Mercy

by Ashley Webster

Mercy

  Copyright 2017 Ashley Webster

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  A special thanks to my mom for always supporting and believing in me.

  Contents

  Part 1: The Curse

  Part 2: The Girl

  Part 3: The Truth

  I dedicate this book to the raccoon that inspired it,

  to those who have asked for an end that never came swiftly,

  and to those who’ve had the courage to end the suffering of the animals they’ve loved.

  Whatever you suffer remember someday you will comfort someone else with the strength you have found – Ernie Kasper

  Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls – Kahil Giberan

  Gravel crunched under the girl’s boots as she hopped off of her scooter and onto the shoulder of the dark deserted country road. Her long black jacket flapping against the middle of her thighs as she moves. She was a ghost in the night. The black and red hood of the sweater beneath her jacket pulled up tight to hide her face. She leaves her scooter running, its light acting like a beacon in the darkness of the clouded night. Errant beams of pale moonlight sifted from behind the dense dark grey clouds offering little illumination to the vast country side. No one and nothing was watching her. She had ridden 35 minutes to get here and hadn’t seen a single car on the lonely night. But right now she was not alone. The girl was on the deserted road in the middle of the night for a reason and one reason alone. To end the pain.

  With a sigh, she dug her incisor into her left lower lip and pushed herself forward toward the small mass snared in her scooter’s beam. As soon as the little raccoon saw her it began to screech and hiss. Its tiny paw hands grasping into empty air as it tried to get away. But it couldn’t get away. Its back legs were crushed into the pavement.

  Little dark, fearful, and desperate eyes stared at her as she approached the little beast. The girl’s heart lurched to see the small animal so conscious of its own pain, and for it to be stranded and hopeless with no way to escape the black tar it was plastered to. Its wounds were not grievous enough to kill it - yet, but none the less was too horrific for it live on. Her eyes met with the raccoon’s and it became frantic, its terrified and pained cries permeating through the empty dark air. Within her eyes, the creature had seen its fate. That she was here to end its life and to end its needless suffering.

  The girl stood next to the raccoon, she was out of its reach, but it was not out of hers. Its small hands alternated from clawing at her, just millimeters from her black boots to grappling at the road to escape from her. Crouching down she examined the extents of its injuries. Its back legs and tail were not much more than a fluffy smear on the road. She sighed because there was no saving this one. Even if she brought it to the local animal services shelter it would never be able to walk again without assistance and nobody was going to take in a feral albeit cripple adult coon. Her parents had tolerated her late night disappearances on the condition she no longer brought home broken animals. There was only one choice for this unfortunate creature.

  Extending her left hand she let it hover in the air over the raccoon and out of its reach. It pawed and bit at her, but like death, she was untouchable and inescapable. When the animal gave up on its inconsequential retaliation and instead refocused on the equally bleak escape, she then placed her hand on its back. Instantly the coon quieted and stilled, only emitting soft and pitiful chirps. Running her hand over its coarse coat she gently cooed,

  “There, there little one. It’ll be over soon.”

  With her right hand, she reached into the brown side bag she wore and began searching until her hand closed on a case. She brought the case out into the light from the scooter’s ray and saw a small silver lock twinkle on the black case. She set this one on the ground – it was too much for a little raccoon. Again her hand dove into the bag until it found the second case, while she stroked the animal soothingly. This case was white and pearlized looking ghostly in light. Gently she set the case on the ground and flicked it open. Latched in between the folds of the velvety material were 6 small syringes. The raccoon watched her with round desperate eyes, but it remained still. Carefully she extracted one of the needles and lightly squeezed it allowing any air bubbles to be pushed out. It was an unnecessary step, and she knew it, but she did in any way.

  “I’m sorry… may you be at peace now,” she murmured as she pinched a small lump of the animal’s fur in between the fingers of her left hand, and inserted the syringe into it. She locked eyes with the coon and gazed into them as they became dark and empty. Its head slowly lowered to the ground, its sightless eyes staring out into the blackness, and she released her trembling hand from the raccoon’s coat. A tear escaped the girl’s eyes, which were a blue so pale they were glacial. The poison was her own concoction, so potent and painless the victim was dead before it even realized it was dying. She had spent many hours anonymously scouring the libraries internet and books to create it.

