Chapter Text
June 1926.
The bookshop’s bell rang, and an annoyed voice yelled “We’re closed !”
Margaret grabbed the door-frame to catch her breath. She just wanted to get out of the clouds of dust that made her cough. Bloody librarian ! Why did he even open his shop if he wanted to be left alone ?
“Well you need to close your door, then ! I’m in, and I intend to stay !” she yelled back.
Nobody yelled at Margaret.
Footsteps echoed, and the voice came closer, a little less loud, a little more tense.
“Madam, the bookshop is closed, I am sorry to have to ask you to...”
A strange, white haired man stared at her in shock, then frowned. For a second, she thought he would yell again. She prepared to yell back.
“Oh, my poor dear ! You look so pale ! Come, come and take a seat, I will make you a nice cup of tea !”
The man leaded her to a comfortable armchair, and she was so surprised that she let him. He was talking to her like she was a child, and it should have been strange, but it seemed so right, even if Margaret was old enough to be his mother.
She accepted tea (and she hated tea) and she surprised herself when she started speaking. About her, about her life, about her work.
She talked about everything. And he listened, really listened, and smiled, and had tears of compassion in his eyes when she talked about the war, and he touched her wrist and told her everything would be fine, and she believed him.
Her lungs weren’t hurting when she got out of the shop. And she felt happy. She hadn’t felt that happy since her husband died.
Margaret got back home, and got up the following morning to work. She still had a lot to do on her car.
Inside of her, deep down, an angel’s blessing was blooming.
Blessings have different ways of taking roots. Usually, they only work on the recipient, easing, warming and comforting. But in a true artist’s soul, blessing can grow and give life to something. Numerous paintings and sculptures are here to prove it.
Margaret was an artist. She just didn’t know it. Nobody did.
She woke up the ninth of June. It was a warm day, and Margaret was there. Margaret’s hands were her first memory. So soft, so loving, creating her from nowhere.
She didn’t know she was different, at first. She was there, and she was feeling, and it seemed natural.
But it wasn’t.
She tried to talk to the others, but nobody answered. She was alone, and spent long hours waiting every night, listening to silence. The others looked like her, all shiny and metallic. But none of them was talking.
During the day, Margaret always came. Every day, even the ones when nobody else was here. She only worked on her. Building her, piece by piece. And every day, the car was feeling a little more alive.
She was a car. She had heard other mechanics say it. A car. That was a nice name. But Margaret never called her that. She called her Baby.
“Hey Megs ! Wanna drink something ? It’s Stephen’s last day !”
“Coming, Dar, just gimme ten minutes” Margaret always yelled back. But she stayed at least an hour after that, every time. Because she loved Baby. She told her.
“See, Baby, I spend a lot of time here. I know I have to go, course I know. Boss wouldn’t let me stay anyway, not with my cough. But he promised me I could build one last car. He promised. So now, if I want to build you entirely by myself, he can’t argue, hey ? You’re my last car, and nobody else will finish you ! It’s been a year, and it will take at least one more, ha !”
Margaret smoked sometimes, sitting on the floor near Baby. Baby knew everything about Margaret.
“Jason’s a good lad. He is. But he just can’t understand I don’t want to go live in the countryside with his family. I love them, Baby, I really do. But I’m not what they want me to be. They want to take care of me and offer me shawls and they expect me to sit by the fire and knit.”
Margaret talked about her family a lot. She had four grandchildren. That was a lot, she said. She talked about other mechanics, too. Some were still here, others were gone. Sometimes, she wouldn’t come for a few days, and Baby knew that she was coughing. But none of the other workers came to build her. She was only Margaret’s.
“I’m not a grandmother, Baby. Well, I am. But they don’t understand that I’m happy here. It would be easier to convince them without my cough...”
She was coughing a lot, thought Baby. But that wasn’t nice to judge people on their coughing.
When next June came, Baby wasn’t being built anymore. That wasn’t bothering her, Margaret always came, but she was working on things already done. Polishing, unscrewing and screwing again. She wanted Baby to be perfect.
One day of September, Boss came to talk. Baby knew him, he’d stroke her twice, saying she was beautiful. Baby liked Boss.
“Megs… you have to stop now.”
Margaret didn’t look at him.
“You promised I could build one last car, boss.”
“I did. And you did. You made your last car, Megs… it’s done.”
“Not the body, it isn’t.”
Boss touched Margaret’s shoulder.
“Megs. It’s done. You know it is. And you promised.”
Margaret stoked baby’s engine, and there were tears in her eyes.
“I’ve been here twelve years, boss...”
