Magdalene Ross, Capitol [TW]

Magdalene.

Strong, stout fingers wrapped around her arm, and a hand yanked her, stumbling, back across the yard toward the house. Magdalene, already sniffling, began to cry harder as a voice above her boomed. “What have I told you about going outside, young lady? What have I said?" Papa's voice echoed like a thunder clap as he hauled her up the steps and across the porch. "How many times do I have to tell you? It isn't safe out there." The screen door slammed, then the front door, and Magdalene was alone in the dark living room with only her papa and his anger. 

She didn't bother pleading as he yanked first her pants, then her underwear, down around her ankles, and she didn't protest as he bent her over the leather ottoman, even though the leather was cold against her stomach. At four, she knew better than to argue when she'd been naughty. And so she only cried when she heard his belt sliding free from its loops, but she didn't whine, because she was a good girl, at least sometimes.

"Hush,” Papa said, “You may be slow but even you understand consequences. You know perfectly well what I expect, and what happens when you don’t do as you're told and I’ve told you a hundred times, you are not go outside." For her crying, he spanked her, five hard swats with his open hand. 

Each smack hurt, hurt, hurt, but by then she had stuffed her fingers into her mouth to muffle her tears. She bit down all the harder when his belt cracked against her bottom, then the backs of her legs. She was sorry, she was sorry, she was sorry. But she couldn't say that with her fingers in her mouth, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway. She deserved this. She was naughty, she had disobeyed, and this was her punishment. Over and over he whipped her, though she couldn't count high enough to say how many times he hit her. Magdalene had cried herself out by the time he stopped, and lay limp across the ottoman, hiccuping and sniffling. 

Papa hauled her up, dressed her again, then marched her to the corner, the one nearest the fireplace. Hands on her shoulders, he made her kneel, then pressed her nose into the wall's seam. "Now then, you've been a very naughty girl, and you will stay in this corner and think about what you've done until I say you may leave it. Do you understand me?"

Magdalene sniffled and hiccuped, and finally stammered out, “Y-yes, yes sir."

“Good girl," Papa said, and he left her by herself.

†

Papa said that her mother had abandoned her in an empty room of an old derelict house. That’s what Papa always told her, and he never lied, so it must’ve been true. Her mother abandoned her, but who could blame her? Magdalene had a face not even a mother could love. Hers certainly hadn’t. Her condition had left her with a facial cleft and other abnormalities, though surgeries had fixed some of them, somewhat. She’d had them all before she could remember, and after Papa adopted her and brought her back to the Capitol.

Papa said that her mother and father were Wanderers, and her mother was a Morphling addict. Papa had retired from peacekeeping several years before, but had become suspicious of the strangers he’d seen around District 8’s wealthier neighborhoods. Once a peacekeeper always a peacekeeper after all. He watched them for several days, and one night, he followed them home, where he discovered that they were squatters. Subsequent questioning revealed they were Wanderers. Papa had alerted the proper authorities, then remained behind to assist. Papa said that when the peacekeepers came in to arrest them, her mother had ran from the scene. She was slow-witted, Papa said, simple, just like you. That always made Magda’s face hot, and she had to fight to keep from squirming, because of what came next. What always came next. If she was like her mother, would she do to her child what her own mother had done to her? Probably. She was often wicked and selfish after all. Papa always said so.

She didn’t even have the decency to stay and see that you were found. She just left you to save her own sorry skin. That was what Papa said next. What he always said next. Papa said that he had found her, a tiny, misshapen little thing, barely two and a half, wrapped in tattered blankets and left alone in the back room of the abandoned house her parents were staying in. Papa told her that her mother had been taken to a Detention Center where she died a few years later, from an apparent overdose from pills she’d obtained on the black market. She had not asked about her daughter once, Papa had said, and the man seen with the woman, her father presumably, never came forward to claim her, either. That was alright, though, Papa said each time he concluded the story. That was alright, because they would’ve made terrible parents anyway, and she would’ve grown up to be just as bad. A harlot, just like your mother, Papa always said, selling yourself for the next fix.

