The Merciful
“Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”
I look up to find Manson falling into step beside me. I duck my head, my face an inferno when I think about him seeing me the way he must have the other day. The only pair of eyes I dared meet was Father Salvatore’s, and I instantly wished I hadn’t. I didn’t keep my eyes open to see the other students in the common area staring at me, watching. I don’t want to know what the others thought. It was stupid of me to even hope we could be friends.
“How do you know that?” I mutter at the ground when Manson doesn’t walk away. His black boots appear in my line of vision with each step, leather with straps crisscrossing over them, his regulation uniform trousers tucked into them in a baggy, casually disheveled look that no one else on earth could pull off. At least not while making it look like a high fashion ad from a coveted designer brand.
“Ronique said you’re in Father Salvatore’s class with her,” Manson says. “And since she’s in class right now, I’ve therefore deduced that you’re skipping.”
I don’t answer. I shouldn’t have to tell him that after the other day, I can’t face the priest. Even if Father doesn’t know I was picturing him defiling me in the most sinful ways when I lost control, he still saw me do it. I can’t go to his class again. I can’t go to confession, either. I’ll have to drop his class and never attend mass again.
I’m about to make an excuse and pretend I’m going to lunch so that I don’t have to see Manson either, but just then, I catch sight of Heath walking with a girl, his arm draped over her shoulders while she ducks her head, tucking her hair behind her ear bashfully. I remember his fingers curling around my knee me as he held me open for Angel, his grinning face like a demon’s as he leaned close, describing what he saw. My heart skips a beat, and I match my stride to the goth boy’s, hoping Heath doesn’t notice me since I’m not alone for once.
“I’d never miss Father Hottiepants’s class,” Manson says, jogging up the steps to my dorm and waiting to open the door for me. I scan my card, and he holds it open, beckoning me to enter first. I do, and he follows, holding up a paper bag by way of explanation. “I’m bringing Annabel Lee lunch. She’s on her period.”
“Okay.”
He laughs. “Come on, you can eat with us. I brought plenty.”
“I should check on Dr. Jekyll.”
“Cool,” he says, following me up the stairs, past the second floor. I don’t know how to tell him that I can’t eat lunch with them either. I can’t face anyone. I shouldn’t have ever left my room this morning. Maybe this is what finally gets me to drop out of school and leave campus altogether. Saint probably knew that would do it. That’s why he told Angel to put me on display. He knows my shame is the only thing stronger than my loneliness.
“Holy shit.”
I stop at my door, my stomach going sour, my blood cold. I’m not even surprised to see the message scrolled there. Nothing surprises me anymore. I’m tired, and beaten, and done with all of it.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
I unlock the door without comment, without stopping to gasp and stare. Inside, Dr. Jekyll lifts his head from where he’s sprawled on my bed, looks at us with bored indifference, and lays back down, as if he’s caught my ennui and can’t be bothered, either.
I check his litter box, food, and water. Nothing is out of place.
“You can go,” I tell Manson, not turning his way. “I’ll just hang out here.”
“Um, no?” he says. “First off, we’ve got to call someone about this.”
He gestures at my door, looking at me like I’m insane.
“Why?” I ask. “They’ll just write something new if I wash it off.”
His eyes widen further. “This has happened before?”
I shrug and unwind my handmade scarf. “A few times.”
“Who’s writing it?” he asks. “The other girls?”
I shrug again, turning to hang up my coat.
“Okay, here’s what we’re not going to do,” he says. “We’re not going to accept… That. What we are going to do is go bring Annabel Lee her food before she murders me due to blueberry muffin withdrawals, and then we’re going to figure out who’s behind that and make them stop.”
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “It’s not a big deal. They’ve been doing it all year, and I’ve handled it. I’m not going to drag you into this.”
“Hello, already in.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
He sighs. “Look, I’m all for strong independent bitches, obviously.” He shakes the bag at me. “But everybody needs somebody. Now come eat lunch in a room that’s not running with… Let’s call it paint. Otherwise, I’m texting Annabel Lee to come eat with us, and she’s going to be grumpy about leaving her bed. Until she sees the blood, and then she’ll probably insist on doing a séance or something. So. What’s it going to be?”
“Fine,” I say. “But don’t say anything about this to her.”
