Page 76

C ATH STARED AT THE DOORS still thrust wide open, her body both frozen and burning, her chest a hollow cavity. Empty and numb.

She no longer hurt. That broken heart had been killing her, and it was gone.

Her sorrow. Her loss. Her pain, all gone.

All that was left was the rage and the fury and the desperate need for vengeance that would soon, soon be hers.

“W-what happened?” stuttered the King. “What did they do?”

“They freed me,” Cath whispered. Her gaze traveled to the prisoner who was kneeling on the floor, his arms shackled by chains but with no captors to hold him.

Peter Peter, alone, did not look appalled at what the Sisters had done.

He looked bitter. To be caught. To be brought here.

To be kneeling before the Queen of Hearts.

Cath’s lips twitched upward. “They fulfilled their promise.”

“But… your heart…,” started the King.

“Was no longer useful to me, and I am most pleased with what they brought me in return.” She narrowed her gaze.

“Hello, Sir Peter.” She spat the name, her anger roiling, bubbling, steaming inside her, filling up all the barren spaces.

Her knuckles whitened on the rail. “This man is the murderer of the late court joker of Hearts. He cut off his head, then fled into the forest. He is a killer. ”

When she had imagined this moment, she’d worried that she might cry when faced with Jest’s killer again. But her eyes were dry as sifted flour.

Already the numbness was fading. Now her body was enflamed.

The King hesitantly stood. “That is—yes. Yes, indeed. It’s so good of you to join us, Sir Peter. I believe this calls for, uh…” The King scratched beneath his crown. “What happens next?”

“A trial, Your Majesty?” suggested the White Rabbit.

“Yes! A trial. Excellent fun. Good distraction. Yes, yes. Jury, assemble yourselves. Write down the Queen’s accusation.”

The jury rustled and pulled out slate tabs onto which they began to scribble notes with white chalk.

Peter Peter stayed on his knees, but his head was lifted, his gaze piercing Catherine.

She stared back, unafraid, for once. She was filled with the anticipation of seeing his blood spilled across the courtroom floor.

“The jury would like to call a witness, Your Majesty.”

The King clapped his hands. “Oh yes, jolly good. Who shall we call?”

“We would like to call the court joker to the stand.”

Cath growled. Whispers and glances passed through the crowd. Everyone seemed to be waiting for Jest to appear on a silver hoop from the ceiling.

“He is dead,” she said through her gritted teeth. She had to fend off a fantasy of having every imbecile in this courtroom beheaded.

“Oh yes, that would be so, wouldn’t it?” the Badger muttered, punctuating the realization with nervous laughter.

“I am your witness,” Cath said. “I was there and I have already told you what happened. He is a murderer and he deserves to be punished.”

Everyone tittered, uncomfortable that their new queen was intruding on the court’s traditions.

“Perhaps,” said the Rabbit, “if there are no other witnesses present, the jury might consider a verdict? ”

A wave of glee sparkled over the jury box and Catherine heard mutterings of guilty and innocent and in need of a bath , when Peter Peter cleared his throat.

“I got something I’d like to say.”

Though his voice was hoarse, it roared through Catherine like a tidal wave. White spots flecked in her vision. She wanted to silence him forever.

The King, ignorant of how Cath’s blood was boiling, pounded his gavel. “The murder—er, the defendant wishes to speak!”

Two guards came forward and grabbed Peter Peter by the elbows, hauling him to his feet. The chains the Sisters had abandoned clinked across the floor.

Raven hopped along the rail, putting himself in Cath’s field of vision.

It was like having a confidant at her side—someone else who had been there that night, who knew.

He alone had not flinched when the Sisters had taken Cath’s heart.

There had been a time when he had planned on doing the same thing to her.

When Jest had planned to do the same thing to her.

But that no longer mattered to her. Such a heart was worthless, despite what everyone said. There was no value to it at all.

Sir Peter planted his feet so he could stand without the guards’ assistance. Though disheveled, he was as intimidating as ever. His eyes darted from the King to the jury to the royal courtiers to the guards—and, finally, to Catherine. “I did kill him,” he snarled. “But I was defending my wife.”

The jury scribbled on their tablets.

Peter took a step forward. “These people—the maid, the Joker, and you. ” He snarled at Catherine.

“They trespassed onto my property. I’d asked none of them to come there.

Nosy wretches they were, coming to see the ‘monster,’ the ‘beast.’” He spat.

“But she was my wife! And you killed her. Right in front of me, you killed her. You’re the monsters. Not me. Not her!”

“She was the Jabberwock!” Cath screamed.

A gasp rose from the crowd .

“That’s what he isn’t telling you. The wife he was protecting was the Jabberwock. Mary Ann was to be the creature’s next meal.”

“She should not have come to my patch. Trespassers! Murderers!”

“You are the murderer!”

“As are you, and a thief besides! You stole that pumpkin from me, I know you did. She was getting better. The curse was going away, but then she saw that cake and had to have it and when she turned again… she wouldn’t… she couldn’t turn back again and it’s your fault!”

The King pounded his gavel—each thud like a hammer on Cath’s temple.