After the adoption, Papa moved her and himself back to the Capitol. The family home was large, four stories, and situated on several acres of land. Magda’s room was on the fourth floor, her father’s on the second. The Avox Irina, Magda’s nursemaid till she was nine, stayed on the third floor, and once she was sold on, the third floor was used for storage.

                                 †

Papa said that her mother’s drug use had caused her to look the way she did. Her face was misshapen—it seemed too big for her body. Her jaw and forehead were too large, her chin too pointy, the bridge of her nose too wide and flat and long. Her eyes weren’t quite where they were meant to be, and didn’t sit right in their sockets, seeming to curve inward. This made her top eyelids seem sunken in, while her lower eyelids seemed swollen, giving her permanent bags underneath her eyes. Her cheeks were hollow, giving her face an over elongated, oblong appearance. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were so thin, they almost weren’t there at all.

Her back was curved, leaving her with a hump that protruded from between her shoulders, and her neck too short, so that her head seemed to stick out from her rounded shoulders. Her skin was covered in patchy pink places, appearing as lines on her arms and legs and circles on her back and stomach. The skin was thin in those places. She also had patches of darker skin that sometimes resembled freckles, especially on her face. Her nails were small and poorly formed as well. Her hands and feet weren’t right, either. Her fingers and toes were fused together, giving her hands a mitten-like appearance, while her feet resembled flippers. The bones in her arms and legs were shorter than they were meant to be, so that her hands and feet started halfway up from where they should have done. Papa called her his little penguin when she was smaller.

Papa said that his own father was a religious man, as was his father before him, and so on and so on, back it went, to the Dark Days and beyond. John Ross, Papa’s father, had passed on his beliefs--albeit secretly—to the boy. As an adult, Isaiah Ross found most of his father’s teachings silly at best, dangerous at worst, but a few ideas had burrowed down deep and taken root. One such idea was the notion of a just God who punished those who violated His laws. The other equally important notion was the emphasis that God placed on maintaining law and order, and obeying the authorities, in particular the agents of the government. To Isaiah and his family, the Capitol was the government appointed by God, and everyone had a duty to follow the precepts they set out.

As for the other things his father tried to teach him, things about mercy and forgiveness and compassion, well, they seemed more the domain of criminals looking for an excuse than beliefs to be adhered to, and so Isaiah rejected them, for the most part. Such ideas could be dangerous—and so, one of his first acts as peacekeeper was to turn his father in for possession of subversive literature.

Isaiah kept a few of the books, stored in a locked chest in his office, that Magdalene was forbidden from touching or asking about. It was from one of these that he chose her name. Magdalene, for the harlot saved by The Lord, just as she'd been saved by His servant.

†

Papa said, she should be grateful. Papa said, she should be thankful, considering. She should be glad she had a face at all, never mind that it wasn’t made right. Never mind that she didn’t really have a chin, never mind that her eyes were small, and round like grapes, never mind that they bulged from her sockets, making her eyelids seem puffy and swollen whether she’d been crying or not. Never mind, too, that her nose was pinched, and small, with a bump on the end, and the bridge was long and wide. Never mind that she had no cheeks. Never mind that her mouth was small and thin and shaped more like a childish scrawl than a proper mouth.

Papa said, she should be glad she had arms and legs at all, given everything else that was wrong with her. Never mind that they were too short, never mind that her hands and feet started about halfway up from where they were meant to, so she had trouble reaching things, and walking sometimes. Papa said, she should be thankful she had hands, and feet, too, never mind that her fingers and toes were made wrong, that they were stuck together except for her thumbs and big toes, so she had trouble writing, and struggled to dress herself properly.

