return me to the ground (imedla/maggie)

magedalena clarke 

maggie is not helpful. there is a child within her that pouts its lip and stomps its foot whenever she is asked to help. before her father died, she didn't mind; she would run and fetch him new baskets for fruit, or a shovel, or haul buckets of water merrily for him, always hanging out for his praise. now, helping has gone from a game to a cornerstone of their survival, and maggie resents it. when they ask, she feels herself shrivelling up into a tiny heap. she puts up a resistance. it is not really a resistance against the good, honest work of her mother and sister, but a resistance against accepting that the parameters of her life have changed.¹

she thinks that imelda is brilliant. not that she'd ever say it. she is thankful for her patience, her solemn strength. she gives her something to rally against, something secure that will stay.²  it isn't long after her feet hit the floor that her sister, who has been out gathering fruit,³ returns to the church. 

"maggie," she says⁴. maggie's face scrunches up into a ball. she feels it coming before it hits her. the request, always, the asking. so sweetly, as though it is nothing at all. "come and help me bring these downstairs. i need you to hold the doors for me."

there it is. maggie feels clawing fingers around her throat. she chews at the skin on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from screaming. she does not - cannot - accept her sister's request. she remembers that her sister has wronged her. 

"you-" she whispers, face twisted with anguish. "-you've been putting out poison again, haven't you?"⁵

she feels the small weight of the dead thing in her pocket. 

thou must not kill thou must not kill thou must not kill - everybody knows that this is essential, a simple rule protecting the earth's children from the most vile of sins. is it so hard to follow? 

maggie wonders if her big sister will go to hell for this, or if it is possible, still, to save her.⁶






1. when they say 'lend us a hand, maggie, won't you, dear', she hears father has left us and you are no longer a sweet child anymore, you must face the harsh truth of it; the weight of us making it through the winter lays heavily on your back, now, girl and she runs from this, because it hurts her and she cannot carry it. 

2. she trusts her sister to stay. but then, she trusted her father to stay, and now he is buried in the cemetery under a tombstone she has never seen. 

3. it sickens her the way imelda works, as though she has a debt to pay to god. 

4. imelda has worked so hard to re-carve magdelena's name into her mouth, maggie, she always says, just as maggie demanded. she has erased lena just as maggie asked her to. she does a better job than their mother, who often forgets, and does not seem to understand how hearing the name her father once called her cuts deep into her flesh.

5. despite her resolve to be angry, her bottom lip trembles and her voice quivers, thick with emotion. she was never good at hiding from herself. 

6. she has saved her a thousand times before, and she intends to keep on saving her until they die. she cannot imagine going to heaven all alone. 

magedalena clarke 


no matter how many times maggie insists, imelda doesn't seem to understand. she presses on, forging a relentless path to nowhere. her sister does not avoid her gaze; there is no shame there, just bare-faced truth, and maggie does not understand how she manages it, when it is so hard to be good.¹  she smiles and says, patiently, "maggie, it's to protect the trees. you know that. it's the same stuff we used to put out all the time." ²

at this, maggie scowls. she does not think the trees are more worthy of protecting than the mice. after all, the mice have tiny heartbeats and beady eyes and little whiskers, and the trees only spit out fruit which is unripe and sour and then mushy and over-sweet all at once. they photosynthesise instead of breathing, maggie remembers from science class. it's lesser. why should the trees be given precedence? 

"so, please, won't you lend me a hand?" imedla finishes, a desperate plea. a part of maggie wants to relent, just to shut her up, but she cannot do that. it would be a mistake, of course, to give an inch.³  it begins with holding doors, but it could end with the entire world crumpling down around her; next, the fruit picking, and labelling jars, and all manner of other things that are far too much like giving up. 

maggie shakes her head, a small, sharp movement. she is still fiercely angry about the mouse, and she must make imedla know this.⁴ 

"he was a good mouse," maggie says, with a frown. "he had a family. they are living in the stuffing in the armchair, you know."

she throws a disdainful look in imelda's direction. "you know i'd love to help you, but i'm all caught up, i'm afraid. arranging for the funeral. i don't suppose you want to help me?"  she raises an eyebrow, a challenge. 

of course, now that she is finished sewing and stuffing the corpse, there are rituals to perform, to ensure he makes it to heaven. she will need to carve a small coffin, and choose verse from the mouldy bibles to read over the gravesite. perhaps a hym to sing. and of course, she must visit the family and break the news-⁵



1. imelda breaks the rules always, and yet god does not hold her to the same standards as he does maggie. he blinks when imelda makes a mistake, but he stares at maggie all day and night long. she feels his eyes on her skin even past midnight when he should be sleeping. 
2. maggie has been told this many times before, but she does not know it, because in the time imelda references - the before time - maggie was a different person altogether: the child lena, not a haughty avoider of work but a brittle, flighty bird-girl. nobody ever asked her to work, then, or explained the pest-control measures they used in the orchards. it was none of her business, then. 
3. it is very important to live by your principles. good people do. 
4. her sister, the murderer, has brushed this off too quickly. even if god does not see her sins, maggie does. 
5. part of maggie knows she is being difficult. once again, she asks her sister to prove her tireless devotion, to toil at the impossible quest of understanding, to take maggie's hands in her own and tell her, 'i promise everything will be alright, and i will look after you forever and ever, no matter what.' she dangles the dead mouse in the space between them, a taxidermized token of her desperation.