A weight lifted from my shoulders when Daddy didn’t chastise me about morals and taking shit from idiots. I had been wrong. He did understand me. When I asked him if Mom would understand too, he shook his head. “We are different, Magdalena. But that means we have to be extra careful. Not everyone can handle our darkness and not everyone deserves to be exposed to it.”
It made me feel like I wasn’t the odd one out anymore. Maybe all these negative thoughts I had weren’t that rare. Like the other day when the twins woke each other up, crying, and I fantasized about tying them to the bed and setting them on fire.
After I told Daddy how much I’d enjoyed hurting Sophie, and opened up to him about my dark thoughts, he asked me to answer him a riddle. If a man’s car crashes in the middle of an isolated road, and he’s stuck upside down inside the car, and another stops and tells him he will be right back but never returns… Why did the man never return?
It was an interesting riddle. I suspected I knew what he wanted me to say, but I said, “Honestly, Daddy, it’s obvious the second man didn’t care.”
“So why did he stop?”
“Curiosity. It’s always interesting to see people when they do something stupid and get themselves in a pickle.”
He asked me if I would laugh at Killian if he were in a pickle, so I told him, “I know you don’t like Killian, but he is mine, so no, I don’t find his pain funny.” Dad nodded at that. He told me to pretend that everyone had a little bit of Killian in them, so I had to be nicer to everyone than I had been to Sophie even when they annoyed me. I told him I understood.
Magdalena (10 years old)
5. The Wedding Day
MAGDALENA
FRIDAY THE 13TH
“Alright, class…” Scanning the room and finding every boy in a black suit and all the girls in dresses apparently had stolen Ms. Dubois’ voice. My heart drummed, wondering how we’d get away with our teacher not telling our parents.
“Please, settle down. Today is a special day because Killian has agreed to participate in a very important project. We are going to put extra effort into expanding our knowledge of different cultures from around the world. Today we will learn about the Irish Travelers’ culture and marriage ceremony.” And there it was. I giggled at Killian’s ability to set things up to our advantage.
“What’s an Irish Traveler?” Beatrice asked.
“It’s just a poor Gyp—” Mael started to say.
“Mael, language. That’s not a nice term,” Madame Dubois warned with disapproval but then soften her voice again. “That’s a great question, Beatrice. Killian, you want to answer that?”
“My family comes from Irish Travelers, and no, Mael, we aren’t descendants of the travelers from India. But we do bothshare the culture of living our lives while moving around. We do not settle in one place all our lives. We are free and like to explore the Earth.”
The way he spoke so seriously of his people heated my cheeks. This would be the same culture I would be a part of one day after we grew up and married for real. I was excited to become his family. We’d travel to different countries, learn different languages, see the beauty of the world together: the mountains, beaches, fields of flowers, cities. I couldn’t wait to meet the rest of his family, who lived in different places, and to learn all the myths, mysticism, and history.
Killian showed old photos of his family and the houses they lived in and traveled in, some of which he called caravans. They were my favorite out of the houses he showed, so cute, and I imagined having one and decorating it to our taste.
The way Killian stood and spoke demanded respect. It was the first time any of our teachers had looked upon him with pride. He hardly glanced my way, but I knew it was because he didn’t want to be distracted.
During lunch, while wearing the closest thing to white I could find in my closet—a long blush-pink dress Mom had bought me for a royal wedding we attended because of Dad’s job—I walked out into the backyard. Everyone, including our teacher, stood around the bench where we always sat together. Killian’s smile pulled a giggle from me that I covered with the flowers in my hand. I hurried to him, then his arms embraced me, lifting me from the grass.
“So, what do Irish Travelers do in the wedding ceremony, Killian?” our teacher asked.
He stared so intensely into my eyes while explaining and tying the dark-blue string that was around his wrist to mine, binding us. “Magdalena, my angel, I promise you will never doubt my love and devotion to you for the rest of my life. Ipromise to always be your friend whom you can trust, and to love every version of you.”
“Killian, no matter what we do, where we go, I will never forget you. I can’t imagine myself not loving you. I promise to remind you of the brighter days, the beautiful side of life.”
With his other hand, Killian slipped a ring, only this wasn’t the same toy he’d given me two years before. When the light hit the diamond, it sparked a certain way. It was obvious it was real. I didn’t say a word, but my widened eyes swept up to look at him. Where had he gotten that ring? This one was too big on my little fingers. “You’ll grow into it,” he explained.
I didn’t say a word, but my eyes swept up to look at him. Everyone cheered, while we blushed and smiled at each other.
“Let’s eat cake!” one our colleagues yelled. Killian and I chuckled but there was no way for us to escape each other. We were trapped in the universes in our eyes.
“Thank you, Magdalena.”
“For what?”
“For giving me the most magical, happiest day ever.”
