Mercy (15 page)

I
n the morning, in Jake's bathroom, Haley splashed water on her face and peeled the bandage from her cheek. The scratch from last night had healed really quickly. She rubbed her fingers over the smooth, wet skin. No soreness. No scar.

She was glad now that she hadn't told Jake about her suspicions last night. In the light of day it all seemed ridiculous. What had happened out at the cemetery was bizarre, sure, but maybe nothing more than her nerves and imagination. After all, what proof did she have? A message on a dusty TV screen that might have been a dream? A spooky sound in a cemetery?

And somebody breaking into Jake's apartment—but that had nothing to do with any of it. Probably just an addict after Jake's medications, like the policeman said.

Certainly not what she'd been halfway to thinking last night, seeing Jake with blood on his throat, thinking back to that dark figure bent over him, outlined in the dim gray light from the window. Thinking of Mercy, so hungry for life that, even in her grave, she'd taken it. Stolen it from the people who'd loved her most.

Of course not. She'd have to be crazy to think that in Exeter, Rhode Island, in the twenty-first century, there could be such a thing as—

Her brain got as far as the “v” and then quit, out of pure shame. Haley saw her face in the mirror turn red.

“Vampires.” She forced herself to whisper the word out loud, as a punishment for stupidity, and watched her blush grow deeper.

Vampires. Great, Haley, just great. What would be next—monsters under the bed?

She dropped her eyes from the image in the mirror and squeezed some toothpaste onto her finger, rubbed her teeth, and hurried out of the bathroom.

Jake looked better that morning, a little color back in his face. “So I never asked you.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. The hand that held a mug of his pomegranate tea to his lips barely trembled. “Why you came by last night?”

“Just. Uh. Bringing Sunny for a visit.” Haley made a big fuss of finding her jacket, shaking it out, putting it on.

“Glad you did, anyway.” If Jake suspected she wasn't being quite truthful, he didn't seem inclined to push her. “Haley. Wait a minute.”

Near the door, Haley looked back.

“You probably saved my life,” he said. “What's left of it, anyway.”

Haley felt a shivery jolt deep in her stomach. Why did he have to put it like that? What was she supposed to say?

“Sorry. I know you don't like jokes.”

Haley looked at her cousin, leaning against the counter, smiling a little, absentmindedly rubbing at the bandage on his neck, as if it itched. But she was seeing him slumped in his chair last night, blood on his neck, soaking into his shirt. She'd thought that was it. She'd thought he was gone.

And the last time she'd seen him, she'd—

“I'm sorry I yelled,” she said hoarsely. “About you smoking. About—”

“Didn't I tell you?” Jake interrupted her. “It's fine if you're not fine. It's okay if you get mad. If you yell.”

But not at you
, Haley thought.

“Even at me. I'm not going to come back and haunt you, just because you got pissed off one time. Or two. Or twenty.”

Haley flinched. But Jake was taking a big swallow of his tea and didn't notice.

“You can hate me when I'm gone,” he added, putting the mug down on the counter. His smile, like the rest of him, looked thin and tired. Worn out. Like there just wasn't much of him left. “If you have to. It's okay. I promise. It's fine.”

Haley opened the kitchen door and stared blankly at her dad, Elaine, and Mel, who all sat at the table, looking just as blankly back at her. She felt as if she'd accidentally walked into the wrong house. And the lost, bewildered feeling didn't go away, even as they all jumped up and crowded around her, hugging her, patting Sunny, asking questions, telling her how Mel had called last night, and Elaine had told her what had happened, and Mel had been worried and had come over early this morning to be sure Haley was okay.

Haley sat down, took a mug of hot chocolate that Elaine handed her, and answered questions as best she could, considering how little she knew—how little anybody knew. Break-in. After drugs, maybe. Knife.

“And the police? What did the police say?” Her dad sounded almost angry, which was rare. Haley looked at his scowl in confusion.

“To lock the door. They're coming back later.”

“To lock the door? Great. That's great advice.”

“But Jake's okay?” Elaine interjected, putting a gentle hand on her husband's arm. Haley nodded. “Thank God you both are,” Elaine said, reaching out to hug Haley. “Are you sure, honey?” She pulled back a little to look at Haley's face and brushed cool fingers against her stepdaughter's cheek. “You look . . .”

Like I've seen a ghost
. Haley finished the sentence inside her head.

Had
she? Had she seen a ghost?

Because that wasn't
so
crazy, was it? That wasn't as insane as thinking vampires were wandering around Rhode Island.

Jake could make jokes about coming back to haunt her, but what if it wasn't a joke? Jake had said she could hate him when he was gone. But what if it were the other way around? What if Mercy was the one who was still here, hating the people who had called her a monster and cut out her heart? What if she had been waiting a hundred years for revenge on her own family?

