The Shape of Mercy (28 page)

He wanted to see the diary more than ever. He asked me again if I would show it to him, and a war of wills broke out in my head.

I would show it to him.

I wouldn’t show it to him.

I would.

I would not.

He asked if he could at least see a copy of the transcription. I told him I didn’t have a copy and a wave of surprise washed over his face.

Professor Turrell had tipped his head in a thoughtful way and then leaned forward. “Do you have a thumb drive?”

“Yes.”

“You should make a copy for yourself. You’ve done all the transcription work on your own, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“I can pretty much guarantee that if the diary is genuine …”

“It is genuine.”

“My publisher will want it.”

Professor Turrell had paused to let that notion sink in.

“It should be published,” he continued. “That period of history is significant. What happened in Salem was tragic and astonishing.”

“That doesn’t sound like a book about economics,” I said, a moment later.

“I’m not talking about my book. I’m talking about yours. The diary. It should be published.”

I left a few minutes later, promising to return with the transcript on a thumb drive. He assured me that while I was gone, he would scour the Internet and the UC library system for the truth about Mercy Hayworth’s death.

I went straight to my dorm room to get the thumb drive from my desk. It had taken me just seconds to rationalize what I was about to do. Making a copy of the transcription made perfect sense. It was an act of protection for me and the diary.

Clarissa was still asleep—in my bed, actually—and wearing her clothes from the night before. She stirred when she heard me rummaging through my desk drawer.

“You didn’t come home last night, naughty girl,” she mumbled.

“You’re in my bed, do you know that?” I closed my hand around my silver-toned thumb drive.

“Yours is closer to the door.”

I slipped the thumb drive into my purse. “Did you see if I was in my bed before you fell in it?”

“Don’t shout.” Clarissa screwed her eyes shut. “It was this morning
already. I knew you hadn’t slept here. Ugh. My brain feels like it’s a thousand times too big for my head. God, I hate hangovers.”

I grabbed an unopened water bottle off my desk and a bottle of Tylenol. I handed them to her. “You shouldn’t drink so much, Clarissa.”

She hesitated, then took the water and pills from me. “I know.”

I turned to leave.

“If you’re going to church, you can pray for my wretched soul,” she said, popping two capsules in her mouth and taking a swig from the bottle.

I moved past her. “I missed church. I am going to Abigail’s to take care of something.”

A moment of silence passed, and I decided to tell her.

“I finished the diary last night, Clarissa.”

“Hallelujah. No more witches.”

“But Mercy wasn’t a—”

“I know, I know. She wasn’t a witch.”

Clarissa pulled my blanket over her head and curled into a fetal position.

I closed the door quietly behind me.

I was disappointed to see Esperanza’s car in the driveway when I arrived at Abigail’s. What I needed to do would only take a few seconds. I had a key. Esperanza wouldn’t have to let me in or out.

But I still wished she wasn’t there.

I opened the front door and made for the library.

Everything was as I had left it an hour and a half before. I turned on the laptop and waited impatiently for it to boot up. I heard footsteps above me on the second floor. I fished for the thumb drive in my purse and inserted it into the USB port, all while tapping a nervous foot.

The footsteps were getting louder. Esperanza was coming down the stairs.

I quickly copied the transcription from the laptops hard drive to the thumb drive. The footsteps sounded in the tiled entry. I removed the thumb drive, tossing it into my purse as Esperanza stepped into the library.

“Good morning, Esperanza,” I said, feigning a casual manner.

She looked surprised to see me. “Are you here to work this morning?”

“No, actually, I’m not. I finished the diary last night. I, uh, just forgot something. I’m on my way out.”

“Abigail is back. She’d like to see you.”

It was only Sunday.

“When did she get back?” I asked.

“Not long ago. She got an earlier flight. The taxi just dropped her off. She called me at home.”

Abigail was back. I was both scared and eager to confront her with her lies, but I thought I’d have another day to decide what I would say to her.

“She saw your car though the window. She’d like to see you,” Esperanza said again.

“I’d like to see her too.”

“She’ll meet you on the patio.” Esperanza stepped back from the doorway so I could walk past her.

“All right.”

She watched me as I left.

I walked into the dining room, through the open french doors, and cautiously peered out onto the patio.

Abigail wasn’t there yet.

I sighed and took a chair at the glass-topped table.

I breathed slowly, telling myself I would not raise my voice or let Abigail know how much she had hurt me. I would state the facts simply and ask for an explanation. Surely I was owed that much.

Several long minutes passed before I heard movement behind me. I turned. Abigail was framed in the doorway to the patio. She looked like she had aged a year or more in the three days she had been gone. If I hadn’t been so mad at her, I would have asked if she was all right.

My surprise at her appearance must have been obvious. Her wan smile tugged at me.

“The early flight out of Boston is hard on a girl.” She stepped onto the patio, walked over to the table, and took the chair across from mine.

“You’re home early,” I said.

“Yes.”

Esperanza appeared with a coffee tray. She set it down and poured a cup for each of us.

“Thank you, Esperanza. You don’t have to stay. I’m sure you’d rather be home with your family.”

Esperanza looked from me to Abigail. “What about your lunch, señorita?” she said.

“I’ll be fine. I ate on the plane. Please, Esperanza. It’s Sunday. Go home to your family.”

