‘What was that?’ she asked, taking a hesitant step towards 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 goosebumps 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 mouldy 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 towards 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 a 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 goodbye.
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.