This Whip Wasn't Made for Smackin'
AN: Hey Mundies! Seraphina Wayland here! Glad you all came back for more. This is the chapter where we explore discipline in the Morgenstern family. Jonah said I shouldn't even tell this story because it doesn't show Father in a very nice light, but that's exactly why it needs to be told, so you can see how far he has come over the years!
Oh wait a minute… I'm sorry, did you all think that the great Valentine Morgenstern was all docile now after fixing his marriage and winning the Uprising? That he just did a 180 degree turnaround and became a stand-up guy over night? Nope! Change takes time. And he still had quite a few more lessons to learn, so let me tell you about one of those lessons now :-D
*And be warned, there is some violence in this chapter, so if you're squeamish, ya might wanna skip it.* - S.R.L-W.
Jonathan's POV
I was six years old, the first time I got in serious trouble. You know, the kind of trouble when your mom says "Go upstairs and wait until your father gets home." Yup, that kind of trouble. What did I do to earn that kind of trouble, you might ask? Well, I kinda, sorta, set our kitchen on fire, maybe a little. Ahh, who am I trying to kid? I kinda burned it down. But only because I wanted to roast marshmallows! Anyway, by the time I had figured out the stupid fire extinguisher, the damage was pretty bad. My mom said we would have to replace everything because none of it was salvageable.
So, I was told to wait until my father got home and when he did… well, let's just say it was a bad day to burn the house down. Father had been working on a cure for Uncle Lucian day and night for a long time by then and he'd had a particularly frustrating day. He'd asked the warlock Magnus Bane to summon a demon, to see if anyone in the demon realm knew of a cure. Needless to say, the demon had laughed at him and told him to get a day job. I don't know if you've ever been laughed at by a demon. But as a Shadowhunter, let me tell you, it's pretty humiliating.
It would be like if a lion got laughed at by a gazelle. You know, cuz we hunt demons, so they're basically our prey. Anyway it put him in a rather foul mood and then he got to come home and learn that his wonderful little son had burned down the entire kitchen along with everything in it. Not to mention the fact that we all could have been killed in the fire. So, when he came up to my room, I knew I was in for it.
Especially when I saw him pull out something that I was pretty sure he shouldn't even have. "Jonathan, do you know what this is?" father asked me.
"It looks like a whip?" I tried.
"Yes, but not just any whip. This particular whip is tipped in demon metal. Do you know what that means?" He questioned me.
"Does it mean the whip has demonic properties?" father smiled then, pleased by my answer if nothing else.
"Yes, Jonathan. Just as you do. So, I feel that it's rather fitting to use it to punish you since you and the whip have that in common. Now, do you know what arson is Son?" He asked and I shook my head.
"Arson is setting fire to something on purpose in a place where there is not supposed to be any fires. Such as the floor of our kitchen. And arson is a serious crime, Son. Someone could have died today, do you understand that?" I nodded that I understood.
"Demon metal wounds do not heal. That means that the next time you are tempted to do something terrible, you will remember this because you will always feel the pain of it. Do you understand that?" And again I nodded.
"Good. Now I have decided to give you three lashes with this whip, one for each of the people who were in this house at the time, your mother, your sister and yourself, because any of those people could have died today. So I sincerely hope it never happens again, Jonathan." He said. "Now, pull up your shirt and lie down on your stomach." So I did.
Father readied the whip and began lashing me hard across the back, "One!" He yelled as I screamed.
"Two!" He yelled slightly louder as tears poured down my face. "Three!" He screamed and after the third, he dropped the whip and fell to his knees beside me. As he watched the welts on my back fill with blood, he felt something that I knew would always haunt him, whenever he saw my back. Remorse. It would haunt him more for the rest of his days then the physical pain of it would haunt me. He disposed of the whip after that and we never saw it again.
When mother came up to see what the screaming was about, I could see the horror written on her face as she looked from my father to me. Yet she didn't say a word to him. I guess she felt that the guilt and anguish she saw written on his face did more to punish my father than her yelling could have. Instead she quietly took me from the room without a word to either of us and tended my wounds. After that I sort of forgot about them.
It wasn't until that night when I changed clothes and then tried to lie down to sleep that they started to flare up again and hurt so much that I couldn't even lie on my back. I cried myself nearly to sleep that night until somehow a little pale hand turned my doorknob and found its four year old way into my room. "Jon-Jon?" She asked, speaking more clearly then she had back when I was 'Jah, Jah.'
"Yes, Sweety?" I asked her.
"Do you've an owie?" She worried.
"Yes, Phinny… a big owie." I said, sniffling.
"Kissie better?" She smiled, placing her hand near but not on my bandages.
"Sure Phinny, you can kiss me better." I sighed. And she ever so gently kissed my back and then kissed my forehead and ran out of the room calling out as she left,
"Nite, nite, Jon-Jon!"
"Night Phinny." I cried, wishing a kiss could have really made it better. At least my own crying helped drown out the sobbing sounds coming from the next room. The ones that I knew echoed my own but belonged to a much older man, who couldn't help but blame himself for my pain and would through all the years to come. I had learned my lesson that day, of course. But unfortunately so had he. And his was a much harder lesson to learn.