Chapter 24 #3
“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 to not want 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 was on 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 saying hi, hello to the maids and the cooks and the rest of the kitchen staff.
They all wore white, and there were seven people in there, each doing something.
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’s her.”
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.
Which felt…strange. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
On the one hand, I preferred it, obviously, but on the other…
“What’s she doing here?”
Levana’s voice pierced right through my brain. She was coming in with Helen, and a couple feet behind them was March.
He was shocked to see me there—it was evident in how his step faltered and his eyes widened and those gorgeous lips parted the moment he took me in. He knew about the kitchen, too. Which, of course, Ora. He was always bringing me food, wasn’t he?
“Don’t be mean, Lev,” Mimi said. “She figured out the second trial, too. We’d have been stuck there still if she hadn’t.”
But Levana, who was fully dressed in a deep red tunic, and the thick braid she’d put her hair in fell over her shoulder, grabbed her hips and raised her brow. “But does she care? No. She only did it for herself.”
Pushing back her braid dramatically, she turned around and went for the cabinets.
“Don’t mind her, she’s just spoiled,” Helen said as she followed, then laughed when Levana flipped her the middle hour with both hands.
Then there was March.
He tucked his hands in his pockets and leaned against the counter, his head slightly turned to the side as he analyzed me.
Suddenly I felt naked. Suddenly I felt like I was being pressed against the wall, and I had his mouth all over me, and—
“I thought you were off hiding somewhere, Velvet.”
I raised my chin. “Why would I do that?” But I had. I’d most definitely gone out to the mechanical garden to hide from everyone else.
“Why do you do anything you do?” Mimi answered for me, then looked at him. “She’s actually looking for the place beyond the kitchen.”
Another arched brow. “Which kitchen?”
My mouth opened—this one, I hope.
But by then all of them had found the snacks they liked in the cabinet—Russ had a tart in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other, most had the same crackers as Seth, and Levana and Anika were eating bananas covered in chocolate syrup.
“It’s just something light before dinner,” Anika said when she caught me looking—that most definitely looked delicious.
“What’s that about a beyond kitchen?” Erith asked as she jumped to sit on the isle.
They were all around it, some leaning, some sitting, all around me. Time’s Teeth, it was getting really hard to breathe all of a sudden.
“No, no—Ora is looking for a place beyond the kitchen,” Mimi said again, then ate another fistful of cherries. She barely chewed before she swallowed, seeds and all.
“Beyond the kitchen?” said Erith, turning to me with a new, suspicious look in her eyes.
But then Russ said, “There’s nothing there beyond the kitchen.”
Sparetime save me, why the hell hadn’t I run away from here yet?
“Look, I was told there was something beyond the kitchen, and I don’t know if it’s this kitchen or not—but I have to go now.” I stepped back, eager to run for the doors already, so uncomfortable among them I was sweating like a pig.
“It is this kitchen. And there is a room beyond it, but there’s nothing there, only dishes.” Russ leaned away from the counter, bit half his strawberry tart, and slammed his other hand on the countertop with a moan for a moment—it must have been very delicious.
Then he said, “I can show you.”
Just like that, Russ turned and walked over to the wall where the appliances were lined, and one by one, the others hopped off and followed him, food in hand, talking as they went.
Only March stayed behind, still leaning against the edge of the marble, looking at me as suspiciously as ever.
I wanted to say something, needed to break the silence, but my tongue was dry and my panic was being overrun by excitement—because, Holy Hour, it was real. There was an actual place beyond the kitchen, and Russ knew about it.
“Who told you about a room behind a kitchen?” asked March.
“I…” a talking, grinning Cheshire Cat. “I just heard.”
Feeling like I was standing on needles, I moved around the other side of the isle, and toward the kitchen appliances—where Russ had already opened a door in the wall I would have never seen there because it didn’t even have a handle.
How Russ had known to push it back in the first place was beyond me.
“Heard from whom?” March asked as he fell into step with me easily. His legs were much longer than mine.
“Do you always come to the kitchen for snacks before meals?” I asked instead. “All of you? Together?” And why do I sound like this when I ask?
“They do. Every day,” March said, and the others had already disappeared through the door in the wall.
I rushed my steps.
“Why—you suddenly want to be their friend?”
I threw March a look—no, I don’t. Luckily, I didn’t need to say anything because we were already at the door and I stepped over the raised threshold without waiting another second.
A long, narrow corridor that barely fit March’s shoulders comfortably. The others had fallen into line, one after the other, talking, laughing, moving toward the other end, which was farther than I’d thought.
Then March whispered from behind me, “I saw you again,” and it was like he’d jumpstarted my heart from the beginning.
My step faltered. I looked back at his face, so beautiful even in the dim lights that my fingers itched to both touch him and draw him.
But before I could think of a word to say, a door swung open loudly somewhere ahead, and three gasps filled the air, one after the other.
Both March and I turned forward to finally see the end of the narrow corridor as the last of the others stepped inside. My feet stopped moving just by the entrance, but March was taller than me, so he could see over my head.
He could see the large white room clearly—and the White Queen standing in the corner with her eyes wide open, frozen in place.