I am Mercy

by Mandi Lynn

  “We have the same smile,” he says, but he doesn’t smile, so I can’t say if he’s right or not.

  Instead he seems intent on staring forward into nothing, like the world will give answers or gifts.

  “She didn’t tell me that you were her father,” I say. He never so much as responds, so I try again. “Hadley referred to you as the man who wanders around drunk, the man her mother told her to avoid.”

  His shoulders hunch forward at the words, like I’ve taken a whip to his back for a lashing. His eyes wander to the ground.

  “Her mother passed away a few years ago.” For a long moment that’s all he says. I don’t push him for more, but with patience he speaks again. “I drink a little too much, so her mother would probably say that.”

  “You don’t approve of Valen?”

  “No,” he says in a hard voice.

  “But why? If he loves her, that’s all that should matter.”

  Edwin turns to me and finally looks me in the eye. He sees me as something smaller and weaker than himself as he speaks.

  “You don’t know anything. Love is a fairy tale. My own wife doesn’t love me today, didn’t love me yesterday, and probably won’t love me tomorrow. Life is about getting by, not finding your soul mate.” He scoffs at the words. “Hadley wasted her time falling for Valen and look where it has taken her.”

  “That’s not true,” I say.

  “Isn’t it?” he says, getting to his feet. He stands over me and sways the slightest bit.

  In that moment I can see him as the drunken man Hadley had described.

