Chapter Text
Matilda’s ears rang, and the brutal laughter of teenagers slowly, surely grew distant. When she could no longer hear them, she waited a pulse-pounding fifteen seconds to be sure, and then she placed her palm on the dirt path and pushed herself up. Stinging from scrapes and throbbing from bruises all over, she shifted herself over to the grass on the side of the road and tried to brush the dust off of her favorite skirt, locks of hair coming undone from the braid her mother had taken so much care on that morning and sticking to the cuts on her face. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get her bearings.
No matter how quiet and out of the way she tried to be, Andy and his boys would always come after her when class at the Conservatory was out for the day, jeering at her, calling her a monster and a weirdo and a freak. Matilda was well aware that she was a freak. She quite liked that about herself, in fact. Weirdos were the backbone of society, her father always told her. Although Matilda herself didn’t feel very backbone-y. She felt like she didn’t do much other than draw bugs, knit, and play with her rat.
Matilda yearned for a day she could travel home from class in peace. She liked taking the back path so that the Briarwood Guard wouldn’t find her and kick her around for fun like they sometimes did to the school and college kids, but the boys at the Conservatory knew this path well, and that was nearly worse.
As her eyes focused and she slowly caught her breath, clutching her ribs, she watched a raven hop idly along the edge of the path.
“Mattie?” a familiar, sweet-as-fresh-honey voice called out. Matilda turned to see her neighbor and best friend— well, only friend— Imogen. She was trotting her horse Flora down the road towards her like a righteous, lovely knight, and Matilda sighed, both with apprehension and relief. Imogen knew this path well, too, and sometimes on a lucky day she would come along, and she and Matilda would talk to each other on the way home, and it would distract Matilda from the aches and pains.
Matilda struggled to her feet and subtly tried to fix her hair one-handedly. Her left arm smarted— it had come out of where it was supposed to be, but this was a fairly normal occurrence for her. Imogen brought Flora to a halt next to Matilda and slid down the paint horse’s side, a crinkle appearing between her brows. With one hand she held Flora’s reins so she didn’t wander off, but with the other she stretched up and touched her knuckle to Matilda’s cheekbone, above which a less gentle knuckle had split the skin. “What’s happened to you, hon? Andy again?”
Matilda averted her gaze, like one might when looking at the sun. “Yes, well, you know how the boys are.” Matilda had known and lived near Imogen for what felt like all her life, but was really only five years, and yet every time Imogen had to see Matilda vulnerable and hurt like this, she felt unduly embarrassed. Imogen had never given her reason to feel this way. Maybe it was because Imogen used to be bullied by Andy and his pack of dimwits too, but one day in twelfth year they’d stopped making fun of her and began asking her out instead, like by becoming beautiful she had passed a test that Matilda couldn’t fathom. Imogen never, ever gave them the time of day, though, which gratified Matilda beyond words.
“I hate the way they treat you.” Imogen set her work-worn palm flat against Matilda’s face for a moment, comforting but carefully avoiding any lacerations. Matilda noticed that today her hair was gathered into a low ponytail under her favorite hat. Matilda always noticed how Imogen did her hair. “I’ll give you a ride home if you like?” Imogen turned to pat Flora’s haunch, as she had grown restless. “My father’s out workin’ in Westruun ‘til next week. If you come over, I can fix you up and we can study a little.”
Matilda balked. She loved to sit and read in Imogen’s kitchen when she got the chance, with its handmade, sturdy wooden chairs, faded blue wallpaper, and the bundles of herbs Imogen dried for cooking and baking hanging from the ceiling like bats in a cave. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude. I know how you like your alone time.”
“Don’t be silly, Mattie,” Imogen said immediately, because Matilda said the same thing every time, and Imogen knew it was coming. “You aren’t intrudin’ whatsoever.” Seeing Matilda was still unconvinced, she wheedled, “And I made those cookies you like...”
Despite the pain in her jaw, Matilda couldn’t help but grin at the mention of Imogen’s lavender cookies, famous to no one but the two of them. She picked up her school bag and slung it over her non-hurt shoulder. “Perhaps a bit of studying is just what I need.”
“That’s my girl.” Imogen chucked her affectionately under the chin, gently enough that it didn’t hurt, and hefted herself up onto Flora’s back in one fluid motion. She offered a hand to Matilda, but between the bruises from her recent beating, her useless left arm, and her total lack of upper-body strength, Imogen basically had to grab her around the middle and pull her bodily off the ground, which she did with relative ease. Matilda tried not to be embarrassed about her weakness, or flustered at Imogen’s hard-won farmer’s physique, and failed miserably at both; she settled behind Imogen on the horse like she had a hundred times before, wrapping one arm around Imogen’s waist, the other dangling at her side.
Imogen clicked her tongue at Flora and gently heeled her in the side, and the horse started at an obedient trot west towards the outskirts of the town. “What were the boys all mad about today?” she asked, likely already knowing the answer.
“Assholes will be assholes, I suppose. Andy has never liked me much, as you know, and the other boys just worship him,” Matilda said, trying very hard to ignore Imogen’s hand resting against her own.
“I still reckon you should just have Pâté bite them,” Imogen said.
“Pâté doesn’t like violence,” Matilda said. This was in reference to her pet rat. “He’s more of a lover than a fighter.”
“I have half a mind to just pound them flat myself!” Matilda laughed slightly at that. Imogen’s Gelvaan accent had grown fainter after years of living in Whitestone, even though she still spoke differently than most, but her voice still twanged when she was especially angry, and Matilda thought it was quite cute. “Why, you think that’s funny? ‘Cause I’m serious. I’d make them real sorry if I ever saw them smackin’ you around.” She took her hand off Matilda’s to pound her fist into her other palm threateningly.
“No, I believe you,” Matilda assured her quickly. Imogen was capable and so, so strong, but she was also quite small, and just one woman, and Matilda didn’t see how she’d be able to do anything against five large college boys with more beef than brains between them. It was kind of her to commiserate, but if Matilda had any say, she would never let her get hurt on her behalf. “I don’t think it’s funny. It’s just sweet seeing you get worked up over little old me.”
