Mercy Snow

by Tiffany Baker

  Hazel was surprised to find Dena Flyte hunched in the far corner of the parlor, her chair a little out of kilter with the rest of the other women’s, her eyes hooded so that Hazel couldn’t easily read her expression. Certainly she was much thinner than the last time Hazel had seen her, but grief could swallow the flesh right off you. Hazel knew that from experience. After Rory she’d dropped a dress size and never gotten it back. Though Fergus had always sworn he never minded, Hazel rather suspected that he sometimes missed the old curve of her hips, the bounty of better days.

  Hazel took her seat in front of the semicircle, a little uncomfortable as always with being so exposed, but that was the damn problem convening with a bunch of women. They left you no choice but to either join them like a mindless lemming or stick out like an infected thumb. Hazel smoothed her skirt and sniffed. At least a thumb had its uses.

  “Well,” she began, “this year I had a real bumper crop of fleeces, so I imagine—”

  “Hazel,” June cut in, “before you get started, please allow me to speak on behalf of us all when I say that we sincerely hope Fergus is coming around.”

  Hazel blushed, half in anger and half in embarrassment. “He’s fine.”

  “And we also want to say how brave you’ve been all this time, taking care of him out there on your own.” The women murmured and bobbed their heads. Hazel smashed her lips together to keep herself from saying anything she’d later regret. June made it sound like she was some kind of martyr, when what else was she supposed to do with little money and a broken husband? Hazel eyed the ladies. Any one of them would have done the same. Heck, many of them had.

  She put up a hand. “Thank you. Now let’s talk yarn.”

  The next half hour passed in a blessed blur. Stella was in a dither about baby blankets and booties and caps. She was already a week late and so put out she could almost not form a sentence whole, either backward or forward. Alice thought she might like to crochet some table runners this summer, and Dot had her heart set on a new coverlet for her bed. “Something in a nice, relaxing purple,” she instructed, and Hazel immediately pictured the delicate hanging bloom of a foxglove. She nodded and made a mental note that come July she should gather an extra armload of the flowers.

  Tea was drunk and pineapple upside-down cake consumed on June’s basketweave china. Per usual, Hazel refused all offers of refreshment. For one thing, she was there to conduct business, not eat like a show horse, but the real reason was that it gave her pleasure to know she wasn’t beholden by even a single crumb to the likes of June McAllister. “Don’t be contrary,” Fergus had once said when she explained this reasoning to him. “The woman’s just being polite.”

  Hazel had snorted. “Do you really believe that? June McAllister counts the flies that buzz in and out of her life, mark my words. She doesn’t do anything without a reason.” Neither did the McAllister men, Hazel more than suspected, though she couldn’t solidly prove her misgivings. But she knew she wasn’t alone in that suspicion. The town had whispered for years about Pruitt being on the low-down and dirty payroll of Cal McAllister, though for what, no one really knew.

  As Hazel rose to leave, gathering up her gloves and her good handbag, it occurred to her that of all the women, only Dena hadn’t mentioned what she would be making come the warmer months. She hadn’t said anything at all, as a matter of fact. Well, that was understandable. She would put a stone in the sugar bush for Suzie, Hazel decided, even though she wasn’t technically a child. Hazel nodded a final time at the ladies, busy now with second servings of cake and more cups of tea, and let herself out.

  “Hazel, wait!” She was halfway down the porch steps. She turned in confusion, expecting June but finding Dena instead.

  Hazel clomped back up the steps. “Don’t worry. I haven’t put a stone out for Suzie, but if you’d like, I will.”

  Dena looked surprised. “I would. Thank you.” Hazel wasn’t sure if she should apologize for the whole mess with the bus or commiserate. It was possible that Dena blamed Fergus for what happened or, at the very least, begrudged Hazel her luck in still having him with her. Hazel knew that if she were in Dena’s place, she would have.

  She put a sympathetic hand on Dena’s forearm. “Maybe this year isn’t the year to set out on any new projects. I understand.” A period of grief was never the right time to start on a fresh endeavor, Hazel knew, for the heart couldn’t look both forward and back. Once unraveled, a length of thread took time to wind back up again.

