You can do this, Matilda. You can do this.
“… one!”
Without giving a single beat for a negative thought to enter her head, Matilda leaped from the platform, a scream from the very core of her soul reeling out of her as she went. Wind whistled past her ears as she descended, feeling like she was plummeting through the air with absolutely nothing to stop her, her white knuckles clinging to the rope. She was sure she was going to hit the ducks below until suddenly the rope took up the slack and she swung right underneath the bridge, through the shadows, and out of the other side, her screams echoing against the damp stone each time she swung under the arch.
The swinging started to slow, and Matilda stopped screaming and let go of the rope, swinging back and forth, her arms and legs stretched out like she was a starfish. The smell of the river rushed past her, and she was sure her wide smile would be plastered to her face for eternity by the wind rushing past her. Back and forth she went until she was moving at a pace where she could see the same bricks under the bridge each time she swung beneath it and make out the different markings of the ducks that were still ignoring her.
Finally, she stopped moving, and she heard a metallic clunk before she was winched upward. She held on to the rope and looked all around her, the rusty browns and oranges of the autumn the most perfect backdrop for the euphoria that was glowing from her red cheeks.
“Okay?” asked Rebekah as she reached the platform, a knowing smile on her face. Matilda bobbed her head up and down, still smiling ear to ear, certain that she’d left her voice under the bridge somewhere. Rebekah nodded. “Excellent.” She helped Matilda back onto the bridge where Oliver was waiting for her, a huge smile tickling his bright eyes. Matilda beamed at him as Rebekah unbuckled the loops and connectors on her harness. She felt like a different person from the one who stood in the same spot before, refusing to jump from the bridge and out of her comfort zone. Now she felt a hundred times lighter, as if being able to fly back and forth under the bridge meant that she could float off into the sky whenever she wanted.
“So,” he said as Matilda stepped out of her harness, “what did you think?”
Matilda shook her head as she beamed at Oliver. She couldn’t believe that she’d been soaring through the air just minutes before, feeling nothing but the wind on her face as all her worries were flung from her soul into the water each time she swung under the bridge.
“It was … it was … exhilarating,” she said, her voice shaking from adrenaline. “And you were right.”
“Right about what?” said Oliver.
Matilda let out a long sigh and looked over her shoulder at the edge of the bridge. “I want to do it again.”
* * *
Oliver switched the engine off as they pulled up outside Ferly Cottage, and Matilda realized she hadn’t stopped smiling the entire journey home. She looked out of the window; the house was still, so she and Oliver wouldn’t have an audience.
“Here we go,” said Oliver, “delivering you home in one piece.”
Matilda’s cheeks ached as she smiled again. “Thank you, and thank you for today. I never thought I’d have so much fun swinging under a bridge. I mean, I never thought I would actually swing under a bridge at all.”
Oliver smiled back. “Glad to hear it.”
“So, I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow? Unless you want to come in for a bit?”
Oliver glanced at the house, then shook his head. “I better get going. Got some stuff to do today, then there’s that poppet to drown and bury later before sunset, remember?”
Matilda’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach. She’d had such a wonderful time with Oliver that she’d forgotten about the poppet. She looked at the glove compartment and everything else came rushing back and pressed down on her shoulders: Ashley, the sheep, the rabbits.
The blackouts.
“Good point.” She looked at Oliver, willing him to say something to keep her in the car, but there was silence. “Well, I’ll leave you with your poppet, then.”
Oliver nodded. “Bye.”
“Yeah, bye.”
Matilda turned as slowly as she could and clunked open the door handle. She gave him a tight smile and got out of the car, wondering whether she’d misread him all along or maybe even that she’d imagined he was going to kiss her the day before in her room.
She turned to close the car door, her heart fluttering as she looked up and he was standing on the other side of the door.
“Hey,” he said, resting his hands on top of the door.
“Hey.”
“Sorry, I…” Oliver paused, biting the inside of his cheek as he looked at his feet. “I was kind of feeling the pressure in there.”
The world held its breath and tiptoed backward as Oliver locked eyes with Matilda. Fireworks spun inside her stomach as he took a step closer to the open door between them. She was caught between his eyes and his lips, stuck in an unbearable moment of anticipation that she wanted to speed up and never end at the same time. They both moved closer to the door until she could smell his shampoo mixed with the scent of the river. He leaned down and finally his lips were on hers, switching her entire body up to ten. She felt his hand on her neck, heat rushing across her skin at his touch, and they fell into the kiss together until Matilda could sense it coming to an end. Oliver pulled away, breathing deeply, and gently pressed his lips against hers again, once, twice, and a third time.
He straightened up and beamed at her.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling back at him.
Matilda left Oliver standing by his car and tried not to skip back to her garden room as she thought that this was possibly the best birthday she’d ever had in her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Eight days until Halloween
Matilda checked her phone again, then craned her neck, trying to look past all the uniforms that were congesting the hallway. If it was possible, she felt even happier than she had last night. Her dad had texted her on the way to school, checking to see how she was and that he could still come and visit for the weekend. She told him she was fine, and she was looking forward to seeing him, then he must have gotten distracted again, because he forgot to say goodbye.
