Episode 18: Moving (Marjoram)

Bag packed.

Hair brushed.

Marj squinted down her face. She couldn’t see them, the freckles that had changed her life. She closed her left eye and looked down at her nose. It was blurry, but she thought she could see one.

“Hi there,” she said to her freckle.

The man had come this morning and met with Nanna and then she’d lined them all up in a row for him to look at.

“Where’d she get her freckles?” he’d asked.

Marj had touched her cheek. The freckles, she hated. If there was work to do, “Make Marjie do it, she’s useless anyway.”

Everyone who knew anything knew freckles were useless.

Except today. The strange man wanted her freckles.

Nanna had sighed, “The mother was pale-skinned. I didn’t realize she never went outside.”

The man had rubbed his upper lip and looked at Marj. “They may help her fit in. Is she a good worker? They won’t hire her if she’s useless.”

“I’ve trained her as a maid of all work,” Nanna had told the man. “She cleans well and doesn’t need to be told something twice.”

Marj had been so happy to hear something nice, she almost didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be that she was awake.

The man had knelt down in front of her. “How old are you?”

“Nine,” she’d answered.

He’d smiled. “She’ll do. My Fjorda is just seven.”

Nanna had grabbed a blanket. “Put your things in here and hurry. You’re to be his niece and do as you’re told.”

Now Marj stood in the living room and hoped Nanna would hug her goodbye or wish her luck. Just a little bit, some sign of something good.

“Can I see my dad before I go?” she dared to ask.

She was right about one thing, at least; Nanna wouldn’t hit her in front of this man. Maybe it meant this man wouldn’t hit her. She crossed her fingers behind her back and puffed her cheeks up and counted backwards from twenty, for luck.

“What is she doing?” the man asked.

Nanna looked like she might hit Marj anyway. “Being nine,” she said.

The man looked at Marj. “You’re to call me Uncle Artair. We’ll get you a job at the palace, and if anyone asks, your parents are dead. Do you understand?”

Marj nodded her head.

Her mom was already dead, everybody knew that. The mommies died after the babies were born.

But her dad…she had seen him a few times, but not many. She burned to see him again but she knew she needed to be good.

The man put his hand on her shoulder and when she blinked she wasn’t in her house anymore.

This was a cottage, with low ceilings and white walls and paneless windows. He led her downstairs into a kitchen where two little girls played while a woman rolled dough at a fat-planked table in the middle of the room.

“This is Marjorie,” he said from the doorway, “my niece.”

The woman looked at her. “Is she,” she said. Marj didn’t like the way her smile didn’t spread across her face. “Come in, then. This is Fjorda,” she pointed to the girl who was almost as tall as Marj and had her red hair in matching pigtail braids, “and Tanneke.”

Marj looked between them all. Uncle Artair and both of the girls had the same narrow noses, but the girls had the woman’s green eyes and red cheeks.

“Hi,” she said.

Fjorda stuck her tongue out at her. She played some kind of tumbling-blocks game, where each block had symbols printed on the side.

The woman sighed. She sounded put-upon, like one of the wives at home. “She can sleep down here, I guess.” She glared at Marj. “You can start the cook fire in the morning. Sweep, keep Tanneke away from the fire. I’ll teach you to make salt dough and scrub the table.”

Marj wanted to jump up and tell the woman she already knew how to do those things. She didn’t, because maybe the woman did them differently and Marj would need to learn new things.

“She’s not working here,” Uncle Artair said. “You have Fjorda for help.”

“She’s not eating in my house without helping,” the woman fired back.

“I’m going to get her a job at the palace, if I can. Jiacomo said they might be changing up the staff. Then we’d have money, not work. Let Fjorda help here.”

“Your niece is good enough to get hired at the palace, but our girls aren’t?”

Marj decided the man was going to win the fight. She went over to Fjorda. “I like your skirt,” she said.

It was some kind of dyed fabric with lines of color that made squares – blue and gold and red, criss-crossed.

“You can’t have it,” Fjorda told her. “It’s mine.”

“I don’t want it,” Marj promised. “I have my own skirt. See?”

She could tell it wouldn’t work here. Her skirt was right for the desert where it caught any breeze and covered her body without heating it.

Here she could feel the wind off the ocean. Every plant out the window was green instead of desert-brown. She would need warmer clothes before autumn.

“Good, because you can’t have it.”

Marj grinned. “Good, because I don’t want it,” she teased.

Fjorda grinned back.

Marj sat down next to her and picked up the tumbling blocks. “How do I play?” she asked.

She was here, no matter what else happened. She might as well have fun.

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