Mercy Me

by Tracy L. Ward

  He never came out with it to say why exactly he despised her so much but she guessed at a few things which drew his ire. First off, he disagreed with how she earned a living. She was no better than a snake oil salesman, conning unsuspecting Canadians out of their earnings, he had said once. Mercy hardly saw it that way. It did not matter that she wasn’t actually speaking with the dead. In her mind she was helping people and if her clients wanted to believe her advice came from the spirits so be it. A little atmospheric lighting and few gentle raps under the table didn’t hurt anyone. Besides, she had a great deal of competition and she needed to give her clients a smidgen of razzle-dazzle.

  She was too independent as well, that’s what Constance said when she finally confided in her sister. Alexander took issue with the fact that Mercy raised her daughter without the aid of a husband and that she bore no shame for it. But worst of all, it was Edith’s skin colour, soft brown, a muted legacy from her father, who never got the chance to learn that Mercy was pregnant.

  These were things of which Mercy refused to apologize for. Alexander would have to accept her as she was or at the very least not stand in her way. She was careful not to poke the bear, as they say, though. For as long as Mercy knew him he was a Christian man, and being such meant zero tolerance for her abilities, even though she could argue her talents with the dead were God-given.

  Reading palms, conducting séances, communing with the dead were not her natural abilities, but they did pay the landlord. Mercy was able to keep herself and her fourteen-year-old daughter quite well with the money she made telling fortunes and putting on private shows for the grieving widows of the city. It did not matter that what she said wasn’t true as long as her clients believed it to be.

  Mercy sidestepped a large throng of people filing in line on the sidewalk to board a waiting omnibus. She hugged the basket close to her body, a generous helping of cake folded into a napkin hidden inside. If she took Queen Street, it took exactly thirty-seven minutes for Mercy to walk from her sister’s home to her own, and, if she had timed it right, she’d be at the door just as her daughter arrived from school.

  The Mission was a Christian women’s charity conveniently located between the two sisters’ houses. Mercy readied her sister’s offering, a small sack of castoff clothing and linens, as she neared the organization’s unassuming storefront. Constance was a regular volunteer, something Mercy wasn’t sure she had the patience for. The women who made use of the program were often young, destitute, and in the motherly way. A bin was located just inside the front door, always ready for donations. Mercy’s plan was to drop the sack and head on her way but her eye caught sight of a new poster in one of the windows.

  Benefit Dinner & Séance

  with Spiritualist Medium

  Mercy Eaton

  She found herself smiling and running her finger along the glass where her name appeared. Such a public event was new for her. She’d done countless private parties but never anything so grand, at the Queen’s Hotel no less.

  A whistle blew long and hard behind her, snapping her from her trance. Someone bumped into her, pushing her farther down the sidewalk. The traffic, pedestrians and carriages alike, seemed to swell as the end of the working day drew near. She hadn’t much time. Resuming her original pace, she swerved this way and that to avoid people, carts, and garbage in the streets.

  Two blocks from the Mission, she saw a man stumbling toward her. She stepped to the curb to avoid his drunken sway but a carriage sped by, nearly rolling over her toes. The carriage door was ajar and a gloved hand reached out from the darkness inside to pull the door shut. Something about the glove caught Mercy’s eye but when she turned for a better look she felt the entire weight of the man crash into her.

  “Help me!” he breathed.

  “Sir?”

  He wasn’t drunk. His smell, though strong and sickening, resembled nothing like alcohol.

  Mercy clutched his upper arms in an attempt to keep him upright but he was already falling to the ground.

  Flashes began jolting Mercy, as if attacking her when she wasn’t prepared. A laundry basket of linens. A blonde woman. A necklace with three pearls, each a different colour. Crying.

  Who’s crying?

  Mercy struggled for breath as she felt herself pulled down by the man’s frantic grasp. She saw the bloodstain on his white, threadbare shirt as he hit the ground. She landed practically on top of him, held fast by his vicelike grip.

