The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (good books for high schoolers txt) 📕

there was constant tragedy. Stella knew this name. She knew Seraphina. Seraphina with bipolar disorder. Hypomanic right now. Yes, that was correct, from the centre. Seraphina had come there to visit before. When she’s steady, she’s salt of the earth, Dianne has remarked more than once. Seraphina attended the weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting held every Thursday, what some of the residents called Thirsty Thursdays. Some of the other residents called it Thriving Thursdays. It was about perspective and experience. Some of the residents attended. And people from the community, like Seraphina.

“Oh, that Seraphina,” Grace said. “She believes in the losers. She believes that she can save them, that’s what she says. But through her upheavals, she never drinks.”

When Seraphina had her episodes they would take her to the city hospital, the one Stella’s father had told her about, the one that dated back to the days of moral treatment. Stella rubbed her temples. Her head was filling up now, and hurting, from these shells beginning to float about, banging against her skull, insisting on dislodging themselves from the murky floor of her mind, jostling themselves open. She knew Seraphina from somewhere else.

Seraphina spied Stella from across the waiting room, as though she’d heard her thoughts. She held out a thin arm and pointed as she bellowed: “They’re looking for you, Stella. Run. You better hide. Don’t you remember? They didn’t all go up in flames. Don’t let them find you. They know. They know what you have and they want it. I saw them in the cove. They asked me if I knew your whereabouts. I told them you were one of the ones at the Jericho Centre who died last year, but I don’t know if they believed me.”

Grace reached over and put her hand on Stella’s arm. “Stella, don’t pay attention. She’s sick. She’s not well.”

Stella knew this but she also knew that sick people wove truth into fantasy, or their truth was just a heightened version of reality, and that sometimes their reality was what was real, not the deadened society they were trapped in. Seraphina was still calling her name, loud, desperate. StellaMarisStellaMarisStellaMaris.

Two security guards came over to Seraphina. They spoke in low voices so it was impossible to make out what they were saying, especially over her shouts and cries. She wasn’t making sense now. Sadness swelled up in Stella. Her groin tightened, so sore — ripples of melancholy rolling up, shades of lilac and pale blue, dull green in her mind, tears trickling from her eyes. Grace dabbed at Stella’s checks with a tissue.

“It’s okay, Stella. This is the last thing you need to see. Seraphina was doing so well, I heard, but I guess not. Maybe she has started drinking again.”

Stella doubted that. It wasn’t about alcohol or its absence but the angels and demons inside of her, warring, each demanding her voice, her thought, her time. Stella took Grace’s hand and she squeezed back as they watched a squirming Seraphina carried out the door towards emergency.

As the doors closed and the dull murmur of the waiting room came back, Stella continued to think about Seraphina. She was sure she knew her from another time, but where and when, she wasn’t sure. Her head was feeling heavy. From the sedative. What did Seraphina want her to remember? What did Seraphina think Stella was in possession of that people wanted? She had nothing. Who could be looking for her? No one even knew Stella was alive, except for Isaiah. But he wasn’t looking for her. He hadn’t been to visit in a long time. Stella couldn’t remember how long a long time was. But since the last season. She had not seen him in the summer. She was sure of it. Pretty sure. Almost sure.

The Diner.

The Help.

Chocolate Milkshakes.

Then

Stella and her father don’t pass many people on the way to the diner for dinner with Frank and Cynthia. Stella’s hip hurts where she scraped it, but she doesn’t want her father to know. She’ll have to wash the stain out of the dress crumpled in her closet or throw it away. She can rip it and tell him she caught it on a nail in the garage. But then he might want her to have a tetanus shot. She doesn’t ever want to go back to a hospital. Maybe she had a shot after the car accident? She doesn’t know. Or maybe he wouldn’t even think of a tetanus shot.

She expects her father to be waving at familiar faces. She thinks maybe everyone is old now, so he doesn’t know who they are, friends from the past erased by time, or maybe moved away, dead, all those things Stella now knows happen.

As if reading her mind, he says, “I don’t recognize anyone, not that there are many people around right now. So many people moved away, as your mother and I did, for education or work. I suspect these people are tourists, Stella, with their hats and walking shoes and cameras. It’s a myth about towns, how people are friendly and walk everywhere. That went out of fashion in the 1950s when everyone got cars. Small-town people are just that — small-minded, closed-minded, narrow-minded. They play their cards close to their chest and don’t bother with outsiders.”

Stella wonders why he insisted on moving back here if he hates Seabury so much.

“Excuse me,” a man says, his voice coming from his sinuses. He wears a maroon velour track suit. “Do you know how to get to Seabury Marsh? We want to see the birds. We just keep going in circles.” He holds out a map to Stella’s father. Three middle-aged women peer from behind him, all shoulder-length feathered hair and gigantic sunglasses.

Stella’s father points. “Just head west. You can’t miss it.”

“You’re sure it’s that direction?” The man narrows his eyes as he scans Stella and her father. His eyes linger too long on her budding breasts. She crosses her arms