“Like you barely slept.” Elaine finished her sentence and gestured at her husband. “Come on, Nathan. You're going to help me clean up that closet upstairs.”

“I am? Now? But—”

“Haley, there are some of those cinnamon rolls you like in the fridge. Get one for Mel. Nathan, let's go. Eddie won't stay asleep for much longer and I want to get that cupboard straightened out.”

“You said closet.”

“Whatever.” Elaine nearly pushed Haley's dad out of the kitchen.

“What's up with them?” Haley stared after her father and stepmother.

“Um.” Mel's cheeks were pink. “I think she thinks we want to talk.”

“We do?”

“I kind of told her we had a fight.”

“We did?”

Of course they'd had a fight. Haley just hadn't thought about it, exactly. Not after what had happened at the cemetery, and then at Jake's.

(You can hate me when I'm gone.)

“I'm so, so sorry, Haley,” Mel was babbling. “Don't be mad, okay? Because I—”

At the cemetery, Haley remembered, before her search for Patience's grave, before that face in her camera, before the heartbeat echoing up out of the ground, there had been something else, something that had made her think of Mel—a little flock of brown sparrows, their wings blurring in the air.

“I'm not mad,” she said to Mel. “It's fine.”

“Because I didn't mean to. It just kind of—” Mel's cheeks were getting pinker and pinker.

“You were right. I'm not the only person—”

“And he did like you, he really did, only—”

“I didn't mean to act like that. I know you miss her.”

“—he thought you weren't interested, and then we were sort of talking, and we kept on talking, and—”

“Who thought? You were talking?”

“Miss who?”

The two separate conversations they had been having collided, and it took a lot of words to sort through the wreckage.

Somehow Haley found herself reassuring Mel that she didn't like Alan O'Neil, well, she liked him, but she only liked him,
and it was fine if Mel wanted to go out with him. No, she didn't mind, it was fine.

“But do you think—” she started to ask.

“Oh, good.” Mel was smiling now, pinker than ever. “And we'll all hang out, you know? We won't get all gross and couple-y or anything. And—”

“—that someone might come back?”

“Come back? From where?” Mel looked completely bewildered.

“You know. Like your grandmother. Someone—gone.” Haley kept her eyes on the table. She didn't want to see Mel's face.

“Like
Gran
?”

But Haley could hear the disbelief in her best friend's voice.

And then she could hear the pity.

“Haley, you mean—like Jake?”

“No! Not like Jake, like—well, like Mercy.”

“Haley, really, are you still thinking about that? Because it's kind of—”

“No, just listen. Okay? Listen.” Haley knew she shouldn't have asked. Now she was stuck, she'd have to explain, but every word was just making things worse. “If they're—not like some stupid horror movie or something, but if they're angry, if things weren't—right—could they, kind of, somehow,
stay
? For revenge, or something? Do you think?”

There was an awful pause.

“No,” Mel said.

Haley stared down at her mug of hot chocolate.

“People just—I don't know what happens, Haley, I really don't, if there's Heaven or something or just nothing, but I know they don't
stay
. I know Gran—not for
that
.”

The hot chocolate had gone cold. There was a scum of cocoa on top of the milk.

“I read about this stuff all the time, for Amnesty—people being tortured, horrible things, Haley, you can't imagine, and just locked up for years and years. And sometimes they die. But they don't hang around figuring out ways to hurt the people who hurt them. I know they don't, Haley. Only the living do that.”

Haley shut the door to her room behind her. A glance out of the window revealed Mel making her way down the front path, and stopping to throw her last bite of cinnamon roll to a crow on the lawn.

She'd finally told Mel she was tired. That was true, anyway. She hadn't slept much in Jake's armchair.

Did one small truth balance out one big lie? Probably not.

But she couldn't have told Mel the truth. She couldn't have said
no
. That it wasn't fine at all. That the thought of Alan and Mel talking all afternoon—Alan asking Mel out—Alan kissing Mel—made her feel strange. Disconnected and shaky. As if the last line connecting her to Earth had snapped, and now she was drifting free. With no idea of how she'd ever get down again.

Just one more person. One more person who'd walked away from her.

And the worst part was, she'd actually told him to.
“You guys go on. Go without me.”
She'd said it. And they'd done it.

Haley had to add
stupid
to the list of things she was feeling.

Her mouth tasted of sour milk; her clothes she had slept in felt stale on her skin. Maybe she'd feel better if she changed and brushed her teeth for real.

Her purple fleece shirt was clean, but there were no jeans in her drawer. Elaine would say that was because she hadn't gotten
her clothes as far as the laundry basket. Haley snagged a pair of pants from the floor. Jeans that had been worn for a few days were softer and more comfortable anyway.