Chapter 5
Patience, Impatience and A Real Girl (A return to the main story.)
Out of oblivion unheard words were spoken, "You'll see. You're meant for me, and I'm meant for you."
Day 46
The creature didn't seem able to stay focused for very long. These brief periods would never be enough to accomplish much of anything. But she seemed to want something really badly. This was the thing that made her return nearly every day. But would this desire be enough for it to tolerate some discomfort? It would have to deal with some discomfort if it ever wanted to focus.
He had a plan, but he didn't know if she would cooperate. He reviewed the plan in his head as he looked down at the rope. Well, the three ropes, that was what he called it. It really was one rope with three leads, each lead had a loop. He had used them for moving heavy objects when he rebuilt the house. Normally, the sisters do not like being tied up or confined.
In the past, he had seen them rip their own limbs off to get out of chains. Samuel was discussing life with Randolph when she arrived. The mule turned and walked away. Randolph did not like the creatures. And he really did not like Mercy.
His back was to the chairs. His back was to her. She considered the moment and concluded that she did not like it. She sat and tried to recall a human frown. She sat without noticing.
"It's a three-legged rope shaped like a 'Y'. The two parts made like a 'V' go on your side." He made a 'V' sign with his fingers. "It's a hauling rope. We are going to use it for something else. Sometimes, I call it three ropes." He was facing her.
"I do not like it when you stand with your back to me."
"Everyone dislikes something, sometime. Nobody likes everything, all the time. I can wait until you're ready to listen."
"Samuel wishes to tie us up with rope. This could lead to much fun." she stopped abruptly and looked up at the man. "Have we offended you, Samuel?" She straightened herself in the chair.
"Oh, no, I like being ignored when I'm trying to help you." he muttered. I am a really bad actor, but it might guilt her just enough to agree. She might have just enough human to have a twinge of guilt. The man stood up and walked away. Or she might desire the thing she wants enough to go along with this. Either way, he was the one making something happen. Mercy was the prey now. And I think I have annoyed it enough to have its attention now.
Mercy stayed in the chair and in the world. She thought. My human is broken. I have damaged it. And I do not know how. I must repair him. He will be whole. I will ask. He will know what to do. My Samuel is smart. My human is broken... Why does it walk away from me?
It seemed like many hours later when the man returned. Mercy blinked. "Hello, please, I have offended. I request your aid in making corrections? Mercy does not wish to offend Samuel. Mercy must repair."
"You've thought about that a lot, haven't you? Well, don't worry about it. I was just as mad at myself as I was at you." Next, I have to figure out what's up with those weird speech patterns. "Alright, I have an idea, a plan of sorts, to help with your drifting off. Are you ready?"
"You are offering this - idea, a plan of sorts – to us?" she paused, "You are not broken? I did not break you? This idea – a plan that will keep us here?"
"I probably am broken, but you didn't break me; at least, not here and now. I don't know if it will work. My thought is that if you had an anchor, or something, to connect you here – it would be easier for you to stay. But it has to be more than that, I need a way to signal to you." He explained about the shape of the ropes.
She asked, "Tell us again why our hands go through the loops?" He is the enemy of us. This is a trick? Or does he want more from me... Us... Mercy? Oh, to feel his touch, just once. ...
"So, you can't accidentally drop them." He explained, "It's like a tether I can signal you with. It would be easier to understand if you put them on." He held out two of the ropes leads.
Mercy responded, "I am unsure. I do not know what to do."
Samuel said, "I'll show you." He slipped his hand through the loop, and he gripped the tail end rope. "OK, pick up one of your ends." He waited. "You don't have to put your hands through. Just pick it up."
Her eyes grew big as she lifted the end gingerly with the tips of her fingers.
The man requested, "Ok, pull."
Her big gray eyes looked at the man. She pulled, as hard as her grip allowed. The rope slipped off of the man's arm.
He showed his arm, "See, my arm is fine."
"Samuel, do it again!" she said. Her dark gray eyes rimmed with honey blinked in the afternoon sun. She dared not say what was in her mind.
