“Ashley,” Erin repeated.
Matilda smoothed her hair down and shrugged as she looked in the mirror. Satisfied there were no traces of blood smeared on her face, she turned back to Erin.
“How should I know?”
Erin frowned. “I thought you were … I mean, aren’t you two best friends? I’ve seen you hanging out together a lot.”
A smile twitched at the corner of Matilda’s mouth.
“I wouldn’t say we were best friends.”
“Oh. Well, I saw the ambulance arrive, so I guess she’ll be okay.” Erin picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “Have you fainted before?”
Matilda looked at herself in the mirror. Was that what had just happened? She’d always imagined fainting to be gentler, something you wouldn’t be aware of. The shadow she just fell into had more intent, like it was coming to get her, to take something.
“No,” she said, then turned to Erin. “I’m fine now. You can go.”
“Actually, I…”
“Actually, you what?” said Matilda. “I appreciate you waking me up, but this doesn’t mean we’re friends again, Erin.”
Erin folded her arms. “Actually, I still haven’t used the facilities, so I’d like to go if that’s quite all right with you, your royal highness of the girls’ bathroom. And you’re welcome, by the way. I could have left you lying on the floor for the freshmen to trip over. I wish I had now.”
Typical Erin response, thought Matilda as she picked up her bag from the floor. They’d first met one rainy lunchtime in the school library. The last Percy Jackson book had finally been returned, but just as Matilda reached out for it on the shelf, another small hand grabbed it from right under her nose. After much arguing and mediation from the librarian, Matilda and Erin had agreed to read it together. They met every lunchtime, where they settled down on beanbags, waiting for the other to nod when it was time to turn the page. Their heads got closer and closer as they read, both gasping and crying at the same parts. When they’d finished, they kept meeting to discuss the series and draw terrible fan art together.
That was pre-scars and before her father left. Now it was safer not to get close to anyone. In Matilda’s world, there was no place for friendships that weren’t created in a cauldron.
“Yeah, thanks a million,” said Matilda, turning to leave.
“Matilda?”
“What now?” she sighed.
“What happened?” asked Erin, gently shaking her head as she looked deep into Matilda’s eyes.
Matilda frowned at her, then rolled her eyes. “We’re not doing this again, are we?” she said, folding her arms. “Like I’ve already told you, we just grew apart. That happens sometimes.” She opened the door to escape, but Erin stepped in front of her.
“Not you and me; I gave up wondering why you suddenly stopped being my friend ages ago. I mean, what happened to you? Why are you so … mean?”
Matilda looked back at Erin and could feel herself falling back to a few years ago, when they would have been catching up or making plans in front of these mirrors. Matilda looked away before she fell too far and checked her reflection in the mirror again. She shrugged and stepped around Erin through the door.
“Just lucky I guess,” said Matilda, stretching a smile across her face.
As soon as the door slammed behind her, the smile dropped from her face and she hugged her arms across her chest. Seeing Erin always rattled her, but waking up on the bathroom floor had sent her into an internal spin. Matilda had dealt out enough dark magic to know what it felt like when someone was trying to take something from you, and as she walked down the halls of Gravewick Academy she was sure she felt a loss in the pit of her soul.
* * *
The bus rumbled off in a cloud of exhaust fumes and prepubescent and pre-Halloween squeals. The sun was nearly down, preparing for the clocks to go back in a couple of weeks by casting the sky with a glorious pink-and-orange glow. Matilda welcomed the cold as it sterilized the stale air from the bus, but pulled her coat around her.
She breathed in, savoring the smell of autumn. Fires burned as people arrived home and peeled off their woolly hats and scarves, and the fallen leaves wafted up their earthy smell as Matilda kicked through them on her way to Ferly Cottage. If the wind blew just right, she was certain she could smell the spiced apples stewing on her grandmother’s stove, ready to be enveloped inside a delicious piecrust. The smells, the tastes, and the magic Halloween would bring were all reasons why this was Matilda’s favorite time of year.