  As she stood she used the back of her hand to smear the tear across her face, and then marched towards her scooter. When she reached the back of it she unlatched and removed a small shovel. Again she stood over the coon, this time with a shovel in hand. As gently as she could she placed the shovel under the animal and scooped it. Its body making a sickening sound as it parted with the pavement. Carrying the critter across the gravel to the grass she tenderly set it down. Next to it she began digging, and once she was satisfied with her tiny grave she buried the unlucky animal.

  It made her sick in her heart. Too many times had she been called out in the middle of the night to the agony of animal that mistimed its crossing, or that had been left abandoned to die slowly because no one had bothered to check what they had hit. For the girl, life was pain, and the universe had done little to prove to her otherwise.

  Trudging back to her bike she re-clipped her shovel, and then sat on its seat bringing her brown bag across to her lap. She looked up into the dark void above her and wondered if her punishment would ever end. The girl was fifteen years old, and she was cursed. Her name was Marie, but the people at animal services nick-named her Mercy on the rare occasion she brought in an animal that could be saved. She adopted that as her name, Mercy.

  Mercy was cursed to feel the pitiful anguish of those teetering between life and death. The hopeless called to her, causing her mental and physical pain until she could end theirs. Then she would have a few moments, a few days, or a few months –if she was lucky – of a pain-free life. When Mercy felt the pull of a doomed soul it was like a vice closed around her heart and someone was screaming in pain in her head. There was no way to block it, and if she ignored it, it would only worsen. Whenever she received a call, she answered. The little coon she buried was one such case.

  The first time her ability, or rather her curse, had become apparent was when she was two years old. Her family had had a golden retriever named Sandy. Her mother had heard Mercy screeching, and had found her shaking the bars of her playpen screaming ‘Sandy’. Baffled her mother picked her up, and held her trying to sooth her. This only made Mercy cry louder and squirm ferociously in her mother’s arms. Exasperated her mother had set her on the ground, which gave Mercy the opportunity to run out of the room like she was a born sprinter.

  Her mother chased her into the laundry room where she found her daughter standing next to a trembling dog. Sandy was old, and her health had been declining for the past few weeks. Now the poor dog’s pain was so severe that she could no longer st
and, only shudder in its excruciating grasp. Mercy knelt next to the dog and extended her hand, Sandy growled lowly as a warning that she didn’t want to be touched. But when Mercy laid her hands on the dog’s side, Sandy dropped her head and stopped trembling. The retriever gazed at Mercy’s mother with dull eyes as the beloved canine’s chest heaved up and down raggedly.

  Mercy had started crying, telling her mother that ‘Sandy was in too much pain. That she had to make Sandy’s pain stop.’ Unable to convince her young daughter that Sandy would be fine tomorrow, or to leave the dogs side, her mother had caved and called her father home from work to take their dog to vet. The whole car ride Mercy had draped herself over Sandy clinging onto her. By touching Sandy she lessened the dog’s pain, and also symbiotically lessened her own. When the vet told them there was nothing they could for Sandy, Mercy’s mother had wanted to take her out of the room. Again, Mercy would not budge or stop crying. Only when Sandy’s heart stopped beating did Mercy let go of her best friend and cease crying. She had said ‘thank you’ to the vet, and nothing else for the rest of day.

  Her parents had chalked up Mercy’s strange behavior to her being overly empathetic with the dog. That was until it happened again two and half years later. Her mother was also fortunate enough to be the one to bear witness to her next ‘episode’. She had found Mercy yowling and banging on the sliding glass back door. ‘It hurts,’ she had shrieked, ‘I need to make it stop.’ Mercy’s mother regarded her with fear and concern she could not mask, and then silently opened the back door. Just as soon as the door was open enough for Mercy to squeeze through she had bolted across the yard and into the wooded area behind the house. This was the oldest recollection Mercy had of the curse, and she remembered her little legs pumping and her mother’s trailing screams of her name.

