I Am Margaret by Corinna Turner

knew better. Apparently it wasn’t totally unknown for a girl to take such an error of judgment as an opportunity for a bit of revenge, and claim some inappropriate behavior had occurred. That was a career-stopper if the RWB—ReAssignees Welfare Board—got to hear about it.
    “Probably,” I said, as calmly as I could.
    “Give me a buzz when you’re done, then,” said the guard—‘Watkins’ read his badge. The stairwell door clicked closed behind him as he headed back to the guardroom.
    Laudate Deum , I was alone. I could hold it off no longer; shudders wracked me from head to foot and my stomach began to heave in earnest. Diving into a cubicle, I kicked the door shut behind me and was violently sick. I went on being sick until eventually there was nothing to come up but bile and kneeling there, my forehead pressed to that cold cinder block wall, I cried and cried until my face was on fire and every drop of water in my body ought to have evaporated from it.
    Uncle Peter, dead.
    Uncle Peter, slowly, agonizingly dead, a piece at a time.
    There was no escaping the truth of what I’d seen with my own eyes.
    I beat on the wall, blind to the pain, barely retaining the sense to stop before I laid my knuckles bare, for how would I explain that? The tears would not stop—hope had vanished from my soul like a forgotten dream.
    Curled up with my hands over my head, I rocked to and fro, fighting with my helplessness, my loneliness, my terror. Uncle Peter was dead and my parents might be about to go the same way. They were unlikely to be sentenced to conscious execution, but dismantled they would be if Uncle Peter was traced back to them.
    And—oh Domine Deus !—to my shame, a selfish thought, a selfish but oh so ghastly thought crept in amongst the rest. What would it be like to live out my two years here almost completely alone, knowing almost all those I loved were dead and even though Bane still lived, he was cut off from me, unreachable as the moon…
    No, I was being foolish. If they took my parents, they would come for me too. They would take me before a judge and bid me speak the words of Divine denial; my refusal to Apostatize would condemn me for Personal Superstition and I would simply be dismantled immediately, instead of in two years.
    My heartbeat steadied slightly and the chill eased its grip on me. Immediate and painless entrance into Our Lord’s company instead of two long years of lonely misery; that wasn’t so bad, then.
    But Mum and Dad … where’d Uncle Peter been staying? He could’ve been staying at five or six different houses, he moved often—after all, even much-loved uncles or family friends didn’t visit all the time. Was it my own family or another that were about to share his fate?
    His fate… Uncle Peter …
    Tears. More tears. Ridiculous, I was going to dissolve. Don’t cry, Margo, just remember him... But the memories brought tears. Receive the soul of your faithful servant, Lord . Take him to yourself...
    Then Uncle Peter’s smiling face filled my mind, driving out the memory of that ruined one we’d left in the Lab. Don’t cry, Margo, he told me, just as if he’d surprised a childish tear on my cheek. The Lord’s written you a letter, ‘specially for now. I knew the ‘letter’ and words from it were suddenly whispering through my mind…
     
    …Desiderat, languens concupiscit
    anima mea atria Domini…
    … For the courts of the Lord’s house,
    my soul faints with longing…
     
    …Transeuntes per vallum aridam,
    fontem facient eam…
    … As they go through the Bitter Valley,
    they make it a place of springs…
     
    …Vere melior est dies unus in
    atriis tuis quam alii mille…
    … Willingly would I give a thousand of my days
    for one spent in your courts…
     
    …Domine exercituum, beautus
    homo qui confidit in te…
    … Lord of hosts, blessed
    is the man who trusts in you…
     
    Those verses were like a light shining into that terrifying blackness and they left