I am Mercy

by Mandi Lynn

  Hadley becomes silent next to me. I wonder if she remembers the last moments of her human life, how she had so readily taken hold of one of the stones that called her to the lagoon in the first place—the same stone she can’t live without now. And it makes me wonder if this man feels the same thing—like he must go to the lagoon. It’s not a choice for him; he must simply go.

  So he does. He walks within feet of where Hadley and I stand. We are quiet as he makes his journey to the lagoon. His steps seem more certain the closer he gets. Behind me I hear Hadley stir, like she is putting all her effort into not running up to the man and stopping him from what he is about to do.

  His feet touch the water. His leather shoes become soaked, but he doesn’t flinch or slow down. The water is almost up to his knees before he stops.

  “Please,” Hadley says, her small voice breaking against the words.

  The man’s head snaps up at her words, looking in her general direction but unable to find her.

  She freezes, so surprised by the possibility that he may have heard her.

  The man turns in our direction, searching for the sound, but just as soon as we had his attention, it is gone again. He bends down into the water, letting the water lap beyond his fingers, reaching his elbows. When he straightens again, he holds a silvery stone. And just like Hadley, the action is so simple. He looks at it and faints.

  Hadley jumps up from behind me and goes to his aid. She must think he’s human. She must assume he is in danger of drowning.

  “Hadley,” I say, catching her arm before she can touch him.

  She pulls and pushes against me, so ignorant to what is happening even though her own human body has faced the same thing.

  “Don’t.”

  “Luna, he’ll die if we let him drown!”

  “Hadley,” I say in soft voice.

  Her tugging weakens as she hears my voice and turns to look at me.

  “He’s already dead.”

  “No. Luna, he’s human. He’s from my town. I grew up seeing him every day in the square. He’s not an Essence like we are—he must have just been wandering around drunk and got lost. He does that, Luna, but if we don’t help him, he’ll drown.”

  Her eyes are pleading with me. Her expression softens as she begs me to loosen my grip and allow her to help. Her strength wanes until she watches my eyes, waiting for me to change my mind.

  “He’s not human anymore. That stone he picked up, it is the same type you chose when you first found the lagoon.”

  She must hear my words, but she doesn’t respond. All Hadley does is turn from me and look to the man in the lagoon. His body occupies the middle of the water, floating like driftwood in the ocean. He doesn’t look dead—he looks radiant. The sun reflects off the water and makes his skin glow, like he is a lost angel who was never meant to fall to Earth.

  “His name is Edwin.” She walks up to the very edge of the water, just close enough so the hem of her skirt skims the shore.

  “Did you know him very well?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “My mother always told me to stay away, but I never feared him like the monster everyone thought him to be. Of course I never spoke to him, but he seemed nice enough. Just a little … lost.”

  She watches him like this is the last connection she has to her previous life, and I suppose in a way it is. There is no way for her to see her mother or father or Valen. But here is Edwin, a person seen but never spoken to, and he has just landed himself in this life. Neither Hadley nor I asked for him to be here.

  “Why can’t I touch him?” Hadley finally asks.

  I have no answer. For some reason the thought of anyone moving him from the lagoon makes it feel as if we are disturbing him. But who am I to say whether he should be moved or not? When it had been Hadley, I had dragged her body from the water the first chance I got before leaving her by the shore.

  When I don’t answer, she steps into the water. It hugs around her legs like a second skin as she goes closer to Edwin, wrapping her arms around his torso. She drags him out, never so much as asking for help when she reaches the shore.

  His clothing clings to his skin; water droplets roll over his forehead. He doesn’t gasp for air as he is pulled from the water—his human life is over. So fast, so unnoticed he is gone. And it’s like he never made a whisper.

  LII.

  “He heard me,” Hadley says.

  It’s night. The moon is high above us now, full in its shape. Days before Hadley would have left me to visit Valen, but here she is next to Edwin, the only part of her human life she has left. She never leaves his side, because she is afraid for him—for this life he has to wake up to.

  “How could he hear me?”

  It bothers her; that much I can tell. It bothers her that he may be some monster who can hear an Essence. Hadley looks at Edwin, a man who was lost within himself, and she combs over him with her piercing gaze like he may have a secret.

  “He heard me when he was still human. Is that possible?” she asks. Finally she looks at me.

  “It’s not supposed to be,” I tell her. Garren had made sure of this for me. He said an Essence can go on unseen, unheard. It used to be we could roam the earth like any other human, but then Garren changed that. Humanity forgot our kind. They walked through our bodies, ignored our voices, and forgot our images. Yet Edwin could hear Hadley, and Dimitri heard me before I ran away with Clara. It shouldn’t be possible, but it is.

  “Why?” Hadley looks at Edwin.

  I’m not sure what it is she sees when she looks at him, but I think it may be sorrow. She lost her human life when she came here, and no matter how simple Edwin’s life may have been—wandering through town without a family or home—it is still a loss.

  “It’s emotion,” I say.

  Hadley seems to be considering this.

  “Why did you say please?”

