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Chapter Text

Matilda’s powers were all but gone now.

She could levitate a book out of the bookshelf when she was bored, sure, and she could replace the batteries in the smoke detector without a ladder. But anything heavier than a couple of pounds was beyond her mental reach now, let alone the average seven year old. Miss Honey (Jenny, rarely Mom) thought it was because she was finally getting enough of a challenge in school now, and that may have been the case if it weren’t for the nightmares.

A month after the Wormwoods fled the country, Matilda had her first nightmare. Maybe she’d had one when she was very small, but given her memory like a steel trap she didn’t think so. In it she was being stalked by something big and tough and loud, hovering just past the edge of her vision as she ran down a bright and sunny lane lined with forest on both sides. She woke up just as the monster let out a roar that sounded like an Olympic hammer throw grunt combined with the howl of a man getting a hat cut off his scalp. It wouldn’t take a famous psychoanalyst to interpret that one.

Since that first nightmare she’d had a lot of others, almost every night, always featuring the same monster stalking her, unseen, through pleasant activities and locales. In one she’d been lounging on the beaches of Guam with Miss Honey and the monster had growled a crackly growl from behind a fallen beach umbrella. In another she’d been wandering the halls of Crunchem--now painted bright colors and showcasing art on the walls--and had felt a breeze behind her several times as a huge shadow flitted from classroom to classroom following her, slamming each door behind itself. And one, the worst one, she’d been sitting in her favorite comfy chair at the library, Mrs. Phelps quietly reshelving children’s books in the next room, and the sound of paper being shredded and eaten by huge jaws reached Matilda from behind a shelf, the one she knew for sure held books about family law and adoption.

The nightmare in the library had come back sixteen times. Sixteen nights where Matilda woke up, breathless, eyes burning with unshed tears, and had to check that Miss Honey was safely asleep, all the outside doors were locked, all the hammers and javelins had been removed from the Trunchbull’s old room, and the copies of the adoption papers were intact and where they should be. Sixteen nights spent hugging Lissy Doll to her chest, books that hadn’t challenged her since she was two years old spread open on her lap, every lamp and candle she could find illuminating every corner of her room.

Sixteen nights hurriedly cleaning up and hiding the evidence of items in her room spontaneously falling over, getting knocked off the walls and bookshelves, shattering, or being thrown out the window. She could have been imagining it, but one time, while righting the dresser she thought she felt an ache in the back of her skull like she’d gotten the day Trunchbull fled and the first day she’d sat in the kitchen pushing Cheerios across the table for hours on end.

It was a wonder Miss Honey never woke up those nights and came bursting in brandishing a fireplace poker.

Matilda couldn’t complain, though. She shouldn’t complain. She had everything she had ever wanted--a family, friends, the chance to go to school, any book she desired. Everything was going great for her.

So why did she always feel a target on her back?

Chapter Text

Jennifer Honey’s life was falling apart and she didn’t know why.

It didn’t make sense. Aunt Agatha was gone, Matilda was safe, every trace of Agatha’s occupation of her father’s house had been scrubbed away, they had everything they could ever need.

She couldn’t sleep. Most nights she was lucky to get three hours of actual sleep. She was never behind on grading her students’ assignments because it was one of the few nighttime activities that took her mind off of the fear whispering to her in the dark at all times.

She could barely eat. Any time a full plate was in front of her she remembered jeers and laughs and insults that wouldn’t go away until she had given half of her food to Matilda or had scraped most of it back into the serving dish. She’d never eaten all that much anyway. She could survive on less than most adults.

At night, lying awake in her bed for hours, she heard Matilda’s nightmares in the next room. She’d peeked in the first time and seen books flying off the shelves, a rocking horse tipping over, Lissy Doll hovering safely inches from the ceiling, and a brass elephant figurine flying at the open door, narrowly missing Jenny and scaring her so badly she’d run back to her room without checking that Matilda was okay. Ten minutes later she’d feigned sleep when Matilda came into her room. She’d thought that, maybe, if Matilda was afraid, she would wake Jenny up for comfort, but a moment later the door had closed and Jenny had heard tiny feet making their way downstairs and then a few minutes later back up and into the next room. In the morning Matilda had acted normal and Jenny packed their lunches as usual and didn’t ask about the rumpled pages of one of Matilda’s heavy textbooks.

Jenny knew she should talk to Matilda about the nightmares, comfort her somehow.

But Matilda never brought it up, never seemed affected, never looked injured. So maybe all was well. Maybe Jenny was just imagining it.

Maybe talking about nightmares would make them worse.

The beast stalking Jennifer Honey through her dreams had certainly gotten stronger and closer after she comforted Lavender about the girl’s own nightmare, so that idea seemed to hold some truth.

So almost every night she lay in bed, listening to things thump around her new daughter’s room, unable to talk herself into confronting the problem head-on. She worried that Matilda’s powers would spin out of control and hurt her somehow, but that fear wasn’t enough to pull her out of bed, and she absolutely loathed herself for it. So she waited and listened, and feigned sleep when Matilda peeked in after her nightmare, and resigned herself, each time, to ask Matilda about it next time. Next time.

Chapter Text

One night Miss Honey caught Matilda doing her checks after a nightmare.

It had been a doozy. The monster had knocked over a whole bookshelf, sending pages full of descriptions of abuse and post-traumatic stress whirling around Matilda as she sat frozen in her armchair. She had listened, glued to her seat, as heavy footfalls stalked around a shelf and crept right up behind her. That horrible growl had woken her up, and she lay in bed shaking for a long time before she could get up. She had a habit now of turning on the light while still in bed and not turning it off at night until safely under the covers, and when she had waved a hand at the light switch she’d seen pages torn out of several of her books, Lissy Doll lying on the floor next to the bed with a chip in her cheek, hair ribbons tangled in the spokes of her bed’s footboard like they were snakes crawling up to catch her feet.

She hadn’t spared the time to clean up. The perimeter was first. Then Miss Honey. Then hammers and javelins. Then cleaning up.

She was debating how to fix the books and the doll in the back of her head when she crept down the stairs, but trying to remember where the Super Super Glue was kept was replaced with panic when she saw that the kitchen light was on. She stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding, and had to talk herself into taking the seventeen more steps necessary to reach the kitchen door.