“Looking for someone?”
She turned around and couldn’t stop the smile from erupting on her face. Oliver was leaning against the lockers, his arms folded as he smiled back at her. They’d been messaging each other all night, but she still refused to believe it was real until she saw him at school.
Oliver leaned down and gestured with his chin, enticing Matilda into him until she was close enough to kiss, his lips bringing her to life a hundred times more than a shot of espresso. She felt his hand close around hers and let him lead her down the hall.
“So, how you doing?” said Oliver, leaning into her ear.
I feel like my heart’s about to explode, thought Matilda.
“Fine.”
“Any more blackouts, dead animals, bodies?”
A black cloud shaded Matilda’s internal sunshine as Oliver reminded her of the not-so-romantic events of the last week or so.
She shook her head.
“That’s what I like to hear. And also, I got rid of that creepy poppet thing so I think that’s cause for celebration, don’t you agree?”
Matilda shrugged. The idea of celebrating seemed a little too much like tempting fate, but Oliver was practically bouncing with excitement and she was glad to see him as happy as she was.
“Come on, Matilda. We need this. Our first almost kiss ended with a dead body falling on top of us, and you kept fainting whenever we spent time together, although I still believe that was purely due to your overwhelming attraction to me.” Matilda elbowed Oliver, and he pulled her into his side again. “Our romantic countryside walk turned into the sheep version of The Walking Dead, but now? We celebrated your birthday together, I finally kissed you without anything going wrong, and I’m ge
tting pretty good with the witch stuff. I think that’s definitely cause for celebration.”
Matilda looked down the hall. Green and orange streamers zigzagged the ceiling and a dummy of a witch on a broomstick hung just above them, her green hooded cloak flying out behind her.
“There’s the Witching Well Festival; it starts tonight. We could go to that if you like?”
“See, I knew there was an idea in that pretty head,” said Oliver, kissing the top of Matilda’s head.
“Thanks,” said Matilda, frowning as Oliver pulled away. “It’s a wonder I have the brain space for ideas considering all the cooking and cleaning I should be thinking about, right?”
“Sorry,” said Oliver sheepishly. “Your head is pretty, though.”
“If you say so,” said Matilda, smiling a little so Oliver knew she was messing with him.
“So it’s a date. A death-, blackout-, and crazed-sheep-free date.”
“Well, the whole festival is celebrating someone’s death, so…”
“Blackout-and-crazed-sheep-free date only, then,” said Oliver.
Matilda smiled. She didn’t care what kind of date it was. It was a date.
* * *
“This is perfect, Matilda.”
Oliver squeezed Matilda’s gloved hand as they walked beneath a fern-green banner strung between two trees, Gravewick Witching Well Festival spelled out in gold swirly letters across it. Two scarecrowlike figures loomed over them on either side of the entrance, holding flickering lanterns in their scrawny hands, their bowed heads shrouded in tattered green cloaks that hung all the way to the ground.
“They look like they’re real,” said Oliver, looking between each of the figures. “They can’t be, though. They’re not, are they?”
Matilda smiled. “They’re not real, but there’ll be lots more inside, and you’ll see people wearing the green cloaks, too. That’s what Ivy used to wear, apparently.”
Oliver craned his neck until they left the cloaked figures behind them, then beamed at Matilda as they steered through huddles of people waiting for hot apple cider or bonfire toffee served by witches and devils. People walked past wrapped up head to toe in anticipation of a long night in the cold arms of autumn, dragging broken chairs, pallets, and other wooden items to the pile of wood in the center of the field where Boy Scouts directed them to dump their furniture.
“What’s going on there?” asked Oliver.
“There’ll be a massive bonfire at the end of the festival, but then they’ll remove all the Ivy stuff and do it all again on Halloween.”
“What’s that?” said Oliver, pointing to the right of the bonfire.
Matilda turned to see people milling around a fake stone structure, a pair of black-and-white striped legs with black lace-up boots sticking out the top of it.
Matilda sighed. “That’s supposed to be Ivy.”
“What are they all doing?”
“They’re throwing coins in and making wishes. It’s like a whole thing for the festival. Nobody gives a shit that she was an actual real person who died a horrible death because they give all the money collected to charity at the end of the festival.”
Oliver frowned as he watched people throw their offerings into the fake well, the coins shimmering in the fairy lights like magic dust.
“Do you come every year?” he asked.
Matilda shook her head. “It’s bigger since the last time I came. It used to just be a day, but now it goes on for three.”
She watched two girls from her class check that the pom-poms on their woolly hats were just right before they held up mugs of hot chocolate in fingerless gloves and smiled for a selfie.
“You don’t come every year?” asked Oliver. Matilda tore her eyes away from the girls and shook her head. “Why not?”
“My mom doesn’t like it,” said Matilda. “My dad snuck me out for it a couple of times, though.”
Oliver put his arm around her neck and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head.
They stopped in front of three cloaked figures that looked as though they were hovering above a pile of pumpkins.