  Hadley sits up to face me. “Because I didn’t want him to pick up the stone.” She opens her hand once again, looking at the green gem there. It’s a burden to her; it took her life away. Somehow by looking into it, she left her human life behind forever. “I didn’t want him to do the same thing I had done.”

  She cared. Just like I had cared about Clara when Dimitri had heard me. I wanted to yell and scream, make him aware of everything he had done to murder a mother and consequently her child, but I couldn’t. Yet somehow, after all Garren had done to make it impossible, the man had heard my voice.

  “What happened? When you picked up the stone?” I ask.

  “I saw myself. I don’t know why I picked up the stone or why I even bothered looking at it, but I didn’t see a silver stone in my hand. When I looked down I saw myself. I saw my eyes, and how alive and frightened they were. But I felt so lifted, so alive—and peering into my own eyes, I couldn’t have looked away even if I wanted to. I don’t remember anything after that.”

  Hadley turns her head to look at Edwin. He is at rest, his clothing now dry. I don’t know how long it has been since he fell into the water, but he shows no sign of stirring awake. His hair is trimmed almost to his ears, and his clothing reveals he knew the streets well. If I hadn’t seen him fall into the water, I would have thought he was just asleep now. His hand is tight around what must be the stone he had picked from the lagoon.

  “Was I this peaceful?” Hadley asks.

  I didn’t stay with you, I want to tell her. I dragged her from the water and left her half on the shore, half in the lagoon. I wasn’t watchful and nurturing like Hadley is now, but I remember the relief on her face right before she dropped into the water. So I tell her, “Yes.”

  She nods her head and there is silence between us for the rest of the night. We don’t discuss how Edwin’s human life is over or how, when he wakes, we will have to explain to him what it means to be an Essence. How we exist without the world. How every night, when the sun sets and the moon rises, we must be within the confines of the lagoon area within the forest.

