{ Chapter Twelve}
“Mercy,” I heard someone call from a distance.
I kept moving in the other direction – towards the darkness. “Mercy!”
This time I felt my body shake. I tried to turn around, but I couldn’t. Someone was holding my shoulders. “Mercy!” The sound of the voice was growing louder.
“We should get Stone,” I heard another voice say. It sounded like Alba.
“Come on Mercy, wake up,” I heard Jax’s tiny squeaky voice say with panic.
My eyes began to flutter as the dream I was in began to fade away. Suddenly I felt my body become more real, my limbs responded when I tried to move them, and the voices were no longer being funneled through a fog.
I opened my eyes and blinked several times in quick succession. I looked around me.
“She’s waking up,” Holly cheered excitedly.
Suddenly Jax’s tiny little witchy face filled my vision. “Mercy? Oh! You’re alive. You’re alive!” She threw her miniscule body on top of mine and squeezed her arms around my shoulders.
“No hugging,” I heard myself say, through ringing ears. It felt like work to speak, but I knew I had managed to get the words out, though they sounded garbled to my ears.
When Jax didn’t move, I tried to speak by pushing the words out with my diaphragm. “No hugging!” I said louder. This time the words were clearer. I could tell.
“Jax, she said no hugging,” Alba said with a little chuckle.
Jax pulled her body off of mine and smiled down at me lovingly. “Oh, Mercy. We were so worried!”
Alba looked down at me. “You’re gonna be alright, Red. Time to wake up.”
I wiggled my toes and my fingers, trying to make sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. Yup, it’s all working.
“What happened?” I groaned as Holly and Jax pulled me into an upright position.
“We exploded the potions lab,” Holly said sadly.
The potions lab. Suddenly it hit me what we had been doing. “Did the spell work?” I asked, groggily, rubbing my head to dust off the cobwebs.
With a brilliant megawatt smile, Sweets held the two dolls up in front of my face. The braided binding had been torn apart and the two dolls were separated. “It worked!”
When the girls had me to my feet, Jax began to skip around the room. “It worked. It worked, it worked, it worked!” she sang excitedly, bouncing her fists into the air. “I helped! Mercy! I did it, I helped!”
She hooked her arm with Holly’s and the two girls danced around together while Sweets cheered gleefully. “We did it, we did it, we did it!” they sang together excitedly.
A slow smile crept onto my face as I realize we’d managed to separate my mother and Merrick after all of these years of being bound – my mother was free!
Alba spoke solemnly. “I hate to break up this little party we’ve got going on here, but just because we managed to separate the dolls, doesn’t guarantee we’ve unbound Linda and Merrick. I think we need to go to the hospital and see if anything changed.”
With the dolls in hand, I was the first to the door. “Let’s go!”
***
When we returned to the hospital, Reign was already back and seated comfortably in a chair by our mother’s side, paging through his phone quietly while Mom giggled in her hospital bed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked her, cranking my head back to see the TV screen that was mounted to the wall.
“I just love that Uncle Jesse.” Mom laughed without ungluing her eyes from the TV screen.
Reign rolled his eyes. “She’s watching Nick at Nite. I think they are having a Full House marathon, it’s been playing since I got back.”
“What can I say? John Stamos is sexy!” Then in a deep voice mom quoted the character, “Have Mercy.”
Sweets giggled.
“Oh my god, Mom. You’re so embarrassing,” I said, covering my face with my hands. Throughout my entire childhood, my mother always had crushes on TV stars. And no matter what my friends and I were doing, she’d always manage to talk about the celebrities like they were her real boyfriends. She used to tell people that John Stamos was my father because apparently my father bore a striking resemblance to him.
“That’s how Mercy got her name you know,” she told my friends excitedly.
Sweets looked up at the TV. “Because Uncle Jesse said have Mercy?”
