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

really.”
    â€œGet what?” Mel asked patiently.
    â€œHow people could do that. I mean, they
knew
her. Exeter was a really small town back then.” Haley hadn’t actually been thinking about this, but now that she’d started talking, it was as if it had been in her mind all along. “We’re talking about people who knew her when she was a little girl, people she went to school with. Her
family
. How could they have thought she was evil?” Actually evil, like some monster out of a horror movie. Fresh, warm blood in her dead, cold heart.
    Haley blinked hard to get that image out of her brain and went on talking. “How could her
father
have thought so?”
    â€œWell, he didn’t think so,” Mel pointed out. “You said. Other people talked him into it.”
    â€œBut he let them. He agreed. How could anybody do that?”
    Blood so wet and fresh that it glistened. Like those red stains on Mercy’s glove.
    â€œThat’s easy. Fear.”
    Haley looked over at Alan. He shrugged and took a huge bite of his sandwich.
    â€œYou said it all yourself, Haley.” He swallowed. “Tuberculosis had a fifty percent death rate. There were, what, six people in Mercy’s family? And four of them died?” He really had been paying attention to her report. Haley was surprised. She’d assumed that most people, except for Mr. Samuelson (who got paid to listen) had been dozing or daydreaming or thinkingabout their own reports. “People were scared,” Alan went on. “You can’t blame them, really. When people get scared, they just get stupid. And they look around for somebody to blame.”
    â€œThat’s no excuse,” Haley snapped. She looked down at her plate, smeared with greasy red tomato sauce, and her stomach heaved. She had to swallow hard. “I don’t care how scared they were. Her father could have stuck to reason, at least. If he’d loved her at all, he would have.”
    â€œHe was worried about his son, though,” Mel pointed out, looking at Haley a little oddly. “What was his name—Edwin? Hey, is Eddie named after him?”
    â€œEddie’s Edward. He’s named after Elaine’s dad.” Haley peeled clingy plastic wrap away from a brownie, hoping a bite of that would get the sour taste out of her mouth. “All that proves is that Mercy’s dad loved Edwin more than her. Typical. For that time. Loving the son more.”
    â€œThe son was still alive,” Alan said quietly. “I mean, Mercy was already—Haley? You okay?”
    Haley dropped the brownie on the table.
    â€œIf you really love somebody, you don’t stop just because they’re dead,” she said coldly. She got to her feet, snatched up her tray, and went to dump the rest of her lunch in the trash.
    Suddenly she hated school. Hated the bright, loud cafeteria, hated the talking and laughing and shouting that battered at her ears. Hated the smells of steamed food and salt and grease. Hated the hallways with their shiny linoleum, full of jerks like Thomas Jaffe, full of people like Mel and now, maybe, Alan who were supposed to be her friends but who just didn’t get it. They didn’t even get that there was something they couldn’t understand.
    So she did something she had never done in all of her years at school. She walked out.
    It was ridiculous, how easy it was. She just went to her locker, stuffed her laptop and a few books into her backpack, grabbed her jacket, and left by the front door. Nobody stopped her. Nobody asked where she was going. Maybe they thought she was sick, or assumed she had a doctor’s appointment. Maybe they just didn’t care.
    Haley set off quickly down the street. She wanted to see the one person she could count on to understand death and dying.

J ake, stretched out with a book in his armchair, glanced at the clock when Haley opened his door. But that was all. He must