  “I know.” Dena wrapped her arms around herself. She was only in a light sweater, and although spring had brightened up the air, it was still chilly enough. “I just wanted to thank you.”

  Hazel was straddling two steps. At Dena’s declaration she wobbled, then regained her footing. Wrath she would understand, but a show of gratitude unbalanced her. She frowned. “Whatever for? I haven’t put the stone out yet.”

  “For letting Mercy tap your maples. Everyone is talking about how the sap’s working wonders on them. Fred’s a new man.” She paused, her cheeks reddening. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Hazel could feel the blood draining from her face. She clutched the porch railing.

  Dena hesitated, her expression uncertain all of a sudden. “Didn’t you know?”

  “Did Mercy tap the trees in my sugar bush?” Hazel’s voice sounded as if it were coming from some other woman’s body.

  Dena stared at her feet again.

  How dare the girl? Hazel thought. It was bad enough living with whatever mumbo jumbo she might have bragged that she worked on Fergus, but it was utterly unbearable to think that she’d brought the sugar bush back to life when Hazel had deliberately kept it fallow. She gripped the wooden railing harder, ignoring the splinters digging into the fine leather of her one nice pair of gloves.

  “Didn’t anyone tell you?” Dena put a hand over her mouth. “But I guess how would they, right? You don’t come into town all that often. Still, I thought you might have got some.”

  “No.”

  “Well. Everyone in town got a little. And it’s done great things, Hazel. You should be proud.”

  “Hazel, you’re still here.” June’s front door opened, and she appeared on the threshold like an avenging household angel. Her shrewd eyes flitted from Hazel to Dena and back again. “Dena,” she said carefully, “I think Hazel’s probably had her fill of us now. Isn’t that right?”

  Dena opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out, and wasn’t that perfect? Hazel thought as she stumped down the rest of the porch steps to her car. There really was nothing left to say on the matter, she supposed, for when it came to getting her fill, June McAllister was already the hands-down local expert.

  Once home, Hazel flew into her kitchen with the ire of a bull. She ignored Fergus, who was in the parlor, stationed contentedly at his spot by the window. She set her handbag down on the table and looked around, and then she began her search. She opened the flour drawer, but it was empty. The cupboard under the sink was dark as always, and there was nothing in the back of the fridge but the usual half-empty containers of mustard and pickles, a quart of milk, the butter dish, and leftover scraps from last night’s dinner.

  Then her eye fell on the closet where she kept her cleaning supplies. Inside, there was the mop and broom, stalwart as a pair of soldiers, a stack of stained buckets she sometimes used for dyeing, a jumble of cans of cleanser, bottles of window cleaner, and finally, as she suspected there would be, a trio of glass jars tucked in the darkest corner. Nate no doubt had snuck in and put them there, waiting until he could slip the contents to Fergus. Hazel should have known he’d fall under the spell of that Snow girl. She should have seen that coming two days down the road.

  She pulled the vessels out and inspected the contents. The color was richer than anything she’d ever managed to get from the sap the few times she’d tapped the trees—an amber so full it looked unearthly. Hazel scowled something furious and uncapped one of the containers, taking a ca
utious whiff. The stuff smelled slightly different, too, like juniper, and bay, and something else a little suspect that Hazel couldn’t put her finger on. Camphor, possibly. Checking over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, she stabbed her forefinger into the mixture and waited for a second. She half expected her flesh to burst into boils then and there, but nothing happened, and so, mustering up the same enthusiasm she would use for a spoonful of cod-liver oil, she took a taste.

  It was sweet, like maple syrup always was, but there was a spicy kick she wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it immediately made her greedy for more. She scooped up another drip with her finger and swallowed again, this time tasting the bittersweet tang of cinnamon and the comforting zest of nutmeg and the earthy undertone of clove. She’d just closed her eyes to concentrate on that flavor when the most startling thing happened: Rory’s face appeared to her as clear as a bell, sharper than any of the photographs she possessed of him, as real as he’d been in life. She gasped and opened her eyes, but everything about Rory was with her, the familiar weight of him against her chest as an infant, the loose web his fingers had made around hers as he lay dying in the hospital, the particular flaxen color of his hair. How had she forgotten those things? And how long had she been missing them? She flew to the silverware drawer and fetched a spoon.

