CHAPTER ONE
Our kind are scarred with the names of those we’ve hurt with our magic, to serve as a warning to others to keep their distance. But every rule has an exception, and we are no exception to that rule. Only the cunning can hide their true visage, but it comes at a price.
—Grimoire of the Hollowell Women
Sixteen days until Halloween
The first time Matilda swallowed a bee, it hadn’t gone well. She’d panicked, which made the bee panic, and Matilda’s tongue had swollen up like a puffer fish, impossible to hide from her mother. Only her grandmother sneaking her a brew of witch hazel and aloe vera to gargle had brought it back to its normal size.
The morning sun trickled through the naked branches, scattering spots of light across the wooded ground, the color stuck somewhere between that time when the night retreats and the day takes over. Matilda looked over her shoulder, then back at the hive. She wasn’t in the mood for dancing with the bees when they went for her, but she needed that queen.
Matilda’s grandmother visited the beehive once a week to tell the bees what had been going on in the family home, a ritual that Matilda still hadn’t worked out the logistics of, considering her grandmother had hardly spoken in three years. Nevertheless, Nanna May crept through the trees every Friday morning to respect the bees and keep them informed. Matilda always wondered whether they buzzed in response or stayed silent, like they were right now.
Without her realizing it, Matilda’s fingers crept across the gnarled letters on her face, tracing the names of every soul she’d twisted, every person she’d broken. She dropped her hand to her side. One more won’t make a difference, she thought to herself.
Her eyes scanned the twisted ground for what she needed. A few feet away was a clump of Urtica dioica, or stinging nettles to anyone who hadn’t been dragged through the woods to learn the Latin names of every single plant they could lay their bored eyes on every day of the school holidays. Matilda pulled off her woolly gloves and bent down and caressed the nettles in both hands, wincing as the hairs rubbed against her skin. It smarted for a moment but was nothing in comparison to what the army inside the hive would do to her once they felt threatened. The nettle sting buzzed over her hands like an invisible force field. Who needed protective gloves when you’d been taught how every weed in the woods could help you, and your fingers twitched with magic?
The burn crept over her hands, and she took a breath and closed her eyes. As she thrust her head into the open arms of the nettles, the crows squawked a greeting to the daybreak and hopped about on the silver birch branches, hustling one another to get the best view of the witch at work. Matilda looked up and frowned, grimacing as the pain seared her forehead.
“Shhhh!” she spat at them.
The squawking stopped, and a black-and-white shadow swooped down from the trees. Matilda watched the magpie pecking around in the weeds, its orca markings announcing its arrival, bringing along sorrow for whoever needed it. Matilda saluted the lone bird with a nod of gratitude; what others dismissed as superstitions, she had been taught to embrace as gifts, traditional portents of death a perfect foundation for mischief. Her face throbbing, she walked to the opening in the tree, still nothing but thick silence seeping from within the hidden honeycomb.
She reached inside the tree trunk, her fingertips brushing against an army intent on protecting its precious leader. The nettle trick worked, though, and she couldn’t feel a single one of the tiny stings as they attacked her hands, not even on her face as they went for her like tiny missiles of wasted death. She swatted them away as her fingers hunted, and the silence of the hive turned up to a howl of terror.
“There you are,” said Matilda, a smile as sweet as the honey the bees would never make sliding across her face.
She withdrew steadily, shaking off the persistent workers, and then held her hand up in front of her eyes, a black-and-yellow beauty struggling between her thumb and forefinger. Matilda brought her prize to her lips and kissed it, careful to avoid its barbed stinger, then threw the bee into her mouth and swallowed it, embracing the fire that followed down her throat.
Her bee-swallowing technique had certainly improved since the first time.
* * *
The morning light had changed even in the short walk from the hive at the back of the property to the kitchen. Matilda poked her head around the open stable door, ducking under the elder tree branch her grandmother had hung there to keep evil from entering through the back door. The fire flickered in the arms of the hearth, which meant her Nanna May, whose life revolved around stoking the fire so their ancestors could find their way should they need to, couldn’t be far away, and the lingering aroma of mimosa and rich ground coffee meant that she’d just missed her mother. Matilda’s stomach growled as she spotted a fluffy dome of bread sitting on top of the scratched kitchen table.
“Sweet,” she whispered.
She opened the lower part of the door and stepped into the heart of the cottage, headed straight for the loaf. Her dad had made loads of improvements to the cottage before he left, but her grandmother wouldn’t let him touch the kitchen, apart from installing a fridge. Light came from the windows and hanging lanterns, and warmth came from the huge stove that, along with the open fire, made the kitchen the warmest place to be throughout the year.
