It was Mother Helena who took the dress and then walked toward Mercy.
“You may change now,” she said, holding out the dress. “Then we can get back to work.”
Mercy looked at the dress, at the sisters with their judging stares—and at Agnes, who couldn’t seem to pull her gaze from the floor.
“It makes more sense to clean up paint spatters in these clothes,” Mercy said.
Mother Helena raised her brows. “We’ve discussed this before, Mercy,” she said. “Maybe you don’t remember …”
“I remember,” Mercy said.
“Then you’ll remember that those clothes are inappropriate for a young woman,” Mother Helena said.
“Why?” Mercy challenged, powerless to stop the surliness in her voice.
“Because they suggest that the young woman doesn’t want to be seen as a young woman. Because they offer a familiar view of your form that should be left behind closed doors. Because I believe the clothes we wear can shape the people we are.”
“And if I’m a person who would rather be in this,” Mercy said, sweeping her hand down her side, “than that?” She pointed to the dress. “What does that make me?”
Mother Helena held the dress toward her one more time, a look of determination on her face. “It’s pointless to speculate,” she said. “Let’s put this behind us. Just change into your clothes, and we can get back to work.”
“These are my clothes!” Mercy yelled. “The same clothes someone threw next to the basket of rags in the larder as if they were rubbish.”
“There is no need to shout,” Mother Helena said crisply.
“I think you need to ask her about the missing food, Mother,” Sister Ruth said.
Mother Helena sighed and looked at Mercy. “Is there something you want to tell me, Mercy? Something you need to confess?”
Mercy looked at Sister Agnes, whose fingers were flying over her rosary beads, but then shook her head. “I have never taken any food from the larder. As for other confessions, I have no idea—but I would gladly confess to thievery of any kind if it meant I could remember it!”
“You don’t mean that,” Mother Helena said.
“And you don’t know that! You can’t pretend to know me when I don’t even know myself. I might be a conniving, sinful, murdering thief who has found shelter with women who have taken a vow not to judge and to always forgive.”
“We don’t believe you are any of those things, Mercy,” Mother Helena said.
“Then stop looking at me as if you do!”
Mercy felt the room grow warmer; the walls crept closer—and her anger edged out her humiliation.
“I know what you all think of me! I see you back up when I come too close. I see how hard it is for you to pray for the sins you think I’ve committed!”
“We do pray for you, Mercy,” Mother Helena said.
“I fear that it may be a lost cause, Mother,” Mercy said. “I don’t hear God, and He doesn’t hear me. Save your prayers for those who believe they’re doing some good.”
She felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. She couldn’t breathe and couldn’t look at the collective group of holy women who all knew exactly who they were and what they wanted to do with their lives.
“I need some air,” Mercy finally said in a strangled voice. She turned and ran from the kitchen.
Chapter Seven
Mercy ran. She ran straight to Lucky without being aware she was doing it.
The horse snorted as she threw open the gate of the corral. As he came closer to investigate, she grabbed a rope hanging from a post, climbed the fence, and threw a leg over his back. He danced anxiously as she settled herself squarely astride, her bare feet dangling at his sides. She made a slipknot in the rope, looped it over his head, leaned forward, and pressed her face close to his neck.
“Go!” She jabbed her heels into his sides, and he took off.
The horse and rider lunged through the gate and galloped past the convent. Mercy was vaguely aware of some of the nuns calling for her to stop. She tightened her legs around Lucky, leaned as close to his body as she could manage, and hung on. He wove in and out of the trees that lined the road to the convent, as if he intended to camouflage their escape. Instinctually, she gave the horse his head and held tight as he thundered across the ground—going from the cover of the trees near the convent to a copse of trees in the distance. Both Lucky’s raw power and his speed left her breathless. She closed her eyes and gave in to the feelings—the warm air rushing past her face, the coarse coat of the horse where her cheek skimmed his neck. As Lucky moved deftly through a canopy of gnarled oaks, the landscape became a dappled checkerboard of sun and shadow. She and Lucky were racing toward something indefinable when the sounds around her became a procession of indistinct moments jumbled together. Something hissed past her ear—like an invisible snake slicing the air in half. Bang-whistle-cracks filled the space around her, and she flinched with each new noise. Her eyes flew open, and she ducked even closer to the horse, pressing her face tightly against him. She could feel Lucky’s pounding pulse against her own skin and felt her stomach twist with fear for his safety. Booming, thunderous explosions and showers of sparks fell like rain. Sounds of panic vibrated against air that smelled of sulfur. Her nose burned from the acrid fumes, and she held her breath. Don’t breathe … don’t breathe. Faster! Go faster! Her lungs felt as if they might explode as she rode through clouds and clouds of billowing blue smoke. Don’t breathe … don’t breathe. When she and Lucky finally shot out of the trees into the open, she couldn’t wait any longer and sucked in long, even breaths of nothing but the sweet air of the beautiful Missouri countryside.
