Page 198
Mercy McBride once broke my nose because I told her women couldn’t shoot straight. She proved her point immediately afterward by shooting an apple off Rhett’s fence post from forty yards.
I laugh. The sound turns into something else halfway out. ”Mercy.”
She smiles then blood pours from her mouth causing me to stumble backward but her smile remains. “Remember.”
The field disappears.
Summer, before the Harvest. Mercy sits beneath the apple tree behind the Ward house with me beside her. Her dress is bunched around her knees as she holds something wrapped in linen. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I said I know.”
“If my father finds out…” she trails off.
“He won’t.” I assure her.
She looks at me. “You can’t promise that.”
“I can.”
“You promise everything.”
“And I keep my promises.”
She laughs. “Liar.”
The bundle moves and a tiny sound filled the space. A baby.
I stop breathing.
The memory crashes through me.
No, no. I knew.
Mercy had a daughter. It wasn’t mine. That realization comes immediately.
Thank God.
Not because I wouldn’t have loved her… because this is bigger. I remember now.
Mercy had disappeared for months the previous winter. Sent to an aunt's house. That's what everyone said. She came back alone… except she hadn’t.
“You have to get her out,” Mercy says.
“Why me?”
“Because they watch me.”
“Where’s the father?”
Her face pales. “Dead.”
“Mercy… what?”
“Don’t. Please don’t.”
