Hatta pounded the end of his cane on the floor three times, then swirled it through the air. ‘Everyone, move down! Make room for our joker and his lady. And who’s up next?’
Chants of move down, move down echoed around the table as they pushed back their chairs and spent a topsy-turvy moment flitting to new seats. Sitting, testing, jumping and bounding, over the table and under, hopscotching between the chairs, stumbling into one another’s laps and on top of one another’s shoulders and some of the smaller animals finding a cosy spot inside an empty teacup. Only Hatta’s throne was left out of the chair swapping, until finally everyone had settled down again, leaving the two seats on either side of their host open for Jest and Catherine.
Feeling like this was all a game she didn’t know the rules to, Cath went to sit down.
‘No, my lady, you’ll want to be over here.’ Jest rounded to the seat on Hatta’s left side and pulled it out for her.
Hatta snorted and tipped his hat up with his cane, watching Catherine as she sank straight-backed into the offered seat and smoothed her skirt around her legs. ‘Jest isn’t confident you can hold your own among us rabble and hooligans.’
Jest glowered. As he passed behind Hatta’s throne, he leaned towards his ear. ‘She is our guest. I did not bring her here to entertain you.’
Catherine folded her hands into her lap and tried to be pleasant.
‘Wrong, Jest,’ Hatta said, his knowing smirk never leaving her. ‘Everyone is here to entertain me.’
‘Well then. Allow me.’
Jest snapped the top hat from Hatta’s head, holding it aloft as Hatta tried to grab it back. Jest was already chuckling and stepping up on to his chair, then on to the table. The cups and saucers rattled as his boots clomped against the wood.
With a disgruntled sigh that didn’t hide the tilt at the corners of his lips, Hatta threw his heels back on to the tabletop and picked up his tea.
Catherine caught sight of Raven, still atop the clown’s bust, almost a part of the shadows. He angled his head to watch Jest’s parade across the table.
The room hushed. Anticipation scrambled up Catherine’s spine and she leaned forward, her fingers crushed together in her lap.
Stepping around the mess of dishes, Jest came to stand at the table’s centre. He held the top hat so everyone could see. Then, with a twist of his wrists, he sent the hat into a blurring spin and dropped his hands away. The hat continued to levitate in the air.
Catherine bit her lip, hardly daring to blink.
Tapping his fist against his chest, Jest cleared his throat. Then, to Catherine’s surprise, he began to sing.
‘Twinkle, twinkle . . . little bat.’
Her lips twitched at the familiar lullaby, though Jest had slowed down the cadence so the song was more like a serenade. His voice was confident, yet quiet. Strong, but not overpowering.
‘How I wonder what you’re’ – he tapped a finger on to the brim of the spinning hat so it flipped top to bottom – ‘at.’
A flurry of bats burst upward. Catherine ducked as they swarmed through the room. Their squeaks filled the shop with bedlam, their wings close enough to tease Cath’s hair without touching her skin.
Jest’s voice cut through the ruckus.
‘Up above the world, so high . . .’
The bats turned into a cyclone, encircling the room so the table was in the eye of a living storm. The cyclone began to tighten, closing in around Jest. Soon, he could no longer be seen beyond the mass of beating, squealing, pressing bodies. Tighter and tighter.
Catherine’s chest constricted as the tornado of bats turned as one and streamed towards an open window – leaving behind Hatta’s top hat sitting crookedly against a teapot, and no sign of Jest.
Her heart was pounding. Whispers began to pass up and down the table. Guests checked under the table and beneath the top hat and even in the teapots, but Jest had vanished.
‘The nerve of him, to abandon you thus. At my mercy, no less.’
She glanced at Hatta.
Setting his teacup on its saucer, he winked at her. ‘Jest has always had a weakness for riddles.’
Brushing back the hair that had been tossed around by the bats, Cath did her best not to show how nervous the Hatter made her. ‘Have you known each other a long time?’
‘Many years, love. I would try to count how many, but I’m so far into Time’s debt, I would doubtlessly count them wrong.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘Is that a riddle?’
‘If you wish it to be.’
Unsure how to respond, Cath reached for a teacup, but found it filled with mother-of-pearl buttons. She set it back. ‘Jest told a riddle at the ball,’ she said. ‘It was, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” ’
The Hatter guffawed, throwing his head back. ‘Not that one! Sometimes I wonder if he’s even trying.’
‘I didn’t realize it was an old riddle. No one at the ball seemed to know it, and we were all amused by the answer.’
‘With due respect, my lady, the gentry are not known for their inability to be amused.’
She supposed he was right – for the King most of all. But the way Hatta said it made it sound like a fault that should be shameful, and she wasn’t sure if she agreed.
‘Tell me, which answer did he give?’ asked Hatta.
‘Pardon?’
‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’
‘Oh – because they each produce a few notes, though they tend to be very flat.’ She was proud of herself for remembering, so caught in the performance had she been. ‘He covered the ballroom in confetti. Little paper notes, all with charming designs.’