I stomp out of the room, and Manson follows. I don’t understand why he wants to lure me away from my room so badly, unless he’s somehow involved. Maybe Annabel Lee is the one leaving the messages. Apparently she’s been here all morning, and she could have lied about forming her own opinion of people regardless of her family. I should know better than anyone how loyal that family is to each other.
Maybe she wants revenge for her cousin.
Maybe she wants me to stay away from him.
Or maybe she just thinks I’m a whore like everyone else.
Probably all of the above.
And just like that, I have an explanation for the messages. I found someone with motive and opportunity, someone with access to my dorm. Now that it’s solved, I just have to figure out what to do about it.
“By the way, Annabel Lee dragged us out of the library after you went upstairs the other day,” Manson says. “Just so you know.”
A mixture of relief and mortification swirls through me. Relief that they didn’t see what Angel did to me, which means maybe we can be friends, and I’ll still be able to meet their eye, and mortification that they know what happened. Word gets around on a small campus, and Manson wouldn’t feel the need to tell me he didn’t see anything if he didn’t know what everyone else saw.
“Why would she do that?” I ask, since it doesn’t make sense for her to protect my dignity if she hates me. She should want to humiliate me as much as Angel does.
“She said she can’t bear witness to her family’s crimes, and she was pretty sure her cousin was up to no good.”
“Thanks for telling me,” I mumble.
Manson taps an intricate pattern on the door to the room I thought left its Halloween decorations up. I’m not sure I want to enter now that I suspect she’s behind the bloody messages. They feel more threatening when I know a girl like her left them, someone with what looks like a voodoo doll hanging on her door, photos of candles set up in a pentagram shape, cutouts of crows and black cats and bats, a few plastic spiders, a poster from a very old Dracula movie, and a snake skin that sways gently, rasping over the paper decorations with an eerie rustling that sounds like slithering that makes my skin crawl.
Inside, the room looks more or less normal, though she has a half dozen plants and a series of stacked crates covered with different cloths against one wall, the last of which is strewn with strange items and candles. An odd, earthy smell lingers in the room, something wild and animal, like she might have been in the woods dancing around a fire or digging for poison roots recently.
A groan sounds from the pile of blankets on the bed, and Edward Gorey crawls out, looking annoyed. He stretches one back leg and then the other, then drops off the bed and lopes over to the crates before disappearing inside one.
“Please tell me you brought the chocolate,” Annabel Lee says, poking a finger out of the blankets and opening a space just big enough to peer out from. “I was about to eat Gorey.”
“One hundred percent cacao, as requested,” Manson says, handing her a small paper bag. He holds up the plastic bag on one finger. “Also, blueberry muffins, fried rice, and a friend. The monstrosity you call coffee should be delivered at any minute.”
“I hope you’re not including me in the food,” I mutter, glancing at the makeshift altar that looks suspiciously like it’s from some form of occultism. I’m pretty sure there’s a human tooth sticking up from a little bowl of dirt.
“We’re all cannibals here,” Annabel Lee says, wriggling to sit up and push her comforters down around her midsection. “Hadn’t you heard? We save the babies for special occasions, but adults are our everyday fare.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Manson says, handing over the bag. “We’re both vegetarians. No food with a face.”
Annabel Lee’s mouth curves up at the corners into a smile worthy of Harley Quinn. I wonder suddenly why she wasn’t the fifth member of the Quint instead of me, and that reminds me of Eternity, and a stab of guilt pierces into me. I’m supposed to be solving her murder, but all I’ve done so far is let myself become a victim of the boys we grew up with and look at files I barely understand. I need to go back, to ask Dynamo to help me go through them again, figure out their meaning. I need to know for sure if the boys are innocent, because if they are, that means her killer is still out there.
I shiver, and Annabel Lee cackles, taking it as a response to her evil grin.
“Sit,” Manson says, patting the foot of her queen bed and scooting onto the head of it beside her. “Our girlie here had a very interesting message. Tell her, Mercy.”
I glare at him, since I specifically told him not to say anything. He’s oblivious, already taking containers of food from the bag and setting them in the center of her duvet, which depicts the phases of the moon and some astrological shapes and symbols that I don’t know. Mom and Dad didn’t allow that kind of thing in the house, saying it was satanic. I’m not sure I want to sit on it, but then, Mom and Dad abandoned me at Aunt Lucy’s, so I decide I’m done following their rules. I’m done with all this.
