Chapter 5: Lessons: History
A/N: I wrote a long explanatory thank you schpiel at the head of this, the first chapter I ever wrote in this epic. It wasn't an epic then, just a stand alone snippet growing up around the simple acceptance (despite non-comprehension) of the burden of penance for an unremembered sin that I always associated with Tonker.
But reading it over I found the whole thing to be longwinded and interwoven with "My Issues Let Me Show You Them" (which is how both my beta and I have occasionally referred to this work – bless). I took it out, leaving only the following:
Thank you Pterry, for writing about these two not as victims but as survivors, for painting as clearly as possible the truth that the events of their past were not the only story they could ever be involved in, for making them like you or me and for giving them an interesting future.
You stood up and in a quiet voice made the world see something I had thought no-one "respectful" would ever understand. You made it real. You made it something we all will see at some point or other and you made it normal. Or as normal as it could be.
For that Sir Terry, I thank you.
Chapter 5: Lessons: History
Primary Sources: a first-hand source from the past, those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study.
Secondary Sources: Sources that involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information, may relate or discuss information originally presented elsewhere.
~X~
Primary sources
"What did you do?"
It was towards the end of the first year of their friendship when Tilda asked the question. The query was common enough in the Grey House, a way of ranking new arrivals and reinforcing hierarchies and she'd brought the topic up without thinking as they sat on the stableyard wall enjoying a rare quiet moment. Magda had scowled and hunched a shoulder away from her companion. Over the years many of the girls had asked the question of her, but she had always refused to answer. Tilda had been different though. She hadn't asked. Until now.
"What does it matter?" she had muttered and sliding down from their perch had stalked away, feeling Tilda's puzzled eyes on her back.
Kicking a stone as she turned the corner into the kitchen courtyard Magda had cursed the brat fluently under her breath. The afternoon was all spoilt now and all because some stupid kid couldn't work out when to shut up. She didn't want to look too closely at the new emotion that rode along with her usual flash of irritation at the question. The ache was most likely the unripe apples they'd snaffled from the tree that hung over from the wall, that was all. Tonker Halter couldn't care less that some little squirt had woken up with an urge to poke around in her business. Said squirt could just go swivel.
But Tilda wouldn't leave the subject alone. She would wait a week before broaching the subject again but she used that week to make some discrete enquiries in light of Magda's reaction. It was an otherwise unremarkable evening, as they were eating at the long table in the noisy refectory when she brought it up again.
"The Gang say you killed someone". She kept her voice low to avoid anyone overhearing. "Did you?"
"The Gang can go fuck themselves!" Magda hissed as she cast an angry look towards the gaggle of girls on the next table over. "What do they know? Even that pig Marguerite only got stuck in here a couple of years ago!"
"But did you?"
Tilda was insistent and Magda was torn between leaving the table, with all the trouble that would bring and just hauling off and hitting the girl to get her to shut up. She settled for a stony silence, hunching her shoulder away from the annoyance beside her. A gentle hand was placed on her arm and though she pulled away Tilda's small fingers stayed put.
"I don't think you killed anyone" a quiet voice said softly, "I don't care what that Marguerite says" and with that the hand was withdrawn.
~X~
Another month passed before Magda actually told her the truth.
They were sitting under the bridge that spanned the mill stream, connecting the Grey House with the water meadows that divided the old mill from the river. It was one of their favourite spots to sneak away to, too damp and dark to be coveted by the Gang and so far 'They' hadn't discovered it either. It had been a good day, they'd climbed up to see the swallows nesting in the barn and managed to avoid running into any of 'Them' as they ran down to the river.
Savouring their snatch of freedom they'd clambered out to sprawl along the tree branches that swung down to brush the surface of the slow moving water. Hanging there over the gentle flow Magda had spotted the old trout under the bank and with a quietening hand between her companion's shoulder blades had pointed him out as he hung there seemingly suspended in space, just the slow movements of his fins indicating he was in water rather than air. They'd watched him mouths agape for long minutes until a fly setting on the surface had drawn his attention and he'd vanished in a swirl of effort.
