Matilda's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Matilda woke on basket day with the schedule folded in her pocket. She had a window and a hiding place. What she did not have was cover. The shed at the edge of the field sagged on three sides, and its front wall faced the lane the old witch walked twice a day. Two hours was a long time to crouch behind broken boards. If a neighbor cut across the field, or a boy chased a dog through the grass, they would see her through the gaps. One pair of eyes would end the plan. She walked out at first light to fix it. She carried a bundle of cut brambles, a spool of dark thread, and a pot of soot mixed with lard. The shed leaned into the weeds like a tired animal. Moss climbed the boards. The door hung on one hinge. Matilda worked the door shut and wedged it with a stone. Inside, dust hung in the light. She rubbed soot into the pale wood around the broken window so her face would not shine through. She wove brambles across the front gaps from the inside, thick enough to block a look, loose enough to see out. She swept the floor clear of anything that might crack under her boot. She marked the spot where she would kneel and the spot where she would stand. She was tying the last bramble when she heard footsteps in the grass. Matilda froze with the thread in her teeth. Through the window she saw the old witch pass along the lane with a covered basket on her arm, humming, not ten paces from the shed wall. The old witch did not turn her head. She walked on toward the village road. Matilda counted to a hundred after the humming faded. Then she counted to a hundred again. The barn stood quiet across the field, its wooden siding warm in the sun, the double doors shut. Her window had opened. Matilda did not move to the barn. Not yet. She stayed inside the shed and watched the lane for the full two hours, testing the hide. A farmhand crossed the far corner of the field and never looked her way. A crow landed on the roof and left. When the old witch came back up the lane with an empty basket, Matilda was pressed to the inside wall, breath slow, and the old witch passed without a glance. Matilda waited until the cottage door shut in the distance. Then she slipped out the back, keeping the shed between herself and the house. The hide worked. She had her post. In two days she would cross the thirty strides to the barn door with the key problem still ahead of her, and no more time to solve it from a distance.