Page 132 of Heartless

‘The Sisters,’ said Jest. ‘When we came through before, you were . . . you seemed uncomfortable around them.’

‘Uncomfortable?’ Hatta barked and whapped his cane on the table. Haigha was hidden entirely beneath it now. ‘Do they make you uncomfortable, Haigha?’

‘Not exactly.’ Haigha’s voice floated up through the wood. ‘More like they make me want to drown myself in a pool of treacle.’

‘Why?’ Cath glanced at Jest. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

Jest shook his head. ‘They’re a little odd, is all.’

Haigha shuddered so hard beneath the table that the teacups shook.

‘A little odd?’ said Hatta. ‘You must have crossed over on one of their good days, dear Jest. I assure you, Haigha means what he says and says what he means.’ Adjusting his sleeves, Hatta fixed a smirk on Catherine. ‘But what can be done to avoid them? Nothing is what.’ He grabbed his cane and twirled it through the air. ‘Let you not say that you weren’t warned.’

CHAPTER 42

HATTA PUSHED HIS CHAIR BACKfrom the table and stood, adjusting his top hat. ‘Are you sure you’re desperate enough to come with us, Lady Pinkerton?’ he said, eyeing her. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to stay here and live your days in luxury?’

She stood too, facing him over the scattered flowers and felts. ‘What is luxury if your life is a lie? I can never go back there. I belong with Jest now.’

Hatta’s eyelid twitched, but he turned away and approached the standing mirror Cath had once used to admire her macaron hat. He pulled it away from the shop’s wall and swivelled it on creaky wheels. The back was the same. Another looking glass in a polished wooden frame, except –

Cath stepped around the table, her fingers trailing on the backs of the mismatched chairs.

The reflection no longer showed the hat shop. It showed a glen of grasses and wildflowers and a treacle well glowing in the twilight.

‘Step through, then,’ said Hatta, and his tone carried a warning. ‘The Sisters will know how desperate you truly are.’

She glanced back at Jest, but he nodded encouragingly. There was no doubt in his expression, unlike Hatta’s, and that bolstered her. She knew this decision, once made, could never be undone. But what choice was left to her?

She had meant what she said.

She no longer belonged in Hearts.

She would never see her parents again. Or Cheshire. Or Mary Ann. She wondered if she should leave them a note explaining where she’d gone. Maybe Raven would carry it back for her. But when she tried to think of what the note would say, all her thoughts turned bitter. Angry as she was with her parents, she didn’t want that to be the last they ever heard from her. No – Hatta was a messenger who traversed between the Looking Glass regularly. When she was calm and happy in her new life, when she had saved Chess and she and Jest had their bakery . . . then she would send a letter to her parents and let them know she was all right.

Until then, she would let them worry. They were the ones who had threatened to disownher, after all.

There was no going back.

She was desperate, but she was also hopeful.

Gathering her voluminous skirt, Cath stepped up to the mirror, inhaled a deep breath, and stepped through.

She was back in the meadow, caged in by towering hedges on every side. The grass was speckled with crimson and gold and the sugar-molasses scent filled Cath’s lungs.

No sooner had she stepped forward than she heard footsteps behind her – Jest and Hatta, with Raven perched on Jest’s shoulder.

Hatta lifted an eyebrow and looked mildly surprised, perhaps that Cath was desperate enough after all. But all he said was, ‘Haven’t anything for warmth, Lady Pinkerton?’

She glanced down at her ball gown and bare arms. ‘I was not expecting an adventure tonight, and my shawl was taken by the castle courtiers.’

He grunted, as if this were a weak excuse, and brushed past her, moving towards the well.

Jest took hold of her hand. The bells on his hat jingled extra loud in the stillness.

Hatta knocked his cane three times against the well’s rocky ledge before leaning over and smiling into its black depths. ‘Hello, Tillie.’

Two small hands appeared at the top of the well, followed by a child’s gaunt face. She was ghostlike, not more than six years old, with white-silver hair that cascaded down her back and skin the colour of milk thinned with water. Her eyes, in contrast, were coal black and far too big for her face.

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