2nd Place - Margaret's Oath, by M Dharshini, Singapore

The brown grass crunched under her tan boot, crisp from the unusually scorching autumn sun. The family tree had bawled its green out just a month ago. The old leaves were strewn haphazardly on the ground - yellowed, worn and dead - like her love’s crumpled letter on the hardwood floor in her room. 

Margaret pressed her heels into the wilted leaf mounds as she trudged towards the tree, axe in hand. She hoped the ground would turn into a sinkhole and drag her six feet under. The crackling leaves shrinking under her feet could not silence her crumbling twenty-five-year-old heart. Even the cold draft cowered away from Margaret’s grief as she smeared her tears dry on pale cheeks.  

Her love’s half-written letter arrived from London earlier that day. In his letter, he promised a warm bed, described how he’d kiss her good night and gave a name for their unborn child. ‘Abigail’ he had written in his fancy scroll, ‘the joy of the father’. The child in her womb would have no father. Edward, her love, was killed in war. When she had seen the official seal on the accompanying military letter, Margaret knew that her bed, lips, heart and marrow would eventually freeze over.  

The axe felt heavy in her hand as she swung it vertically into the thick trunk, the surface wood splintering under the axe’s blade. The old tree had stood in the background of their marriage proposal, guarded their last kiss before Edward left for war, and witnessed his empty promise of a better world. The wise tree which had shaded them in joy and hope was now privy to her agony.

Margaret swung the axe at the tree, again and again. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She threw all her pain at the stoic tree, before releasing a ghastly cry of anguish and collapsing into a heaving pile of sorrow at its foot. Margaret vowed that she would never let her daughter feel the searing pain of love ripped right out of one’s core. The family tree was now the bearer of Margaret’s oath.

The months rolled on, tumbling one over another. Seasons changed and the old tree started to sprout leaves again. Margaret gave birth to baby Abigail in the still of the night, a night so quiet that the shy clouds seemed to tiptoe across the sky past the silver of a crescent. Baby Abigail’s shrill cries pierced the room, uninterrupted by the midwife’s shushing. 

‘My lady, the little miss has a healthy set of lungs,’ the midwife announced with pride as she cleaned and bundled the wailing baby.

Margaret stared blankly at the high ceiling above her, the sheen of perspiration drying quickly into a sticky varnish on her forehead. Margaret could not bring herself to look at her new-born. The baby’s cries felt like someone was drilling a hole into her ear drums with the fine spindle of a sewing machine. 

As the midwife cradled and gifted the swaddled baby to her, Margaret squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart sputtered and churned. She could not find any love in her empty vessel for the pink-faced, flaky parcel in the midwife’s arm. 

‘Take it away.’ 

Margaret pushed away the bub. Her voice was soft, but steady. 

‘My lady?’ 

‘I said, take it away. Take it somewhere far. Leave it in the woods with the wolves for all I care. I do not want to see it’ 

The midwife sighed, holding baby Abigail closer to her bosom as she retreated from her lady’s room. She had birthed enough babies to know that a new mother may not always feel euphoria after pushing out a part of herself. Sometimes, the wave of emotions crashing within drowns the joy of holding her bub close to her heart and washes up feelings of loathing. 

‘Don’t you worry little miss. Your mother will come around,’ she muttered as she swayed the baby to the pastel-hued nursery. 

Margaret did not come around that night. She did not come around that spring or months later when the old tree stood gloriously naked on the white, snowy carpet.  Margaret did not come around even as the months fused into years and the years built a decade. 

Abigail grew up without a fuss. She was a tame, waft-like figure. Her steps were even, her stale grey eyes lowered, and her gentle voice seemed to float gracefully out of her. Abigail never missed out her ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. She even knew how to dress herself and tie her own shoelaces. The only thing unruly about Abigail was her fiery red curls that always managed to escape her tight braid. 

When she walked past her mother’s room in the hallway, Abigail held her breath in her chest and quickened her steps. The sobs that slid under the door, out of her mother’s room prickled her skin and shook her little rattle heart. Abigail's nanny told her that her mother was sick. Within the boundaries of her memory, her mother had always been ill. 

So, it did not shock eleven-year-old Abigail when she had to stand in her black frock, flanked by her nanny and the house help, as the priest blessed the fresh soil that blanketed the mahogany box her mother laid in for her last slumber. The family tree stood behind her, bowing its head in the wind, a final goodbye to a lady who died long before her body followed. 

Abigail stood patiently — toes pointed inwards and hands clasped loosely in front of her — waiting for the priest to commit her mother’s soul to God. Abigail couldn’t wait to get back to her half-finished painting of green meadows and blue skies in the study. 

You see, unlike Edward, Margaret kept her promise to the old tree. Abigail was spared the agony of lost love. She barely knew love. As the priest finished his incantations, the old tree stood a little taller, dissolving Margaret’s oath as its final rite. 

Margaret’s Oath received the 2nd place award for the 2021 New Deal Writing Competition.