Harrietta “The white Rabbit”'s Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Harrietta opened the blue door at dawn and stepped down onto the cobbles. The teapot cottage hummed behind her. She had two sips of tea in her, a clear head, and a white journal tucked under one arm. The cover had small gear-clasps and a rabbit stamped in silver. She had found it on the cottage table that morning. She did not ask where it came from. She only needed it to hold what she learned. She found Chester high above the party grounds. He had built a stone staircase that curled up into a knot of purple clouds. From the top step he could see every chair, every pot, every cobble. He sat there now, tail swinging, watching the long winding table below. Harrietta crouched behind a striped tree at the base and opened the journal. She started writing what he did. First he came down. He walked the table from one end to the other and touched each teapot lid. He counted chairs out loud. He stopped at the middle of the table where a pile of loose petals lay heaped. The petals were purple, black, and white. He spread them with one paw until they formed the shape of an ace of spades. He did it slowly, the way someone sets a place for a guest. Then he climbed back up the staircase and waited. Harrietta wrote it down. An hour later he came down again. He fixed the petal ace where the wind had nudged it. He counted the chairs again. One chair at the far end had moved. He dragged it back into line. He climbed the stairs. She watched this happen four more times. Every visit, he checked the ace. Every visit, he counted the chairs. Whatever he planned to pull from a book next, it was a card. A spade. And it was meant for that empty chair. She almost shut the journal then. She did not. She made herself wait one more cycle. On the sixth trip down, Chester did not climb back up. He stopped at the foot of the stairs, turned his head, and looked straight at the striped tree. "Took notes?" he called. His voice was flat. "Save a page for me." He grinned and vanished into the clouds above. Harrietta's ears went hot. He had known. Maybe the whole time. She closed the journal and pressed the clasp shut. He knew she was watching, and he had still shown her the ace, still shown her the empty chair. That meant one of two things. Either he wanted her to try to stop the next guest, or he did not believe she could. She walked back to the cottage with the journal under her arm. She had his pattern now. She also had a problem she had not had at sunrise. Chester was watching her watch him.