Mercy

by Rhiannon Paille

  It was colder in Canada. His breath made opaque shapes in the air when they were outside and he zipped up the sweater until it almost pinched his neck, wanting something warmer. The heat inside the car made it bearable. Shimma had the radio on, German techno music blaring through the speakers. He let out a breath, fogging up the window.

  “What … what did they write about me?”

  Shimma shrugged. “Everything they could find I suppose. Shakespeare wrote about you, and Istar and Atara, all of Avristar really. There were others, scholars writing about King Arthur.…”

  “That was his name,” Pux exclaimed. Shimma shot him a look and he looked at his lap. “Sorry, I … I visited his grave a few moons ago.”

  Shimma pointed at his mouth. “That, is a word you need to stop using.”

  “What?”

  “Moons. And you can’t go telling people you saw King Arthur the other day, what are you? Insane?”

  “But that’s what I did.”

  “Let’s get this straight. I’m your cousin from Norway. You lived in Toronto until you turned eighteen.”

  Pux gave her a skeptical look. “And my parents?”

  “They live in Toronto. Think of Istar as your dad or something.”

  “Avristar is my only parent. I’m not going to pretend Istar is anything to me because he follows the Valtanyana and he betrayed all of us when he pledged his life and his land to them.”

  Shimma gulped, looking uncomfortable. She concentrated on the road, not answering him right away. “You need to work harder at being eighteen.”

  “I’m not eighteen. I’m … nine hundred and um … eighty-six … I think.”

  Shimma sighed and turned down the radio so they weren’t practically shouting at each other. “Pux, you can’t tell people that. Darkesh will find her. He will find you, and me, and Krishani. We can’t fight them, so we need to blend in. Do you understand?”

  Pux looked out the window at the blanket of stars across the sky. He nodded blithely, trying to clear his head and the mish mash of thoughts racing through it. He watched the landscape blink by them under the star light. “Nobody wrote about Kaliel … did they?”

  Shimma didn’t look at him and he could only make out her faint reflection in the window. “Actually …”

  “What did they write?” Pux asked, pouncing on the opportunity to talk about something other than their airtight cover story. He didn’t like not being able to fit seamlessly into Kaliel’s life without a series of lies to keep her from knowing who he really was. Being with Kaliel was like breathing, he couldn’t imagine how he’d gone without her, how many empty, boring days had passed without her living down the hall from him.

  “You don’t want to know,” Shimma said.

  Pux looked at her. “Was it bad?”

  “They don’t write about her like she’s a person, Pux. They write about her like she’s a thing.”

  Pux’s head swirled with dizziness. That was exactly what the Valtanyana thought of her—a thing. It sickened him how much influence they had over Earth and everyone living on it.

  Pux tried not to think about the boat. It was bad enough he dreamed about Evennses all night, he didn’t need to have the boat distracting his thought process during the day. His mind screamed at him that taking the boat would be faster, but then another voice in his head told him he had to be human. He couldn’t satisfy the internal battle so he made Shimma stop for snacks and spent most of the long drive eating candies and chocolate bars. He tried a bag of chips but the salt made him so sick he threw up all over the floor of a gas station bathroom.

  Shimma parked in front of a cement block, the apartment building looking like a rundown motel. Balconies lined the upper levels, a set of slippery metal stairs leading to the apartments. An hour later, Shimma emerged from one of the ground level apartments, keys in hand. Pux noticed the numbers two seventeen on them. She took her luggage with her, footsteps rattling the metal stairs. Pux shuddered; pulling his hood over his head, feeling weird his ears didn’t point up anymore. He rubbed his hands together. Shimma paused at the top of the stairs.