Imogen put her hand back over Matilda’s. “Sugar, I’d do anything for you,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing ever, which sent a rush of warm flutters through Matilda’s body. In front of them, the forested path had started to open. Matilda could see the Pickens’ little farm, with their stubborn flock of goats, and beyond that in the distance the beginning of the creek and the two careworn mailboxes that were too far away to read, but Matilda knew had “Temult” and “Bradbury” painted onto them.
“Mercifully, they leave you alone,” Matilda said. “I wouldn’t want that to change on my account.”
“Well— I guess so.” Imogen fell silent for several minutes. Matilda got the sense she was thinking about something else, because her hand got very warm and the tips of her ears went red under her hat like they did when she was flustered or angry, and so she didn’t press her.
As they passed by the Bradbury farm, which didn’t have much land to speak of, Matilda waved to the small figure of her mother, Eleanora, who was on her tiptoes hanging out laundry on the line tied to the weeping willow tree. Imogen waved as well. Her mother waved back and called out, “Home by sundown, darling!”
“I’ll try!” Matilda shouted back, as Imogen clicked her tongue again and veered Flora onto the path that snaked past Matilda’s home.
Matilda had lived in her family’s ramshackle house for 19 years. It sat cozily, surrounded by marshy farmland, on the edge of a vast, rolling field of tall grass. Before Imogen had moved to town, the field was quite empty, and on a windy day Matilda could imagine the waves that rippled across looked just like how the ocean would, if she were to ever go beyond the mountains. One blazing summer afternoon between her eighth and ninth year in school, she’d gone outside to make fake potions in the creek, and saw that a fence had been constructed there overnight, as if by magic. She had wriggled under the sturdy posts to go look and see what had changed, pretending she was an adventurer on a great expedition, but she had only gone a short distance when she found a herd of cows and a blond, sturdy man in a cowboy’s hat who shouted at her to get off his property. Frightened, she skittered away, and made the executive decision to stay confined to the creek if she wanted to play outside.
When she’d gone back to school that next year, the teacher had pulled a girl up in front of the class and announced that she was new and had just moved to Whitestone, which Matilda could have guessed, because there were only about fifteen other kids in the class and Matilda had known them all since birth. The girl had big glasses, almost bigger than her whole freckly face, and short purple hair that curled up around her ears, and a gap between her two front teeth. She was visibly younger than everyone there, presumably a grade-skipper. Matilda, looking up from doodling spiders on the desk in the back of the classroom, knew instantly that this girl was weird. She didn’t mean that in a rude way, of course— she only sensed that this girl was somehow like her, even though she was tan and full of life where Matilda was wan and gaunt, and bright and pastel where Matilda was dark and pallid. So at playtime in the yard Matilda had approached Imogen and showed her a pill bug she’d caught in the bushes, and Imogen thought it was a very intriguing creature but screamed when Matilda offered her a chance to hold it, so she had given Imogen part of her snack as penance. And from then onward, Matilda had her first real friend. The Temult family farm slowly began to overtake Matilda’s field, but Matilda didn’t even mind, because Imogen was much more fascinating to watch than grass, no matter how much it reminded her of places she’d never been.
Now, five years later, Imogen’s curly hair had grown down past her shoulders, and her face had slimmed a bit, gaining more and more freckles, and her teeth still had that bit of a gap between the two front ones, and she had gone from a quiet and odd girl to a very beautiful young woman, if still quiet and odd. Matilda stayed gangly and angular and grew straight upward without growing outward at all, a towering, awkward figure of a girl crammed into a woman’s body, with a crooked smile, a doll’s nose, a mousy brown braid, and interestingly high cheekbones. Despite all this amalgam, Imogen never stopped looking at her like she did in ninth year, even though she had to look up at her now instead of just straight ahead. Matilda never lost the sense that Imogen was just like her in ways neither of them could quite fathom. Outside of pill bugs, Matilda surmised that this was where their grown-up friendship stemmed from.
“You’re lucky, with your parents,” Imogen said suddenly, the only words she’d spoken in a while. “You can talk to ‘em so easy.”
“They’re parents,” Matilda said by way of explanation. At the end of the path they had turned onto was the gate to the Temult farm, just a few hundred feet past Matilda’s small house. “They don’t understand me, not really. They probably won’t for a long time.”
“Yeah, but— when I talk to my daddy, I don’t think he’s listenin’.” Imogen’s grip on Matilda’s hand tightened momentarily, and Matilda could see her knuckles whitening around the reins as well. “At least when you talk to your folks they listen to what you have to say.”
“I’m lucky, really,” said Matilda. “They’re wonderful people. They love me. They try their hardest. But you know, you’re always welcome for dinner, darling.”
“Oh, I already come over lots.”
“Once or twice a week, yes. But Mother always asks if you’ll make it three times, or even four. She likes you more than me.”
“No!” gasped Imogen. “That ain’t true.”
“It is! She told me to my face!”
Imogen laughed at that, and her posture straightened just a bit. Matilda didn’t always know what to do when she went into one of her quiet, broody moods, but Imogen said that just being there with her always helped.
“Well, then, can we go over after we study? I’d risk the Briarwoods’ wrath any day for some of your mama’s cookin’.” There was a curfew that started at dusk, but Matilda and Imogen would often still sneak back and forth between each others’ houses since they were so close together.
Matilda remembered once, a year or two ago, Imogen was caught hopping the fence and forced to her knees by the guards in the middle of the field; Matilda remembered how Stefan, her father, had run outside without a thought to help Imogen and explain to the guards that he had just sent her out to collect berries from the woods for dinner, and that they should punish him, not her. He’d had a black eye for weeks afterwards, and Matilda got in more trouble than she’d ever been in before, which she gladly took because she was just so grateful that Imogen was safe. From then on they had been much more careful. Mother and Father had tried to stop them for a time, but Imogen and Matilda were both grown women now, and Matilda’s parents couldn’t do much more than sigh disapprovingly and offer Imogen a bath and a meal when they found her crawling through the window.
“If we don’t fill our stomachs up with cookies first,” Matilda said. “I can't promise anything when I’m around your baking.”
“You’re too nice to me, Mattie.” The two of them had arrived at the gate, and Imogen gave Matilda’s hand a gentle squeeze before swinging a leg over and sliding off of Flora. She turned back and tipped her hat up, squinting, the golden light of the setting sun making her eyes look more red than violet. “Can you trot her in?”
