Chester Cheshire grinwild's Arc

Chapter 7 of 15

Chester left the netted books thrashing in the square and climbed back up through the purple leaves to his study. The raven waited on the warped desk, quill already in its beak. Ink puddled across the wood and dripped down one twisted leg onto the rug. Chester sat. He did not argue this time. He pictured a tower. He pictured a girl inside it with hair past her feet. The raven dipped the quill and began to write. Chester kept his eyes half shut and held the picture steady. A purple book grew under the raven's claws, vines curling across the cover, the name Rapunzel pushing up through the leather in gold. The raven worked fast. Chester fed it details. Six ribbons. A grandmother. A market. Keys at her belt. He felt each one snap into the page like a latch closing. He heard a small click behind the empty shelf across the room. Not loud. The kind of sound a watch makes when it is held too still. He did not turn his head. He knew the only person in Wonderland who carried a watch, and he knew she was watching. When the raven set the quill down, Chester opened the book in the middle of the desk. The pages did not fly. They bent. They opened like a mouth. Chester pushed his hand in to the wrist. The paper softened around his arm and spun, ink rising up his sleeve in a slow black spiral. Something warm caught his fingers. He pulled. A girl came through the page onto the swirly purple rug. Brown hair spilled around her in heaps, purple ribbons knotted through it, a ring of iron keys clutched against her chest. She blinked at the room. "I was on a stool," she said. "There were six ribbons. Now there are five. My feet are cold." She looked at Chester. "You have two different eyes." Ink dripped from the desk onto the rug in fat black coins. Chester smelled earl grey, sharp and close, the kind no one in this room was drinking. He stood up slowly so he would not startle the girl. Behind the empty shelf, near the baseboard, a small paper sachet lay on its side. A gold string trailed out from it. The tag read Earl Grey in curling letters. He had not put it there. He let his gaze pass over it and land on Rapunzel instead. "Welcome," he said. "You're early for tea." The shelf creaked once. Chester smiled wider, both eyes open, and did not look at it again. He had his princess. Harrietta had her proof. The next move belonged to whoever spoke first.