‘But I’m not—’
He threw the hat. It landed a couple of yards away. She couldn’t get to it without edging closer to the Jabberwock.
‘YOU!’
Peter’s howl was so sharp and loud even the Jabberwock swivelled her head towards him.
Seizing her chance, Cath darted towards the hat. She snatched the hat off the ground and thrust her arm inside, still running. As before, her fingers curled around the bone-studded handle and the sword emerged, gleaming.
Cath halted and spun back to face the monster.
The Jabberwock snarled and hunkered her head in between muscled, scaly shoulders. She took a step back, her single burning eye studying the sword like a lifelong enemy.
Cath raised the weapon with both hands. It was heavy, but determination strengthened her arms. Resolve pumped through her veins.
The beast took another step away.
Cath dared to glance at Jest, afraid it was already too late, that she would see the vision from the drawings . . .
But no, he was alive, and had managed to get back to his feet. One hand was pressed to the side of his head. He seemed dazed. His feet kept stumbling out from beneath him as if he couldn’t hold his balance. If he noticed Cath standing there with the Vorpal Sword, he showed no sign of recognition.
‘How dare you show your face here?’ Peter yelled. His face was flaming red, his nostrils flared with rage.
‘Such a pleasure to see you again, as well,’ said Hatta, seemingly unsurprised that the pumpkin grower looked ready to tear him apart. ‘How is business?’
Peter swung the axe at the ground, disconnecting another pumpkin lantern from its vine. With a guttural scream he lifted the pumpkin and heaved it in Hatta’s direction. Hatta ducked away. The pumpkin splintered against the ground.
‘This is your doing,’ Peter said. ‘You and those damned seeds. They were cursed!’
Hatta’s jaw tightened and Cath knew, without any idea what they were talking about, that Peter’s accusation was not news to Hatta.
‘You know each other,’ she said. Her arms were trembling and she allowed herself to lower the sword, just a few inches. The Jabberwock blew a puff of steam at her. ‘How do you know each other?’
‘This devil brought me bad seeds,’ said Peter. ‘I didn’t even want ’em, not knowing the quality, but he threw them away in my patch and now look what’s happened. Look what you did to my wife!’
He pulled the axe from the mud and pointed it at the Jabberwock.
Hatta released a hearty guffaw. ‘You don’t honestly expect us to believe that this . . . this creature . . .’ He trailed off, his smile fading, his eyes widening as the Jabberwock looked back at him and her one eye blazed in recognition, not unlike how she had recognized the Vorpal Sword. ‘It can’t be.’
‘You brought him seeds?’ Cath stammered. ‘From Chess?’
The pumpkins.
The Mock Turtle.
The Jabberwock and Jest and the Vorpal Sword.
It all started on the other side of the Looking Glass.
And the connection between them?
Hatta.
This was Hatta’s doing.
But Peter was the one who had captured Mary Ann. He was the one trying to keep a monster as a pet and feed it innocent lives.
‘I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to her!’ Peter shouted. ‘I’ll post your head on my gate!’
Cath’s fists tightened around the sword.
‘Stop this,’ said Jest, breathless. ‘Whatever Hatta’s involvement, it was a mistake. How was he to know what the seeds would do? And this . . . this creature is no longer your wife, Sir Peter. I’m sorry, but you have to see that.’
‘Isn’t she?’
It was Hatta arguing with him. Cath snarled, ‘Hatta!’
But he shrugged, his gaze scraping over the beast’s scaly dark skin, wide-veined wings. ‘Is the Mock Turtle no longer the Turtle? How can we know Lady Peter isn’t still inside the body of this beast?’
‘She’s been eating people!’ Cath screamed. ‘If she is still in there, she’s a murderer!’
‘You turned her into this,’ Peter said, swivelling his gaze back to her. ‘I destroyed those cursed pumpkins. She was getting better. But once she saw that cake she couldn’t stop eating it. And now she won’t change back. She’s my wife, and you did this to her!’
‘She’s a monster!’
The Jabberwock reared back on her hind legs and sent a piercing scream into the sky. Her claws returned to the ground with a thump that rattled through Cath’s teeth.
It happened fast.
The venom in the Jabberwock’s eyes.
The way she reared her head back like a poisonous snake.
The way she opened her enormous mouth and Cath saw the light glinting off row after row of teeth.
The way she dived for Hatta.
The Sisters’ voices were there, in Cath’s head. Murderer, martyr . . .
Hatta stumbled back –
Pudding and pie, he was going to die.
A scream was ripped from Cath’s throat and she charged forward, swinging the sword as hard as her arms would allow it.
The blade made one fast, clean cut. Easy as slicing through a pat of butter.
The Jabberwock’s head disconnected from her slithering neck. Her body crashed on to the rows of abandoned pumpkins. Her head dropped and thumped and rolled towards Hatta’s feet, who leaped back with a cry. Dark blood splattered across the ground, like ink from a broken quill.
The world paused.
The fog swirled around them.
Peter’s face slackened.
Cath stared at the sword edged with blood, her heart thud-thumping inside her chest. Stunned. Horrified. Relieved.