  “You must have seen reason enough though. You loved a man, but here you are—getting by, just as you should. Not writing some love story.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a love story,” I say.

  ~~~

  Hadley comes back before dusk like she had promised. The sky is just starting to glow with a purple and orange hue as she walks through the trees, gliding her fingertips over the edges of the bark. Her step has no rush or energy as she approaches. Defeat fills her stance but also contentment. Her body screams surrender, but her face seems more placid and calm.

  “Did you find him?” I ask. She seems to be in her own trance, but she lifts her head to my voice.

  “Yes,” she says. Her voice reveals nothing.

  I find no hint of emotion in her. Instead Hadley just looks around, turning her body so she can see behind me. “Is my father here?”

  I turn to look. He had been by the lagoon the last time I had checked, but now there is no sign of him. I had warned Edwin of the dangers of straying from the lagoon after dark, but he seems to have run off, if only for a little while. But the sky is still bright; he has time to come back if he wishes.

  “He’ll come,” I tell her.

  Hadley nods her head as if the information means nothing to her, but then she lets out a deep sigh and seems to surrender to herself. “I told him goodbye,” she says, brushing past me to sit on a large rock that juts out from the ground. She smiles in a happy way as she lets her shield fall away.

  Neither one of us needs to say who he is—it’s the boy she loves. His name is Valen, even if we don’t speak it.

  “He heard you?” I sit next to her on the stone. Hadley seems so exhausted as she speaks, but I see the happiness radiate off her skin and into the air.

  “I found him in town. I followed him for a long time until he was alone, and then I told him goodbye.”

  A smile creeps across her lips, even though I know she never wanted to tell Valen goodbye—not forever.

  “How?” I ask.

  “He was carrying something to another town close by—a basket of some sorts—but I stepped up to walk with him. And, Luna, he stopped walking when I was close to him. He looked around like he knew I was there but wasn’t quite sure of my location. So I gave him space, and after another moment he walked again.

  “I whispered to him that I was okay, and you know what he did, Luna?”

  Hadley looks at me, like she can’t believe her own words. In her mind the memory is something just short of a miracle—something she wanted and asked for but never thought she would receive—a final goodbye.

  “He whispered my name.” Her words are so final. “And I stood off to the side and he found me. He couldn’t look at me, but in that moment he knew exactly where I was. I told him that I loved him and that I was okay. He heard me, Luna, because he whispered back, ‘I love you too’.”

  Hadley’s lips quiver, but what I see is so different than the sadness I had seen earlier. This isn’t heartbreak; this is love.

  “And I told him goodbye, Luna. I said goodbye, and he didn’t say anything back, but I know he heard me because he dropped the basket he was carrying and came to me. He stood right in front of me and couldn’t see me, but it didn’t matter because he knew I was there. I told him I had to go and that I would always love him, and he shook his head and cried. I had never seen him cry, and it hurt so much.”

  Her words slow down, like the memory is becoming too much for her. But soon her body relaxes again, and I can tell she is ready to finish her story.

  “He fell to his knees, and I knew there was nothing in this world I could have done to take away his pain. He begged me to come back somehow, to take him with me, to do something so we could be together again, but I can’t do that to him. So as he knelt, I bent forward and kissed his forehead.”

  Hadley locks her gaze on mine. “We can’t touch humans?” she asks, her voice quivering and scratching over the syllables.

  “No,” I say, my words so light against hers.

  Hadley bites the bottom of her lips, like she is holding in tears, but then she takes a breath and continues. “I left after I passed through his body. I didn’t want to be his ghost.”

  Every emotion seems so potent. Next to me Hadley tries to compose herself. I watch her as her quivers subside and she takes control of herself once again.

  “Luna?”

  When I turn to look at her, she doesn’t look broken anymore. Hadley looks tired, like it’s been days since she has been able to sleep, but at the same time she seems so alive, so ready to fight if it were called for.

  “I think there’s more to this than we can understand. I know you said being an Essence means you can’t exist physically, but is speaking physical or spiritual?”

  Her question rolls over in my mind, and once again I can’t find an answer for her. Speaking doesn’t seem either physical or spiritual. So what does that make it? And what does it mean that humans can hear us?

  “I don’t think we are as cut off from the human world as much as we may think,” Hadley says.

  LIV.

  There’s something about eternity that suddenly makes time pass in a different way. When I was human it had a certain hum, a certain pace that says things can only happen during a specific time. Nothing can happen too soon or too fast. But eternity awakens a quickened tone.

  Years lapse without much certainty. A day seems to possess only glimmers of reality. The sun rises and sets in a faster course. Weeks for a human seem only to be a day to an Essence. It all fuses together, because there is no distinction. We have nowhere to go, no places to see, no escape. Each day at sunset we must be here, in the forest, around the lagoon.

  I’ve made note to watch the seasons. Green leaves turn to bright red, orange, and yellow, until finally a burnt brown allows the trees to shed their leaves. The trees make their own coating on the forest floor until the sky releases the white snow of winter. When the snow melts, the trees bloom and the cycle starts again. I count each cycle, and I’m amazed when the years pass. The three of us live together in the lagoon, wandering during the days when the sun is high, and coming back at night before the sun whispers its last goodbye of the evening.

  Hadley speaks to her father but only in clipped words. Neither mentions their past or even their future. Edwin talks to me, but only if I say something first. They put up with each other. That is al
l. Edwin is Hadley’s father, but no one would know it by just watching them. Hadley never speaks ill of him, and the only time she has touched him was to hug him when he first came to the lagoon. Edwin has a hold on her though. She acts differently when he is around, like she feels she must behave or get reprimanded. And when I watch Edwin, I see why. He looks at her like she is property—not in a protective fatherly way, but in ownership, like no one can touch Hadley without his permission.

  Hadley watches the town. She watches for Valen. He grows up without her and falls in love again. Hadley never learns the name of the girl, but she isn’t much younger than Valen himself. Many nights the two of us stay up speaking to each other. Hadley knows never to ask of Garren. She had once, but she knows it only hurts me. Instead Hadley tells me of Valen and the new love he has found. I expect her to mourn her loss of Valen, but she never does. Instead she seems happy for him. And only a few years later they marry. Hadley is a ghost at their wedding, standing in the corner of the church without anyone knowing she is really there.

  One night I asked her why she watches him after she had said goodbye. Hadley told me it was because, even though he can’t love her anymore, she still loves him and she can’t change that. She had said goodbye because she believed in love. And, to her, love was making sure he was happy, even if it was with someone else.