I plop down on the foot of Annabel Lee’s bed. “Did you do it?”
She pauses, her expression indecipherable, but then it goes smooth and serene, completely devoid of expression. I’ve seen Angel do the exact same thing, and it creeps me out that it’s a family trait.
“Do what?” she asks, staring back at me, golden eyes unflinching.
“Did you write those messages on my door?”
“No,” she says. “Next question?”
I swallow hard. I thought she’d beat around the bush, avoid answering. “Are you… Do you worship the devil?” I ask, figuring I might as well get it out of the way if she’s being so boldly, bluntly honest.
“No,” she says. “Next.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No. Next.”
“You know who I am, right?” I press. “You know our history.”
“I don’t have any history with you whatsoever, so I don’t see it as relevant.”
I nod slowly. “That’s very generous of you, considering.”
She shrugs. “There’s a lot of people on this campus who my family says I should hate. Not just you.”
I wince. “You’re lumping me in with the Sinners?”
“Diablo’s Disciples,” she corrects.
“What’s the difference?”
“The Disciples are a gang,” she says matter-of-factly. “The Sinceros are just one family within that gang. Though, granted, an important one.”
“Like the Norths are to the Skull and Crossbones,” I say with a shiver.
“Something like that,” she says, picking up a pair of chopsticks and peeling off the paper. “My turn. Did you write the messages on your door?”
“Of course not,” I say. “You think I’m making it up?”
“Do you worship the devil?”
“What?” I exclaim. “No!”
“Do you hate me?”
“Why would I hate you?”
“See? Pretty silly, isn’t it?”
We stare at each other a few seconds, and then Manson hands me a packet of chopsticks and a box of takeout. “Hope you like tofu.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m sorry if I offended y’all.”
There’s a knock, and Manson goes to retrieve a tray of takeout coffee cups with a normal coffee and one that looks like it’s filled mostly with whipped cream and caramel and toffee bits.
“We’re at a Catholic school,” Annabel Lee says to me. “Trust, you’re not the first person to ask, and you won’t be the last.”
“So, let’s talk about who wrote that on your door,” Manson says, settling back in and handing his friend the giant cup of caramel. “You got enemies?”
I glance at Annabel Lee. Her eyes are closed in bliss as she sucks the sugary concoction in big gulps through a wide straw.
I guess she still hasn’t told him.
“A few,” I mutter to Manson.
“And it’s happened before,” he says. “When did it start? Is it the same every time?”
“More or less,” I say. “Though once there was a picture, and once someone left… A tongue.”
“A tongue?” Manson asks, gaping. “What kind of tongue?”
“Human,” I say, breaking apart the chopsticks. “I think.”
“Someone left you a human tongue?” he asks, glancing at Annabel Lee.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Explains the silence,” he says.
“What am I missing?” I ask.
“One of the Sinners was out for a week, and he came back a changed man,” Manson says. “A quiet one, if you get what I’m saying.”
My stomach turns, and I set down the tofu rice I was eating. “How quiet?”
“No one’s heard him say a word,” Manson says.
We all sit in silence for a long minute. I thought the tongue was a warning for me to keep my mouth shut, and maybe it was. But it was a punishment for someone else too.
At last, Annabel Lee speaks. “What was the picture?”
“The picture?”
“You said there was a picture on your door.”
“It was a picture of me and Angel,” I admit. “I was thinking the Sinners might be behind the messages, but if it was one of their tongues…”
“Annie could find out for us,” Manson says, wiggling his brows at Annabel Lee. “Maybe give him a reason to use his tongue.”
“Hard pass,” she says. “Been there, done that, never going back again.”
“You dated a Sinner?” I ask, unable to keep the shock from my voice.
She rolls her eyes. “Dated? No. Was morbidly curious, so I worked my way in so that I could get an invite to their freaking amazing, creepy gothic house and see what the hype was about? Hell yeah, I did.”
“Does your family know about this?”
She pops a cube of tofu into her mouth. “Does it look like I care what my family thinks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Besides, if anyone has an in with the Sinners, it’s Manny here,” she says, her foot moving under the blanket to nudge Manson’s hip. “Why don’t you inspect his tongue?”
“I might just do that,” he says lightly.
I swallow hard. “What’s your connection with them?”
