My Life is Horrific Chapter 20 — Matilda (Patreon)

I sat in the armchair across from Miss Honey's desk with my hands on my knees and my mouth shut. She sat in her own chair with her hands folded neatly on the desk in front of her, wnd for a while neither of us said anything.

I was still reeling internally from the fact that Jennifer Honey was sitting three feet away from me in the flesh, real and breathing. In the film she had been the headmistress of Crunchem Hall after Trunchbull left. 

But this wasn't a film, and clearly things had gone differently here, I had learned the hard way by now that you could not trust movie information to map onto this world with any kind of accuracy. People changed. Timelines shifted. The broad strokes were usually right but the details could go anywhere.

"So," I said, going for broke. "Come here often?"

She blinked in confusion and then a smile broke across her face. "Are you uncomfortable, James?" she asked warmly.

I scratched the back of my head and let out a breath. "Yeah, I guess a little. Not used to the whole, you know, sitting in a room talking about feelings thing."

Miss Honey nodded as though she had expected exactly that answer. "That's perfectly natural. Most young men your age aren't especially comfortable talking about how they feel. It's not a failing, it's just how you've been taught to navigate the world, and it takes a bit of effort to unlearn."

"I guess so," I agreed.

She uncrossed her hands and leaned back slightly in her chair. "We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to, James. There's no checklist I need to get through and no right answers I'm looking for. I'm simply here to make sure you're doing okay."

"Alright," I said, and some of the tension in my shoulders let go.

She started easy. "How have you been doing in the house by yourself? Living alone is a big adjustment for anyone, let alone someone your age."

"It's been good, honestly. A bit lonely sometimes, but that hasn't been too bad."

"Have you been reaching out to people? Friends, classmates, anyone you trust?"

"Yeah, I have. I've been talking to Claire a lot, actually. Claire Bennet. She's been a good friend through all of this."

Miss Honey's smile widened with what looked like genuine pleasure. "Ahh, Claire Bennet. I just spoke with her yesterday, actually. She's a lovely girl."

"Yeah, she really is," I agreed.

A silence settled between us for a moment. 

"I had no idea this school even had a counselor," I said after a moment.

"I'm actually the district counselor, so I move between all the schools in the area depending on where I'm needed at any given time. Derry, the surrounding towns, wherever there's a student or a staff member who could use someone to talk to."

"Sounds like a lot of travel."

"It is," she replied, her expression brightening with something that looked like genuine love. "But it's what I love to do. Every school is different, every student is different, and I get to meet so many wonderful people."

"Did you have a job before this?" I asked, genuinely curious now.

Miss Honey took off her glasses and set them gently on the desk, folding the arms with the same careful precision her daughter applied to everything. "I was a principal, if you could believe it."

I definitely can.

"No way," I said sheepishly, as if I was hearing it for the first time.

"Mhmm," she said with a small nod. "Crunchem Hall Elementary. It's a private school about three hours from here."

"Sounds like a cushy job. Why'd you leave?"

Miss Honey smiled and let out a soft giggle that made her look about five years younger. "You're the first student who's ever taken such an interest in my career history during a counseling session."

"Sorry if I'm being too personal," I said.

"Not at all," she replied. "This is, after all, a personal conversation. How about this, I'll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine."

I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Deal." It would be good to get some information on her and see why she's a damn councillor in this universe.

Her expression became more thoughtful as she considered her answer. "I realized during my time as principal that while I loved the students dearly, the role itself required a balance of love and firmness that I wasn't delivering as well as I should have been. I was too soft in some areas and that meant the students weren't always getting what they truly needed. A good principle has to be willing to set boundaries that feel unkind in the moment but serve the child's growth in the long run, and I found myself struggling with that. So I decided the best thing I could do, both for the school and for myself, was to find someone better suited to the principal's chair and move into a role where my strengths could do the most good."

"You gave up your position for that?"

"Technically, yes. But Crunchem Hall is a private institution that I inherited from my father, so I was able to handpick a suitable replacement and then transition into counseling with a clear conscience."

That was genuinely impressive, and not just because I knew the backstory from the film. To walk away from a position of authority and a guaranteed salary because you recognized that someone else could do it better, and then take a job that almost certainly paid less and required driving across the state to sit in tiny offices and talk to traumatised teenagers, that spoke to something real about who Jennifer Honey was as a person.

