Harrietta “The white Rabbit”'s Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Harrietta heard the wings before she saw the book. She stepped out of the cottage and looked up. One winged volume circled the spire in tight loops, brown cover flashing, purple feathers cutting the air. It dropped lower with each pass. Alice came out behind her holding the flamingo. The blue paint on the rose hedge dripped faster now, as if the cottage knew it was being hunted. Alice touched the torn page tucked in her sash. "It wants the page," Alice said. "Not me. The page." The book dove. Harrietta yanked Alice sideways and they ran for the trees. Pages snapped above them like a sail in wind. They cut between trunks, ducked under a low branch, doubled back when the book swung wide. Alice was faster than she looked. The flamingo stayed tucked under her arm and did not squawk once. Harrietta's chest hurt. The ticking in her head climbed. Two sips, she thought. Later. Run now. The book clipped a branch and showered them with bark. They burst into a small hollow and Alice stopped short. A door had grown out of the dirt at her feet. Blue, arched, no taller than a teapot. It had a brass keyhole shaped like a small round face. The face was smiling. Blue paint pooled around its base where the grass met the wood, the same color as Alice's dress, as if her presence had pulled the door up out of the ground. Alice knelt and tried the handle. The door opened a crack. She pushed her shoulder against the frame and the frame did not give. "Too small," she said. "For me." The book screamed overhead. Harrietta dropped to her knees and looked at Alice. Alice already had the page out. She pressed it into Harrietta's paws. "Take it through. I can't fit. You can." Her hand was steady. Her sleeve was thinning again at the wrist. Harrietta opened her mouth to argue and Alice shook her head once. "Go." Harrietta folded the page small, tucked it into her waistcoat, and shoved herself headfirst through the little door. Her ears bent flat. Her hips scraped. Then she was through. She landed on packed dirt in a dim space that smelled of paper. She turned and saw Alice's eye at the keyhole, huge and brown. The wings beat hard above the hollow. Then a thump, and the eye flinched, and the book's shadow passed over the keyhole and kept going. It had not seen Alice kneel. It was still hunting the page, and the page was now underground, with Harrietta. The door clicked shut. The keyhole dimmed. Harrietta sat in the dark with the page against her chest and listened to her own breath. The page was safe. Alice was alone up there, fading at the wrist, with one winged book still circling a blue cottage it could no longer reach.