Mercy Snow

by Tiffany Baker

  June approached the Snow property with the heel-toe caution of a practiced tracker. Per Cal’s instructions she’d waited until it was nearly dusk to be sure no one would see her and had parked her car a little ways down Devil’s Slide Road, just before the turnoff to the clearing, not wanting to announce herself before she’d truly arrived. Back at home she’d left her holiday boxes lined down the hall. In the fridge there was a mix of brownie batter, and on the stove the kettle was primed and ready for tea when she returned.

  From the road she followed a bumpy pathway to the oval clearing in the woods, the only level patch around here before the world tilted again and dropped to the chaos of the river. On the east side of the clearing, June could see the charred stone foundation of an old house, the chimney long since tumbled, the roof beams burned or, if salvageable, no doubt carried away for other enterprises. Next to it was the splintering hut of the smokehouse, the size and childish shape of a dwarf’s dwelling, and across from that a manifestly ugly vehicle of sorts was parked—top-heavy, fenders sagging, kitted out with a smokestack and mismatched windows, and rusted beyond all decent hope. June gawped at it and wondered how they’d managed to drive it down the path she’d just walked, and then she wrapped her coat tighter around her and stepped daintily through a thicket of frozen weeds, wrenching her ankle on a crushed can hidden under the snow. She fought the urge to swear. What kind of people lived like this? she wondered. Dogs wouldn’t even.

  A noise coming from the smokehouse caught her attention, and when she turned her head, June was surprised to see a child—a small figure swallowed by a huge, dirty parka. The girl seemed equally alarmed to catch sight of June. She stared up at her with the frozen dignity of an owl. In her hand June saw that the girl was carrying a book, marking her place with her thumb, the sign of a veteran reader, though she couldn’t have been more than eight, June thought. The girl assessed her and then, deciding it was safe enough, spoke. “Hello.” Her breath billowed in a fog around her narrow face.

  June blinked. She knew every kid in Titan Falls, down to the babies, but she didn’t recognize this girl. Or did she? She looked closer. There was something familiar about the child’s greenish face and plain almond eyes. It was a smaller version of the late Pruitt Snow’s.

  “Are you looking for the ghost?” the girl said.

  June put a hand across her chest. “Excuse me?”

  The child looked exasperated. “The ghost of the lady that used to live in this spot. She was right here. But when she heard us, she disappeared.”

  In spite of the cold, June found that she’d begun to sweat. She loosened her scarf. “Ghosts aren’t real, you know.”

  The girl shrugged. “This one was.”

  “What’s your name?”

  The girl cocked her head. “Hannah.”

  The littlest Snow of them all. June took a step closer. “And what are you reading?”

  Hannah tipped the book so June could see the laminated cover. “Ovid.” She pronounced it OH-vid. June raised her eyebrows in astonishment, but Hannah didn’t seem to notice. Instead she smoothed open the volume to the page she’d been marking and ran her hand over the paper. She looked vaguely ashamed. “I stole this out of a library in Maine because it’s the kind of book I knew I’d never be through with. I’m on the part now about Phaeton”—she stumbled over the name—“who tries to drive a chariot across the sky, but gets killed by Jupiter. Phaeton’s sisters are so sad they turn into amber trees.”

  Amazed, June looked at the dirty sheen on the girl’s coat, the cracked boots one size too big, the pants that only came to her ankles, and remembered that when Suzie had been that age, she’d never wanted to read but was always moving with the casual lope of a wild horse. Just then June noticed a glint of silver nestled in the bulk of the girl’s parka. She looked harder. It was a man’s silver cuff link, a piece of yarn wound around it like a necklace charm. How odd. Before the child could object, June lifted the bauble and then quickly dropped it as if she’d been scalded, seeing the points of the M sharply carved in the metal. She knew this object. She knew it very well, in fact, for Cal had its mate in a box in his top bureau drawer. It had belonged to his father, but he’d only inherited the one.

  “What?” The girl looked puzzled.