"My turn," she said. "If there was one emotion that could categorize how you've been feeling as of late, what would it be?"

I leaned back in the chair and thought about it properly, not rushing to give her an answer that sounded good but actually digging into the mess of everything that had been churning through me for the past weeks. "Stressed," I said finally. "Is that an emotion?"

"If that's how you feel, then it's a perfectly acceptable answer," she replied without hesitation.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Twenty-three."

"That's really young," I said.

"Were you expecting me to be old?" she asked, a playful glint appearing behind those warm eyes.

"No, no," I said quickly, waving my hands. "It's just, you're pretty successful for your age. I didn't expect you to only be five years older than me."

"Well, thank you," she said. "I was worried for a moment that you were saying I looked old."

"No no no, I mean, no, you're beautiful and definitely look young, like really young, not young young, I mean age appropriate young, you look great is what I'm saying, you're very, uh—" I shut my mouth before it could do any more damage and stared at the desk while heat crawled up the back of my neck and settled in both ears.

Who could blame me? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had Miss Honey as a childhood crush. 

Miss Honey giggled and shook her head. "Thank you for the compliment, James. That's very sweet of you."

She let me recover for a merciful moment before she leaned forward slightly and her expression shifted back to something more professional. "Can I ask why you've been feeling so stressed?"

I couldn't exactly tell her about Pennywise, or the castle full of vampire women, or the serial killer with the exploding ghost cat, or the fact that my dead father had been one of the most prolific ritual murderers in history. So I went with the version that was true without being insane.

"Just feels like things are out of my control, I guess. Like no matter what I do or how hard I try to keep things normal, something else comes along and turns everything sideways. And I'm the only one who can deal with it."

Miss Honey nodded. "I can understand that. That feeling of carrying everything alone is one of the heaviest burdens a person can bear, especially at your age."

"Are you married?" I asked, mostly to steer the conversation away from territory that might make me accidentally reveal classified information about interdimensional clowns.

Miss Honey shook her head. "No, I'm not. And Matilda isn't my biological daughter, if you were wondering. I adopted her a few years ago."

I nodded in understanding.

Her expression grew a touch more careful as she moved into deeper water. "James, I'd like to ask you about your father, if you're comfortable. How did you feel when you learned he was gone?"

The question landed in a complicated place inside me. My memories of this life and the ones from my previous one were always at war when it came to Arthur Mitchell. He had been a good dad. A great dad, actually. Pancakes on Sundays. Teaching me to throw a football. Coaching my little league team. Fixing my bike when the chain came off. Eighteen years of being a perfect father and showing and genuine love. But underneath it ran the cold current of what I knew he was. 

The Trinity Killer. 

Of course I couldn't say any of that.

"Yeah," I said after a pause. "It sucks that he's gone."

Miss Honey leaned forward and looked at him kindly. "James, I want you to know that everything said in this room is completely confidential. I won't share anything with the principal, or your teachers, or anyone else unless you give me explicit permission or I believe there's an immediate danger. This space is just for you. I'm here to help, that's all."

I didn't know why, but I believed her. Maybe it was the way she said it, or the look in her eyes, or just the fact that Jennifer Honey radiated a kind of innate trustworthiness that was almost impossible to fake. I felt something in my chest loosen slightly, a knot I hadn't even realized I was carrying. "Things are...complicated," I said slowly. "And a lot of what I have to say is, honestly, pretty unbelievable."

She held my gaze without flinching. "Try me."

I opened my mouth to say something, I wasn't even sure what, maybe the beginning of the truth or maybe just a bigger piece of the lie, when the phone on her desk rang cutting through the moment like a knife.

Miss Honey's eyes flickered with genuine annoyance before she caught herself and smoothed it into an apologetic smile. "I'm so sorry, James, let me just—" 

She picked up the receiver. "Jennifer Honey speaking." A pause. "Yes. Yes, I understand. I'll be right there."

She hung up and rose from her chair. "I'm terribly sorry, the principal needs me for something urgent. It shouldn't take long at all. Would you mind waiting here? I'd really like to finish our conversation."

