I Am Margaret by Corinna Turner Page A

me a little calmer. Uncle Peter was in the courts of the Lord’s house, and the Lord was still with me.
    A knock on the door and Watkins’ voice jerked me from my contemplations.
    “It’s supper; you done in there, lass?”
    “I’ll be right out.”
    Getting up, I flushed the toilet and went to wash my hands, checking my face carefully in the mirror. My last tears had fallen long enough ago that my eyes weren’t too red, but I splashed a bit of cold water on them all the same and dried them carefully with toilet roll.
    I shouldn’t have hidden in here for the last half hour. What if the Rats learned that a priest’s execution had made me behave like this? Suspicion was all it took, for the invitation to make the Divine denial provided the rest. Still... it’d been a choice between a breakdown in public or a breakdown in private, so... couldn’t be helped.
    Right. Supper. I’d never felt less like eating. Everyone was coming down the passage; Watkins had unlocked the dorm. Supper and unhappy comrades in distress. I squared my shoulders and headed for the door.
     
    There was no time to amend my letter after supper: my friends attached themselves to me and I hadn’t the heart to shed them again. I set my alarm early instead.
    My night prayers flowed in my mind, comforting and very welcome, until the last one. I approached it rather warily and tried to recite it nice and steadily, hoping to just run through it, but when I reached ‘quodcumque mortis genus’ the words stuck in my throat and choked me. Whatever kind of death .
    The very worst mortis genus had been revealed to me today, in all its stark agony. Had I ever really appreciated what this prayer said at all? Whatever kind of death. Even Conscious Dismantlement. Even that. The ultimate Act of Acceptance of the Lord’s will. For His will was that all humanity should have Free Will, even judges and dismantlers…
    The idea of me, there in Uncle Peter’s place, had me sweating in terror. I tried and tried to find the willingness in me, but still the words brought me to a halt, shaking with fear.
    What are the odds of you ending up in that situation, Margo? Minuscule! But still, I couldn’t speak. I could not. Finally, I gave up and just lay there, tears of shame drying on my cheeks.
     
     
     
    ***+***
     
     
     

7
    THE LATTER YEARS OF PETER RABBIT
     
     
    I did my best to eat something, lest my parents worry, but it was a waste. I didn’t seem to taste any of it.
    “ Let’s go and dance,” I said after a while, and ignoring Mum’s dire warnings about catching cold, I slipped off my jacket and left it behind. Most girls my age weren’t wearing big coats, and I couldn’t afford anything distinctive. I did borrow Dad’s football cap, pulling it down over my face.
    For a while I almost forgot our little enterprise, since it was hard to think about much else when dancing with Bane. He swung me and spun me until we were both draped dizzily over each other for balance, laughing hysterically.
    When they were almost ready to start, we slipped quietly away. We’d not be the only young couple sneaking off into the night, fence or no fence. Bane scaled the thing again in that dark corner while I rolled my skirt up by a couple of feet, the chill night air raising goosebumps on my bared legs.
    “ Uh... what are you doing?”
    “ Avoiding distinguishing features. And if it keeps the guards’ eyes off my face, so much the better. It seems to be working on you .”
    Bane’s blush was almost, but not quite, invisible in the darkness and he dragged his eyes back to my face at once.
    “ Okay, well,” he said hastily, “I looked at a program. The Minister for the British Department just has a very short bit tonight introducing the Chairman, so when he gets up, you draw the guards away. Just after the Chairman starts his speech is about when I’m aiming for the things to start going off. That should upstage him nicely, don’t you think?”
    “ Just