As she cut the crust off a slice of bread, the back door creaked open, and Matilda spun around and blinked at the visitor peeking around the open door.
“Where’d you trot in from, Victor?” said Matilda, holding out her hand.
A tiny goat blinked its golden eyes at Matilda, its front hooves poised in first position as it watched her spray bread crumbs all over the cracked kitchen tiles. Victor tilted his head to one side and inched into the kitchen with the tiniest of trots until he was at Matilda’s feet.
“Here you go.” She scratched his chin, then smeared jam over a piece of bread and gave it to the goat. “Who’s the most adorable thing on the planet?”
“Thought I’d gone?”
Matilda’s mother, Lottie, came down the uneven steps into the kitchen, her white Persian cat, Nimbus, slinking after her like she owned the place. Lottie shook her head and pointed a manicured finger at Victor, then at the back door.
“I know you love him, but you know the rules,” said Lottie, grabbing a dustpan and brush from a hook next to a bunch of lavender. “Look at the floor, Matilda. He’s gotten crumbs everywhere.”
Matilda crossed her arms and watched her mother crouch down in her heels to sweep up the crumbs. Just the sight of her mother made her stomach boil with aggravation. She couldn’t be within three feet of Matilda without creating some kind of conflict. If Lottie had come in five minutes later, the goat would have polished off every last crumb anyway.
Lottie looked up at Matilda from beneath the frown that was permanently attached to her forehead. “Tilly? What did I just say?”
Matilda huffed as she leaned forward and whispered into Victor’s ear, annoyed that her mom had called her by her childhood name.
“You better get out of here, before you end up in a stew.”
She ran her hands over his downy face and kissed the top of his head before he trotted out of the kitchen door.
“Why can’t he be in here?” said Matilda, turning back to her mother. “Nanna May has Genie in the house all the time.”
“The bird is house-trained, that damn billy goat is not,” said Lottie, throwing the crumbs into the sink.
Matilda frowned as she watched Lottie brush nonexistent crumbs off the front of the hideous black poncho she was wearing. It was like she even dressed to annoy Matilda.
A flash of red and brown swooped into the kitchen and darted in and out of the open windows as if to showcase just how much freedom it had in the cottage. The robin circled the room three times, then landed on its owner’s shoulder as she shuffled in through the back door and headed straight for Matilda.
Matilda stiffened, averting her eyes from Nanna May’s own milky ones, their corners crisscrossed with wisdom. Her hair was pinned on the top of her head in a smooth white knot like it always was, and her long skirt and cardigan trailed across the floor, their colors from the same palette as the robin.
She stopped in front of Matilda. If Matilda stood up, she’d tower over the old woman, but Nanna May didn’t feel small when you were close to her. She hooked her gnarled fingers around Matilda’s wrist and raised her hand until it was under her nose. She peered at it, shaking her head at the angry red bumps that covered Matilda’s skin. Matilda pulled away and Nanna May inched over to the fireplace, where she took an age to lower herself onto the three-legged stool in front of it. She picked up the iron poker, looked at Matilda’s mother, then turned to the flames burning by her feet.
“Is that…?” Her mother walked over to Matilda, grabbed both her hands and frowned at them. “Nettle stings? Have you been at the hive, Matilda? Was it the queen? Again?”
“No,” said Matilda angrily as she batted her mom’s hand away and stood up.
“Don’t lie to me, young lady! What have you got up your sleeve this time? I’m guessing it’s nothing good?”
“Would you even believe me if I said it was?”
“Well, is it? Tell me, are you doing a spell to improve your concentration? Or maybe one of your classmates is unwell? Or maybe you’re placing a blessing on this cottage?”
Matilda rolled her eyes. Why would she waste her time with magic to help people who ignore her when she could make them slowly lose their hair instead? Matilda smirked at the memory of Lauren McFadden freaking out as she brushed out clumps of hair in front of the mirror at school.
“For goodness’ sake, Matilda, are you even listening to me? How many times?” Her mother opened a cabinet and picked out a small green bottle, then leaned over the sink and yanked leaves from the small pots collected on the windowsill, her anger punctuating the lecture with each plucked herb. “How many times do I have to go over this with you? You don’t use death in magic. Whether it’s a human or a horsefly, we respect life in our magic. You’d understand that so much more if you were part of a coven. You’re nearly seventeen…”
“I didn’t kill anything. Technically. It’s still alive,” said Matilda quickly, steering her mother away from that conversation about joining a coven. Again.