Nimbus crept out from between the skeletal branches of a hedge and sat in the middle of the path.
“What have you been up to?” asked Matilda as she stroked the cat’s fur. Nimbus lifted a paw to clean herself and a gray feather floated to the ground. “Hunting, hey? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was you killing all those other cats.”
Nimbus turned and slinked ahead, her tail and bottom high in the air. Matilda followed the cat around a wrought iron gate and down a path speckled with shadows and crunchy leaves, her shoulders relaxing as she walked beneath the arch of a yew hedge. The garden’s aroma massaged her soul. She could walk home wearing a blindfold and still find the garden gate just by following her nose.
Lottie was always telling her not to use the back door like “some sort of stray,” but Matilda loved coming home this way. The overgrown yard was a chaotic explosion of flora and fauna, and a rust-colored palette of pumpkins and squash lined the edge of the cottage, harvested and arranged by her grandmother as soon as October arrived. Stepping-stones led across the grass to the back door of the crooked cottage and Matilda’s favorite room: the kitchen. Her stomach growled as she imagined what her grandmother had been baking in the giant green range while she was at school, but her feet paused over the stone as the window flickered with light and she saw her mother sweeping back and forth.
Nanna May will bring me something later, Matilda thought as she crossed the grass away from the kitchen and her mother. The bubbling pond and singing toads welcomed her home as she passed the basil for salads and belladonna for spells in Nanna May’s herb garden. She rounded the back of the cottage, then followed the gravel pathway that was lined with daffodils in the spring and dandelions in the summer.
“Hey, little buddy,” she said, crouching down and fussing over Victor as he trotted out of the shadows in the woods. “Missed me today?” He bleated and Matilda smiled. “I know. Me too.”
Victor followed Matilda to a cream-colored garden room nestled between naked cherry trees, two flickering pumpkins on either side of the door. As she put her hand on the doorknob, a timer clicked and hundreds of lights blinked on, strung around the roof of the garden room and spiraling around the tree trunks.
Her mother had always encouraged her to spend time in the building to connect with the energy around her, and Matilda soon felt more comfortable being in the garden room among the trees and the wildlife than anywhere else in her life. She often fell asleep on the floor while she read her grandmother’s books about magic, so she brought out a beanbag and a lamp so she could read into the night. One day she walked in and the daybed was there, a clear message from Lottie that if Matilda would rather be out in the garden room and away from the family home, then she didn’t have a problem with it.
Matilda opened the door and turned on the lamp, smiling as Victor’s hooves thumped on the wooden floor toward his cushion at the foot of Matilda’s bed. Matilda dropped the blinds on the four windows at the back of the large octagonal room, leaving the ones at the front open, then fell onto the beanbag. She pulled out her phone and checked the last message she’d sent her dad, and sent a smiley face just in case he’d missed it the first time. She smiled as three dots appeared on her screen, then settled down into the beanbag, but the dots disappeared, leaving the deranged yellow smiley staring up at her.
“Let’s see what they’re saying about Ashley instead, shall we, Vic?” she sighed. Everyone who’d ever come into cont
act with Ashley had posted their concern and well wishes for her on the school social site. Matilda shook her head as she read. “They’re going on about her like she’s dead.”
She drank in the gossip and photos of Ashley and noted the lack of Sean’s presence on any of the posts, when a message popped up from an unknown sender.
Hey. Wanted to say sorry for earlier.
Matilda frowned as she peered at the tiny avatar of a boy staring at her, holding a red Solo cup up to the camera, then replied.
Who is this? Sorry for what?
Oliver. For nearly throwing up all over you. Don’t like blood.
Matilda’s eyebrows twitched up as she realized Oliver was the boy from the hallway earlier. She sat back and frowned. Had she dabbed an ointment on this Oliver and forgotten about it? She didn’t remember doing a love spell recently, certainly not on him. She tapped on his photo. Oliver Tillsbury. She squinted at the enlarged image, her pulse quickening and her cheeks warming as she studied his features. How had she not noticed him before?