“Me?” Matilda asked, startled out of a daydream.
“No, the other lady sittin’ on my horse,” Imogen said. Matilda glanced behind her, which made Imogen snort. “Yes, you, hon.”
Matilda might have just been nervous, but she swore she could feel Flora’s vitriol, like she knew the woman on her back wasn’t her handler and she was not happy about it in the least.
“Go on,” she squeaked to the horse. Flora chuffed, flicking her tail derisively.
“Don’t be a baby, Flora,” chided Imogen as she unlocked the gate. “Just give her a bit of a kick, Mattie. You know how.”
Matilda shifted and tried to mirror the heel tap that she’d seen Imogen do so many times before, but it didn’t seem to affect the horse, other than prompting a wicked side-eye. “Imogen,” she complained lamely.
Imogen giggled at the battle of wills between horse and best friend. “Alright, alright.” She took the reins from Matilda and led the two of them through the open gate, and Flora only willingly went with Imogen’s guidance. Matilda patted Flora’s side gingerly as they trotted inside the pasture. Imogen helped Matilda down from the horse and turned Flora loose in the fenced-in grass field, unhooking her reins and looping them over one of the posts. In the distance, the plow horses— Heart, Copper, and Rebel— grazed on the long grass. The sun was just beginning to get lower in the sky, the days shortening rapidly as Duscar approached. Matilda had heard they might even get snow in the next week.
“Can you walk?” Imogen asked Matilda as she leaned against the fence.
Matilda felt a flush spread over her cheeks. “My shoulder is the problem, not my legs.” Despite this, Imogen took her right arm as they headed toward the big Temult farmhouse, which was pristine and well-built and a few shades lighter blue than its kitchen walls.
The second Imogen helped Matilda across the door mat (which read “Howdy!”), the smell of lavender and vanilla enveloped her. “Siddown and I’ll go get the first aid kit,” said Imogen distractedly as she headed across the kitchen and down the hall, hanging her cowboy’s hat on the wobbly rack as she went.
Matilda obeyed, pulling out one of the chairs and plopping herself down at the table. Her arm reverberated with hurt at the impact. “At this point, you should probably just keep it in the kitchen,” she called after Imogen.
Imogen’s muffled voice came from beyond the kitchen wall. “Why sue me for thinking those dimwits might decide to be upstandin’ citizens one day.”
There was a plate in the middle of the kitchen table covered in a floral hand towel. Matilda lifted the towel curiously to find a pile of purple-tinted cookies, and she picked one up and munched on it while she waited for Imogen to come back and tried to ignore the smarting. The cookie was flawless, as usual— just the right amount of crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Imogen came back with a cord of wood in one hand, and a healer’s kit and hairbrush stacked in the other. She dropped the logs in front of the brick fireplace, and puttered around gathering more supplies; a little bundle of towels, a cup of clean water from the bucket in the corner, a bar of rose oil soap, a bottle of tincture from the cabinet over the stove that Matilda knew came from the redheaded apothecary woman in town. Matilda watched Imogen’s ponytail and skirts swish from side to side hypnotizingly as she moved, and she reached for another lavender cookie.
Imogen, all business, set her finds down on the kitchen table and went over to the fireplace, drawing a poker from the stand on the side and using it to cut through the twine around the cord of wood. Matilda thought about Relvin Temult— when he was home— splitting logs in the field. Then she recalled the occasional lucky days it was Imogen’s turn to chop instead, and then felt embarrassed remembering that her mother had caught her staring on more than one occasion.
A fire roared in the hearth, and Imogen sat on her heels in front of Matilda, who had just absentmindedly polished off her third cookie. “That make you feel better?”
“At least emotionally, yes.”
Imogen nodded, gratified. “Ready?” At an affirmative nod from Matilda, she put one palm against Matilda’s swollen shoulder, took her forearm with the other hand, and in one smooth motion, she shoved. Pain flared all throughout Matilda’s side with a crack-pop and a yelp, but suddenly she could feel her arm again.
“No worse than last time,” Matilda pronounced, flexing her shoulder. The pain was already beginning to go away, and the house had started to warm with her chilled, achy bones.
Imogen exhaled. “I hate doin’ that. I always feel like I’m makin’ it worse.”
“You’re my hero,” Matilda assured her. Imogen's ears went pink at the praise.
“Well. Good to hear.” Imogen sat back on her heels and, with a gentle hand, she took a clean towel and dabbed some ointment onto the cut under Matilda’s eye, which made her hiss and shift uncomfortably. “Stoppit, wriggle-worm.” She had to stretch up to reach Matilda from her place on the floor.
“It’s cold,” muttered Matilda.
Imogen clucked and shook her head. “What am I gonna do with you?” Regardless, a smile played across her lips. Matilda stuck her tongue out at her, but kept still as she cleaned and salved the other minor cuts and scrapes on her face.
Matilda tried focusing on the wallpaper, but her gaze kept drifting back to Imogen’s face. She liked to study Imogen’s face, because there was just so much to look at; a new freckle here and there, a spot of blue in her eyes, the angles of her cupid’s bow, how her eyelashes were just the tiniest bit purple and so long that they brushed the apples of her cheeks when she blinked. Only her sketchbook, and perhaps her mother, knew how much she liked to look at Imogen’s loveliness. Imogen was so intent on the task at hand that she didn’t seem to notice how unabashedly Matilda looked at her, and thank the gods for that. It almost made Matilda want to get beat up more often simply so she could stare at Imogen. Almost.
“Done,” Imogen announced, sitting back on her heels with a sigh. “They get you anywhere else?”
Matilda rolled up her sleeves and kicked aside her skirts. Her limbs were stick-skinny and a patchwork of old and new injuries. “The rocks on the path are what really tore me up, I think. The boys use their boots more than anything.”
Imogen’s mouth twisted at the sight, and her eyes flashed. “Damn boys,” was all she said as she set back to tending Matilda’s wounds, cleaning them with the hot water and rose soap and salving them with the tincture. She tried hard while fixing Matilda up to keep her voice light and nonchalant, but there was always a crease in her brow and a general hum of anger about her person, like a tangible electricity. Matilda chalked the feeling up to being attuned to Imogen’s inner workings. This rage never translated to her hands, though. Imogen never touched Matilda with more than the slightest, gentlest pressure, like she was frightened she might break.
