“N-n-no…,” whispered Matilda, shaking her head and recoiling from the horror movie in front of her.
“Do my hair for me, Matilda. We were friends once. Do my hair.”
Ashley started crawling toward her like an injured wolf clinging on to its last breath of life, determined to drag its prey down to hell. Matilda grabbed one of the chair legs and tried to pull her paralyzed body up, but her sweaty hands slipped and she slumped to the ground. Ashley crept closer and closer, until she curled her skeletal fingers around Matilda’s shoe.
“No!” cried Matilda, shaking her leg. “No, please! I’m sorry!”
Ashley reached her hand up to her head and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling part of her scalp away. She clacked her jaw at Matilda again.
“Do my hair for me, Matilda,” she hissed, grabbing Matilda’s hand and pulling it toward her lank patches of hair. “Stay with me, Matilda.”
“Please, no!” wailed Matilda, falling back and closing her eyes. “NO!”
“Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, Matilda. Stop it! Stop screaming!”
Matilda’s eyes flew open, and she blinked at Erin crouching down and staring at her.
“It’s just us. Erin and Katrina.”
She pulled herself up and lifted a trembling hand to point at Ashley, but she was gone. Erin held out her hand and Matilda took it, allowing her to pull her to her feet. She leaned against the stack of chairs and put her shaking hands over her eyes, willing her heartbeat to slow down.
“What the hell happened?” asked Erin.
Matilda dropped her hands and glared at Erin. “What happened? What happened? You sent me down here with no way to get out, that’s what happened!” Matilda squared up to Erin. “Did you do this on purpose? Did you do this for him?”
“Do what for who? For Oliver? You’re joking, right?”
Katrina put a hand on Erin’s arm. “Erin, she’s shaken up. Go easy. What happened, Matilda?”
“You’re a witch,” said Matilda, her eyes blazing at Katrina. “Did you do this to me?”
“Matilda, tell us what happened!” said Erin, ducking between her and Katrina.
“You locked me in here!” shouted Matilda, tears clinging to her eyelashes as she blinked at Erin and Katrina.
“What are you talking about? You get out the way you came in,” said Erin, pointing at the open door, a black handle visible on both sides.
Matilda blinked at the door, then looked at Erin’s and Katrina’s puzzled faces as she wiped a tear from her cheek. She threw her hands in the air and shook her head.
“Do you know what? I can’t do this anymore. He wants that fucking book; he can have it!”
Erin frowned. “What book?”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
“Not your grimoire? I read that…,” started Katrina.
“Oh, you’re an expert, are you? How long have you been using magic? A month? Two?”
Katrina took a step back as if Matilda had slapped her.
“If he’s trying to make you give him something, whatever it is, don’t give it to him, Matilda,” said Erin.
“Why not? I can’t take this anymore! I’m losing my mind waiting for blackouts or dead things to come after me. I just want him to leave me alone.”
Matilda pushed past them, ignoring Erin calling after her as she stormed up the steps. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light in the corridor and turned toward her locker, stopping in her tracks as Oliver stood just ahead of her, his arms folded as he leaned against the wall.
Matilda wiped the tears from her cheeks and walked up to him, looking at her feet.
“Everything okay?” said Oliver, his voice oozing with mock concern.
Matilda looked up at him, her lip wobbling as Ashley and the blackouts and her weakening magic all pressed down so hard on her shoulders she felt like she could just fall down at his feet.
“Please, I can’t take any more,” Matilda whispered. “I need it to stop; I need it all to stop.”
She looked into his face, wondering how much worse he could make her life, what other corpses he would haunt her with, how much more of her magic he would tear away. Her soul felt as though it was riddled with holes, and everything Oliver had inflicted on her had battered and bruised what was left of it.
“You know how to make all this stop. Just say the words, and we don’t have to go on like this anymore.”
“You win,” she whispered, shame and desperation tightening her chest as she said the words.