Had she accidentally turned the kitchen light on in her sleep? Was it the Trunchbull? Was it her father?

Was it the monster?

Instead of a hulking, dark shape lurking in the kitchen, or a large woman in olive drab stuffing chocolate cake into her mouth, or a short balding man dragging a television in through the back door, Matilda saw a thin figure in a nightgown and a sweater hunched over a steaming cup of tea at the table.

“Miss Honey?” Matilda whispered before she could stop herself.

Miss Honey jumped and whirled around, her eyes wide with panic for a moment before she saw who had startled her. She put a hand to her chest and blew out a breath, then smiled shakily.

“Matilda,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come downstairs.”

She had dark circles under her eyes, and her smile faltered as she looked Matilda over.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Miss Honey asked quietly.

Matilda took a tiny step into the kitchen, her eyes automatically going to the back door, looking for broken glass, turned locks, splintered wood.

“Yes,” Matilda lied at a whisper.

Miss Honey beckoned her over and gently took her hands.

“You don’t have to say you’re okay if you’re not,” she murmured.

Matilda didn’t know what to say to that, so she stayed quiet, a tug at her mind reminding her that she hadn’t double, triple, quadruple checked any of the doors or windows.

“I…” Matilda trailed off. She didn’t dare take her hands back from Miss Honey, but her skin crawled every second the door stayed unchecked.

“Do you want some tea?” Miss Honey asked gently, not seeing her discomfort.

“I need to check the doors,” Matilda finally blurted, then blushed and took her hands back and clasped them together behind her back. “And the windows.”

Miss Honey looked surprised. “Oh. Okay. Did you hear something?”

“I always have to check them,” Matilda explained, feeling very small and foolish.

“Every night?”

Matilda shook her head and took a half step towards the door. “Just after I…” She shrugged.

“After you have a nightmare?” Miss Honey asked.

Matilda nodded before she even processed Miss Honey’s question. She gave in and went to the door, unlocking it, opening it, closing it, and relocking it four times before she was satisfied, and only then did she realize what Jenny had asked.

She turned around and saw Jenny watching her and she put her hands behind her back again and felt her cheeks heat up.

“I know it’s weird,” she said defensively, and headed for the front door.

She heard footsteps following her through the dining room, the parlor, the foyer.

Unlock. Open. Peek outside. Close. Lock.

Unlock. Open. Peek outside. Close. Lock.

Unlock. Open. Peek outside. Close. Lock.

Unlock. Open. Peek outside. Close. Lock.

When she was satisfied she turned around slowly, not at all excited to have the conversation she knew was coming.

Instead of lecturing her for being up so late, keeping her nightmares secret, and making a mess, Miss Honey held out a hand.

“Let’s do all of your checks,” she said, “and then make some cookies.”

“It’s late,” Matilda said, taking her proffered hand. “You should be asleep.”

Miss Honey laughed. “It is late,” she agreed, “but I’ll be alright if I put off bedtime for cookies.”

Miss Honey (Jenny, sometimes Mom) let Matilda lead her through the house. They checked the locks on all of the windows, the door down to the cellar, and the back staircase. They carefully quadruple checked that the bedroom that used to be the Trunchbull’s was completely empty, and then locked it up tight again. When Matilda pulled the copies of the adoption papers from the file cabinet in the study she heard Miss Honey’s sharp intake of breath, but she didn’t say anything.

They didn’t speak much until the cookie dough was ready. They put the bowl in the middle of the table and sat on either side, rolling scoops of dough between their palms before placing the balls on cookie sheets.

“This was my father’s favorite cure for nightmares,” Jenny said.

“My dad believes only wimps get nightmares,” Matilda whispered, her hands stilling and warming the dough between her palms.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Jenny said. “Everyone gets them.”

“Do you?” Matilda asked.

Jenny’s smile faltered. “Yes,” she said. “Terrible ones. But you and I aren’t… wimps,” she said, chuckling a little at the word.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Matilda said solemnly.

Jenny put down the ball of dough and turned to face Matilda. “Sweetheart, listen to me. We are safe here. Everyone who ever wanted to hurt us is gone now. You don’t need to be afraid.”

“You are,” Matilda said. She hadn’t meant it to come out as accusatory as it had.

Jenny let out a long breath. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “even if you know you don’t need to be afraid, you still are, because you’ve been afraid for so long that your brain doesn’t know how to do much else. I was afraid for so long I’ve forgotten how to not be.”

Matilda nodded slowly.

Jenny scooped up some dough with her fingers. “When I went away to college,” she said, “it was the first time I had ever been free of my aunt to any degree. I did alright until about my third week, and then it hit me that I had done it. I had escaped.” She carefully placed the dough on the cookie sheet. “I kept remembering everything bad my aunt had ever done to me. I missed class for two weeks because I was so afraid she would come looking for me, and dragged my dresser in front of my bedroom door every night. And you know what?”

“What?” Matilda asked.

“She never came looking for me,” Jenny said with a little smile. “Eventually I could go to class again. Eventually I could sleep without barricading the door. I didn’t stop being afraid, but I was able to work around my fear. When I came back after graduating and saw my aunt again it was my choice. I didn’t want her to get away with all of the bad things she did. And I was still afraid, but I had escaped once, and I knew I could do it again.”

Matilda thought about that for a minute, trying to get at what Jenny was saying.

“You don’t think I should check the doors anymore,” she guessed.

“You check the doors as often as you need to feel safe,” Jenny said gently. “I want you to know that you’re not alone in this. I’m afraid, too. But you and I, we’ll survive.”

“I don’t want people to think I’m weak,” Matilda whispered, looking down at her hands.

Jenny smiled. “Matilda,” she said, and Matilda looked up at her, trying to hide her trembling lower lip behind her hand. “You are very smart, and very mature for your age. But, my dear, sweet girl, you are not a grownup. You don’t need to take the world on your shoulders, or try to be anything except a seven year old. And sometimes seven year olds get scared. Why, even twenty-seven year olds get scared. We will be alright. You have my word.”

She held her hands out and Matilda leaned over in her chair until Jenny could hug her tight.