“Let’s see about those bruises, then,” Imogen said. Matilda cleared her throat and awkwardly rolled up her blue blouse to just below her breast band. Imogen balked for a second, but quickly shook her head and went to work on applying salve to the bruises patchworking Matilda’s midsection. The ointment stung and chilled at first, but afterwards Matilda always instantly felt better.
As Imogen worked, her face set and focused, Matilda tried not to be embarrassed about the way her ribs stuck out, how square her hips were, how old and worn her breast band was; she tried to tell herself Imogen had never looked upon her with anything less than adoration.
“Does all this make me seem tough?” she joked weakly.
“So tough,” Imogen said. Her voice promised both teasing and truth. “One of these days I’ll teach you to throw a punch. Maybe tomorrow after that exam’s all done.”
“That would be nice,” said Matilda, feeling even more flustered now at the idea of herself and Imogen sparring.
“All fixed,” Imogen said, standing up and startling Matilda out of her reverie, which involved Imogen in a tank top, giving hells to a boxing bag. “Feel better?” Matilda nodded. She still ached, but the salve and Imogen’s touch had begun to soothe it all. “Now let’s do something about that hair.”
“You don’t need to,” Matilda tried to insist. “I was just going to take it out after dinner anyway.”
“But I like seein’ your face, and I can’t see it if the hair’s all fallen out.” Imogen swept around her and began to deconstruct what was left of the braid that Mother had lovingly crafted that morning. The pads of Imogen’s fingers were calloused from work and sent little twitches of cold sweat across Matilda’s skin wherever they brushed her neck in passing.
“What shall we work on?” Matilda had to focus very hard on enunciating each individual syllable so that she didn’t stutter.
“Mmm.” Imogen didn’t answer for a few moments because she was so concentrated on remaking the braid. “I know we have different periods for Common, but did she assign you that project?”
“The vision board, yes.” Matilda was grateful to have something to think about other than Imogen’s breath ghosting over her ear. “I’m guessing you would like me to draw the pictures for you?”
“I reckon Teacher Oberon wouldn’t appreciate my stick figures,” Imogen said.
Matilda pretended to be unconvinced, raising her eyebrows. “What will you give me for them?” There was no formal arrangement, but Matilda usually offered to do any assignment for Imogen that involved drawing, and Imogen would often insist on doing Matilda’s mathematics homework and baking for her in return.
“As many cookies as you want?” tried Imogen, true to form. “And I’ll do your weekly equations for you.”
“Seems a bargain. Though, for what it’s worth, I think your stick figures have a lot of character.” Imogen held Matilda’s braid in one hand and shook Matilda’s hand with the other. “You don’t actually have to do my equations for me, you know, darling.”
“Ha.” Imogen tied off Matilda’s hair. “Sure I know. But I also know you hate ‘em, and I hate drawing, so it’s a fair trade in my mind.” She tickled Matilda’s nose with the end of her braid. Matilda sneezed, which made Imogen giggle.
Matilda scooted her chair up to the table, waving her off. “Perhaps I should get some glasses like you, so I can be smart enough to do my own mathematics homework.”
“Really not sure that’s how that works, Mattie.” Matilda stole Imogen’s glasses from her face and tried them on, trying to solve some math problems in her head. Imogen made a half-hearted grab to take them back. “Why do they look nicer on you than on me?”
“Oh, don’t say that.” Matilda handed them back, feeling the back of her neck prickle with a blush.
Imogen passed Matilda a piece of paper and a writing charcoal from her book bag, and set the rubric in the center of the table. “We’ll get us some big parchment boards from the shops tomorrow an’ make it all pretty, but for now let’s just write it out.”
“Splendid. Where do you see yourself in five years? ” Matilda read off the assignment sheet.
Imogen sighed. “Probably here running the farm, if I’m bein’ real honest. I don't know where else I’d go.”
“Come on, darling. Anything more ambitious?” Matilda wheedled.
“It’s true though!” Imogen defended herself, fidgeting with her pen. “Daddy’s gonna need someone… He won’t be young much longer…”
“You could do whatever you’ve dreamt of, if you tried. You’re capable enough.”
“I like the idea of settlin’ down,” Imogen insisted. She made brief eye contact with Matilda, and her voice softened. “An’ I like it here.”
“Fine, then who with? A husband, or…” A wife?, she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue.
Imogen wrinkled her nose as if Matilda had just called her a name. “I’m never marrying any of those awful boys. I’ll just live here with you forever. And my daddy, whenever he’s home. What about you?”
Matilda pondered for a moment. “I don’t see myself living here after school. I’ve lived here my whole life. I want to leave, at least for a bit,” she said honestly. “But if you need assistance running the farm, I would love to come back and help…”
“Mattie,” Imogen said softly. “I didn’t mean to speak for you. If you wanna leave, you leave, and you don’t look back.” Matilda smiled at her, wistful. “But I’m coming with you.”
“There we are, then. Five years from now we’ll travel the world together, and we’ll go to the ocean.”
“Why the ocean?”
“I’ve never been.”
“You’ve never been?” gasped Imogen. “Then we have to go!” She quickly got to work writing down a few things down on her paper, presumably listing places for the two of them to go in the future. “Where else?”
Matilda offered, “I’ve never been to a tavern either.”
“We can just go into town for that one. This is a great start.” As Imogen scribbled her ideas down furiously, there was a knock on the front door, and Matilda stood up to go get it. Shifting back and forth on the stoop was the Temults’ farmhand, Samuel, a stocky, redheaded boy of 22 or so. He didn’t go to school with them, but he had been working for Imogen’s father for a few years and Matilda saw him around often. He was very respectful, if not too bright, and always seemed overjoyed at the prospect of hard work.
“Evenin’, ma’am.” He tipped his hat to her, a similar hat to what Imogen usually wore. A similar accent colored his voice, too. It made Matilda smile.
“Hi, Samuel. Would you like a cookie?”
His eyes widened with barely restrained excitement. “If it’s okay with Miss Imogen.”
“‘Course you can, Sammy,” Imogen called from inside. “‘Fact, you can take the rest. Did you need anything?”