  “You’re going to freeze down there,” she called. He heard her bump the door with her fist, pushing it open. He slipped on ice and gripped the car, his fingers feeling frozen the instant he touched metal. He slipped towards the trunk, narrowly grabbed his packs and stopped, bending his knees a little to get used to the ice. Suitcases in either hand he carefully ascended the stairs, using every ounce of strength he had not to slip. He made it into the apartment which was nothing special. There was a round kitchen table, fridge, microwave, deep freeze. The living room sat behind a large arch. Down the hall were three doors, one for the bathroom and two for the bedrooms. Shimma took the larger one at the end of the hall, leaving Pux to the one beside the bathroom. He stashed his suitcases in the corner, not bothering to turn on the light and sat on the bed, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

  “Can we leave?” he asked, poking his head out of the room. He found Shimma in the bathroom loading toiletries into the large cupboard behind the mirror.

  She shook her head. “It’s another seven hours to Kenora. I can’t do that tonight.”

  “I can drive.”

  Shimma scoffed. “I taught you European driving … on deserted roads. You don’t know how to drive in Canada.”

  “I can learn,” he said, thinking back to the Great Oak and its opinion about his learning disability.

  Shimma glared at him, her blue eyes resembling deadly poison. “Do you know what you’re going to say to her?”

  Pux backed up, pressing his back against the wall. “I haven’t really thought about it. I thought she’d just … know who I am.” Shimma laughed, throwing her head back. She closed the door and Pux heard the shower. He banged on the door not wanting her to ignore him or ridicule him for the umpteenth time since he enlisted her help. “Please tell me what do.”

  “Wait until tomorrow!”

  “Can we eat? I’m hungry.”

  Shimma opened the door a crack, steam billowing from the room. “We’ll order in. Need to keep a low profile.” She shut the door again.

  Pux hung his head and shuffled back into his room, flopping onto the bed. He drummed his fingers on his stomach, practicing what he’d say to Kaliel when he saw her.

  ***

  Chapter 14

  Waterfall

  Maeva ran her fingers along smooth ivory piano keys in the choir room. She tapped out a few notes with her right hand, the beginning of an old song covered by Bon Iver. It was almost four, and her duet partner, Charlotte Rountree, hadn’t shown up yet. Charlotte lived with her grandma in one of the rougher houses on sixth. In elementary she was the girl with the best homemade chocolate chip cookies. Charlotte became eccentric last year, and it wasn’t one of those gradual transitions either. She used to have really pretty light brown downy hair, freckle-spattered cheeks and soft blue eyes, now she had green cat eye contacts and bright pink streaks.

  They were supposed to be practicing a Cyndi Lauper song, Time After Time, trading off the solos while the rest of the choir carried the a capella background. She put her left hand on the notes making a C chord, then shifted her fingers, picking up the tempo and launching into the full piano solo of the Bon Iver song stuck in her head, I can’t make you love me. She had been playing it on her iPhone on repeat for the past couple of weeks. Sure, it wasn’t the original version but she liked the lead singer’s voice. There was something special about the way men sang soprano. She took a breath as she reached the first verse and sang. Cool, easy notes flowed off her tongue, sounding nothing like the male voice she loved, but everything like her own voice, crisp, melodic, and innocent.

  She sang, pausing to let the piano swell. Her foot tapped the pedals, making the notes linger. Her fingers memorized the chords but she forgot some of the lyrics. She listened in her head for a moment, and picked it up at the chorus. She choked, her voice cutting out, her heart constricting. Her fingers fumble
d over the keys and she lost the tune, slamming her hands on the keys, a loud unmusical sound echoing through the room. She sighed and pushed the bench back, resting her head on the keys. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to regulate her breathing.

  Michael came to class, sat beside her, didn’t speak a word, and waited until she left before moving a muscle. For weeks since he first showed up in her Photography class he ignored her. Her original theory about him wanting to hurt her seemed absurd, and later assumptions of him disliking her seemed dead on. She didn’t know what to think of him anymore. He moved with the lithe gracefulness of a predatory animal, but he also did things to draw less attention to himself.

