Chapter Twenty-Four
Tilly stepped in, immediately filling the space with her voluminous presence.
Her perfume, not unpleasant but intense, rushed in with her arrival.
I felt somewhat relieved that it was her.
She was too open about her presence, and her twisted nature felt too exaggerated to be real.
But there was something about her that kept me on edge, and I couldn’t quite explain why I disliked her so much.
Was it her strange attention to Nick? Even now, her eyes went to him first, as if he were the only one she had come to see.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"How’d you find us?" Mitchell interrupted, making it clear he wasn’t playing along with the witch’s games.
"Oh, like it was hard?" The woman smiled and winked at me. I squinted, unable to contain my disdain. She chuckled and moved into the living room. "A little birdie told me. But no worries, darlings, I ain’t meanin’ ya no harm.
" She pointed at the gun in Mitch’s hand, "Why, this here ain’t no way to greet a lady who comes in peace. "
"What are you doing here?" Mitchell repeated my question, still holding his gun up.
"Put that thing down, would ya?" she said, approaching him with ease and gently resting her hand on the weapon as if it were a mere trinket.
Mitchell clicked the safety back on.
"Are you outta your mind?" he retorted, swiftly holstering the gun, his face flushing for some reason, a deep red rushing to his cheeks.
Was Mathilda making him nervous?
"I can ask you the same," she sang in a husky voice, "Aren’t you here huntin’ ghosts? Chasin’ the devil?"
"What do you want?" Nick pushed.
Mathilda gifted him a warm, sultry glance and moved closer, her hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder. "To help you, of course," she declared. "You came to me for help, and here I am."
"What kind of help are we talking about, exactly?" Mitchell asked.
The woman settled into a chair in one fluid, deliberate motion. "I know what you’re looking for," she said, a hint of amusement dancing in her eyes, "and I’m here to tell you where it is." She placed her purse on the table.
"That’s a pretty big change from what you said last time we talked."
"Let’s say my interests–" she paused, glancing at us one by one, as if for effect, "shifted."
June snorted from the staircase. Mathilda drank her in.
"Before, I thought it best you left. For your own safety, of course. But now, why not let the kids play? Right?" She tilted her head toward Nick, eyes twinkling with amusement.
I studied the woman carefully as she sat across from us, taking in her dramatic makeup and ostentatious jewelry. She had a flair for the theatrical, but she wasn’t uninteresting. What bothered me was the way she was eyeing Nick, like they shared a secret no one else was privy to.
"What’cha got?" Mitchell asked with skepticism.
"Not so fast, darling," Mathilda turned to him, lifting a hand to stop him. "First, my terms."
"Here we go," Mitchell rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. "Always gotta be catch."
I weighed the possibilities. Did she want money? Gemstones? Firearms? A drug cartel’s cocaine stash? Dirt from the graveyard? Some kind of magical tool?
Four pairs of eyes locked on her, waiting. Mathilda’s red lips curled into a satisfied smile.
She had us hooked.
"Nothin’ much. Normal stuff," Tilly said with a gentle smile. "Make sure to bring me the grimoire."
"The one from that crazy story?" June asked in disbelief and stepped down a few stairs.
"Just because it sounds crazy don’t mean it ain’t true," Mathilda replied, her innocent smile undercut by the mischief in her eyes.
Mitchell shook his head and turned away, his whole body shifting in dismissal. The witch sounded out of her mind. Nick was the only one who stayed calm, not even raising an eyebrow at Mathilda’s nonsense.
"What if it doesn’t exist?" Mitch asked.
She didn’t so much as blink. "It does."
"What if it’s not where you say it is?"
"Then you keep lookin’ until you find it." Her full red lips stayed curled in amusement, but her eyes had hardened. She was serious.
"If it’s real," June said carefully, "then why does everyone know about it? Why isn’t it a secret?"
The witch turned to her, tilting her head slightly. A trace of condescension colored her voice. "Honey, the best way to keep a secret is to make it sound like a tall tale."
I looked at Mitch, his face turned away from the witch, brows furrowed in thought. He was likely weighing the risks against the potential gain of the grimoire. The truth was, if it was real, we didn’t care about it. Having some answers would suffice for me.
Having come to some kind of decision, Mitchell said, "Alright, you got yourself a deal, lady. Now, what have you got for us?"
"I’ll tell you how to get there," Mathilda said.
"Get where?" Mitch, June, and I asked in unison. I’d been trying to stay out of the conversation, but curiosity got the better of me.
