Mercy

by Rhiannon Paille

  Maeva looked at Tom and instead of talking to Michael it looked like he was talking to her. “Don’t forget what we talked about.” He wrenched the door open, causing an awful scrape to echo through the flat.

  “Do you want breakfast?” Michael asked, giving her a timid look. He was so boyish, arms straightened against the island, eyelids at half-mast, blue eyes resembling half-moons. She wanted to stay with him forever and never go home again. Her phone buzzed, and Michael moved, taking another sip of orange juice and opening the fridge, pulling out butter and a carton of eggs. He reached into the cupboard and pulled down a box of pancake batter and she glanced at the annoying phone. Home. She groaned.

  “No … the dragon lady is calling.” She didn’t answer it, but crossed the floor and slid on her flats, dragging her backpack over her shoulder.

  Michael neared her, leaving the prospect of breakfast on the kitchen counter. He pulled her into him and she didn’t protest, loving the laundry soap scent of his t-shirt and the distinct musky skin underneath. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Maeva’s eyes widened at the thought of Michael squaring off with her mother. She let out a short laugh as her phone began buzzing again. “Not if you value your life.”

  His face dropped and she wanted to clap her hand over her mouth and stuff the words back into it. Wrong thing to say. She hugged him tight, raising a little on her tiptoes so she could fit her chin over his shoulder, and coincidentally, the length of her body from her ribs to her thighs pressed against his and he let out a little gasp before she released him and he ran his hands down her arms, hooking his fingers to her palms before letting her go. “You make it so hard not to want you.”

  She bit her lip, giving him her best innocent look. “You’re the one who wanted to stop.” She laughed and forced the door open, escaping before he said anything else.

  Her car wasn’t parked on Main Street. She recalled the events of last night and trudged in the direction of Furniture King, finding her Sundance in the back lane behind the Plaza Restaurant. Recollection hit her. She walked out of work last night because of the woman in red, spent the night with Michael, and lied to her mom about it.

  Two confrontations in one day were brutal. She contemplated which one to handle first, Rachel, who wasn’t even at Red Boot, or her mom. Her mom won by default, her phone still buzzing like it would grow wings and sting her if she didn’t answer it. She pulled onto Second and drove down to the harbor. Dread pooled in her gut. She parked by Earl’s and pulled her phone out, staring at the buzzing black screen. She didn’t have to go home. She could call her mom and let her scream at her over the phone. But she’d have to go home eventually. She shuddered at the thought of the woman in red showing up at school, cornering her in a deserted hallway, wielding her flaming red sword. She shut the door and hurried across the harbor, looking for her WindRiver. She stuffed the phone into its waterproof case and stepped into the canoe.

  Canoeing made all the worry go away for a while. She focused on watery reflections of the sky: a tangle of flat wispy clouds smeared against blue. She enjoyed the repetitive process, dunking the paddle into the water on one side, switching sides. She was calm until she saw Grace on the edge of the dock, her hand up to her brow, sporting a brown tracksuit. She backed into the yard as Maeva pulled the canoe up to the dock. She shimmied to the front and grabbed the thick rope, winding it around the metal post. Her insides shook as she walked across the dock, not wanting to have this fight.

  Grace sat on one of the lawn chairs, arms crossed, lethal glare on her face. “You weren’t at Rachel’s.”

  Maeva sighed. “No.…”

  “Were you with that boy?”

  “He has a name.”

  “Michael. Were you with Michael?”

  Maeva’s cheeks flushed at the sound of her mother pronouncing his name and looked at the grass below her feet. She nodded.

  “I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”

  Maeva was surprised. Grace had a look on her face that said she thought she could make these kinds of decisions for Maeva and the girl was shocked, appalled, and offended at the thought. “You can’t make me … break up with him.”

  Grace smoothed out her features and pursed her lips. “You need to think about your priorities. This thing with Michael isn’t going to last forever—”

  Maeva snapped, emotions crashing to the surface. “No—it won’t! Because he’s dying.” She stormed into the house angry tears in her eyes. She threw down her backpack, avoiding both Gord and Scott who were sitting at the kitchen table looking like deer in the headlights, clutching bowls of cereal. She clamored downstairs and threw herself on the bed, sobs escaping her throat. She curled into a ball and stayed there for a long time.

