Mark of the Wicked

by Georgia Bowers

  Matilda nodded. It was almost comforting to see that butting heads with your mother seemed to be a universal witch thing, and not just restricted to the confines of Ferly Cottage. She gripped the arms of the chair and shuffled forward, managing to pull herself up. She was used to the magic in the room now, as if her heart had gotten in sync with its pulse. She walked to the shelves and peered at the crinkly pages sandwiched between the book covers, then turned to Maura.

  “They’re spell books, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, sorry, my dear, back to your original question before I came and interrupted. Spell books, diaries of our sisters, grimoires of families where our craft has petered out.”

  “Where do you get them?”

  “Some of them are gifted to us. Some of them I come across when I’m at an estate sale for the store or at secondhand book markets.” Maura moved to Matilda’s side and took one of the books from the shelf, placing the leather-bound book in Matilda’s hands. “Some of them Emily has taken back from those who have no business being in possession of them. All in all, we keep them safe.”

  Matilda looked at the book in her hand, then glanced at Maura, who nodded at her. She slowly opened it, her eyes widening at the curled handwriting across the yellowing page: Here be the spells of Ivy Hollowell. Matilda’s eyes widened, and she clutched the moonstone that was still hanging around her neck as she read the rest of the words. My power will never snuff out like a flame. I am the wind that blows that flame, and I am here for my daughters and my daughters’ daughters.

  Matilda sucked a breath deep into her lungs and handed the book back to Maura as if it were a baby about to cry. Erin moved to Maura’s side and peered at the book.

  “Whoa,” she whispered. “Ivy, as in Ivy-down-the-witching-well? And she was a Hollowell? So, she really was real?” Maura nodded. Erin punched the air. “I knew it! I always knew she was real. My dad said she was invented by the town council so tourists would come for the festival. But I knew what they said happened to her was so horrible it had to be true.”

  Maura looked grave. “She was indeed a real woman who was murdered by the very people she helped. Her spells, her charms, her discoveries, even her doodles are all in here.” Maura offered the book to Matilda again, but she backed away. Maura smiled and put the book back in its place. “Another time then, but know she is here should you need her. Now, enough. It’s late and we’ve taken up enough of each other’s time.”

  “I’ll drop you both off,” said Emily, picking up her vest and belt and heading toward the door.

  Erin took another look around the room, then followed her out. Matilda went to follow them, then paused, and turned back to Maura, who was watching her.

  “Thank you,” said Matilda, her voice soft, “for sharing this with me.”

  “You’re very welcome, my dear. And look.” Maura pulled a chain from around her neck, a key dangling on the end of it, and glided over to Matilda. She lifted it over her head, and Matilda could smell Maura’s shampoo as her hair wafted back down on her shoulders. She took Matilda’s hand and lowered the key and chain into it, firmly closing Matilda’s fingers around it. “This belongs to you, too, to all of us. Come here whenever you need to.”

  “Th-thank you,” said Matilda, biting back tears that had sprung from nowhere.

  “You must promise me one thing, though, above all else.”

  “Yes?” said Matilda, her eyes wide as Maura put her hands on her shoulders.

  Maura fixed her eyes on Matilda. “Never, ever misuse this place, or I will turn you and your friend into toads, understand?”

  Matilda nodded slowly as she watched Maura’s crinkled eyes start to twinkle, joined by a wide smile. She patted Matilda’s shoulder and winked.

  “Just kidding, dear. You need to lighten up; you’ve got a rough road ahead of you.”

  * * *

  They dropped Erin off first, after she filled the entire journey with questions about witches and magic. Once she was gone, they carried on in silence and finally arrived at Ferly Cottage. Emily got out of the car and opened Matilda’s door. Matilda got out, her shivering limbs yearning for her bed.

  “Well, I’m going in,” she said, offering what she hoped was something like a smile to Emily. “Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Emily. “And sorry about my mom; she reads people. Can get kind of intense. And infuriating when you’re fifteen years old and planning to sneak out.”

  Matilda smiled and headed to the gate, then paused, something nipping at her soul, and turned back to Emily.

  “Um, Emily?” she said. Emily looked up. “Did they ever find out who killed Ashley?”

  Emily shook her head. “Investigation’s still ongoing, but I have a feeling they won’t find the murderer, even though I have my own suspicions.”

  Matilda shivered as a gust of wind sent curled leaves floating down on both of them. Officer Powell looked up at the branches, then flicked a leaf from her shoulder. Matilda swallowed as she looked back at her.

  “I’ll let you get to bed now, but can I give you this?” Matilda took the business card from Emily’s outstretched fingers. “If you need anything, if you feel like you’re in danger or you just want to talk, please call me. Okay?”

  Matilda nodded, and the officer stared into her eyes one last time before she turned and left her standing alone beneath the moonlight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Two days until Halloween

  The climb up the well had made every small movement agony, so Matilda hid in her room, wrapped up in her duvet like a human sausage roll. Her phone buzzed again, and she slid it from under her pillow, rolled her eyes, and slid it back again—another message from Erin checking that she was okay, and in Erin’s words, not down a well somewhere. There was a tap on the window. Matilda opened an eye and sighed.