Oliver smiled and put a hand to his ear. “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”
Matilda watched a tear as it fell from her cheek and landed on the floor. She squeezed her eyes and bit against her lip, pushing the tears back so she could look him in the eye.
“I said, you win. You can have the book.”
“Good girl. Although I’m going to miss all this fun we’ve been having, aren’t you?”
“Screw you, Oliver,” said Matilda, clenching her shaking hands. “Come to my house tomorrow, and you can have it.”
“I know you love me really,” said Oliver, winking at her. “It’s a date; see you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Gray clouds sucked the color from the sky, and the bonfire smell that used to invoke memories of raking leaves with her dad just made Matilda feel sick. She had walked all the way home with her hands tucked under her armpits after her encounter with Ashley, and only now as she arrived at her garden gate did she remove them.
They’d finally stopped shaking.
She glanced up at the sky, her heart as gray as the clouds. How had she gotten here? Why had she fallen for Oliver? He hadn’t used a love spell, but the way he’d manipulated her made her feel like her free will had been taken away, like she’d done to so many other people over the years. She had the scars as proof of her own wrongdoing, but she’d never contemplated death or the kind of destruction Oliver had been raining down on her. What would he be capable of once she gave him the grimoire?
Matilda stopped in her tracks, biting her lip as she shook the thought away. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be aimed at her anymore and she could just get on with her life. Her fear-and magic-free life.
She dragged her feet as she walked beneath the arch and followed the stepping-stones across the grass. There was movement in the kitchen window, and she picked up speed, keeping an eye on Lottie standing in the kitchen looking down at her bump. Matilda didn’t feel like explaining why she wasn’t at school, and she couldn’t look her mother in the eyes knowing what she was about to do to the family. That the baby wouldn’t know the joy of blowing on a dandelion and watching in wonder as her mother manipulated the breeze to return its downy seeds to one piece again, or peering at falling sycamore leaves to predict the weather before setting off to the beach.
The baby wouldn’t know those things, but she wouldn’t know the pain, either.
Matilda put her hands in her pockets and trudged up the gravel path. A crow cawed and Matilda looked up from her feet, a sharp breath stabbing her lungs. The black bramble hedge that had been growing at the front of her garden room had tripled in size and sprouted branches that reached up in knots toward the roof. The building looked like one of those pirate ships in the deathly arms of a giant kraken, but that wasn’t what froze Matilda in her path.
Nanna May sat on the bench in front of the garden room, hunched over with a hundred extra years pressing down on her quivering shoulders. Matilda dropped her bag and ran to her, crouching at her feet as she looked into the old lady’s face, tears getting lost in the tracks of her wrinkled skin.
“Nanna May?” whispered Matilda. “Nanna, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Her grandmother’s bloodshot eyes met Matilda’s, then looked back down at her lap. Matilda followed her gaze and peered at the shape cupped in her hands, frowning until she realized what it was and then put her hand over her mouth, her own eyes springing with sadness as she understood her gran
dmother’s grief.
The tiny feathered body of Genie, Nanna May’s beloved familiar, rested in the soil-stained hands of her owner, its once bright red breast dull as though someone had turned its light off. Matilda reached out and ran her index finger along its smooth brown feathers, a small sob escaping her mouth at the coldness of its lifeless body. Its entire head was encased in yellow wax, hardened drips of it caked around its neck.
“Wicked Tilly,” whispered Nanna May, lifting the bird closer to Matilda’s face.
Matilda closed her eyes, blinking warm tears down her cheeks, then looked at her grandmother.
“I’m sorry, Nanna. I’m so sorry,” she said, putting her hand on her grandmother’s soft cheek.
She stood and took Genie from her grandmother’s hands, then pulled the scarf from around her neck, ignoring the chill that breathed against her skin.
“She can stay out here, with me. Okay?”