  “Where did you get this?” June’s voice came out harsher than she meant it to.

  Hannah clasped a protective hand over the cuff link and stuffed it back inside the neck of her parka. She cocked her chin at a stubborn angle. “I found it. Finders keepers.”

  “In the smokehouse?”

  Hannah didn’t answer, and June took a step closer, knocking her boot heel against a stone. It was so very easy to trip out here. The footing was uncertain, the land slicked with patches of effluvia, and deep down in the ravine, June knew, the river’s current was deceptive.

  “The Androscoggin carries away what it wants and then returns what it doesn’t,” Hetty had warned June before her marriage. “All of us from Titan Falls know this, and those who don’t know it deserve whatever comes to them.” June had taken the warning for what it was and said nothing, but now she wondered if her mother-in-law had perhaps been trying to get her to make a crucial choice before it was too late: stay or go, flee or return, one or the other, but never both, not in this place.

  Down below in the notch of the ravine now, June could hear the river eddies rustling, devious as a covered basket of snakes, some of which would charm and others strike. In her pocket she had a lump of cash. It was more money than she thought she and Cal needed to offer, but no matter. It would cover a fresh start for the family someplace else. Anyplace else.

  June thought about the laundry she had waiting back at home, the grocery list she’d hung on the refrigerator, the list of bills piled on her desk, their envelopes flapped open like little parched tongues. The clock on the landing would be ticking like a bone grinding in its socket.

  She studied Hannah. There were a million reasons she knew she should just offer the money and then walk away from the girl—more than a million, probably—but they were no match for the sudden and paralyzing stroke of doubt June was suffering. What if Cal was wrong? What if he couldn’t just make all this go away? What if he shouldn’t?

  June took a step closer to the child, half expecting her to vanish, but she did not. It was so cold in this hollow, June felt like she might crack. She couldn’t imagine a little girl enduring it. She bent down and spoke softly. “Would you like to come with me for some dinner? Also, I have some books you might like to see.” She did have them, too—somewhere. Nate’s old adventure tomes and her own mythology texts from college. Tales of pirates and gods and knights with shining swords. She could wash Hannah’s clothes, June thought, while the brownies plumped in the oven and the child ate a bowl of stew, and then she could give her a hot bath and wrap her in a huge, fluffy towel. Maybe she could even teach her to knit. June could almost feel what it would be like to sit shoulder to shoulder with Hannah on the sofa and cup her delicate hands in the larger nests of her own while she worked the girl’s fingers around the yarn, just the way she’d always longed to do with a daughter.

  Hannah took an uncertain step sideways, folding her book closed back on her thumb. Her gaze flicked quickly over June’s shoulder to the bank of trees behind her, growing black with the late afternoon’s shadows. “Thanks, but I’m not supposed to go anywhere. My sister would get hopping mad if I did.”

  “Where’s your sister now?”

  “Over at Hazel Bell’s. She’s looking after the sheep. Soon, if I’m good, she’s going to take me to see them.” She said it with a measure of pride, the way other children boasted about visits to theme parks or motels with swimming pools. “And I’m starting school soon, too, just like I’m supposed to, so don’t you worry.” June’s eyes narrowed. She had forgotten all about Hazel Bell hiring the Snow girl, but then, before this accident, people often overlooked Hazel. She was as reclusive as a barn owl and twice as canny. June had al
ways found the business with those so-called sugar-baby stones in the trees distasteful in the extreme.

  She shook herself back to her senses. Hazel and her sugar babies were excellent reminders of why it didn’t do to go digging up secrets in Titan Falls. The nonsense out here with Gert’s bones was bad enough. June eyed the string with the cuff link around Hannah’s neck again. It was tucked away now under the girl’s coat. June sincerely hoped it remained that way. If she got rid of the one Cal had, there would be nothing to tie the family name to this place. Without further ado, all business again, June pulled the envelope containing the cash and written offer out of her pocket. “Here,” she said, handing it to Hannah, glad to know that at least one person in the family could read. “Give this to your sister. It’s very important. Do you understand?” She paused. She was struck with an urge to pass on to the child some kind of benediction or blessing. Instead she found herself proffering a threat. “And tell her she ought to be taking better care of you. Tell her…” June hesitated again. Why was she even getting involved? This child was nothing to do with her and never would be. “Just say that we have standards in this town, and people who aren’t afraid to enforce them. Do you understand?”