As she nodded, he said, "We'll both take turns." The eyes and the speech travel together. A trap? Or does Mercy really have a touch of human left in there - somewhere? Somewhere in his mind, the random image of a young child flickered and faded away.
A bit later that day. Mercy sat. Her hands around the ropes that encircled her wrists. "Samuel, tell me about the signal again?"
"When you start to drift off, I'll give a little tug on the rope. This is how you'll be able to feel you're drifting off." He slipped the loop around his wrist. He gave a light tug.
She looked like a bug bit her on the butt. She swallowed. "And why do you get a loop? I mean, if you are a rope puller and not the pulled – you do not need a loop?"
"I have a loop, so you won't feel like the only one with a loop around them." He mused. Can't it be because it's made that way? Has to be about you? There has to be some deeper meaning. "It's a sign that we're in this together." He gave her a deeper meaning.
Her gray eyes searched the man for answers. Then with both hands she mechanically jerked the rope. She forced a smile which was way too sad. "It's a sign that we're together – in this..."
Later that day.
Samuel tugged the rope lightly. "Come back Mercy. You don't have to leave. Mercy?" Samuel tugged the rope lightly a second time. "Come back Mercy. You don't have to leave. Mercy?" Samuel tugged the rope lightly a third time. "Come back Mercy. You don't have to leave. Mercy?"
Gray eyes blinked; her hands formed little soft fists around the rope. She painfully whispered, "Pull."
Samuel tightened the rope. Mercy seemed to try to pull back. He kept the rope tight. The sun moved in the sky. The resistance she held on the rope weakened. Her hands began to quiver. And her eyes blinked. Finally, she closed her eyes and let the ropes rest.
"Mercy, are you here?" He thought that he should end this creature now.
A short time later she replied, "Yes. How long was I gone?"
"Less time than before." he estimated.
"Samuel, I ask this knowing you have no answer. Will this become less difficult – easier?" She was weakened.
Samuel smiled and thought of the snake. "Of course, it will. I'm sure of it."
"Thank you, Samuel." Mercy straightened herself in the chair. "I have found it hard to say what I want to say. I have not said the words for you to understand. You will find the words in me?" A hint of golden-brown encircled her gray.
"So, you want me to figure out what you want from me?"
"Yes, and much, much more, please, Samuel. Help me, stop."
"Stop what?" Stop what? The World? The Sisters of Mercy already killed it. Look around, girl-queen, the world is full of you. People aren't running it anymore. He fought the urge to end this miserable creature now. Disgusting thing in the shell of a person. He dropped the lead of the rope to the ground. "It's too late to stop. Look around, there's nothing to stop. The past can't be undone. And this started long before us!" He was behind the chair. Hands waving as he spoke, "You're going to fix everything. You can't hold yourself together. And, you don't really know what you are. And most of the time, you can't even tell where you are."
Mercy stood up and she looked directly at the man, "I want to stop both our peoples from decaying anymore. I want to find a way to live together, or, at least, live in peace. I can't stop death, but I can try to stop the killing and – I know more than most. I was there at the beginning."
Samuel said, "You were the first?" His curiosity began to overcome his anger. "You can't be. You'd have to be hundreds of years old?"
"The body you see, is much older than that. It's a perk of being the first." The ropes fell. She toed at the grass. Her hands slipped behind her. "I don't remember the beginning." Help me. She said to herself. Something went wrong, help me.
"Are you actually saying, you've lived in a time before this?" He made a swift and grand gesture, "You, in this body, were there at the beginning of the sisters?"
Mercy stared at the tips of her beige shoes. "Yes." she looked up, "and I cannot remember it."
"There's more to this? There's something you're not telling me? You're keeping secrets, from me," he guessed, "and from yourself."
"This is not the right way."
The small hint of humanity drifted away. "Don't you go! Sit down and get the rope. This is the only way any of us have, now."
"Samuel, no." a small voice said, "We have been on the wrong path, the sisters, broken. Samuel and Mercy, new path, better. Samuel, not the same."