  “Go away,” she called, ready to send Victor over to the door to headbutt her mother until she left. She frowned and lifted her head. “I said, go away.”

  Lottie opened the door and stepped inside, the frown that was scored into her forehead whenever she and Matilda spoke deeper than usual and Nimbus curling around her expensive boots.

  “Are you alive?” sighed her mother. Matilda scowled and rolled over. “Is all this sneaking out about the baby?”

  Matilda sighed. Her trip down the well had faded their last conversation. “No.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but it’s the new moon tonight. The receiving of the grimoire is an important step on your path as a witch, and it means a lot to your grandmother and—”

  “Fine,” said Matilda. At least if she had the grimoire herself, she could stop worrying about what Oliver might do to Lottie or Nanna May to get to it.

  “What?” said Lottie, inching closer to Matilda.

  “I said, fine,” said Matilda, hauling herself up so she was sitting against her bed frame.

  Lottie nodded, then looked at something she was holding, clasping it with both hands as if she was deciding what to do with it, then walked over to Matilda’s bed and held out a small green bottle.

  Matilda frowned. “What’s that?”

  “It’s to get over a broken heart.” Matilda blinked as she watched the contents swirl inside the bottle. “I figured that might be what’s going on with you?” Matilda swallowed, unable to look Lottie in the eye. “Anyway, take it and remember to use it on the next full moon.”

  “I … thank you,” whispered Matilda.

  “You’re welcome, little one. I know you were supposed to see your dad this weekend, too, but I’m guessing he canceled again?”

  Matilda looked at Lottie, then picked up her phone and checked her calendar. With everything that had happened, she had completely forgotten about her dad’s planned visit. She deleted the reminder, certain that he would cancel just as he had all the other times.

  “Mom?” said Matilda as Lottie turned to leave.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why
did he go? Was it because of me?”

  “You? No, of course not, why would you…”

  “Then was it you? And your coven? Did you make him leave?”

  Lottie blinked at Matilda with wide eyes, her body still as if she’d been frozen. She sighed and sat on the edge of Matilda’s bed.

  “Pass me one of those cookies Nanna May brought you, would you?”

  “But they’re…”

  “Please, Matilda, you’ve got loads there. I’ll tell you what happened, but I can’t if I faint from hunger.”

  Matilda rolled her eyes and took one of the apple-and-cinnamon cookies from the plate next to her bed and gave it to Lottie, who wolfed it down in two bites.

  She wiped her hands together. “Thank you.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Lottie turned so she was fully facing Matilda.

  “Life with your dad was exciting. He was so eager to learn magic and I was happy to teach him, but we were very young when we had you, too young really, even though it’s what we both wanted. It just felt like the right time for us; what could be more magical for a couple than a beautiful baby girl.” Matilda rolled her eyes, and her mother shrugged.

  “Anyway, your dad was a lot of fun, but he wasn’t much help with the day-to-day parenting. He’d much rather be throwing you in the air than changing your diapers. I had to lean more on Nanna May and my coven for help, and he went off to practice the craft more as a way to escape the never-ending diapers and the feeding and the screaming. I guess that’s when we started drifting.”

  Her mother nodded at the plate of cookies, and Matilda handed her another. “We stopped being in love, then we stopped being friends and started living separate lives, so I found a rhythm that worked for you with the help of my support network. Every now and then, I’d try to talk to him about it, but we’d argue about the coven and secrets I shared with them, and he took it all so personally. He just couldn’t see that I needed them even more because he wasn’t there. He would disappear for days, trying new spells by himself. He became obsessed with magic and couldn’t maintain the balance, so he lost his job and the coven had to support us financially, too. We passed each other after he’d had a shower one day, and I noticed a handful of names scrawled down his back and one right there on his neck. I knew he was following magic into the shadows, but by then he’d lost any respect for me and wouldn’t hear it.”

  Lottie looked out of the window, shaking her head at the memories.

  “He knew I had you and the coven and Nanna May, and all he had was the magic, so he made it his sole focus. Ferly Cottage is such an easy house to live separate lives in, and we went on like that for years. He resented me sharing things with the coven that I wouldn’t share with him. I played my part in that, but I invited him to join more than once and he always refused.”

  Matilda frowned at her mom, her heart beating fast in her chest. “You make it sound like he was never around.”

  “Hey, he loves you, Matilda, and he always did. Thankfully, we had a sort of unspoken agreement that you would never witness what was happening to us, so he was there for you in his own way.”

  Matilda swallowed a lump in her throat as she remembered the horseback-riding lessons or the tiny fireworks he could make using candles and some herbs plucked from Nanna May’s garden. The memories of her life with her dad were sparked with love and color, but they were also punctuated with overheard arguments about Lottie’s coven and resentment toward their secrets.

  “One day I caught him looking through our grimoire,” said Lottie, her mouth set in a line.

  Matilda’s chest tightened. “But learneds aren’t supposed to touch it?”

  Lottie nodded. “He knew that. Who knows how many times he’d looked at it, but he was so angry there was even more I was keeping from him. There was one particular spell that he was adamant I should share, and he wanted to give it to you.”