  There was a scream. It wasn’t Mercy.

  “He attacked her! Did you see that?”

  There was another woman off to the side and a circle of people crowding around but the man clung to Mercy, begging for help.

  “It’s all right,” she said gently, caressing the man’s face. She began shushing him like a baby and brushing the tears from his cheeks.

  A gloved hand with a gun. Fear. Panic. Choking.

  Mercy gasped for breath. A sharp pain in her stomach sent her reeling. Coughing.

  “Someone fetch a doctor!”

  Mercy was doubled over, her voice cracking against the pain.

  “Maggie.” The man’s words came out at a near whisper. Mercy drew closer to hear. “Maggie,” he said again. Mercy nodded out of fear more than anything else. Never had she received images from a person still alive. None of it made any sense and yet she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She could feel the pain he felt. Sense the wound that was his.

  A single tear slipped from the corner of the man’s eye. “Find Maggie.”

  “Yes,” Mercy said, “I will find her.”

  Another thrust of pain caused Mercy to clutch her stomach and cry out in agony.

  Her vision darkened and she saw herself in a warehouse, the man still in front of her but dead. His eyes glossy and staring blankly up to the rafters. She felt an acute sense of death and loss, grieving a life ended too early.

  “He’s got her. He’s got her!”

  The streets of Toronto returned. Mercy shook her head and tried to look up to the people gathered but the pain was too intense. It took all her energy to breathe. Suddenly a constable appeared, his tell-tale boots running down the pavement toward her. The world grew clouded, undefined, as the one officer became two and then an entire crowd of constables gathered.

  “Help him,” she said weakly when she realized they were all drawn together around her. “He’s been shot.”

  “It’s going to be all right, ma’am,” the officer closest to her said. “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “No,” she said. “No, I have to find Maggie.” She struggled against them as they pulled her away. Her stomach wretched a final time, a wave of pain taking hold before everything went black.

  Chapter 2

  It wasn’t unusual for Jeremiah Walker, detective inspector in the city’s police force, to enjoy a drink while on duty, but three may have been considered excessive. To Jeremiah, however, dallying in the pub was a necessity born from a need to keep his informant talking. The room was dark and noisy, exactly the atmosphere needed to keep the details flowing like the Humber River. Jeremiah did his best to keep the jittery man opposite him at ease and with each downed pint he could see the man loosening his tongue, unravelling his disjointed story. Much of the details seemed suspect but Jeremiah was not about to stop him.

  “She went with him,” he said, wiping the excess ale from his bottom lip with a swipe of his sleeve. The musky sweat of the man’s body and clothes permeated the air, wafting to Jeremiah, who found it hard to concentrate on the words the man said. “I saw it plain enough.”

  “Willingly?” Jeremiah asked gruffly.

  The man nodded. “Aye. She ain’t put up no fight. Not that I ever seen.” A laugh escaped the man’s lips before he thought better of it, nearly choking it back when he took in Jeremiah’s face. “I only meant that she was not a woman of… virtuous character, if you catch my drift.” He turned both his palms to the ceilings as if resigning to the facts.

 
; “I’m not sure that I do.” Jeremiah scowled freely, disgusted that he was even endeavouring to have such a conversation with the likes of the man who sat across from him. His name was Bartholomew Mink, an Englishman who had spent the better part of his twenty-five years behind Canadian iron bars.

  Nervously, Mink gulped from his mug and kept his eyes low.

  “Her neighbour said a man visited the house a week prior, claiming to be her cousin,” Jeremiah pressed.

  “I don’t know anything ’bout that. All I knows is she weren’t no stranger to them places. She weren’t struggling and no one paid it any never mind given how she wasn’t exactly fighting for her life. I’se only put two and two together when I read the paper.”

  “I’m surprised you even read,” Jeremiah said.

