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“Morrigan, I’m so sorry about this. I wouldn’t have asked but-”
“She won’t talk to anyone else.” She finished. “I know, Aunt Margot, you’ve already told me. Twice.” Her aunt paused on her way up the flight of stairs they were on.
“I just… you asked for space and I don’t want you to think we’re not respecting that. I’d hate for it to push you further away.” Margot looked genuinely worried; Morrigan wanted to reassure her but changed her mind. After all she was still angry, and wasn’t sure she was ready to give her aunt the victory of comfort just yet.
But despite her lingering animosity, that anger didn’t extend to the little blonde girl who’d asked her big cousin to braid her hair every night for months. The little blonde girl who Morrigan smuggled pickled plums to at the feast of the Manyhands. The little blonde girl who now wouldn’t speak to anyone else. Morrigan felt her chest tighten a fraction. Her cousin, whom she’d only known a few months, was such a ball of sunshine. To know that she was practically inconsolable for some reason caused a stab of sympathy.
Finally, they reached a door that was covered in floral patterns, as well as several flower accents that had obviously been drawn by a very young child. Her aunt took a slightly shaky inhale.
“She’s in there. Every time I’ve tried to speak to her she just cries harder so I’ll wait out here. You should probably send everyone else out as well, I doubt they’re having much luck without you." The thought of having to do this on her own made Morrigan queasy. Margot gave her a weary smile, the weight of the past few months was visible on her face for a moment before she collected herself once more and nodded for her to go in. Giving her own half-smile, she opened the door.
It was like stepping into a dollhouse. A very loud dollhouse. The sound of her cousin’s wails were almost ear splitting as Morrigan stood just over the threshold of the room. Immediately, aunt Miriam, aunt Winifred and aunt Modestine’s heads turned and their eyes widened with relief at the sight of her.
“Oh, thank the divine you’re here.” Aunt Modestine leapt from her place on the bed and swept towards her. She looked very frazzled and Morrigan didn’t think she’d ever seen her in such a state, not even while she was mourning her husband.
“Sweetheart, it’s wonderful to see you again.” Aunt Miriam followed closely behind her sister, but looked less frayed.
“Even if it’s under,” Winifred paused as a particularly high-pitched shriek split the air, “less than ideal circumstances.” She rested a hand on her wife’s shoulder.
“Margot said you should all wait outside with her since she’s so adamant on talking to just me.” Morrigan offered a small shrug. “But it is nice to see you all again.” She gave a quick smile. “Now where is she?”
Her aunts simply pointed up at what looked like a very large shelf in the corner of the room. She had no time to ask follow-up questions as they all promptly left and shut the door, clearly not wanting to endure a second more of the pandemonium.
Grimacing, Morrigan called tentatively toward the shelf, “Marigold? It’s Morrigan. I heard you wanted me.” The crying ceased at once, replaced by gasping breaths as her cousin tried to finally take in air.
“Come up.” Her shaky voice was barely audible. Immediately, Morrigan got the feeling that this was something far more serious that the tantrums she’d seen Marigold have in the past. Usually they were over a toy she wanted or the fact that Morrigan got to stay with her aunts while she was handed to a nanny, and ended with her screaming on the floor or getting her way. Morrigan had never heard that tone from her before.
Haphazardly, she pulled herself up the ladder attached to one side of the strange shelf and onto the ledge. Her young cousin was curled in a ball and wrapped in a blanket in the far corner of what she now realised was a cushioned platform with a window that looked down into the receiving room.
“Marigold?” She repeated gently, “Are you alright?” She winced at the question as she said it - clearly she wasn’t. Marigold’s little body was still heaving with sobs that seemed to force their way out of her. Morrigan crossed the platform so that she sat behind the shaking girl. Slowly, Marigold unfurled from the blanket and sat up, still gasping for breath. She took one look at Morrigan before flinging her arms around her and burying her head in the crook of her neck. Instinctively, Morrigan wrapped her own arms around the little girl and held her, rubbing circles into her back which she remembered Marigold had told her felt nice.
“You…came?” Her words were punctuated by sniffs and speech was obviously still difficult.
“Of course I did. I told you I’d be here if you needed me.” She gave the younger girl a reassuring squeeze. “Now, what’s this about? Hmm? What’s got you so worked up?” She hoped she sounded sympathetic, rather than demanding. Marigold only pushed further into Morrigan’s side and shook her head.
“You’ll hate me.”
“I could never hate you, not my favourite cousin.” Morrigan gave a small laugh as an attempt to lighten the mood enough for Marigold to open up. She sucked in a large, shaky breath and pushed back to sit up opposite Morrigan.
“You promise?”
“Pinky promise.” They locked pinkies and exchanged a solemn nod before she faced Marigold expectantly.
“I miss my dad.” The words were so small. So soft that if Morrigan hadn’t been looking directly at her, she might have missed them. Then this was very serious.
