Page 18 of Vying Girls

I looked behind her dubiously. ‘Is it a den?’

‘No.’ She scowled. ‘This is my hovel.’

‘What?’

‘My hut. My witch’s hut.’

‘Is it cursed?’

‘Yeah, so butt out.’

I looked back at the house, seeing no one in the door now. ‘My dad and your mum told me to come out.’

She looked at me differently then, though she must have known who I was. ‘Your dad wants us to live with you. Because our house is too small. We’d have to share a room.’

‘You don’t sleep in your den?’

‘Hut.And obviously not. It gets wet at night.’

I felt the wind in my hair. Wasn’t raining yet but probably would be soon. I took hold of a thorny branch, devoid of berries. She must have eaten all the good ones already. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Dunno,’ she taunted darkly, ‘are you a witch? You’ll shrivel into nothing if you’re not. That’s the curse I put on it.’

‘Witches aren’t even real,’ I said, purposefully trying to be mean. Pissed me off that she might have done something to keep me out.

‘So are.’ Her eyes gleamed in the dim. ‘I wished for a sister.’

Something passed between us then. It was like a silent pact, an understanding, aspell.My chest warmed, my heart budding for the first time. It was the strangest feeling.

‘I might be a witch,’ I said, suddenly excited. I didn’t care that we were playing little kid games, that Dad had already made me toss my dolls, that, just two seconds ago, I wanted to be anywhere other than here. I needed to be a witch so badly. In that second, I wanted to be whatever she wanted me to be.

‘Prove it,’ she challenged.

Eagerly, I lifted my top, just enough to unfasten the button on my white jeans. Then I yanked them down, doing a little shimmy in my haste.

‘What are you doing?!’ she shrieked.

Ignoring her, I got them down to my knees before turning to the side. My own gaze snagged on the birthmark on my thigh. It wasn’t huge but brown and dark against my pale skin.

I wasn’t thinking of all the windows overlooking the garden, nor Dad who’d likely tell me off for flashing my knickers to all and sundry. I was focused on the girl in the brambles, the one whose face was screwing up the more she looked at me.

Then she made such a loud sound of disgust, I almost kicked her. My whole body flushed. Fuck her and her witchy rules. I wasgoing to march back inside their tiny, stinky house and tell Dad to bin the both of them.

But then she reached out, heedless of the soil soaking into her leggings, and trailed her fingers over the mark.

I held still, legs goosebumping in the cold, knees trying not to knock.

‘Devil’s mark,’ she said sagely.

I kept my eyes on the garden gate. ‘Good or bad?’

Matilda Kingston looked up at me and smiled.‘Good.’

CHAPTER 4

Tilda

I can play it off as a hangover, this daze I’m in.