My mother nodded exuberantly. “Yes, I had just been admitted to the hospital because I was in labor and I still hadn’t picked out a name…”
I covered my face. “Oh my god, Mom. Do not – ,”
“And Full House was playing in my room. This was back in the 90’s when it was a hit show – mind you, it was a new episode, not a re-run. And John Stamos, who looks just like Mercy’s father, says, Have Mercy, and all of a sudden I have this huge urge to push.
“Mom!” I cried, dying of embarrassment.
“I ring my call button and the nurse comes in and before she can even get a doctor into the room, Mercy started trying to make her way into the world. I ended up having her right then and there. That nurse had to deliver her all on her own!”
The girls all looked at me. I could tell they were holding back their laughter. I felt the temperature rising in my face by about a hundred degrees. “Mother!” I hollered at her. “Do you have to tell everyone of my friends that dumb story?”
Reign looked at me with a sad look on his face. “Be nice, Sis. At least you get a happy story about your birth.”
Reign’s words paralyzed me and suddenly I felt bad about being so hateful towards the story I’d heard my entire life about how I’d been named.
“Sorry Reign,” I said softly. Then the reason we’d come to see Mom came to me. “But I think we’ve fixed things for all three of you!” I told him excitedly.
“All three of us? Who is all three of us?” he asked, confused.
“You, Mom, and your dad.”
My mom muted the television and looked at me curiously. “Mercy. What have you done?”
I motioned the rest of the Witch Squad forward so that we were all standing in a tight semi-circle around my mother’s bed. “It’s not what I’ve done, Mom. It’s what the Witch Squad has done! We fixed your Merrick problem.”
Mom shook her head angrily. “I didn’t have a Merrick problem.”
I nodded back at her emphatically. “You did have a Merrick problem, and we fixed it!”
“Mercy Mae Habernackle. What have you done?”
Reign leaned forward in his chair expectantly, anxious to hear what we’d done. “Should I be worried?”
“No. I think you’re going to like what we did!” I said excitedly. I sucked in a deep breath and held onto it for several long seconds.
“Well! Don’t keep us waiting. I’m in a hospital bed. I might not have all night,” my mother barked at me.
I blew out the deep breath and spoke at the same time. “We unbound you and Merrick!”
“You what?!” she screamed, sitting up higher in her bed. “Mercy! You didn’t even ask me?!”
Reign slumped backwards in his chair with a stunned expression on his face, like we’d just blown his mind. “Wow! Sis, I’m impressed!”
“Don’t be too impressed yet,” Sweets said anxiously. “We actually came here to make sure that it worked. We think it worked, but we won’t know for sure until Linda and Merrick get in the same room.”
Reign stood up anxiously. “Then I’ll go get my father!”
My mother shot me a set of poisonous eyes and then glanced at Reign. “Reign, sit back down,” she ordered. “I don’t want to see your father for the first time in twenty-four years while I’m sitting in a hospital bed with an ugly old hospital robe on. I’d like to be able to put on a little lipstick and brush my hair and maybe wear something that doesn’t tie in the back.”
Reign sat back down with a tiny grin on his face. “Oh, yeah. Got it.”
“But Mom!” I insisted
. “We need to know if it worked!”
“You’ll know soon enough. I can’t believe you didn’t even consult with me first!”
“Mom. We needed to know if all of these weird things were happening because of your proximity to Merrick or if he’s the one doing them to you to scare you away.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you could have killed Merrick or myself with your spell? Spells aren’t something to be taken lightly. Especially binding spells. They can be very dangerous.”
The girls all looked at me.
I furrowed my eyebrows and looked down at the ground. “Yeah, I know,” I replied grudgingly, kicking the toe of my black sneakers against the tiled floor. “We were just trying to help.”
My mother’s face softened and she reached her hand out to me. “I know, Mercy. I know you were just trying to help. I just think sometimes you need to think things through before you do them. You’re a very impulsive person, you know.”
I sat down next to her on the bed and took her hand. “I’ll try, Mom.”
She squeezed my hand and then let go to open her arms up to the rest of the girls. “Come on in, girls. Hugs all around!”
Jax, Holly, and Sweets gladly accepted a hug, while Alba hung back.