Tobias Darling. In all her disgust toward the man she used to call uncle, she’d never once stopped to consider that. In every colourful description she’d given him (murderer, scum, liar, imbecile, evil, and other more choice words), Marigold’s father had not been among them. But that was the truth of it; he was her cousin’s father. The father her cousin was inconsolable about admitting she missed. Morrigan felt guilt curl up inside her. She’d never once thought of how her solving of Dario’s murder might’ve hurt Marigold. She knew the shame and public scandal it had brought to Darling house and aunt Margot in particular, but she’d cast Marigold from her thoughts entirely.
“Oh.” It was all she could manage to say. She was still processing the full implication of her cousin’s statement. “What makes you think I would hate you for that?”
“Because he’s a bad man. My mother told me, that’s why I can’t see him.” Fresh tears rolled down Marigold’s blotchy cheeks and Morrigan moved to wipe them with her sleeve. She wondered just how much of Tobias’ misdeeds Margot had told her daughter. Not all of them she hoped, just for Marigold’s sake. She was too young to need to know about that.
“Just because he’s bad doesn’t mean you can’t still miss him. He is your father.” While Morrigan didn’t think she could say she’d ever missed Corvus, there was a part of her that sometimes ached for all that he could’ve meant to her. It had been significantly lessened since leaving Crow Manor, but occasionally it would creep up on her still and leave her feeling terrible for days. If she had such complex feelings for a man she knew was, objectively, a terrible father to her, she couldn’t imagine the knot of emotions that would’ve come about from a relatively good one. Ones far too complicated for a seven year-old, she’d thought. And yet, here little Marigold was, trying to come to terms with all of this by herself.
“Someone at school said you could only miss a bad person if you were bad too. And I don’t want to be bad Morrigan, I promise, so I can’t miss him.” Her voice was climbing higher and her exhales grew more shaky.
“No.” Morrigan tried to sound gentle but firm. “That is not true, Marigold.” Faintly, she heard the door open but elected to ignore it. She had bigger concerns. “You loved your father and he loved you, that’s why you miss him. You are not bad for loving your father, even if he is bad.”
Her cousin seemed to mull this new information over. She began slowly, “But even if missing and loving him doesn’t make me bad, I’m his daughter. I’m a bad man’s daughter and that makes me bad.” She was crying harder now, and her words were barely audible. Morrigan needed another way to get through to her besides explaining it. She debated internally for a moment.
“Marigold,” she spoke softly, forcing her cousin’s breathing to calm so she could hear. “How about we try a different way of proving my point? Just trust me, alright?” A meek “Ok” was all the confirmation she needed.
“Do you think I’m bad?” Her question was blunt, and she thought she heard a faint gasp from below them but found she didn’t care.
“No.” Marigold practically shouted at her. “You’re one of the best people I’ve met.”
“Tell me why.”
Marigold seemed to take this as a personal challenge. “Well, you never said no to doing my hair, you always snuck me pudding at dinner if I wasn’t allowed any,” Morrigan snorted, “you always listened to me when I talked about my day, and-”
“That’s good, ok.” She hoped she was doing this right. “All of those were my actions or behaviour - not people in my family.” Marigold frowned curiously at her and Morrigan rushed to correct herself. “What I mean is, those are all examples of things that I do, not people I’m related to. So, if my actions, not my family, make me a good person then why does your family make you a bad one?”
She gave Marigold a moment to think on her question before she spoke. “But your dad isn’t bad. Maybe you’re only not a bad person because you have a not-bad dad?”
“You know the funny thing is, Marigold, I do have a bad father.”
“You do?” Her voice was squeaky, but now held more shock than sadness.
“Yeah. My father…didn’t like me very much. He wasn’t cruel, but I didn’t see him unless he was telling me off for something. He was a politician and he wasn’t very good to the people he oversaw either. He wasn’t a good person.” The younger girl’s expression was thoughtful, and unmistakable sympathy was held in her gaze. Still, Morrigan went on. “I’m his daughter. Does that make me a bad person, just because my father was?”
“No.” Her cousin was breathless and her eyes widened as realisation dawned.
“Listen to me, Marigold. We are not our fathers. We’re not our mothers or anyone else in our families. Who we’re related to doesn’t matter. What does matter is our actions - what we do and how we treat people. They decide whether we’re good or not, and we decide our actions, so only we can decide if we’re good people.” Marigold was silent for a long time before speaking softly.
“So, I’m not a bad person?”
“No, Marigold. You never have been.”
A small sniff, followed by a cough came from under them and Morrigan glanced over the ledge of the platform to see aunt Margot. Aunt Margot with tears streaming down her face. They made eye contact and a beat of silence passed before Margot tilted her head gently at the floor, signalling Morrigan’s work was over.
“Marigold, let’s get down. Your mother’s probably missing you.” She looked back at her cousin and nodded her down the ladder first. Upon reaching the bottom, Margot called to her daughter who went still at her voice. A tense moment passed before Marigold ran straight into her mother’s arms. Immediately, Margot began apologising for something but Morrigan didn’t hear.
She pointedly left the room silently and avoided her aunts. Rushing toward her mother’s bedroom and her station door, she prayed none of the Darlings had caught the seething look of jealousy that had twisted her face.