Margaret

The baby’s stomach rose and fell as he slept in Margaret’s arms. Despite the howls of the city—the sirens, the squealing of rubber, the screams—despite all these attacks on the silence clinging to the grimy walls of her apartment, the child did not wake, nor did the involuntary rise and fall change its rhythm. We know what you did, the walls seemed to whisper in a voice only Margaret could hear. We couldn’t see. But we know. Yet, for all their whispers, Margaret was smiling. Deep in the comfort of sleep, the baby gurgled, and she giggled at the sound, her laugh an incongruous brilliance that crackled and smashed itself bloody against the dark stillness of the walls. And as every inch of the beautiful boy etched itself into the back of her skull, Margaret’s fingers, as they often did, fiddled with the heart-shaped locket whose metal chain hung cool around her neck.

The locket had been from Owen, given to her before he’d gone to serve—before he’d left her pregnant and alone. He wasn’t to blame though. When an Agent of Solomon drags you to fight in one of their never-ending wars, there isn’t any alternative. When he’d embraced her that last time before Seth’s birth, neither acknowledged the finality of their goodbye. Why bother? Everyone knows the conscripted never return from war. Before conscription, a soldier is just another mouth to feed. But dead on the battlefield … then he’s a glorious martyr for the Throne of Solomon.

Still, Margaret was glad that her one chance at motherhood had been his. Because of the New Age Inheritors Act—legislation to fight the ever-rising population and ever-decreasing resources—a woman of the New Age could only bear one child during her lifetime; and if the child died, well, all the better: the child wasn't destined for the New Age, nor were the genes of the parents suitable for procreation. Margaret knew better than to get pregnant a second time after Seth was born; the Agents who enforced the New Law were not soldiers like her Owen. No, these were monsters birthed in tubes, who were all the same under their uniforms, who grew at an accelerated rate and insulated the armies of Solomon during its incessant invasions of neighbouring nations. And those selected to be Agents of the Throne, those who prowled the streets below her with their lifeless eyes, knew nothing besides the New Law and would enforce every aspect, even butchering an illegal second child, without hesitation.

Besides, it was for the best. Margaret didn’t have the strength for another child. Raising her Seth, her baby boy, had been hellish enough on her own with no one there to help her, without even Polly.

Polly. The walls shrieked the condemnation at her, and Margaret flinched at the name, her grip tightening on the baby. But he didn’t notice and continued to sleep, oblivious to everything except the heartbeat which permeated his dreams.

You’re right, she whispered back to the walls, her breath unsteady. She did offer to help.

From the earliest of memories, Polly had been as a sister to her; the two were inseparable in their years living on Canterbury Lane. But Polly, with those bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair, had married easily and left Margaret behind in the ruins. Years later, when Margaret got pregnant, so did Polly, but as life smiled pleasantly on those blue eyes and blonde hair, Polly’s husband remained unnoticed by conscription. While Margaret drooped under the weight of motherhood, alone, her Owen away fighting a hopeless fight—Polly, who gave birth only two days later, had a husband to help her throughout.

When Polly finally did return to Canterbury Lane and Margaret’s tenebrous room, she must have seen Margaret’s blank stare and the way she anxiously twisted the locket around her neck. Polly must have seen that Margaret needed help—so she offered it. Just trust me, she’d said. Please.

It was terribly strange, after so many days and nights spent with only those grimy walls for company, to venture out past Canterbury Lane. But Margaret did, clutching Seth against her chest, her head down to avoid the stare of any Agents. Then she was at Polly’s building, climbing the stairs, all eleven flights since the elevator was unavailable, and sweating from the exertion, she knocked on the door. And then she’d handed her dear boy over to a complete stranger, to a man whom she trusted merely because of the golden wedding band wrapped around his finger. But she was tired. So she’d said goodbye to her son. It wasn’t a tearful goodbye—she was much too tired for tears—but it was a goodbye, nonetheless.

Those two days were anything but restful. The walls of her apartment were louder than ever without Owen or the baby to drown out the noise. Then the two days were over, and just as tired as before, Margaret wandered past Canterbury Lane to Polly’s building. She climbed the eleven flights of stairs and, panting, knocked on the door. As she waited, hearing movements and voices within, she realized that it had been a week since Owen last called. Then the door opened, framing Polly and the stranger with his wedding ring. Margaret was confused for a moment. Gone were the smiles of yesterday’s yesterday. Those had been discarded and replaced by tears—but these were more of a formal display, just like the smiles before them. They didn’t mean anything, but their absence would have been noticed.

Then they told her. She didn’t want to hear, but they told her anyways. How her Seth had died. How her baby had fallen eleven stories to the pavement below. And the bastard with his ring dared to defend himself. Polly was holding Margaret’s shoulder as they sat on the couch, tears streaming down her pretty face, those eyes swollen and red, but the words were unheard by Margaret. Instead, she was looking across the room where a red and white plastic truck sat perched on a counter, far from the window that had been open—as if the truck, now placed on the opposite side of the room, was forgiven of its involvement. As Polly continued to blabber, Margaret’s mind only focused on that truck. Why did their baby have a truck in the first place? He was incapable of lifting his own head: why would he need a truck? And why had the stranger been carrying her child, her beautiful boy, so near an open window if there was a purposeless truck waiting to trip him?

Margaret’s eyes, unlike theirs, remained dry, even as she descended eleven flights of stairs to the pavement below, followed by the emptiest of apologies.

Night had already made itself comfortable when Margaret climbed those stairs again. She wasn’t out of breath this time, and she didn’t knock. The key that Polly had given her turned quietly in the lock, and although the door squeaked slightly, no one seemed to have awakened. Before going to the bedroom, she first visited the kitchen, enjoying the sound the knife made when she pulled it from the block. And there they were, the two of them, sleeping peacefully with the windows closed. Their baby was nearby, gurgling away in its crib. After Margaret used the knife, the stranger’s eyes shot open, looking into her own unblinking ones as the life drained from his throat. And as he gurgled, Margaret began to giggle—he sounded just like the baby. But now Polly was waking, and the knife would be far too quick. Margaret grabbed a pillow and shoved it over the blue eyes and blonde hair. As Polly struggled like a fish on a dock, Margaret whispered soothing words, and if she hadn’t needed both hands for the fighting pillow, she would have stroked the blonde curls as the blue eyes lost their colour.

It would be an awful scene for an Agent to find. But the Agent would only see two fewer mouths to feed.

Margaret grabbed the gurgling boy from the crib and brought him close to her breast. This is no place for you, she thought. She washed herself quickly and changed into a dress from Polly’s closet. After she descended those eleven flights of stairs and walked onto the pavement below, she threw her bloody clothes into the flames of an alley fire around which a couple slept.

And on her return to Canterbury Lane, the walls continued to whisper to her while she sat on that chair, watching the rise and fall of the baby’s stomach, asleep against her heart. Seth, she told the walls when they asked. His name is Seth.

THE END