  “Fergus!” she cried, scooping up a napkin. “Fergus! I have a treat for you. I have something I want you to try.” If Mercy Snow could somehow manage to give her back her husband and son, Hazel figured, then maybe, just maybe, she could see to it in her soul to cancel out the price of a single gutless ram.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For a child who knew where to look, the world was chock-full of treasure. The smooth pebbles, stray pennies, and empty folds of foil gum wrappers that Hannah collected from ditches and plucked off curbsides weren’t worth a king’s ransom by any stretch of the imagination, but she loved her gewgaws nonetheless—maybe even all the more because no one else did.

  Like a crow feathering its nest with bits of shine, she tucked all her finds on the shelf in the smokehouse, adding to her trove. There was the jar she’d filled with quartz and mica and another that contained pennies and coins. There were her books of fairy tales and myths stacked so carefully, their covers laminated in the clear plastic wrappers of libraries, their pages worn to the luxurious texture of kid. She wasn’t sure what she would ever do if she lost those. Around her neck she still wore the button on a string, which June had told her was really called a cuff link and which men apparently wore to hold together their shirtsleeves.

  Lately instead of Hannah being the one to go out and find treasure, it had been coming to her. Over the past few weeks, she’d stumbled upon a variety of surprising objects tailored to catch her eye. There was a poppet sewn from skinned hide and prettied with smudges of what looked like berry juice for eyes and a mouth. There was a bangle twisted out of birch bark and a crown made from a spray of brown-and-white-spotted feathers. Each time Hannah received another gift, she ran like a wild thing through the woods and down the ravine, calling her brother’s name, until she reached the bottom, where the deep bend of the river glittered and swirled. There his trail always ended, and she met with silence.

  Hannah would crouch by the water and keen after Zeke. Nothing, not even curiosity, could compel her to tiptoe any closer, for just like Mercy, Hannah had a great fear of anything larger than a puddle. She would stand on the bank, breathing hard, and listen to the wind, the birds, and the sound of water wearing down rock, and always, just under all the usual chatter of the woods, there was another sound, too, a lower register of fury that only she could hear, and this voice knew her by name.

  Hannah had seen Mercy fling Gert’s ashes somewhere else in the hollow, but she couldn’t remember the exact spot. She wanted to, though, for although Gert was returned once again to the earth, she wasn’t at peace. Far from it.

  It was Gert, Hannah was sure, who was causing all the troubles that she and Mercy had been having lately. The more minor things were easy to shrug off. Mercy cut her finger on the lid of a creamed-corn can, and it wouldn’t heal, no matter what she did. Squirrels or mice had chewed through the hose on the propane tank, and they were out of duct tape to fix it. The sole on Hannah’s left boot was coming loose, letting in the wet and snow, but she knew better than to ask for a new pair.

  Harder to ignore were the threats June McAllister had once again started sending their way. Those were more serious than a smashed plate or the windows in the RV sticking. Mercy said June was mad about all the maple sap she’d given away to everyone in town.

  “You’d think folks would be a bit more touched with gratitude,” she grumbled. “They should be standing up to the likes of June McAllister. Instead what’s that snake of a woman doing but plotting our downfall? I swear she’s more persistent than the devil.”

  Hannah chewed her lip and said nothing. In the smokehouse she’d also hidden the spoils of her day with June in Berlin: the Cinderella watch, the blue comb, and the barrettes. Unlike Hannah’s other trinkets, these weren’t in plain sight. She’d stuffed them in the rusted old coffee can and tossed it in a shadowed corner under the three iron hooks, where even Mercy wouldn’t be tempted to snoop.

  Hannah had lost count of the number of times the sheriff had been out to see them. He’d come to try to take possession of Gert’s ashes. He’d come to give them a citation for fire danger because of their leaky propane tank. Mercy had ripped that up in front of him, and he’d sighed and just written her a new one. He’d come to check Mercy’s license, and to inspect for flood risk, and, most ridiculously of all, because he said he’d been receiving complaints about noise.