“I love you, Jenny,” Matilda whispered.

“I love you, too, sweetheart,” Jenny murmured.

Matilda slept restlessly when she went back to bed, but she did fall asleep.

Jenny lay awake until dawn, hoping and praying that she and Matilda were indeed free of Agatha Trunchbull and the Wormwoods.

Chapter Text

Matilda’s nightmares didn’t stop. Jenny had hoped that talking about them would lessen their severity, but they actually seemed to get worse. No matter how securely everything dangerous in her bedroom was tied down, they came loose during the next nightmare. The ribbons that had tried to grab at her feet actually did a few times during some of the more terrifying nightmares. Matilda stopped wearing ribbons in her hair and threw them out.

Every day when she and Jenny made it to school, an hour and a half before even the most overachieving students would show up, Matilda lay on the sofa in Jenny’s headmistress office, tried to ignore the patch of smooth plaster just a few yards away where the Chokey had been sealed up, and fell back asleep for another two hours until her friends got there.

She wasn’t in a class with kids her age anymore, and the older kids mostly ignored her except when they had to help her reach something. She guessed it had as much to do with her being the headmistress’s daughter as it did with her young age and precociousness. But her old friends were enough for her. Bruce and Lavender and Amanda kept all the secrets she told them and weren’t afraid to bring up the telekinesis. Hortensia was in the other sixth grade class and kept an eye out for her.

In another life she would have been on the lam in Central America, teaching herself out of books borrowed from the library or filched from bookstores and having only Michael and the Wormwoods for company. She tried not to think about that too much.

Of course, the more Matilda tried not to think about Harry and Zinnia (never, ever Dad and Mom), the more she found herself thinking about them. If she didn’t keep her mind occupied at all times their faces, scrunched up in rage and disappointment, flashed behind her eyelids with every blink. On bad days the Trunchbull was added alongside them, and any time she had to go into a closet or narrow passageway she smelled mildew and rot and knew there were rusty nails a centimeter from her ribs and shards of glass behind her head.

All of the students at Crunchem (except the incoming kindergarteners, the lucky devils) felt the same things, Matilda knew. Some worse. One of her sixth grade classmates, a skinny kid with a perpetually runny nose and big glasses, flinched and covered his head with his arms any time a book fell off a desk or someone stomped on the wooden floors of the gym. Bruce didn’t bring chocolate or cake in his lunch anymore, and paled any time he smelled it. Amanda came back to school after Thanksgiving break with her hair cut to her chin. For a while students transferred to other schools regularly, unable to cope with the school even in this new light. It worked out, though. Word had gotten around of Trunchbull’s disappearance and so many kids wanted to go to Crunchem Hall that places were filled within two days of a student leaving.

Matilda’s checking had gotten worse. She now checked the doors and windows every night before going to bed, and again if she woke up from a nightmare. When Jenny lay awake at night hoping to coax herself into getting some sleep she frequently heard tiptoeing footsteps emerge from Matilda’s room and then the click-creak-thump-click-repeat of her checking Agatha’s old bedroom.

Jenny frequently found herself staring out the windows in the parlor at a handmade swing hanging from the tree there, her mind having gone blank and not knowing how long she had been staring at it.

Matilda and Jenny were constantly exhausted. Neither of them got much sleep anymore, and the sleep they did get was fretful and unrefreshing. Matilda’s teacher had pulled aside Jenny in the staff room a few times and informed her gently, his brows pulled together in concern, that Matilda had been falling asleep during quiet reading time lately. The first time, Jenny had told him about the nightmares and the checking, leaving out the telekinesis and her own sleep troubles. Ben had given Jenny a sad smile, squeezed her arm, and began letting her know when Matilda’s compulsions in class were particularly distressing or time-consuming.

One night, nearly a year after her adoption, Matilda woke up from a nightmare screaming. She’d never done that before, and Jenny rushed into the room, her mind helpfully providing a thousand possible ways Matilda could be actively dying, and found the girl curled up tight in a ball, her eyes wide and breathing hard and fast. When Jenny gathered her up in her arms Matilda clung tight to her, her fingers tightening in the fabric of Jenny’s nightgown, and cried hard for five minutes before she wordlessly pulled away and frantically checked her bedroom windows, then set off to check the rest of the house. Jenny followed her worriedly as she particularly paid attention to the front door, unlocking-opening-peeking out-closing-locking-repeating so many times Jenny lost count. When the rounds were done Jenny expected her to go back to her room and gather up Lissy Doll to calm herself down, but instead she went right back to the front door and started all over again.

When Matilda finally made her way back to her bedroom an hour later, Jenny sat in the rocking chair and let her climb up into her lap. Jenny rocked her, humming as soothing a tune as she could muster.

Since waking up Matilda hadn’t said a single word.

Jenny was nearly asleep when Matilda whispered, “It got me.”

Jenny stilled her rocking. “The monster?”

“Yes,” Matilda whispered. “It got me, and then I saw the world in third person and watched it get you.”

“Where was it?” Jenny asked.

Matilda hesitated. “Here,” she said after a long time. “It was in the house.”

Jenny’s eyes landed on the calendar hung over Matilda’s desk in the corner and saw the date circled several times in red marker. She let out a heavy breath. One year ago come midnight Agatha had been chased out of town.

“It’s not here,” Jenny said soothingly. “It’s just us in the house. No monsters.”

“I tried to fight it,” Matilda said, her voice hoarse and starting to sound panicked. Jenny stilled. Matilda had never told her about fighting the monster before. “I threw javelins and furniture at it and they just passed right through.” She shivered. “Nothing could touch it and it still got us.”

Jenny rubbed Matilda’s back. She thought for a long time. “Matilda,” she murmured after a while. “If I made an appointment with a therapist for you would you go?”

“Why?”

Jenny let out a breath before responding. “I’m worried about your nightmares. They’re getting worse. I want you to be able to sleep at night. A therapist might be able to help you with that.”

Matilda considered this for a long time. “Do I tell them about my powers?” she asked quietly.

“It’s up to you,” Jenny said.

“What if they think something is wrong with me?” Matilda asked, her voice very small.

Jenny hugged her tight in absence of a good answer.