Papa said, she shouldn't complain, because after all. After all, her own mother and father didn't want her. They had proved that when they’d ran from their home districts. She was lucky that he took her in, that he looked after her as he did. After all, he was the only one who wasn't terrified of her, Anyone who didn’t have to not be, would be frightened of her. So, she should be grateful because she was lucky she even saw the light of day, never mind living as long as she had. She should be grateful. she shouldn't complain. never mind that her back was crooked, never mind that she had a hump rising up from between her shoulder blades. Never mind, because she was alive. She was alive, and she had him, and really, she often thought that was probably more than she deserved, anyway.

After all, Magdalene was a very difficult child, and she grew into a very difficult teenager. And so, Papa said, who else would love her, when she looked as she did? No one, that’s who. And who else would look out for her, when she was so simple she could scarce be left by herself without getting into mischief? No one, that’s who. And who else would be patient with her, when she was so often wicked and disobedient, willful and stubborn? No one, that’s who. And, she often wondered, who else could love her, when surely she must’ve been so very, very unlovable? No one, that’s who. No one but Papa and no one else ever would. No one else ever could.

†

Papa said Magda’s eyes worked no better than the rest of her seemed to. She acted blind on certain days and on other days she acted as if she could see better, if not perfectly. She became hopelessly confused by clutter, ever mind that she was also terribly messy. She adored bright colors, but had to hold objects close to her face to see them, or stand an inch or so away from Papa to see him. She would stare at the candles Papa often lit, but anything brighter hurt her eyes.

When Papa began teaching her to read, she had to hold the book so close to her face, Papa brought her home a magnifying glass from the market. She could not see out to either side, or below her nose or above her eyebrows when looking straight ahead, without turning her head. Anything past her nose, while not blurry, was indistinct, so that she might be able to tell that a person was coming toward her, but couldn't say who it was until they were almost upon her. Moving her eyes about helped and she developed a habit of peering at things from the corners of her eyes. Papa took to calling her little bird because she so often sat with her head tilted to the side.

Papa said the same thing about her ears. She frequently behaved as if she were deaf. Though she could hear, there was a delay in understanding what she heard. When under stress, that delay was worse. This combined with her issues with producing speech led Magda to being mostly nonverbal for much of her life.

Papa said Magda was spoiled and selfish. She cried when she had to eat lumpy or slimy or mushy foods, or meat with too much gristle or fat. She whined about touching sticky or gritty textures. She complained about wearing wool or coarse linen, or dresses with high collars. She whimpered at stockings and seams. She loved soft fabrics, loose dresses and snugly fitting stockings, and dressed in layers when she could. Foods with strong flavors—a lot of salt, or extra hot sauce, for instance, were particular favorites.

Papa said she was stubborn and willful. He said that because she also struggled socially. A quiet and skittish child, she often seemed lost in her own world. When she did attempt to engage with her father, she was clumsy and awkward. Repeating bits of overheard conversations to herself only brought punishment for eavesdropping and repeating her father’s words was insolence. Eventually she learned this, though it took some time before the connection stuck.

She had tremendous trouble with reading body language, facial expressions and other nonverbal cues, and also struggled to see them. When she could see them, she could not process them. While she eventually mastered the basics—a smile meant happy, a frown meant anger, tears meant sadness–more nuanced expressions continued to confuse her. Raised eyebrows, for example, could mean anger or surprise or confusion, and when she <attempted to guess, she was usually wrong.

Papa said she threw tantrums. He said that because when she was upset, she rocked, sucked her fingers and cried. When she was very upset, she would cry and bite or hit or scratch herself. When she was afraid, she hid under tables or in kitchen cupboards, till Papa started locking her in the closet to keep you from getting into mischief.

Papa said she acted like an overexcited child, even when she was much too big for such foolishness. He said that because when she was happy, she clapped her hands or bounced onto her tiptoes. Sometimes, she even jumped up and down. Other times, she spun around in circles, long after anyone else would’ve gotten dizzy and stopped. If she was really excited, she would say the same word over and over, and if she was really, really, really excited, she would say the same word over and over, while clapping her hands and hopping from one foot to the other.