"Yeah, of course. Take your time."

She gave me a grateful smile, gathered a folder from the desk, and walked out of the office, pausing at the door to the main room. "Matilda, darling, I'll be back in just a few minutes. James is going to keep you company."

"Okay, Mum," she replied from the chair.

Then Miss Honey was gone, and I was alone with a seven-and-a-half-year-old genius who could move things with her mind.

We sat in silence for a long uncomfortable moment. I was in the armchair in the office doorway, she was in the armchair in the corner, and neither of us was looking at the other. I hoped she didn't try and talk to me, who knew what kind of genius shit she could do. 

"Have we met before?" Matidla asked without looking up from her book.

"No," I said a little too fast. 

"Then why did you recognise me as soon as my mum said my name?"

I felt a small spike of adrenaline and tried very hard to keep it off my face. "I didn't recognise you. I was just, surprised by the name. It's not a very common name."

Wow James what a great argument, I wonder what you'll come up with next...

Matilda looked up from her book and studied me. "You're nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

"You are. Your left hand is gripping the armrest and your breathing has increased. Those are stress responses."

"I'm not nervous," I repeated.

"You are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Do you always talk to adults like this?"

"You're not an adult."

"I am eighteen years old, which makes me legally an adult."

She turned a page. "What did you get held back in school?"

"What? No, I didn't, I'll have you know I get great grades."

She looked at me with an expression that suggested she was about to dismantle that claim at the molecular level. "What's a quadratic formula?"

"That's, uh, x equals negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four a c, all over two a."

"What's the integral of e to the power of x?"

"E to the power of x plus a constant."

"Who wrote the Critique of Pure Reason?"

"Kant."

"What year?"

"Uh. Seventeen... eighty... one?"

"What's the atomic number of Molybdenum?"

I opened my mouth and then closed it. "Who the hell knows the atomic number of Molybdenum?"

"Forty-two," she said. "What's the capital of Burkina Faso?"

"I don't even know where Burkina Faso is."

"Ouagadougou. What's the derivative of the natural log of x?"

"One over x."

"What does Cogito ergo sum mean?"

"I think therefore I am."

"Who said it?"

"Descartes."

"In what year?"

"I... you know what, I'm not doing this anymore."

"1637."

"Dammit." I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my face with both hands. "Not everyone can be a natural genius like you."

She smiled properly now and she stood up from the chair with her book held against her chest. "Who told you I was a genius?"

Fuck.

"Nobody told me, it's just, I can tell, you know, the big books and the vocabulary and the quiz you just gave me, it's pretty obvious—"

"Yet you're not surprised someone my age seems to know all of this..." she refuted my claim almost immediately. "You knew my name. You knew about my intelligence. What else do you know?"

"Nothing! I don't know anything, I'm just a regular eighteen-year-old and I think we should talk about something else."

"You're a very bad liar, James."

"Listen, kid, just sit down and read your book," I said, dropping into the chair and crossing my arms.

I immediately kicked myself internally. Matilda could be incredibly useful. She was, as far as I knew, the single most skilled telekinetic user in fiction, at least in terms of fine control and precision. Carrie's telekinesis was a sledgehammer but Matilda's was a scalpel. In the film she had moved individual objects with pinpoint accuracy, written on chalkboards from across the room, manipulated locks and switches and levers with nothing but focused thought. If I had absorbed her ability when we shook hands, that meant I now had both Carrie's brute-force TK and Matilda's precision TK sitting inside me, and the potential of that combination was staggering.

But I couldn't use any of it properly. Not yet. I could barely lift a beer can without dropping it. I needed help, and the tiny genius currently staring at me like I was a particularly interesting lab specimen was probably the only person in this town who could teach me and not just me but maybe she could help Carrie. 

Which meant I needed to not alienate her.

"Okay, look—" I started.

A book floated off the shelf.

It drifted off the shelf crossing about four feet of open air before settling gently onto the table beside my chair. Matilda was watching me with her hands clasped behind her back and her head tilted slightly to one side.

What the hell was she doing just revealing her powers like that, didn't she care about keeping them hidden. What was she— oh fuck I just fell for it again.  

Her eyes narrowed.

"You didn't react," she said.

