The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (31 page)

AT THE END
of the day, Illa leaves last period a few minutes early, saying she has to use the bathroom. Instead, she heads to the stilt house. She wants to beat Coach there so she can at least give Mercy a heads-up. Just in case the unthinkable happens and Coach fails to convince Evelia to let Mercy play, Illa has Mercy's uniforms, both home and away, so she'll have something to hold on to during this hard time, something to remind her of who she is.

When Illa arrives, she's glad to see the big Lincoln in the driveway. She climbs the wooden staircase, knocks on the front door, and waits. After a minute, Mercy answers, eyes puffy and bloodshot. She looks relieved to see Illa.

“Don't go,” she hisses. “You have to stay, please, I'm scared . . .”

“What's the matter?” Illa asks.

“She found Charmaine's letters in the trash.” Mercy glances over her shoulder, then back at Illa. “She says the letters are proof I've got demons in me, they're planning something, and he said it'll take a few days to get ready, but it's dangerous, I don't want to . . .”

“Who's planning it, Mercy?”

“Pastor Parris.”

“Who's there?” Evelia calls.

“No one, Maw Maw,” she calls out. She yanks the uniforms from Illa's hand. “Just someone dropping off my old jersey.”

Evelia hobbles to the door holding her hip. When she places a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder, a fit of tics overtakes Mercy and she grunts.

“I'm afraid you'll have to be going now,” Maw Maw says, and Illa can see why Mercy has spent her life in obeisance to this woman. With her kingmaker's voice, she demands it.

“I . . . I'll . . .” Illa stutters, wanting to stay but not knowing what to say. She recalls Charmaine's warning to Mercy:
If you ever feel unsafe at home, go find someone you trust. Just please, get out of there.
What are they planning to do to Mercy?

“I'm not asking, I'm telling, girl, get,” Maw Maw says, corralling Illa and pushing her toward the steps.

Just then, Coach Martin's Explorer appears down the street. She screeches into the driveway and vaults up the steps.

“Coach!” Mercy shouts with hysterical elation, pushing out of the house and running into her arms.

Coach's stern expression softens. “Evelia, I'd like a word with you, if you don't mind,” she says, clearing her throat and stepping back from Mercy. “In private.”

“I know what you got to say, and you best say it right here,” Evelia says. “You ain't coming in the house, you ain't gonna win me with none of your talk. I'm taking her out of school. Times are too serious.”

Illa senses the coming confrontation and steps back into the sheltering fronds of the banana plants that lean over the stairway.

“I understand you're afraid, Evelia,” Coach says, her voice measured. “We all are. But I don't want us to do anything hasty here. There's a lot at stake . . .”

Evelia snorts. “What do you know about stakes? I'm battling for my girl's
soul.
My life has been spent keeping her safe. You only care for her so long as y'all win at that nonsense game.” She waves her hand dismissively. “She's done with all that. There's a reckoning coming.”

“Please, Maw Maw,” Mercy says. “I want to play again.”

“Now wait just a minute, Evelia,” Coach says. “You and I had an agreement.” She shifts her gaze uneasily to Mercy. “The girl
will
play through her senior year.”

“This ain't my decision, Jodi, there are forces at work here you can't imagine. The devil's set his demons roaming, and they've seized my girl. That woman's been in touch, which is proof enough for me that evil walks with us.”

Coach shakes her head in bafflement. “I should've been more careful about who I struck deals with. Always knew you were crazier than a loon, Evelia.”

At the word
crazy,
Mercy stiffens and steps away from Coach. “Don't call her that! She's not crazy, she's a seer. She foresaw all this, me and the rest of the girls . . .”

But Coach Martin is shaking her head. “I'm sorry, Mercy. I shouldn't have got involved.” She reaches out and takes Mercy's hand, but Mercy shakes herself free.

“Don't,” Evelia says. “Don't do this, Jodi, it'll only cause her confusion.”

“It's wrong, what we did,” Coach says. “That woman wants to see her daughter, and who are we to keep her from it?”