“Will they lock me up?”

“No, sweetheart,” Jenny said quickly. “I won’t let them. I give you my word.”

Matilda was quiet for so long Jenny wondered if she had fallen asleep. Finally, though, her very small voice woke Jenny up just before she fell all the way asleep herself.

“Okay,” Matilda whispered. “I’ll go.”

Jenny smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured, and smoothed Matilda’s hair off her forehead. “I’m very proud of you.”

Matilda shivered. “Can we check her room one more time?”

Jenny kissed her forehead. “Yes, and then we both need to go to bed.”

“What about the mess?” Matilda asked, gesturing to the shards of Lissy Doll’s arm under the window and the clothes scattered around the room.

“It can wait until the morning if you can,” Jenny said, gently pushing her off her lap.

Chapter Text

At the end of Matilda’s first therapy session Dr. Philipsen poked her head out of her office and gestured Jenny inside. Matilda sat in a comfortable armchair with her feet dangling a foot off the ground, her eyes red, but gave Jenny a big watery smile.

“How did it go?” Jenny asked.

“I like Dr. Philipsen,” Matilda said.

“You can call me Yvette, Matilda,” the doctor said with a wide smile. “Is it okay if I tell your mom a little of what we talked about?” she asked Matilda.

Matilda nodded. “She knows about the nightmares.”

“Good,” Yvette said. “Miss Honey, Matilda and I talked about her nightmares and a little about her birth parents.”

Jenny nodded.

“I noticed some patterns in what Matilda told me,” Yvette said, and turned to Matilda. “Do you want to tell her what I think?”

“Yvette thinks I should be assessed for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Matilda said. Her eyes weren’t as red now, and she sat up a little straighter now than before her session.

“I see,” Jenny said, not particularly surprised. A friend in college had had OCD, and though his compulsions were different they had the same fervor as Matilda’s checking.

“We can do that today if Matilda is up for it,” Yvette said, looking to Matilda for her thoughts. “Or we can hold off until a later date.”

Matilda nodded quickly. “I want to do it now.”

Jenny smiled. “It’s not a test like the ones at school,” she said, and Matilda laughed and stuck out her tongue. It occurred to Jenny that she hadn’t heard that sound in months except when Matilda was with her friends outside of school and her house.

Yvette got Matilda set up with the written assessments and left the room for a few minutes, joining Jenny in the small waiting area.

After a couple of minutes of small talk, Yvette pursed her lips. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping at all, but Matilda told me some of what she knows about your past,” she said.

“Oh,” Jenny said, blushing.

“I believe you may benefit from therapy as well,” Yvette said gently. “If you like I can refer you to a colleague. We prefer that one psychologist doesn’t work with multiple members of a family except in family therapy, when everyone meets together.”

Jenny let out a breath. “I would be interested, yes,” she said quietly.

Yvette cleared her throat. “I also have some ideas about mitigating Matilda’s nightmares,” she said.

Jenny leaned forward. “Oh, yes, by all means.”

“Sometimes in children, especially when there is a compulsive element afterwards, changing location can be beneficial,” Yvette said.

“Changing locations?” Jenny asked, not quite getting what Yvette was hinting at.

Yvette floundered for a moment, considering her words, and then said, “Sometimes rearranging bedroom furniture is sufficient. Sometimes moving the child to a different bedroom can help.” She hesitated for a moment, then continued. “In some extreme cases, the best way to help is to move houses altogether.”

Jenny gasped. She had never once considered leaving her father’s house for good.

Yvette started to reassure her when Matilda poked her head out of the office. “I’m done,” she said, and Yvette stood.

“We’ll be back in a little bit,” she told Jenny with a kind smile, and left her alone with her thoughts.

When Matilda and Yvette emerged an hour later Jenny had compiled a mental list of ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of moving houses.

She would be leaving her father’s house, the house she had grown up in, but she would also be leaving behind the setting of most of her traumatic childhood memories.

They could afford to move, but would it even help?

As Matilda and Jenny arrived home a while later, Matilda with three books and a small mountain of literature about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in her backpack, Jenny took a detour into the parlor as Matilda dashed up the stairs to start reading.

Jenny looked up at her father’s portrait above the fireplace. She’d always thought he was handsome, and she flattered herself every now and then by thinking she had his eyes. What would he say if he could see her right now? Contemplating selling his house because the memories were too much? What would he say if he found out his Bumblebee was grown and educated and still a pathetic little girl inside?

After only a few minutes her father’s calm gaze, usually a comfort, grew to be too much and she turned away.

One step at a time.

“Matilda,” she called from the entryway, and a moment later Matilda appeared at the upstairs railing.

“Yes?” She had a book in her hands, still open.

“Yvette suggested we try a different bedroom tonight,” Jenny said.

Matilda shifted on her feet. “Which one?” she asked nervously.

“Whichever you want,” Jenny said.

Matilda looked down the hall, considering her options. “Can we put my bed in the study?”

Jenny smiled. “If we do, will you sleep instead of staying up late to read?”

Matilda laughed, caught red handed. “Maybe.”

Chapter Text

“99… 98…”

The voice echoed through the second floor hall of Crunchem Elementary, crackling a little through the intercom system. Matilda knew what would happen when it got to zero.

She was walking eastward down the hall slowly, toward the back stairs, the heels of her shoes clicking on the tiles. She knew the classrooms around her were empty. She didn’t know how she knew that.

The walls on this floor had been painted canary yellow and sky blue, and brightly colored hot air balloons cut out of construction paper decorated the doors of each room and displayed the name of the teacher and the grade taught.

“87… 86…”

She felt a breeze as something rushed by close behind her, crossing left to right and ruffling her hair. The wind was much colder than the air in the school. She heard a thud as the door to Room 207, which she had just passed, slammed closed.

“83… 82…”

Room 211 slammed closed after another whoosh behind Matilda. Then Room 214.

“75… 74…”

She waited until the next gust of wind and then turned on her heel quickly, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was stalking her, but was met with an empty hall. She realized instantly that the hall before her now wasn’t the same hallway she had been walking down. This one was drab and lifeless, with bare, dingy, grey walls, dirty floors, water-stained ceiling tiles. A light farther down was flickering meekly and several others had gone out.