Their ability for sitting still expended they'd clambered back to solid ground and set off to investigate the river bank. Two curious little girls can find much to entertain them amongst the long reeds and quiet inlets of a lowland riverbank. They spent an industrious afternoon chasing dragonflies, gathering interesting snail shells and poking in every mud hollow they could find. A good hour was been spent repairing the remnants of a scraggly dam, built across a rivulet that dribbled into the main river by person or persons unknown. Tiring at last they'd returned to the river's edge to wash their hands and make a valiant attempt to get the mud stains out of their clothes. Once an acceptable level of cleanliness had been achieved they'd lain out in the long grass allowing the late afternoon sun to dry their frocks, lazily watching the cows as they came down to drink on the other side of the river.
Now sitting here Magda felt the images from the day flicker across her mind again as they settled into the filing store of memory. The sun would be setting soon and the last rays were slipping under the arch and making the stream dance at their feet in millions of tiny sparkles. The scent of sun-kissed skin rose up from the arms she had folded around her knees and wrapped in a haze of contentment her thoughts drifted along without direction until they bumped up against the jagged rocks of a question unanswered.
"They said I had a devil in me." The quiet words slipped out and the relief of finally saying it was like a weight lifted from her shoulders.
"Who said?" Tilda took her hand, "Marguerite?"
"You asked me what I did to be here." Magda paused, lost in the swirling darkness of those long ago days. "The others, they all say stuff, they make up stuff about me. I know. I hear them at it. Tez even said I was put here cos I killed a priest and his family."
She was wandering round the subject she knew. There were such a lot of years in the way.
"It was so long ago." She gently traced the veins on the back of the slender hand in hers with a roughened fingertip. "One minute I was at home, hunting for chicken eggs and swinging on the gate, the next thing I remember I'm stood in the middle of the floor of the small hall with all the juniors looking at me like I'm supper."
Magda frowned, trying to remember the details but they were lost in the great eddying mist.
"I don't know what I did." She looked up shamefacedly into sympathetic eyes. "Honestly, I don't remember, I'm sorry."
An arm was wrapped around her shoulders and, confused though she was at this reaction to her shameful admission, Magda allowed the embrace. It had taken a while but she was getting used to Tilda and her daft need to hug people now, the brat seemed intelligent enough to know when she could offer comfort and when to leave Magda her space. They sat in silence for a moment watching the patterns on the river.
"What about the devil?"
Magda looked up enquiringly.
"You said something about a devil."
The older girl straightened up, drawing her knees up to her chest, Tilda's arm sliding off as she felt the withdrawal. For a moment Magda sat there, hugging her knees, not wanting to dive back into the murky pool of memories.
"When I first came… You know how it is, they all stand round." Tilda nodded in remembrance. "They said," she sighed unable to finish the sentence, took a breath and tried again.
"Them, Him and Her downstairs. They said I had a devil in me." Her eyes came back into focus as she put the memory away. "They told the Matron to keep an eye on me"
"Pah." What could only be described as a disbelieving snort emanated from the ladylike figure beside her. "D'you want me to look for it?"
"Tilly!"
Tilda's strategy had worked, pulling Magda out of her reverie. She met the shocked eyes with a raised eyebrow accompanied with somewhat of an amused smile. But Magda had come up from too deep to simply laugh it off and her eyes dropped again to the sanctuary of the un-accusing stream flowing ever onwards past their feet.
They both sat in silence, watching the water, Magda wishing she could send this lump clogging up her insides away on the tide and Tilda solidly working out what to say to explain this. Eventually the younger girl put a hand on her arm and though Magda flinched away she glanced up at the same time. Her gaze was held, pinioned by the seriousness in Tilda's eyes.
"How old were you?" Tilda tightened her hold as those eyes dropped again, forcing Magda to look back up. She needed her to understand this.
"How old were you?"
"I don't know." Magda looked back over the years. In the Grey House the passing of seasons seemed to run into each, the sameness flowing from one year to the next. "I remember four summers, before this one."
"Magda you were four years old." Tilda turned so that she was facing the girl head on. Magda's eyes were darting all over the place, unable to meet her gaze but she could tell the girl was hanging onto the silence, needing to hear the words.
"You can't have a devil in you when you're four. It's just not possible."
