Chester Cheshire grinwild's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

Chester pulled his stool closer to the desk. The wood was dark and warped, streaked with old spills that ran over the edge in dried black ropes. The raven hopped aside and watched him with one flat eye. Outside the round window, purple leaves shifted against the glass. Down in the square, Harrietta would still be stacking cups. Chester had time. He had a bird with a pen. He had a desk built for ink. He was going to make a guest. "A princess," Chester said. "Every proper tea wants a princess. Long hair. Tower. Sings to lizards." He tapped the blotter. "Rapunzel. Write her in." The raven did not move. Chester picked up the quill himself. It was heavier than it looked, the feather streaked purple and black, the nib already wet. He dipped it and began to write across a fresh page. A tower. A window. A girl with hair like a yellow rope. The ink came out glossy and dark, not yellow at all, but Chester kept going. The raven squawked. It squawked again, louder, and stamped one foot on the desk. "Don't squawk at the author," Chester said. "Squawk less. Write more. Or is that a raven's only line? Nevermore squawking, please." He laughed at his own joke. The raven clacked its beak and tried to catch the quill in its beak. Chester lifted the pen out of reach and kept writing. He filled the page. He wrote her name three times to be sure. When the last word dried, Chester closed the book and held it flat on both paws. "Now," he whispered. "Come out for tea." He opened the cover. He reached into the page the way he had reached into every book before. His fingers met something cold and wet. The book shivered. Ink bubbled up from the spine and spat across the desk in fat purple drops. The pages swelled. Two ragged wings tore out from the covers, one on each side, feathered in the same purple as the quill. The book beat its wings once. The desk lamp rocked. Chester grabbed for the spine and missed. It rose, circled the round window twice, and shot up through the open hatch into the leaves. He heard it crash through branches. Then nothing. No girl. No tower. No hair. Just ink running off the desk onto his boots and a raven staring at him as if he were the stupidest cat in any book. "Right," Chester said. He wiped purple off his chin. The raven lifted the quill in its beak and set it down again, pointed at itself. Chester understood. The bird wrote. He did not. He had made a flying mistake and sent it loose in his own house. Somewhere above him, in the puffed purple leaves, a winged book was nesting with a princess trapped inside.