Matilda’s heart pounded. She looked over her shoulder back the way she had been walking, and saw canary yellow and sky blue, hot air balloons.

“63… 62…”

She turned back towards the empty, dark hallway just in time to see the last wisps of a shadow retreat into a classroom and the door close. She took a step towards the classroom and instantly all of the classroom doors opened in unison. They seemed to wave, some creaking forward and back slightly, others stock still, but when Matilda took another step forward all of the doors slammed closed in haunting unison, louder than anything she’d ever heard. She heard the sound coming from behind her, too.

She took a third step toward the classroom she’d seen the shadow dart into, her heart pounding, and a huge, freezing wind caught her up in a cyclone, spinning her around 180º and pushing her back towards the canary yellow and sky blue.

“54… 53…”

Matilda passed Room 218 and heard shouting inside. She stopped and listened. The voice was muffled but she could understand with frightening clarity what was being shouted.

“You didn’t like the Chokey, did you? Thought you’d pay me back, didn’t you? Well, I’ll pay you back, young lady.”

Matilda gasped and ran down the hall. Each time she looked back she saw the dingy, lifeless hallway. Every few steps there was another whoosh of wind and a door slammed.

“47… 46…”

The far stairwell was no closer than it had been when she started walking, and she was passing classrooms now that she didn’t recognize.

She heard heavy, wet breathing close behind her suddenly and shrieked. She darted into a classroom, Room 278, and slammed the door. She held onto the doorknob for a long time, breathing heavily, before she heard the voice again, still counting.

“32… 31…”

She let go and stared at the doorknob, recognition slowly dawning over her. It was angular and made of fake crystal, the wood around it scuffed from big rings and years of abuse. She slowly turned around, holding her breath, and when she saw where she was she gasped and her breath hitched in her chest.

Mottled beige carpet. Damask couches and chairs. Gaudy lamps and decorations. A kitchen in yellows and greens at the far side of the sunken living room.

“29… 28…”

The voice counting down was coming from the radio now, tinny and almost musical.

Matilda dashed around the perimeter of the sunken room, heading for the back hallway. She heard heavy breathing close behind her, moving fast, and didn’t turn around.

Just before reaching the hallway a lightbulb overhead burst in a shower of sparks and broken glass. She shrieked and stopped in her tracks. When she looked up again she saw a dark shape flit into her bedroom at the end of the hall.

She headed back towards the kitchen. If she was going to fight back she wanted to be somewhere with knives.

“20… 19…”

The TV turned on with a loud ‘ksshhhh’. Matilda saw her father’s face twisted with rage as he shouted out of the screen and she stopped dead to see.

“I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right and you’re wrong. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

A chill ran through Matilda and she heard a loud thump down the hall. She didn’t stop to see what had made it, just turned back towards the kitchen.

“9… 8…”

Harry Wormwood was shouting the numbers counting down now, glaring out of the screen.

Matilda rummaged frantically through the drawers in the kitchen, seeing a thousand unnecessary kitchen gadgets and pieces of junk but not a single knife. Finally she found a corkscrew and brandished it towards the monster she knew was advancing.

She heard it snarling as it grew nearer, but couldn’t see it.

“Two.”

“Don’t!” she yelled.

“One.”

The monster began laughing, several voices overlapping.

“Please!” Matilda shrieked.

“Too late,” a sinister voice whispered, and everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Jenny sprinted down the hall to the study, her heart beating out of her chest. She’d been woken up by the study door opening and slamming, was wide awake by the second slam, then got out of bed at the sound of glass shattering, and finally Matilda screaming sent her running.

“Please!” Matilda screamed, and a huge crash inside the study a moment later stopped Jenny in her tracks.

The house was dead silent for a long moment and Jenny couldn’t move for fear of what she might find if she opened the study door. There were huge bookshelves in there that weren’t built into the walls, and other heavy furniture.

What if…

“Jenny?” Matilda called, sounding panicked.

Jenny finally unfroze and opened the door and flicked on the light.

The first thing she saw was a bookshelf, or rather, the back of one. The shelf that had been on the far wall had tipped forward, sending a hundred leather bound books to the ground. One corner had caught on the desk in the middle of the room, tipping the whole thing almost onto Matilda’s mattress on the floor nearby.

Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Matilda!” she cried, more terrified than she had ever been before.

“Jenny!” Matilda was curled up on her side under the covers, her knees pulled up to her chest, and was trembling, her eyes wide. She threw a hand toward Jenny, who rushed over.

“Matilda, sweetheart, are you okay?” Jenny asked in a rush. She threw the covers back and scanned Matilda for any injuries, and when she saw no obvious ones she gathered her up in her arms and held her close, her heart pounding and entire body panicking.

“I’m okay,” Matilda said, her voice very small. “I’m okay.”

Jenny rearranged them so she could sit more comfortably and so she could see Matilda to more thoroughly check her over. She gasped and swept Matilda’s hair out of her eyes.

“You’ve got a cut,” Jenny said, and Matilda’s hand automatically went right to the short gash above her eyebrow. She hissed in pain and Jenny gently pushed her hand away. “Don’t touch, we don’t want it to get infected,” she said.

Matilda looked out into the rest of the room and her eyes widened again. “Oh no,” she whispered.

Jenny followed her gaze and saw the bookshelf and books, but shards of glass under the window and books from other shelves scattered around. She paled when she saw what had apparently broken the window.

A small iron ball, maybe four inches in diameter.

Jenny’s stomach dropped out from under her. A shot put.

They had gotten rid of all of the ones in the house. Hadn’t they?

“Where did that come from?” Jenny whispered.

“I don’t know,” Matilda whispered back, sounding terrified.

Jenny gently deposited Matilda back onto the mattress and rose to a crouch. She carefully walked across the room, careful to stay out of a direct line to the broken window. She sidestepped around the perimeter of the room until she could get a good look out the window.

“Jenny!” Matilda hissed.

Jenny looked back to see Matilda risen up on her knees, watching Jenny with alarm. Jenny put her finger to her lips and looked back out the window.

She scanned the thin woods around the house, looking for hulking shapes lurking behind a tree, a car idling in the driveway, any indication that Agatha had come back.