“Are pumpkins just a Halloween thing or a witch thing?” asked Oliver.
“Both. Halloween is when the veil between the now and after is pulled back, so the scary faces keep the evil away but the flames inside guide our dead back to us.”
“And,” said Oliver, “do you want the dead to visit?”
“Sometimes,” said Matilda, peering up at the wooden signs in the cloaked figures’ skeletal hands.
“Okay,” said Oliver, reading the words on each of the signs, “what do you want to do first? Food? Games? Maze?”
“I don’t mind; you choose.”
“Let’s start with food, then see what these games are about so I can impress you with my athletic ability.”
Hollowed-out apples stuffed with LED candles lined the path toward the food stalls, and their stomachs growled as the aroma of bacon rolls, baked potatoes, and burgers beckoned them to line up for hot food on the chilly autumn night.
They strolled past the stalls, reading the menus outside each until Matilda felt Oliver head toward a large tent with green and black ripped material hanging in front of its entrance and pumpkins piled on either side. They pushed back the frayed curtains into the tent, where people sat on blankets on top of bales of hay, drinking from steaming mugs as they chatted and laughed. Oliver rubbed his hands together.
“What would you like?”
Matilda looked at the blackboard by their feet and her stomach growled again. “Can I get some fries? And a hot dog? And a hot chocolate?”
“Sounds good. Do you want to wait here and I’ll get it?”
Matilda nodded and sat down on one of the hay bales. Oliver left her and joined the line for food as she checked her makeup on her phone, not daring to take off her woolly hat for fear of the flat hair that would be plastered across her forehead. She turned to put her phone back in her bag, glancing at the strings of golden leaves and fake crows and owls circling above them. The atmosphere warmed her insides, and she looked around at everyone curled up on the hay sofas and smiled, then froze as she noticed someone in the far corner.
A man with a beard who Matilda recognized was gesticulating as he leaned down, speaking quietly into the ear of a woman who was looking away from him and shaking her head. Matilda narrowed her eyes until she pinpointed where she knew the man from; it was the farmer who owned the sheep that had tried to attack them.
The woman he was talking to was her mother.
Matilda gasped, her cheeks flushing as she grabbed her bag and stood up. Her mother looked at the man, then glowered as she pointed her finger at him. He shook his head, neither of them looking her way as they were so engrossed in their argument. Matilda hurried outside into the welcoming cool air.
“Hey, where’d you go?” said Oliver, juggling an armful of food and a drinks holder as he came up behind her. His smile faded as Matilda looked at him. “What’s up?”
Matilda glanced inside the tent just as the wind blew, flapping the black material like waving fingers before it concealed her mom from view. She opened her mouth to tell Oliver that her mom was in there, that she was there even though she never let Matilda go, and that she was with the angry farmer who owned the sheep and the slaughtered cattle, but the look of disappointment etched on Oliver’s face made her close her mouth and smile at him instead.
“Nothing, just, I wanted to get some fresh air,” lied Matilda. “Got my fries?”
Oliver smiled and handed her a cardboard tray and cup of hot chocolate, steam swirling up through the tiny hole in the cover. It was worth the lie just for his dimples, and she resettled herself into the festivities, closing the drawer on the questions about her mom, ready to open it later.
* * *
“This is literally impossible.”
Matilda stifled a laugh as she watched Oliver stab at the red apples floating in the barrel, swear words exploding from
his mouth each time he tried to catch one with the small, pretend, black-handled knife in his hand.
“You just have to kind of get it right above,” said Matilda, her tongue in the corner of her mouth as she set her sights on an apple bobbing at the side, “and stab.”
She smiled and held up her pretend athame with the apple stuck on the end of it.
“Cheat. You’ve done this before.”
“Four years ago!”
“You’re using witchcraft, then.” Oliver looked up at the others by their barrels and put his hand to the side of his mouth. “Witch! We’ve got a witch here, and she’s using magic to cheat at this ridiculous game!”
Matilda shoved Oliver, then pulled her apple off the knife and put it in a small basket.
“Do you want to do something else?” she asked.
“No way. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve got one of these bastards,” said Oliver, his eyebrows pulled together in concentration.
“It’s not a competition, Oliver.”
“Yes, it is; it’s a competition between me and these apples.”
“Competitive much?”
“I am. I’m the first to admit it.” Oliver paused, his hand poised to stab into an apple, then leaned into Matilda and whispered, “That’s how I got my first scar.”
“What did you do?”
“My best friend at my old school. We were super tight, but when we got on the soccer field that all went out the window because we were just as good as each other, so we were always going for captain. One game, he was being seriously aggressive, barging me, pulling me down when I was going in for a header, and then he went in for a really dangerous tackle and ended up busting my ankle.”
“And he’s your friend?” Oliver nodded and Matilda rolled her eyes. “I will never understand boys.”
“Oh yeah? Don’t go thinking this is a one-way conversation,” said Oliver, gently pinching Matilda’s waist until she giggled. “You’re telling me how you got your first scar after this.”
Mark of the Wicked Page 13