  He lie
s on the shore in a sort of bliss that is only temporary.

  ~~~

  It’s morning with the light first shining when Edwin finally moves. He turns over to his side, and as he does his spirit separates from itself. He moves and crouches on the ground, yet his body remains in its fixed position. I turn to Hadley to see if she has seen the same thing, but when I do I see she had fallen asleep at some point during the night, her mind quieting enough to fall into human habits. When I look at Edwin again, his body fades away until it is gone completely. But I still see him, strong as day, in the form of an Essence.

  I lean forward and stir Hadley awake.

  “What?” she asks in a dazed voice.

  “He’s awake,” I tell her quickly.

  At the sound of us speaking, he turns in the direction of our voices. As he does so, his face lights up and he smiles. “Hadley!” he says, coming to his feet to join us.

  “Daddy?” she says. She stands also, picking up the hem of her skirt so she can go to Edwin.

  “Hadley?” That’s her father?

  In that moment I’m lost outside their world. Edwin doesn’t hesitate as Hadley steps forward and hugs the man who is no longer human. When she wraps her arms around him, her head rests against his chest like the embrace is something so familiar to them both, though neither can feel each other’s touch.

  “I thought I lost you,” Edwin says. He holds her at arm’s length, looking her up and down. His eyes are full of wonder as he looks at Hadley, and all she can do is smile in return.

  “I’ve been here,” she says.

  “Hadley?” I ask again. This time she seems to hear me, turning from Edwin but not stepping away. “I thought you said he was someone who wandered your town. You didn’t say he was your father.”

  Her face lowers with my words, like I’ve interrupted a fairy tale. She opens her mouth to speak but then thinks better of it and remains quiet. Behind her, her father looks at me for the first time. I can’t tell if his gaze is critical or accepting, but when he sees my silvery irises, he takes Hadley by the shoulder and pulls her away slightly.

  “Who is this?” he asks Hadley, a protective grip on her arm.

  Hadley tries to step away, but he doesn’t let her. Instead she just speaks with his back to her. “Daddy, this is Luna. She told me what we are, and she’ll teach you also.”

  His eyes are sharp on me now. “What we are?” he asks. “What are we exactly?”

  Edwin pushes Hadley behind him, so she can’t look at me—this stranger who has his daughter. She doesn’t protest, but her head peeks around his frame to watch. She smiles at me, but it is forced, almost scared as her father acts like Hadley might just be a piece of property.

  “Sir, your daughter and I aren’t something you’ve ever heard of. We’re something that exists only in the spiritual sense. And now that you’ve come here and picked up that stone you hold in your hand, you’ve become one also. We’re an Essence.”

  His face contorts with brewing anger, but he lifts his hand and opens his palm to the stone I had seen him pick from the lagoon. Surprise crosses his features as he toys with the stone he hadn’t even realized he had been clutching.

  “Did you kidnap my daughter and tell her these lies so she’d never come home?” he says with such sudden fervor that I’m taken aback by his tone.

  “No, not at all,” I say, trying to sway him to listen.

  “Daddy, she’s telling the truth,” Hadley says.

  “Quiet! Don’t you listen to her!” Edwin shouts.

  Hadley whimpers at his words, like he had just hit her.

  I can tell by the broken features of her face that no matter how much she may agree with my words, she won’t speak out against her father again.

  “You need to understand, this isn’t something I can control,” I say. “You picked up that stone and it took away your human life.”

  He listens to my words, but his face doesn’t soften. Instead he glares into his hand that holds the stone. It’s dark blue, intense with a frigid sense of energy that I can’t place.

  “What makes you think we only exist in spirit?”

  I can hear the skepticism in his voice, but I take a moment to convince him of the life he now has to live.

  “Humans can’t see us. We can’t touch them, and they can’t touch us. And they can only hear us if the proper emotion calls for it. Being heard isn’t something we can always control.”

  He doesn’t look at me and I can feel his distrust. He just rolls the stone across his fingers. Hadley watches him but doesn’t speak up or move. Instead she stays in the spot her father had pushed her to, like she was a small child in need of punishment.

  “And that stone,” I say, “It has your soul, and that’s why you’re unable to put it down.”

  His hand stills. Edwin looks at me and there is something more than challenge in his eyes as he bends down, placing the deep blue stone on the forest floor. Without breaking eye contact, he stands again, this time with empty hands.

  I can see his desire to give me a smug smile, but it is overpowered by his driving need to touch the stone. He tries to hold my gaze, but after a few moments his eyes flit down to the stone. He bends to pick it up again.

  I don’t say anything, and neither does he. Edwin doesn’t tell me that I’m right or how, without the touch of the stone, he felt an anxious need to see it or touch it—to just have it in his possession. He doesn’t confirm the suspicions I’ve formed after watching Hadley fidget when the stone was out of her touch.

  “Essence?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  He nods his head, finally believing my words. Edwin looks to Hadley. She stands with her hands in fists at her sides, as if she might be tempted to run to my aid if needed but knew better than to step forward. When her father looks at her, she relaxes.

  “What happened?” he asks her.

  Hadley bites the bottom of her lip, facing something that she thought she had left behind forever—her human life, her father.

  “Daddy, I didn’t mean it. I was supposed to meet Valen, but he never came.” Edwin stiffens at the boy’s name, and Hadley instantly backs away.

  “I told you—”

  “No, Daddy, you didn’t tell me. You demanded!” Her words come out fast.

  Hadley says them before her father is able to finish his own sentence, and I think I see regret in her eyes as the words come. “I love him,” she says in a defeated voice.

  Edwin doesn’t scold Hadley. He stands there and takes her words, but I have a feeling these are words and phrases he’s heard before.

  “Valen looked for you every day for weeks, until he finally gave up,” Edwin says.

  Hadley’s eyes light up. “Really?” Then they are heavy and weighted, like she’s so tired of wanting something that she can’t have.

  Valen loved her enough to search for her. That’s all she had ever wished, for him to find her, but sadness shows in her stance. If Valen came to her, he would also become a part of this curse; if he didn’t come, she would be without him forever.

  “Yes,” Edwin says.

  Hadley’s eyes look everywhere except at her father and me.

  I can see her mind working as she ignores our presence and puts together thoughts I don’t trust her to form. All at once she gathers herself and walks into the forest, following the path she used to every night when she would visit Valen. This is the first time I’ve seen her step out of the vicinity of the lagoon since that night.

  “Hadley?” I call out her name, a few steps behind her, but she doesn’t stop to acknowledge me. “Where are you going?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You can’t leave,” I say, watching as she slowly grows farther and farther away.

  Behind us is the lagoon; Edwin stands alone, waiting for some answers to his new life. But Hadley moves forward, never taking a moment to gain her bearings as she pushes away branches and leaves to maneuver the path she’s created for her
self.

  “I’ll be back before nightfall. I promise you.”

  “You can’t visit Valen,” I say.

  She stops and turns to me.

  I expect to look at her face and see nothing but disgust for my words, but instead I see love and longing.

  “I have to,” she tells me. “What if he can hear my voice?”

  Her words hang over us. The silence that follows is long and pleading as I remember all the times humans have heard us speak. It could be possible for us to communicate with the human world, and it’s a hard offer to let pass.

  “Luna, I have to say goodbye. I have to tell him that I love him.”

  She doesn’t walk away yet.

  I think of what I would do if I were Hadley, if I had the chance to tell Garren that I loved him and to say goodbye. And the answer is simple.

  “Hurry back,” I say.

  I’m just barely able to see her smile form before she slips into the trees, heading forward with a renewed purpose and motivation. She’s a girl in love, and I’m jealous of her ability to love and be loved so fearlessly.

  LIII.

  Edwin is sitting near the shore of the lagoon when I step from the trees. He hears my approach and in an instant his back straightens, like he’s afraid of being seen as anything less than weak.

  “She’s gone off to see him again,” he says, never bothering to turn to look at me.

  “Yes.”

  His hands cover his face as I step alongside him. I sit a distance away, my gown spilling out around me in piles of silk. He sees this and laughs in the light way that only happens when dealing with simple emotions scattered between tragedies.

  “Why the old gown? Dressing for your suitor, so he can take you to the costume gala?”

  I watch his face as he speaks, but he never bothers to look at me. “I don’t know where I am, let alone where the man I love is. Hadley suggested I wear the dress, if he were to ever find me.”

  Edwin releases a heavy breath. “Sorry,” is all he says.

  “She’s your daughter?” I ask.