  Nobody came down to check on her and after a while she wanted to go upstairs and get her phone but didn’t want to risk facing them. All this time she never told Grace about Michael. She never told her he had cancer and that every day together was another day closer to the day she had to say goodbye.

  ***

  Chapter 31

  Emergency

  May came and Michael lived. Grace stopped bothering Maeva for a while, the entire dragged out conversation happening one night over dinner, both Scott and Gord present. For once Scott didn’t have anything snarky to say and later, when she asked him not to tell his friends he just nodded solemnly and closed his door.

  She flipped the page, sinking further into her seat. Ms. McKay didn’t give them a lot of time to read during class, so she was thankful for the opportunity to skim through more of the craziest book on the syllabus for the year. Ms. McKay chose a vampire book to round out her grade twelve English Literature class. Steph made a joke about not reading the book and going to see the movie, but Maeva wasn’t remotely interested in that. Ms. McKay had a thing for historical novels and so while this one was about vampires, it was also about Abraham Lincoln, not a very exciting topic.

  She flipped another page, glancing at the clock, reading almost 9:47. First period ended at 10:15, followed by a fifteen minute break and second period involved World History, Mr. Wilson and Michael. She stole a sidelong glance at Steph who had her phone inside her book and was managing to text while reading. Despite the obvious layers of frost between them, once people picked where to sit, they stayed there the whole semester. By some crazy happenstance, Steph sat beside her on the first day of second semester. Maeva didn’t know why, it wasn’t like they were friends anymore.

  She bit her lip and tried to focus, fidgeting every time Steph turned a page to make it look like she was reading. Maeva glared at the cell phone, wanting to say something but held her tongue. Steph could do whatever she wanted. She was the beautiful blonde princess and had all the friends she wanted. Maeva refused to call her popular because it was difficult to be popular in a town with only fifteen thousand people, and only forty-four of them graduating from grade twelve. Steph won herself a position on the Grad committee and Maeva suffered through details of an Eighties Rockstar theme, everything from big hair to her plan to come dressed as Donna Summers for part of the evening, then change into her wicked princess pink grad dress. She spent most of her nights off learning the routine from Flashdance.

  Class ended and Maeva shoved the book into her pack. She put earbuds in and flicked her iPod app onto shuffle, nodding her head to the music. She headed to the front, flipping through songs.

  Michael stood in the hallway, sandwiched against one of the lockers as a stream of students filled the hallways. He looked uncomfortable and nervous. She frowned. He usually met up with her in World History; he never came to meet her after English. It required climbing two flights of stairs, which most of the time he wasn’t up to.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, pulling the earbuds out and rolling them up.

  “I don’t feel good …” he kept his sullen blue eyes on the floor and stayed in tandem with her as she headed towards the stairs.

  “Dizziness? Blurred v
ision? Lightheaded?” She had a list of symptoms in her mind; ones that meant Michael needed the hospital because he was going to suffer another episode. She watched him carefully. He took slow deliberate steps, long breaths in and out. They passed the guidance office and Maeva paused, thinking about taking him in there and making him sit down and grab a glass of water, but she already knew he’d say no. He missed a lot of classes without explanation but the idea of anyone knowing about the cancer made him unreasonably quiet.

  She found the smallest things about him made him scary. The deadpan look he gave her when she suggested something he didn’t want to do, the way a vein in his neck stood out when someone other than her came too close to him, the way he towered above everyone else despite not being the tallest guy in school. She blinked a lot and looked at the linoleum tiles, white with cyan green splotches on them, making them seem like marble flooring without the actual marble.

  “All of the above,” Michael said, gritting his teeth.

  She slid her hand into his, squeezing tight. She couldn’t afford to skip World History, her grades, despite being marginally better were still on the low side, and if she missed a class they would only plummet further. “We can leave at lunch if you want.”

