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alex-bumble-bee · 3 days ago

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many happy returns

This is a short story I wrote about Maggie and Jude for a creative writing class! As of right now, it's not canon to the universe of Death is the Doing- it doesn't acknowledge the murder of Armistead (or the ~murderer~ **wink wink**), only that he dies. I hope you guys will enjoy it, and enjoy a taste of my non-poetry writing :))

Word Count: 3917

South Carolina // August 10th, 1939

Eleven

At approximately 6:30, on the evening of her eleventh birthday, Magdalena Lord found herself waiting for the other shoe to drop. It can’t happen like this, can it? It never has before.

Like every other birthday of her life, she’d awoken to the blurry form of her mother stroking her cheek and singing to her. Like every other birthday, she’d put on her glasses while sitting up, watching as her mother’s russet curls came into focus. Like every other birthday, she’d known the plans ahead of time (the dinner, the party, the dancing), but her mother had explained them to her again, striding over to Maggie’s closet and showing her the outfit she’d be expected to wear, going over the plan of the people she’d be expected to talk to. Like every other birthday, Maggie had taken a moment of silence before leaving her room, savoring the calm before the storm. It was her birthday, which meant two of her siblings would be on the warpath, not to mention her father. And it was her birthday, which meant she couldn’t hide, as much as she’d like to.

Things had been tenuously civil all day, and it was driving her to distraction, feeling her spine stretched tight like a piano wire, her father on one end, Elias and Ava at the other. The party was beginning, and still no one had made a scene. The word unnatural floated through her mind, unbidden. She could feel Elias burning with something, sucking on a secret like hard candy.

Catharine Lord had lined up the children in the private sitting room- all five, from oldest to youngest- and was presently stalking up and down in front of them like a 4-star general, the European kind that her father read about in the paper. An inspection was necessary before they made an entrance, per usual. Maggie fidgeted in her spot, second from the last, adjusting her glasses.

“Maggie, take your glasses off,” Catharine snapped, stopping in front of Patrick at the other end of the line (Patrick, eighteen, even-keeled, fawn-eyed). “They’re unbecoming.”

“Mom- ” Patrick began, scratching at the back of his neck.

“Quiet, Patrick. Fix your tie. Honestly, how you manage to mess it up every time is beyond me- you’re too old for this.”

Next to him in line, Imogen (fifteen, blonde, blossom-soft) moved to assist, and Catharine scoffed. “Don’t help him, Imogen- he needs to learn.”

Imogen swallowed and turned her eyes back to the oriental rug. Maggie watched as Catharine’s gaze swept up and down the line. Patrick, Imogen, Elias, Maggie, Ava. Ava, Maggie, Elias, Imogen, Patrick.

“Imogen, look at me.” Imogen tentatively raised her blue eyes, meeting their mother’s hazel ones through her own pale lashes. “Look at me, Imogen.”

“I’m sorry,” Imogen murmured, pulling at her skirt.

“Don’t be sorry, be better,” Catharine drawled. “You look adequate. Try to act like you’re enjoying yourself this year, won’t you?”

Imogen nodded and went back to studying the floor. Elias (thirteen, ginger, always burning) was already waiting for their mother when she turned her gaze to him, his small hands balled into freckled fists at his sides. Standing just to his left, Maggie waited, her body held in a preemptive flinch. She could feel him tensing, a coiled spring, a mousetrap boy with eyes like ice chips.

“Elias,” Catharine began, extending a long finger towards him, her eyes narrowing, “don’t start. This is not your day. You will be pleasant, you will be reasonable, and if I hear from anyone that you’ve been anything else, I’m going to personally see to it that your birthday is ruined as well.”

On Maggie’s other side, Ava (nine, green-eyed, needle-sharp) snapped. “NO, that’s not fair!"

“WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” roared a voice from the doorway. Maggie’s heart dropped as her father strode into the room, scooping up Ava with ease, who twisted in his grasp, still trying to face their mother. Ava hated being held, but she hated being quieted more. Their father called her Lady Justice, always with an eye-roll and a sigh.

