“Because they are judging,” Tessa said, the word coming out heavier than a child’s word ought to.
Madeline’s breath caught. “Do you think the judgements people make upon first seeing someone else are always the right ones?”
Tessa hesitated. “No.”
“Then why do they judge?” Madeline asked.
Tessa stared at the page, then whispered, “It is… people being cruel because they can.”
Madeline held her gaze. “Yes,” she murmured. “And that is why it must never be allowed to shape the way you see yourself.”
Tessa’s fingers tightened around the edge of the book. “They think I am…” She swallowed. “They think I am cursed.”
Madeline leaned forward slightly, keeping her voice soft. “Who isthey?”
Tessa’s eyes flicked away. “Everyone.”
Madeline did not contradict her directly, because she couldn’t dismiss Tessa’s pain like that. Instead, she said, “All those ‘everyones’ are not always wise.”
Tessa gave a humorless little huff. “Papa says I must not care what they think.”
“And do you find it easy not to care?” Madeline asked.
The girl’s cheeks flushed. “No.”
Madeline nodded once, as if that were exactly what she expected. “Then perhaps the problem is not that you care,” she said, “but that you believe their opinions are worth more than your own.”
Tessa stared at her, as if she had never heard such a thing spoken aloud.
Madeline softened her voice further. “If you were to look at someone else with scars,” she said, “someone you loved, would you think them cursed?”
Tessa’s brows drew together. “No.”
“What would you think?” Madeline asked.
“I would think…” Tessa swallowed again, visibly struggling. “I would think they had been hurt.”
“And would that make them less deserving of kindness?” Madeline asked.
“No,” Tessa whispered, and something in her gaze shifted, small but real, like the first crack in ice.
Madeline reached across the table and covered Tessa’s hand with her own. “Then why should it be different for you?”
Tessa stared down at their hands. “Because it is my face,” she said, very quietly. “I cannot hide it.”
Madeline felt a sharp ache behind her eyes. She understood too well what it meant to have something about your body turned into a verdict, to have your worth measured by a cruel gaze.
She thought of her mother’s cool voice, of being made to drink nothing but weak tea with lemon for three days straight, becausewatching one’s figurewas apparently a lesson best learned through hunger. Of standing before the looking glass afterward, light-headed and ashamed, told it was for her own good.
“You cannot hide it,” Madeline agreed. “But you can learn to live as if what others say about you is not a proclamation that can be accepted as truth. When you leave this house and go elsewhere, you should hold your head up high and…”
“Will you promise not to leave?” Tessa interjected.
Madeline’s breath caught so painfully that for a heartbeat she could not answer at all.
She had promised herself she would not get attached. Madeline knew that she should always remain cautious because attachment made a person sloppy, and sloppiness could get her found. Yet Tessa sat across from her with hope in her eyes, and Madeline realized with a quiet dread that her heart had already begun to soften in ways her mind did not approve of.
“I promise I will not leave without telling you,” Madeline said carefully, because it was the most honest promise she could make and keep the child’s faith intact. Then, to lighten the moodbetween them a bit, she jokingly added, “Only if you swear that you will not leave the house without letting me know first, too.”