  Michael nodded, but he didn’t seem to be listening anymore. She noticed a thin layer of sweat on his neck. She added fever to the list of symptoms and tried to calm the storms inside her. They neared the wide staircase, a couple of stray students trudging both up and down them on the opposite side. She felt someone right behind her and turned to look at them for a split second as they passed, so close they almost brushed her shoulder. Between that moment and the next, Michael collapsed.

  Maeva saw it happen in slow motion. Michael went to grab the banister, missed and went face first down the stairs, nothing but a pile of bones as he slumped on the landing between the two staircases. Maeva put her hands over her mouth, vision blurry, mouth dry, body stunned. Blood trickled out of his nose, eyes smushed shut like they’d never open again.

  He didn’t move.

  She clamored down and neared him, a loud scream erupting from her, followed by a series of whimpers. Her pack thudded to the floor with a shlick and her knees hit the cement as other students passed, their faces a sea of blank stares.

  “Don’t touch him,” she heard herself say, putting her hand out, trying to stop people from getting too close. She dragged in a loud wheezing breath when a thick set of arms grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back. She struggled but recognized the strong voice of Mr. Voyechko, the gym teacher. He pulled her into the corner and she realized all the loud sobs were coming from her. She hiccupped as Ms. Hobb appeared at the top of the stairs, exchanging strings of blurred words between them. She couldn’t see and couldn’t speak and couldn’t think and couldn’t breathe.

  “Hospital,” Maeva said; her voice a scarce whisper.

  Ms. Hobb neared her, puffy rose-colored blouse, brown dress pants, cornflower blue eyes, stringy straight blonde hair. “Calm down, Miss Jonsson,” she said, her voice soothing but thin.

  Mr. Voyechko released her and she slumped onto the floor, unable to stand. She pressed her hands on the cool tiles and stared at the shape of Michael. She couldn’t see his face from this angle, just the line of his bony shoulder, the curve of his hips and the soles of his combat boots.

  Ms. Hobb pulled out a cell phone and turned, facing the brick wall. Maeva heard the conversation as though it were far away, like a train horn in the distance. Mr. Voyechko kept saying her name like he was trying to get her attention but she was dead to the world.

  It was only May.

  It was only May.

  It was only May.

  He had to wake up, he had to make it.

  Ms. Hobb crouched to her level, sympathy coloring her expression. “Miss Jonsson?”

  She whimpered in response but couldn’t get any words out of her throat. Ms. Hobb put a hand on her knee, some lame attempt to comfort her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Maeva felt like there was an apocalypse inside her. She felt it like a handful of autumn leaves crinkling in her palm and flying into the wind as she unfurled her fingers one by one, a flurry of orange and red against pale blue sky. “Cancer.…”

  Ms. Hobb blinked and looked over at Mr. Voyechko who was lingering by the stairs, his feet shoulder length apart, runners and socks pulled up to his shins, basketball shorts hanging to his hairy knees. She looked back at Maeva, her expression helpless. “Nobody informed the school.”

  Maeva sucked in a breath, numbness washing through her. “He didn’t want anyone to know.”

  Ms. Hobb mumbled something to Mr. Voyechko. “Miss Jonsson?” Her tone was so gentle it reminded Maeva of clouds. She tilted her head in their direction, teachers huddled by the stairs. Mr. Voyechko shot glares at students trying to gawk. The teachers mumbled something between them Maeva couldn’t hear and Ms. Hobb looked down at her. “I need you to go to your next class.”

  Maeva glanced at the second set of stairs, a team of paramedics with a red medical bag approaching. She nodded, numbness hollowing her out. The paramedics surrounded Michael and she deftly moved to her feet, picking up her backpack which felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. They wouldn’t let her go with him. The vice principal didn’t have any clue how much Michael meant to her and if she caused a scene it would only prevent them from helping him. She looped her arms into the straps and forced herself to the second set of stairs.

  “Jules, go with her,” Ms. Hobb said. Maeva felt the gym teacher behind her as she plunged down the steps, every footfall echoing through her. She vaguely felt Mt. Voyechko’s presence as he walked in line with her, asking what class she had next. She didn’t answer, feeling more like a zombie than a girl. One minute Michael was standing beside her, and the next he was on the ground, blood gushing from his nose, hands twisted by his sides. She reached the classroom and glanced at Mr. Voyechko.