  A cat was what had drawn her this time. Mercy found its mangled body after 5 minutes of running. Its fur was matted with blood from the many gouges scored across its body. Gouges deep enough in parts that Mercy could see bone or odd coloured lumps of organs. The poor beast had fought something and been left to die slowly in its defeat. Left to suffer. As Mercy knelt over the wheezing cat it growled at her pathetically. Like with Sandy, she had placed her hand on the pained animal and it relaxed.

  She heard her mother gasp and yell “Marie! Don’t touch that!” Mercy had looked blankly at her mother, and replied,

  “But it hurts.” She felt a weird tingle in her hand and then it drifted to her right. Mercy looked down to see that her hand was hovering over a large rock, and she frowned. “No I can’t,” she had whispered desperately, and then was seized by a terrible pain like something had torn into her flesh. Screaming, Mercy had dropped her hand and clenched it around the rock until every pointed ridge bit painfully into her hand. She would share the cat’s torment, or she would end it.

  “I don’t want to!” she had screamed, but her hand lifted up with the rock none the less. Young Mercy gasped as another spasm of pain rippled across her flesh.

  She could hear her mother screaming, but it sounded distorted like a bubble surrounded her head. Unclear words echoed oddly in her head, and tickled the back of her consciousness, “Marie... Marie... Put the rock down!... Stop…. No…” Something strange happened when she looked from the rock to the cat, and she had felt a sense of peace. A sense that she was helping, and that this was better than letting it die pitifully slow. Swiftly Mercy brought the rock up higher and then slammed it down onto the cat's head.

  She looked up into her mother’s mortified pale face and said, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

  She remembered her mother shrieking at her father that night: “Sins of the father are to be laid upon the children!”

  Those words uttered by her mother haunted her, and it wasn’t until years later she came to understand their meaning. Greed was what had damned Mercy. Her father was the owner of a small manufacturing corporation, who had looked at the ‘numbers’ one day, and decided he wanted more profit. He wanted more money. At first, it started small like bonuses and health care cuts, and then progressively worsened until he fired 1/3 of his staff with little notice so he could hire cheaper labour. People were left jobless. People who were depending on their jobs to feed their families, who were struggling with debt, or reliant on it for their retirement. These people he had known and they had worked for him for many years. Her father apparently hadn’t cared much about them.

  When less than a week later security had found the pained twitching body of a mutilated white rabbit, scrawled in its blood across the wall, ‘You will suffer as we have suffered.’ Then he started to care. Later that night Mercy had been born prematurely, as Marie Grey. After her birth the doctors had told her father that her mother had bled profusely and having another child would be reckless and possibly life jeopardizing. It was a miracle mother and daughter had survived.

  The Powers that Be had made Mercy’s father suffer through her suffering, by making a Dr. Kevorkian out of her. Her father had kept the incident at his work a secret for almost four years until a drunken manager had blurted it out at a company party to her mother.

  As Mercy grew so did the radius and the frequency of her affliction. When she was twelve she had felt the familiar clamp on her heart for the 11th time, telling her that some animal somewhere was withering away at a painfully slow rate. Mercy had been riding her bike home from school that day and had let her instincts guide her to her next distressed client. (I would change this to animal or patient instead of client)?

  Her heart jerked when her hands closed around the handles of her bike forcing her to stop in front of a hospital. This must be some mistake, she had thought. Unfortunately for her, her condition had yet to make an error. Her hands had shaken violently as she rested her bike against a tree outside the hospital entrance. She balled them at her sides and walked stiffly forward being driven by a force that was not her own.

  She hadn’t been in a hospital since she was born, and she decided immediately did not like them. The air reeked of antiseptic and pain. It was a labyrinth of agony. Their suffering like a potent gas in the air that made her choke. Mercy had stopped dead at a door, and then peered in to see an old woman in a hospital bed by herself with many strange machines looming over her frail tattered body. She liked this even less.

