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Marlene doesn’t remember not living at Seventh Heaven. Papa told her that he grew up somewhere far away called Corel, and she was born there, too, but she was really little when they left and came to Midgar. She likes it there, because Papa’s there, and Miss Tifa, and Biggs and Wedge and Jessie, and she doesn’t think she’d like it in Corel because then it would just be her and Papa. She loves Papa but sometimes he’s boring.
Papa calls Marlene his baby girl, but Marlene’s not a baby anymore (she’s four years old and can read her name and count to twenty if she takes her socks off and tell Miss Tifa if somebody’s drunk too much and acting mean). When she tells Papa that, though, he laughs and wiggles his nose against hers in an Icicle kiss. His whiskers tickle her face and she giggles, and Papa says, “Ah, Marlene, you’re always gonna be my baby girl.” But he takes to calling her his little lady, and his good right hand, and those are okay because Marlene wants to be an elegant lady just like the ones on TV and when Papa’s tired she always helps him with things like opening bottles.
Marlene likes to help Miss Tifa, too, so she takes people’s empty glasses and washes them at the bar. Most of the customers are nice and tell her what a nice girl she is. One of them even gave her a new hair ribbon, once, and tried to get her to sit on his lap, but Papa growled at him and he didn’t come back. Other people think Papa is scary but Marlene doesn’t think so. Papa is warm hugs and a bristly beard and a soft voice that sings her to sleep. Marlene, Marlene, he croons, like the summer rain, like the honeydew. She likes that one because it’s been on the radio but it’s all about her.
When Marlene’s closed her eyes at night and made her breathing nice and slow, Papa thinks she’s asleep, and she likes that because he’ll start talking to her even though he doesn’t think she’s listening. “Oh baby girl,” he rumbles, “Never gonna let nobody hurt you. So clever, just like your mama, I’m gonna send you to school and you’re gonna go real far, Marlene, I know it.” Marlene wishes he would talk about her mama more but all he’ll say is she was smart and pretty and so is Marlene.
Sometimes, Papa cries, and she wants to hug him and brush away his tears like he does hers, but she fists her hands in the blankets instead. If he knows she’s awake these little moments like this will disappear. But the next morning she’s always extra helpful and good for him, and gives him a big hug when she wakes up.
--
But then Papa leaves. He cries. And Marlene can’t give him a big hug anymore.
--
Elmyra had said, if they try to take you, Marlene, hide. But if they find you, be a good girl and don’t fight, they won’t hurt a little girl if you don’t fight them. And Miss Tifa had said, Marlene, if the Shinra get their hands on you, you fight and scream and bite and kick and you don’t let them take you. And Papa had said, ain’t no Shinra ever touching my baby girl.
Papa was wrong.
Papa’s not there, and Miss Tifa’s not there, and Elmyra’s not there when the big silent man and the pinched-off, angry woman come knocking. Marlene scrambles up the stairs and hides under the bed. She makes her breath very quiet and tries not to cry, but her heartbeat sounds very noisy and she thinks they can probably hear it. Their shoes scuffle around downstairs. They’re talking to each other but Marlene can’t tell what they’re saying.
They come upstairs and she trembles, but now she can hear them and the woman is saying, “She’s not here. Waste of time. Kidnapping little girls…” and their footsteps go back down the stairs and the front door slams and Marlene relaxes, though she doesn’t come out from under the bed for a little while.
Except when she does come out they’re still there, waiting, and she is frozen in terror and can’t fight even if she wanted to. They’re going to take Marlene to the big building in the middle of the city and hurt her and she can’t do anything and she can’t even scream.
--
They don’t take Marlene to the big building, though. They stop somewhere in a different part of the city, where the buildings are all shiny in the sunset and the people walking down the street are all shiny, too, with big smiles and pretty hair. The car pulls into a garage underneath one of the buildings and Marlene’s heart goes thumpity-thumpity-thump. She presses her hands against her legs and shivers, then quietly, carefully, unbuckles her seat belt.
They park the car and it unlocks and here’s her chance; she opens the door and runs. Behind her, she hears cursing and shouting, so she runs faster, but she hasn’t made it to the open door and the remnants of the sunlight before the angry woman’s caught her, two arms around her middle. She squirms and shrieks and tries to bite her, but she can’t reach, so she kicks and the woman stumbles.
