Playing Hearts (12 page)

“So you had
nothing to
do
with any of it?” I couldn’t help it: my tone made it an accusation.

Jack shrugged. “There are
two things in Underland I know of that could do this sort of job. Neither of
which, I hasten to add, I am currently in possession.”

“Two things?” I looked at
him sceptically. “And what are they?”

“I’m reasonably certain
that Hatter’s hat can do it, and just slightly less sure that you’re capable of
it.”

“I
have
Hatter’s
hat,” I said coldly. “And I’m here, so maybe you can think of something else.”

“I never thought I’d be
sorry to see you displaying such subtlety, Mab!” said Jack. “I’m not lying, if
that’s what you’re suggesting. As a matter of fact– dear me! Mab, I don’t
suppose it was the Hatter’s hat that you used to look back at what happened,
was it?”

I knew in one galling
moment what he meant– and what must have happened. I said reluctantly: “I might
have.”

“It never occurred to you
to wonder why Mother Dearest didn’t take it with her? Something so valuable and
potentially useful?”

I sighed. “She left it
behind because it was more valuable to her
here
.”

“I imagine so,” said
Jack. “So very like my dear mother! No doubt she’s smiling away to herself at
this very moment.”

“I don’t care if she’s
smiling,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course. It was sickening to think how
easily the Queen had manipulated me. “I just want to know where Hatter and Hare
are.”

“Not in the dungeons, at
any rate,” said Jack. “Mab, I realise that you’re determined to play with
lawbreakers and rebels, but was there any need to abscond with the cook and the
footmen? Have you any idea how badly card sharks cook?”

I grinned for the first
time that day. So the loss of all the castle servants at once
had
made
an impression! “Serves you right.”

“Oh, undoubtedly. But it
has put you rather at a disadvantage: once upon a time, Mother Dearest would
have merely imprisoned them in the dungeon. You’ve encouraged her to greater
feats of imagination, I’m afraid.”

I sobered at once, and I
thought Jack winced a little. Was he sorry he’d said it? Why? He’d never shown
concern for anyone’s feelings before.

“I’ll need to use your
bathtub,” I said.

“As always, it is at your
disposal,” said Jack. He stood up, which brought me to realise just how
adversarially close to him I was, and ushered me toward the bathroom with one
arm around my waist.

“I know where it is,” I
said testily, pulling away. I entered the room ahead of him, and found with a
slight feeling of familiarity that the bathtub was still as full as it had been
last time. Almost as though it had never been emptied, or as though–

“I still get them to fill
it every day,” said Jack, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders leaning
against the door frame. “I’m not exactly sure why I bother when all you do is
attack me whenever I see you. Verbally
and
physically, if it comes to
that.”

I threw him an impatient
look over my shoulder, and he held up both hands in surrender, lapsing into
silence as I turned back to the water in the bathtub.

This time when I looked
into the ripples, they showed me the truth. The Queen had come upon Hatter and
Hare suddenly with her card sharks, bundling them into the carriage with her,
and had taken them off to goodness knows where. Since it was a piece of the
past, fixed and certain, I couldn’t follow them in the ripples when they left.
I remained staring at events that had already happened until the card sharks
came back, smashing the tea-table and its accoutrements, and deliberately
leaving Hatter’s hat where I had found it. I dismissed the sight and sat back
on the bathroom floor, surprised to find Jack there beside me with his legs
very carefully bent to avoid creasing his trousers as much as possible.

“I’ve only ever seen
Mother do that,” he said. “Only in the Mirror Hall, however, and never like
that
.
She can’t get more than a few seconds into the past. I think it must bother
her, because she insists upon telling me that one should never look to the
past, but to the future.”

I huffed a sigh, but it
had to be said. “Sorry I thought you were a lying scumbag.”

“That’s very big of you.
Perhaps now you’d care to hear what I have to say?”

I gave him a disbelieving
look. “What, you’re going to
help
me?”

“I hate to seem a pedant,
Mab,” said Jack. “But I seem to remember helping you out several times over the
years.”

“Helping yourself, you
mean,” I said bluntly. “You only help when you can get something out of it.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I
also seem to remember mentioning that sharp tongue of yours. Do you want help,
or do you not? And before you open your mouth again, do
remember who it
is you’re trying to help and consider whether it may not be just as well to be
polite.”

I opened my mouth to be
less than polite; and Jack must have known what was coming, because he grabbed
me by the nape of the neck and firmly pushed my face into his suit lapels where
my mumbled insults were too muffled to be understood. More irritatingly, he
patted my head with his other hand and said: “There, there. I’m sure it’ll pass
soon. Shh.”

When I finally managed to
wrench my head free he was smiling at me in a way that made me want to punch
him. Instead of doing that, I drew a breath and said: “All right, then. Help
me.”

“Amazing. You manage to
make even a plea for help sound antagonistic.”

“That’s because I don’t
like you,” I said.

“Are you quite sure about
that?” said Jack, his lips still curving. The way he was looking at me made me
very aware that he hadn’t actually let me go: his arms were still around me,
and his face was far closer than it had seemed before. Was this what he meant
when he said that later things would be less boring, or was he just trying to
irritate me?

I said: “Yeah, pretty
sure. Are you going to help, or are you just going to keep annoying me?”

“That’s hurtful,” said
Jack calmly, pulling me to my feet with him as he rose. Somewhere along the way
he must have let me go, but it was so gradual that I didn’t realise we were
apart until I was trailing after him into the main room. “It’s a good thing I’m
inured to offence when it comes to you, Mab.”

“What is it you want to
tell me?” I said. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with the way the conversation
was going, and I wanted to find Hatter and Hare.