"React to what?" I tried to play it off. 

"The book just moved on its own. Across the room. And you didn't react at all. No surprise, no confusion, no fear. Usually someone would freak out at the sight of it but you weren't surprised in the least." She took a step closer. "How. How do you know about me. Tell me right now."

I was trapped and I knew it. But what could I say? I couldn't tell her I was from another world where she was a character in a children's film. That was insane even by the standards of this insane world.

Maybe there is a middle ground. 

"I'm like you," I said instead, meeting her eyes. "I'm special."

She went very still.

"Prove it," she said.

I looked down at the chair I was sitting on, pressed my palm against the wooden armrest. The grain of the oak flowed up into my hand and spread across my fingers and knuckles in a shell of wood.

Matilda's eyes widened and for the first time since I had met her she looked like an actual seven-year-old, the composure cracking just enough to let the wonder through. Then the wonder snapped shut and her eyes narrowed again. "That's impressive, but that doesn't explain how you knew about me."

"I also have psychometry," I said, letting the wood drain away. "It activated when we shook hands. When I touch someone I get flashes of their life, their experiences, their abilities. I saw things about you, about your parents, about Miss Trunchbull."

Her eyes went wide again at the name, and this time the composure stayed cracked. "You know about the Trunchbull?" she whispered.

"Yeah."

"And about my birth parents?"

"Yeah."

"About Crunchemhall?"

"Yeah."

It seemed that she decided to believe me as the questions started flowing like a river. "Are there more people like us? How many? Where are they? Do they all have different abilities? Is it genetic or environmental? Can the abilities be developed further? Have you met others? What can they do? Is there a community? Is there—"

"Whoa, whoa, easy," I said, holding up both hands. "Calm down. It's complicated, but yes, there are more people like us. Several of them. Different abilities, different levels of control. Some of them live in this town."

Her face lit up. "Can I meet them?"

"Trust me, you don't want to. With the exception of a few, most of them are assholes. Or dangerous. Or both."

"You shouldn't swear in front of children, you know."

"Act like a child then."

"Touché."

She started pacing the small room, her small hands clasped behind her back, her mind visibly racing. "I want to know everything. How many people have you met who had abilities? What's the range of powers you've encountered? Is there a pattern to who develops them and who doesn't? Have you noticed any correlation between—"

The door to the main room opened and Miss Honey walked back in, her cardigan slightly askew and a look of mild exasperation on her face that smoothed immediately into a warm smile when she saw the two of us. "Oh, I hope you two were getting along while I was gone."

Matilda turned to her mother with a perfectly composed expression that was nothing short of angelic. "We were. James was telling me about his studies and he offered to help me with my college-level mathematics. He says he's quite good at it."

I stared at her. Little shit. 

She had not broken eye contact with her mother. Her small face was the picture of innocence.

"Oh really?" Miss Honey looked at me with delighted surprise. "That's so lovely of you, James."

"He also invited both of us to his house so he can help me there," Matilda continued in the same sweet, measured tone. "He said it would be much easier with a proper desk and a quiet environment."

You manipulative little—

Matilda turned her head just enough to catch my eye while her mother wasn't looking, and the smile she gave me was the smuggest, most self-satisfied expression I had ever seen on any human face of any age.

I wanted to refute it. I wanted to say that I had offered no such thing and that this child was a pathological manipulator who had just ambushed me with a social trap that I had no way to escape from without looking like a jerk in front of her extremely beautiful mother.

But then Miss Honey turned that warm smile on me, and  she tucked a strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear with that slightly shy gesture that made her look like a painting. "That's really very kind of you, James. Are you sure it wouldn't be too much trouble?"

"Yeah," I said in a voice that sounded like it was being squeezed through a pipe. "It'll be great.... helping her."

Matilda smiled sweetly. "Thank you, James. You're so generous."

I was going to get that kid back for this if it was the last thing I did.

(AN: Matilda is going to be a recurring character as i feel like James needs a teacher and an ally with all these enemies he's facing. Miss Honey is also in the picture now, which adds another layer to James's increasingly complicated social life. Between Beverly, Claire, Regina, and now a gorgeous 23-year-old counselor planning to visit his house, James dance card is getting very full. Hope you enjoyed.)