Chapter 7
When I was born, I did not cry.
My brother said that was because I was very, very good. Only very, very good babies did not cry. Only very, very good toddlers did not cry. Only very, very good children did not cry.
That was how I knew I was not Soulless.
I was far too good to ever be Soulless.
And then, at six years old, I broke my arm and not a tear dribbled from my eye and my parents inclined their heads, looking at me from a new angle.
They spoke in my father’s study when the moon was high and believed I slumbered in my bed.
Magnus peered in through the crack of the door, listening.
My parents asked each other questions: what’s wrong with her?
“Nothing,” Magnus had said when he saw me tiptoeing behind him.
He took me into his bedroom and turned us to his mirror and scrunched up his face, pointing to the anguish he displayed. A mask. He pulled on the emotion as one pulls on a hat.
“See.” He pointed. “Practice in the mirror and eventually it will come natural to you. Wear it at the appropriate times so that it will make people feel more comfortable around you. You must learn how to display emotion. You can’t let others know you don’t feel things, it makes them uneasy.
” He fixed a strand of hair to tuck behind my ear. “Now, do you know the word, ‘empathy?’”
It was not that I did not want to cry, it was just that I did not see the point of it.
As it seemed, there were four reasons in which people cried: physical pain, harassment from others, lack of personal fulfilment, and death.
If I scraped my knee, then pain would arise and pain was only a way of your body interpreting what had occurred to you. Soon, medicine would come and so would a bandage and the pain would flee, and the wound would heal. Pain was only temporary. What was the point of crying over temporary things?
Bullying. When the gang of girls at school mocked me, I stared back, blinking.
Unjustified opinions were useless and most indubitably from young children.
I saw these girls as only human; bags of flesh and bone and blood walking around this earth.
They were fragile. If a bus ran them over, they would be squished and disgusting.
Why should I care what a squished and disgusting thing was saying about me?
Lack of self-love? Oh no, I’ve never had a problem with that. What a waste of time.
And lastly, death.
After my parents’ midnight conversation, they told six-year-old me that I should see a doctor. Magnus held my hand. He squeezed. The appointment however was never made. Two weeks later, my parents died. A Soulless had crept into their room and stabbed them both.
When they were lowered into the ground, the thought of being orphaned was a terrible thing. At six years old I still needed proper care. But when Magnus told me he would raise me, that easily fixed my dilemma.
There was nothing at all to cry about.
“I’m gonna rip your fingers off one by one.” The woman smacked the bars of my cell for effect. “And I ain’t gonna—”
“I am not,” I said, correcting. “Ain’t is not a word. Well, I suppose it would be a colloquial word.” I rubbed my chin. “So perhaps it is still appropriate for you use it. Oh, I deeply apologise, I interrupted. Please, continue. I am listening.”
“You stuck up—”
“Ah. Sorry. Your time is up. Thank you so much for stopping by. I will take all you have said under consideration. Come back again soon.”
She slugged off and a man took her place.
Now that I was suitably in my private cell, I was unable to leave it as I was considered violent towards other inmates and prosthetic limbs.
Though I could not leave, it did not stop me from obtaining a mass of guests.
As it seemed, the entire two hundred inhabitants in Ricker did not like me and so they wanted to lecture me on their philosophies regarding our future.
Mostly ways in which they were planning to kill, torture, maim or assault me.
Too many hoarded around my cell at once, their voices a mix I could not understand and therefore I did not show fear. To remedy their problem, they decided upon a new system of standing in line in an orderly fashion along the hall. One by one each inmate came to intimidate me in timed intervals.
I obliged, sitting at the end of my bed, legs crossed, back arched and ensured I gave each one my full attention.
It was vitally important people feel heard. Not ‘be’ heard. Feel heard.
“Princess…” the voice of darkness and death resonated down the hall. “Princess...Princess…”
My shoulders pricked up to my ears.
Dig Graves continued to slither his nickname for me down the corridor. Whenever he did, everyone shunted themselves up against the opposite wall and did not dare look in the direction of his cell.
It was easy to ignore him. My guests kept me busy. Many promised me death. Five described the way they would decapitate me, three men masturbated, and a woman told me about God being a lizard.
“I hate you,” the next said. “You and your piece of shit family.”
“Lovely.” I smoothed back my hair.
“Princess…” Dig Graves interrupted down the hall.
“Oh, Dig Graves asked me to give this to you.” The young man unfolded a piece of stale bread from a napkin that we had received for dinner the previous night.
Inside the crinkled napkin was also a handful of raisins that had been picked out of the porridge slop from this morning.
My guest set it just outside of my bars.
“He said you need to eat to keep up your strength.”