Someone is walking by the open driveway, a nice looking man with a dog, and he looks over at the noise. “Help,” Marlene says, gulping back tears, but though he hesitates he takes one look at the angry woman and blanches and keeps walking.
The big silent man stands in front of them now and quirks an eyebrow at the angry woman. “Shut up,” she snaps, “I’ve got her. Come on,” she hisses, and starts going back into the garage. Marlene heaves in a deep breath and keeps screaming. Now that she’s started she doesn’t think she can stop. She beats her fists against the angry woman’s unyielding arms and sobs until she can’t control her own breathing. It goes in-out-in-out but she doesn’t get any air.
They take her up an elevator, clean metal with bright buttons, to the twenty-first floor. It deposits them with a little ding. Marlene has tears dried on her cheeks and is shaking, and is suddenly very very tired. “Are you going to behave?” the angry woman asks her, and in a fit of pique Marlene shakes her head. The angry woman sighs and keeps carrying her until the big silent man stops at a door and knocks.
They wait for a minute, until the door opens slowly. Another man is standing there, one hand on the door and another on the frame. He is scruffy and tired-looking. “What?” he says to the big silent man, before his eyes track to Marlene’s and he freezes.
“From Tseng,” says the big silent man.
The scruffy man stares at them for a moment and then slams the door. The angry woman sighs out an angry breath. The big silent man waits patiently until the door opens again.
“Does he think this is funny?” the scruffy man says. The big silent man shrugs.
“She’s for your job,” the angry woman tells him.
“I’d gathered.” He shuts his eyes and his hand clenches on the doorframe. “You might as well come in.”
When they go into the apartment, the angry woman lets Marlene down. There’s nowhere for her to go, anyway. They’re too far up. The room is big and bright and airy. There’s a kitchen area to one side and a living area to the other, with two blue couches and a little table and a big TV. One of the couches has a pillow and blanket on it. The sink has dirty dishes. The blinds are half closed.
Marlene stands by the door and makes herself look small.
“What does he expect me to do with her?” The scruffy man asks, stopping in the middle of the living area with folded arms.
“Watch her. Keep her on hand.” The big silent man looks down at Marlene. “Just in case. We have someone to watch her during the day.”
“What does he expect me to do with her just in case?”
“You know.”
“Rude, I can’t.”
A shrug. “Are you backing out?”
He looks like he wants to, but he shakes his head, slowly. He looks over at Marlene, and asks, “What’s your name?”
Marlene presses her lips together and glares at him. The angry woman moves towards her, and she flinches.
“Elena,” the scruffy man says, and she stops with a huff. “My name is Reeve. You’ll be living with me. You’re Marlene, aren’t you? Did they hurt you?”
She glances at the woman. He grimaces. “Maybe it’s best if you two leave.”
“Can you handle her?” asks the angry woman.
“Well, if she knifes me in my sleep I’ll consider it deserved. She’s scared of you.”
She snorts. “She did more damage to me than I did to her. All I did was carry her up here.”
They leave without any more protest, though, and Marlene is left standing in the room with the scruffy man—Reeve.
“If you touch me, I’ll scream,” she says, matter-of-factly. “And I’ll bite you. My Papa’s going to come back and if you touch me he’ll kill you.”
“Then I won’t touch you.” He sinks down onto one of the couches and runs a hand through his hair. “Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head.
“Are you tired?”
She shakes her head.
“Would you like a drink? Or to sit down?”
She shakes her head and crosses her arms.
“Are you just going to stand there?”
She nods.
“Well, if you change your mind, let me know.” He picks up a drink that’s sitting by him, looks into it, then puts it down again. He considers her for a minute or two. “Your Papa’s doing okay,” he says.
Marlene stiffens. “You know Papa?”
He nods, then shakes his head, then stops. “Yes. I know where he is. He’s doing okay, but he misses you.”
Marlene misses Papa, too. And she is so very tired. Eventually, she can’t stand any longer, so she sinks down onto her butt and wraps her arms around her knees. She watches when Reeve stands up and goes into the kitchen. He inspects a loaf of bread, extracts four slices, and sets about making two sandwiches. When he’s done, he pulls a pitcher out of the clean, shiny fridge and pours water into two glasses. One of them, he sets down with a sandwich, white bread on a white plate, a few steps from Marlene. He eats the other sandwich in the kitchen and drops his dishes in the sink, then walks right past her down a hallway.