  The old woman had sensed her presence and looked at her with a mixture of amazement, fear, and relief. They had silently watched at each other like this for several minutes.

  “Are you dying?” Mercy had asked, her high voice the only sound aside from the whirring of the machines.

  “Yes,” the woman croaked.

  “Why?”

  With cracked lips the woman gave a small smile, “there’s something bad in me and it keeps growing, and as it does it eats away the good.”

  “Oh…” Mercy whispered dropping her eyes, “it hurts a lot doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” the woman said so quietly Mercy barely heard her. Slowly she took a few tentative steps into the room and asked,

  “The doctors can’t fix it can they?”

  “No, not this time.”

  For a few moments Mercy just stared into the crinkled dark eyes across the room until she saw the peace seep into them.

  “I felt your pain, that’s how I found you,” Mercy murmured, the woman didn’t seem surprised. “Do you know why I’m here?” Mercy asked peeking through her eyelashes, and the woman gave a small nod in response. A silence lapsed between them. “Do you want me to… to stop it?” she finally asked, and again deliberately the woman nodded. A tingle manifested to Mercy’s hand and she knew there was something she must put in it. She pursed her lips and added, “I’ll be back soon.”

  A few moments later she had found herself outside of a room. She took a deep shaky breath and pushed herself to the door. As she turned the knob she heard a ‘click’ as if it were unlocking. The room was filled with glass cabinets, and in those cabinets were many, many bottles, and in those bottle
s, Mercy had no idea. She stood before a cabinet, her head cocked to the side wondering what the function of each mysterious vial was, and why so many were needed. Her hand lifted into the air and enclosed around one of the locks securing the cabinet door closed, and it instantly released making it easy for her to swing open the glass. Extending her fingers she drifted them in the air around the bottles like one might before choosing a card from a magician. Her hand gently swaying back and forth until it found the one that felt right.

  Mercy snatched the bottle encasing it in her fingers because she couldn’t bring herself to look at the label. With her other hand she clicked the lock closed and then let her fingers fall gently drifting to a drawer. She tucked the bottle into her pocket and looked around nervously as she yanked open the drawer. Numerous plastic packages gleamed in the light, and within them were syringes. Mercy groaned, and gingerly plucked a packet by the corner holding it up as if were a dirty rag. She had been wearing a small backpack that day, which she now pulled around her shoulder to the front of her, and dropped the needle in. She hesitated a moment and grabbed a fist full of the packages shoving them into her bag.

  She shouldered the bag, and immediately felt uncomfortable like her actions would become transparent to anyone who looked at her hard enough. Feeling as if once she stepped into the hall, a big orange siren would appear on her bag and announce her thievery and plan, thus bringing an onslaught of people running madly at her to try and stop her.

  Mercy crept into the hall undetected and ventured back to the old woman. Once more she stood at the threshold reluctant to enter, but the woman beckoned her with a smile. She had walked up to her bed and noticed the woman’s upturned hand resting next to her. Mercy reached out her small hand and placed it within hers. The elderly woman’s hand was cold, but it was still able to give Mercy a welcoming squeeze.

  “The pain… it’s less…” the woman grinned rolling her head gently back and forth on the pillow commenting on Mercy’s aesthetic touch. She was smiling serenely at her, and Mercy deliberated if that made what she had to do harder or easier. “It seems strange He would send one so young to me, such a burden for a little girl. What is your name child?”

  “M-Marie...”

  “Marie the merciful, hmmm?” the old women hummed.

  “Yea, I guess…” Mercy mumbled. A burning in her hand told her stop stalling and get on with her grim task. She couldn’t be seen here. Using her free hand she fished the bottle out of her pocket and the syringe from her backpack.

  “How’d you get that?” the woman asked, and Mercy shrugged.

  “I found it the same way I found you.”

  When she let go of the woman to ready the syringe the old lady winced in pain.