Without her tether, without an anchor, without the force of 'her human' holding her here, she drifted away.
Day 47
"Not the same as what?" he asked. He watched as she slipped her tethers on. "You said that I was not the same. Not the same as what?"
"Samuel, you are not the same as you, anymore."
"You're saying that I've changed?" he offered, "What does that have to do with anything? You said I was going to teach you something? Change? You don't know how to? You want to know how to change?"
"Samuel, will make Mercy better."
He went on, "You don't remember your beginning. You don't really know what you are. You can't say exactly what you want. And if you knew, you don't know how to change. With all this, and probably more, the only thing a collective of millions of brains can find to do is to ask the guy they hate the most for help. Mercy, look at me. You believed I was hunting you. Why take that chance?"
"Samuel not the same as Samuel. Samuel might make Mercy not the same as Mercy."
"You... For you the reward was greater than the risk. The chance was worth it."
"Yes, Mercy admires Samuel stop killing – Samuel makes peace with Samuel, makes truce with all sisters. Samuel risks Samuel, in mind of Samuel."
He replied, "I don't understand what you're saying. I believe I know what you mean. You went to someone who had changed to learn how. You want to learn what you don't understand; Mercy wants to remember, learn and change." Could this really be a way in? This could be a chance to end all of them; after all, it doesn't seem to know what it's saying half the time. What if it can actually do what it wants? A way for people to be able to start over, free from the Sisters of Mercy. He continued, "I think I'll take the chance; I'll help you. But you have to tell me what you really want. In there somewhere is a goal, plan or something?"
"Words do not come to me without questions."
"Like a child." He lightly yanked the rope. "You can't find your answers because you don't know your questions?"
And she jumped.
"A bug bit your bottom?" He said without thinking.
"I do not understand the reason you pulled the rope or the question. Samuel, is there a reason you ask that question? Was I drifting?"
"You jumped when I pulled the rope. Do you know the reason?"
Mercy knew the reason. "Yes."
"When you say, 'yes.' You're supposed to give the reason."
"I, we do not wish to say? The answer may lessen Mercy to Samuel. It is important to us to keep a good face for Samuel." Oh, the reason... That all-encompassing glorious reason. The reason... The answer of my desire... Desire... This is not touching but it is so close.
Shame? "When I pulled the rope, I was playing." It was a test, I wanted to know if you would do the same thing as before.
"Playing. You were completing a game?"
"No." Samuel explained, "The other day, you told a joke; then, I told a joke. Later, we took turns pulling the rope off our hands. That kind of stuff is play."
She said, "I will be the next rope puller."
He replied, "Well, you're starting to catch on. That was almost a joke. Let's see, if we came get you to understand play a bit, Mercy?" Where's Randolph? I need to talk to somebody sane.
Day 48
Samuel fed the mule. Randolph snorted at the wind. The sweet scent of decay filled the air. It wasn't the mule, this time. His back hoof tore at the ground. He patted the mule and whispered, "I feel them too, old boy." The creatures were creeping closer. They, really, had learned to hide better. A sapling bent the wrong direction. Grass blowing against the wind. He knew what they meant. None of these things bothered Samuel, but something did.
Samuel stood beside the tree. He didn't know what he hoped to accomplish with the creature today. He had previously hoped to bring out something human, decent or maybe honorable in it, but that hope had quickly faded. Maybe, today was the day he found out why he couldn't end it. He scanned the ground at his feet; he was tired.
Mercy floated through the tall brown grass. Grass that was streaked with the green of a coming spring. Her full-length hunter green gown, a sign of fresh things to come. Her head encircled with assorted green ribbons formed a crown. She lightly settled down in the chair.
Samuel barely lifted his eyes.
"Good morning, Samuel." she said with a hint of cheerfulness.
Samuel's right hand touched the barrels midway down their length. Unknowing, he spotted a halo of honey around the Gray of her eyes. He let the shotgun rest. He started, "Mercy?"
