“Unless there’s more to the first trial than the unkilling…” This from March.
My heart beat faster than charged seconds. “The last trial is always the hardest,” I whispered without really meaning to.
But they all knew this. Weall knew this—we’d read on the trials before entering. There were plenty of resources, records, books and old newspaper articles to read from—and they always said that the last trial was the hardest.
“So, what now?” asked Reggie, who’d been the happiest to be done with the trial, to be going back. “What do we donow?!”
“If we go back, would they let us?” asked Cook—and he was looking right at me, like he thought I might have the answer. I didn’t.
“They won’t. This was the way back to the arena, and if the arena isn’t here, that means the trial isn’t over,” said Russ.
He was absolutely right. Nothing was over yet. There was more to the trial than unkilling the clockbeasts.
“I guess we keep on moving,” said March, and he started forward. The rest followed.
So did I.
Only three and a half minutes later did I understand exactly what the leftover voice of the Cheshire in my head had meant.
The forest had brought us to a tea party.
Waking up,sitting at a table last evening had been strange—because the last memory I had was far,faraway from this whole place, and I’d been sure I would find myself covered in blood, yet I’d been clean and wearing a pretty dress, no less.
Butthiswas different.
The table was twisted like the body of an overgrown, dead snake. The teacups and teapots and bowls on it were twisted, too, and there were clocks scattered all around, cracks everywhere—on the wood of the table where the white cloth had been torn or burned, on the cups, the saucers, the pots.
Especially the teapot in the middle, sitting higher on a wooden box, at its side a white bowl full of sugar.
“Honor the host and undo the hour,” March said, and shivers rushed down my back when I realized he was reading from the brass-colored plaque at one end of the table. It had stains, sticky ones, the kind tea full of sugar leaves on shiny surfaces, but the letters were there, written in cursive.
The problem was, there was no host to honor that we could see.
“Twelve teacups. Twelve saucers. One teapot and one bowl of sugar,” said Erith as she counted with her finger in the air.
“For twelve players. But we’re only eleven,” said Seth as he went around the entire table for the second time, looking.
I didn’t move, only analyzed the crooked legs and themismatched chairs, some bigger and some smaller. Thirteen in total.
“And there is no host,” said Erith, then turned around to look at the trees. Daylight had turned this whole place into a different world—or maybe it was just this part of the forest, with smaller trees, farther away from one another, and silverware on the branches catching and throwing light everywhere, and napkin birds fluttering along fast, like they were shy and didn’t want to be seen.
“What should we do without a host?” asked Mimi.
“There was a host here before,” said Anika, who had stopped at the other end of the long table, possibly some fifteen feet away. She was looking at the chair at the head of it—empty, just like the rest of them.
“Well, if there was, he isn’t here anymore,” said Russ. “Should we sit, then, and get on with it?” He pulled the first chair on the left side and sat down.
Nothing happened.
Then Reggie said, “I have a very bad feeling about this…”
His bad feeling fell like a thick coat of dust right over mine.
“It’ll be fine. We’ll unwin this, too—c’mon, sit down,” Seth told him, and patted him on the back.
They sat together side by side. I chose the last chair on the left and did the same.
“Okay, so. Anybody have any bright ideas on how we should undo the hour?” Helen asked from the other side, but my mind was half on March, who slowly dragged himself to my side of the table. Cook had already sat next to me, but the chair next to him was free, so March sat there. I could reach his hand with mine from this distance, even though my chair’s legs were shorter than most.