She couldn’t see anything, but she’d learned a long time ago to trust all of her instincts when it came to sensing danger.

She didn’t sense anyone out there.

Jenny backed down, going back to Matilda and helping her up.

“What was out there?” Matilda asked quietly, clutching Jenny’s hand tight with both of her own.

“Nothing I could see,” Jenny replied. “I don’t think she’s here.”

She bent to pick up Lissy Doll and Matilda’s pillow, then led the way out of the study, flicking off the light as they left.

“The books…” Matilda said, looking over her shoulder as Jenny closed the door.

“We can clean it up in the morning. They’ll be fine,” Jenny soothed.

They left the doll and Matilda’s pillow in Jenny’s room before going off to check all the doors and windows. Matilda reluctantly let go of Jenny’s hand to heave open each heavy door and window, then snatched it up again while they walked to the next one.

Finally, an hour later, Matilda closed her eyes and slipped into a dreamless sleep, covered with Jenny’s peach crocheted blanket and cuddling Lissy Doll. Jenny herself sat awake in the small armchair in the corner of her bedroom, watching Matilda and debating with herself.

Early the next morning, just as there was enough light to really see by, Jenny got dressed and slipped out of the house. She carried something she never thought she’d hold as protection: a baseball bat.

She crept around the side of the house, eyes darting about for any indication of who or what had thrown the heavy iron ball through the window the night before.

There was a broken hedge branch here, a misplaced rock there, but no footprints, no debris.

Jenny made it all the way to the far corner of the house, the kitchen door just yards away, when she heard a twig snap. She spun around, her heart in her throat, and couldn’t even get the bat upright before she saw what had made the noise.

She let out a hard breath, dropped the bat to the ground, and put a hand over her heart.

“Matilda,” she said. “Don’t scare me like that.”

Matilda didn’t smile, just walked up close, looking pale and anxious. “What are you doing?”

Jenny considered her words carefully. “I’m trying to find where the shot put came from.”

Matilda nodded knowingly. “You think Agatha came back,” she said.

Jenny hesitated, not wanting to confirm. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I want to be as sure as I can either way.”

Matilda picked up the bat. “Maybe I should hold on to this,” she said solemnly, testing its weight in her hands.

Jenny put a hand on her shoulder. “You should go inside. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“But I can watch your back,” Matilda protested. “I can keep you safe, Jenny.”

Jenny smiled, incredibly touched. “Well. Alright,” she said, “but be careful with that bat. I broke Sam Henderson’s nose with it when I was in third grade.”

Matilda looked impressed and turned over the bat in her hands.

They crept around the house together, Matilda holding the bat aloft and Jenny searching through the underbrush and weeds for any indication of an intruder. After twenty minutes of searching, just when Jenny’s eyes were getting tired, she saw something, fifteen yards from the house, within sight of the broken window in the study.

There was a shallow hole under an overgrown hedge, maybe five inches in diameter. It wasn’t a perfectly round hole, but the depression in the dirt was, and a patch of grass that looked like it had covered a small mound lay nearby as if it were a piece of discarded fabric.

Matilda crouched next to the hedge and examined the hole, then squinted up at the study window. She pointed at the broken window, closed one eye, and traced an arc with her finger down to the hole in the dirt.

“This is where it came from,” she said. She absentmindedly reached up and rubbed the back of her head. “I think I did it,” she whispered.

Jenny knelt. “Are you sure?”

Matilda shook her head and searched the back of the house again. “No. But I think it was me.” She traced another path from the hole to the house and pointed at another set of windows, two bays over from the study. “There,” she said. One of the transom windows had been covered by a piece of bare plywood, though Jenny couldn’t remember doing that.

Jenny had to mentally retrace the rooms corresponding to the windows before she gasped. It was Aunt Agatha’s room, now empty and locked up tight.

“That’s where it came from,” Matilda said. She shivered and looked down at the hole.

Jenny followed suit, looking closer at the patch of grass. “It looks like it had been there for a while. She must have forgotten about it and left it there,” Jenny murmured, mostly to herself.

Matilda’s shoulders suddenly relaxed and she stood, smiling triumphantly. Jenny stood, not sure why Matilda was alright so suddenly.

“She wasn’t here,” Matilda said in explanation. “Not last night, at least.”

Jenny smiled, but the pit of her stomach stayed knotted, and for a different reason this time. She hugged Matilda, refusing to let her apprehension show. “Let’s get some breakfast, okay?”

Matilda grinned and scampered off, dragging the baseball bat behind her, and Jenny followed, walking slowly. She couldn’t help but look up at the boarded-up window and scan the trees surrounding the property a few times. She couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that they were being watched.

Chapter Text

Jenny began therapy, and Matilda continued on with Yvette. Matilda liked her; they didn’t always talk about the Trunchbull or the Wormwoods. Sometimes they drew pictures or talked about school and Matilda’s friends or what Matilda wanted to be when she grew up. Of course, she knew what Yvette was doing. She’d read all kinds of psychology and art therapy books.

Jenny and Matilda’s therapy sessions were always at the same time, in the same clinic. Matilda would emerge from hers with a book Yvette had lent her and occasionally a drawing, and Jenny would emerge from her own with a tissue held to her nose and a watery smile to greet Matilda. They never talked about what had happened in their own sessions.

The nightmares continued, even once Matilda and Jenny swapped bedrooms, even when Jenny slept in her armchair two yards away from where Matilda slept in her bed, even when they both relocated to pallets in the parlor, or the kitchen, or the hallway. Telekinetic destruction followed them everywhere, and each time Jenny woke to the thud of books or furniture she was certain it was going to be the time when a heavy piece of furniture crushed Matilda beneath its weight.

No more shot puts crashed through windows, though, and neither of them had been injured again since that first night in the study.

Matilda’s compulsions had started spilling over into parts of her life that had nothing to do with keeping the house safe and secure. She started needing to put her socks on left-right and her shoes on right-left. Her backpack needed to be packed with her homeroom folder at the very back, then her math and science folder, then her English and social studies folder, then whatever textbooks she had brought home, then whatever books she was reading for fun, then her pencil case, and then her lunch on top just under the zipper. Her teacher had pulled Jenny aside one day and informed her that Matilda had spent ten minutes on an in-class assignment that morning making sure her name was written just-so at the top of the page, writing and erasing over and over so many times that the paper had eventually torn and she had needed a new copy of the worksheet.