Esperanza hesitated. She caught my gaze and I knew she was trying to communicate something to me, but I didn’t know what it was. She turned to Abigail.

“All right. But call me if you need me. Arturo and I have no plans today.”

“I will.”

Esperanza left, and we were alone. I didn’t know how to begin. Or where.

Abigail began for me.

“You’ve finished the diary,” she said simply.

“I did. Last night.”

“And I suppose you have questions.”

“I have a lot of questions.”

Abigail picked up her coffee cup. “What would you like to know?” She was the picture of calm. Exhausted, but calm. Smug, even. She brought the coffee cup to her lips. My hastily hatched plan to stay unruffled began to fall apart.

“I’d like to know why you lied to me.”

She raised her eyes over the rim of her cup and blinked at me, then brought the cup slowly down to its saucer.

“Why I
lied
to you?” she said.

“Yes. I’d like to know why you lied to me.”

She hesitated for only a moment. “And what makes you think I lied to you?”

My foot resumed a nervous tap dance under the table and I fought to still it. “You told me Mercy was executed. She wasn’t. She died in prison. That sounds like a lie to me.”

Disappointment flooded Abigail’s face. Disappointment and hurt. I knew that feeling. I had felt it just hours before, as I sat in Professor Turrell’s office.

“Where did you come by such information?” she asked, exhaling heavily.

“What difference does that make? It’s true, isn’t it? You lied to me. I’d like to know why.”

“Oh, it does matter. I said you would have questions when you finished the diary. I asked you to wait until I returned to find the answers. You told me you would. That sounds like you lied to
me.
”

“But I …” I couldn’t finish.

“You couldn’t wait? You couldn’t wait a day or two? You wouldn’t have needed to wait even that. You finished last night and here I am!”

“But why did you let me believe she was executed when she wasn’t?” I raised my voice, even though I had promised myself I wouldn’t.

“I never asked you to believe anything. What you believed about Mercy was what you chose to believe.”

“But you knew I was under the impression she had been executed. You knew that’s what I thought! You made sure of it.”

For a moment, she said nothing.

“Where did you go to find out what you couldn’t wait to find out?” she finally asked.

I was silent.

“Where? Where did you learn this?”

“A professor at the college.”

“A professor at the college? You’ve been talking to a professor at the college? Does he know about the diary?” Abigail looked stunned.

“Look, you never said the diary was a secret. And yes, he knows about the diary. So do my parents. So do my roommate and my cousins. You never said I couldn’t tell anyone about it.”

“Why this professor? Why him?”

I fidgeted in my chair and the metal made a whining sound. “He asked about it. He’s writing a book about stigma and culture and economics and I don’t know what else, but he’s done research on the Salem witch trials. My roommate told him I was working on your diary. He wanted to talk to me.”

“He’s writing a book?” Abigail tossed the words out as if they tasted bad.

“He asked to see the diary, Abigail, and I told him it wasn’t mine to show. I told him he’d have to talk to you and that you’d be gone until maybe Tuesday. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She sat back in her chair. “You told me you would wait for me.”

I sat back in mine. “You told me Mercy was hanged.”

We stared at each other, both of us angry and disillusioned, for several long, silent moments.

“I just want to know why you lied to me,” I finally said, removing any anger from voice but letting the hurt come through.

Abigail slowly stood. “I’d like to be alone now.”

I stood too. “I think after all the work I’ve done, I deserve an answer. I think I deserve to know how Mercy died.”

“You?” She stared at me. “You deserve an answer?” She turned and began to walk away.

“Yes!” I shouted. “I cared about her, Abigail. I even dreamed about her. I think I deserve to know!”

Abigail turned to face me. “I didn’t lie to you. I swear to God, I didn’t.”

She stepped into the dining room and disappeared down the hall.

I stood there, unable to let myself out of the house, unable to accept the fact that Abigail must be crazy. She had to be.

Surely Abigail had seen the same list I had.

If Abigail truly believed she hadn’t lied to me, then she must also believe Mercy Hayworth was the twentieth person hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692.

But there were only nineteen names on the list.

What Abigail believed was impossible.

I made my way back into the house. Abigail was nowhere to be seen. I went into the library, hovered over the diary for a moment, then carefully placed it back inside its protective covering. I eased it into its foam-padded box and closed the top. It was almost like putting Mercy in a casket, closing the lid, and saying good-bye.

I didn’t know what to expect from Abigail. Were we finished? Did she want me to come back and proof the transcript? Print it out for her? But how could we even consider publishing it without including how Mercy died? And how could I convince Abigail that Mercy never saw the hangman’s noose?

Hopefully Professor Turrell would be able to dig up the truth. In the meantime, I wanted to keep the lines of communication with Abigail open. I grabbed a piece of paper off the writing desk and wrote a quick note:

I turned off the computer, closed it, and placed the note on top.

I drove back to campus, but Professor Turrell had left. Maybe just for lunch?

I decided to go to a church and pray for my dad’s surgery since I had missed church that morning. Then I’d come back to North Hall and see if Professor Turrell had returned or if I had misjudged his interest in the diary. I reached into my purse to touch the thumb drive, the only part of the diary left to me.

I couldn’t find it. I dug around inside my purse, dumped the contents onto the passenger seat, and prodded every inch of fabric. But it wasn’t there.

The thumb drive was gone.