I disregarded the offering. “What is your name?”
“Eat the food, Princess!” a voice shouted from down the hall. I wasn’t sure from whom.
“Tommy,” my guest said.
A very child-like nickname. In fact, most of him seemed juvenile. Gangly limbs and a well-freckled nose. Odd. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
I frowned. “Why are you in here? You have at least seven years to discover your Soulmate. Alert the officers.” I readied to beckon one myself. “You must immediately be set free.”
“Princess…”
Tommy picked at a loose thread in his shirt. “They attached monitors to my heart and found out I was Soulless.”
“Princess…”
“That does not matter, Tommy,” I said. “That only means that you are not yet ready to connect. Perhaps your Soulmate may only be sixteen, you may have to wait another two years before their heart thrashes and then yours will too. That is very common. For some it may not even occur until their last month of twenty-five.” I stood up, irritated at this mistake.
This perfect young man should be in the world, not bundled up in rust and mould and evil. “You should not be in here.”
“I killed my dad,” Tommy snapped.
“Princess…”
I resat. “You killed your father? Interesting. Why?”
“I wanted to go to a party.” Tommy rubbed the back of his neck.
“He said I couldn’t and so I snuck out and stole his car and he woke up and tried to stop me and I mistook the pedals and instead of pressing on the break I pressed on the throttle and ran him over.
” He quietened. His shoulders hung down.
His eyes glazed as if trapped in the memory.
And then, a tear.
It bubbled up in the corner of his eye.
Such a delicate little thing, like a diamond.
I leaned forward, watching it. “Oh dear. You poor soul.”
He slapped it away and resummoned his anger, flinging his finger to me. “You and your family need to die in a ditch.”
My brother visited.
We were given a private room.
“It’s not that nice in prison,” I told him. “Zero stars.”
Magnus brought me my toiletries. I was able to shower privately and fixed on a hydrating mask to help my dry skin. While I edited one of his speeches, Magnus set out the selection of foods he had brought.
“Duckie, I’m working on this.” He shook up my bubble tea. “It should not take much longer.”
I swallowed my sushi. “The Execution Battle is tomorrow. Do you think you can work faster? Oh, by the way. There is a young man in here named Tommy, you must set him free immediately.”
“Duckie, it’s costing me a fortune just to secure some way to get you out of here. I won’t be doing anything for anyone else.”
“Tommy has far more reason to go free than myself. He must be the main priority. Free him first and then figure out my own predicament.”
“The Execution Battle is tomorrow!” His voice echoed.
It was rare that Magnus yelled. It was rare he pulled down his mask and showed the biting dog in his eyes that I knew had settled there.
Fury. Anger. Something predatory. Quickly he pulled his mask back up and slapped on a worried look.
“I’m sorry, Duckie.” He smiled sickly sweet and rested his hand over mine.
“Will it make you happy? Will it make you very happy if I sort out this Tommy?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will do it.”
“Thank you. Did you bring it?”
Magnus pulled out the envelope and opened it, showing me what was inside. “Why do you want Cauliflower’s fur?”
I wadded up Cauliflowers fur until it was a neat sized ball and stuck it inside of my ponytail. “I miss her.”
He pursed his lips. “Alright.” He checked his watch. “I have paid off inmates in the other prisons, offering them better housing if they focus their attention on Dig Graves.”
“Dig Graves?”
“He needs to die.”
I was not sure how I felt about Magnus illegally bargaining with others to kill a specific inmate. That was unfair. Though, I was ecstatic that the bastard might finally, finally die.
I hoped I could watch it.
In bed.
“And what if I end up going into the battle?” I asked Magnus. “What is the plan then?”
“I will not let you go into the battle.”
“There is a high probability that I will.”
“I will not let you.”
My chest felt hollow, just as it had all my life. But now, that hollowness was heavy. “Magnus…I’m…I’m probably Soulless.”
He grabbed my cheeks, forcing me to look up at him. “You are not Soulless.”
“I am Soulless.”
“No, you are not!” He raised his voice.
“Magnus, I do not even feel fear. I do not feel anything.”
“You are a good person. Repeat it, just like I taught you.”
“Magnus.”
“Repeat it!”
“I am a good person.”
He let me go, satisfied. “Yes, you are. You are a good person. Always believe it.”
I knew Magnus believed it.
But me? I had to hit those words into my head like nails.
“If I went into Battle, I would have to make friends,” I supposed. “Alliances. That is how most people survive.”
“Duckie, do not think about that.”
It was my life. I needed too. “While you attempt to get me out, I will focus on making friendships in case I am put through to the battle.”
“And how on earth are you supposed to do that?” Magnus laughed. “Offer them shortbread?”