  Matilda instinctively touched her cheek. “The witch’s cloak spell.”

  Lottie nodded. “He was obsessed with it, Matilda. Badgered me to show it to him again until one day he used it, and I knew he’d been through the grimoire again. He’d still bring it up every now and again, saying that he wanted you to have it.”

  “Why do you think he wanted me to have it?”

  Lottie sighed. “Control, maybe? I think he realized that he’d pushed himself out of this family, but he was still trying to show that he should make decisions for you. His scars disappeared, so he was obviously taking full advantage of the spell and finding out how easy life was to use magic to get what you wanted, to manipulate free will, or just to cause pain. In a way, I think he wanted you to have an easy life. I told him I wanted to wait until you were seventeen, but he had to give it you. He had the final word the day that he left.”

  “So, he was looking out for me?”

  “In a way, Tilly, that’s true. But he soon learned, and you will, too, at the rate you’re collecting those scars, that the more of them you get, the more painful they are to carry around, and keeping them covered gets harder and harder.”

  Matilda looked back at her mother and tried to ignore the scorching pain that prickled her face from the moment she woke up to the moment she managed to fall asleep.

  “You have them, too,” said Matilda.

  Her mother paused midbite of her cookie. “A few, and I regret and accept each one of them. It’s all about balance and respect, Matilda. Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to teach you all this time?”

  “So, he just had enough of the coven being here all the time and left?” said Matilda, ignoring her mother’s question.

  “Partly,” said Lottie, finishing her cookie and watching Matilda, trying to decide something. “But partly because of Nanna May.”

  “Nanna May?”

  Lottie stood up from the bed, stretched, and sat on the chair. “When your grandmother stopped speaking, it was a total mystery to me and to the coven, what had happened. Your dad said it was old age, but there was a sort of … magical aftertaste in the weeks after it happened, so I had my suspicions. The other thing that was lingering in the air was a new perfume, and the coven sensed that your dad was spending time with another woman. I confronted him, and of course he denied it, but not before he added it to the long list of reasons why he hated my coven.”

  “What’s that got to do with Nanna May?”

  “At one of our meetings, Nanna May was invited to use the voice of the coven to tell us what had happened so we could help her. Her voice came from each of us like we were a choir, telling her story as one; she had seen your dad with a woman in town, she’d confronted him and told him if he didn’t tell me then she would.”

  Matilda watched her mother, waiting for her to go on, but Lottie sighed, pain etched into her forehead.

  “Mom?”

  “He took her voice, Matilda. He cursed her so she couldn’t tell me, even in writing.”

  “No,” said Matilda, shaking her head. “He did that to Nanna May? That’s why she can’t talk?”

  Lottie nodded. “I’ve spent the last three years begging him to tell me what spell he used so I can help her, but he won’t.” Lottie shook her head and took a deep breath. “Why do witches have scars on their face, little one?”

  “To warn others to stay away from them,” whispered Matilda, staring at the blanket over her legs through glistening eyes.

  “That’s right. That’s their consequence for hurting others, but we, the Hollowells, were gifted a veil by one of our ancestors and we should use it with respect. Instead, your dad was running around upsetting the balance, still is for all I know, and now he’s got you on the verge as well. He’s shown nothing but disrespect for our ways, our family, and to magic itself.”

  “I … I…,” stuttered Matilda, the information Lottie had just shared almost making her lose her own voice.

  Lottie lifted her hands and shook her head. “I didn’t want this to become a lecture, Matilda, but it scares me so m
uch when I see how frivolous you are with that spell. I’m scared where it’s going to take you. Magic has rules for a reason.”

  Matilda knew her mother was right, and all the nagging and the lectures had come from a place of fear. When the blackouts had first started coming, Matilda thought it was the darker side of magic coming to pull her into their shadows.

  “Do you think Nanna May will ever be able to speak again?”

  “She has a few words now. When it first happened, she was totally silent. Do you remember?” Matilda nodded. The silence came just before her dad left, but she never thought the two things would be linked. “It’s been very difficult for her, but the power rooted in the soil beneath us continues to help her heal, and she’s a very powerful witch.”

  “That’s why you made him go?” said Matilda.

  “That’s why I made him go.”

  “You never told me any of that.”

  “You never asked, little one.” Lottie pushed herself out of the chair. “I know you’ve always thought I was the villain, but between raising you alone and looking after Nanna May, I’ve just been doing the best I can.”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  “You and your father were so close, and I didn’t want to … you’re probably right, but I was trying to protect you from it all, from what he’d done, what I had to do, but I guess I ended up keeping you at a distance from everything, including myself. I just … I didn’t know how to fill the hole that your dad left, and I was trying; I’m still trying.”

  Matilda watched her mom get up and turn to leave her alone.

  “Mom?

  “Yes?” said Lottie, looking back at Matilda, tears glistening in her eyes.

  Matilda nodded at Lottie’s belly. “Is it a girl?”

  Lottie put a hand on her stomach and nodded. Matilda opened her mouth to speak, but the silence hanging in her bedroom said enough for both of them.