A/N: Thanks to my betas, dandelionsunset and evilgrinstar for their insightful feedback, their eyes for detail and their patience.
Trigger warnings: child abuse, violence
Chapter 17—the witch
Marigold Mellark restlessly paced in the bakery kitchen, waiting for her worthless sons to get home from the Mayor's house. Mayor Undersee had agreed to let Rye's ridiculous band rehearse in his basement. Why the Mayor would agree to this was beyond her.
The Mayor had even come to the bakery and asked Mr. and Mrs. Mellark to allow Peeta to walk that Everdeen girl home at night after practice. Mayor Undersee said it was a personal favor to his daughter, Madge. Madge and that Everdeen girl were best friends, apparently. Mrs. Mellark did not understand at allwhy the Mayor allowed his only child to be best friends with anybody from the Seam. True, his daughter was rather homely and didn't seem to have many friends, but still—socially speaking, Madge was slumming it.
Marigold only granted the Mayor's request because it gave Peeta the chance to win Madge Undersee's favor. Homely or not, Madge was wealthy and connected; Peeta would be lucky to marry her. Besides, the Mayor had asked her in front of a bakery full of customers. Saying no would have made her look bad. Appearance was everything.
Marigold kept pacing and looked at the clock. It was late, far too late, for Rye and Peeta to be out. Marigold knew what teenage boys were up to after dark. She wasn't stupid. It was how Bannock got his own wife pregnant.
What Marigold liked to forget is that it was also how Bannock was conceived. Her biggest regret in life was seducing Farl when he was on the rebound from Rosemary Bay.
He was beautiful back then. Golden hair, blue eyes and broad shoulders made Farl Mellark one of the most sought after boys in the District. When Rosemary ran off with Callum Everdeen to enjoy a life of poverty in the Seam, everybody thought she'd gone off her nut. Cal was good-looking for a Seam boy, no doubt, but still—trash was trash, no matter what it looked like.
Marigold had reveled in Rosemary's fall from grace. Beautiful, perfect Rosemary, daughter of the apothecary and all around goody-two-shoes. She fully expected that Rosemary would come to her senses and crawl back to Farl, only to find that she had been replaced. Marigold had pictured the scene in her mind so many times. Rosemary, tearful and full of regrets, would come to the bakery door, only to be greeted by Farl and Marigold Mellark. "I'm sorry for your troubles, Rosemary," Farl would say, "but I've found something better." He'd give Marigold a long, lingering kiss right in front of Rosemary, who would walk away, shedding bitter tears.
Unfortunately, that scene never took place. The Everdeens flaunted their romance, taking long walks together around the District. They held hands. They smiled at each other and sighed. They looked at each other all lovey-dovey. It was revolting. Being the daughter of an apothecary (and something of an apothecary herself), Rosemary knew how to prevent pregnancy. While Marigold and all of the other girls their age started families, Cal and Rosemary spent years just enjoying each others company. Rosemary didn't seem to miss living in town at all.
And Marigold, in her naïvety, had truly believed that having sex with Farl would make him love her and forget Rosemary. He didn't and he hadn't. By the time she recognized that, she was pregnant with Bannock. They had a hasty toasting. For a few years, he tried to pretend and so did she. But after Peeta was born, she couldn't ignore it any longer. Her husband was still in love with Rosemary Everdeen.
Divorce was rare in Twelve, no matter the circumstances. The person who left the marriage usually received the lion's share of the blame. After Peeta was born, Marigold announced to Farl that their sex life was at an end. She hoped that, by denying her husband the comforts of their marriage bed, he would get frustrated and leave, taking the boys with him.
That would have been an ideal solution, really. Farl would receive the blame for leaving and she would have been free from the burden of raising children she didn't want. However, Farl made it clear he did not believe in divorce. Marigold did not want to face the social disapproval that she would get if she left them. So she stayed. As the years passed, she realized something. She had been tricked. Farl and the boys had stolen her youth, ruined her beauty and made her the laughingstock of the entire District.
Marigold paced around the kitchen, nursing all of these her resentments and many others. At some point, she picked up a rolling-pin in one hand and started spinning a handle on the end with the other.
Rye had started this stupid band against her wishes. Spin.
Worse, he had that Seamtrash Everdeen girl as his lead singer. Spin.
She had sacrificed everything for those boys. Spin.
And how did they thank her? By making her stay up and wait. Spin.
They probably weren't even rehearsing; they were probably at the Slag Heap. Spin, spin.
They were probably both taking turns with that Everdeen girl. Spin, spin, spin, spin.
Rye walked in with his guitar case and she hastily hid the rolling-pin behind her back. He jumped a bit when she started yelling at him. "Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting up for you? How dare you keep me up this late! Where's your worthless brother?"
Rye looked at her like he'd stepped in dog shit. "We've been rehearsing at the Mayor's house. I told you it was a late rehearsal tonight and nobody asked you to wait up. Peeta is walking home the Everdeen girls."