“Armie, can’t you keep your children under control?” Catharine hissed, one of her eyes twitching. Maggie’s hand was seized, and she was pulled roughly against her mother’s bony chest. “You’d think they were born in a barn, the way they behave.”

Ava was promptly dropped as Armistead Lord rounded on his wife. “The way they behave?! They behave better than you ever have, you harpy.”

Catharine straightened, her hand tightening around Maggie’s own. “Are you prepared to ruin this family, Armie? Everyone who’s anyone in Charleston is downstairs in the parlor right now- do you really want to make a scene?”

“God, shut up, Cat.” A darkness crossed Armistead’s face as he made eye-contact with Maggie. She felt her lower lip begin to tremble. He had eyes like Elias (clear and cold) and she was suddenly aware that he rarely looked at her directly- it felt like a spear through the chest. “If your mother hadn’t whored herself all over Greece, I wouldn’t be saddled with pretending you’re mine, you pathetic, knock-kneed little dago.”

The slap across the face that he received from Catharine in response to this insult echoed within the confines of the sitting room. Maggie was numb, blinking in paralyzed shock.

Greece-

Whored herself-

Pretending you’re mine-

Patrick was looking at her, his gentle eyes pained, attempting to offer muted reassurance. Imogen already had tears curling down her round cheeks, looking mildly jealous of them as they sought escape via absorption into the rug at her feet. You knew- you already knew. Elias had made a beeline for their father, glaring at Maggie the entire time, his face redder than his hair. Ava had reached the point of no return, and looked in danger of exploding, shattering into shrapnel like in the stories they overheard about the burgeoning war in Europe. A choked, hiccupy whimper escaped the confines of Maggie’s chest. Her face was wet. Catharine had begun to wipe roughly at her face, talking again- saying something about the party, about the guests- but Maggie found she couldn’t understand anymore.

Dad. Dad. Dad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

South Carolina // August 10th, 1948

Twenty

At approximately 6:30, on the evening of her twentieth birthday, Magdalena Lord found herself questioning everything. Her father had been dead for a week, and she had yet to cry. The house was full again, like it hadn’t been in years, all of her siblings having been summoned home to have their portraits painted. The artist her father had employed was one Judith Mitchell, known to all as Jude, who was rapidly causing Maggie to think and behave in ways that alarmed her. When Jude had arrived in South Carolina, she’d stepped out of her rickety old Ford with all of the attitude of someone much larger than she actually was, as if female artists from Massachusetts regularly appeared outside of Charleston wearing what appeared to be hand-altered men’s clothing. If she was intimidated by the massive Georgian-style house, with its great, white columns and its opulence, she didn’t show it. Instead, she’d slung her rucksack over one shoulder and joined Maggie on the veranda, where she’d extended a lightly tanned hand towards her.

“Jude Mitchell,” she’d said, smiling crookedly. She had green eyes, Maggie noticed, absently. Her short, sandy hair was very neat, and she smelled like aftershave, as if she’d recently seen a barber. The top of her head came up to Maggie’s chin, and Maggie was once again conscious of all five feet and ten inches of her willowy height, remembering the nights in adolescence that she’d spent praying to stop growing, convinced that if she could just remain below 5 '8”, her mother would be happy. When Jude’s hand met her own, she found it was strong and lightly calloused- an artist’s hand, with dark smudges lingering in the cuticles and under the nails. She was suddenly possessed by the bizarre urge to keep holding it, and, alarmed, dropped it like it had bitten her.

“Gotta name?”

Maggie flushed. “Oh! Oh, yes. My apologies- I’m Magdalena. Maggie. Maggie Lord.”

Jude grinned again, tilting her head to one side, and Maggie felt her stomach flip. What was happening to her? Her mother had set her up with plenty of bored young men at Charleston’s finest soirées, and nothing remotely like this had ever occurred.

“Nice to meet you, Maggie,” Jude had said, with a genuineness that had startled her, and that had been the end of their only conversation since Jude’s arrival, largely due to Maggie avoiding her at every opportunity. The sensations that Jude Mitchell inspired within her were unfamiliar, not unpleasant, and felt suspiciously like how attraction had been described to her. Jude had taken to spending her free time with Patrick, Maggie’s oldest brother, who seemed determined to draw the two women together into some sort of friendship. Had his choice of friends been anyone else, Maggie would’ve thanked him, but Maggie had already set about avoiding Jude at all costs, convinced that the sensations produced within her when the artist smiled in her direction (and, once, winked) were going to be her undoing.