  “I almost forgot how terrible it was for a moment, you’re like morphine dear,” the woman sighed. Mercy wasn’t sure what that was, but she assumed it was a compliment. With the syringe ready she took the elderly woman’s hand again and looked into her eyes. When Mercy looked back at the syringe she was overwhelmed in panic, she couldn’t believe was about to kill someone, a person, and she started to shake with tears welling in her eyes.

  “I asked for this,” the old woman said soothingly, and Mercy tilted her head at her. “For days I have been asking for death to come, and for the pain to end. And for days death crept in the shadows while the pain only worsened. Until today, I knew when I looked into your beautiful but startling angelic face that you were my answer.”

  Mercy nodded and sunk the needle into her arm and tapped the plunger. Her hand gripped Mercy’s tightly, the old woman let out a wheeze, and then it was done. The sound of the flat-lining heart monitor screeching a final affirmation. She snuck a glance at the woman’s smiling face before she had slunk out of the room.

  Mercy had locked herself in her room for two days after that.

  When the woman had told her that she was, ‘angelic and startling’. To Mercy, this was the truest description she had ever heard of herself. She knew if she were more saturated she would be stunning. Had her long loose curly hair been golden instead of white-blonde; had her skin been pinky instead of slightly more hued than alabaster; or had her eyes been the colour of the Caribbean ocean instead of glacial blue, she would have truly looked angelic. Instead, her appearance was closer to the ghost of an angel, or a cold ethereal being. People always gasped at Mercy when they first saw her face, and were never able to hold eye contact. She wasn’t like them, and when they looked into her arctic eyes something inside of them knew. Though to others her actions would seem cold, actions she was forced into doing, she never felt that she truly was. There was no guilt in her actions, only mourning. She cried for those who suffered, for the fact that they did, and she felt the need to aid them. That was her. She remembered them. It was in her strength that they found their peace.

  A few weeks after her hospital visit, she had broken the neck of a squirrel that one of the boys at her school had hit with his sling-shot out of a tree and broken the poor creatures back. Punching the boy in the face also had not helped, and been the cement for her suspension. She was home schooled from that day on, but that hadn’t stopped Mercy from one day dreaming of being a vet.

  For many years, Mercy struggled with the purpose of her existence. There was kindness in her killing, but the facts were she was ending lives. Lives that wanted to be ended, that had asked for it. If she told anyone they would be revolted no matter how good her intentions were. They were going to die shortly with or without her. Why should they have prolonged suffering? She didn’t feel guilty for it, but was that wrong of her not to? People saw death in her eyes, but the ones she freed saw their resolution.

  For a while Mercy had viewed herself as a murderer or a silly child playing god, but she had come to the realization she was merely a conduit. A hunk of carbon that acted as an earthly vessel for what she wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps it was the grim reaper, or a sympathetic angel, or something else altogether. She did not choose who needn’t suffer, something else did. She just followed orders. Fighting it was useless, like trying to blow fog away. She hated that she had to feel their agony, but considered perhaps she suffered to better understand why she should end it. Every part of her hoped her pain was more than a punishment for her father’s stupid and selfish actions. That she had a useful role, and not just to torment him. The answer to these questions she’d probably never know.

  The sound of her scooter sputtering brought Mercy back to the present. Her ritual was not complete. After each clemency kill, she’d leave herself a souvenir to remember the life that was lost. Pushing up the left sleeve of her jacket she let the cold night air sink its teeth into her skin. With her right hand she fished through the bag on her lap until her hand enclosed around the familiar shapes of the objects she was searching for. She held the mini light, and the homemade tattoo gun in front of her – thanks, internet. The mini light was a small black rectangle that held not an LED or florescent, but a purple black-light bulb. After turning it on, she placed the mini light in between her lips. With a few flicks the tattoo gun buzzed to life and Mercy brought it to her forearm hissing slightly as the needle bit into her skin. The pain was over in an instant. A thin line of blood trailed down her arm as she finished drawing her line. 21: that was the number of the raccoon, and how many lives she was responsible for bringing to an end.

