The Truth About Matilda

I do not know where to start. All of it feels absurd.

Matilda invited me over to talk. Normally, I just invite myself, so I was curious. It started out normally; we talked about how her training was going and when she’s leaving to join the Marshal, how the snow was starting to pile up outside, how we’re both looking forward to Pastor Bean’s upcoming dinner. I finally decided to try and push her about Victor, about how I’ve seen nothing conclusive about his so-called lusts for me.

She apologized about it. Then she apologized for the kiss, again. Then she apologized for her rudeness, her arrogance, her casual jibes and smirking taunts and government secrets. She apologized for, essentially, everything she’s said and done to me since we met.

I think this is the first time I’ve really talked to Matilda Walstead. I’ve seen her before, bits and pieces, but at no point after that first apology did I talk to the Blue Wench.

She said a lot after that. I’ll focus on the main points. The Marshal’s been investigating Victor. She’s still in Henshaw because he wants him observed, along with completing her training and watching for more wizards. She insists Victor dug up Mr. Edwards? He has connections to a shipping company in Louisiana that owns a dozen charities, and that company’s connected to Dr. Birch, and Dr. Birch may have known some legendary spy during the Civil War. She’s worried about me. She still thinks I’m Victor’s patsy - how frustrating - but his goals may be more dire than simply seducing me. She thinks that this all adds up to something nefarious and quasi-illegal that she hasn’t figured out yet. She says the pastor agrees with her. She says my father agrees with her.

I don’t think she’s lying. The Blue Wench has a way with words that lets them lead you away from topics she finds unpleasant. Matilda doesn’t. There’s an earnestness about her that feels…oddly like Victor’s own candor. But she has to be wrong about some of this, at least. The investigation on Victor is hardly surprising; the arrangement that left her here was very unusual. But Birch knowing a secret Civil War hero? The man avoided excitement like the plague; the most interesting thing about him was his bookcase. And my father’s the one who allowed Victor to work here in the first place…but he’s been more and more surly since the circus. I’ve been so busy with Victor and Matilda; I’m not even sure what’s on my father’s mind anymore.

At the end, she made me an offer. She wants me to betray Victor. Excavate the secrets out of him and send them to her for preservation. In return, she offered me a position under her with the Marshal, the vast resources and information of the New Marshal Initiative at my fingertips. I wouldn’t even need to go to Stephens; the NMI is at the forefront of scientific progress. Academia would beg me to step over from law enforcement. She even gave me the dictaphone I helped fix for her - a year’s wages worth of wax disks and gears, just sitting under my bed.

And she promised she’d kiss me the right way whenever I wanted it, if I went with her. And she did it once just to show me how good it could be. And I got so flustered that I ran out like an idiot.

I think about it and I feel my heart race, the sweat break out on my brow. Then I think about Victor rotting in a federal jail cell and my stomach turns. Months ago, I might have taken the offer without a thought; it’s odd to think I could be so callous towards him. Now I know how terrified he is of being indicted, how he’s so desperate to be tolerated. I know how much he’s put into training me, how much he’s trusted me with. And yet my father took me aside earlier tonight to ask pointed questions about how Victor’s been training me, and Pastor Bean wants to speak with me after church next Sunday, and Matilda’s willing to be honest towards me just to keep me away from him. I trust Victor, more than I’ve trusted anyone besides my own father, but he’s not infallible. Maybe he needs someone to pull him away from a bad idea. Maybe if I save him, I can keep the other three from destroying him.

I have to see him tomorrow. I need to know.