Chester Cheshire grinwild's Arc

Chapter 2 of 15

Chester left Harrietta at the lake with her cracked watch and walked into the empty until the empty got tired of being empty. He stopped where the ink-dark ground felt firm under his paws. The gold eye showed him a square. The green eye showed him mud. He grinned at the gap between them and decided to close it himself. He pictured cobblestones, dark and uneven, packed tight enough to hold a hundred chairs. The ground answered. Stones pushed up through the mud in rows, fitting themselves into a wide flat square ringed by a low wall. A puddle stayed where a puddle wanted to stay. A small tree shoved itself up at one corner. Chester walked the edge once to test it. Nothing sank. Nothing ran. He thought about the Hatter's table back in the book he came from. Plain wood. One cloth. Three chairs. A waste. He spread his paws and pulled something better out of the air. A long table uncoiled across the square, winding like a slow river, draped in mismatched cloths he had never seen before and somehow remembered. Chairs gathered along the curve, no two the same. Teapots, cups, sugar bowls, plates of cakes he had not named yet. Steam rose without a fire. The square still looked like a place a guest might glance at and keep walking. Chester fixed that. He hung a sign above the entrance on a chain that anchored to nothing, the words Tea Party glowing purple, lanterns swinging at the corners. Then he stacked teacups. One on a saucer. Another on top. Another. He kept stacking until the tower tilted, caught itself, and started pouring. Blue tea ran from the top cup into the second, the second into the third, the third into the wide cup at the base. It never spilled over. It never ran dry. He stepped back and watched it tilt and pour and tilt and pour. One thing left. Chester walked to the head of the table where the curve opened toward the sign. He pictured a chair tall enough to be seen from the gate, purple, deep, carved at the arms. The chair pushed up from the cobblestones behind his knees. He sat. The cushion took his weight. He sank in until his tail hung over one carved arm. From the chair he could see the whole square. The fountain pouring. The sign glowing. The long table waiting. A guest arriving here would not turn around. A guest arriving here would sit. Chester laced his paws behind his head and grinned at the empty chairs. He had a place now. All he needed were the people to fill it. The next book was already open in his head, and he knew which page to tear.