Leavitt Stafford and the Awful, Terrible, Not Very Nice Plan.

Chapter the Forty-First: The Life of Magnolia

Magnolia Moss, née Rowland Campbell, was brought upon the mortal realm of this tale on the thirteenth day of the month of May of the year 1831 to a pair of most loving parents. Such parents were difficult to encounter in those times, particularly when they each condemned the commonplace act of striking one's children when they misbehaved. Additionally, the parents each believed that women should be able to cast their ballots alongside men, a belief which was rather unfortunate to hold when the Reform Act of 1832, and the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, forbade women from casting their own votes. Bloody Victorian men.

Magnolia was a kind and compassionate child, albeit a rather naïve one. As her parents would tell her of how the best course of action was always to be generous, to fight for her own beliefs, and to ensure that those who could not defend themselves were protected, she would go to great lengths to apply these teachings to her life. By adults, she was revered as a saintly child. When it came to the other children, however, she was not so fortunate.

Due to her sensitivity, compassion, and mannerisms, Magnolia would experience greater ease of befriending the girls who lived nearby than she would the boys at her school, particularly as she considered them to be frightfully obstreperous and ill-mannered. Unfortunately for her, the boys with whom she attended school did not take kindly to this; many a time, they would torment her mercilessly for her feminine demeanour, and they would accuse her of being a homosexual. It was dreadful!

Magnolia could not bear this incessant bullying, and so, in order to attempt to gain some higher regard in the eyes of the boys who would treat her so cruelly, she tossed her tender-hearted nature aside and attempted to transform herself into all she had been taught a man should be. She ceased wearing her heart on her sleeve, defied almost all attempts of subjugation, regardless of whether or not these attempts were within reason, and poured her heart and soul into appearing strong, and what the boys and men she was surrounded by would regard as the epitome of what a man should be. And so she went on for several years, causing her parents a great deal of grief at the kind boy they had once known and raised with pride.

Magnolia was losing herself. This brutish, reticent fellow she pretended to be was not her, and it never would be her. As the years passed, she became more and more miserable, and she thought to herself that she could not bear to continue this way. Truth be told, she had always possessed a great deal of envy for the girls with whom she would frolic about after school, and she rather wished she could be one of them, for she felt that she was herself one of them at heart. As the years went by, and she forced herself to behave in a more masculine manner so as to be accepted, this feeling became greater and greater, until the horrors adolescence carried caused matters to reach a crescendo. But still she continued for a great many more years, marching onwards as she sprouted upwards towards the stars, morphing into something she could scarcely recognise.

Once Magnolia reached adulthood, she worked as a blacksmith, but each time a lady would walk by, clad in the most elaborate dresses, she was cruelly reminded of all she longed for, and all which she thought to be out of her reach. All who witnessed her would believe her to be a great, hefty, stoic man, but they believed incorrectly. She was not a man! Beneath her masculine exterior laid a woman, a woman who wept bitterly at having spent a lifetime imprisoned within flesh which simply did not befit her, and which caused the entirety of the world to perceive her as something she simply was not. She wished she could end it all.

One day, a small young gentleman with protruding ears approached Magnolia. "I wish to procure a fire poker," he informed her in a boyish and monotonous tone.

As Magnolia carefully noted this, she wondered what the devil he was doing with his arms. His monotonous voice, and his expressionless countenance, caused him to emanate a rather unnerving aura as well, for one could never tell what one was thinking when one presented oneself in such a manner. Still, she nodded her head and told him of the price, which he provided her with the money for.