  The black light ink was the weapon of choice for her tattoos in the shade of red, it was practically unnoticeable. People would have to press their faces to her skin to see even a hint of the inks existence. It wasn’t normal for a 15-year-old girl to be tattooed with tally marks. Same went for the 3 blue (black light ink) lines tattooed over her heart, these were the animals that were nearly mortally injured but she found in time for vets or animal services to save. Mercy didn’t know if it was planned for her to save them, but she felt they still had the option for a second chance.

  No sooner had she put her tattoo gun away was her heart seized with pain.
/>
  “Again!?” Mercy hissed into the chilled night air. The pain intensified until she almost doubled over and felt like she was going to vomit. It was shocking, she had never experienced anything so acute before. She groaned and turned her scooter around, hoping she’d be back in her bed before sunrise.

  When her scooter buzzed up to a bus station, the wishes of snuggling up in her bed disappeared. Yet, Mercy was no less utterly perplexed and intrigued, she had never left the town she born in. Only a few times had her parents brought her into the city where her father worked, hoping the less exposure she had the smaller her afflicted area would be. So far that had proven to be fairly true, she had never gone more than 30 miles from her house. Though leaving didn’t frighten her but instead made her feel excited, confused, and nervous. Mercy wondered to herself if she was going to the city. It made sense since it was out of the drivable realm of her scooter.

  She ambled down the sidewalk and parked her scooter next to a bike rack, and then slid off her seat. Taking a deep breath she assured herself that she could do this and approached the bus station with curiosity. This is crazy! She thought. The inside of the station was almost deserted aside from a few snoozing people waiting in chairs and the solitary clerk behind the counter.

  With her head down and hood was still drawn Mercy advanced to the counter. She glanced up to see a portly middle-aged man barely registering her existence.

  “Where to?” the man grunted when she reached the counter. He seemed half awake with puffy, droopy lids; either that or it was just his face.

  “New Castle,” she blurted, and was thankful her head was down because the surprise would have registered across her own face.

  “Forty-four fifty. Cash or credit?”

  Her fingers danced towards her debit card, then she paused, and she instead withdrew the appropriate amount of cash. Something telling her she would be wise to travel in anonymity. She lifted her face to thank him, and he let out a small gasp – this, of course, was so normal to Mercy she had stopped rolling her eyes at it long ago. When the ticket entered her hand she mumbled her thanks and gazed at it fixated as she turned and wandered away until she was outside and out of earshot. Holy crapola’s I’m going to New Castle!

  “Not even 16 yet and I’m already having spontaneous trips and heading off to other states. What’ll my parents-“ Crap. Mercy cut short her sarcastic monologue, and realized that her disappearance would probably not go unnoticed. With a sigh, she began rifling through her bag for her cell phone, and turned on its screen. Only 20% battery left, hopefully, it wouldn’t die before she got back tomorrow. It was almost 1 am, her mom would not be happy to hear from her. Mercy silently prayed that her mother would just let it go to the machine and get her message tomorrow morning. Anxiously she gnawed on her thumbnail as the phone rang.

  “I thought you were in bed,” a man’s voice grumbled. Mercy stood stunned for a moment, it was strange for her father to be answering her mom’s cellphone since they had been divorced for 8 years. Placing a curse of perpetual suffering on their only child had put a damper on the marriage.

  “I thought you’d be with Nancy,” Mercy replied sardonically (Nancy was her dad’s latest fling).

  “Marie-“he snarled. Her parents refused to call her Mercy.

  “Is mom okay?” she interrupted.

  “Yea, she called me drunk and raving again. I just came over to check on her.”

  Her mother occasionally drank herself into a stupor and then lashed out at her father. He paused then added, “Where are you?”

  “Funny you should ask that… I’m at a bus station.”

  Silence.

  “What are you doing a bus station?” he questioned flatly.

