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

rolling through the night. And then the moon again anchors in the sky, steadies Stella. The dock is empty. She doesn’t know where everyone is. Cynthia gone, Frank gone, Stella’s father gone — only Stella and the lonesome warning of the loons and coyotes on the pine-scented lake air moving in over her now in warm drafts. The silvered wooden dock is marbled by moon and clouds in a strange rhythm, Stella sprawled on the dock now and looking up at the twinkly stars, the rushing clouds, revealing the round lunar face gazing down on Mercy Lake.

Hallelujah.

Now

The silky light of day slipped in through the curtains in the cottage window, turning the lace a phosphorescent white. Stella had been dreaming of floating in a still ocean, but not an ocean she knew. The water was warm, bath-water warm, soft as satin on her body, gentle undulating heaves. Dianne slept on the other sofa in the early grey dawn. Stella remembered they were up late. Her eyes were swollen and she gently rubbed them. Crying, yes, these eyes, tearful in the night. She remembered what she was dreaming, and then what she was awake remembering. Mercy Lake at night. She was coming back to herself.

It was quiet in the cottage. Dianne’s arms by her side on the sofa, her heavy breathing and random fuzzy snores and gulps of air. The fire was almost out, warmth still from the hearth and a few dull embers. Stella breathed this strange lovely air in through her mouth, tasting it on her tongue, this strange elixir.

The bay lapped on the beach — she heard it through the thin wooden walls of Periwinkle Cottage, through the warped windowpanes. Her hands clasped together in her lap. A radiant beam of light cast in through the glass, filtered through the sheer lace curtains, falling on the floor. Home, the curtains whispered. Hallelujah. But the sheers were still, not a rustle or swish, still in this moment of ceremony. Stella felt very warm. She might have a fever. Her lips were very dry and scuffed together. Only Stella’s lips moved. Just a whisper but her voice nonetheless. Stella was speaking.

“Hallelujah.”

Stella didn’t need to close her eyes. She was in her mind, and the room at Periwinkle Cottage receded. She was in her mind with the shell-lined shelves. The seahorse quivered and turned. A shell opened. It was 2005. It took no effort — the top shell gliding back, the story coming out in pictures and sounds. Stella finding her way into the pictures. At the beginning of the summer of 2005 she went with Dianne to Kingsport to stay with Sorcha. Stella smelled the salt water of the Minas Basin. And then a cooler sea air, a rockier beach. Lupins by the side of the cottage. Summer flowers. She was at Periwinkle, in Lupin Cove. Laughter inside the cottage. Almost a hee-haw. Dianne.

Stella stood outside the screen door. If the screen door was on then it was deep summer. Isaiah only put it on in May and took it off in early October — he stored the door at his house down in the Valley. The screen door was on. The mirror beside the door. Superstitious. They were superstitious people, the Llewellyns and the O’Clearys. The Spragues. Who said that? Nurse Calvin. But she was not here. She said that before they left. That’s right. For the weekend. To Periwinkle. In Isaiah’s truck.

Stella saw someone over her shoulder. Blue eyes. Bald. Sunken face. Is it a man or woman? Is it neither? The face was still. It was the dead. The dead smiled over her shoulder, in the mirror, a soft smile, putting her hand on the back of Stella’s head, a trembling hand but the pressure firm and steady. In this head is all you need to know.

Cynthia. Cynthia.

Cynthia alive then, but soon to be dead.

They were inside Periwinkle. It was clean and warm and smelled of fresh bread and cinnamon.

“How was the plane trip from Florida? Big flight for you, Cynthia,” Dianne said. Dianne was here too — she was on a weekend pass with Stella and Isaiah.

The shell was emptied. Oh, but not quite. Stella waited. She has been patient for years.

An ebony pearl rolled out, expanding into an opalescent wall, a projector, the kind Stella’s father used for his lectures. But these were not his photos. This was a movie, an old kind, Super 8 — Stella and Cynthia, Isaiah and Dianne, all together in the cottage living room, Dianne in the old rocker, Stella and Cynthia on the red sofa. Isaiah standing by the mantel. But she can’t remember. She won’t remember.

“I will remember every blessed thing,” Dianne said in her gummy voice. She was toothless that weekend. “I’ll remember for you, Stellie. Until once more you can. I know the old ways. Me and Sorcha come from the Offing too.”

They put it in a wooden box. What is it? Dianne and Isaiah clasped hands. The box was locked.

They were outside on the beach. The sun low. They boiled clams and roasted marshmallows.

The water was glassy peach as Stella held Cynthia’s hand. She had a cane like Granny Scotia — Granny Scotia for tired old bones, Cynthia for bones riddled through with cancer that burrowed down from her breasts.

Sally flew up with Cynthia for the weekend. They came back to see Stella. Sally never knew what Frank was up to. He hid it so well. Sally was distracted by her own sorrow. Sally’s face is lined with decades of remorse. The regret and grief will never leave her side. Cynthia has so little time left, and so much pain. How can you be here walking and talking, and then dead? Stella asked. Cynthia replied: Death is never what you think it will be. And she wants to return to the sea. Her ashes. Did Stella understand? Part of her in the earth and part in the sea. And she would be