‘Oh, Mary Ann.’ Her gaze flitted up to the soiled bonnet on Mary Ann’s head.

Hatta’s bonnet. The one that turned logic into dreams.

Resentment shot through her, mixing with the fear and the panic and the need to get both of them away from here as quickly as possible.

‘I forgive you. I do. But you need to be calm now. Take off that bonnet and try to be sensible, if you can. We need to find a way to get you out of there.’

Mary Ann untied the bonnet and tore it off her head.

Cath gave the bars one good shake but if Mary Ann couldn’t pull them open, she had no chance. ‘I need a ladder. Or something that can cut through these bars.’

Sniffing, Mary Ann pointed towards the far corner of the pumpkin patch. ‘There was a shed on the other side of the cottage. There might be something there.’

‘Right. I’ll be back.’

‘Be careful,’ Mary Ann cried as Cath turned away and started picking her way towards the darkened cottage. Her skin was covered in goosebumps, her gown made heavy by the drying mud. Her gaze searched the patch in desperation, looking for any sign that Peter or the Jabberwock might be near.

A whisper drifted past her ears and she froze. Her pulse drummed as she turned in a full circle, searching.

The whisper came again and this time she was ready for it. The familiar poem turned her organs to ice.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater . . .

She forced down a gulp.

Had a wife but couldn’t keep her . . .

She spun around again, her legs trembling. She wished she’d taken Jest’s sceptre or Hatta’s cane, anything to use as a weapon.

He put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well.

She turned again and spotted the destroyed shell of one of the enormous, house-sized pumpkins. It was the one she and Mary Ann had seen before, the one they’d heard the strange scratching from. Now the shell lay in gigantic pieces scattered across the pumpkin patch, as if some beast had destroyed it from the inside.

Some beast. Like the Jabberwock.

Cath pushed ahead. The sooner she got Mary Ann out of here, the sooner she could return to Jest and begin her new life far away from the Kingdom of Hearts.

‘He’ll take you too.’

Cath yelped. The voices were louder now – right at her feet. She jumped back and looked down at a knee-high pumpkin that sat off the path. As she stared, its flesh peeled back, revealing two triangle eyes and a gap-toothed mouth.

‘Run away,’ the pumpkin told her, still whispering, as the carved pupils of its eyes slid from side to side. ‘Run away.’

‘Run away before he finds you,’ warned another pumpkin lantern two rows over.

‘You . . . you’re alive,’ she stammered.

‘He’ll kill you,’ said the first pumpkin, ‘to feed the insatiable Jabberwock.’

‘He killed our brothers, blaming us for what became of her.’

‘It wasn’t our fault.’

‘It wasn’t our fault.’

‘It was those other pumpkins. Those cruel pumpkins.’

‘The ones that came from the Looking Glass.’

‘They’re to blame, but we’ll all suffer for it.’

‘You should run away, run away with your human legs, run away . . .’

Cath hurried on, as much to get away from their nerve-tingling words as to heed their warnings. She thought of the pumpkin lanterns spiked on the wrought-iron fence and bile rose in her throat. She choked it back down as she rounded the corner of the cottage.

No ladder. No saw. No axe.

But there was a woodshed, not much further, the door ajar and black shadows spilling out. She lifted her skirts and jogged towards it, her eyes beginning to water with the suffocating presence of fear.

Something grabbed her and slammed her back against the cottage wall so hard the wind kicked out of her lungs. A scream died in her throat.

Peter hunched over her, eyes ablaze and a gleaming axe in his hand.

CHAPTER 47

‘SO YOU CAME BACK to finish it?’ Peter growled, his lips curled back to show yellowing teeth. Cath recoiled at the smell of rotting pumpkin on his breath, but he held her firm against the cottage’s side.

‘I – I came for Mary Ann,’ she stammered, wishing she could have sounded courageous, but her words came out a squeaking rush. ‘P-please let us go. We don’t wish you any harm . . . We just . . .’

‘Where is it?’ Peter said, ignoring her pleas as he thumped his big hands down Cath’s hips, pressing down the voluminous fabric, searching. ‘Where’s the sword?’

Cath squirmed against the wall. ‘I don’t have it, I swear. I just want to get Mary Ann and leave, and you’ll never see either of us again, I promise!’

‘Give it to me!’ Peter yelled, spittle flicking against Catherine’s cheeks.

A black shape appeared in the corner of her eyes, then a roar as Jest flung himself towards them and locked his sceptre beneath Peter’s chin. ‘Let her go!’

Whether it was the command or the sceptre or mere surprise, Peter did release her. Cath slid down the wall, grasping at her bruised shoulder.

No. No, Jest couldn’t be here.

The charcoal drawings flashed through her thoughts.

Peter was a head taller and twice the girth of Jest, and with a snarl he had grabbed the sceptre with his free hand and tossed Jest over his shoulder.

But Jest – blithe, magical Jest – turned the movement into a cartwheel, landing easily on his feet.