The Book Mercy Novels & Stories

Holy hell. Suddenly, the blessing of lights came upon me. From my right, a huge door with illuminating lights on its sides became my redemption. I walk towards it slowly and careful, afraid of what might pounce if I make any unnecessary sounds. Then I heard muffled voices. I press my ears towards the surface, close enough for it not to be pushed open. "You will kill her, De Marchi. The only way to get out of here with what you really came for is to kill her," a cold voice ordered. It was an eerily familiar one. Yet I couldn’t put my finger on who it belonged to. "Now, boy."

Dear Honey, You can be well, if you want to be well. I know you will recite this throughout the days and weeks. Here's your current letter: Mercy, mercy. The stars shine with confidence, not in stored mercy. There be revision in what you need, what you aim at to achieve. Mercy is cheap; you build self through repute. For repute, do not beg but yield. There is no mercy in store for thee. Create self, a power living being. Not by weapons alone can you win.

Isabel stepped out of the car the moment it stopped and barely waited for the driver to say a word. She walked fast up the front steps, bag still over her shoulder, and knocked once. The door swung open quicker than expected. Mercy stood there in an oversized hoodie and socks, brows raised, mouth slightly open. "Wait, you actually came?" she said, stunned. Isabel dropped her bag beside the doorway and pulled her into a hug without answering. Mercy hugged her back instantly. “Okay, who do I kill?”

Let her name be a flame that warms, not burns; a moon that guides, not blinds. May every child yet to come know: mercy is strength, and legacy is love carried forward, never bowed, never broken. Tears blurred her sight, spilling freely down her cheeks. She did not hide them. The words glowed, then sank into the parchment, sealed forever. Myra closed the book gently, as though tucking in a sleeping child, and placed it on the altar beside the everflame. Now it was her daughter’s turn. The girl stepped forward with the candle, eyes wide but steady. Myra whispered instructions, and the child nodded, squaring her shoulders with pride far older than her years.

MIRA Pale light filters through the curtains, touching the edge of the world like a blessing. Jackson sleeps beside me, one arm stretched where I had been. His brow is creased, even in rest. He carries the war into his dreams too. But something in me is different. Quieter, and settled. Seeing everyone happy gives me hope. I sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the weight of my decision lock into place like a final puzzle piece. This doesn’t end with guns. It ends with mercy, it ends with truth, It ends with me. I won’t let this story devour another generation. I won’t let Nora grow up haunted by ghosts she never created.

Burned. Her gesture was not forgiveness, because in her eyes there was nothing to forgive. It was an amnesty, far more terrible. She was closing a book whose darkest pages she would never know. And I remained there, guardian of a truth that slowly rotted inside me, but which, for her, spared her an unnecessary pain. Sometimes, cowardice wears the face of mercy.

“Time can tolerate a great deal. It tolerates chaos. It tolerates suffering. It tolerates death, endlessly. What it does not tolerate is obstruction.” My stomach tightens. “So I’m an obstruction.” Mercy doesn’t smile. “You’re worse. You are a point it can’t smooth.” I think of the battlefield. Of the wrongness I felt when the moment repeated. Of the way my body seemed to know where it would break before it did. I think of the clock hand pausing. “How do you know,” I ask. Mercy’s eyes flick to Eliza, then back to me. “Because I’ve seen anchors before,” she says. “And I’ve seen what time does to the people who love them.”

Maybe losing her was the only way to wake me up, to pull me from the abyss of sin and violence I’d been drowning in for so long. Mercy believed in God’s love, in His mercy. She believed that if we repented, if we turned to him, we could be forgiven. That we could be saved. I never would have repented without her. Without losing her. She was my mercy, in every sense of the word. “I’m not letting you go,” I whisper fiercely, my arms tightening around her. “I’m never letting you go.”

A dog slips free of its leash and darts toward the street, only to pause at the curb, distracted by a scent, missing the wheels by inches. Small mercies. Not miracles. Just softness. As if the world has decided it is allowed to be kind when she is near. That is not how fate works. That is not how the system works. Mercy is not a default state. Mercy is an anomaly. And Nora carries it without force, without prophecy, without demanding a rewrite. She simply stays, and the world behaves differently around her. The weave still does not react. Fate is not here. That is the other wrongness.

I wouldn't mind never having met her or disturbed her life as long as she could live on. I knelt down and begged. She said that if I truly felt guilty, I should go and kneel at her father's grave instead. She then closed the door on me. Amid the wind and the snow, I realized there was nothing left in this world that could keep her. I couldn't stand, nor could I move closer. It struck me then that I'd done too many despicable things. Retribution was coming for me. When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital. I tore out my IV, then drove to Arthur and Carrie's graves. I knelt, begging for forgiveness.