  When the temperature dropped he added a black leather jacket to his ensemble. When it dropped again he added a scarf. He wore nothing but black. Boots, pants, shirts, all of them black. The only thing that stood out about him was his sapphire blue eyes and ghostly white skin. Sometimes she noticed a blush in his lips from the cold. Sometimes that blush tickled the tips of his ears, but otherwise he was a blank slate. His attitude towards her was dead pan and lifeless, his presence next to her warmed her, but didn’t seem to have an effect on him whatsoever. Then again, she didn’t consider herself a pretty girl. She had unruly black curls and caramel colored eyes, which resembled prisms of fractured light, shards of yellow, green, and brown twisting into the coal colored irises. She wasn’t athletic, tall, or tan. Her skin rejected the sun, and in the summer she used SPF60 to avoid peeling.

  Steph was the pretty one, straight strawberry blonde hair, perfect tan, and skinny limbs. Plus, she played volleyball. Steph didn’t have to plot to get Tait’s attention, he made the move on her, some obscene gesture involving a lot of limbs, and one poor freshmen whose hand got caught in the slamming crossfire of a locker door. Apparently there was kissing. Maeva thought she’d hear every detail from Steph but by the time she commandeered the living room computer, Steph had already spilled to Emily in London and was heading to bed.

  Adding insult to injury was the embarrassment of showing up at her house the day after the epic kissing incident only to find Tait in his F150 stationed outside her house. There were moments Maeva wished she could rewind and do over because they were unavoidable pits of pure humiliation. She pulled around Tait, pretending it was on her way, and waited for an exorbitant amount of time at the awkward intersection. Tait honked and she narrowly cut someone off, nearly destroying the Sundance.

  Her iPhone buzzed and she stood, pulling it off the piano and checking the messages. Orange plastic chairs were arranged in a semi-circle around the piano, skeletons of metal music stands in front of them. She turned to the wall behind her, reaching for the lights while reading the one text message from her mom. She sighed, realizing Charlotte stood her up. She wandered the halls to her locker and absently twirled the lock, knowing the combination so well she didn’t really need to look at the numbers. Opening it, she wrapped her black, white and gray scarf around her neck, added a zip up black hoodie, thick black parka and thin finger gloves. She left the thicker gloves in her car for the canoeing part. Sure, the lake would be frozen soon but in the meantime it was evil. Strong winds rocked the boat, and Maeva had that horrible stomach-dropping-might-get-tossed-from-the-canoe feeling more than a few times.

  She closed her locker and frowned, noticing the note taped to the front of it. She glanced self-consciously up and down the halls, wondering if the culprit was still in sight, but the halls were empty by this time of day. She looked at the note. It was a bunch of numbers—coordinates. A little thrill raced through her as she snatched the note and stuffed it into her pocket. She knew roughly where those coordinates would take her, and didn’t need a canoe to get there. She slung her heavy backpack over her shoulders and slid her iPhone into her pocket, threading the ear buds through her jacket and her hoodie. She clicked shuffle and headed to her car.

  She cringed against the cold as she stepped outside. The first snowfall had been on Halloween, not that it really mattered anymore. She was too old to go out trick or treating, and she was too unpopular to be invited to any house parties. She gratefully stayed inside and read the latest installment of her favorite series, about a Winter Prince from the Unseelie Court and a human girl who was really a Summer Princess, and daughter of Oberon. She didn’t like him much.

  She stood at the top of the steps and scanned the parking lot for her car, feeling her heart sink when she recalled her dad telling her he was getting the winter tires put on the Sundance so regretfully, she would need to get a ride home. Charlotte was supposed to be that ride, but she never showed so she officially had an hour-long walk to the harbor. She pulled on the hood of her winter coat and buttoned it up. She knew she looked like an Eskimo but she really didn’t care. The cold was an unforgiving monster and she’d do anything to feel warm.

  Shriveled up autumn leaves crunched underfoot as she trudged past Main Street and all the way down eighth, her legs feeling stiff and archaic by the time she reached the McDonald’s. She contemplated a hot chocolate, but in the growing dark she decided to skip it. She hated winter. The sun faded behind the horizon before six, and it only got worse until Winter Solstice, when it was dark the moment the bell rang for last period. Street lamps illuminated frost covered sidewalks as she walked, rubbing her hands along her legs trying to get warmth into them.