Her grandmother nodded and watched Matilda wrap the bird in her scarf, then give it back to her before she picked up a spade and started digging at the other end of the bench. She took a deep breath and looked up at her grandmother as she worked.
“He’s not getting away with this,” she said, pausing to wipe away her tears. “I promise you.”
* * *
After burying Genie, Matilda walked Nanna May to the warmth of the kitchen, where she sat her down at the table and made a pot of tea. Her mother walked in just as Matilda was scooping the ground valerian powder into the tea ball infuser, and Matilda explained, without disclosing full details, that Genie had passed. She left her with Lottie and hurried back into the cold and into the crooked open arms of the woods.
She ran as far as she could, her mind racing with the events of the last few hours, days, and weeks. She couldn’t give Oliver their grimoire, not after finding Nanna May mourning her precious Genie. Oliver may have taken Matilda’s magic and terrorized her every waking moment, but how scared Matilda felt was nothing compared to the sorrow in her grandmother’s wrinkly face. Matilda wouldn’t let Oliver take anything else from her family.
She needed a plan to stop him, but there was something she needed to do first. She slowed down and stopped at the bottom of a thick tree truck, its branches reaching out to the rest of the trees in solidarity. She stuck her hands in the wet soil and started to dig.
Once the hole was deep enough, she lifted Ivy’s moonstone from around her neck and gently placed it into the hole, then pulled the athame from her pocket and placed that inside, too. She covered the hole up, then put her hands over the mound of earth on top.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you, Ivy,” she whispered as she closed her eyes. “You can rest now.”
She stood and headed down a trail to her garden room, the blackbirds squawking their indignance at being disturbed. She mentally ticked off what she would need to do when she got back and what she’d say to Erin, when something that didn’t belong in the woods caught her eye.
Deeper between the trees she could see something swaying, something that could be mistaken for broken tree limbs or vines dangling from the branches. Slowly, she crept toward the movement, hairs prickling on her arms as she got closer and saw what it was.
A dozen witch’s ladders hung from a tree, moving gently in the wind, waiting to be discovered. She caught one in the palm of her hand and looked at the black feathers tied into the twine, then let it swing away as something else on the tree trunk caught her eye.
A small poppet, the one she found in Oliver’s car but now with strands of dark hair wrapped around its head, was tied to the tree with a long length of rope. Matilda looked at the witch’s ladders hanging from the trees again. Oliver had made them all long enough to reach the poppet, caressing it with their dark feathers every time the wind blew.
Matilda yanked the rope away and snatched the poppet from the tree. She hadn’t needed anything more than seeing Nanna May hunched over her precious Genie to stop Oliver, but now he’d given her enough to want to crush him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Matilda hurried down the alleyway and rushed into the courtyard. The sound of bubbling water trickled past her ears, and she slowed herself, willing the adrenaline and anger to flow past her and change into something bigger, more powerful, just like the water.
She lifted the key on the chain around her neck and unlocked the door. She turned the handle and pushed it open, calling into the dark shop as she stepped inside.
“Hello? Maura? It’s me, Matilda.” She waited a few beats, then tried again. “Emily? Is anyone here?”
Matilda crept through the door and pulled out her phone, certain that Maura was going to appear suddenly and throw her out, taking back her invitation to come anytime she wanted. She turned her phone light on and headed to the door at the back of the shop, letting the smell of the books caress her soul and level her mind.
She pushed the door open, relieved to find that the lamps were turned on, as if the room was ready and expecting her. As she stepped inside, she could feel the power of the books, whispering to her and inviting her into their open arms, but this time it didn’t overwhelm her; it sparked certainty and courage within.
The book she wanted was almost beckoning her, set slightly farther forward than the rest of its shelf mates. Matilda took off her coat and put her bag down by the table, then walked across the creaking floorboards to the shelf where Ivy’s book of spells was waiting. Waiting, she was sure, for her. She pulled it from the shelf and looked at it again, just as she did when Maura had first handed it to her. The power she felt from it was undeniable then, and now she was sure it had tripled. The chain pierced through the bottom of the cover curved down and back up to the shelf, and Matilda frowned as she looked at the table and the length of the chain, wondering whether it was long enough to reach.