Marlene hears a door opening and closing, his footsteps in and out, the rumbling sound of a laundry machine working. (Marlene’s seen them at the place on the corner. At home they just wash clothes by hand.) She looks at the food. She’s hungry. Papa told her never to waste food but she doesn’t want this man’s sandwich. It might be poisoned.
He comes out again and looks at the untouched food, and sighs. “Marlene? If you’re tired I have a bed for you. Please come.”
She slowly, reluctantly gets up and shuffles behind him. He leads her to a little room, a little girl’s room. The carpet is soft and fluffy and pink, and there are lots and lots of stuffed animals perched on the dresser, a big black-and-white kitty, a big orange striped kitty, and other littler kittens. There is a mirror and a hairbrush and two more doors. One of them is a closet and the other a bathroom, all to herself. Marlene stares.
“There—there are clothes,” he stutters out. “I don’t know if they’ll fit you perfectly, but—you can try on whatever you like. Okay? If you need anything, I’ll be out there. And if you’re hungry I’ll leave food on the counter.”
He leaves. Marlene runs her fingers up and down the soft carpet, and on the soft bedspread, and through the soft pajamas that are laid out on the bed.
On the table by the bed is a little lamp, and a little picture frame, and in the picture is Reeve and a pretty lady and another little girl.
Marlene tries to sleep in the soft, soft, bed, and it is the nicest place she’s ever slept, but it takes her a long time to fall asleep without Papa or Miss Tifa or Elmyra to comb her hair and soothe her.
--
Her babysitter’s name is Amy. She comes to the apartment and teaches Marlene things like colors and shapes and numbers. She’s very impressed that Marlene can count to twenty. Marlene asks her about her Papa but she says she doesn’t know, and she should ask Mr. Reeve. But Mr. Reeve won’t tell her anything about her Papa anymore.
She asks him about other things instead. What he does (“Tell other people to do things, mostly,”) if he has a Papa (“No, but I have a Mama,”) if he likes cats so much why he doesn’t have one (“Well—she was allergic.”) He’s not really that scary, most of the time, even though sometimes he gets this far off look and stops responding to anyone around him. And he doesn’t touch her like he said he wouldn’t.
Marlene even starts eating dinner when he makes it for her. But it still takes her a long time to fall asleep.
--
One night Reeve gets back late, and Amy feeds her dinner instead. When he comes in he’s distracted and tense and doesn’t look at either of them. Amy leaves. He drops his briefcase on the floor and paces back and forth. He has a radio clutched in one hand. Marlene doesn’t like the look on his face. She doesn’t want to watch; she goes into her room and huddles in the corner and hugs the big plush kitty.
Soon, though, he knocks on the door. “Marlene,” he calls, “Come out.”
She shakes her head even though he can’t see her.
“Marlene.” He sounds angry. She curls up tighter.
He rattles the door. “Marlene, I need you to come out. It’s for your Papa. Please.”
“I don’t believe you!” she cries out, “Go away.”
The door opens and he comes in and grabs her by the wrist and she shrieks. He’d promised he wouldn’t touch her, he’d promised, and she drops the kitty as she squirms but he’s too strong. “Marlene, please,” he snarls, and she hears over the radio he’s still holding and it’s Papa’s voice.
“Papa!” she screams, he scrambles to press a button and she cries out again, “Papa! Tifa!”
“Hey, that’s Marlene!” It’s not Papa but it’s the flower lady. The flower lady was nice and she’ll help Marlene.
“Hey! It’s the flower lady! Flower lady…” Before she can say anything more he’s dropped the radio like it’s burning him and dropped her wrist too. She grabs the radio and runs out the door of her room. He doesn’t try to stop her, just crouches in the dark, breathing heavily.