  “Well, I’m going to New Castle apparently -“

  “Like hell you are! Your mother needs you-“

  “I didn’t have a choice,” she growled.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been led here…. Listen, dad, I don’t know how long I’ll be there could you get me a hotel near the bus station… please?”

  Her father let out an exasperated sigh, and after a moment of silence he said something that shocked Mercy, “I’ll go with you.”

  “Wow, I… thanks, but what are you going to tell your work?”

  “I’ll figure that out.”

  “And then what are you going to do? Sit in the hotel room all day pacing like a caged lion while answering emails and making phone calls?” she whispered, which was followed by more silence. “Last time we went on a planned trip for 4 days you almost had a nervous breakdown, mom literally had to hide your phone. I really appreciate the offer, I do, but I’m sure I won’t be gone more than a day, the hotel room is just a precaution.”

  “Do you have your debit card?”

  He had given her a debit card he dumped money into, but Mercy didn’t care about money. No amount of money was going to make her a normal girl, and to her it was blood money.

  “Sure do.”

  “Alright use that on whatever you need.”

  “K, thanks… you keep an eye on mom….I’m sure she’ll call me, that’ll be fun.” He told her he would and then they said their goodbyes.

  A few hours later the bus arrived, making the next leg of her adventure long and uneventful. Mercy only managed to doze off for a few moments at a time, spending the majority of the ride wondering what was so damn important that she had to be on this bus in the middle of the night for. Maybe there was an oil spill and a bunch of poor animals were choking on the toxic black goo; maybe a rabid bear was leaving a trail or mauled hikers in its wake, or maybe someone had fallen and skewered themselves. As morbid as her thoughts were, she felt the importance of this mission, and that it would probably test her in a way she couldn’t anticipate.

  It was warmer here even at 8 in the morning, and Mercy was happy to be out of the stuffy and chilled recirculated air of the bus. Gingerly she unbuttoned her jacket and unzipped her sweater exposing the loose grey tunic and the tight black leggings that squeezed her skinny legs. She left her hood drawn to keep attention off of herself; most people did not forget her face. Nervously she waited for a sign of what to do next as she lightly bounced the toe of her scuffed black knee high boot off the ground. These boots were her favourite attire, with their many buckles ribbing up the outside, and their thick black soles – they looked like they were for ass kicking.

  After several minutes of nothing, Mercy began to wonder if she was being led on a wild goose chase. She turned to try and find someone to ask about where her hotel was when a flyer smacked her in the face much like you might see in a cartoon. The universe had a weird sense of humour sometimes. Plucking the flyer from her visage she examined it. It was an advertisement describing family fun, games, and shopping for a festival happening the upcoming Saturday – 3 days away. Strange. Thinking the park was worth an investigation Mercy hailed a cab and set forth on her mysterious quest.

  The park was beautiful and vivacious with various gardens, topiaries, and sculptures. She could wander aimlessly here for hours. There wasn’t much beauty in her life. She spent most of her time studying, her mother was constantly shoveling science, math, mythology, history, and Shakespeare on her. When she wasn’t studying, she was being steered to gore and suffering, and then trying to distract herself from thinking about the aforementioned gore and suffering. But the vice squeeze around her heart reminded her that she wasn’t here to enjoy herself, and with a sigh she followed the invisible force that guided her to her next destination.

  Mercy rounded a well-groomed hedge to find herself in a small playground. Children were zipping down slides, zooming across monkey bars laughing and enjoying themselves. They were noisy and energetic, and somewhat endearing to watch.

  A girl sat alone on a swing set, her head bowed, and her feet dangling in such a way that the toes were just barely scraping the ground beneath them. She had long straight light brown hair, and wore a blue long-sleeved shirt, with
jeans and pink sneakers. Her heart gave a hard clamp, causing a cold sweat to run down her spine. She couldn’t believe she had been sent here for a kid, a kid not much younger than herself, and seemed healthy enough to not have an aid worker hovering around her. Mercy’s hand flew to her chest as a terrible pain ripped through it, there was no mistaking this girl was why she was here.

