Heartless(115)

He said it as if this were proof that the drawings were nothing but harmless whimsies. Cath wanted to believe that, but Hatta seemed more shaken than he wanted to admit.

They were leaving Hearts, she told herself.

She couldn’t become the Queen of Hearts once they were gone.

Maybe she would become a monarch—Jest wanted her to become the new White Queen after all. Maybe that’s what the Sisters meant.

But there was no mistaking the crown topped with the heart finial in the drawing.

“Your future is written on stone, but not in it.”

Catherine spun around. Elsie the Raccoon stood arm’s reach away, the expressionless mask and hollow eyes peering up at her. Cath hadn’t heard her approach.

“It’s only an idle warning, then?”

“It is a truth,” said the Raccoon. “But one of many.”

“Many, many muchness,” said Tillie the Owl, her voice like a sad trill. “Eeenie meenie miney mo.”

“Choose a door, any door,” Elsie continued. “They all lead to this truth. It is a fate, and fate is inevitable.”

Catherine shook her head. “If they all lead to this, then how can we avoid it?”

Tillie tittered. “Time cannot follow you here, so he cannot follow you out. To put it most simply, you mustn’t go through a door.”

The Sisters all started to laugh, the sound shrill and bubbling. Cath hated the sound.

“Fine, we won’t go through any doors,” said Hatta. “May we go?”

“Patience, patience,” said Elsie.

“Don’t lose your head,” said Tillie.

They turned their heads together and snickered.

“We drew your grandmother too, a long, long time ago,” said Elsie the Raccoon, drawing closer to Cath’s voluminous skirt. “The first Marchioness of Mock Turtles. Do you wish to see her?”

“You mean the Marchioness of Rock Turtle Cove,” said Cath, and though she shook her head, she still followed to where Lacie was pointing and saw a drawing of a beautiful girl surrounded by turtles and lobsters. Her many-greats-grandmother, recognizable from a portrait that hung in her father’s library.

How old were these girls? How long had they been here, drawing the future in the key of M?

“We have one minute still,” said Tillie. Her sisters came to join her, all surrounding Cath and staring up at her. “Won’t you tell us a story?”

She gulped. “I’m not a good storyteller like my father, or grandmother, or … I’m sorry. You’ll be disappointed.”

“Then we will tell it,” said Tillie.

Elsie curtsied. “A gift to take with you through the Looking Glass.”

“Another truth we’ve seen,” added Lacie.

They began to recite in a haunting voice, like synchronized puppets:

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,

Had a wife but couldn’t keep her;

He put her in a pumpkin shell

And there he kept her very well.

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.

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, humor them as well as he could.

He wasn’t humoring 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.