Samuel stepped in and kicked off his boots at the doorstep. A few clods of dirt dislodged from the treads. “I just wanted to letcha know I’m done for the night. Can’t see much out there once the sun gone down. I took in the horses an’ cows an’ goats an’ let ‘em set in their fresh beddin’.”
“Good work today,” Imogen said. “I guess the cows finally warmed up to you after all these years.”
“I may’ve snuck ‘em a few treats,” Samuel admitted.
“Whatever you think will get you in the door, right?” Imogen laughed, pushing the plate of cookies over to him. He picked it up like one might pick up a holy symbol. As Matilda stood by the door watching this, her eye caught on a bird outside. Another raven, like earlier, hopped along the sill, tapping the window with its beak persistently. Tap-tap. Tap-tap . Matilda couldn’t think of a time in her life when she’d seen two ravens in Whitestone on the same day.
Matilda came back down to Exandria in time to hear Imogen say “—And all you need to do tomorrow is mend that fence, and you can have the rest of the day to yourself.”
“I’ll visit town an’ sell some eggs after,” Samuel said. “Git stuff for the horses too. Feed an’ such.”
“Fine by me,” Imogen said. “Get some rest, Sammy. You done earned it.”
“Goodnight, Samuel,” Matilda called after him as he ducked into the hall.
“Night, ma’am. Steady on that homework,” Samuel said. He retreated towards his room in the basement of the house.
Matilda glanced out the window, wide-eyed. The raven wasn’t there anymore, and the sky had grown dark all of a sudden. “Is it past sunset already? Goodness.”
Imogen looked up from her work and out the window. “Looks it.”
“If you’re going to come for dinner, we should get over as soon as possible,” offered Matilda.
Imogen smiled, eyes alighting at the thought of a home-cooked meal. “Why, you don’t have to tell me twice.”
Matilda packed up her school things, and Imogen puttered over to the icebox and began fixing up a basket to take over. The Temults raised chickens and goats, but had no fresh greens, and the Bradburys had a booming garden, but not a chicken or goat to be found, so the two families often traded materials since it was simpler and cheaper than going into town. The basket Imogen packed for the Bradburys held a large clutch of speckled eggs, a fist-sized lump of soft goat cheese in a tea towel, and a few clean bones that promised a delicious broth.
Matilda eyed the bones. She spotted a femur, a rib, maybe a humerus. “Would you happen to have any extra chicken bones?”
Imogen narrowed her eyes at Matilda. “What’re you gonna do with them? Somethin’ weird?”
“No!” Matilda defended herself. “I just thought they might make lovely earrings.” Imogen raised an eyebrow, and Matilda sighed. “That’s still weird, isn’t it?”
“A little bit,” Imogen said, pouring a few chicken bones into Matilda’s palm. Matilda pocketed them happily. “But kinda cool, too. In a very Mattie way.”
Crossing the “Howdy!” doormat, the two of them headed towards the field dividing the farms. As they reached the fence, Matilda wiggled under and Imogen hoisted herself over, and they started across the tall-grass field. They walked almost sideways, falling into a routine— each keeping watch out on one side, with a keen eye in the dark for purple regimentals— but the field was free of guards, and mostly silent, save for the wind making whispers in the grass. Matilda found the quiet peaceful, but Imogen always said she found it a bit eerie, so Matilda was sure to hold her hand as they snuck. To Matilda, there was an odd kind of comfort in the ghostly silence of the boondocks.
The clothes on the line next to Matilda’s house swayed, wraithlike, in the evening breeze, and the firelight pouring out through the foggy windows made dancing shadows on the assortment of Father’s shirts and Matilda’s skirts that were hanging there. Matilda didn’t let out the breath she was holding until she and Imogen were standing under the oil lantern on the porch, which her mother must have left on for them.
“We’re home,” called Matilda as she pushed the heavy door open. Matilda’s mother immediately greeted them in the entry, darting among muddy boots on the wooden slats and patched overcoats hanging on the walls. She was cheerful as always, spry despite the white hair coming in at her temples, and small, plump, and bouncy like a little bird. Matilda kept her shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders, lest Mother’s keen eye spot her new bandages.
“Girls!” chirped Mother, dusting flour off of her hands. “Oh, I was worried I wouldn’t see you tonight.” She wrapped Imogen in a tight hug, and Imogen almost dropped her basket. Ever since Matilda had let it slip once that Imogen’s father wasn’t around often, Matilda's mother had made it a point to offer as much affection, food, and familial bonding to Imogen as she possibly could. “I made your favorite, just in case, dearest,” she said, rocking Imogen back and forth. “And blackberry scones for dessert!”
“Ma'am, you didn’t have to— you’re mighty nice to me.” Imogen seemed overwhelmed by all the fanfare, as usual, but her eyes were bright. She twisted her face up at Matilda laughing quietly behind them.
“Let me guess, Tillie ate everything in your house, and now you’re coming over here so you don’t starve to death, eh?” Father said. He was sitting in the living room, paging through a newspaper. Matilda immediately stopped snickering to shoot him a glare.
“I certainly did not,” Matilda protested.
“It happens every week,” Imogen agreed at the same time.
“Come in, sit down, Imogen. Let’s put some meat on your bones. Is this for me?” Mother said, taking the basket from Imogen. "Oh, this all looks so lovely." She made an about-face turn and headed through to the kitchen. “Matilda, my darling girl, can you set us another place?” The entryway of Matilda’s house could be crossed in two steps, and the kitchen and dining room together could be crossed in eight, and the living room was as far as you could go in the house— about ten paces from the door.
“Yes, Mother,” Matilda called after her.
“What’s my favorite?” Imogen asked Matilda, aside, running her arm through hers.
“Remember how you complimented her shepherds’ pie once?” Matilda said. "And called it cowboy pie as a joke?"
Imogen nodded. "I had round about four servings."
“Yes, it’s probably that. She won’t stop calling it that now because of you.”
“No complaints from me. It was real good. I’ll claim it as my favorite.” The two women walked arm-in-arm into the modest kitchen together. Matilda loved Imogen’s house because it was full of light and space and Imogen herself, but she wasn’t ashamed of her own little home at all. It was cluttered, and every surface was covered in papers and dishes and knickknacks and potted plants, but it had been good to her, and she’d never lived anywhere else. Everything in the small downstairs promised memories; the chip on the dining table where Matilda had tripped and split her head when she was small, the mantle where the Winter’s Crest presents were piled every year, Matilda’s framed artwork of the three of them proudly hanging on the walls, and the hatch marks on the hall door frame marking how tall Matilda had grown throughout the years. Imogen immediately went to look at the pictures like she always did, smiling as she reached a finger up to trace little Mattie’s face.
