Page 137 of Heartless

Cath and Jest both clapped politely when they had finished, though Cath was disturbed by the poem. She’d never heard the rhyme before, and thinking of Sir Peter tightened her stomach.

She looked at Hatta, who was still clutching the brim of his hat against his stomach. Tapping his fingers, impatient. She wondered if this happened every time he wanted to pass through the Looking Glass. If he gave up five minutes of his time to look at their drawings, listen to their tales, humour them as well as he could.

He wasn’t humouring them much now, but then, Cath knew it would drag on her after a while too. It was difficult to be polite when you wanted to run away.

‘Are you sure you wish to go?’ asked Tillie the Owl, cocking her head to one side. Cath kept expecting the masks to take on expressions – to smile or cry – but there was nothing but blankness about them.

‘Or do you wish to play?’ said the Fox.

‘We could fix you some warm treacle,’ added the Raccoon.

Jest shook his head. ‘We must go. But thank you for – for the poem, and for showing us your drawings.’

‘Fine,’ said the Raccoon, sounding put out by the refusal of their hospitality. ‘We’ll open the maze for you. You’ll want to go right. Right is always right. Except when left is right, naturally.’

‘Do you remember the way, Hatta?’ asked the Owl.

Hatta tipped his hat to her. ‘Like the way to my own hat shop, Tillie.’

Tillie cocked her head – like a real owl with her humongous eyes. ‘Your hat shop,’ she said, quite plainly, ‘is on wheels.’

‘Don’t get lost, Hatta,’ warned Lacie the Fox.

‘Don’t lose yourself, Hatta,’ added Elsie from behind her Raccoon mask.

‘Or anyone else,’ added Tillie with a secretive laugh. ‘Shall we draw you a map of the maze before you go?’

Hatta shook his head. ‘I know the way.’

The girls nodded and spoke again in unison. ‘Farewell, then. So long. Good eve.Murderer. Martyr. Monarch. Mad.’

Cath shut her eyes, her skin writhing. She wanted to get away from them. She was suddenly as desperate to get away as she’d been to get here in the first place. She found Jest’s hand and squeezed and was grateful when he squeezed back.

Then she heard the chirrup of three jingling joker’s bells. She opened her eyes in surprise, but the girls and the bells were gone. The glen fell silent. Not a breath, not a breeze.

The wall that had held the girls’ drawings was gone too, opened wide to reveal the entrance to a hedge maze, with walls that towered three times Cath’s height.

Hatta let out a weary sigh. ‘Thank you, loves,’ he said, sounding truly grateful, as though he doubted each time if they would let him through or torment him forever. He approached the entrance to the maze without half as much bounce in his step as before. As he passed by Catherine, she heard him muttering beneath his breath, ‘Though if I go mad, we’ll all know who’s to blame for it.’

Cath wanted to smile, but her nerves were still frazzled. She followed behind Hatta and, thinking it would not do to be impolite, she whispered to the empty glen, ‘Thank you very much.’

Only once she had stepped past the first wall did a ghostly whisper, three girlish, ghoulish voices, brush across her earlobe.

‘You are welcome,’ they said, ‘Your Majesty.’

CHAPTER 44

THE MAZE WALLS WERE MADEof entwined dead branches and tight-packed laurel leaves and the occasional bare spot of ancient stone wall. Catherine felt a sense of helplessness the moment they’d stepped through the entrance and peered down the first endless stretch. The maze continued in each direction as far as she could see, fading in a swirl of fog in the distance. The path itself was padded in a white-flowering ground cover that was soft and damp with dew.

‘Well,’ said Jest, clearing his throat – the first sound to break the miserable silence that had engulfed them in the Sisters’ absence. ‘That was not exactly like the first time you brought us to meet the Sisters.’

‘No? I’ve passed through so many times they all start to feel the same.’ Hatta smirked and started undoing the buttons of his coat. ‘What was their price before?’

‘Raven gave them a recitation of a classic Chessian poem,’ said Jest, ‘and I gave them a lemon seed.’

Cath startled, thinking of the lemon tree that had grown over her bed.

Mistaking her surprise, Jest gave her a nonchalant grin. ‘I’d had some lemon in my tea that day – the seed was stuck in my tooth. I’d been working at it all afternoon, but the moment they asked, it popped right out. I was glad to be rid of it.’

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