And then one day she’d woken up, and learned that her father had died in the night. Such a man left behind a vacuum in space, and Maggie was rapidly spiraling into it. In the intervening few days, she’d barely eaten or slept. He hadn’t been kind to her- in fact, he’d been virulently the opposite- but the house felt too large and too quiet without him. They were all coping in their separate ways. Her mother seemed entirely unaffected (although she had hated him, she admitted), while Patrick was tired, and Imogen couldn’t stop crying. Elias was a wreck, smashing plates and windows whenever he couldn’t find a better outlet for his grief, and Ava, who had wept at first, was now steely.

You still haven’t cried, she thought to herself as her tired gaze drifted out over the garden, sweeping over the Spanish moss that crept its silent way up the trees. Although I suppose that’s to be expected, given the way he treated you. Still, a pendulous suspense had taken root inside of her, presenting itself as a thick weight behind her sternum, pressing against her lungs. The view from the back porch was beautiful on summer evenings, the sun lowering itself with languid nonchalance towards the horizon, but it did nothing to combat the unease within her.

The clearing of a throat behind her made her jump, her hands clutching at the material of her white sundress. Turning around, her eyes landed on two poorly-hemmed, trouser-clad legs, and she allowed herself to indulge in the trip upwards to Jude’s face.

“Can I sit?” the artist asked, her expression frank. Surprising herself, Maggie nodded, then wondered why she had, then realized it was probably best if she didn’t think about it too much. Jude lowered herself down beside her, and turned to face her, eventually opening her mouth again to ask another question.

“What are your glasses for? Sometimes you wear them and sometimes you don’t, and I can’t figure out why.”

Maggie laughed softly. “Oh, they’re for just about everything- I have awful eyesight. My mother just doesn’t like me to wear them. She says they’re unattractive.”

Jude snorted. “You do know that you’re beautiful, right? ‘Cause I look at a lot of faces in my line of work, and just to tell you a secret, I do pick favorites- yours is up there.”

Upon hearing this, Maggie’s first conscious instinct was to look away, and her first unconscious instinct was to flush violently. Suddenly, however, she could hear her mother’s voice in her head, saying a handsome artist has just paid you a compliment- you will say thank you, and you will not ruin this, so she looked back, a blush spilling across her collarbones, threatening the neckline of her dress.

“I- what- thank you,” she replied with effort. Her lips twitching slightly, Jude settled back against the railing of the porch steps, pulling out her sketchpad and a stick of graphite.

“Sit for me? I could use the practice.” She flipped to an empty page as Maggie spluttered and plucked nervously at one of her dark curls.

“I don’t know how- I’ll probably do it wrong.”

Jude grinned. “Hey, I’m here to paint portraits of your family, so you’ll have to learn anyway.”

“Well, yes, but- ”

“You don’t even have to sit very still- it’s really easy. Here, just- ” she took Maggie’s slender hand and settled it beside its twin. “Just like that. You can even talk to me.”

Maggie worked one of her lips between her teeth, tasting lipstick, and said nothing. “Mmm-hmm?”

“So, uh, Patrick told me I could find you out here,” Jude began, using her graphite to cast confident strokes across the empty page. “Happy birthday.”

Maggie felt her stomach clench. “Did my mother tell you?”

Jude shook her head and cleared her throat. “It was Patrick. Twenty years old- doing anything special?”

She looked away again, eyes dropping back down to her lap. “Not if Mama hasn’t planned anything. What with Father’s death and all, I can’t believe anyone remembered.”

Jude had nothing to say in response to this, so she hummed softly and went back to her work. Inside the house, someone started a record, and Dean Martin began singing. Maggie could feel something shifting inside of her. She had a sudden, desperate urge to explain, to say this is why I’m like this- this is why I won’t talk to you, why I keep running. My father hated me, my mother’s obsessed with me, the whole town thinks I’m better off gone.