  Hannah took the envelope wide-eyed. “Okay,” she breathed, and then she turned and fled, whipping past June like a sprite. June caught a scent of something wild—pine sap, deer musk?—rising up from the girl’s clothing and skin, but before she could identify it, Hannah was gone, picking her way into the tangle of trees, a blur of flying hair and spindly limbs, the realest ghost June was sure she’d ever met.

  Chapter Nine

  Miracles can occur by design or by chance, but in retrospect people usually agree that they happen for a reason. In the case of the unexpected awakening of Fergus Bell, however, the cause was murky at best. Everyone concurred that his reemergence was a marvel, even if not totally successful, but whether it was in the end a blessing or a curse depended on who was doing the deciding. The fact that Mercy Snow was hanging over his bed when it happened only complicated matters, for no one could decide if she was a mere witness of the event or the very source of it—not least of all Mercy herself.

  She’d arrived that morning at the hospital later than usual with her face drawn, empty of her usual promises and apologies. It had been one week since the accident, but for Mercy time had begun to unwind like one of Hazel’s balls of wool—in no discernible order, one string leading many ways.

  “Late night?” Hazel asked, observing the creases grooved into Mercy’s forehead and the circles under her eyes. Then she sat up in alarm. “Are the sheep all right? Are you putting the vitamins in their feed like I told you?” Besides the constant fear that Fergus might never arise, Hazel also battled epic bouts of worry over her flock. She’d never before been parted from them, and the heartache was almost as bad as what she was enduring with Fergus.

  Mercy absentmindedly chewed on a piece of her hair. “They’re fine, Hazel. All tucked up in the barn.”

  “So why the long face?” Hazel hated herself for asking, but she went days sometimes in this room without talking to anyone except nurses and doctors, and they just yammered at her in their bewildering medical lingo. On the other hand, silence was golden. Hazel had heard enough now about the gentle side of Zeke and Mercy’s determination to clear his name. Too late, Hazel put up a palm. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”

  But Mercy had pulled up a chair and was fishing in her jeans pocket for something. She withdrew a crumpled note.

  “What is that?” Hazel asked.

  Mercy unfolded the note and smoothed it across her knee, then passed it over. “It came with a big lump of cash.” Hazel’s eyes widened when Mercy told her the amount. I suppose I’m going to have to find someone else to look after the sheep, was her first thought, and her second was, But why would June do this?

  The note supplied the explanation. It offered, in June’s schoolmarmish handwriting, a twenty-four-hour period of leniency toward Zeke if the Snows would just get themselves together and get the hell out of Titan Falls for good. Hazel looked at the date. “What are you going to do?”

  Mercy accepted the note back. “It’s not like I can just go out and find Zeke. He has to come to me. And even if I could, leaving wouldn’t solve anything, no matter the amount of money.”

  Hazel produced a crochet hook and a ball of yarn. She avoided Mercy’s gaze. She hadn’t said anything, but she’d been having doubts lately about how smart it had been to get involved with these accursed Snows. So far they’d brought nothing but trouble to her door, even if the mother was supposed to have been some kind of backwoods healer. That skill set didn’t seem to have rubbed off on Mercy, however. She glanced quickly at the girl. “Do you have to tell your brother? What if you just took the money and went?”

  “What, and leave him here?” Even without looking, Hazel could hear how outraged Mercy was. Mercy sighed, and Hazel briefly felt low about her suggestion. For one thing, she really couldn’t afford to find anyone else for the sheep right now, and for another, Mercy wasn’t a bad sort when it came down to it. But it didn’t look good, the two sisters huddled alone out there on Devil’s Slide Road like that. It made everyone uneasy.