"May I speak first, Samuel?" she quickly interrupted.
"Alright." I Should end this creature and be done with all this.
"On behalf of the Sisters of Mercy, we ask? I ask for understanding and mercy. Maybe a better word than mercy would be forgiveness? Some of my sisters have crossed where they should not be? The crossing was not done with purpose. They travel to this place. The land is hard to know?"
If any human existed in her, Samuel couldn't find it. "You have twenty-four hours to make this right. After that, any sister across the line will have an end."
"Mercy will try, Samuel." She sat there like a child in an adult's body. "We did not intend to make wrong. Please, end no sister? With each sister gone; Mercy is less. It is bad for Mercy when sisters end before their time."
The man turned, and he walked away. The creature lied. Maybe that was all it did. I should end it.
"Samuel, please stay?" she drew in an anxious breath, "Please, stay with Mercy? Mercy asks Samuel to stay?" She felt what she desired drift away.
The man was gone.
"Samuel, please stay. Mercy has fear." The female creature walked away with agony in her heart. She must try to heal what she has broken? My human is broken. I have damaged it. And I do not know what to do. I must repair him. He will be whole. I will ask. He will know what to do. My Samuel is smart. My human will not help me now... I will wait.
The man walked the corners of his world. Randolph would trot up, and he would trot away. Finally, he reached the gate by the house. Each passing day, it grew harder to take a deep breath. He thought that it would be clear, and he could go sit down. He peered through the slots in the boards.
It stood silently. The dark green dress was fluttering in the breeze. Its hair waved, and the green ribbons fluttered in her slim hand. It cried without tears. She did not know the reason why.
The man muttered, "Damned thing, it's by the gate?" He went in the house.
She lifted her hand, palm up, to the man. Oh, my human Samuel, please talk to me...
Midday passed, and the afternoon came.
A great ruckus came from outside. Randolph, well, he had enough. He began to clear out any new comers from around his home. The barn was his, after all. Samuel went between the house and the barn. He let a shot loose into the air. With the echo came scurrying, and creatures fleeing across the border. Randolph would get to sleep in peace.
Mercy stood by the gate. The gate Samuel had opened earlier. Her palm rose up to Samuel.
Samuel returned to the house.
Day 49
Mercy sat in the chair; toes pointed to the sky. Her legs crossed at her ankles. The 'Y' shaped rope rested on the earth between the chairs. Her white pleated skirt pulled over her knees, the soft blue sweater, and the beige shoes were her gift for the day. She had been extra careful to touch only her side of the 'Y' rope. She studied her desire to check these things she knew she had done. She sat motionless. She stared in the direction of the house. She did not like the feelings she had. It would be easy for us to take what Mercy wanted from the man. But this would not get her what she needed.
She breathed deeply. Without conscious thought, the lower half of her face attempted to settle on an expression. He is walking. He is walking this way, coming here. My human is coming, and I do not know what to do. I must repair him. He will be whole. I will ask. He will know what to do. My Samuel is smart. My human will help me now. He is not my human – He is Samuel. Mercy did not comprehend her own mind; it was not a thought of the sisters. Her breathing was rapid. She did not notice. Her silvery gray eyes darted all around. By chance, they fell upon the man. He was in the chair.
"Good morning." she offered.
He nodded slightly.
"No sister will be near or pass by your," she paused like she could not find any words, "anywhere near here."
He nodded.
"Samuel, I wish to reestablish our truce?" she leaned forward.
"White gloves?" he observed. "And everything goes back to your normal? No." He faced her now.
"Samuel, you do not wish the truce?"
She had made him prey, again. "One hundred feet away, in the grass, one of your sisters. If she moves, I'll kill her. Then, I'll kill two more of your sisters before I kill you. You broke the truce. Your sisters walk across human land. Right now, no one moves."
"Samuel, I have broken us. I must repair it."
"Shut up, with your rambling on." he lifted the shotgun. "You lied. You can communicate with the others without touching, and that is just the beginning. So, if you want you and your kind to live a little longer, you will answer some questions. You are going to try really hard to be truthful and clear. Yes? Or I'll start ending some of you. Do you understand?"