The eyes that finally settled on hers at that statement held such a mixture of hope, confusion and fear that Tilda felt her heart break for the girl even as she nodded with total certainty. Under her hands she felt the tension dissolve away, escaping the girl's body on the long sigh of relief Magda released as her shoulders dropped and she slumped back against the dank underside of the bridge. There might even been a glint of tears at the corner of those hidden eyes but Tilda knew better than to draw attention to that fact.
"You're a right daftie sometimes Magda Halter."
It was lucky for Tilda that Magda was still processing the previous statement as the younger girl wrapped thin arms around her in an enthusiastic hug otherwise the stream might have been home to one dripping wet brat as well as slime, tadpoles and little see-through fishes. The Tewt kid's obvious certainty that the whole idea of evil possession was a silly thing had done something weird to her insides.
"Mags?"
That day, in that place, the damp chill of the stone rebuffed by the warm arms that encircled her, Magda Halter allowed herself to believe. Something flickered deep down in the cold clenched cell Magda considered her heart. She might not be able to believe the statement every day. But for that moment, under that dank bridge, held in those strong arms, she did. And at the same time she knew for a certainty that Tilda would tell her again if she ever needed to ask. Unconsciously her arms moved to support the live weight attempting to climb into her lap.
The delightful tableau was interrupted by a blackbird with no sense of decorum fluttering down and setting about his weekly wash in the shallow water that lapped at the far edge. Resurfacing to an uncomfortable realisation of their positions Magda quickly calculated back over the passing of time and came to an urgent conclusion. Hug time was over. She cautiously patted Tilda between the shoulder blades, their signal for completion of the difficult procedure. But the blasted kid went and snuggled further in, for some absurd reason assuming that there was some incontrovertible reason for extending hug time on this occasion. Magda waited for the irritability that usually welled up in her in situations like this but there was nothing. Sighing she shrugged and let the brat get on with it. If Tilda needed to snuggle then so be it, she was sure she could survive this once.
~X~
Secondary Sources
Tilda didn't have to ask Magda much about her past. She was a good listener and there were a number of stories passed down and around about the longer term occupants of the Grey House. 'Tonker' (she still couldn't see Magda as that) had a whole library of tales to her name. Folks were always willing to tell about the time she walked the length of the back corridor on her hands for a bet, the time Klara got hold of the communion wine and they all got drunk, or the time she climbed all the way up onto the roof and wriggled her way down the main chimney to drop soot into one of the Sister's beds undetected.
Then there were the other stories, the ones that told her more about her friend than the teller knew they were imparting. She was presented with the opportunity to overhear one of these after the time with the trustees.
Magda had moved swiftly through the lower corridors, sweeping up Tilda on the way. The kid knew by now not to ask questions when she felt the soft touch to her shoulder. Trouble was brewing again. Back in the early days Magda had explained how it went to the kid, how on days like these you just gotta hide n keep low.
That day the pair had hurried through the corridors, running whenever possible, slipping past other groups of girls. Word obviously hadn't yet spread through the house and most of the occupants were going about their normal business, huddled here and there in chattering clumps that had to be navigated. Grabbing her hand, Magda had dragged Tilda up a flight of stairs she'd never noticed before, hauling her up and then up again, the staircase getting narrower and narrower as they climbed. Eventually they'd scrambled out through a small door to find themselves in the clock tower. It was a tiny space, dark and smelling of pigeon dung, only tiny shafts of light coming in where the slats were miss-aligned. Away in the shadows a stepladder vanished up in the gloom and Magda had tugged on the hand she was still holding, indicating that they should keep climbing.
"What's happening?" Tilda had placed a foot on the bottom rung testing it for strength.
"Visit from the trustees. They like to see how we're getting along." Magda had given her a boost and climbing into the darkness Tilda had found the trapdoor with her head. Scrabbling around she'd discovered the latch and flung back the door to haul herself up into an even tinier space behind the mechanism. Magda had pulled herself up behind and they'd both lowered themselves carefully onto the wooden planks laid here and there over the roof beams. Tilda had watched her companion scan the cramped space for any evidence that someone else had disturbed their hiding place and then relax back against the uprights.
"Won't they miss us?" She was used to Magda hiding her now, discovering month by month the wide variety of little nooks and crannies the elder girl had in her arsenal around the Grey House. She was starting to wonder however, how come no-one ever commented overly much on their absence from whatever it was Magda was hiding her from these times.
