Peach Tree Grove

  “Why can’t you see that you have to break it! Your oath doesn’t matter in the face of stuff as important as this! Can’t you see!” The last two words were said with in a pleading note in her voice that she had never used in front of a stranger before.  “On the contrary,” the cat said with a grin part maniacal and a greater part sane. “I have to see that I cannot break it. For if I do break it, why should I break it?”  Her brow furrowed. “What?” “If I break my oath, why should I break it?” “What?” She looked at him with a challenge to explain and spread her hands. “That makes no sense. Even coming from you.” “Wrong!” His whole body twisted on the tree branch to look at her, and he grinned like a psycho. “It makes all the sense in this world! It’s the most nonsense sense of a spell that we have. When Wonderland forgets the old, old spells that spell that kind of sense then Wonderland descends into blood and chaos. Instead of topsying her turvys and turvying her t...

  The marble swirled like a picture of the world, and the globe was in her floor. She stared at it for a moment, unblinking. Then she turned and walked away. She thought of swirling her navy robe on the floor, battling the flecked marble with shining silk. She did not.  She walked slowly to the throne that sat in the center of the wall facing the empty room, stone and simple. She did not look at the throne as she walked towards it, she looked at the inlay above it, the world hanging above her head. She looked up at it from an angle. Should the world fall, it would not fall on her. It was laid in the wall and set in stone. The marble wheel would not turn on her.  Her eyes slid to the seat. She ran one smooth finger over its perfect surface. Perfect levels, perfect lines. She sat, with no ceremony. It was an empty space anyway. She was still for a moment, both arms on the armrests. She did not feel like a lion. She twisted, uncomfortably, and looked up at the stone. There w...