  ~~~

  The sun had just begun to set. The orange sky is a warning sign that screams out retreat. Hadley is already sitting at the edge of the lagoon when I break through the trees, but Edwin isn’t in sight yet.

  “Have you seen your father?” I ask.

  Hadley stands as I approach and wipes at the skirts of her gown. The bright green, once the same color as her stone, is now muted and dull. A vine necklace hangs across her collarbone, the thick natural cords wrapping around the stone that conceals a piece of Hadley’s soul. Her arms hang loose at her sides, no longer wrapped tightly into a fist like they had been for months until Hadley made her distinctive piece of jewelry.

  “I saw him in town today.”

  “He doesn’t go into town,” I say.

  Edwin leaves the lagoon every day, but never once has he set foot in town. I had asked him why, and he said that seeing faces he knew go on without him wasn’t worth his time. He said he’d rather walk through the same forest every day than see people he knew make something out of their lives, all when he had lost his.

  “He said it’s been long enough.”

  I run through the amount of time in my head. It’s been years; that much I’m sure of. Seasons have come and gone. Snow has coated the forest and frozen the lagoon, except for the steady rhythm of water that never stills. Ice crystals have formed transparent stalagmites, only to melt away within a few months, weeks, or days. But I’m not sure if enough years have passed to allow Edwin’s generation to disappear.

  The sky is purple now. Hadley watches the sun hover over the horizon and realizes her father only has a handful of time left before the sun goes down. Neither one of us knows what happens if we don’t come back to the lagoon. Hadley had been caught between the trees once after sundown, and I can tell by the way her fingers dig into her palm that she doesn’t wish that pain upon her father.

  A look of worry coats Hadley’s face as she glances through the trees near the perimeter of the lagoon. She turns her gaze back to the sky to see how much time is left.

  “Should I look for him?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “He knows better than to stay out.”

  “But what if he got lost? It’s been years since he’s gone into town.”

  I give Hadley a stern look. She and I both understand that her father, no matter how long it has been, would know his way around town enough to get back.

  Hadley continues to look between the trees and the sky.

  She’s almost calm in a way, but at the same time I can see her cool exterior slip as the seconds go by. It amazes me how this man has never acted as a father toward Hadley, yet she still loves him.

  “He’ll get here,” I say.

  Hadley nods her head but doesn’t reply. Her attention turns when a low scream bursts from the forest. The sky is darker now, much darker than it normally is when we come back to the lagoon at night.

  “Daddy?” Hadley runs off. She stops just shy of where the border of the lagoon ends. The pebbles of the beach stop, and the ground where she stands turns to a soil with small bits of green in it. It’s almost as if a rope were tied around her waist, stopping her from going any farther as her fingers reach out to the forest. There’s an invisible barrier in front of her, a warning that she should go no farther.

  As I come up behind her, I feel a presence growing upon me, making it harder to walk forward. Once I am next to Hadley my chest and neck constrict, making it difficult to breathe. In my mind I keep reminding myself how I’m not human--how air shouldn’t matter—but panic swells within me regardless.

  Edwin is lost within the trees. He stumbles over rocks and branches that reach out across from him. He trips more often than not, but that doesn’t seem to be what is slowing him down. He looks like he’s in pain. As he comes closer, his eyes are barely open.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Hadley asks, next to me.

  Her voice is tight, and I realize she must feel the same constriction as I do here at the edge of the lagoon.

  I turn to her and she looks back at me. She must know; she must remember the pain she had felt when it had been her outside the lagoon after the sun had said goodnight once again. Except this time it is her father. Hadley doesn’t say another word to me as she turns to watch her father fight this battle against the night.