“I don’t have one,” he says. “Well, I mean, I’m on the hockey team with them.”
“The tonsil hockey team,” Annabel Lee teases.
“Hey, we all know straight guys aren’t straight,” Manson says. “If they want to use me to figure that out, who I am to say no? I’m doing a public service, if you think about it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Such a good Samaritan.”
“Wait, you’re gay?” I ask, my head spinning. “I thought you were her boyfriend.”
They both roll with laughter, falling back on the pillows and howling. That gives me time to process, to put together what I’ve already seen with the new information. At last, Manson sits up, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Babe, I’m gay as the day is long,” he says. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” I say honestly. “I just didn’t know.”
“How did you not know?” Annabel Lee asks, still choking with laughter.
“I don’t know,” I say, tugging at the cross on my necklace. “I just thought you were both dramatic. How does that work at a Catholic school?”
“Honey, it works the same everywhere,” Manson says. “People are just more open with their ignorance here.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess that’s me.”
“I’m not talking about that kind of ignorance,” he says. “Have you ever even met a gay person before?”
“No,” I admit. “I grew up Catholic, and then I was homeschooled.”
“For the record, I’m not Catholic,” he says. “But as you can imagine, there’s not a lot of ice hockey teams in Arkansas, so here I am.”
“He’s being modest,” Annabel Lee says. “His family moved here from up north and basically created the entire hockey program at Thorncrown for him.”
“For my dad,” he corrects. “But honestly, I don’t mind the religious stuff. It’s refreshing when people say what they mean instead of pretending they’re cool while wishing you don’t exist. I dealt with enough of that petty bullshit in Shallow Creek.”
“And now you deal with the Sinners,” I say. “They all play hockey? And like men?”
“Even Salem,” Annabel Lee says. “The hockey part, not the men. She’s pretty badass, to be honest. Her family threw some big fit about them not having a women’s team, and instead of creating one, they caved and let her play on the men’s team. Can you imagine?”
“I really can’t,” I say, my palms getting itchy at the thought of all those collisions, the fights, violence.
The blood.
“Okay, back to your problem,” Manson says, picking up a fortune cookie from the pile in the center of the bed. “If a Sincero is missing a tongue, it wasn’t them, which means it was… the Hellhounds?” He glances at Annabel Lee, but she doesn’t react.
“It’s fine,” I say, feeling suddenly self-conscious and stupid for coming down here. The Hellhounds will think I’m a rat even more than they already do if I pull someone else into this. After the picture of Angel, I na?vely assumed it wasn’t the boys leaving the messages. I should never have involved anyone else in my problems.
“What do you mean, it’s fine?” Manson asks, looking at me like I’m crazy.
“I can take care of myself,” I say. “I’m not afraid of the Hellhounds.”
“Um, hello, you should be,” he says. “Do you know who they are? You don’t want to mess with them. Tell her, Annabel Lee.”
“Or maybe they don’t want to mess with me,” I say. “Maybe they should be afraid.”
“Girl, no,” Annabel Lee says, giving me a pitying look, like I’m a child who got bullied at school and is vowing to take on the whole class on the playground tomorrow. “They have an entire gang at their back. You really don’t want to get involved with my family. Hell, I don’t even want to be involved, and they’re my family.”
“I know, but it’s okay,” I say. “Trust me. I can handle it.”
I can’t explain to them why I’m not afraid, why I’m smiling. I must look insane. Their expressions confirm it. But I know the guys won’t hurt me—not in the ways these two think.
They might be angry, but I realize as I sit there that some part of me knows they will protect me. They meant what they said when I gave myself to them. They might humiliate me, push me beyond my limits, corrupt me until I’m as sick and sinful as they are, but they won’t let anyone else hurt me. Only them.
They cut off a Sinners tongue for me. And though that should make me sick, and in a way it does, it also makes me feel all warm and cozy inside.
Because they are still mine. My boys are still mine.
Manson and Annabel Lee exchange glances before he turns to me. “Look, I support anyone’s right to delusions of grandeur, but unless you have a secret identity as a superhero, I don’t think you can fight all the bad guys in Gotham,” Manson says. “So, what exactly is your plan to ‘handle it’?”
“Not in Gotham,” I say, standing from the bed, ignoring the hiss that comes from one of Annabel Lee’s crates. “But in Faulkner? Yeah. I can handle them.”