"Nah – it's a'right. They'm got used to some of us not bein' there."
She'd stretched out her legs, taking up most of the space and then, recollecting she had company, pulled her knees back up to her chest. Tilda hadn't needed to stretch out, but felt it only polite to do so after the space had been so graciously left for her.
"I won't be able to get up here much longer." Magda had rubbed at her torso where the hatch had scraped her on the way through. "Too big."
"What will you do then?"
"T'won't matter." Seeing the puzzlement still lingering in her companion's expression she'd expanded on her thesis. "Too big to get up here, too big for them. They mostly likes 'em small."
It hadn't taken long for Tilda to make the connection, she was getting quicker at picking up on these little comments now. She'd been unable to prevent the sudden indrawing of breath and consequent exhalation of relief as she'd imagined the cries drifting up from the "parlour" many floors below.
"I'm mostly too big for 'em anyway." Magda hadn't noticed her shudder and had continued on with her explanation. "They don't like me for some reason. Not pretty enough I suppose. You'm gonna have to be careful though, you comes up here any time I tells you to hide, you hear?"
Tilda had nodded shakily.
It was afterwards, when they'd scrambled down from their cramped and dusty retreat, brushing the cobwebs and pigeon feathers from their frocks as best they could, that Tilda got to hear the tale of Frankie and the Rebellion. . Magda had left her to go about her chores with a muttered warning to lie low and keep out of any trouble and Tilda's feet had taken her to the back gate where the juniors tended to hang out without any real input from her brain. It was a quiet and out of the way spot and as the backroom gossip said The Gang were busy elsewhere no-one was likely to come down amongst them for sport.
Some of the well known faces were missing and though Tilda knew better than to ask (Magda had explained very clearly the consequences of asking "where?" to any occupant of the Grey House) a couple of new girls weren't quite so savvy. It had been Chunky that had asked. Tilda didn't know her real name, probably none of them did. In line with unwritten naming laws that existed amongst the girls the unfortunate had been Chunky since she'd arrived and though the diet of the Grey House was helping her shed pounds she'd probably now be Chunky forever.
"S'treats day innit."
"Treats?" Chunky's interest was increased rather than dissipated by Helga's choice of words. Tilda wondered, looking at the girl, whether she'd been passed over by chance or whether she'd be forever saved from finding out more about the goings on of Treats Day by her unfortunate size.
"Should we have gone?"
In light of this irrefutable evidence Tilda was forced to conclude that Chunky was decidedly not firing on all cylinders.
"Most do." Helga looked over and caught Tilda hovering at the edge of the group. "Us were wondering why Tonker weren't there, she don't usually bother herself for this kinda thing. Guess she found herself something to keep safe."
Tilda could feel herself blushing. She was about to leave the group and find somewhere else to spend the short time they had left before the supper bell, but something had piqued her interest.
"Why don't they want Tonker?" She waited patiently as Helga looked her over. The girl seemed to be assessing her somewhat, puzzled that she didn't already know, wondering what kind of relationship the two girls had after all. Eventually Helga, her decision made, shifted her position to face the new listener and opened up the conversation.
"That girl don't like to be touched and I guess word got round about the last one that tried."
"What was that?" One of the new girls got the question out before Tilda could open her mouth.
"There was a girl. One of the older ones. She was… wrong."
"Like what?"
"Just wrong."
After her months in the Grey House Tilda thought she could imagine. The new girl however didn't understand and began to ask another question before she was nudged into silence by her neighbours. Helga, looking around to check her audience was following nodded and continued with her tale.
"Frankie comes back from being sent out this one time and decides she's taken a fancy to our Tonker cos T was a fighter even then. So she ups and states that T would be her next pet. But Tonker don't like no one touching her, see? Not like that. So she fights back when she can and there's hell to pay, but Frankie is a big fucker and with all her mates pitchin' in there was nothing a kiddlie could do against her."
Tilda could imagine. Magda might be big and strong enough to intimidate most people who wanted to mess with her, but there would always be someone who was stronger, someone who was able to make her do whatever they wanted. That was another of the rules of the Grey House. However big you made yourself, there would always be someone who could break you.