“You’re such a driven
little person!” marvelled Jack. “Sit down. Where’s the hat?”

I looked around me
blankly, and found it behind the first sofa. I must have thrown it there as I
came in, intent on bodily harm to Jack. I slid over the back of the sofa with
it, plumping myself down on the fat black cushions, and found with some
annoyance that Jack was sitting down on the same sofa. He was still sitting too
close, but I didn’t like to mention it because he was only studying Hatter’s
top hat. I didn’t particularly want Jack’s mocking grin directed at me again,
and I was pretty sure that protesting against his closeness would be the
quickest way of making that happen.

“The hat is what’s
important,” he said, turning it over.

“Yes, you said,” I said
sourly. “She left it so I’d think you took Hatter and Hare.”

“I hesitate to contradict
you, Mab–”

“But that’s what
you
said!”

“Of course, but if I know
Mother Dearest it was not merely that which prompted her to leave the hat for
you to find. If I know her, she had at least two or three other reasons for
doing so.”

“Which are?”

Jack shrugged. “I wouldn’t
even hazard a guess. Mother Dearest has many reasons and many schemes. The most
I can tell you is that yesterday she went out early and returned before
nightfall. Card sharks went out again a little later. One presumes that was in
order to return the hat.”

My eyes went to his face
hopefully. “Then they can’t be far! She didn’t have time to take them anywhere
else.”

“She barely had time to
get there and come back,” said Jack. “And she certainly didn’t put them in the
dungeon.”

“You think it has
something to do with the hat as well,” I said.

“It would be typical of
her,” shrugged Jack. “She likes being clever and tortuous about things. It
would amuse her no end to know not only that she’d driven a wedge between us,
but that you’d had Hatter and Hare’s salvation in your hands the whole time and
didn’t know it.”

I looked at him in
silence for a moment, and then said unexpectedly: “She really did a number on
you when you were a kid, didn’t she?”

Jack’s brows rose, but
all he said was: “Let’s leave my twisted little childhood out of it, shall we,
Mab? It’s not a very pretty story, and it reflects little credit on myself or
Mother Dearest. I’ll tell you all about it one day when you aren’t so prickly.
All I’m suggesting is that if she left that hat behind, it was with more than
one purpose; so be careful about believing anything you see through it. It
would probably strike her as immensely humorous to lead you on a wild goose
chase.”

Curiously, I asked: “Is
this breaking the rules? Helping me this much, I mean?”

“It’s a grey area,” said
Jack, after a pause. “I’m not supposed to help anyone directly. Except I’m blood
bound to you, so that means I’m allowed to help you. Mother doesn’t much like
it but she can’t really do anything about it because it’s not technically
breaking the rules. It’s just that she expects my first loyalty to be to her.”

“Oh,” I said. “I was
pretty sure your first loyalty was to yourself.”

“Well, Miss Snip, perhaps
it is,” said Jack. Despite the words, he was grinning. “But she expects at
least second loyalty.”

“So you can help without
breaking the rules if you help someone else in a way that helps me,” I said
thoughtfully.

“Exactly so.”

“
When
you feel
like helping me.”

“Let’s not get into that
right now, either. You're not really very grateful, Mab.”

“Well, I’m not used to you
helping me,” I said, after thinking about it. “And really, that’s your fault.”

“Of
course
it is!”
said Jack, and now he was laughing. “And there’s no possibility that you–”

“Oooh!” I said. “No,
Jack, shut up!”

“You’ve never been
particularly polite, but I must say that I do expect at the very least not to
be told to shut up,” said Jack.

“Sorry,” I said: “Well,
actually, no, I’m not sorry. You made me think of something.”

“Mab,” said Jack, very
carefully setting Hatter’s top hat on my knees and moving closer in the same
motion; “I’m going to put my arm around you now, so please don’t punch me.”

“Why would I punch you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,
but I had the distinct impression that you might.”

“Wait, why are you
putting your arm around me?”

“It seemed like a good
idea at the time,” sighed Jack, sliding his arm around my shoulders just the
same. “Perhaps I’m expressing my appreciation for both your sharp tongue and
wit.”

“Oh. I thought you were
just trying to be annoying.”

“Darling Mab,” said Jack
coldly. “You’re so good for my self-esteem!”

He didn’t remove his arm,
however, and I cautiously let myself relax. Jack always had been odd and hard
to fathom in his reactions: I had never been sure whether he hated me, tolerated
me, or really quite liked me.

“I suppose it’s all
right,” I said.

Jack laughed at that:
really laughed. Then he said: “What is this idea of yours?”

“It’s what Hatter said
his hat was: possibilities and probabilities. I think maybe she– well, it
sounds stupid, but I think maybe she used his hat to trap them in a possible
future. Or maybe a past that was probable but didn't happen. I’ve seen her
change things in the mirrors, and if she had Hatter’s hat—and knew what it
could do—I think she might have been able to do it.”

“That sounds just like
Mother Dearest,” said Jack, nodding. “Can you find out?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “I
don’t even know if it’s possible– or if she did it.”

“Well, if she brought
them back here, they’d still be somewhere about the castle and I would have
noticed.”

“Unless she expected me
to come to you. She might have hidden them from you.”

“I don’t think she
expected you to come to me, quite honestly,” said Jack. “As a matter of fact, I
wasn’t expecting you to come to me again. Why did you?”

“I was angry,” I said.
That wasn’t quite it, though: there was more to it. Slowly, I said: “I think I
wanted you to tell me it wasn’t true.”

“Do you know, I think
that’s the closest you’ve ever come to giving me a compliment,” said Jack. I
opened my mouth to reply, but he said hastily: “Mab, if the next thing out of
your mouth is an insult I’ll– I’ll–”