Oh yeah, right! No worries, had forgotten all about it.
She held her breath, but another message pinged up almost immediately.
Good to know I made an impression.
She pulled her knees up and quickly ran her eyes over his message again, then typed a response.
Ha ha, yeah.
Buy you a coffee tomorrow to make it up to you?
Matilda held her phone to her chest and looked out of the window. Was this a joke? She couldn’t see anyone outside waiting to pounce on her for believing someone wanted to ask her out unprompted by magic, so she looked back down and replied.
Coffee?
Yeah, before school?
How do I know you’re not going to vomit on me?
Matilda pressed send, then bit her lip.
I can’t guarantee anything but I’m hoping there won’t be blood this time.
Ha ha. Ok, where?
Grounds? 8.15?
Ok. See you then.
“What the hell have you been up to?” hissed a voice from the doorway. Matilda dropped her phone and looked up as Lottie stormed into the garden room, cheeks red and her eyes burning.
“Don’t you knock?”
Her mother bent down in front of Matilda like she was addressing a toddler. “Let me handle this, understand?”
“Handle what?” said Matilda, frowning at her mom, then looking up as two police officers crunched up the gravel pathway.
“What the…?”
“Here she is,” said Lottie, a smile slapped onto her face as she spun around to greet the two officers.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell,” said the man.
“Actually it’s Ms., but please, call me Lottie.”
“What’s going on?” asked Matilda.
“Matilda, I’m Officer Powell and this is Officer Seymour. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay?” said the female officer.
“Am I under arrest?”
Her mother put a firm hand on Matilda’s shoulder but kept her voice light. “Why on earth would you be under arrest, you silly thing. They just want to talk to you.”
Officer Seymour looked at Victor, who was still curled up on his cushion, then turned to Officer Powell and raised his eyebrows. Matilda stroked the goat’s head and blinked at them.
“Do you like animals, Matilda?” asked Officer Seymour.
Would I have a goat in my room if I didn’t like animals, Sherlock? she thought, frowning at them. Her mother nudged the beanbag with her foot and Matilda stood up.
“Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“I’m sure you’re aware there’s been a spate of animal deaths in recent weeks? Rabbits, cats, that sort of thing?” Matilda glanced at her mom, who nodded, cuing Matilda to nod, too. “Well, I’m afraid there has been an unfortunate incident at the farm down on Thickthorn Lane.”
“Thickthorn Lane? You mean Blossom Farm?” her mother asked, then sat down on the bed as the officers nodded. She looked between the two of them and put her hand on her chest. “An incident? Was someone hurt?”
Matilda swallowed. “Yeah, what kind of incident?”
Officer Seymour hooked his thumbs on either side of his vest. “A number of cows were found slaughtered.”
Matilda looked at Lottie. Being honest with her mom didn’t come easily, but when she’d said she had nothing to do with the cats that were killed, she’d been telling the truth. Now it was cows, too? Her mom’s words from that morning echoed inside Matilda’s head.
Unexplained animal death is never a good sign, not for us and not for nonwitches.
“How many?” asked Lottie.
Officer Seymour cleared his throat. “More than twenty.”
Matilda swallowed, hoping that the image of twenty slaughtered cows in a field wouldn’t hang around for bedtime.
“So, was it a fox or something? I mean, don’t they have dogs on that farm? Rottweilers? Could they have done it?”
Officer Powell shook her head. “Unfortunately, they were found dead, too.”
“I’m sorry. I mean, that is terrible news, but I don’t understand what it has to do with my daughter?” Lottie said, looking confused.
The police officers looked at each other, neither wanting to upset the pretty lady.
“Well,” said Officer Powell, taking a deep breath, “the carcasses, all of them, had a name carved into their sides.”
“What name?” asked Lottie, her mouth tight.
The officers looked at each other and then spoke in unison.
“Matilda.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Fifteen days until Halloween
Matilda yawned and checked the time again: 5:38 a.m.