“And what is it this time?” said Lottie, grinding the leaves under a giant worn marble. “Lead in the school play? Time for a new best friend? Did someone dare to copy your haircut? What petty thing could possibly warrant you distressing those creatures in the middle of the autumn? It’s a very simple rule: Never use magic to hurt another, physically or mentally, unless you want the name of your victim scarred on your face.”
“But we can hide our scars.” Matilda shrugged. “So why not have some fun with our magic?”
For the last three years, Matilda had been collecting the names of those she’d hurt with her magic like it was a hobby. It was fun coming up with creative ways to inflict pain or bring misfortune to her enemies, or just being popular for a few weeks. Unlike other witches, Matilda could do bad but keep the slate clean. Clean in the eyes of others, anyway.
Lottie pursed her lips and shook her head.
“This is exactly why you’re not old enough for that spell.” Matilda’s shoulders slumped, ready for the weekly lecture. “Our bloodline was blessed with the gift to conceal our scars so we could move freely without judgment in a changing world, to give witches a second chance, not so you can use magic to curse your classmates on every whim. Your father had no right to give you that spell; you’re clearly not mature enough for it.”
“Nice to know what you think of me,” said Matilda, folding her arms.
“You give me no choice to think anything else! It’s all about balance; you do good, the universe sees that; you do bad, it’s written on your face, whether we can see it or not.”
Matilda felt like banging her head against the table. From the moment she was aware that Ferly Cottage was a home full of spells and incantations, she had been taught the rules her ancestors lived by and that she was expected to respect and embrace those rules. The first rule was simple: Use magic to cause pain or control the free will of another, and you’ll get the name of your victim seared across your skin. Use magic to help others, to further your understanding of the craft, to keep maintaining the balance, and no harm will come to you.
But why have access to an ancient spell that meant every time you did use magic to hurt someone else, you could just erase the consequence from your face? Matilda didn’t understand it. Why have the spell if it wasn’t meant to be used?
“We don’t need anything drawing attention to us, not with all those dead animals that keep showing up.” A small line of worry appeared between Lottie’s eyebrows as she looked at Nanna May. She shook her head and ran her hand from Nimbus’s sour face all the way to her bush of a tail. “Cats this time, Nanna May. Cats. Plural.”
“That’s nothing to do with me,” said Matilda, putting up her hands in surrender. She turned to Nanna May. “You don’t think I would actually kill a cat, do you?”
“I’m not saying that, Matilda,” said Lottie. “I’m just … unexplained animal death is never a good sign, not for us and not for nonwitches. My coven is rattled; they can feel something approaching, a poison blowing in the wind, and with Ivy’s anniversary and Halloween coming up? This is a sacred time of year, and someone is tainting it with these animal deaths. One thing you can be certain of is that when things go wrong, people look for someone to blame, and nine times out of ten that someone will be female. That’s how the whole mess with Ivy started in the first place. People around here would love an excuse to knock on that door and start throwing accusations around.”
Matilda rolled her eyes again. “Nobody believes in witches anymore, Mother.”
“You’d be surprised what people believe if they’re desperate enough.” Lottie shook her head and poured the ground leaves into the bottle using a copper funnel. “I haven’t got time for this. I’m meeting someone.” She plucked a strand of raven hair from her head, wrapped it around her finger, slipped it inside the bottle, then spat into it and stuck a cork in the top.
“Date with your precious coven?” said Matilda, folding her arms.
Lottie straightened up and smoothed down her clothes, her jaw clenched tight as she looked at Matilda. Matilda swallowed, reminded of the silence of the hive from earlier. Lottie walked across the kitchen, Nimbus trailing behind her ready for a show. Her mother peered at Matilda’s face, seeing the names that weren’t there.
“You need to show your magic, and your history, some respect. Stop with the schoolgirl spite before that face of yours is scarred beyond recognition. I may not be able to see it, but I know you, Matilda, I know what you have hidden there.”
Lottie swept out of the kitchen, her heels click-clacking through the cottage as she left Matilda and Nanna May to stew in her anger. Matilda looked at the tiles beneath her feet, worn and dull from centuries of her bloodline going about their lives in the kitchen. Her mother could be fierce, but that was the longest conversation she’d had with her in months. The chasm that had grown between them since her dad left, had gotten so big that Matilda didn’t have the energy to cross it, and Lottie had stopped holding her hands out to reach over to Matilda anyway. Lottie was so lost inside a daily whirlwind of being a good daughter to Nanna May and a supportive member of her coven that being a mom had fallen down the cracks somewhere.
Copyright © 2021 by Georgia Bowers
