Page 83 of A Castle in the Sky: Fern & Connor
Fern laughed. "I don't think that's it."
"He does!" Coral insisted. "He looks at you like I look at cake… and donuts."
Fern kept cutting the packaging while a smile teased the corner of her mouth. "That's a very high standard."
Coral considered this. "Da likes cake a lot."
Fern snorted, shaking her head as she sorted screws into different boxes.
"Anyway," Fern said lightly, "he loves you more."
"Hmm." Coral thought about it. "He loves Ma and Fern the most."
Fern leaned over and kissed the top of her head before going back to her sorting. "I think so, too."
They carried the sorted parts upstairs one box at a time, Coral chattering away, Fern listening with half an ear while trying not to drop anything on her toes.
She nudged open Coral's new bedroom door with her shoulder and set a bundle of wooden slats against the wall.
"Okay," Fern said, brushing her hands together. "One more trip downstairs and we—"
The hair in the back of her neck stood up as she turned.
Her breath froze in her lungs.
A shape separated itself from the shadowed corner of the hallway. Thin. With her burning green eyes focussed on them.
Matilda was standing just outside the doorway, blocking the exit entirely.
Fern's heart slammed against her ribs.
Coral froze behind her, fingers curling into the hem of Fern's jumper.
Matilda's mouth curved into a slow, unsettling smile. "You shouldn't have left the back door open."
Fern's heartbeat roared in her ears as her blood turned to ice.
She hadn't left the back door open. She wassureshe hadn't. Unless...had she? When Connor had left? When Coral had run to get her crayons?
Matilda stepped forward with serpentine grace and the eerie calm of someone who'd rehearsed this moment many times in her head.
Her beautiful hair was cut close to her jaw, her clothes hanging off a thinner frame than Fern remembered. A faint tremor rippled down her arm as she brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
"You looked busy," Matilda continued softly, eyes flicking to the wardrobe parts scattered across the floor. "I didn't want to interrupt. I was just watching that heart-breaking goodbye."
Fern swallowed hard, stepping subtly in front of Coral. "Matilda," she said carefully, "what are you doing here?"
Matilda tilted her head as if making a decision. "What I always do," she murmured. "Cleaning up the mess other people leave behind."
"What do you want?" Fern breathed as she tried to hide Coral behind her.
Matilda was thinner—shockingly so. Her collarbones jutted sharply; her arms trembled visibly. Her pupils were blown wide. Light reflected off a glint of silver in her hand.
A knife?
She was like a ghost that refused to be exorcised.
"You have been a very naughty girl, Coraline," Matilda said softly. "Snitches get stitches, you know."
