My Name Is Mallory

I think it’s a disgrace to the name. To spoil the dark grounds with red blood. Even worse, her favorite color is pink. Terrible, I say. She haunts the halls, this woman. Her name? Are you sure? It’s really bad. It pains me to say it. Fine.

Magnolia Tyler-Addams.

My name? Well, if you insist.

My name is Mallory Lilith Addams. Proud niece of Wednesday Addams.

I am searching for a suitable song to play today from my music book. I am considering The Death March, but it is too overused. Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor is also not the right choice. Therefore, I decide to play La Llorona in the morning. Unfortunately, I lost my actual bow to my pet lizard, Nightstalker. Surprisingly, a butcher knife can be used as a replacement, but I have to be careful not to press down too hard, or it will cut through the strings. I sit on the balcony of The Addams Family Manor, which has been in our family for centuries or maybe even millennia. I pick up my aunt's cello and start to play.

The cello begins to sing (metaphorically, I mean).

Ay, de mi Llorona,

Llorona, de Azul celeste

Ay, de mi Llorona-

“M-Mallory? Are you here?” It’s my incompetent, legally bound sibling, Jacob. I throw my knife at him. It hits the wall and misses his head, barely. “I’ll be coming down soon, you can wait that long without Petunia attempting to eat you.” Petunia is a bewitched Venus Flytrap. I helped my great-grandmother bewitch her. Now, no more reminiscing on Memory Lane. A very dark and shady lane. It’s time to talk about the menace lurking in the halls of this house. Humiliating all the Addams before us. If Aunt Wednesday were here. She’d be 6 feet underground already.

“Mallory, honey! Breakfast, I made your favorite! Charcoal pancakes!”

I despise it when she pronounces my name wrong. It’s pronounced Mal-lor-e. Not Mall-o-re. She uses a long a when the name is pronounced with a short a. I go down the stairs. Magnolia is sweeping up cobwebs. “Don’t do that,” I say to her. “Those spiders took their time making those webs. You wouldn’t want anyone scooping up and crushing your house, would you?”
“Oh, Mallory, you and your kindness to nature!” She stops what she’s doing and hugs me like she usually does. I back away and she misses me.

“You’re still not a hugger.” She says. “I’ll get you one day!” I walk past her, and I grab 3 black pancakes.

“Your determination is impressive. But the day you hug me, I’ll be dead.” It’s 10:00. The house quakes violently. It shouts.

GET OUT!

The house does that every hour, even during the night, and we’ve learned to live with it. I pour black syrup onto my pancakes. And with a kitchen knife, I cut the pancakes into eighths. The doorbell screams. “Oh! it’s here!” Magnolia cries out, “The new clothes for your term at Nevermore!” Nevermore? That school where Aunt Wednesday went? “Here it is!” It’s blinding, the clothes are a suit with the insignia of Nevermore and a skirt. Except instead of the original blue and black. It is a nauseous color of pink and yellow. “I got it custom-made!” I fake a cough. “Magnolia, I don’t think you may have remembered.” I fake-hack, “I’m severely allergic to any color that is not black, white, or a dark shade of gray. It’s genetic, everyone in the family has it. Just then, my incompetent father who is physically and mentally incapable of reading the room comes in with a neon green sweater. As I said before, disgraces to the Addams family name.

“It so magically skipped Pugsley.” I feed what’s left of my pancakes to Petunia and I exit the room.

I go back to the balcony; I take my knife out of the wall and I go back to where I started.

Ay, de mi Llorona

Llorona, de azul celeste,

Y aunque la vida me cueste, Llorona

No dejare de quererte

No dejare de quererte

Me subi al pino mas alto, Llorona

A ver si te divisaba

Como el pino era tierno, Llorona

al verme llorar, lloraba

La pena y la no es pena, Llorona