“What's she talking about, Maw Maw?” Mercy says, her voice childlike.

“Nothing. Go inside, girl,” Evelia says. “Go!”

She starts to close the door on them, but Coach jams her shoe in the doorway to prevent it from closing. “Mercy, listen to me,” Coach shouts through the cracked door. “Your mother came for you. Three years ago, she came back for you. I know, because I'm the one who met with her. I'm the one who told her to go away!”

With that, Evelia manages to shove the door shut, leaving Illa and Coach alone on the front stoop, Mercy sealed away inside the house. Coach folds her arms over her chest, hands tucked tightly in her armpits. “I'm sorry, Mercy!” she calls. “I'm so sorry!”

As Coach stares at the closed door, a pained look on her face, Illa asks if she can do anything for her, but she just stares at Illa dazedly like she's never seen her. Taking a few steps back until she hits the balcony railing, she sits down, crosses her legs in front of her, and starts to cry. It's so disturbing a sight that Illa wonders fleetingly if perhaps Evelia is right about the world ending; the world as Illa knew it has already blown apart.

When Illa arrives at the house on Galvez, she's surprised to find her mother waiting for her just inside the front door. Mama swipes at a thin line of drool that shines on her chin. She must have been dozing in her wheelchair.

“Mama, I'm so glad you're here, you'll never believe—”

“Where have you been, Illa?” she interrupts. “I've been so worried. You've hardly been home a minute, and with everything happening with the girls at school . . .”

“But that's just it, Mama,” Illa says breathlessly. “That's what I've been doing, trying to help—”

“I've missed you so much,” Mama says. She reaches out for Illa's hand, holds the knuckles to her cheek. “I thought you forgot about me.”

Illa throws her backpack on the chair by the entryway. “No, Mama. But you have to tell me, do you think Evelia could hurt Mercy? I mean, physically?” She takes Mama's hand, which is damp and cold. “What did she do to Charmaine that was so awful?”

Mama looks at her, and Illa sees tears welling behind her eyes. “Did you remember my insulin? I'm almost out. Only got another day's worth.”

“Mama, please!”

Her mother withdraws her hand. “Evelia Boudreaux probably wouldn't raise a hand to your precious Mercy,” she says bitterly. “What she does is far worse than a beating, you ask me. Charmaine needed help, and instead that woman wrecked her.”

“Why, Mama? Why did Charmaine need help?”

Her face puckers with tears. “Because Witness Louis took her out on her first date and raped her, that's why.”

TUESDAY NIGHT, GAME
night. The opposing team almost canceled because of the stench—the coach didn't want his girls exposed to any bad chemicals—but in the end, Coach Martin convinced him to come.

The Lady Rays squad hardly resembles the usual team; half the girls have been brought up from junior varsity. They look fearful and green, soldiers sent to the front lines as cannon fodder. Illa is still reeling from what Mama told her about Charmaine, and as the game unfolds, she can't focus on anything. She keeps seeing the crazed look in Evelia's eyes as Coach shouted through the door the day before, and imagining Charmaine, begging her mother for help and not getting it.

Outside, the air is heavy from the pressure of a coming storm, and the gym's AC broke that morning. With hundreds of people crammed inside, the space has become unbearably hot. Illa scans the crowd and sees a few familiar faces, Chole's tia and tio and her cousin Veronica, looking flushed and unhappy; Keisha Freeman's dad sitting next to Zion's stoic parents. What if Charmaine is up there somewhere? Could she have gotten the letter that fast and made the drive?
Please come,
Illa thinks.
Things are bad.
But no. It's too soon. A letter would take at least two days to get to Austin from here. She gulps cold water to fight off a creeping dizziness.
I'm not sick,
she tells herself.
I can't get sick.