“I know. And you were one of my best workers.”
“I had to work when my husband had to fight. We all had to work, this entire place was full of bloody females ! And when the men came back they expected us to go home and cook for them and shut the hell up like nothing happened !”
“I know, Megs.”
Margaret shrugged to get rid of Boss’s comforting hands. Baby knew her husband never came back from France. France seemed an awful place.
“You’re sending me away cause I’m a bloody woman, that’s why ! You want to get rid of me, like the others !”
Boss didn’t yell back. He was a very calm and nice man, always polite. Baby liked him.
“Nobody wants that. You know it’s true, right ? You are sick, Megs. I don’t want to see you die here. You have to stop working and rest. Your son is very worried about you.”
Margaret nodded, still stroking Baby.
“I know, boss. I’ll go. But… sell Baby to someone that will love her, right ?”
“I will. I promise.”
Margaret didn’t come back. Baby waited. Nobody touched her, because the workers remembered. They called her “Megs’s car”.
Boss didn’t come back until years later. He sat near Baby and drank at a flask.
“She’s gone, Baby… her son sent me a letter. It was a nice letter.”
He stoked Baby’s engine, and she listened to him. She knew Margaret was gone. It was years ago. She had go to the countryside.
Four birthdays ago. She’d counted. She was five, that was a good number.
“I promised I’d sell you to someone that will love you, but truth is, Baby. It’s important, listen to me” asked Boss, whose voice was strangely blurred. “Truth is I won’t. I won’t sell you, ever. You’re her car. It would be wrong. You’ll stay here, girl. don’t you worry. I told them not to touch you. I made them sign on it. I have to leave you too, you see ? Do you see ? I have to sell the firm you understand ?”
He looked at her. She didn’t understand, but she tried to pretend.
“Don’t you worry for me, Baby. I’ll always come out on top.”
He patted her and got up.
She waited, and years passed. Baby started to think that maybe Margaret was not coming back.
She was eight now, and no one talked to her any more. Even the mechanics had forgotten about Margaret. Twice, someone asked what she was doing here. But nobody moved her.
Baby wanted to sleep and stop feeling things. Feeling was sad.
But she couldn’t. Other cars were always sleeping. She asked them how to do it, but of course they never answered.
And one day, Boss came back. He looked at her and stroke her with a strange smile.
“Told you I would come out on top, didn’t I, Baby ? I’m glad they kept you. I was a little worried, you see ?”
Baby was glad to see him again. He didn’t come often, but he talked to her. He took care of her for Margaret. She tried to think it was enough to be happy.
But the truth is, she remembered Margaret. She remembered love. She wanted to be loved again.
Then Father came, and everything changed.
Father was strange. He didn’t wear a charcoal suit, and he didn’t wear a greasy overall, so he was different from everyone she ever saw.
He was wearing black. And a flower on his jacket. And he had a funny hat. He was walking funny, too. At first, she wanted to laugh. She didn’t know he was Father yet.
Boss was with him. He showed him everything. Father looked with a small smile. He looked at other cars, the ones with smooth, shiny bodies. Baby didn’t have a body, but she didn’t care. Margaret made her that way, and there wasn’t shiny bodies there at the time. She was proud to be just the way she was.
The man in black suddenly stopped walking and talking and turned to Look at her.
And Baby, for the first time of her life, was seen.
The man tilted his head and smiled.
“Well, well… what is that ?” he asked in a purr.
He approached Baby with a strange, lazy walk, and touched her delicately. She felt him reach for her, and she reached back. His smile widened.
“She is…”
Alive, he said silently. She heard him in her mind.
“… perfect” finished the man, looking at Boss. “I want that one.”
Boss smiled tightly.
“This car is not for sale, Mr. Crowley.”
But Mr. Crowley was not a man to give up.
“I want her. She’s the one. I want that one, no one else. I’ll pay any price.”
Boss looked at him. Then at Baby.
“Someone very special made that car.”
Crowley smirked “Yes, that’s kinda obvious.”
“She called her Baby. It was a joke, you see. Everybody calls me Babe. She wasn’t the most deferential employee. I promised her I would sell her car to someone that would cherish it.”
“I’ll take care of her all my life, and that’s something, believe me. Sell her to me...”
Crowley was purring now, his smile tempting, his voice like honey. Boss hesitated a moment.
“I will not sell it. But I will give it to you. You will have to pay for the body, though. I still have one from last year, if you want her soon.”
Father looked at her, and she felt love. Had she been able to cry, she would have.
“As soon as possible. Not leaving without her.”
And he waited.