Marla lays her basket on the ground and casts a sidelong glance at the barefoot girl with the cast-off clothes and the coat that should be burned, by the smell of it. She shakes her head. Reaching over, she lays her hand on the girl’s knee and gives it a squeeze. “Hello, my Sparrow,” she whispers. Marla can always see her. For as long as she can remember. The girl doesn’t know why this is, but she appreciates it all the same.
The junk man’s daughter lays her head on the egg woman’s shoulder. There is so much love coursing through her body that she can hardly bear it. She loves the town and each person in it, though few of them love her back. And her love rattles and heats inside her. It thrums against her skin and wrinkles her bones. It hurts, this love. And it exhausts her. She will need to take a break in a moment, find a dark corner filled with quiet and loneliness and thinking.
She has so much to think about.
“Where’s your papa?” Marla asks.
“Feeling poorly,” the girl says with a shrug.
Marla snorts. “You mean drunk,” she says. The junk man’s daughter doesn’t respond. She gazes at the backs of each head in the pew, lets her eyes graze along their straight spines, their aching shoulders, their swollen joints. She looks inside and sees empty bellies, worried minds, broken hearts. She wants to gather each one in her arms, love them to bits. She wants to help them, heal them, give them strong backs and clear eyes and loud voices. She wants their lives to overflow.
And she can do it too. She knows she can. She just has to figure out how.
The egg woman narrows her eyes.
“Just what are you up to, girl?” she says.
The junk man’s daughter closes her eyes. She takes a long, slow breath in through her nose and holds it for a moment. She turns to the egg woman, who instantly clutches her heart. She loves that girl so much it hurts. Her young face is flushed and shining.
“Something wonderful,” the girl whispers.
She kisses the egg woman on the cheek and slips out of the church. No one notices her go. No one speaks to Mrs. Strange, nor do they comment on the deepening flush of her cheeks, the growing glow of good health and vigor.
And no one mentions the bird.
10. Then.
There were only twenty magic children born that year. Nineteen, if you subtract the one that died.
The Constable made a show of holding the dead baby’s mother down as the Inquisitor weighed the tiny corpse, took photographs of the magic mark curling out of the navel, and filled out the forms in triplicate. But really, it was only a show. The woman in the birthing bed was drugged and exhausted. Her soul was worn thin. She gave no sign of resistance, no indication of struggle. Her shoulders were damp clay in his hands, and her eyes were flat, and dull as porridge.
“Come now,” the Constable said. “That’s enough,” as though just by playacting with the mother he could spark a little life in her. If she fought him, he reasoned, maybe she would heal.
“I have authorization from the Minister,” the Inquisitor said, “to gift to your family the full amount, even though his Excellency will be deprived the assistance of this once-blessed child.” He adjusted his glasses on his nose. “It is most generous.”
“Most,” whispered the woman in the birthing bed, “generous.” Even her voice was a cold, dead thing. “Can I have my baby back now?”
The Inquisitor squinched his face as though smelling something foul. “Of course not!” he said. “You have been paid. The procedures are done. The child is marked, therefore the child belongs to the Minister.”
“But—” the woman on the bed began. The Inquisitor interrupted her.
“Young lady, it doesn’t matter whether or not she is alive. Death, in the case of magic children, is irrelevant. A magic child is a government child. And your government thanks you. It says so on this form.”
The woman’s dead eyes burned to life and her ashen cheeks flushed. It was so sudden, so abrupt, that it seemed to the Constable nothing short of a miracle. She is alive! He nearly sobbed in relief. He was new to the job, and he could tell already there was a reason why no one else wanted it. Still, better that he do it than some Minister’s stooge from the capital. This was his town, after all.
The woman twisted this way and that. Her feet were still in their straps, and she would not be able to undo them without a nurse. “Take these off!” she shouted.
“As a spokesperson for our precious Minister and his government—”
She spat. “To hell with the government!” She punched the Constable in the eye. “To hell with the goddamned Minister. Give me my dead baby, damnit.”
The Inquisitor gaped in horror. “Language, lady!” he sputtered. “This is a hospital! Keep your heresy to yourself.”
She thrashed and bit. The Constable got a fingernail in the eye, teeth marks on his bicep, a knee in his groin. He groaned.
“Constable,” the Inquisitor said, “please use the cuffs for the wrists of the heretic traitor, and deal with her at a later time. I expect you know what to do with this kind of law-breaking.”
The Constable, did, of course, though he suspected that what he had in mind was different from what the Inquisitor meant. They had their own ways of dealing with things, out here in the hinterlands. It was better to keep that information as quiet as possible.
Much later, in the Constable’s office, the box containing the dead baby sat on the desk. It had sat there for hours. The Constable opened the lid, and closed it again, wrinkling his eyebrows.
The baby was still dead. That was certain.
The Inquisitor stood next to the wall, a telephone perched between his ear and
