Matilda's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Matilda stood at the window until dawn and changed her plan. She would not carry the stolen book to the one friend who still knocked without a plan against her. If she asked, she would have to explain where the book came from. That explanation would end the visits, the shared tea, the silly hats. She needed to read the script on her own. She needed a place with old writing and no watchers. She remembered the small archive at the edge of the village. It sat between two lanes, weathered and quiet. Old villagers left records there. No witch used it. She wrapped the book in a shawl, tucked it under her arm, and walked in before the shops opened. The hut smelled of dust and dry paper. Shelves ran along both walls. Stacked ledgers slumped against carved boxes. Colored glass in the windows threw red and green patches on the floor. No one sat at the desk. A ledger lay open with a pen beside it. Matilda signed a false name and stepped between the shelves. She worked fast. She pulled down anything old. Village birth rolls. Marriage lists. A prayer book with faded ink. She opened each one and compared the letters to the shapes in her book. Curls. Hooks. Small marks above and below. Nothing matched. She reached the last shelf and found a thin bundle tied with string. The label said only "south road, foreign hand." She untied it. Inside were three letters written in the same crooked script as the book. She almost laughed. Someone had also written a translation on the back of each page, in a plain village hand. The letters were shopping lists. Salt. Wool. Two hens. But the alphabet was there, letter by letter, matched to letters she knew. She copied the whole alphabet onto a scrap of paper. Her hand shook. She tested it on the first line of the recipe. The shapes turned into words. "Add moonbloom root at the third hour after moonrise." She turned the page. "Stir until the surface holds a feather." She could read it. All of it. She retied the bundle and slid it back on the shelf. She folded her scrap of paper into her sleeve and walked out into the lane. The book was still stolen. The potion still sat in the cupboard. The watcher was still somewhere in the trees. But she had the key now, and she had not spent her friendship to get it. At her door, she stopped. A jar of honey sat on the step. No note. The lid was clean. Someone had come while she was gone and knew she had been out. Matilda picked up the jar. The friendship was still whole, for now. The watcher had moved closer.