“I don’t want to stand here all night,” she muttered.
“Don’t, then,” said a voice from the doorway.
Matilda jumped so suddenly she almost dropped the book. She gathered herself and gently put it back on the shelf.
“You scared the life out of me!” she snapped at Erin, who raised an eyebrow and folded her arms. “I mean: Thank you for coming.”
“That’s better,” said Erin, walking into the room and closing the door behind her. “Although there was no way on earth I wasn’t going to come and meet you in the middle of the night at the secret room with all the spell books.”
Erin took her coat off and put it over one of the old chairs, then joined Matilda in front of the shelves. She peered at the book that Matilda had just returned, then looked back at her.
“Is that the one you want to look at?” asked Erin.
Matilda nodded, looking at the book then back at the table. “Yeah, but I’m not sure whether … how…”
“My guess is all these chains are long enough to reach to the table. Look,” said Erin, reaching toward the book, then freezing, her hand in midair. She looked at Matilda. “Is it okay that I touch them, do you think?”
Matilda shrugged. “It’s just grimoires you shouldn’t touch. I’m not sure about these. I can’t tell what they are from their covers.”
“Maybe only you should touch them, just for now,” said Erin, biting her lip and sticking her hands under her armpits like she was standing in an expensive china shop.
Matilda nodded and pulled Ivy’s book from the shelf. She walked slowly, the thin chain jangling with each step, until she reached the table. The chain was still slack enough to give her plenty of movement, then she looked at the tabletop and the book in her hands.
“Can you get my bag? It’s on the floor,” she said, gesturing with her chin. Erin looked around, then picked up Matilda’s bag and put it on the table. “You can open it. There’s a velvet bag inside, can you get it out for me?”
Erin nodded and unzipped Matilda’s backpack, then pulled out the drawstring bag. She looked at Matilda, who nodded at her, then put her hand inside and pulled out a folded
blanket.
“I want to put Ivy’s book on top of that on the table. Can you unfold it and spread it out?”
Erin nodded and Matilda’s lip twitched as she thought this must be the longest Erin had ever gone without asking a question. Her eyebrows pulled together in concentration as she unfolded the blanket, careful to smooth out its folds and wrinkles until it covered the entire tabletop. It was a blanket Nanna May had knitted for Matilda’s thirteenth birthday, made of fifty-two individual squares, one for each of the seasons that had passed since Matilda was born. It was her most precious possession, love and wisdom intertwined with every stitch. It was around her shoulders in the winter and tucked under her chin whenever she was sick in bed, the smell of her grandmother giving warmth and strength whenever she needed it.
Erin finished straightening it out and took a step back, looking to Matilda for confirmation that she’d done a good job. Matilda nodded and Erin sighed, her shoulders relaxing.
“I remember this blanket,” she said, smiling as she looked down at the rainbow of colors and patterns.
“Do you?” said Matilda, still holding on to the book.
“Of course I do. We used to sit on the floor with it over our knees while we played cards.” Erin looked up at Matilda, her eyes sad. “You don’t remember that?”
Matilda’s eyes misted as a memory she had hidden in a bottom drawer materialized as easily as if she were looking at a photograph. She nodded.
“Yes, I remember,” she said, then swallowed. “Now, can you put … do you want to put your scarf on top of the blanket?”
Erin looked like a deer in headlights as her hands flew up to the plaid scarf hanging over her shoulders.
“This? Yeah, I mean if you need it I guess that’s—”
Matilda took a deep breath. “Erin, I am really bad at this, but this is my way of asking you to help me. Will you help me?”
Erin bit her lip, then pulled her scarf off and approached the table. She swallowed, her eyes wide with sincerity.
Mark of the Wicked Page 24