Matilda got the sense that Imogen liked the Bradburys’ kitchen better than her own. She understood. Sure, Imogen’s kitchen was big, but it was nearly always empty. Matilda’s house was full to bursting with things and people, but it always had room for Imogen.
“Imogen, dearest,” Mother said cheerily as Matilda broke away from Imogen to set a place for her. Imogen glanced up from the picture. “Are you free after your classes any time soon? I would love your help baking something. Matilda never stops absolutely raving about how capable you are at it. And everything else, mind you—”
Matilda felt the back of her neck grow impossibly hot. “Mother!”
“Oh, I’m embarrassing her,” Mother said to Imogen, as Imogen shot Matilda a teasing grin. “Next time I suppose I’ll just say she hates your baked goods.”
“There is such a thing as the middle ground,” Matilda groused.
“You’ve been talkin’ to your mama about me?” Imogen poked Matilda in the side very gently (and avoided the bruises) as she went by. Matilda nearly dropped the fork she was holding.
“It’s more like she talks at me about you ,” Matilda corrected her, blushing deeper.
“Mhm.” Imogen seemed unconvinced, but she shot Matilda another smile over her shoulder, this one reassuring, as she draped her jacket and hat over the chair, kicked aside her skirts, and sat down at the table.
Matilda followed her to set down the fork and a plate in front of her. Imogen tried to poke her again, but Matilda saw it coming and dodged with a laugh. “I’m serving you and this is how you repay me? No class! None!”
“I done learned from the best,” Imogen shot back playfully.
“Does that darling boy Sammy want anything to eat?” Mother asked Imogen, setting down dishes of steaming food on the table. “I can make him a plate. He must get mad with hunger, working out in the sun all day.”
“I think he’d appreciate that lots,” Imogen said. Mother immediately hurried off to find a plate to load with food for Samuel, and Matilda sat down next to Imogen. Unlike her, she kept her shawl wrapped tightly around her arms, and began to dole them both out large servings of cowboy pie, a delicious mass of gravy, mutton, and potatoes. “Oh, you don’t have to— well, while you’re at it, gimme some of those vegetables, sugar.”
The pet name was like a dose of happiness directly injected into Matilda’s veins. “Yes, madam.” She spooned some seasoned peas and carrots onto Imogen’s plate.
“I don’t understand how you’re still too darn thin with the amount of food you eat,” Imogen commented.
Matilda stole a cubed carrot from the tureen and popped it in her mouth. “It’s a mystery, I suppose.”
“Eat from your plate, darling, not from the dish,” called Mother from the kitchen, snapping a damp towel in their general direction.
“I swear she must have a sixth sense,” groused Matilda, stealing another carrot. She yelled back, “You know how I hate peas, Mother!”
Imogen leaned in conspiratorially. “Put it on your plate. If you eat the carrots from your serving, I’ll eat the peas for you. No charge.”
“You are quite the savvy businesswoman, Miss Temult. I respect it.” Matilda heaped a spoonful of vegetables onto her own plate.
Father strode in, bending down so he didn’t bump his head on the doorframe, newspaper folded under his arm. It was clear, between Matilda’s two parents, from where she had gotten her perpetual skinniness. “Don’t demolish this lovely dinner before I get some.”
Matilda, in answer, scooped some more cowboy pie onto her plate, giving him the evil eye, and he ruffled her hair as he went by. Mother rambled into the dining area, a plate of fresh blackberry scones perched on her hand. “I put a plate for Samuel into the icebox! You can send him over for it whenever he’s not busy.” She slid the scones onto the table.
“Thanks kindly, Mrs. Bradbury. I’m barely able to cook for myself, let alone him too. You keep us from starving.” Imogen dug into her cowboy pie with gusto.
“Oh, that’s what I’m here for, dearest.” Mother draped her apron over the back of her chair and sat with the family. For several moments, there was only the bumping and clonking of hewn wooden cutlery against plates as everyone started into their dinners.
Then Father said, “School going well for you, Imogen?” and the interrogation began. Imogen was quite a personable and outgoing woman, and Matilda’s parents liked to take full advantage of that and practically grill her for information every time she ate with them. The questions changed, but the incessant barrage of them never did.
“School’s alright. Gets real boring. I like clubs though, boxin’ and ridin’ horses and such.”
“Getting fine grades?”
“Fine, accordin’ to my Daddy. But I think they could probably be better.”
“That’s a wonderful attitude to have. Always strive to better yourself, eh?”
“Have you baked anything particularly delicious recently?” Mother chimed in.
“I baked a batch of my lavender cookies early this mornin’. Mattie and I made short work of those,” laughed Imogen.
“Is there any possible way I can convince you to give me the recipe?”
“I’m ‘fraid that’s my secret. But I’ll make you as many batches as you want, ma’am.”
Father jumped back into the fray. “You’re still 18, are you not? Younger than Tillie.”
Imogen nodded. “By a year. But I turn 19 in a few weeks.”
“Oh, dearest, what day?” Mother asked excitedly. “We’ll bake a cake!”
Imogen had to think for a second. That was how Matilda knew the two of them were growing up. “The 23rd.”
“I suppose you get a lot of combination Winter’s Crest-birthday gifts,” Father joked.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“For a few weeks, it’ll be like we’re two years apart instead of one,” Matilda said. “Odd.”
Imogen’s eyes widened. “Mattie, I just realized— you turn 20 so soon!”
A mixture of apprehension and excitement overtook Matilda. “Yes, four days from today… I’d nearly forgotten myself.”
“My darling baby is so old now!” Mother reached over to pinch Matilda’s cheek, but accidentally caught a bruise from earlier, that had faded from the balm but was still lurking under the skin, and Matilda had to hold back from squalling. Imogen winced in pity. “We have to celebrate.”
“We certainly will,” Father agreed, seemingly apprehensive at the full day of preparations Mother was almost surely planning.