  “So what are you going to do?” Maybe it really was better if they moved on, Hazel thought. Maybe June McAllister had a point.

  In reply Mercy ripped the note into tiny pieces and deposited them in the garbage. “That’s where this belongs. I put the money back in her mailbox this morning.” Then, to Hazel’s dismay, Mercy turned her attention to Fergus. “I’m so sorry about all this trouble,” she said, stroking his forearm gently. “But I am going to make things right for a change. You’ll see. I know I can do it.” Hazel watched as she laid her hands on his forehead, cupping his broken skull, and breathed in and out in time with him, like they were dancing. Shocked, Hazel looked away, almost more embarrassed than if she’d interrupted a pair of lovers, though Fergus, she knew, didn’t have a single romantic bone in his body. Just a heap of good ones.

  The machines hooked to Fergus started going haywire. One of them beeped out an uneven rhythm, another buzzed like a car alarm. Hazel shot her hand out to make Mercy stop, but before she could, Fergus did the unbelievable and opened his eyes. Hazel let out a whoop, and Mercy sank back into a chair, her arms dangling limp as wet strings of wool.

  Hazel turned to her, tears dancing in her eyes. She hadn’t been one to listen to the malarkey of Mercy’s home remedies and claims to folk healing, but it was never too late to change the stripes on a tiger. “God bless you right down to your grubby toes. You really did it. I bet everyone in town changes their tune when they hear about this. Even June McAllister.”

  Mercy jumped away from Fergus as if she were unwilling to be held accountable for one more thing, marvelous or not. She honestly hadn’t expected Fergus to wake up, not really—even though Arlene had possessed some ferocious healing powers—and she wondered if her touch had done it or if Fergus had simply been responding to some mysterious inner clock of his injuries that only he could read. Where did one person’s influence on another ever begin or end? Mercy wondered. Was there a way to make manifest the secret ties that bound unlikely souls together in sin, or bliss, or random kindnesses? Or were outer appearances all anyone could go on? If that was the case, she and Zeke were screwed.

  She brushed her hair out of her eyes. She didn’t look too certain about Hazel’s prediction. “Maybe,” she finally said, the words sitting in her mouth as sour as unripe apples, “but if you do talk to June, you should remind her I said it’s better to give than receive.”

  At first Hazel was so happy to see Fergus back that she didn’t notice he’d been returned touched by the angels. Almost right away, however, it became clear that while a miracle of some sort might have occurred, it was a partial one at best, a gift wrapped in a maze of complicated strings.

  After an exhaustive battery of tests, the hospital spent the better half of a morning
describing to Hazel all the therapy options available to her: live-in centers, traveling nurses, part-time rehab wards. Some of them were too far away to bother with. Some sounded downright unsavory to Hazel, and all of them cost the blessed earth. “Do I look like I’m spun out of money?” she brayed to the administrator who was trying to help her navigate the mountain of paperwork Fergus now seemed to require. “Next I suppose you’re going to hand me a brochure for the goddamned Ritz.”

  The administrator—a very pink-skinned young woman with a nervous habit of sucking her bottom lip, paled a shade. “Gosh no, ma’am. Nothing of the sort.”

  Finally it was Mercy who came up with the solution. “Why don’t you just bring him home?” she piped up from the room’s darkest corner, where she was slumped in a plastic chair fiddling with Hazel’s spindle. “I’ll help you with him. Heck, I wrangle the sheep every day on my own. Together we can probably handle the likes of Fergus.”

  And so it was agreed. Hazel signed what seemed like a cartload of documents declaring that she knew what she was doing in bringing her own kin back where he belonged and that no matter what happened, she didn’t have plans to hold Heritage Pines Hospital responsible for the outcome. Hazel snorted at that. “You all are the ones who wanted to pull the plug on him in the first place, remember?” To which the pink administrator said nothing, simply bit her lip some more and scurried as far away from Hazel as she could.