They were both exhausted all day. Jenny found herself sleeping through her lunch breaks accidentally and nodding off during staff meetings she was supposed to be leading. Matilda had taken to laying down for a nap immediately after school in Jenny’s office until it came time to walk home. Luckily, Jenny could rest easy during Matilda’s naps; she was always so exhausted she had no dreams, let alone nightmares, and nothing supernatural happened during them.

Eventually, Jenny couldn’t lie to herself any longer. She could no longer pretend that staying in her childhood home was good for either of them.

They had just walked into the house one day, both weary from sleep deprivation and a long day at school. Matilda had made a beeline to her room to drop off her backpack and then joined Jenny in the kitchen to start dinner.

Jenny was chopping carrots and Matilda was scrubbing potatoes when they heard a clatter behind them. Matilda whirled around, a hand automatically coming up to shield her throat. Jenny turned around as well, her heart in her throat, and watched as the door concealing the back staircase creaked open as a broom and an old box of records thumped down the stairs. The box hit the kitchen floor and split open, vinyl records spilling and rolling across the tile, a few shattering.

They both waited, holding their breaths, for Agatha to come clattering down the stairs after the items, but nothing came. No footsteps, no avalanche of other miscellany, no yelling. Just a mouse, hurrying down the last few steps and disappearing into a hole in the baseboards.

Jenny let out a shaky breath and glanced at Matilda, then immediately gasped again.

Jenny’s chef’s knife, which she had been using to chop carrots just a moment ago, and every other knife from the knife block, and a meat tenderizer, and even a corkscrew hovered in the air in an arc around Matilda, all pointed at the staircase. Matilda was breathing hard, her eyes wide and staring at the records scattered around the room.

“Matilda,” Jenny murmured.

Matilda blinked and seemed to realize what had happened. Slowly all of the weapons hovering around her lowered to the counter or the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Matilda whispered.

“Sweetheart,” Jenny said, and held out a hand. “Let’s go sit down for a minute.”

Matilda crossed the room cautiously, seeming to deliberate each and every step, and took Jenny’s hand. Jenny gently led her out to the parlor and sat on a sofa. Matilda still breathed hard, and it looked like she was slowly coming back to herself. In time her eyes finally focused on Jenny.

“I’m okay,” she said before Jenny could even ask.

“Matilda,” Jenny said slowly, considering each word carefully before speaking it. “I think it may be time we seriously consider moving to a different house.”

Matilda’s eyes widened anew. “But you love this house,” she said.

Jenny smiled sadly. “I do. This is the house where I spent the best years of my life, with my parents and later just my father, and then again here with you. But this is also where I spent the worst years of my life, living under Aunt Agatha’s thumb.”

Matilda nodded.

“You had some very bad experiences in this house, too,” Jenny pointed out. “Not only when Agatha lived here, but with the nightmares as well. Can I ask you a question about your nightmares?”

Matilda nodded again.

“Do you have nightmares when you nap at the school?”

Matilda slowly shook her head. “No, never,” she whispered.

“Yvette told me that in some cases the best thing for nightmares is to move houses completely,” Jenny said gently.

“But Agatha’s not here anymore,” Matilda said. “And my parents never came here except to take me to Guam.”

“Maybe so,” Jenny said. “But you still feel echoes of the bad stuff here, don’t you? Like just now with the staircase?”

Matilda blew out a long breath. “Yes,” she whispered, looking very small.

“So do I,” Jenny said. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I think it may be best for both of us.”

Matilda went quiet, and then after a long stretch of thinking, she looked heartbroken. “Do we have to leave Crunchem Hall?”

“No, no, sweetheart,” Jenny murmured soothingly, smoothing Matilda’s bangs. “We would move to another house here in town.”

Matilda had barely processed this when she sat up straighter. “Let’s do it,” she said, her confident voice only faltering a little bit.

Jenny smiled wide. “I’m so proud of you, Matilda,” she said.

“Why?” Matilda asked.

“You are so incredibly brave,” Jenny said, feeling her conviction in her bones.

“No I’m not,” Matilda answered. “Brave people don’t run away from their problems.”

Jenny pursed her lips in thought. “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is take steps to get better,” she said. “Us moving is us taking steps toward being okay. We aren’t helping anyone staying in this house.”

Jenny patted Matilda’s knee and left her to think about it. She went back into the kitchen and cleaned up the knives and broken records, then went to her cutting board and resumed chopping carrots.

She was moving on to the celery when Matilda reappeared silently, scrubbing potatoes again at the sink.

“Can we get an aquarium at our new house?” she asked quietly several minutes later. “A big one?”

Chapter Text

They moved into their new house a month later.

It was an L-shaped house that looked like a single story from the cul-de-sac, but two of the bedrooms were in the lower level hidden in the back, each with sliding doors leading into the backyard. The rooms upstairs all had tall, vaulted ceilings and huge windows, and the kitchen was big. Old trellises hung on the front of the house, and Matilda and Jenny planned to grow roses on them and herbs in the garden plot under the kitchen windows. Along the entire back of the house was a deck that looked out over the backyard and a park. It even had a small wood-paneled study, with built-in bookshelves.

It was too big for just the two of them, but they didn’t care. It was perfect otherwise. The rooms were full of sunlight during the day, and at night they could curl up in the study or their bedrooms with books or a board game.

But most importantly, Matilda’s nightmares all but vanished.

It took some time, of course. The first night in their new home she had a nightmare, but one she’d had before, and when she awoke she felt the need to only check the doors in the house, not the windows. Her telekinetic destruction was smaller than usual, too.

By the end of the first week she was sleeping through the night. In the mornings she reported nightmares, but they hadn’t woken her up and had eventually morphed into neutral dreams. Ten days after moving she slept through the night without breaking or throwing anything.

Two weeks in she had a setback, a couple of days where she was once again woken by her nightmares to find laundry thrown around or books swept off her desk, but after a couple of days those subsided, too.