“Shall we have a joint birthday party? Invite all of your little friends from college?” Mother proposed eagerly.
Matilda thought about all of the people who would be eager to come to Imogen’s birthday party, and all the people who would likely change their minds if they found out it was joint with Matilda. She sighed. “Imogen already practically has to share a birthday with Winter’s Crest, Mother, she shouldn’t have to share it with me too.”
“I wouldn’t mind it,” Imogen said, taking a sip of her water. “Baked goods for all.” Matilda absentmindedly rubbed her own cheek.
“So, any boys catching your eye lately, you two?” Mother asked cheerfully. Imogen choked on the drink she had just taken, spattering her pie with droplets.
“All of the boys I’ve ever met are imbeciles,” Matilda said, patting Imogen on the back as she spluttered.
Father placed a hand on his chest in affront. “Goodness.”
“You aren’t a boy, though, Father. Men are different,” Matilda assured him. “But I still haven’t met many of those.”
“What about you, dearest?” Mother asked Imogen. “A pretty thing like you must have the boys tripping over themselves to court you.”
Imogen looked as if she were regretting every choice that had led her up to this point. “Why— well—“
“No, no, Mother. Imogen told me while we were working that she's never going to take a husband,” Matilda butted in, trying to rescue Imogen— and herself.
“Not even Sammy?” Mother said, taking a casual bite of her cowboy pie as if she wasn’t slowly digging Matilda and her best friend into a deep pit of humiliation.
“Sammy’s a sweetheart, sure, but he’s like a work friend,” Imogen squeaked, hiding her blush in another sip of water. Matilda had to clench her fists under the table to stop from letting out an audible noise of jealousy.
“Well, what about a wife?” offered Mother, glancing over at Matilda. Matilda felt embarrassment creep up the back of her neck, and she shot her mother a look, but Imogen was too shocked to notice, staring down at her half-emptied plate.
Imogen blinked. “Can people do that? Folks were real weird about anything like… that back in Gelvaan.”
“Not here,” Matilda supplied. “Did you know Teacher Slate has a wife?”
“Really!” Imogen wondered. “I forget teachers have lives sometimes.”
“The people of Whitestone are quite private about their personal lives, but no one would look badly upon a woman with a wife or a man with a husband,” Father said. “Not before the Briarwoods, at least. I’m not sure now.” Her parents weren’t much for politics, but Father read the newspapers casually, and Matilda tried to keep them as updated as she could about the other goings-on of their de facto royal family.
“That Delilah wears too much black to have never courted a lady or two,” Mother said.
Father chuckled at that. Matilda wanted to sink into the floor. “Oh my gods, Mother!”
Then all of them took a beat to glance around nervously, as if a Briarwood guard might pop out from a cupboard and arrest them.
“I ain’t seen women out and about with wives. Maybe I just assumed they were friends. How backward of me,” Imogen said. She looked over at Matilda and raised her eyebrows, and Matilda tried her best not to look too hopeful.
“I haven’t been in town in ages. Not since Matilda got old enough to do the shopping. Stefan always says I never leave my garden. You know,” Mother said conversationally. “I always thought perhaps you two would get married.” Now it was Matilda’s turn to choke on her drink.
Imogen didn’t quite seem to know how to respond to that, which was fair. Matilda didn’t either, but that didn’t matter since she was too busy mopping up the water she’d spat onto the table.
“I guess I… well, I like Mattie a whole lot, but… um, I hadn’t really thought…” Imogen mumbled. “I mean, if she were to… I wouldn’t…?”
“Don’t give her the satisfaction of answering,” Matilda said, deadly sure that her entire body had become a blush. Imogen’s voice trailed off into a squeak and she focused on cutting what was left of her cowboy pie into tinier and tinier chunks, her ears burning bright red.
“Of course, every mother thinks their child is going to marry the best friend of their youth,” Mother babbled on obliviously. Father was watching in quiet amusement. “Doesn’t mean it’s true, now, does it?”
“Er,” Imogen said. “No?”
Matilda’s heart sunk, stupidly. “I suppose not,” she muttered, standing up abruptly. “Well, thank you for the meal, but Imogen and I have a lot of homework due tomorrow, so...” She shot Imogen a I need to get the hells out of here look.
Imogen looked down at her plate and back up at Matilda, still confused, maybe even a little hurt. “Oh... alright.”
“Was it something I said?” Matilda heard Mother ask innocently as Matilda dragged Imogen down the hall to her room.
“Door open!” Father called after them. “Feet on the floor!” Matilda let out a loud, exasperated groan, making sure he heard it, and slammed the door behind her. She realized as she did it that her room was an absolute chaotic mess and immediately rushed to clean it up. Imogen perched on the edge of the bed.
“It seems they’re on a mission to humiliate me today,” Matilda said to Imogen apologetically as she puttered around the room, picking papers off of the top of Pâté's cage and kicking aside items that had been strewn across the floor. She lifted Pâté out of his cage. "Say hello to Imogen, little friend." She put on her Pâté voice, an imitation of the butcher from town, with his belly laugh and rough-around-the-edges accent. "G'day, missy!"
"Hi, Pâté. Um." Imogen shrugged. Something about her smile seemed tight, foreboding. “I mean, they’re just doing what parents do. And besides, I...”
Matilda stopped rattling around her room to turn and look at Imogen, hardly letting herself believe what it seemed like Imogen wanted to say. Pâté wiggled out of her grasp and ran up her arm onto her shoulder, watching them inquisitively. “What?”
A door— not corporeal like Matilda’s, but just as metaphorically loud— slammed shut behind Imogen’s eyes. “Nothing.” That expression took over her face then, the moody one that meant she was lost in the swirling dredges of her own brain. Imogen’s brain was quite mean to her sometimes, as she’d mentioned in the past, and it often was hard to pull her out of that state. Typically Matilda could keep on talking to her, not saying anything specifically, and the familiar voice would bring her back from that horrible place. But for Matilda to evidently be the reason for that look crossing her face, well... it was almost more than she could bear.
Matilda crossed to her, hands outstretched helplessly. “I’m really sorry for... for what they said. Putting words in your mouth and such.” She plucked Pâté off of her shoulder and held him out to Imogen. "Grandmum and Granddad can be so silly sometimes!"