Papa said she never paid attention. He said that because even though she could hear what someone said, she often forgot to listen. Someone would say something, and that would make her think of something else, and then before she knew it, she didn’t know what the other person was talking about at all, and sometimes she forgot they were there at all. He said that because she daydreamed whenever she was supposed to be doing her lessons, or listening to the priest’s sermon, or doing her chores. Mostly, he said that because he would talk to her and she would answer—because she was supposed to—but really she was reading, or thinking about something else, and hadn’t really heard what he said at all.

Papa said she was an insolent little miss. He said that because her biggest issue—besides how she looked—was her difficulties with communication. Either she employed cobbled together phrases—often taken from the bits of scripture she’d overheard her father reading aloud—or she answered with badly garbled sounds, as she often ran her words together without pausing between them. A typical conversation between the two ran something like this. Her father would ask how her day was, and Magdalene would reply, “but Martha was distracted with much serving. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate.”

Her father assumed she was being deliberately difficult and each utterance was met with swift punishment. Slow as ever to make connections between cause and effect, she several punishments before she learned to hold her tongue. But learn she did and she spent several years in silence.

However that was not what the retired peacekeeper was after. Understandable—to him, anyway—speech was, and so he began to encourage her to talk. This was slow going, and Magdalene never wholly mastered the skill. Still, she learned enough to avoid punishment every time she opened her mouth and when she could reliably communicate her understanding of commands, and reply to him with several stock phrases she’d learned—that were either original to her, or short sentences he had taught her—he considered her education complete.

Papa said, a spared rod leads to a spoiled child, and so he dealt with her accordingly. When she was defiant, he slapped her—especially when she refused to look at him—but also sometimes for answering back or being impertinent. Often though, when she spoke out of turn, asked too many questions, or was insolent, Papa washed her mouth out with soap. When she cried, he spanked her with his hand, hard, on her bare skin, and always always he said, Hush, and kept striking her till she did. When she went outside without permission, or refused to eat her food, or change out of her nightgown, or do her homework or finish her chores, he took his belt to her back, backside, and the backs of her legs, leaving scars she carried into adulthood. When she rocked, or hid under tables, or bit or hit or scratched herself, he paddled her backside with an old silver hairbrush, giving her bruises that took days to fade and made sitting almost impossible. When she fought him during bath time, done every day in ice cold water, where he scrubbed her skin till it was raw and red, he held her head beneath the water till she stopped breathing. When she was smaller, after a punishment, he put her in the corner to think about what you've done. As she got bigger. he shut her up in the cellar instead of standing her in the corner.

Papa said that she was named for a harlot, but that he would save her if he could.

†

An educated man himself, Papa decided that Magdalene should learn as much as she could, and so he set about teaching her in the evenings. He was wealthy enough, and trusted enough, that he was allowed to keep Magdalene home. Besides, the other children would run screaming from the schoolhouse when they see you, Papa said. Magda was prone to wandering off, so he tied her to the kitchen chair and refused to let her up till she’d successfully read or copied the assigned text or completed the page of math problems he’d given her. Even with that, she struggled to pay attention, to learn what she was meant to, and she struggled with listening and recalling information. Reading was difficult, writing even more so. Often she daydreamed, chewed on the pencils, or covered her papers with scrawled smiling people, with perfectly average bodies, and arms and legs and hands and faces that were as normal as anybody else's. She pretended they were her friends, and sometimes she talked to them. Her father would have none of it, and she spent many an evening bent over the kitchen chair, crying, while Papa punished her for neglecting your studies.

Papa said it was her fault that he had to punish her. Papa said, This hurts me more than it does you. Papa said, If you'd behave, I wouldn't have to spank you.

Magda said nothing. Magda only cried and waited for it to be over.