"Anyroad, T managed to get her hands on a blade, no one knows where, and the next time Frankie came for her she cut that bitch from eyebrow to chin. Blood everywhere I heard, Frankie screaming blue murder and her mates trying to tear our Tonker limb from limb." Helga smiled reminiscently at the memory of well deserved come-uppance. "Couldn't last though, they.."
"Who?" It was the new kid again, not yet au fait with the difference meanings a change in emphasis imbued that simple word.
"The Sisters." Chunky and her as yet innocent companions nodded. "They dragged Tonker away and stuck her in The Hole, job done. Frankie swears to get her when she gets out, moves on to pastures new, everyone's happy."
Tilda stepped back, thinking to move away quietly before Helga, her tale completed, was moved to ask some questions to Tonker's current inseparable companion. However, the storyteller had merely drawn breath between chapters and Tilda paused as an aimed throat clearing reached out to draw her back in.
"Din't happen that way though did it. While T's away all the other kiddlies decided that if Tonker wasn't going to take it, they weren't either. So one fine day Frankie tries something as per usual, there's a massive pile-on and when it's all broken apart there's Logan stood over Frankie's body, blooded knife in hand with the bitch's throat slit from ear to ear. I mean the rest of 'em had a go, one kid one stab, but it was Logan they caught at the end."
She demonstrated with her hand across her throat.
"What happened?"
"They gave her up to the justices." Helga paused. "Strung her up in front of the town hall."
Her audience opened out like the petals of a flower as each listener took a step back in horror.
"They brung her back on the cart and threw her in the pit up in the trees. Said she wasn't allowed a church burial. They say when Tonker got out and heard about it she went up there one time and dug the girl up, put her to lay properly."
"No one knows that's true." Curly had previously been standing silently on the outskirts of the cluster, only half listening to a tale she'd obviously heard any number of times before.
"Yeah well, you believe whatever you want to believe. I aint asking her, she scares the pants off of me."
The conversation was lost after that. Chunky moved away with her new cluster of friends and eventually Tilda was left alone by the gate with only the quiet Curly for company.
"She deserved it. Frankie was a bitch, broke my arm one time. Aint no-one who was there thinks Tonker was out of line for doing what she did." Curly, conscience eased shrugged and left her alone to think.
~X~
Tilda didn't say anything about Frankie that night. Or the night after that. Or the one after that. In fact two weeks went past before she ran into Magda coming back from the untidy copse of trees and drawing a steadying breath asked the question.
"Logan's up there isn't she?"
Magda turned to stare at her. "What do you know about that?" Behind the anger so quick to kindle whenever the older girl felt herself threatened Tilda thought she could see a hint of fear.
"Some of the girls were talking." She shrugged. "I only know the bones of it."
She watched as Magda reined herself in, closing down the anger, shunting if off to only she knew where. It was an uneasy calm, the fury not resolved but merely held back behind flimsy barriers, put to one side for the moment.
"They don't know hardly nuffin about it. And what they know is mostly lies."
She appeared to have accepted that this was now out in the open. As she stood there, shifting her weight revealingly from foot to foot. For all she wanted to tell her side of the story Magda non-the-less seemed to be having trouble finding the words she needed to begin. Turning away from those waiting eyes she looked back toward the cluster of trees on the small rise of land. The silence stretched almost to breaking point.
"She gave me the knife."
Her hand in her pocket made a clenched fist on what Tilda knew was the knife in question. Though she couldn't see her eyes Matilda knew they'd drifted bleak again – looking back into the past that she tried so hard to pretend never happened.
"An' then when I got out, I heard they'd just thrown her in the dirt up there" she pointed with a vague finger "so me an' Katrina went up and put her to rest properly." Her voice hitched for a moment but she continued her voice sounding so young as she added "she was so little."
Matilda waited, still and unmoving despite the overwhelming need to shift to a more comfortable position. She was desperately aware of how thin the thread was that Magda was so carefully reeling in.
"She was too pretty. He had her, whenever he wanted, she couldn't stop him." Magda ran a hand over the short stubble of her scalp, the gesture seeming to ground her somewhat. "Even though she had the knife she couldn't do him. Even though she wanted to. I never understood that."