This apology didn’t seem to help— in fact, Imogen’s eyebrows drew together even more— and she shifted away slightly, fingers twisted in Matilda’s worn red sheets, knuckles blazing white. “Seriously, it’s fine.” Matilda’s stomach dropped. “Let’s just work on that assignment, alright?”
Matilda searched for words to make Imogen feel better, but found she had none. The stiff manner in which Imogen moved to the threadbare carpet to take out her school supplies, paired with the storm clouds in her gaze, made Matilda think that maybe no words could have helped.
Even though the assignment was due at the end of the week, Matilda couldn’t make herself work on it, or ask Imogen if she needed any help. Instead, she set Pâté back down in his cage, and her hands and body moved automatically to her sketchbook, which was buried under the mess pile of homework on her desk. She picked it up, shuffling aside old homework and loose doodles, and situated herself by her window. The night air chilled her, but the screen was broken and the pane didn’t slide closed. She simply didn’t feel like she could be anywhere else in the room.
When she was in a state of upset, she went to that window, let the cold slap her in the face, and drew until her fingers went numb, covered in smudgy gray. Today was no different.
To get to the next blank page, she had to quickly flip past several sketches of Imogen— laughing, smiling, writing, riding Flora, chopping wood, baking. Would drawing her as she was now make Matilda feel better? As she put charcoal to paper, her hand began to shake, and instead of Imogen’s face, she began to draw bugs. Endless, repetitive, safe bugs. She was lucky that her drawing arm hadn't been the one hurt today.
As they toiled, Imogen didn’t ask her why she wasn’t doing homework, and Matilda couldn’t remember if a single word had been uttered between them that entire time. As she hatched a beetle’s wings and scratched the legs onto a wolf spider, she tried to tell herself Imogen wasn’t mad at her, and that she was just focusing very intently on the assignment. She wasn’t sure if it was convincing.
It felt like forever and a day before Mother tapped on the door jamb and cautiously peeked her head in, like she wasn’t sure what she would find. “Girls?” She took in Imogen on the floor, working on homework, and Matilda sketching furiously on the bed. “I don’t mean to interrupt the study session, but it’s rather late, and you both have school in the morning.” Imogen mumbled in the affirmative and kept working. Mother looked at Matilda, confusion written on her face, and Matilda shrugged helplessly. “Well, goodnight, then!” She leaned back out, and Matilda could hear the boards creaking as she walked down the hall towards the room she shared with Father.
A few more moments passed in silence, save for Father’s snoring from beyond the wall, before Matilda got the nerve to pipe up, “We should. Sleep, I mean.”
Imogen glanced up at Matilda like she was returning from a dream. She looked significantly less put-upon now, following a few hours of quiet. “It’s late, ain’t it.”
“A few hours after sunset, at least.”
Imogen began to shuffle her papers back into her bag. “Sorry,” she said. “I just kinda went somewhere, I guess.” Matilda got the sense she was apologizing for more than just losing track of time.
“It’s alright, darling,” Matilda said, setting down her sketchbook. “Happens to the best of us.”
Imogen smiled sweetly up at her, a bit of sparkle returning to violet, long-lashed eyes, and it was like Matilda could finally breathe again. “Can I borrow a shirt to sleep in?”
Matilda tossed her one from the clean pile at the end of the bed, a simple blue cotton affair, and Imogen stripped off her riding shirt before Matilda could react in kind. She whirled around, nearly falling off the bed in her quest not to catch a glimpse of skin. “Imogen!”
“Oh, come on. We’ve been friends long enough,” Imogen said. “I mean, I spent half an hour today starin’ at your breast band, for the gods’ sakes.”
“I just… I want to be respectful, that’s it,” Matilda insisted, still facing the window resolutely. She wiggled backwards off the bed and moved over to her closet, still not looking.
“Whatever you’re comfortable with, hon.” Matilda heard shuffling from behind her as Imogen changed. “But just know I don’t care.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to ogle your naked form.”
“I take offense to that, personally,” Imogen joked. Matilda felt a gentle kick to the back of her leg. “You’re good to turn around.”
By the time Matilda obeyed, Imogen had already gone back to cleaning up her homework. She had undone her ponytail, hair waterfalling down her back, and she was only wearing Matilda’s shirt and her undershorts. She was so casually beautiful that Matilda almost fell over.
“I’m absolutely stealin’ this shirt,” Imogen said cheerfully, blissfully unaware of Matilda’s sudden fit of the vapors, kicking her clothes aside along with her school bag.
Matilda stumbled around for a moment until she came across her own sleep shirt in the corner, which was a very similar one to what she’d given Imogen, except in red. “I’ll take the floor,” she said. This was an argument that the two of them had every time they had a sleepover. It always, without fail, ended with the two of them sharing the bed. Even though Matilda knew the outcome, she never wanted to assume Imogen would be comfortable in bed with her. Especially not tonight.
“Don’t. We can both fit, easy,” Imogen said, a silent affirmation hiding behind her words.
Which was how Matilda ended the night staring up at her ceiling, damnedly conscious of every bone in her body. Imogen had fallen asleep a short while ago and had rolled to rest her head on Matilda’s shoulder, an arm draped across Matilda’s middle and a soft snore escaping her lips every now and then. Matilda feared that if she moved, Imogen would awaken and spring away from her, stammering excuses as she had at the dinner table earlier.
Sometimes she wondered why Imogen chose to sleep here so often. Imogen’s mattress was good-quality, only a few years old and stuffed with soft down, while Matilda’s mattress was full of straw and sagging in the middle. Imogen’s room was nearly twice the size of Matilda’s, and the window inside closed all the way. But, regardless, it was clear that she wanted to be here, even if sometimes Matilda didn’t understand why.
She was going to be twenty years of age soon, and she still felt like everything was a mystery to her.
Matilda looked down at Imogen, her beautiful, intelligent, capable best friend, her only friend, whose face was clear of storm clouds in sleep. She absentmindedly tucked a lock of Imogen’s hair behind her ear. That familiar feeling clawing at her chest when she looked at Imogen’s lovely face, like a good ache… at least that wasn't a mystery to her.
Matilda slowly, slowly reached over, careful not to wake Imogen, and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. Imogen smiled sleepily and cuddled closer, letting out a contented sigh.
Perhaps Matilda didn’t need to know all the answers.