After, Papa said, Are you ready to mind me, now? and she was supposed to say, Yes, sir, but she didn’t sometimes, because her ears were too small and sometimes they didn’t work right, and even when she heard she couldn’t always get the words to come out right. When she didn’t answer, Papa would say, Answer me, Magdalene. Are you going to behave? If she still didn’t answer, Papa would say, Have it your way then, you stubborn little miscreant, and then he would spank her again, sometimes with his belt, sometimes with his hand, and sometimes with the hairbrush. Then he would ask her again, and again, punishing her each time she wouldn’t answer, as many times as it took till she replied as she was supposed to. Once she had, Papa said, Good girl, dressed her again, helped her back into the chair, tied her up again, and they continued with the lesson.

It was a painful, slow process, but eventually she learned. Slowly, slowly, she managed to puzzle out the letters. She learned facts and bits of scriptures too, by saying them again and again. Magda could write, too—holding the pen or pencil in between all four fingers and her thumb—and if Papa smacked her hand with his ruler enough times, what she wrote was even readable. She could count and do simple math problems. Papa taught her only the basics of everything else. She wouldn’t understand anything more complicated, he said. And so Papa taught her that God made the world, and, later, he explained what happened every month when she bled, and told her that laying with a man would make her have a baby. For history, he taught her about the Capitol, and their goodness and benevolence, and he taught her about the Districts and their evilness and rebellion. For geography, he taught her where the Capitol was, and the Districts, though she often got them mixed up. The things she didn’t know Papa didn’t seem to mind about. The important thing was, she knew the Capitol was good, and she knew how to be good and quiet and obedient. Nothing else really mattered.

†

“Magdalene! Come away from that window right now.”

Across the room, Magdalene flinched and let the curtain fall from her hand. Turning, she saw her father’s feet in the doorway to the living room. He snapped his fingers, said, “Come here,” and she did, shuffling up to him, head bowed. He caught her chin and tilted her face up, fingers squeezing tight so she couldn’t look away. Magda choked back a whimper. She hated looking at Papa when he talked to her, or she talked to him, and most of the time she didn’t. But Papa said that was rude and usually made her.

“What have I told you about looking out windows, Magdalene? Do you remember?” Before she could answer, Papa spoke again. “Ah ah. Look at me, child. Not the floor. Not my lips, look at my eyes, and he tapped her chin with his fingertips. When she forced herself to do as she was told, he said, “That’s right. Good girl. Now then. What is our rule about looking out windows?”

Magda swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Not supposed to,” she muttered.

“What was that?” Papa asked. “I didn’t hear you. Speak up, child.”

Magda swallowed again and licked her lips. “I’m not supposed to,” she said, louder this time.

“Precisely. You aren’t supposed to. And why is that our rule?”

Magda squirmed, pawing at his fingers, still holding her chin though not as tightly as they were earlier. She hated this, she hated this, she hated this. She couldn’t think when he made her talk-while-looking, she couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t.

Papa smacked her hands away. “Stop that. You aren’t an animal. Do you remember why we made this rule?”

Magda let her hands fall to her side. No, she wanted to say, she didn’t. She didn’t remember because his fingers were digging into her chin and she could smell the cologne he wore when he had to go out and that meant he’d lock her in her room to keep you from wandering off and she could hear the air conditioning whistling behind her and feel the air blowing across her neck and she didn’t like that and his fingers hurt his fingers hurt his fingers hurt. “Hurts,” Magda blurted out, though that wasn’t what she’d meant to say at all.

Papa said, “What?” and, “What are you going on about?” and, “Use your words, child,” but all Magda could say to each question was, “Hurts,” and “Hurts,” and finally, “You’re hurting me.”

Papa said, “If you would follow the rules, we wouldn't have to keep having this conversation, would we? Now, tell me that you understand why I made this rule in the first place and we can be finished. It isn’t difficult, child. All I want is for you to answer the question.”

Magda did not answer the question. Magda ducked her head and sank her teeth into Papa’s thumb, biting down as hard as she could. She wouldn’t have been able to answer even if she hadn’t bitten him. Her brain was too busy screaming, let go let go let go let go let go let go let go let go, to let her think of any other words.

