I - Hazel
Hazel
opened her eyes. It was dark, but she
lay on a comfortable cot, surrounded by soft pillows and she felt very well
rested. She stretched and as she did so
her hand slid past the exposed skin of her swollen belly. She rubbed the bump uncertainly, marvelling
and the silky smooth, taut skin. There
was a twitch of movement underneath and she pulled her hand away. The movement persisted, however and,
cautiously, she placed her hand back where it was and felt the life within her
squirming and kicking. She smiled in
spite of herself, in spite of her terror.
She lay
there, caressing the swell of her mysterious pregnancy and tried to remember
how she had gotten where she was. She
remembered the fire and the young man she thought of as the Knight, who had
taken her to the House of the Corrections.
She remembered going inside, being welcomed in by the women there, many
pregnant like her, all poor, some dying, perhaps. The matron had been less welcoming. She had thrown harsh words at her like sharpened knives, told her
of her sin and of the penance she must live out in that place until the child
was born. She had been too scared and
confused to respond, but with the fire raging in the city outside, with the men
running around carrying buckets in the streets and the guards defending the
walls, the other women had become strangely emboldened.
The
matron had not lived much longer.
And so those
women had taken her in, had looked after her like she was some sort of beggar
princess. She had not understood, but
it hadn’t mattered. They treated her
with such care and respect. “You’re the
one,” they had repeated, over and over as they admired her bump, caressed it.
She had
become tired quite suddenly and the other women had been quick to prepare a
space for her, giving her all the pillows they could spare as she curled up on
the cot. They had prayed over her then,
strange prayers she had never heard before, prayers for her baby and for the
things he would do when he was born and prayers for herself, that she would be
exalted as Mary had been. She didn’t
understand any of it, but it made her feel special like she had never felt
before.
As she
had drifted off to sleep one of the women leaned over her and kissed her,
gently, on the forehead.
“Sleep
well, Margaret,” she had whispered before Hazel’s eyes fluttered shut.
Who
was Margaret? Hazel wondered as she lay in the darkness, listening to the
sounds of the city drifting through a nearby window. She could hear traffic, sirens, music, voices. the window began to shed light, a harsh,
steady orange that spoke of streetlamps, rather than flames.
She sat
up and stared at it in wonder. She was
back in the Devara she knew.
It only
took a few moments of fumbling around in the darkness to find a light
switch. A bare bulb glowed gently,
building in brightness overhead, revealing a spare room with little in it but
her cot and a small bedside table, upon which lay an ancient, battered-looking
book.
Hazel sat
down on the bed once more and examined the book. It had no title on the cover, only an odd symbol, like a cross
made out of infinity loops, but as she opened it to the frontispiece she saw
that it was The Testament of Saint Margaret of Devara.
Margaret,
she thought with a start, before turning the pages slowly, just skimming the
text, pausing only to look at the engravings which interspersed it every few
pages or so. They were mostly images of
old buildings, city scenes, or illustrations of Margaret’s story. She stopped at an image of the Devara House
of Corrections with the caption beneath declaring, ‘They took her in and
adored her’.
What
is happening to me, she thought, closing the book and setting it down once
more to gaze at the alien bulge of her navel.
It was only half covered by her top, but the bare skin beneath was not,
in truth, completely bare, she realised.
There was an ink marking there, like a tattoo. She pulled her clothing up to get a closer look and saw,
half-expected, half-feared, the cross from the book’s cover inked beneath her
taut skin.
I need
answers, she thought and, picking the book up, she said goodbye to her cosy
cot and made her way out into the night.
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