  Edwin is within arm’s reach. We could put out our arms and touch him, but the only movement we are allowed is backward. Edwin doesn’t look at us as he covers the final distance to get within the lagoon, and when he does, he falls to the ground with a muted thud. Hadley goes to work as soon as he crosses the invisible barrier created by the lagoon and pulls her father in deeper. I join her, scooping my hands under his armpits and dragging him away. As we edge from the forest, the crushing and suffocating force that made it difficult to breathe lessens until it is gone completely.

  We let go of him and back away. Hadley cowers at the edge of the water and dips her finger in, disrupting the smooth surface. As the ripples echo across the water she seems to calm. One hand dips into the water while the other clutches the stone at her neck.

  I watch Edwin as he shakes on the ground. He’s frantic, searching his pockets for something, rolling over on the ground to get a better angle without actually getting up. Finally he seems satisfied when he pulls an object from his trouser pocket and brings it to where his heart would be. Both his hands are wrapped tightly around the object, but after shifting and moments of panic, his fingers move enough to see his stone clutched there. It glows a dull red against his skin.

  Free of the forest, I feel a release within me. It was as if someone had been crushing me with their weight, forcing me to lie on the ground as a heavy stone was placed on my chest until I couldn’t breathe any longer.

  “Edwin?”

  Hadley and I both hear the unfamiliar voice. We lock gazes, and even though we stand opposite each other with Edwin between us, it is like we are connected. Neither of us know the voice, but the voice knows Edwin—her father. He lies on the ground, still winded. He doesn’t speak, but he’s heard the voice. His own eyes are turned toward the trees where the voice had come from. He knows who this is. And it scares him.

  LV.

  “Who is that?” Hadley is the first to speak. Her breaths are staggered and hard, but anger withers at the edge of her voice.

  “Just someone I used to know,” Edwin says. He tries to get up, but his strength fails him as he stumbles and falls to the ground again.

  In the trees I hear whoever it is come closer. He continues to call out for Edwin, but a response never comes from him. Hadley remains silent as the stranger comes closer. All t
hree of us are able to hear his footsteps crunch across the forest floor. Hadley has slowed her breathing enough to become quiet, but Edwin still makes haggard attempts to gain oxygen he doesn’t need to survive.

  “Who is that?” I ask. When I speak I’m surprised by the exhaustion in my voice. Any energy I exert is greeted by the same weight that had accompanied me at the edge of the forest.

  Edwin turns to look at me with a small sadness, like maybe he is sorry for what he is about to say. “I knew him when he was only a boy. I trained him to dock the boats.”

  He doesn’t say anything else. A commotion comes from the trees, but none of us turn to look.

  “Edwin!” someone says.

  It’s a man, that much I can tell from his tone. Edwin turns to his call and looks at whoever has just walked in. I shift my gaze to see a man standing at the edge of the lagoon where the forest begins.

  He freezes and looks at Edwin.

  I watch back and forth between the two of them. The man’s gaze locks on Edwin as he remains on the ground. The man sees Edwin. That shouldn’t be possible.

  “What happened to you?” the man asks. He’s no longer the boy Edwin had known when he was still human. He has grown to be a man, almost as old as Edwin when he became an Essence.

  Edwin doesn’t respond to him. He just closes his eyes and pretends like the man isn’t even here.

  I step forward. The leaves crunch under my feet, but the man doesn’t turn to look at me. I continue until I’m standing in his direct sight, but still he sees through me to Edwin.

  The man’s eyes waver the longer he remains still. After a few moments I can see his attention wane, but he doesn’t leave. Instead he steps forward, walking toward me without realizing it.

  I put out a hand to stop him, but my palm passes through his chest. I move out of the way before he is able to completely walk through my figure.

  “Edwin, why can he see you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he whimpers, still on the ground.

  The man walks forward. I wait for him to stop to speak to Edwin, but he doesn’t. Instead he continues on, stepping around Edwin where he lies. The lagoon’s clear water calls to the man until he steps to the edge of the shore. I look up at Hadley where she stands far off from the scene. Neither of us says a thing, but we both know what the other is thinking—this is it; his human life will be gone soon.