“Things always seem to happen around my birthday,” she murmured. “The night I turned eleven, my father told me that he wasn’t my father. The whole town already knew.” As she’d grown older, she’d realized it was obvious; she was tall, thin, pale, and dark-haired, and she’d borne virtually no resemblance to Armistead Lord, who had been stocky and ruddy-faced, his blond hair fading reluctantly into gray.

“My dad’s dead too,” Jude said by way of comfort, lifting her gaze to Maggie. “He was a prick- mostly to my mom- but I didn’t really know it at the time. All I knew was that he loved me. He was my hero.”

“My father hated me.” This is why I’m like this. She heard her own voice from somewhere outside herself, speaking expressionlessly, as if she were reading aloud a menu at a restaurant. “You met him, so you know what he was like. I wasn’t his, and I guess it was my fault.”

“Maggie?”

Ava’s voice came from behind them on the porch, and, upon hearing it, Maggie let out a very undignified shriek that her mother would’ve hated, had she been present. She watched Ava look at Jude, and something passed between them.

“Hey, Maggie?” Jude asked, slipping her graphite back into the pocket of her trousers. Maggie blinked owlishly, and Jude took this as a sign to continue. “I think your sister has some stuff she wants to say to you, so I’m gonna leave you two alone for awhile, alright? I’ll go bother Patrick in the study again.”

Maggie nodded absently as Jude and Ava switched places. “I- um, I’ll see you later?”

Jude shot her a grin, sauntering towards the French doors. “I still need to paint you, remember?”

With that, she vanished into the house. Maggie swallowed. Beside her, Ava threw a long lock of tawny hair over her shoulder.

“So, uh…” she began, eyes fixed on her kitten heels, “I wanted to, uh… talk to you. Yeah. Talk to you.”

“Mm-hmm?” Maggie felt her eyebrows pinch together in concern. She wanted to ask what’s wrong with you? are you alright? because Ava had never been too scared to say anything, but at the same time (six-year-old Ava tugging on Maggie’s curls, ten-year-old Ava destroying Maggie’s favorite clothes, fourteen-year-old Ava telling everybody at school that Maggie had started menstruating).

Ava’s mouth was held in a tight line, and her gaze remained between her feet. “I guess I just wanted to say sorry. I- I don’t really know how to do this. I wanted to say sorry, though.”

“Sorry?” Maggie was fairly certain she could count on one hand the amount of times Ava, fiercely proud and passionately self-assured, had apologized to her.

Ava laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, you know, sorry? That thing you say when you realize you’ve mistreated someone your entire life.”

“Ava- ”

“ -can I just get this out? Thank you. I… sorry. I think I just wanted a mother, you know?” She bit her lip and twisted her hands in her lap. “When I was little, all I knew was that Mama only ever looked at you, and I was just a kid. I saw how Daddy and Elias treated you, like you’d caused every one of the earth’s problems, and I figured that’s how you ought to be treated. I was just so jealous- ” she broke off, Maggie watching as a rogue tear curled down her cheek, “and it made me hate you. Lord, it just made me hate you… ”

Maggie swallowed, hard. Then, pushing her fear aside, she reached out and took one of Ava’s hands.

“Maggie, I was seventeen before I realized that you didn’t do anything, and it took me another year to figure out what to do, because how do I even fix this now?”

“Ava- Ava.” Ava was almost shaking, green eyes wild, and Maggie scooched closer along the stair, taking her other hand for good measure. “You don’t- you don’t have to fix anything right now, but I need to ask, how is Jude involved in this?”

Ava exhaled, chuckling. “I take it you’ve also realized that she’s strangely easy to talk to?”

“Something like that,” Maggie mumbled.

“Patrick’s right,” noted Ava, wiping at her eyes.

Maggie dug a handkerchief out of her clutch and offered it. “About what?”

“About Jude. You should get to know her- she’s a good one.”

“Hmm…” Maggie found herself gazing through the French doors into the study, where Patrick and Jude sat, playing chess. She watched as Jude took one of Patrick’s bishops, watched as she threw herself backwards in maniacal laughter, and, in doing so, managed to tip over her chair. “Yes, I think she is.”