And Jenny was finally able to sleep. Somewhere in the year and a half since she’d adopted Matilda her sleep issues had shifted from being solely about her own trauma to worrying about Matilda’s too, and then the addition of slow-creeping guilt over maybe leaving her childhood home had compounded all that. But the moment she was handed the keys to their new home most of that guilt faded, and when Matilda slept through the night her worries about that faded too, until she was left only with her own childhood trauma and the barest remainder of those worries and guilt. As Matilda became able to sleep restfully her guilt faded even further, bolstered by the knowledge that she had done the right thing.

And then all that was left was Jenny, eight years old, wrist in a plaster cast, dreading going home at the end of the day. Jenny, twelve years old and meek, making up excuses to stay home while Agatha went to the school without her. Jenny, seventeen years old and announcing her university acceptance, her voice shaking with the hope of escape and fear that she wouldn’t be allowed to go. Jenny, twenty-two years old and once again dreading going home, hoping with sick pleasure that Agatha hadn’t woken up that morning. Jenny, twenty-three years old and stepping back into the school as a role model, vowing silently to be a respite from abuse for anyone who needed it and still feeling her heart pound every moment she stood in the same building as Agatha. Jenny, twenty-seven and free, hearing phantom insults every time she filled her plate with food until she scraped much of it back into the pan. 

And even those Jennys were fading, not in shape or movement but in intensity, washing out bit by bit, growing more comfortable, more impartial.

She hung her father’s portrait over the mantle. Matilda placed Lissy Doll, her china face now chipped and scuffed, one porcelain arm replaced with red stuffed fabric, next to the portrait.

Magnus’s calm gaze watched over Matilda and Jenny while they read and graded papers, and the portrait gave them both a sense of security. 

It was Magnus, after all, who chased Agatha away.

Chapter Text

“Would you rather… hmm,” Matilda hummed in thought, stretching her hands above her head and watching the silhouettes move backdropped against the dark living room ceiling. “Would you rather eat a bucket of crickets or swim in shark infested waters?” she asked, dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Lavender gasped. “No!” she laughed. “Neither!”

“You have to pick one!” Matilda said.

The girls hadn’t had a sleepover since before Matilda was adopted by Jenny, and even then it was at Lavender’s house. Matilda had never once hosted a sleepover, and figured it would be easiest to have just one guest the first time.

Lavender squirmed in her sleeping bag, giggling. “I think, maybe… No! I can’t pick.”

“Just pick one. On the count of three, say whichever pops into your head,” Matilda said. “Ready, one, two, three!”

“Sharks!” Lavender said, and they both laughed.

“Okay, your turn,” Matilda said, turning over onto her stomach. “Ask me one.”

“Would you rather… be stuck singing everything you said, or dancing all the time instead of walking?” Lavender asked.

Matilda hummed. “Can I stop dancing to go to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Am I a good singer?”

“No.”

“Mmm… singing all the time,” Matilda said.

Lavender nodded, and Matilda could barely see the movement in the dark. Matilda waited for her to say what she would do, but after a long moment Lavender just sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Matilda asked.

“You’re really lucky, you know,” Lavender said quietly.

“How come?”

Lavender hesitated before answering. “You get to live with Miss Honey.”

Matilda smiled and lay back again, folding her hands under her head. “Yeah.”

“I wish I could live here, too,” Lavender murmured, sounding sad.

“Why?”

“My dad has been gone a lot,” Lavender answered, and her voice broke when she continued. “When he comes home he smells like smoke and beer and he gets mean.”

Matilda didn’t ask about her mom. She knew Lavender had never really had a mom. Just her mean dad and his cases of liquor hidden under his bed he didn’t know Lavender knew about.

Matilda sat up. “Come here,” she said, and when Lavender sat up she hugged her tight.

Lavender sniffled. “I didn’t mean to bring it up. Let’s talk about something else.”

Matilda nodded solemnly. She lay back down, pulling the flap of her sleeping bag up to her chin. “Would you rather have really big feet or a really big nose?”

Later, when Lavender had fallen asleep, Matilda stole across the house in the dark. When she got to Jenny’s room she went in and nudged Jenny awake.

“Matilda?” Jenny asked, her voice thick with sleep. She sat up and turned on the lamp next to her bed. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I didn’t have a nightmare, don’t worry,” Matilda said.

“That’s great, darling.” She looked and sounded like she wasn’t completely awake.

“Can Lavender live with us?” Matilda asked.

This woke Jenny up. She patted the bed next to her and Matilda climbed up. “What’s going on?”

“I think her father’s alcoholism is getting out of control,” Matilda said solemnly.

Jenny sighed. “I had a feeling that would happen.” She hummed and smoothed Matilda’s hair absentmindedly. “It wouldn’t be easy,” she said.

“Why?”

“Well,” Jenny said, “because I could be charged with kidnapping if I kept her here past how long her father and I agreed upon.”

“That isn’t fair,” Matilda said.

Jenny sighed. “I know. But it’s the law and we must work within it.”

“We have the extra bedroom,” Matilda pointed out. “We have to try. She needs us.”

Jenny smiled and squeezed Matilda in a tight hug. “You are so kind,” she said. “Tell you what. I will do some research and talk to my friend at the courthouse, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Matilda smiled, content with that answer. She knew Jenny, and knew that she would do everything in her power to help out a kid in need.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Now run off to bed,” Jenny said, shooing her off her bed. “It’s late.”

Matilda groaned. “I’m not tired yet.”

Jenny sighed. “Okay, go pick out a book.”

Matilda grinned and pointed at Jenny’s bookshelf. A moment later a thick book slid out and floated across the room into her hand.

Jenny rolled her eyes good naturedly when she saw the title. “One chapter,” she said. “And then bed. Fair?”

“Fair.”

Matilda opened the book and quickly found her place. Jenny settled in, leaning back against her pillows and gently rubbing Matilda’s back as she read.

“Chapter four,” Matilda read. “‘In Which Jean Valjean has Quite the Air of having Read Austin Castillejo.’ ‘The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; they do not reach their goal very promptly. Moreover, Fauchelevent was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his cottage in the garden. Cosette had waked up. Jean Valjean had placed her near the fire.’”