At halftime, Illa watches the dancing girls march onto the floor to the frenetic drums of the blaring techno music (
It's a beautiful life, oh oh oh oh, it's a beautiful life
). She has always envied their easy brightness and the way that, when they dance, their movements are so perfectly coordinated that they appear to be a single forty-legged creature moving across the gym, kicking its white-booted feet, flaunting its rows of glistening teeth. Illa notices that Mackenzie Wolcott's spot in the kick line has been closed up, Abby Williams and Marilee Warren forced to hold on to each other's shoulders and smile about it. The girls' red lipstick and blue eye shadow look garish under the gym's lights, or maybe it's just the extreme discomfort radiating out from behind their wide smiles. Illa heard that the coach makes them wear Vaseline on their teeth so they'll keep smiling no matter what.

A minute into the routine, Abby collapses, followed quickly by Marilee. Illa gasps. When the girls hit the floor, they judder like junkies, and a few of the others trip over them, toppling to join the tangle of shiny limbs. A police officer rushes onto the court and kneels beside Abby, her blond hair spilled onto the floor behind her. Someone cuts the music, and the crowd can hear the animal sounds coming from Marilee's lipsticked mouth:
uuuunnnh-EYE, uuuunnh-EYE
. In the stands, people get on their feet, straining to see what's going on. Students with grease-painted faces hold their spirit posters in front of them like shields. Marilee and Abby's parents rush to the gym floor. Onlookers have clapped hands over their mouths in shock. Illa does the thing she always does when she's ill at ease and in need of distance: she finds her camera from beneath the bench and starts taking pictures of the girls in their strange rapture.

From outside, Illa can hear the scream of ambulances approaching. A minute later, EMTs sprint into the gym. While they strap Abby and Marilee onto stretchers, the Lady Ray players hunker on the sidelines holding hands, surveying the scene. They lose the game by two points, unable to recover from the unsettling halftime show.

That night Illa doesn't sleep. In her head, as on the television news, she replays again and again the image of the two dancers falling, sequins flashing, mouths agape, looking like beautiful, broken dolls.

E
ARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING,
dawn light trickles into my bedroom. I roll to my side and pull the sheet to my chin, careful to press my bad arm deep into the mattress to ward off a fit. As the dawn light steeps around me, I imagine how I would live this day if I had no past and no future, just a weightless present: maybe at the beach with Annie, or on the court with the neighborhood boys at Park Terrace. Maybe with Travis by the river, letting the juice of a watermelon drip down our chins. Not maybe. Definitely. I would spend this day with Travis, anywhere.

But I have a past.
Three years ago, she came back for you.
The past is a trickster—the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we are told.

After Maw Maw closed the door on Coach, I asked her if I'd heard right, if Charmaine came for me. She said yes, Charmaine came back, but she was a mess, still drug-ridden, wanting to see me for her own selfish reasons, so Maw Maw thought it best if I never found out.
Let's pray on it,
Maw Maw said, and so we did. Standing there in the living room, we prayed for protection for me from Charmaine, and we prayed for her, too, that she might find Jesus again and mend her ways.

Since Sunday I've been fasting in preparation for Pastor Parris, living on chicken broth and water. I'm starved, my stomach knotting like a den of blacksnakes. Now I hear a car pull into the driveway and get up quick to see who's come. Pastor Parris's white Cadillac rolls to a stop behind the Lincoln. I hurry to the door and lock it, then move back to the bed and sit, heart thumping. I wait, feeling silly for my fear, listening to their muffled voices as they talk, knowing that when he arrives at the door, I will be told to unlock it and will have to do so. But after several minutes, when no one comes to the door, I unlock it cautiously and stick my head into the hall.

“I won't take her back there,” Maw Maw says.

“We're as good as damning the girls of this town if we let this continue. You're the one to convince the people what's really happening, Evelia. After Alicia, they know you're anointed. You're scared, Evelia, I understand that, but people need to look on your girl and see this isn't a common illness. Everyone in that gym today will feel Lucifer's presence in Mercy. We've got to help these girls,
all
the girls, before it's too late.”

After a long pause, Maw Maw says, “I put my faith in the Lord that you know what you're doing.” I hear the door close behind him.