Papa screeched and dropped her chin. “You misbegotten little wretch.” He flung the words at her, then backhanded her, hard, sending her stumbling away from him. Catching her by the arm, he pulled her from the living room and down the hall. At the hall’s end, he towed her up the stairs. Up and up and up they went, until they reached the fourth floor. Stumbling behind him, she following him to the door at the end of the hall. Her room. He opened it and pushed her inside. “We shall continue this conversation when you can be civil.” He slammed the door and Magda tried not to wince at the rattle of his key in the lock.

†

Magdalene stood by her window. The shutters were pushed back, and both window and screen were raised. Across the yard, she could see the sun slowly sinking down into the horizon. A bird’s nest set on the ledge in front of her, and inside the nest, an owlet peered up at her. Head tilted, it opened its mouth and said, “Whooooo, whooooooo, whooooooo.” Magdalene giggled, clapping her hands together. “Come on,” she said. “It’s sunset now. Perfect night to fly, too. See? Nobody but me to see if you mess up, and I’ll catch you. Promise.” The baby owl simply hooted to itself and shuffled around to peer out at the darkening sky. “You can do it. I know you can.” Magda bounced onto her toes, as she often did when she was excited. “All you have to do is spread your wings and flap. I’d pick you up, but Papa says I’m not allowed.” As she spoke, she stared past the owl into the night.

“Magdalene,” Papa called from the doorway. “Who are you talking to?” He came into the room and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“My friend, Owl Baby,” Magdalene said, chewing on her lip.

“I see,” Papa said. “Can birds talk?”

“They can, they can sing to each other, and, and that’s talking,” Magda said.

“Don’t be insolent, Magdalene. You know what I meant. Can birds talk to humans?”

Magda hung her head. “No, papa,” she whispered, “They can’t.”

He took her hand and tugged her away from the window. “That’s right, they can’t. And you must get to bed.” Pulling down the window screen, then the window, he locked it and closed the shutters.

“But—but, Owl, Owl Baby will fly soon and, and, she needs me, needs me to, to—”

“My dear child, that bird is perfectly capable of flying without your intervention.”

“But,” said Magda.

Papa held up his hsnd and she flinched. “Hush. Hush now. It’s late and we shall have no more talk about this bird, or any other ridiculous nonsense you might have rattling about in that silly head of yours.” He rapped her lightly on the temple with his knuckles. “Now say your prayers and go to bed.”

“But, but, Papa,” said Magda.

“I said no, Magdalene. Don’t ask me again.” He walked to the door and switched off the light. The room was quiet, then, and Magda took one step forward. “Touch that window and I shall give you the strap, and you will spend the evening on your knees, praying for forgiveness. Is that what you want?”

Magda paused between her bed and the window. How had known what she was going to do? The room was almost completely dark, except for a faint glow from the nightlight in the hallway. Maybe God had told him. She sighed. “No, Papa,” she said and knelt by her bed.

“I thought not,” Papa said.

Magda did not answer. Holding hands with herself, she prayed, mostly quietly but some she said out loud. In her head, she asked God to please watch over Owl Baby on her first flight. It was wicked, probably, to pray for a bird, and ptobdboy even worse to do it because Papa would be angry if he knew, but, she did it anyway.

“Goodnight, child.” This time, Papa walked into the hallway before he spoke again.

“Goodnight, Papa,” Magda said, and listened to the door click shut. 

†

Papa said the world outside was dangerous, evil, and wicked, especially for someone like her. She was too simple, too easily led, too foolish to know what was and wasn’t good. She was sixteen, as of the 85th Hunger Games, and yet, Papa said, You’re more like a child than a woman. Papa said it wasn’t safe, because even in this day and age, most people don’t see you as I do. Most people, child, are cruel, and they would see you as little more than a monster.Papa said he would keep her safe from them, but he could only do that if she stayed inside, where it was safe. Inside, he could protect her. Outside, he couldn’t. And so, inside she stayed.