make it!”
“You must try!” said the Lion.
“My lady!”
Cath glanced back. Haigha was waving to her from the doorway, his red eyes large with horror. Everyone else had gone through. “Come now, quick!”
She swallowed.
Overhead, the Jabberwock shrieked. It sounded hungry. It sounded ravenous.
It dropped down and perched again on the shop, which swayed on its rickety wheels. Even in the darkness Cath could see the destruction it had wrecked upon the roof.
Something slipped over her eyes and Cath shoved it back. She’d forgotten about the chef’s hat, the one she’d chosen from Hatta’s wall. A hat for making unconventional decisions.
She took in a deep breath and searched the ground. She grabbed a long stick.
“My lady!” Haigha screamed again, but Cath ignored him as she launched herself out of the brush, charging toward the Lion and the Turtle.
The Jabberwock cried and Cath knew it had spotted her racing across the meadow.
“No!” Hatta yelled. “Over here!”
A bird cawed.
The Lion’s eyes widened in panic as Cath planted herself behind the Turtle. She angled the stick beneath his shell and jabbed him, hard.
The Turtle yelped in pain and bucked forward, scrabbling at the ground.
“Move, move, move!” Cath yelled, poking him again and again, urging him along to a chorus of whimpers and yelps. He reached the path. His flippers treaded against the brush.
“Lady!” Haigha screamed.
The scream of the Jabberwock shredded her ears. Heart in her throat, Cath spun around, gripping the stick like a sword, just in time to see the shadow of the beast soaring toward her.
Every limb tightened and she could see its neck outstretched and its fangs bared and its tongue lolling toward her—
A blur of orange flashed in her vision, mixed with a ferocious roar and a whinny of tiny horses. The Lion threw himself in front of Catherine, one massive paw lifted as if he would bat the Jabberwock out of the sky.
The monster screamed and pulled its head back, shifting so that its massive talons were extended toward them.
Cath heard the moment of impact. Flesh and bone and soft ground and a cry of pain and beating wings and a triumphant screech—and then the Jabberwock flew upward again. Its prey was caught in its claws, the tuft of the Lion’s tail dangling in the air behind it.
CHAPTER 21
CATH WAS STILL STARING after the Jabberwock, the stick clutched in her shaking hands, when a shadow of feathers and bells dropped from the sky. Jest grabbed her shoulders. His gloves carried the memory of soft quills before they were leather once more.
“Are you all right?” he asked, breathless.
“N-no,” she stammered. Her eyes were full of the horizon and the memory of the Lion’s body, all grace and muscle, so quickly taken. So easily defeated.
Hatta was there too, then, in the corner of her vision. “Come,” he ordered, shoving the two of them toward the forest. “Let’s get to safety, in case the beast comes back.”
“The Lion…” Cath’s voice cracked with a sob.
“I know,” said Hatta. “I saw.”
Hatta ushered her past Haigha, whose eyes were glistening with tears. She heard Raven’s wings beating behind them. She spotted the Turtle’s shell past the Crossroads door. Everyone was waiting for them on the other side, clustered together on the black-and-white tiles. Their frightened eyes began to turn away when they realized that one of their party had been lost.
The Crossroads felt too quiet, too ordinary, too safe after the horrors of the glen.
“He’s gone,” Cath stammered. “He … he saved me.”
“He was a king among beasts,” said Jest. It sounded like a memoriam.
“He was indeed,” said Hatta. “Some might call that a checkmate.”
* * *
CATH PUT UP NO ARGUMENT when Jest offered to take her home. Though there was a sense of protection in the Crossroads, with its mismatched doors and access to all corners of the kingdom, as soon as they stepped onto the shores of Squeaky Creek, Cath felt the same terror wash over her.
Hearts was not safe. The Jabberwock was real and it was here and they were not safe.
“My lady,” said Jest, his voice heavy. They had hardly spoken once the other guests had scattered and headed for their own homes. Even Raven had seemed happy to abandon them, flying off into some unknown corner of Hearts. “I am so very, very sorry. I put you in danger. I—”
“You had no control over the Jabberwock.” She stopped and turned to face him. The creek burbled behind her. “Did you?”
; Their hands were intertwined and had been the entire walk, but it didn’t seem as romantic as it had when they had left her home earlier that evening. Rather, there was a need pulsing through her fingertips. For touch. For security. She felt safe with him there, whether or not it was warranted.
“If not for me,” said Jest, “you would have been safe in your bed, and wouldn’t have had to witness something so dreadful.”
She looked down at their fingers. Hers so pale against the black leather of his glove.
“Perhaps tomorrow, when my senses are clear, I will feel that the whole night was a mistake. But I don’t feel that way now.” She took in a long breath and raised her eyes again. “Monsters notwithstanding, I enjoyed my first real tea party.”
A ghost smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “And I enjoyed taking you to one. Monsters notwithstanding.”
“Then let us not end our night with talk of dreadful things,” she said, and though there was a sting of guilt at her words—how could she dismiss what had become of the brave and gallant Lion?—it was refreshing to think back on the music and the hats and the tea that had come before.
“As it pleases you, my lady,” said Jest, and he, too, seemed willing to think of more pleasant things. He tugged her up the bank of the creek. “I didn’t have a chance to compliment your performance. The macarons were marvelous, just as you said.”
She pressed her lips against a proud smile and shrugged. “Why, thank you, Sir Joker.”
“Where did you learn to bake?”
She considered the question. Baking had been a part of her life for so long, it was difficult remembering a time when she hadn’t enjoyed digging her fingers into a bowl of cake batter or warm, rising dough. “Our cook started teaching me when I was a child, but mostly I taught myself, using what recipe books I could find, and experimenting from there. I like the idea of taking ingredients that are unappetizing on their own—chalky flour and oily egg whites and bitter dark chocolate—and making something irresistible with them. This might sound mad, but sometimes it feels as though the ingredients are speaking to me.” She flushed. “Which must be nonsense.”
Heartless Page 16