Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(20)
“How awful for you,” Gil says, sarcasm thick in his tone.
Eugene sits down on a boulder that, compared to him, looks about as big as a footstool and rubs his hands together before offering up the riddle. “One day, a witch was boasting about how she could stay underwater for six minutes. An outré laughed and said, ‘That’s nothing,’ and that she could easily be underwater for ten minutes without the use of any spells since she was a null. The witch said, ‘Oh yeah? Prove it.’ The outré did. How did she do it?”
Gil opens his mouth, but I smack my hand over it and shoot him a shut-up-already look. Trolls are a lot of things; kidders isn’t one of them. Eugene said no discussing the riddle and he meant it. Gil nods and I step back, my palm tingling where it touched his lips.
I start pacing, rolling the riddle around in my head, as Gil stands stock-still, his hands clasped behind his back. The birds begin returning to the tops of the trees near our quiet spot by the creek, the only sound being the babbling of the water over the rocks half-buried in the mud at the bottom. It reminds me of the time my sisters and I went swimming and had a contest to see who could tread water the longest. They all went with a levitation spell to stay afloat but ran out of spell juice before my legs got too tired to keep going. Magic was amazing, but I’d spent my whole life figuring out other options, just like—
The answer to the riddle hits me like a punch in the nose.
I turn to Gil and level a huge smile at him. He lifts an eyebrow. I nod and try to figure out how in the world I’m going to express how certain I am of the solution. Charades has never been my game of choice. However, instead of waiting for me to do some kind of interpretive dance, Gil just nods. Now it’s my turn to raise both of my eyebrows in question. He nods again.
Letting out a deep breath, I turn to Eugene, who is flossing his teeth with a tree branch that still has a few orange leaves stuck to it. “The outré poured a glass of water and held it over her head for ten minutes.”
The troll growls, a low rumble that sends the animals in the forest on either side of the creek scurrying for cover. “Harold, kill the fire.”
Adrenaline spiking in my veins, I sprint over to Gil and practically jump on him. He wraps his arms around me and picks me up and then swings me round and round in celebration. By the time we’ve stopped, breathless, the sound of the forest has returned, but I can barely hear it. Instead, I’m ultra-aware of Gil’s arm around me, holding me tight against him, and the way everything in the world seems absolutely close to perfect at that moment in the soft light of the late afternoon.
“How did you get to that answer for the riddle?” Gil asks, lowering me down to the ground and stepping back. “I had nothing.”
My heart’s racing and I’m wobbly on my feet, but I manage to form words. “When you’re an outré, I guess you see things from a different perspective.”
“You know, Tilda Sherwood, you’re pretty great.”
“Is that a compliment, Gil Connolly?” Translation: Are we flirting? I mean, it definitely feels like we’re flirting, but why would that happen? He hates me. I loathe him. He’s a giant jerk who maybe is destined for my sister. And yet, when he looks at me with an intensity powerful enough to set that bonfire the trolls just extinguished, like he’s doing right now, a whole squadron of butterflies start maneuvers in my chest.
He nods, a strange tension coming off of him in waves as he shoves his fingers through his hair, almost as if he’s hoping to yank some of it out. “It is.”
What in the world am I supposed to say to that? I have not a single solitary clue. That all too familiar awkward weirdness enters the chat again, blasting away the comfortable camaraderie that had been there only a moment ago. I have no idea what I did this time, but I’ve obviously fucked things up again, per usual.
Great. Just perfect, Matilda.
I’m grasping for something to say when a fat, hairy boar with curled tusks moseys by us and trots into the tree line.
“That’s a wild pig.” I grab his hand and pull him along as I follow the snuffling animal. “It’ll lead us right to the mushrooms.”
Saved by the pig? Hey, some days a witch has to take the wins she can even if—the fates help me—kissing the big jerk next to me sounds better.
Chapter Ten
Gil . . .
The sun is setting, turning Tilda’s hair fiery shades of red and orange, when I land us in Griselda’s front lawn, the fall leaves crunching under our feet.
The good news is that I’m finally able to exert more control over the power surge whenever I run a spell while touching her. The bad news is that I don’t want to let go of her even though I’ve run out of excuses to touch her, and the unfamiliar twist of guilt has me bent up inside. I’m holding on to her hand even though I know this connection is just the connection caused by my fucked-up family magic.
It’s not real.
At least that’s what I’m telling myself as I stare at her hand in mine like some kind of dumbass.
“Wow,” Tilda says as she straightens her glasses, which had gone cockeyed somewhere between the Killjoy Forest and Wrightsville. “That was something.”
“Yeah.” I force myself to let go of her hand and shove my hands in my pockets so I don’t change my mind as we start walking toward Griselda’s porch.