“Of course. I need to snack all the time when the rest of ya’ll are sleeping. I’ll take you if you’d like.” He offered me a grin that was borderline fake. “In return for a teeny-tiny favor, of course. After all, I did help us get out of the trial, didn’t I?”
My brows narrowed. “What favor?”
“How about we get to the kitchen first?”
Whistling a merry tune, Seth turned on his heels and started to walk back to the front of the garden, like he really couldn’t think of a reason to be wary here or tonotwant to whistle so happily. He was half dancing as he went, too.
The sky was still dark, but the sun would unset soon. I’d hoped to be outside when it did—twilight had the prettiest colors—red and orange and purple all mixed together masterfully. But alas, I took one last look at the empty branch of the tree behind me and followed Seth inside the castle.
The kitchen wason the ground floor, down a set of stairs that couldn’t have been half a story, at the very end of a long corridor, well lit, but without a single painting hanging on the white walls. Only vases filled with roses, white and red, here and there.
The kitchen wasn’t empty. Seth walked in like he owned the place, pushed both doors open and stepped inside with a smile, waving and sayinghi, helloto the maids and the cooks and the rest of the kitchen staff. They all wore white, and there were seven people in there, each doingsomething. Lida wasn’t among them, though, for which I was thankful.
Mimi was.
She was sitting on one of the five isles, barefoot and wearing nothing but a long-sleeved pajama gown, a bowl of cherries in her hand. She was chewing and talking to a man and a woman on the other side of the counter, who were wiping wet plastic containers, and stacking them together.
When she saw us, she smiled—then pointed right at me. “There—that’s her. That’sher.”
And now every single set of eyes in the large kitchen was on me.
I tried not to flinch—succeeded. I tried not to flush—failed. My focus wavered, but I looked at the cabinets—white and clean and shiny, and at the black and white tiles on the floor, and the isles, and the chairs, and the round tables on the other side…
“Calm down, the lot of you. We’re just here for crackers,” Seth said, waving them down like they were animals, and then everyone was looking away again.
I stepped deeper inside the room, for the moment clueless as to why I’d come in the kitchen in the first place. I didn’t want snacks. I didn’t want crackers or cherries or anything one could eat—I only wanted answers because I was about seven-hours convinced that I was losing my mind. (If I hadn’t already.)
But before we even made it to Mimi, who was explaining something to the man and woman using big gestures with her hands, a bell rang somewhere to the left where the kitchen appliances were. It was atop a round clock mounted on the wall.
The cooks, the maids, all seven of them suddenly dropped what they were doing and made for the doors.
“Break.” Seth turned and winked at me. “Perfect timing.”
He went to the cabinets and began to open them one by one to see what was inside.
“Hey, there, Ora. Do you like cherries?” Mimi said, waving at me before she jumped off the isle.
I did, but… “I’m fine,” I said anyway. I didn’t eat cherries anymore. They had been Jinx’s favorite. I saved the taste for her—even if that made no sense.
“Oh. How about some crackers?” she said, nodding her head to the side, to Seth who was whistling again as he searched the cabinets, left them all open as he went.
“No, I’m good,” I insisted.
A skeptical look replaced the smile on Mimi’s face. “Why are you in the kitchen, then?”
I turned, looked around, as if I was hoping to find the answer lying there somewhere. And I did.
“I was actually hoping to find the place…beyond.” Silly. But wasn’t that what the Cheshire said?Find the kitchen and go beyond?
Mimi narrowed her brows, and until then I realized I’d hoped she would know. “Beyond? Beyond what?”
“The kitchen,” I muttered, feeling sillier by the second.
Then the doors behind us opened—“It’s break-time!” Russ called as he walked inside in tow with Anika and Erith.
He went straight ahead and hi-fived Seth, who’d already found two new boxes of crackers.
I watched in awe as they went for the cabinets, like they’d been here before. Many times. All of them—and they’d never invited me. Or even told me about it.