Nick’s "What’s there?" came a beat later.
Mathilda’s smile remained enigmatic. "You’ll have to go and see for yourself."
June rolled her eyes.
Had Mathilda known about our search in the woods?
Had she followed us? Or worse, had someone been watching us the entire time?
My pulse jumped. I forced myself to take a slow, deliberate breath, trying to calm the sudden rush of fear.
It was ironic. Out there, in the woods, the isolation tricked you into feeling safe, like you’d spot anyone lurking behind a tree.
But now, I saw how na?ve that was. The only ones easy to spot were us. We should have been more careful.
"So?" Nick pressed, finally speaking up.
Mathilda’s playfulness faded. When she spoke again, her voice was measured, almost rehearsed.
"Walk with purpose. Don’t think about anythin’ but the mark. Once you see it, feed it with blood. Walk straight ahead and cross the bridge. On your way out, do not look back. I’ll say it again: don’t you dare look back, no matter what you hear… or think you hear."
June raised an eyebrow in exaggerated disbelief. I knew exactly what she thought of the witch’s cryptic instructions. Mitchell blinked, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
"That’s it?" he asked. "Spill some blood, cross the bridge? Fantastic."
"Trust me, that’s all you need to know to find it," she cautioned. "But once you do, don’t forget what you promised me."
"Well, thanks for your help," Mitch said, moving to the door and opening it for Mathilda. She rose from her seat, her stride confident. Just before she stepped out, she turned back to us.
"And one more thing. If I were you, I wouldn’t go flashin’ those photos around."
Mitch’s gaze narrowed. "Which ones?"
"Any of ‘em. Especially the ones with the sigil."
"Si-what?" he shook his head, "Why? What’s up with that?"
Mathilda was satisfied with his confusion. "Wouldn’t you like to know, handsome?" she teased, then disappeared out the door.
The engine roared to life, followed by the crunch of tires over gravel.
"We gotta spill blood? What the hell?" June said, half-laughing, half-intrigued. "Is this like a ritual or something?"
Nick shrugged.
"Should we write it down?" I asked, though I already knew Mathilda was either crazy or messing with us.
"I remembered it," Mitchell said grimly.
"Are we gonna go there?" June asked, looking as if she was ready to perform a blood rite imminently.
I couldn’t blame her for being excited. After days of hitting dead ends, suddenly we had something. Even if it was a little unhinged.
"We definitely should," Nick said and then turned to me, as if seeking validation. "It is worth checking out, right?"
I shrugged. It wasn’t just up to me.
"Right," Mitchell said. "But something doesn’t feel right about her just showing up and giving us the… instructions."
June hurried us along. "Well, she’s nuts, so whatever. Let’s just go!"
Mitchell didn’t respond. Instead, he crossed the room, grabbed his gun from the counter, and holstered it.
"All this time, you had a gun?" I burst out, finally remembering to confront him. I’d been too scared before, then too distracted by Mathilda’s sudden appearance, until now.
Mitchell didn’t even flinch. "I’m licensed to carry."
"You could’ve warned me there was a firearm in my car!"
"Sorry ‘bout that," he said, barely looking up.
"Not only did you lie to me, but you didn’t tell the Sheriff when he stopped us. What if he’d decided to search us?"
"Hardly ever happens," he muttered, already gathering his stuff like the conversation was over.
I looked at June for support, but she raised her hands in a ‘leave-me-out-of-it’ motion.
I seethed inwardly, resenting the fact that after everything, he hadn’t been upfront with me. That whole "ask forgiveness, not permission" mindset—my dad had it, so did Lucas, and now Mitchell.
But then again, who was I to judge? My own history with honesty wasn’t spotless. And neither was Nick’s.
So I made a conscious decision to let it go.
Not because I was okay with it, but because, right now, having a gun felt less like a problem and more like a necessity.
After a long trudge, we turned at the three peaks, just as we had several times before. I wondered if Nick, lost in his usual quiet focus, was picturing the sigil carved into the tree—the one only we had seen on that first hike—or if he had dismissed the witch’s instructions entirely.
I hadn’t. I couldn’t. The image squirmed and stretched inside my mind, not as a memory but as something alive, something pushing against my thoughts, warping them.
The more I tried to focus on anything else, the more it took over, so vivid I sometimes thought I saw it etched into the trees around me.
Then it would vanish, only to keep haunting my thoughts.
That’s when it appeared.