“Come on Alba, I’ve got a hug for you too.”
Alba shook her head and held up a hand. “Thanks Ms. H, but I’m solid.”
My mother furrowed her eyebrows at Alba. “Alba Sanchez, come over here and give me a hug!”
I had to cover up my mouth so Alba wouldn’t see my smile. “Her middle name is Suzanne, Mom.”
Jax giggled.
My mom gave Alba a broad smile. “Alba Suzanne Sanchez, come over here and give me a hug!”
The rest of the girls laughed hard.
“Alba Suzanne Sanchez? Alba’s initials are A.S.S.?” Holly shouted, having a hard time breathing through her laughter. “That’s too funny.”
Alba rolled her eyes at the girls as she gave my mother the briefest of hugs.
“Ok, Mom. We’re going to go. I will come back in the morning and help you get home, ok?”
“I’ll get Mom home in the morning, Sis. You can just stop by when you get out of class.”
“Call first,” Mom insisted with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “You never know, I might have a visitor in the morning!”
{ Chapter Thirteen}
My brother sent me a text message the minute he got Mom home from the hospital. The doctor had said that she was going to be fine. Reign also told me that he’d had a chance to visit his father and Merrick was shocked to hear that a group of young witches had been able to unbind the two of them. He said he’d have to see it to believe it. He had a run of classes to teach and the minute his schedule cleared he was planning to pay my mother a visit to see if the spell had indeed been broken. Reign thought it would probably be around 1:00 before Merrick would be able to get down to see Mom.
The minute I got back to my dorm room after lunch, I had barely had time to throw my backpack down onto the floor before I heard a rustling noise in the window. I turned to look and found Sneaks stepping across the threshold.
“Mom!” I said, startled. “You scared me.”
“Sorry Mercy. I needed to see you,” she said, sitting down on the desk and curling her tail around herself.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked down at her black furry paws. “Nothing is wrong. I’m home from the hospital. The doctor says I’m fine.”
“I know. Reign texted me after you were released this morning. I’m glad you’re going to be ok. Is there something else on your mind?” I asked her knowingly.
She tilted her head to the side as she looked at me. “I suppose there is. I’m kind of nervous. Did Reign tell you that he spoke to his father this morning? Merrick is coming to see me.”
I smiled at her softly. Despite the fact that I wasn’t a big Merrick fan, it was sort of cute that she was nervous. “Why are you nervous Mom? He was your first love, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s been twenty-four years! I’ve changed! I’m not young and beautiful like I was back then. Now I’m old and witchy and I have wrinkles and white hairs!”
I sat down on the bed across from her. “Mom. First of all, you’re really not that old. You might be a little witchy, but wait until you see him. He’s super wizardy, so the witchy thing works for you. Second of all, you don’t have wrinkles, they are in your imagination and the white hairs go with the witchy vibe. You’re all good.”
“I’m not all good, Mercy. I’m an old woman now.”
I threw my head back and rolled my eyes at her. “Mom. Quit it. You’re hot! For an old woman, anyway.”
“See!”
“Kidding, kidding!” I chuckled. “You’re just hot. I swear, Mom. No need to worry about it. Merrick is still going to think you’re smokin’ hot. Is that what you want him to think?”
Sneaks stood up and arched her back and walked around the very edge of the desk before jumping off the desk and sitting on the pillow next to me. “I don’t know what I want. I think that’s the problem. I wish I understood why your grandmother bound us in the first place. With everything happening to me and at the school…I just don’t know that I really even know who Merrick is anymore.”
I was proud of my mother for putting her brain above her heart, even if only for a moment. I nodded and gave her a soft smile. “Yeah. I agree. You need to be cautious. Is Reign going to be there when Merrick comes over?” The thought of my mother being alone with Merrick suddenly flipped my stomach. What if he did something to her?
“No, Reign said he’d give us some privacy. He’s going to step out for awhile.”
“Mom!” I exclaimed. “You can’t be alone with Merrick. What if he harms you in some way?”