  He nodded and went the other way as she walked to her desk and dropped her bag on the floor, chair scraping along the tiles as she forced herself into it. She didn’t notice everyone else already in their desks and Mr. Wilson in the middle of something when she got there. Everyone turned to look at her, including Mr. Wilson, a smile on his face.

  “Thanks for joining us, Maeva,” he said, returning to his lesson.

  She wanted to explode. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t deal with losing Michael. She closed her eyes, forcing herself not to cry in a classroom full of people. Mr. Wilson’s voice became drowned out by the loud thumping in her brain, tremors in her fingers, twisted feeling in her stomach, like it was trying to turn itself inside out. She gripped the table hard, feeling like she was going to black out. She gulped and shook away spots dotting her vision, raising her hand out of turn. She needed to get out.

  “Miss Jonsson?” Mr. Wilson stopped midsentence, awarding her with more confused stares.

  “I—I’m not feeling w—well,” she stuttered, pressing her hands into the black tabletop. It screeched as she pushed it out of place. Heavy tears fell on her jeans, spreading into little watermarks. Humiliation strangled her as she picked up her bag by the top handle and pushed out of her chair. She banged her thigh on the corner and yelped as she forced herself out of the classroom.

  She made it to the bright sunshine, dragging in a deep breath of cool fresh air. Heart hammering, palms clammy, breath ragged, she crossed the parking lot to her Sundance and lit out of the stall, driving to the hospital as fast as she could.

  O O O

  Pux fit a pair of khakis over his hairy animal legs and pulled a Hawaiian print dress shirt around his shoulders, the knocking at the door turning into banging. He fumbled with buttons, his claws not very dexterous. He crossed the floor on the balls of his feet, carefully stepping around the mess. Garbage was everywhere because he was too angry to clean and too scared to go outside. He skirted a bare sprig of grapes and moved to the front door, checking the peephole.

  E
lwen Tavesin stood on the open balcony, a hard expression on his face. Pux unlocked the chain and deadbolt and pulled open the door, backing into the apartment. Elwen was in his usual sweater, dress pants and suit jacket. The woman behind him was tall, wavy auburn hair to her waist, rose shawl pulled over a mint green tee. Bell-bottom white jeans fell over her sandaled feet and Pux found himself sputtering as he glanced at the sharp hazel eyes of Lady Atara.

  Elwen looked at her. He hadn’t told Pux she was coming. “I wouldn’t have brought her if you didn’t need help.”

  “But she’s going to tell Istar and I’m going to be in big trouble.”

  Atara scoffed. “I haven’t talked to Istar in at least a thousand years.”

  Pux cautiously backed into the living room as Atara threw a pestered glance at all the garbage and held her pointy nose in the air, as if looking at the ceiling would make it disappear. Pux sat on the couch hard, frantically shoving game controllers and a bowl of fruit out of the way. Elwen followed her to the archway between the living room and the kitchen, glancing at bare white walls and the flat screen screwed to the wall. Two long couches faced each other, coffee table in the middle. He crossed his arms.

  Pux looked at Elwen who raised his eyebrows as Atara waved a hand in the air and sat on the arm of the other couch. Pux wanted to shrink into the slate blue couch under him. He didn’t know what to say, she was … alive. He hadn’t seen her since the wars and she looked young. Her face had the faintest traces of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth but otherwise her ivory skin was as vibrant as it had always been.

  “I came to offer you passage to Avristar.” Her voice was smooth, and fae-like, intrinsically pleasant-sounding.

  Pux glanced at Elwen, but the look on his face said he wasn’t going to offer any help. Atara shot a look at him and he jumped.

  “I’ll bring the groceries in.” He disappeared through mounds of garbage.

  Pux looked at his hands. “I’m not ready to leave.”

  Atara crossed her legs and leaned forward, her eyes digging into him. “Pux … Earth is no place for a feorn. You know this.” She had that patronizing tone to her voice, like the wars and the years hadn’t weighed on her the way they weighed on everyone else.