The Mercy Journals

by Claudia Casper

  I threw my things into a dry bag and went to the kitchen to pack some food. Griffin came down. I told him where to lay a stone if he wanted. He cried and asked if I’d be returning. I held his face and kissed his forehead, then gave him the pistol and the cartridge. I told him I thought Leo might have had a weapons cache in the area. It was even possible, I said, that Leo had connections to the resistance and that they might come looking for the weapons. I counselled him to find the cache and get rid of the weapons.

  He came with me down to the water. A low-lying fog had oozed down from the hills, and there was a chill in the air. I loaded the hatch, slid the kayak into the water, and climbed in. I paddled out a few strokes, turned the boat around, and yelled back to the shore, Never again! and began to laugh. Never again! I yelled as I turned back out toward the strait and yelled it over and over, laughing maniacally until tears streamed down my cheeks. I paddled away. Eventually the fog absorbed my words. The cold brine of the Georgia Strait trickled down onto my hands.

  Now, on this beach, decamped a day’s paddle away, I’ve written my story until this moment.

  I am having visions. I know they’re visions. Grandiose visions that I committed some kind of last murder. I understand that my mind is throwing up these visions to make my torment bearable. My mind wants me to survive though my body is not well.

  I’ve built a small sweat lodge using a tarp and branches dug into the sand. Every day I build a fire, heat the rocks, transfer them inside, and pour river water over them. If I am to return I must get clean. As clean as possible.

  While looking for the right rocks to heat, I found a rock with a smooth surface like a tablet. Every day I chisel a few words on it. They are different than what I write here in the journal. They have a different weight. When I’m finished carving I believe I’ll be ready to travel again.

  This morning a cougar walked past me on the beach. I was staring out to sea after a sweat and it walked right past, by the water’s edge. A young male. He looked at me. It was her son, I thought.

  I have finished what I was chiselling. I transcribe the words here:

  And Allen slew Leo in a field. The earth drank the blood of the one and the tears of the other. I am a man of peace but look at the work of my hands. This is the last murder. A new covenant begins. From this day forward people shall know the murder of one is the murder of all and there is no future in it. I will turn a blind eye no more and I shall weep. My mark is on Allen that everyone may know he is a man and be wary. He will remain among his people until his dying days, a peaceful man of the hearth. Nonetheless whoever harms him will be forgiven sevenfold.

  Amid the gentle din of people heading home from work, I lean against a wall and stare up at clouds lightening and darkening, depending on their fullness. A thrumming sounds in my ear. I turn to see the cause and catch a blur in the direction of a late-blooming rosebush near the building’s entrance. Above one of the blooms a green hummingbird hovers, a slash of red at its throat. It plunges its beak into the flower’s centre.

  Then I hear the sound, the familiar cadence, the brisk stride, clack, clack, clack. I open my bag and take out a red sandal, which I place upright in the palm of my shaking hand. I stretch my arm out, waiting. Why not? None of us deserves to be here.

  I am marked, but I have survived.

  Log of Deaths: Canton Number Three, Cascadia, October 27, 2054|

  Allen Levy Quincy, of a heart attack, age 64. Predeceased by wife Jennifer (née Arcand) in 2030. Mourned by companion Ruby Blades, nephew Griffin (Parker), and great-niece, Anne. The whereabouts of two sons, Luke and Sam, are unknown. Also whereabouts of a brother, Leo Dermid Quincy, is unknown.

  Updated, May 8, 2073

  Also mourned by son Sam Quincy (Maud), granddaughter Marie (Eric), and great-grandson Smoke. The whereabouts of son Luke Quincy is still unknown. The human remains found on Forgotten Peninsula, Vancouver Island are presumed to be those of Leo Dermid Quincy

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS|

  Thanks to Michael Baser—everyone should have such a champion—and my fairy god-sister Jamie Lee Curtis. Thanks to my agent Phyllis Wender, whose painstaking perseverance helped make this book what it is, and to her assistant Allison Cohen for work behind the scenes. Thanks to Chris Hennebery for information and proofreading about military structure and weapons, and war photographer Gary Knight for a discussion about killing. Thanks to Thad McIlroy for helping me keep the faith, and Shefa Siegel, who inspired the scene of berries. Thanks to Aislinn Hunter and John Colapinto, comrades in the trenches. Thanks to Anne Giardini for early support, and for excavating the title. Thanks to Sarah Chase, whose generosity in talking about her art as a choreographer provided invaluable research. Thanks to many readers whose literary biofeedback was essential: Betsy Warland, Nancy Richler, Anne Collins, Bill Marchant, Ian MacPherson, Maureen Palmer, Helen Slinger, Nadine Schuurman, Myriam Casper, Sarah Maitland, and Gavin Hollett.

  Thanks to everyone at Arsenal Pulp Press—Brian, Susan, Cynara, and Oliver. Making this book with you was “simply the best,” to quote Tina Turner.

  I want to acknowledge Hornby Island, British Columbia, whose ample beauty and brilliantly resourceful inhabitants continue to expand me.

  Thanks to Samantha Power, Romeo Dallaire, and Gwynne Dyer for their writing about genocide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and climate change, and to all the people marching in the streets, all the people working to turn this ship around.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Contents

  Journal One March 9, 2047

  March 10

  March 11

  March 12

  March 13

  March 14

  March 17

  March 22

  March 23

  March 24

  March 25

  March 26

  March 27

  March 27

  March 28

  March 29

  March 30

  March 31

  April 1

  April 2

  April 3

  April 4

  April 5

  April 6

  April 7

  April 8

  April 9

  April 10

  April 11

  Journal Two Late April, 2047

  Log of Deaths: Canton Number Three, Cascadia, October 27, 2054

  Acknowledgements

  Guide

  Cover

  Contents

  Title Page

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