Mercy's eyes were as wide as they could be. She finally got it, why the man was to be feared. She sat motionless.
"Do you understand?" he asked. The weapon he called a 'cowboy gun' was in one hand, and his shotgun was in the other.
Mercy blinked. Mercy raised her palm to Samuel. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of her mind, she wanted to strike out and take what Mercy wanted. She did not know what stopped her.
"Do you understand?" he asked.
"Yes, Samuel, I do." The silvery gray eyes stared blankly. "I will speak to all. We will move away from human land and humans. No one of Mercy will cross human land without words of human. We will do this today. When this is done, we will answer questions."
"Alright." he lowered the weapons. "How long?"
"Today." She stood. "Human male, may we, Mercy, return?"
"Get this done, and we'll see."
The sun had barely passed the high point in the sky. She returned to the chair. He is not my human – He is Samuel. He is? Not mine? She did not comprehend why these words kept returning to her.
There was no humanity in it today. He was sure of this, but he had its attention, now. Urgency could get it to focus. He had to find out. Did it have any humanity? Or would he have to kill it? Without any humanity, it was too smart to let go. And it seemed to be smart enough to fake being human. Or at least fake having some humanity in it.
Time passed as it did. He was tired, but the creature couldn't know.
He was sure the creature saw him sit in the chair. He didn't speak.
It returned. "Human, I will speak the words in my mind to you now." Those gray dark eyes stared at him. "Since we arrived, we have called you, our human. We take what we wish. All belongs to the glory that is Mercy. No other hunters come. You alone have shown kindness. We grew to see this as possession. We were in error. You are Samuel. You are not my human. You are not my demon. It may be you are not a thing. I have studied what I need. And what I want. What I can take from you is not what I seek."
Samuel said, "Well, that's a pretty good speech. Tell me, do you seek the thing you need, or do you need the thing you seek? Yeah, that was a good speech. It doesn't say anything. Doesn't say what you seek. I want to know what you seek?"
Mercy did not reply.
"This is your last chance. Mercy, tell me the one thing you would say to keep me from walking away, or doing something worse?" he paused, "Say what you would say if there were no more chances. What does a Goddess-Queen say to their demon if they want to live?"
"Help me, Samuel." her gray eyes stared into his, "Something went wrong. This is not what I am supposed to be. I can't do it without you. Help me."
"How?" was all he said.
Mercy searched the dirt at her feet, "Like now. Questions. Never before has Mercy seen that others are others."
"You believed that everyone was you?"
"The purpose of all is to be Mercy. All will come to the glory of us. Because you are not Mercy; now, did not mean you would not be. All is one."
"And now?" he questioned. "What's different? Is anything really different? Is mercy really different?"
"It is possible that Samuel's purpose cannot be completed as Mercy; therefore, others may have purpose that cannot be completed as Mercy. Others not Mercy, but exist for own purpose? Samuel can see, yes?"
"And when did you reach this conclusion?" he said; expecting some exact date and time.
"With Samuel, today." she nodded as a hint of golden-brown peeked through the gray.
"One more question. Why did you look like a bug bit you on the butt?"
"This is hard for Mercy to explain." Mercy paused to look at Samuel, "It is difficult for me to say. It reminded me of something? I do not quite remember. The memory must be very old. But that is only part of it." She reached down and mindlessly picked up the 'Y' end of the rope. "The sisters are always trying to reproduce. Let us not discuss what you think about that now. It was that urge many times stronger than normal, in one instant." She faced the ground in some type of shame. "It was for you. It was not correct for us."
"I tugged the rope. You got extra excited?"
"And very surprised."
"Your eyes are losing some of the gray. Why?"
"Thank you for speaking of other things."
"Your speech changed as well. Do you know why?"
"These things you speak of, they are real? True?"
"Yes" he went on, "You didn't know."
"No, I did not. I believe I will drift soon."
Samuel picked up the rope.