The door to the apartment is bolted and she can’t get out, so she runs down the hallway and tries the other doors. One of them is just the washer and dryer, and one of them is locked, but the last one at the end of hall where she’s not supposed to go in is unlocked and she slips inside. It’s dark with no windows and there are hulking shapes, little blinking lights like eyes. She presses the buttons on the radio in the dark and tries talking into it but it doesn’t make any more sounds. “Papa,” she cries, “Papa, are you there, it’s Marlene, Tifa, flower lady, are you there…”
The radio remains stubbornly silent and she throws it across the room and screams. She makes a fist at the shapes in the darkness. If the Shinra get their hands on you, Miss Tifa had said, you fight and scream and bite and kick…
Maybe they’re just machines but she can hurt them, hurt him. She heaves one off a desk and it crashes to the floor with a sputtering noise. Its little blinking lights go out. She kicks it with the ball of her foot like Miss Tifa said to. It crunches under her feet, splintering glass. She’s wearing shoes. It doesn’t hurt. She looks around—there’s more. She throws drawers open and pulls things out, punches and elbows and kicks. She tears a frame off the wall. She grabs a big heavy tube and uses it to hit things, sweeps things she can’t reach off of high shelves. She’s sobbing and keening, a high-pitched horrible noise she barely registers making.
The door crashes open and the lights go on, and he’s standing in the doorway. She shrinks back against the wall and holds her tube in front of her.
His eyes are wide as he takes in the scene, and he looks so angry. He’s Shinra and he’s going to kill her. He’s going to come after her and choke her and beat her. She’s never gonna see Papa again.
He doesn’t.
He collapses on the floor and sobs.
--
They sit there in the middle of the destroyed workroom for a long time. Marlene keeps her tube in front of her, but he doesn’t even look at her, hands clenched tightly in his hair. She’s not crying anymore. Her wrist hurts, and her knuckles do, too, and her foot, but suddenly she feels stronger than this man.
She inches closer to him, tube raised, and her foot hits something small and fragile on the floor. It crunches. She looks down and it’s a little bird, the size of her two fists, miniature claws curled up and utterly still.
Her eyes fill with tears again. She drops her tube.
“I killed it,” she hiccups, trembling, afraid to touch the tiny creature that lies limp on the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“
He looks up and she freezes. He must be angry still, but he looks defeated, eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. His gaze drifts to the floor, and the little bird.
“No, no, it’s okay,” he croaks out. “Look, Marlene, he’s just a toy. We can fix him, see?” He crawls over, scoops it up. He holds it out towards her and she sees—the bones of the wing are narrow and black, the tendons are delicate wire, there is no blood but only a light sheen of grease. “Come…come on, can you help me?” He rises, steps carefully over the mess of broken things on the floor. With one hand, he clears away a space on the desk underneath a light, and lays the bird down on a blue mat. He turns the light on. It’s bright and white. Marlene hovers a couple of feet away, arms hugging herself tightly around her belly.
“He had a crown,” Reeve says, “it fell off—can you find it? It’s about this big,” he makes a circle with his thumb and finger, “it’s gold.”
Marlene nods jerkily and looks around. She’d made a huge mess. She gets down on her hands and knees and looks around for something shiny. There’s lots of shiny things, though; a whole box of screws tumbled out in a pile on the floor, the innards of one of the machines, bits of glass atop torn, glossy paper. There’s a big plush kitty up on one of the shelves, like the one in her room, and it has a crown, too, but it’s too big.
She can’t find it. She can’t find the crown and what if he’s angry that she can’t? He hasn’t punished her yet but even Papa punishes her when she has a tantrum and her wrist still hurts and there’s nowhere for her to go. She stands in the middle of the room and hyperventilates, shaking.
“Marlene? Oh, Marlene…” He turns around and approaches her, but stops a few inches away, hands hovering like he wants to touch her but won’t do it. “Marlene, I’m sorry, are you hurt? I—I’m so sorry, I—”
She shakes her head. “I can’t find it, I can’t find it, I don’t know where it is,” she whimpers, “Please don’t hurt me.”
He flinches and drops his hands. “Don’t worry,” he says, “It’s okay, he doesn’t need it, look, I fixed him, he’ll be okay.” He disappears for a moment, and then the bird is in front of her, cupped in his two broad hands. One of its wings is a different color, now, but it doesn’t look crushed and broken. He strokes it with one thumb, and with the stroke in the space of a breath the bird wakes up.