  It had gotten so bad that Hannah even considered going back to school, but before she could, a new visitor arrived. This one was a lady. She said she was from state social services, and she was most interested in speaking to Hannah, who had just hiked up from the bottom of the ravine and was about to burst into the clearing when she heard Mercy murmuring in an unusually subdued manner. Hannah had crept as close as she dared to the open trailer door and hidden herself behind a thick tree trunk.

  “I understand your confusion,” Mercy was saying, “but there’s no children here. No, ma’am.”

  Hannah couldn’t hear what the lady said back to her sister, but she didn’t like the frosty tone of her voice.

  Mercy spoke a little louder, her clear vowels floating out into the thick of the forest. “I don’t know why there’s a girl enrolled in school by the name of Snow. It’s a coincidence, I’ll grant you that.”

  The woman’s voice bubbled up again, cold and very sure of itself. Hannah closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the tree trunk. She could guess what the woman was telling her sister.

  When she opened her eyes, everything had gone quiet and she saw that the woman was retreating back up the little pathway to Devil’s Slide Road, where she must have left her car. Hannah waited an extra four heartbeats before she crept out from behind her tree and made her way to the camper.

  Mercy wheeled on her with fury. “Where the holy hell have you been?” She put up the palm of her hand to stop Hannah before she could even answer. “Never you mind. It’s lucky your little behind wasn’t anywhere nearby. We’ve had an unpleasant visitor, and she shared a very interesting story.” Hannah worked her toe on the filthy carpet of the camper while Mercy eyeballed her. Her voice gentled. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Hannah broke down then and confessed everything—how school had not been the paradise she’d been imagining and how she’d been spending her days secreted in the library in town, or tucked up cozy in the wreck of a worker’s cabin she’d discovered behind the mill, or even, sometimes, right here in their own woods, climbing up and down the steep hillsides like a little goat until she grew too tired for words and snuck into the smokehouse for a nap on the rusty cot, being careful not to squeak the springs and give herself away.

  Mercy sighed
with relief that it wasn’t June who’d made good on her threat to call social services after all. “No wonder you’re always so filthy!” Mercy exclaimed, drawing Hannah close to her and wrapping her thin arms around Hannah’s even skinnier shoulders. Tangled up together, the two of them were all sinew and bone, but the living kind, with the blood still running something fierce inside.

  “You should have told me,” Mercy scolded, letting Hannah out of her embrace. “I wouldn’t have been mad, honest. But listen, Hannah, this isn’t over yet by a long shot. You need to be careful from now on. You need to make sure no one catches you, least of all that McAllister woman.”

  Hannah’s heart thumped like a gong in her tiny chest, sending bad vibrations ringing all over her body. She blushed and hung her head, trying to conceal the shaking that had started up in her hands. “Okay.”

  Mercy shooed her from the camper into the last of the hard season’s daylight. “Go on and fetch me some kindling. We’re going to have to make a campfire tonight. We’re out of propane again.”

  Hannah scampered away, grateful to be set free but troubled by what she hadn’t told Mercy—specifically about her afternoon with June in Berlin and about what June had said to her when they parted, all that nonsense about canopy beds and cookies. Hannah crept into the smokehouse, found the coffee can, and gazed on the gifts June had bought for her. The watch no longer seemed so magical. Hannah saw that the white plastic wristband was grimy and already laced with tiny cracks, and the metal on the clasp wasn’t hefty silver, just some cheap shiny coating that was flaking off. Cinderella’s gloved arms were twisted awkwardly into inhuman angles. She looked like an octopus.

  Sniffling, she took the items outside and tossed everything into the wilds of the trees. She couldn’t undo the afternoon she’d spent with June, but she could throw it far away and leave it there cold. She took the can, a vessel she had no use for anymore, inside again and chucked it back under the hooks, which hung in the gloom and pointed at it, like teeth in the mouth of an all-seeing wolf.