  By the time she stepped onto the harbor she was an icicle. Her breath created little clouds of fog as she trekked across the parking lot and stared at the choppy water. Her stomach flip-flopped, knowing it was too dangerous to canoe. She pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time, her fingers brushing the note stuck to her locker. Almost six, her dad wouldn’t finish work until seven, making it seven thirty before she could get a ride in the motor boat. She scuffed the pavement with her boot and slid the phone back into her pocket, trading it for the coordinates. Her eyes scanned the page and she glanced at the gray sky.

  She had to know.

  No matter how stupid, reckless and potentially insane it was, curiosity won out over practicality. She punched the coordinates into her iPhone app and crossed the parking lot.

  O O O

  Krishani blew a breath into his hands as Maeva trampled down the path, flashlight app on her iPhone darting back and forth, sending patches of light into the shadows. He felt like a margay, a lupine sleek predator, leading its prey into a trap. He followed at a safe distance, stealthily stalking her. She wasn’t careful, and half the time she was clumsy. Her boots crunched leaves, broke twigs and slipped on tiny patches of ice as the path dipped. She crested a shallow hill and pulled herself over a bed of rocks, the iPhone clutched in her right hand.

  Krishani found himself lost in her peculiar wonder. She had too many nervous habits, twirling her pen, twisting her hair, chewing her fingernails, tapping her foot to an imaginary beat. Every class they shared together was another uncomfortable opportunity to observe her patterns. The way she threaded a strand of hair into her mouth and bit down on it, the way she huddled over her notebook scratching notes on loose leaf. She often hid her face behind that curtain of hair, but every few classes she’d peek at his pages full of ancient symbols. Some days he wrote in Chinese, other days Hieroglyphs or Greek. One day he got bold and began writing in the ancient tongue of Avristar. She frowned at the pages but didn’t seem to discern the symbols as anything more than unreadable.

  She didn’t ask questions, but her facial expressions spoke volumes. Most of the time she was perplexed or confused, sometimes she’d scoff in disbelief when he’d draw a well know glyph on the page. She’d tilt her binder over the ledge of the desk and scrunch down in her seat, scribbling more notes. Mr. Weir was insane when it came to camera technology. He wasn’t a hands-on teacher. In a couple of weeks they were supposed to do their first assignment with an actual camera. Krishani thought the eight weeks of lead-time to being able to touch the camera was enough to make him strangle the man. The only interesting thing about the class was Maeva, the
way she shuffled to her desk, the way she hugged her binder to chest when class was over. She hummed tunes to herself when Mr. Weir was on a tangent, using his classroom as a launch pad for his personal memoirs.

  Krishani couldn’t help it, everything about her fascinated him. He thought about it for a long time, and every day after school he went to the forest, searching for something that had to exist among the rocks and lakes. He taped the coordinates to her locker but didn’t expect her to show up. He hadn’t anticipated the sun setting so soon, and the added bonus of the dark only ignited him.

  The iPhone slipped out of her grip as she fell on her knees, a surprised cry escaping her lips. The light reached the end of his boots and Krishani ducked into the brush, out of sight, out of mind. He watched her pull herself to her feet, retrieving the iPhone, readjusting the scarf around her mouth. She rubbed her upper thighs and shone the iPhone in a perfect arc, marking where she was. She tugged the glove off her hand and tapped the iPhone face, double-checking the coordinates. He knew her well enough to know her eyes lit up when she found out she was close.

  She hurried down the path and Krishani followed, his heart thrumming. He didn’t know what to expect when she found the end point, but it was something he had to see. He’d watched her for so long in a setting so foreign to him it was laughable. The forest, this was where he felt at home. Some days he feigned knowing the modern world and all its gadgets, contraptions and buildings, but discomfort lived in his bones. Things like iPhones were weird. He couldn’t begin to figure them out. Elwen laughed at him when he tried to use a laptop, pressing random buttons until a blue screen appeared and the thing shut off. Elwen was good at mocking him. He thrived in the community, knowing how to manipulate people to get what he wanted.