It hops around his hand, tilts its head and chirps. Its wings flutter a little and he raises his hands, encouraging it to fly.
Marlene stares as it takes off, flapping around the room like a real bird and singing.
“See? It’s okay, Marlene. He’s fixed. He’s okay,” he repeats.
“It—it doesn’t need the crown?” She whispers.
“Not to fly. It’s just for decoration. Because he’s the king of birds.”
She looks at the tiny songbird and wrinkles her nose. “That’s stupid,” she announces. “It’s so little. It can’t be king of anything.” Then she remembers that she’s probably in trouble and he’s Shinra and she looks at him but he doesn’t seem angry. He’s smiling a little.
“There’s a story. Can I tell you a story?”
She looks down and nods.
“Can we go out into the living room? It’s a little messy in here.”
She nods again.
He makes a little chirruping noise and the bird comes down to his hand. He holds it out to her. “Can you hold him?”
She holds the bird all the way out into the living room. It perches on her hand and tilts its head back and forth. It doesn’t have a heartbeat but she can feel the electricity running through it. When she pets it, carefully, with one finger, its feathers are soft and silky like Miss Tifa’s nice dress.
Reeve gets two glasses of water and sets one in front of Marlene. She sits on one couch and he sits on another. He’s careful not to touch her. She focuses on the bird.
“Long ago,” he says, “All the birds of the air and land were engaged in terrible war. No baby bird was safe in their nest. The little birds hid and the big birds hunted them.
“One day they decided that this could not be, and they said, let us crown a king of birds, so that we may settle our arguments in peace and not war. And all the birds agreed to this. And they said, how will we choose our king?
“The chocobo said, let the king be the fastest of all the birds. And the condor said, let the king be the largest of all the birds. And the falcon said, let the king be the most nimble of all the birds.
“But the thunderbird, who was the most powerful and scariest of all the birds, said, let the king be that bird who can fly higher than any other bird can fly. Let the king be the bird who holds all other birds as lesser under his wings. And the other birds were too scared of him to say otherwise, because they could not all agree on another way.
“So they held a competition. The chocobo failed first, because they can jump high but cannot fly. Next, the little birds of the fields failed, and the seagulls, who fly far but not high. The great condor’s big wings weighed him down, and the winds of the high air pulled at his feathers until he, too, could go no further.
“But the thunderbird is a creature of the storm, and the wind does not frighten him. He flew and flew up to the edges of space, until he was exhausted and could go no further. But he had flown higher than any other bird, and looked down at them and laughed, and said, now I am the king of birds.
“Until he felt a fluttering on his back, and looked up to see the wren, a few impossible wingflaps above him. The tiny bird had crouched in the thunderbird’s feathers all the way, and try as he might the thunderbird could not reach him. So the wren said, clear and small, now I am the king of birds, for all other birds are under my wings.
“The thunderbird would have eaten him right up, but he was too tired, and the rest of the birds rejoiced, saying, yes, the wren can be our king. And so it is to this day, that the wren is the king of birds, though he is tiny and plain.”
Over the course of the story, his voice fades into a low drawl, something different than the flat Midgar accent Marlene is used to. She clutches the little king of birds close to her chest, and, in her deep and aching exhaustion, lets the story lull her to sleep.
--
She wakes up on the couch with a blanket tucked around her. The morning light shines in through the windows, and the bird is perched, sleeping, next to her.
Reeve is sleeping on the other couch, still in yesterday’s clothes, but he stirs as soon as she gets up. “Marlene?”
She stops, halfway off the couch.
“Marlene, do you remember Elmyra?”
She nods. Of course she remembers Elmyra. They’d taken her away from Elmyra.
“Amy’s going to take you back to her. Do you know where Kalm is?”
“North.”
“Yes. Elmyra’s in Kalm and you’re going to go live with her again. Is that okay?”
Marlene nods. Back with Elmyra! But…
“Papa won’t be able to find me in Kalm.”
Reeve sighs. “When—when your Papa’s done with what he’s doing, I’ll tell him where to find you, okay? I know I haven’t been good with promises, but this time for sure. I’ll make sure to bring your Papa back to you.”
--
This time, he keeps his promise. The little wren flutters around them in circles when Papa brings Marlene up into a big, big hug, and she kisses away his tears.