“Now, now,” said the King, who was sweating profusely. “I think perhaps the jury would appreciate one little clarification…” He cleared his throat and adjusted his powdered wig. “Sir Peter, you claim that the Jabberwock was your wife?”

The audience rustled and Cath heard more than one member of the jury mention that Peter Peter’s wife had been at the black-and-white ball. Sickly thing. Not at all monstrous.

“She was poisoned,” said Peter. “Poisoned by bad pumpkin. I saw her eat them—she couldn’t stop.

Then she started to get sick. I thought it was just from the overeatin’ but…

then she started to change.” A deep wrinkle cut between his eyebrows.

“It happened the first time after we left your ball, after those courtiers talked to us like we hadn’t earned being there.

After you ” — he pointed at Cath — “looked at us like scum on your shoe. I watched her turn into the Jabberwock. Saw it with my own eyes.” He balled his fists.

“Even when she was herself again, the cravings were too much for her. She’d eat anything orange, anything she thought could satiate her. But nothing did.”

Cath’s jaw ached from clenching her teeth. They said the Jabberwock had gone after Cheshire and Margaret that first night—after Cheshire’s fur had been tinted orange and he probably still smelled of pumpkin pasties .

And in the meadow, she had taken the Lion, with his golden-orange mane. But the monster had probably been there looking for Hatta, the messenger who had brought that first pumpkin from Chess.

And in the theater, the beast had come after her. Wanting more of her pumpkin cake.

“After she turned a second time,” Peter growled, his eyes cast in shadows, “I made the pumpkins pay.”

“If I recall,” drawled Mr. Caterpillar, “the Jabberwock was a nuisance. I say, good riddance.”

“I tried to stop her,” said Peter Peter. “I swear it. Built a cage even, but I couldn’t keep her.” His expression turned fierce. “It wasn’t her fault though. It was the pumpkins what did it!”

Cath squeezed the rail until her fingers ached. “This is not a defense. You killed Jest. You cut off his head, right in front of me.”

“You killed my wife!”

“You were going to feed Mary Ann to her!”

“She shouldn’a been on my land in the first place!”

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

The sound of the King’s gavel interrupted their argument and Cath sank her head in between her tense shoulders.

“Th-thank you, Sir Peter, for your—er, statement.” The King’s voice was shaking. “We have now heard the defendant’s testimony. Jury, what is your verdict?”

The jury huddled down with their slate tablets and whispers. Catherine heard none of their discussion. Her ears were humming, her brain clouded with visions of Jest in the mud, the ax swinging at his throat, her own heart splitting down the middle .

“We have reached a verdict, Your Majesty.” It was a toad who spoke, standing up with a slate in his webbed fingers. On it he had drawn a picture of Peter Peter standing on top of an enormous pumpkin and grinning. “We the jury find Peter Peter not guilty !”

The cheer was deafening. All around her, the people of Hearts embraced one another, hollered ecstatically. Even the King giggled with relief.

The Kingdom of Hearts had never seen such a ghastly trial, and everyone was thrilled that it was over. The man was not guilty. They could all go on with their silly, pointless lives.

Except Catherine. From the corner of her eyes she saw Raven puff his feathers.

She snatched the gavel from her husband. “SILENCE!” she screamed, pounding on the railing so hard a crack formed in the polished wood.

The ballyhoo stopped.

A courtroom of faces turned to gape at their Queen. Her reddened face, her livid eyes. A turtle ducked into his shell. An opossum rolled into a ball. An ostrich tried, but failed, to bury its head in the polished quartz floor.

“I reject the jury’s verdict,” she seethed. “As the Queen of Hearts, I declare this man guilty. Guilty of murder. Guilty of thievery and kidnapping and all the rest, and for his sentence—I call for his head. To be carried out immediately!”

Her words echoed through the courtroom, casting a cloud over the stricken faces. No one dared to breathe.

Catherine had eyes only for Sir Peter, whose face was furious beneath streaks of dirt, whose teeth were bared.

The numbness began to settle over her again.

“You deserve no mercy,” she said.

Peter spat again. “I want nothin’ from you.”

“B-b-but, darling,” said the King. Soft, patient, terrified. His fingers brushed against her arm, but she ripped it away. “We… we have never… In Hearts, we don’t… Why, sweetness, we don’t even have an executioner.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. Her gaze shifted to Raven. “Yes, we do.”

Raven lifted his head.

“You were the White Queen’s executioner,” she said, “and now you will be mine. Serve me dutifully and we shall both have our vengeance.”

He remained silent for a long while, still as a statue.

Then he spread his wings and stepped off the rail.

Like an ink splatter on stone he transformed into the hooded figure.

His face cast in shadow, his gloved hands gripping the handle of the glinting ax.

Now, in the light of the courtroom, Cath could see that his hooded cloak was made from raven feathers.

The guards drew back, leaving Peter Peter alone in the center of the room. Though he held fast to his defiance, Cath could see him beginning to shake.

Raven’s shadow lengthened across the floor, dwarfing the murderer. He hefted the ax onto his shoulder.

“For the murder of Jest, the court joker of Hearts, I sentence this man to death.” She spoke without feeling, unburdened by love or dreams or the pain of a broken heart. It was a new day in Hearts, and she was the Queen.

“Off with his head.”