“Mercy, you know he’s coming and Reign knows he’s coming. He certainly wouldn’t do anything to harm me knowing full well that people knew he was coming over. He’d be the first suspect!”
“I don’t think he cares about that,” I said angrily, thinking about Ronnie’s murder. “He’s an evil man. Just remember that.”
“I’ll be careful, Mercy.”
“And you’ll keep your cell phone handy? None of this Skitches, stuff, ok?”
I almost thought I saw Sneaks smile for a moment. “Yeah, ok. No Skitches, I’ll call if there’s something wrong.”
“Good. What time is he coming?”
“Any minute, I guess. I’m so nervous,” she said, squealing at me.
“You’ll be fine, Mom. What are you wearing?”
“My plum colored dress with heels.”
“The low cut one?!” I asked incredulously. My mother never wore that dress unless the guy she was going out with looked like a movie star.
“Yes, the low cut one.”
“Mom. You haven’t seen Merrick in almost twenty-five years. I promise you. He doesn’t look like a celebrity anymore. Go put on a sweater.”
“I’m not going to put on a sweater. I look nice. Reign even said so.”
“Reign didn’t have a problem with you putting the girls on display?”
“Your brother is a gentleman. He didn’t say a word.”
“Well, I’m not a gentleman. Go put on a sweater,” I insisted.
“Oh! I think I heard something outside. I think he might be here,” Mom said excitedly. “Wish me luck!”
My heart suddenly seemed to be racing inside my chest. “Be careful Mom. Maybe I should come over there?”
“You’re not coming over here!”
“Are you sure, because I could be there in a few minutes. Faster if I take the broomstick.”
“Mercy Mae. Oh! I heard his door slam. I gotta go, love you.”
“But Mom!” I hollered at Sneaks.
Sneaks looked at me blankly.
“Mom?” I asked and crouched down and looked Sneaks in the eye.
“Meow,” she said plainly before rolling onto her bottom to start a spontaneous bath.
“Ugh! Mom!” I growled and fell back on the bed. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall at that bar! And then it hit me like a lightning bolt. I looked at Sneaks again as an evil little smile spread across my face. Two can play at this game, Mom!
I quickly leapt off the bed, threw open my dorm room door and stuck my head out into the hallway. I looked both ways and when I was satisfied that no one was coming, I pulled my head back into my room and slammed my door shut, locking both the top lock and the bottom lock. Then I ran back to my bed and tossed myself onto it, giddy with excitement. I scooted backwards until my back was firmly against the wall, I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath, inhale, exhale. Chesney Enchantment, I said calmly.
Within the blink of an eye, I found myself playing with a little chew toy in a closet of some sort. It was dark and I had no idea where I was. I poked my nose against the only crack of light that I could see and a door slowly opened. Without another thought, I raced ahead as fast as my little legs would carry me until I found a familiar sight. I had been in the broom closet just off the kitchen. Now I was in the kitchen. I scurried as fast as I could to the dining room just as Mom was answering the front door.
I leapt as I ran, excited that the Skitches spell had worked again for me. It was like I was in a virtual reality video game again. I was controlling Chesney’s movements and I was his eyes and ears. I made the mistake of playing the role of the over eager puppy and found myself unable to stop my mad dash towards Mom, sliding on the hardwood floor and crashing into her ankles. “Shoo Chesney, shoo,” she said lightly, scooting Chesney’s furry little butt along on the floor.
I took the hint and scurried to hide underneath a table, I didn’t want to risk getting locked in the closet or something for being a naughty puppy.
“Hello. Merrick?” I heard Mom ask. I was sure that I heard shock in her voice. See Mom, I told you he’d changed!
“Linda! This is incredible. Wow, Linda, you look…amazing!” Merrick said to her. The tone of his voice was one I hadn’t heard before. Usually, he sounded menacing and evil, but the new tone was kind and almost charming. The complete 180 made me want to leave the gift of doggy doo doo on the man’s shoes. Maybe I’d save that little surprise for later.
Witch Degrees of Separation: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #3 Page 11