She calls me to her, says we're going up to the school. Something bad happened last night, more girls were struck down, and Pastor Parris says we're needed at a meeting. She sounds scared.

“I don't want to go up there,” I say, shaking my head, realizing this is true only as I say the words. I don't want people to see me this way, especially not Travis. And I don't want to be blamed for what's happening.

“I know, child, but we have an obligation. Those who see the truth must share it. Think of Jesus on the cross and be brave.”

I nod, though her words don't make me feel better. After all, Jesus
died
on the cross, in agony.

As we leave the stilt house, we're greeted by the headline from the newspaper on the front stoop: T
WO
G
IRLS
C
OLLAPSE DURING
H
ALF
T
IME
P
ERFORMANCE AT
G
AME
, M
YSTERY
I
LLNESS
S
PREADS
.

In the car, my arm is so bad that I can't buckle my seat belt; Maw Maw reaches across me and straps me in.

By the gym's double doors, camera crews crowd. Mr. Long stands like a human barricade. I hear him say that this is a meeting for Port Sabine High School parents only, and that they're not allowed in. When he sees us coming, he lets us inside, where people spill out of the bleachers and into rows of folding chairs that the janitor has placed in front of a long folding table with several microphones. The rain has picked up, crashing against the metal roof so it sounds like a jet engine overhead. As we pass the bleachers, someone calls out, “
Mercy!
” I look to see Travis waving furiously at me from his spot halfway up. At the sound of my name, people go quiet; Maw Maw puts her hand firm at my back and guides me forward. “Don't speak to him,” she says. “Don't speak to anyone.”

Superintendent Mack shows us to a spot up front, and when I see who else is there, Annie, Corinne, Mackenzie, Brittny, Keisha, I know this must be the place for the sick girls and their families. There are new cases, Nancy Cobb, Marilee Warren, Abby Williams, Laynie Hibbard, Veronica Gomez, and a handful of underclassmen whose names I don't know. Annie tries to catch my attention as I pass, but I focus my gaze on the ground in front of me. Once seated, I count fourteen of us in all. I look around at the other girls. Some appear scared but normal, their eyes roving and wide as if they're spooked horses. Some move their limbs spastically, and others make odd animal-like sounds. I realize that this is how I must look to everyone.

Suddenly, I feel a welling up, and I'm taken by a fit, my arm flapping. A few of the people in the nearby seats pause to stare, then go back to their nervous chatter:
I blame it on the heat,
one mother says.
Oh, the heat was outrageous,
another agrees.
I could barely breathe myself, those poor girls in their heavy costumes went down so fast, it was terrifying . . .
I realize they're talking about last night, but between the noise of the rain and my struggle to suppress the twitching, I can't follow the conversation. As angry as I am with Annie, I wish she were sitting by me so I could squeeze her hand; we always did that before games as we waited in the locker room tunnel before warm-ups, for luck, for strength.

A hush falls over the packed room as people move to take their places on the panel—Chief McKinney, Principal Long, Superintendent Mack, Coach Martin, a stranger wearing a raspberry suit, and Dr. Joel. Outside, the crack of thunder and angry rain. Staring at the floor, I dig my nails into the flesh of my upper arm and try to focus on breathing; sometimes that helps me fight the urge to twitch. The overhead lights shine on the waxed floor, creating a powerful glare so that when I blink, I see black dots.

“I'd like to thank y'all for joining us here today,” Mr. Mack says, tapping his microphone to silence the few talkers. We've got a serious situation on our hands here, and I'm sure you're scared . . . We want to use this chance to address any questions you might have, so we can avoid gossip and rumor.”

Someone shouts, “When's Mercy gone be able to play ball again?” People in the crowd hoot and cheer.
Don't look at me, please.
I clutch my arms to my stomach.

Then I hear Coach's voice; she's saying something about how she wants to have the whole team back ASAP. Someone asks if the tics are permanent, and Dr. Joel tries to answer but gets interrupted:
I heard they're part of a cult. I heard they're devil-worshipping out in the swamp, conjuring Beelzebub. That's how that baby got killed, it was a sacrifice.
The crowd murmurs in alarm. As I stare at the lines on the floor, free-throw and three-point and half-court, they wobble and fuzz and blend under the glare of the fluorescents.