Mercy’s pounding heart matched the horse’s cadence across a bucolic meadow. She hadn’t consciously given Lucky a single directive, other than the command to go, since climbing on his back. But now, with his flanks lathered with sweat from the long, hard run, she took control. With small, almost imperceptible movements, she slowed him to a trot, then a walk. She had no idea why, but he took her cues without hesitation, and she finally let her guard down long enough to take in the landscape around them. There was no noise other than birdsong; no smoke filtering through the air … just a couple of lazy clouds floating across the perfect summer sky. She looked back over her shoulder at the tree line as if to reassure herself that no nightmare was following her.
She was sweating nearly as much as the horse, and it wasn’t entirely because of the heat of the June day. She told herself that everything was fine. Everything was as it should be. She had just had some kind of strange hallucination. At least she hoped it was a hallucination, because if she was actually remembering those things—then maybe she didn’t want to know about her past after all.
Lucky abruptly stopped, and she was nudged from her reverie back into the scenery around her. A lovely pond was directly in front of them, edged in cattails and shaded by several big weeping willows. It was so beautiful it looked more like an artist’s rendering than an actual, physical thing. Mercy slipped from the horse’s back, and her bare feet sank into lush green grass. Free of his rider, Lucky made his way to the pond to drink. Her mind had her so weary she didn’t even take the time to contemplate her next move. She stripped off the heavy trousers and peeled the hot shirt from her back, feeling instant relief from the heat in only her white cotton chemise and knickers. After draping her clothes over a low-hanging tree limb, she made her way to the pond and waded right into the cool water. Her swift, efficient strokes did little to disturb the surface of the pond; it looked like she was cutting through a pale-green pane of glass. A light breeze stirred the cattails and sighed through the tall grass of the meadow, and she felt immense relief at being alone. The solitude felt as if an old friend she hadn’t realized she missed. She ducked under the water, flipped around, and started back toward the other side of the pond. When she sur
faced, the first thing she heard was Lucky snorting indignantly. The horse was standing stock-still, and his ears were pricked at attention. She followed the horse’s gaze to an approaching buggy. She uttered a word that would surely make the nuns pray for her salvation and tried to gauge how quickly she could make it from the pond to her clothes, which flapped lazily in the breeze. I’ll never make it, she thought. Not without God and everyone else seeing me. This predicament would certainly have sent the nuns to their knees.
The fancy buggy was driven by a young man with a lovely young woman by his side. They stopped just a few yards from Lucky. For the second time that day, Mercy tried hard to conceal her presence. She was so low in the water her mouth was submerged.
She watched as the young man jumped down from the buggy and offered his companion his hand.
“Beautiful-looking bay, but he’s not one of ours,” he said.
“Look, Rand. There’s a rope around his neck. It looks as if he ran away,” she said logically.
In the water, Mercy felt her fingers shrivel and the rest of her body grow cold from not moving. She wanted to yell at them to leave her alone—give her some privacy—but instead, she stayed mute.
“We’ve picked up strays from the war, of course,” Rand said, still surveying Lucky, “but this one looks too well fed and cared for to be a war horse, Cora.”
It seemed to Mercy that the woman he called Cora had already grown bored with the conversation about the horse. She popped open a parasol, carefully laid it against her shoulder to shield her from the sun, and gave all her attention to the pond.
“You were right, Rand,” she said. “This spot is perfect for a picnic. Absolutely stunning. Are you going to get the hamper?”
Mercy groaned. She would have to make her presence known, but now it seemed awkward that she hadn’t spoken up right away. She cursed her own impetuous behavior for the second time that day.
But instead of getting the picnic hamper, Rand was moving closer to the horse. Lucky nickered and whinnied and danced his annoyance at the man’s presence.
“Easy, boy, easy there,” Rand said in a soothing voice. “I just want to …”
Mercy knew by the look on his face that he’d spotted her clothes over the limb of the tree. She watched him put it all together when he looked from the rope around Lucky’s neck to the clothes on the branch—and then strode closer to the pond.
“You there!” He was walking so quickly toward the water that she backstroked a few feet, being careful to stay fully submerged. “You’re trespassing on private property! Come out of there right now.”
“Rand! That would be indecent!” Cora protested in a mortified voice.
“Oh,” he said. “Right. My apologies for being so insensitive, Cora. Turn around.”
Cora spun where she stood so that her back was to the pond. Mercy kept treading water. Rand braced his hands on his hips. “Now get out!”
Her heart hammered in her chest, but she didn’t move an inch toward the shore. Would there ever be a time when someone wasn’t telling her what to do, what to say, how to dress, or how to feel?
Rand drew a small pistol from the waistband of his pants. “I have no patience for this today,” he said. He aimed at the pond. “Out!”
At the sight of the gun, Mercy gasped—and sucked in enough water to make her feel as if her lungs were going to explode.
“Come on now … don’t make me shoot you!”
She was coughing, gagging … struggling just to keep her chin above the pond while she tried to get some air.
Rand leveled the small pistol in her general direction, then fired off a shot that missed her by a couple of yards. He squeezed off one more shot that zipped into the water behind her.