Marigold scoffed. "Do you think I'm stupid? The Mayor said that Peeta needed to walk the Everdeen girl home because she had to leave earlier than everybody else. If that's true, why isn't he here already?"
"Because it isn't a school night. Katniss had her little sister with her. They both received permission to stay late from Mrs. Everdeen. And anyway, you never said Peeta had to be home by a certain time. We're closed tomorrow, so what difference does it make? If you think I'm lying, go ask the Mayor. He might still be up." Rye turned around and walked up the stairs.
Once he was gone, Marigold turned out the lights to the kitchen. She wasn't going to give Peeta a chance to talk his way out of this. She couldn't touch Katniss Everdeen, since she was best friends with Madge Undersee. She couldn't touch Rye because he was an adult.
But she could sure touch Peeta. He needed to be reminded of that.
Spin, spin, spin, spin.
When Peeta walked in twenty minutes later, Marigold didn't even give him time to turn on the light. She just channeled all of her rage into the rolling-pin and started to swing it towards him. He must have heard her, though, because at the last second, he managed to duck. The blow she had aimed for his head landed on his lower back. He whirled around, arms covering his head protectively and tried to find where she was coming from. She managed to get in one more really good hit—right on his shoulder—before he was able to yank the rolling-pin out of her hand.
Peeta turned the light on, his eyes wide open in shock. Marigold screamed profanities at him, jumping for the rolling-pin that he was now holding out of her reach with one hand while pushing her away with the other. Rye ran downstairs and stepped in between them.
On some level, Marigold dimly recognized that she was out of control, but screaming at him, calling him names, beating him—she felt so powerful. When Farl finally came downstairs to intervene, she lost steam. But still had one last thing to say. It was mostly for Farl's sake.
"Katniss Everdeen is just as big a slut as her mother was. I give it two weeks until she's fucked the whole band."
An enormous CRACK reverberated throughout the kitchen. Peeta was visibly shaking with rage. Each hand held one half of the rolling-pin that he had just busted over his knee. The broken ends looked splintered and dangerous. Peeta lunged towards Marigold but Rye stopped him. Rye and Farl stared at Peeta, their eyes huge with fear.
Marigold felt just the tiniest tickle of fear, herself. She knew how much strength it took to break a rolling-pin. There was a reason it was her favorite weapon. But Marigold stomped that fear down hard. If Peeta thought he could just go breaking their kitchen equipment whenever he felt like having a temper tantrum, he had another thing coming.
"Don't expect that you can break our things and get away with it, Peeta Mellark. You are going to pay for that."
"No," Peeta growled. His voice was so ragged, he sounded like he was nearly choking. "No. You're going to pay for it." There was murder in his eyes. He was struggling to escape Rye's hold on him. Marigold felt her fear returning.
Rye was speaking in a low, urgent voice to Peeta, trying to talk him down. "Peet. Peet, come upstairs with me. Dad will stay downstairs with her. We need to get you cleaned up. Peeta, c'mon." Peeta started to relax a bit and lowered his eyes to the floor. Rye loosened his hold, put his arms around his brother's shoulders and started to lead him upstairs. Peeta wrenched free and stormed up to Marigold. He wasn't touching her but she backed up against the wall anyway. She vaguely wondered when he had grown so large. She had to look up to meet his eyes and almost didn't recognize them as Peeta's. They were ice-cold and black with fury as he looked down at her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise up. For the first time in her life, Marigold feared her son more than she loathed him.
"Don't. Ever. Hit me again." Peeta let the two halves of the rolling-pin fall out of his hands. He turned his back on them all and walked up the stairs. Rye glanced at his father, then followed Peeta.
Farl stared at his wife with sadness and disappointment. That's how he always looked at her after she'd punished the boys. "Mari, what did you do?" he asked her quietly. She didn't say anything. He didn't expect an answer. Instead, he started making cold compresses for Peeta. She rolled her eyes. God, she hated how much he babied the boys. She watched him silently as he chipped some ice, knotted it into a couple of towels, and left to take them to Peeta.
Once she was alone, Marigold's lower lip started to tremble and she felt tears in her eyes. It wasn't fair. Farl was taking their side. He always took their side. He never backed her up, ever. Those boys would be spoiled rotten if it wasn't for her. She'd spent over half her life keeping them in line but Farl just undermined her at every turn.
She picked up the two pieces of the rolling-pin and threw them away. The force of the rolling-pin breaking had ejected splinters everywhere, even all the way to the other side of the kitchen. It had to be cleaned up. It wouldn't do for splinters to get into anything they baked. She swept the floors and wiped down the counters, tears of self-pity running down her face. This was Peeta's mess, he was the one who had broken the rolling-pin. She should make him clean it up, but she knew that Farl would intervene.
After she finished, Marigold went upstairs to her bed. Farl would sleep on the sofa, like always. She lay down in the dark and apportioned the blame between her husband, her sons and the Everdeen women. As she drifted off to sleep, she knew, deep down, that only one person in this whole mess was completely innocent of any wrongdoing.
Herself.