South Carolina // August 10th, 1949

Twenty-One

At approximately 6:30, on the evening of her twenty-first birthday, Magdalena Lord found herself right back where she’d started. She had agreed to come home, back to South Carolina, after her mother had conceded to her demands of “no party, no guests,” and, after some encouragement from Jude, “no Elias.” By now, he was married, she’d heard, to some girl he’d met at Duke. She hadn’t been invited to the wedding.

Only Patrick and Ava had ever seen the studio apartment in Boston that she shared with Jude (Jude had been nervous about it- something about the apartment not being up to Lord-family standards- but it was blessedly theirs); Imogen had been invited, once, when Maggie was feeling particularly optimistic. They’d met in June for lunch near South Station, and Maggie had asked about South Carolina while Imogen nervously scanned the throngs of passersby. What’s wrong? had led to a guilty expression and a nervous laugh, which had led to Maggie asking for the cheque. Later that day, Jude had returned home to find her lying, fully clothed, on top of the duvet, clutching her handkerchief like a lifeline.

“Why do you want me here?” she’d hiccuped, while Jude peeled her out of her smartest dress- the one she’d worn because Imogen had always liked blue- and set her shoes gently by the front door. “I- I have no idea what I’m doing with myself- I didn’t go to college, I don’t have any friends- ”

“Hey.”

She looked up, sniffing, hands clutching at the silk of her slip. Jude stood over her, hands on her hips, sandy eyebrows scrunched together with concern. Through the tears, Maggie could make out a stray smear of charcoal on her forehead.

“How did it go with Imogen?”

Maggie felt her traitorous lower lip begin to tremble again. Pathetic. “She- I think she only agreed to talk with me because we’d be in Boston, and she spent the entire lunch looking out the window like she was worried someone from home would see us.”

“Oh, fucking hell,” said Jude, sitting down beside her. “I mean, Christ, I know she’s your sister, but who does she think she is? No one’s following her from Charleston on the off-chance that she might be visiting you.”

Maggie had shaken her head and wiped at her eyes. Realizing that her makeup must be running in rivulets down her face by now, she tried to turn away, to put some distance between herself and this woman, this force of nature who held her at night like she was something worth holding, who had spirited her out of South Carolina, who seemed uncomfortable with any acknowledgement of the fact that she was doing more for Maggie than anyone had ever done. Why do you want me here?

And now she was back in South Carolina for her birthday, sitting opposite her mother in the study, watching Catharine’s long fingers curl possessively around a glass of cognac, hazel eyes narrowed.

“Mama,” she began, swallowing. Catharine crooked an auburn eyebrow at her. “Mama, I- ” She was cut off by a sigh as her mother took a long drink. She stretched languidly, cognac slipping over the rim of the glass, onto her hand, before sticking two fingers into her mouth and cleaning them off.

“I think I deserve a drink; it’s my favorite child’s birthday, and she hates me.”

When I was five, I practiced hymns until I lost my voice so I wouldn’t embarrass you in church. When I was ten, you told me my glasses made me ugly. You started teaching me to feel through the world without them. When I was fifteen, you took me to a doctor to see if they could give me more curves. Mama, I know. I know, Mama. I’m too tall and I’m still knock-kneed and my nose is too big. I’m too scared to sing in church and I can’t see without my glasses and I’m not what you wanted. You are why I’m like this. I know, Mama, I know.

“I don’t hate you, Mama.”

Catharine let out another long sigh and made eye contact again, gaze flickering with dark venom. “What do you think of me, then? You live in Boston. You don’t call.”

I live in Boston. I don’t call. I live with Jude, who cleans my glasses in the morning when I’m grumpy. She draws me more than she’s willing to admit.

“I think… Mama, I think I’m happy now.”

I have a home and eventually it will feel like it’s really mine. For now, I redecorate, and Jude appreciates my changes. She draws me a lot, and she admits as much. We help old Mr Moskowicz across the hall with his groceries, and he teaches me how to make his mother’s soup. I make it for Jude. I make it for myself.

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