Read Online Mercy by Sarah L. Thomson - Free Book Online

picked the glove up gingerly, by one finger. It felt warm against her skin, almost as if it had just been pulled off of a living hand.
    And it was clean. Nothing on the pale leather but the yellow tinge of age.
    Haley turned the glove over and over, staring at it. It was spotless.
    A trick of the light, maybe. Her eyes had fooled her.
    But if that was true, what had she just washed off her hands?
    Carefully, Haley packed the glove away. She wrapped the yellow cord several times around the box and tied the knot tight.

“I f untreated, tuberculosis, or consumption, which is what people called it back then, had a death rate of fifty percent. It, um, it had killed two people in the Brown family before Mercy.” Haley stopped to clear her throat. “It was, it was . . .” She glanced hurriedly down at her notes. “It was sad. It was tragic. But it wasn’t supernatural or anything.”
Or anything; great, Haley, that sounds really sophisticated
. From the back of the room, Mr. Samuelson gave her a quick smile and nodded encouragingly, which only rattled her further. If he thought she needed encouragement, she must be doing badly.
    â€œNot everyone at the time believed in this old New England superstition. Not even everybody in Mercy’s family did. Umm . . .” Her eyes skittered down over her notes, found the right place. “A reporter wrote an article for a newspaper right after it happened. This is what he said. ‘The husband and father of the deceased has, from the first, disclaimed any faith in the vampire theory, but being urged, he allowed other, if not wiser, counsel to prevail.’ ” Thank goodness for Aunt Brown’s newspaper. It really made her report sound historical.
    â€œEverybody was looking for somebody to blame, and they picked Mercy. It was like a trial by mob. Only Mercy didn’t really get to defend herself. Since she was, um, dead.” The few people who were listening laughed. “Superstition and ignorance made a natural tragedy into something worse,” Haley said in a rush, then gathered up her notes and sat down so they’d all stop looking at her.
    Mr. Samuelson led the brief round of applause. “Very colorful, Haley, thank you. All right—that’s the last report for today. Chelsea, you’re up first tomorrow. Remember, by the end of the week you should be finished with chapter eleven and—” The bell rang, cutting off his words.
    Haley shoveled her laptop and her notes into her backpack. Mel leaned over her desk. “Haley, that was really good.”
    â€œI got nervous.” Haley made a face.
    â€œI couldn’t tell.”
    Haley knew Mel was just being nice, but wasn’t that what best friends did? She grinned, comforted, as she got up. It was too bad every school project seemed to involve writing something. Reports definitely weren’t her best area. But if she could just get graded on the display . . .
    Haley looked up at her poster board. Her captions, maybe, were brief compared to some of the others ranged along the blackboard. Annie Lewis’s display was almost completely covered in pages of neatly typed text. But what did you need words for when that photo of Mercy’s gravestone was in the center? Dead at nineteen. Dead, demonized, blamed for something she could never have done. A victim of ugly superstition as much as of a fatal disease.
    â€œI vant to suck your bloooood,” moaned a voice in Haley’s ear. She jumped. Papers and pens spilled out of her open backpack to the floor and her laptop nearly followed.
    â€œKnock it off, Jaffe.”
    Thomas Jaffe laughed ghoulishly and widened his eyes. “Hey, Lady Dracula, want to bite me? I’ll show you where—”
    â€œShut up, Thomas, you’re disgusting.” Mel glared at him, hugging her books tighter over her chest. As Haley bent over to pick up her belongings, Thomas closed his hands