Seeing the pain and confusion so clearly scrawled across that usually inexpressive face Matilda wanted nothing more than to step forward and make it all go away. But Magda was in the flow now, the words pouring out of her.
"She told me not to think, just do it, cos if you start to think about it you can't..." Magda's voice trailed away and she drew in a shuddering breath. "She gave me the knife and I did it. It was easy. And then They threw me in The Hole. But I knew they would. And She couldn't get me in there."
Her acceptance of the punishment was still as calm as it must have been that long ago day when they dragged her away to the darkness.
"And then when I got out…" The girl turned to Tilda, an old bewilderment clouding her eyes, "I don't know why she did it. I just don't know. She never said Frankie had her, even from before when she was a small one. I mean she might." Magda threw out a hand in explanation. "She was always pretty – they like the pretty ones. But she was older, she was up to be Sent Away, she had Katrina. I just don't understand it."
She looked away towards the trees, crowns rustling in the light breeze.
"I thought maybe it was cos I did it." Magda was feeling her way through tangled thoughts now. Confused feelings she'd put away a long time ago, not to be looked at since that jagged time. "Like maybe somehow I made her do it for me."
Over the years Tilda would come to realise that this was how Magda worked. That when she did manage to crack open the door to her innermost refuge there was always a lot she needed to say, all the stuff that had been going round and round in her mind desperate to escape.
"I didn't need her to do it for me." The distress was obvious in her voice. "I din't never ask her to do that."
And there and then Matilda knew she had to get this right. This was one of those rare times when she could see the lie writhing in Magda's mind, the knot that they had put there tearing the girl apart. She had to find the words that would scythe through the confusion, bringing the clarity that only truth could provide.
"It wasn't your fault." Tilda took a breath, using the time to feel her way through what she wanted to say. "Truely Mags, I don't believe it was anything to do with what happened before."
She discarded one argument after another, searching for the simple words that would make sense of the uncertainty. Magda was mixed up about a great many things from her time in the Grey House.
"It's just that sometimes, old stuff – stuff that's been buried deep and maybe even forgotten - can rise to the surface again, as white hot as it was in the beginning. And when that happens there's not anything anyone can do. What Logan did, it was something Logan had to do. Something she had to do for herself. Then. At that very moment."
"She killed that bitch and they hung her for it."
"I know." Her quiet acknowledgement without pity or condemnation fell into the silence between them
"I hope they burn for that." The chill of the girl's hate didn't frighten Matilda. Not anymore. Some things were worth hating.
"After, Kat came to me and gave me all the knives. After we'd laid her out right." Magda, the telling of it easing the tight knot inside, seemed to want to finish the tale.
"Kat?"
"Katrina. She was Logan's girl." Magda detoured into an explanation. "Folk don't just come here cos of what they done. Katrina came out broken - no-one knows why. Meant she was ok in here, He wouldn't touch her cos she was busted. An' her and Logan just hung out, you know."
Standing there, her heart aching for the girl hurting beside her, Matilda thought perhaps she did know.
"And then she came to me." Magda withdrew her gaze from the beauty around them, settling on the undemanding vista of her feet, pain and confusion in her words. "She gave me Logan's knife and she said… she said 'I won't ruin any of your places'."
"What happened?"
"She fell." The girl swallowed, folding her arms tightly over her chest. "Logan made her able to fly and when she'd gone Kat just fell out of the sky."
Enough was enough and Matilda decided that she could keep her distance no longer. She slipped a hand into Magda's arm, resting her head on that stiff shoulder, trying to offer by her physical presence the comfort the girl's body language was screaming out for.
"They said she'd slipped and buried her in the churchyard with the others. But she hadn't slipped," Magda allowed herself to lean against the slim body pressed against her so tightly. "She was always too careful, she wouldn't have slipped."
For all her wide vocabulary, Matilda had no words to offer. As they stood there, watching the branches of the trees dance so innocently with the light wind, Tilda heard the exhausted sigh drift out from the tense figure trembling against her supporting presence. A small voice dropped a final simple, tired sentence into the peace of the afternoon. An epitaph for those who should never have been here, innocents undeserving of the fate bestowed upon them.
"They were my friends…"