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but what I saw don’t change much based on that fact, now does it.” Mink leaned forward over the table, a gesture that sent Jeremiah’s nostrils reeling. “Now how’s about that reward?”

  Jeremiah’s expression soured as he took in the mangy drunk. “You’ll get your reward when I catch my quarry.” He plucked his bowler hat from the table next to his glass and slipped it on his head. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “But I’ve told you all I know,” Mink said as Jeremiah walked away. “I need something to tide me over.”

  Jeremiah could sense the man following him. He could not risk a scene in such a public place where many would be sure to identify him.

  “Detective, please!”

  The police officer rounded on the man and leaned over the stout figure. “Do not follow me from this place!” he hissed. “Your character is already in question. I do not wish any further stains on my reputation. If you speak to anyone else I will have your body thrown in the lake with irons about your wrists and ankles.”

  Stymied, Mink swallowed nervously and then gave a nod of defeat.

  “If you hear or see anything else, you’ll find me about St. Andrews. In the meantime, stay out of trouble.” Taking pity on the man, Jeremiah fished a coin from his pant pocket and slapped it on the surface of the table. “That ought to buy two more rounds and when you are finished head straight to your doss house.”

  The man nodded but Jeremiah did not stay to watch. He was out the door and into the rush of the streets before another word was spoken. The clandestine meeting had proven less fruitful than Jeremiah originally hoped and only brought about more questions then it answered.

  Had Chief Johnson known what he was about, Jeremiah had no doubt he’d be advised to drop it. He shouldn’t be using company time on such a fool’s errand. The woman he sought would be the death of him; he knew as much when he first met her, but now he found it very difficult to let her go even when mounting evidence suggested she had left of her own free will. As it was, not many knew his personal agony. Jeremiah had kept it to himself, as he did most things.

  A carriage rolled toward him recklessly as he tried to cross the roadway. It was only when the racket of the horses and their coach passed that he heard the shouts.

  “He’s got her. He’s got her!”

  A cloud of pedestrians swelled on the opposite sidewalk. People on both sides of the road paused their tasks to gawk at the scene that played out in front of them. A woman covered in blood appealed to the crowd but what she said Jeremiah could not hear. A man lay on his back grabbing for the woman as she doubled over once more in obvious pain. A basket lay overturned, a small piece of broken china on the payment just beyond.

  Running to their aid, Jeremiah slid to the ground beside the woman just as her body threatened to collapse. “Help him,” she breathed as she slid easily into his arms.

  A streak of blood was smeared into the pale skin of the woman’s cheek. Her brown eyes were but slits struggling against unconsciousness that would inevitably overtake her. “It’s all right, ma’am,” Jeremiah found himself saying, instinctively caring more for the health of the woman than he did of the man. “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

  The woman struggled to speak again but even with his ear pressed closely to her lips he could not make them out. Without thinking he pressed a rough hand to her cheek and found her cold to the touch. “Quickly,” he said, snapping at a boy who stood closest to him, “Fetch the carriage from St. Michael’s. And then call at the station house for Sergeant MacNeal.”

  “Yes sir.” The boy took off, weaving his way through the crowd.

  “Quickly!” Jeremiah’s voice bellowed over the murmur of the crowd without bothering to conceal his panic.

  Chapter 3

  At thirty-six, Mercy Marigold Eaton had lived many lives. Her gift of reading the dead had given her an escape from her own reality, a life once filled with much pain and disappointment. She often brought forth memories sensed from the bodies of others in times of sorrow and fear, reverting to the memories she wished she had instead of the ones lurking in the darkest recesses of her mind. It became a coping strategy for her, employed from a tender age, a way to forget even for a short time the pain inflicted upon her. Whether consciously done or reactionary, it was not uncommon for Mercy to find herself lost, confused, and unable to decipher the life she actually possessed from the ones she borrowed. Such was her state of mind when she found herself cradled in the arms of a man unknown to her.