Still choking, she started swimming hard for the shore until her feet found purchase in the silt. As she rose up out of the water, her cotton chemise and drawers plastered themselves to her body and left nothing to the imagination of the shocked man. Apparently hearing her companion’s gasp, the woman looked over her shoulder.
“Oh my good Lord,” Cora sang out in a scandalized tone. “Rand! Rand … are you seeing this?”
Rand was indeed seeing it. The interloper in his pond wasn’t a man—but a woman. A woman who stood doubled over in her less-than-modest attire, choking and coughing and sputtering. She shoved her wet hair from around her face and finally straightened up to glare at him.
“I didn’t know,” Rand said. “You didn’t say anything! Why didn’t you say anything?!”
The woman took a breath and then coughed as she started toward the horse. “I was choking while you were shooting at me,” she said in a scratchy voice. “I couldn’t speak!”
He watched her hurry quickly toward the clothes draped over the tree branch and pull them free. Without preamble and without giving him or Cora another glance, she made quick work of stepping into the trousers.
“I swear, Rand, she’s nothing but a river urchin who doesn’t know enough to dress as a woman!” Cora said snippily. “She probably lives under a bush somewhere.”
The young woman threw a bruising glare at Cora.
“I live in a house with the Little Sisters of Hope,” she said with a trace of the South in her voice. “Not under a bush.” She shrugged into the wool shirt, not bothering to even button it before she gathered the horse’s rope in her hand.
“I would think an apology would be in order,” Cora said loudly. “You were trespassing, and you did parade around half-naked in front of complete strangers!”
The young woman seemed to have no intention of apologizing to anyone. She grabbed the mane of the horse and tried to haul herself up onto his back—but couldn’t manage it.
Rand started toward her. “Let me …”
She shot him a look that stopped him in his tracks. “I can manage,” she said.
She tried again to hoist herself onto the bare back of her horse but slid off before she had success.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Cora muttered.
Color rose in the woman’s cheeks as she led the horse right next to the buggy, climbed onto the frame, and then jumped onto his back.
She looked at Rand and Cora. “I wasn’t trespassing. I was swimming,” she said. “Good-bye.” With a small jab into the horse’s side with her bare heels, she was off.
Rand watched her ride away. She sat perfectly on the horse, in command, yet relaxed and natural with his gait.
“I suppose there’s one good thing that came out of this very odd encounter,” Cora said, tucking her arm through his.
“What might that be?” Rand asked.
“An entertaining story, of course,” Cora said.
Rand shook his head and turned from the sight of the girl on the horse to smile at the girl on his arm. “No one would ever believe it.”
Chapter Eight
Mercy saw the cross from a distance—beckoning her back with an indefinable beauty and promises she couldn’t quite grasp. Anytime she was outside with Lucky, whitewashing the orphans’ house, gardening—her eye was drawn time and time again to the simple cross on the roof. It grew larger against the sky the closer she got to the convent. The thought of facing Mother Helena and the rest of the sisters made her feel weary from the inside out.
She rode Lucky around to the back of the convent, grateful she didn’t see a soul. She took him straight to the corral to see to her basic duties for caring for the horse. She took off the rope and set about brushing him. Methodically rubbing him down, she took her time to make sure the horse felt cared for—loved. Finally, she placed a kiss on his nose.
“You have a special bond with that horse,” Mother Helena said from somewhere behind her.
Mercy turned to see her standing against the corral fence, but the nun’s face masked any emotion she might be feeling.
Mercy nodded. “Yes, Mother.
And I’m thankful for it.”
Mother Helena walked toward her. “I am thankful for it too, Mercy.”
“Do you think it’s strange I’m more comfortable spending time with him than with people?”
“I suppose it’s because animals seem to have a way of accepting us just as we are.”
“Maybe that’s it. I don’t feel as if I’m disappointing him.”
“You’re not to live your life looking for approval from others, Mercy. It’s only God’s approval that matters.”
“I’m not having breakfast, lunch, and dinner with God watching me, studying me, commenting on my clothes.”
“I beg to differ. He is in every part of our day and night here. It’s His approval you must seek—not mine. Not the other sisters’.”
Mercy ran her hand along Lucky’s nose, then looked at Mother Helena. “I’m sorry I spoke to you the way I did.”
“Anger can be a tricky thing,” Mother Helena said. “Sometimes it is misplaced, but sometimes it is justified. I’m sorry you felt attacked and judged. That has never been our intention.”
“I want to keep these clothes,” Mercy said. “But I will put my dress back on.”
“All right.”
“And I want you to know I haven’t been stealing food from the larder.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
Mother Helena nodded. “I’ve known for quite some time it’s Sister Agnes.”
Mercy’s mouth dropped open. “Then why did you accuse me?”
“I didn’t accuse you, dear. I asked if you had something you wanted to confess. I knew you must have seen Agnes taking the food.”
“But if you don’t say something to Agnes, she will think she’s getting away with it. She’ll keep doing it, and more food will be gone!”
“The missing food isn’t nearly as important as Agnes coming to me on her own, without the prompting of discovery. It will help both her conscience and her soul.”
Traces of Mercy Page 6