The police had insisted on leaving them to get some sleep, but that was the exact opposite of what Matilda had done. She lay in bed all night as questions fired off in her head. Who’d killed those animals? Why had she blacked out? Would it happen again? Were the animals and her blackout a coincidence? Something in the pit of her stomach told her she was deluded if she thought so. Finally, she decided if she was awake, she might as well make the most of it and get ready for her coffee with Oliver.
Although it was a struggle unfurling herself from her warm bed, Matilda was glad to be out before everyone else had even thought about waking up and the time still belonged to the witches. She tightened her scarf and tucked it inside her coat to keep out the premorning chill as the distant bleats of deer, the gentle beep of midwife toads, and the smell of burning leaves made her feel like she was the only person in the audience of the best show in the world.
She tucked a book of spells under her arm and made her way down the path to Ferly Cottage in search of some extra ingredients. The last couple of days had been unpredictable to say the least, so she wanted to make sure her meeting with Oliver went exactly as she wanted it to, and since she’d lost interest in Ashley she needed a new distraction. She’d found some ginseng and cinnamon in her own stash, but needed catnip and basil. Her mother was bound to have catnip in the larder for Nimbus, and there wasn’t an herb in the world she couldn’t find in Nanna May’s garden.
The frost-covered gravel crunched beneath her feet until she reached the back door. She unclicked the handle and hurried in, the warmth from the stove and the fire doubling up to warm her inside and out. She put the spell book on the counter and turned to the larder just as a lantern flame on the kitchen table flickered to life, illuminating six sets of blinking eyes.
“Shit,” hissed Matilda, pressing her hand to her chest. “Sneaky much?”
“I think you’ll find it’s you doing the sneaking, Tilly. And don’t swear in the kitchen,” said her mother, watching Matilda along with the other members of her coven. “What are you up to?”
Matilda looked at the coven members sitting in their kitchen, glaring at each of them nursing mugs of herbal tea, their faces as familiar as Matilda’s own family members. There were five of them sitting with her mother at
the table, as different from one another as strangers waiting for a bus, but all of them women and all with the knowing look of someone who could see the magic in the world with every one of their senses.
They’d bounced Matilda on their laps when she was a toddler or dabbed coconut oil on her grazed knee, but the resentment she felt toward them since they pushed her dad away meant she could barely contain her disdain for them.
“Where’s Nanna May?”
“Don’t ignore my question, Matilda,” snapped Lottie, getting up and reaching for the spell book. Matilda snatched it back and held it to her chest. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing, why?”
“Why? Because you’re sneaking around before sunrise clutching a spell book and the police were here last night asking questions about dead animals, that’s why.”
“I told you,” sighed Matilda, trying to cover her own concerns with bravado. “That’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know how those cows got hurt.”
“Not hurt, Matilda, killed. With your name on them. There’s something going on. We can feel it,” said Lottie, looking around at her coven members.
“Why can’t you accept it’s nothing to do with me? The police did.”
As the words left Matilda’s lips, she knew that she was addressing herself as much as her mother. Between checking the time and rearranging her pillow all night, Matilda’s thoughts kept drifting back to her name carved into those cows. Somehow, she was involved in their deaths, even if she didn’t understand why.
“After we left you, I had to give them one of Nanna May’s brews so they’d forget why they were here and leave! You’re not just brushing this off, Matilda. We don’t like using potions on people without their knowledge.”
“So, I’m not allowed to use magic to solve my problems, but it’s fine for you to use it to get rid of yours?” muttered Matilda.
“What did you say?” said Lottie, folding her arms.
Matilda sighed. “Nothing. Can I go now? I’ve got stuff to do.”
Lottie pursed her lips and nodded. Matilda grabbed the catnip from the larder, then swung through the doorway, letting the door slam behind her, and headed for Nanna May’s herbs in search of basil. Around the corner, just past the herb garden, she could see the hunched figure of her grandmother shuffling around with a garden fork nearly as big as she was. A small fire glowed at her feet, and Matilda realized where the smell of burning leaves had come from.
Mark of the Wicked Page 3