Chief McKinney is saying there's no connection between Baby Doe and the . . . sickness, if it can even be called a sickness.

“Of course it's a sickness, it's obviously contagious,” says Shelby Williams, Abby's mom. “Our girls are in pain, we need to help them!”

Dr. Joel again, but his words are gobbledygook,
conversion disorder
,
mass psychogenic illness
.

“It sounds a lot like you're calling our girls crazy.”

Mr. Freeman stands, pulling Keisha to her feet. “We need real answers. My girl can barely breathe. Last night me and Mayor Sanchez talked on the phone with Ms. Marlene Upton of Sacramento, California. A company up there, InCom Manufacturers, was poisoning the groundwater and gave a lot of people cancer. Ms. Upton is here today, and she thinks this is due to the chemical spill at the refinery . . .”

“Just a minute,” Beau starts.

People are sitting at attention, straining to hear what's being said. Ms. Upton talks into her microphone: “The air has been particularly bad lately, possibly due to a chemical leak at the plant. If the town council approves my request to conduct extensive testing of the water, soil, and air around the school, I think we'll find our answers.”

I will myself to rise like a balloon, to nest unseen in the steel beams of the domed ceiling, and I swear I feel myself lift off the chair. Perhaps I do, because Maw Maw grabs my hand and holds it tight, saying, “Sit down, girl.”

“Look, Bob, may I have the mic for just a minute?” Beau again, his face contorted with anger, making him look goblinlike.

Mr. Mack, waving him away from the microphone: “Beau, we can't go ruling anything out at this point, we have to at least consider that the refinery might be the culprit.”

Cradling his Stetson in his left hand, Beau takes the mic: “As you all know, my Annie is one of the girls afflicted. So I want you to hear my thoughts before we go rushing to conclusions, paying thousands of taxpayer dollars for environmental testing that probably won't get the results you think. This here's my theory: I think Baby Doe belongs to one of the high school girls, and I think all this itching and twitching is a lot of smoke and mirrors to keep us from figuring out who. So I think we need to refocus this investigation, starting with Mercy Louis. I'm not saying she did it, that's not what I'm saying, but she might be trying to protect who did . . .”

The crowd roars, and I'm seized by tics. The blood in my veins drains down, down, out my feet, into the ground. I'm bloodless, freezing. I start to shiver, my teeth chattering so hard that I worry I might break a tooth. Mr. Long tries to get the mic, but Beau stiff-arms him. Some people are standing now, their bodies crowding in on me.
I need air
. I shoot out of my chair, both arms jerking straight up, so fast that people around me startle. Then my knees buckle, and just like that, I'm spilled out on the floor.

“Lord have mercy,” Maw Maw cries.

I feel heavy but alert, as if I'm at the bottom of a well looking up at a single slice of sky. My arms and legs and torso sink deeper into the floor. I feel a great weight pushing down on me, and I think of Travis, his body above me, the dip of his shoulder into his collarbone, the veins in his forearms, his broad palms on my back, my breasts. My head thrashes from side to side, my body moves like a snapping whip. I close my eyes.

I see Lucille Cloud's yellow-eyed dog that night in the forest, smell his wet stink. He speaks to me, tells me I'm a rutting bitch.
Live by the senses, as I do,
he says. He has a great grille of yellow teeth and a thick pink tongue dripping saliva. I call out for Maw Maw:
The Loup Garou, the Loup Garou is here to devour me!
I remember that night in the forest, how Lucille watched us through the truck window with devilish, glittering eyes. And I know: in summertime Lucille Cloud lured me to the forest, lured Travis, summoned our lust, took what was rightfully mine. She stole my purity and damned me.
Lucille Cloud, Lucille Cloud, Lucille Cloud!
I scream.
She deals with the devil, this is her doing!