  “Unhand me!” Mercy bolted upright, hitting her head on the carriage roof and nearly collapsing once more.

  Two men took hold of her, one on her left, the other to her right, both employing great effort to keep her from injuring herself once more.

  “Take care, ma’am. We’re nearly at the hospital,” one of the men said in a muted Scottish burr.

  “The hospital! Goodness me, why?” Mercy sunk into a free space on the carriage bench opposite them and rubbed at her crown, wincing against the pain radiating from it. She saw how the men exchanged glances and realized she had, yet again, made herself the butt of her own joke.

  “I’m Sergeant MacNeal, of the Toronto police,” the man said. “This is Detective Walker.”

  Mercy scowled as she looked over the two men who shared the carriage with her. They needn’t have told her they were officers of the law. A single second longer and she’d have noticed on her own the manner with which they held their head and the authoritative tone they took with her. Suddenly, the carriage felt stifling. She felt hot at the collar and pulled at the lace to ease the tightness on her throat.

  “Well, gentlemen,” she said, clearing her throat, “I assure you I am perfectly all right. Be so kind as to stop this conveyance at once and release me.”

  Detective Walker and Sergeant MacNeal exchanged glances.

  “Can you not see I am not hurt, save of course my pride?” Mercy made a sweeping gesture over her skirt and at the last second looked down. The entirety of her cream-coloured fabric was tarnished in blood, smeared into the tight weave of the linen and there dried. The sight of it nearly brought about another fainting spell. Mercy forced herself to look beyond the carriage window, clutching the open frame with a vicelike grip, to steady her breathing.

  “Your husband has already gone ahead,” Detective Walker said suddenly.

  “Husband?” Mercy could not hide the crack in her voice.

  “He’s been shot. He’s most likely arrived at the hospital by now.”

  “Hospital?” She found herself shaking her head vehemently. “Gentlemen, you must have mistaken me.” She looked down to the evidence on her dress, the memory of what befell her lost in the confusion with all the others she had collected over time. Had she come to find a husband? Certainly not. She was the mother to a daughter yes, but she’d never acquired a husband.

  Her mind raced. She could never admit to being unwed. Not to an officer of the law.

  “Perhaps she suffered a blow to the head,” MacNeal offered. “It would explain the…” His words failed him. There was no euphemism for nonsensical behaviour. She was either mad or quickly becoming so.

  “The man you w
ere with, on the street just now, he is not your husband?” Walker looked to her doubtfully, amused by her uncertainty and apparent confusion.

  “What man?” Immediately as she spoke the words she regretted them. Pulled to the forefront of her mind was the memory, her own memory, of the man staggering toward her. Her expression fell as her mind relived the moment when he first came in contact with her, stumbling and pulling her down to the pavement as he fell. He had spoken to her. He had been alive while brief flashes of his life invaded her thoughts. He spoke only a few pleading words before Mercy found herself overcome by the pain.

  “Maggie.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, what did you say?” MacNeal shifted toward her, leaning in to hear her better.

  Mercy shook her head. “I don’t recall,” she said quickly, hoping the officers would leave it at that.

  The carriage stopped then and soon Mercy was being assisted out and onto the pavement. A nurse stood outside the door, anticipating their arrival.

  “My apologies, gentlemen, but I really must get home.” She tried to shift from under their grasp.

  “Just a few more minutes, ma’am, and we’ll have you on your way,” Walker explained. “This nurse will see you to one of the rooms.”

  “But I am not injured,” Mercy protested, looking to both officers imploringly. “You must let me go. My d— someone is expecting me.”

  Her heart raced and she could feel sweat accumulating on her brow. Fifteen years before she’d been a wayward female. They’d threatened to carry her off to Mercer Reformatory, deeming her incorrigible, pregnant, unwed. She’d avoided such a fate, but narrowly. Could they come back for her now? She closed her eyes and offered a quick prayer of deliverance.