Read Online The Unraveling of Mercy Louis by Keija Parssinen - Free Book Online Page A

me. Mouth open, a low note escapes, Uhhhh, like the start of a hymn. People shift around me. I hear Maw Maw’s voice, “Child, what—” Pay them no mind. Speak for me.
    Eyes closed, heart and head up to heaven, arms at my sides. I don’t recognize this voice singing, but I feel its vibrations in my throat, it can only be mine. Sounds like the language of a far-off land, but it makes perfect sense to me. The child, too, must understand. I know with clarity it’s a girl. I tell her she’s loved, that she contains all the innocence of the world in her child-heart, and for that, her place in heaven is already secured. I tell her the Lord waits for her.
    No bigger than a grapefruit. I raise my arms, cup my hands overhead. The flow of words bubbling up like a spring. Strange sounds that sift through my ears, so I have to translate myself. I don’t feel scared. I put my trust in God, and I speak louder.
    We are sisters, you and me. You think no one understands, but I do. Pastor Parris’s voice, “Yes, Mercy, let the spirit of the Lord fill you, speak His message.”

    Find the one who did this. Something pushing from inside my skull, little jackhammer hands against the bone of my nose, behind my eyes. Shouting now, chin jerking up, up to send the words higher, farther, that everyone might hear and obey. Find the one who did this . Someone’s hand—Maw Maw’s?—on my wrist, but I shake it off.
    After a while, a minute, an hour, the words dry up, my mouth is empty. This time the silence a blanket around my shoulders, God-given. Closed eyes bathed in darkness, the tiny, reaching corpse gone. I think of les feux follets, my words a knife to the heart of the night, only this time, instead of hell, the baby’s soul has been released into heaven, I know it has.
    When I open my eyes, everyone is turned toward me. Some are praying in low voices. A few women wipe tears from their cheeks. Legs shaking like I’ve run a fast mile, I swoon backward and the bench hits me at the knees.
    â€œThe gift of tongues!” Pastor Parris says, reaching for my forehead. Someone shouts: “She’s falling, catch her!” Time slows: the curtain of Sue Chessly’s auburn hair filtering the light; the deep scar in the pine bench in front of me; at last, the concrete of the floor cold against my cheek. Then: nothing.

I LLA

    I LLA DOESN’T WANT to go downstairs. It will mean seeing Mama—no, smelling her—and being forced to confront the fact that in the last week, for reasons unknown, her mother has stopped bathing herself. When they heard about the baby on the news last night, Illa was horrified to realize she was glad for the distraction the grisly discovery provided. So long as the world delivered new crises, Illa and Mama wouldn’t need to address the small one developing in their house.
    The midmorning sun has already rendered Illa’s bedroom stuffy, and soon it will be unbearable, the heat rising as if even physics is in conspiracy against her. How is it they have managed to survive with nothing but a single window unit in the kitchen to take the punch out of the bruising Texas summer?
    She pushes open a window, hoping for a breeze, but all she gets is the unfiltered smell of the refinery, which hulks just beyond the tree line. Sometimes Mama sits on the front porch sniffing the air, trying to identify the chemicals. That’s benzene, she’d say. That’s toluene. That’s nitrogen oxide.

    Smell of money, my ass, Illa thinks. Money, real money, smells like the cosmetics floor of the Dillard’s department store in Houston—spicy perfumes with ingredients like sandalwood and saddle leather, fresh-cut day lilies, marble floors mopped to a mirrored shine with citrusy cleaner. Often Illa thinks of Mama’s settlement money sitting in that Houston bank, a million dollars, and dreams of all the things they could buy with it. Four years