  After a moment to regain her composure Mercy shuffled numbly over to the swing next to the girl and fell not gracefully into it. Mercy studied the girl, noting there was a quiet sadness about her, but she didn’t seem sick. The girl quickly took notice of Mercy’s eyes on her, and she regarded her back curiously, instead of shocked like most people.

  “What?” the girl asked looking at Mercy skeptically.

  “You know most people use swings for swinging,” Mercy smiled as warmly as she could. The girl dropped her light brown eyes back to her feet.

  “Swinging’s overrated,” the girl mumbled. The sound of her own laughter at this surprised Mercy.

  “Too cool for swings, I got it,” she smirked. When it was clear the girl didn’t have anything to add Mercy asked, “I’m Mercy, what’s your name?”

  “Alex,” the girl responded peeking up at her, “Mercy’s a strange name.”

  “Well it’s more of a nickname really,” she replied as she started a gentle rock in the swing. “You here by yourself?”

  “Yea…”

  “That’s cool, my parents wouldn’t let me out of their sight when I was your age.” She lied, since 11 she was already meandering around putting animals outs of their misery. “How come you’re not at school? Skipping out?” Mercy grinned at the girl.

  Alex studied her carefully, “I wasn’t feeling well…”

  “Ohhh, you sick? You stay home from school a lot?”

  “Sometimes, but not really.”

  “Well, you’re not sick sick right? Like you have to go to a hospital?”

  “No, just sometimes…. Sometimes it feels too crowded…” Alex said quietly. Mercy stopped swinging and regarded the girl. Something was wrong with her but it seemed more like a mental anguish, not that she was dying. To Mercy, Alex seemed unhappy about something, perhaps she was being bullied at school. Maybe I’m here to make her feel better, offer her support, or kick some little snot’s butt, Mercy mused. Which would be a relief compared to what she feared she might have to do. Yet, it didn’t escape Mercy’s notice how Alex hunched in her swing making herself as small as possible like she wanted to disappear.

  “I know what you mean… I’ve always been… different. The other kids were always whispering about me, and none of them wanted to be around me,” she confessed. It was strange to say it aloud, she had never told anyone how alienated she had felt before being homeschooled. She wasn’t even sure why she had admitted it to this girl she knew for all of two minutes. But her parents had been worried enough about her as it was, she didn’t need to talk to them about how the kids would mutter ‘freak’. It was actually a relief letting that piece of her go, like she had exhaled a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding.

  Alex was now staring at Mercy with big round brown eyes, like there was something she wanted to tell her, but then it was gone. The young girl turned away. “Are the kids mean to you at school?” Mercy asked lightly.

  “No… they’re fine.” Alex replied while she used the tips of her shoes to gently swing. This was not what Mercy was expecting, but the girl could be lying. After all, why would she open her soul to a complete stranger? “Why did no one want to be around you?” the girl inquired interrupting Mercy’s thought process.

  “Oh, uhh… I think I scared them really.”

  “I don’t see why. You’re nice and… and ummm… calming.”

  Mercy gazed at the curtain of brown hair next to her. Those were words people never used to describe her. Aside from the people she had ‘helped’, most people couldn’t hold eye contact with her. To them, her icy eyes were menacing and foreboding. Maybe people could see their hardness. Her curse had made her grow up quickly taking the childish spark out of her eyes. Then again in the brief moments, she had looked in Alex's eyes she hadn’t seen the innocence most children possessed.

  “Thanks,” Mercy smiled. A notion told her that this was the most productive information she’d get from the girl right now. For peculiar reasons people liked to be left wanting more – or so Mercy had been told –it seemed better to not be too forward with Alex. “I’ve gotta go though. It was nice meeting you.” When Mercy stood she looked down to see Alex hadn’t acknowledged her goodbye, and Mercy frowned. As she started to walk away she felt Alex’s eyes on her back. Mercy turned to her and called back with a smile and a wave “I hope I see you around sometime Alex.”

  Something in the girl’s eyes told her that she hoped the same.