The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (adventure books to read .txt) 📗

that, so they wouldn’t look for me here. I whispered it in her ear when I hugged her. She was bawling away but I think she heard me.” Seraphina’s voice was very loud; she was singing, then chanting and finally wailing.

“I don’t know the right words. But Stella does. If only she could remember. Don’t you remember being in Seabury? Don’t you remember Granny Scotia? Your eyes, Stella Maris. You have the gemstone eyes. It must be in you still. Granny Scotia only knew the teas and herbs, the things of the land. But your people knew the salt water cures, the salt water spells. Dianne, you know.”

Stella waited for Dianne to laugh and roll her eyes, but she was listening very carefully, with her head cocked to the side. “I do,” Dianne said.

“My mother was a lost cause, God bless her soul.” Seraphina bowed her head. “All I know is what Granny Scotia said: Keep watch. You keep watch.”

Stella’s head felt full, those beach pebbles, shifting from side to side, pouring back and forth with the slightest movement of her head. She parted her lips, making an opening to the cave of her mouth. But no words came. Her throat was so dry and her arms trembled.

Seraphina pointed out over the water. Stella could see strange gleaming peaks. “It’s the three sisters,” Seraphina yelled. “Three waves coming together. You don’t normally see them this close to the beach — it’s something offshore. Surely you know that, Dianne? You should too, Stella, if you could just wake up. What’s wrong with you two? Why does it all fall to me? I don’t have any power. I’m just the prophet. But no one listens to me. Oh, there goes Crazy Serrie. There goes the madwoman. They just don’t want to hear my message. There are powers who will destroy us. They have everything to lose and we have nothing to lose.”

Dianne beckons at Stella to come up off the beach, which she does just as a wave breaks on the rocks, the surf stretching up and over her feet, soaking her running shoes, gushing ten feet ahead of her to Dianne, who loomed cliff-like in the spray. A spiralling twist of green water broke, the sea swirling around Stella’s knees, the force of it knocking her over as the salt water sucked back into the bay. Seraphina pulled her up, her manic energy unbelievable. “The salt water will revive you, Stella,” she said, as their faces and hair were soaked. She carried Stella up the beach to Dianne and plunked her down. Dianne carefully took Stella’s uninjured hand and led her off the rocks while Seraphina turned to greet the last rise of glassy green sea water that shattered on the beach in a white foaming veil stretching forward over Seraphina’s legs as she walked into the ocean, her head lost in the fog, only her shoulders and black hair visible, a strange painting — the headless sea girl of the Fundy, Stella thought, clutching her abdomen. There were no more high breakers, just steady crests moving in to the high-water mark, the mist lifting a bit, and Seraphina’s voice out in the bay where she was splashing, singing a song Stella didn’t know.

“Don’t worry about that one. Couldn’t drown her if you grabbed her by the neck and held her under the surface. She’ll live forever,” Dianne said.

But Stella did worry. She worried about whomever it was coming after them. She worried about Seraphina being right. And she thought about the earnest young woman in the sunshine-yellow dress, who worried her most of all.

Various Sorts of Glory.

Now

Mal reached an automated answering service at the Jericho Centre. She had to press a bunch of buttons to get put through to Grace. It went right to voicemail — Grace was on the other line. Mal sat in her car in the graveyard looking at Isaiah Settles’s tombstone while she kept pressing redial.

“Grace Belliveau speaking.”

“Hi, Grace. This is Mal Grant-Patel.”

Pause.

“Mal, I told you I can’t talk about residents.” Grace’s voice was quiet.

“I know, I know, but I just —”

“But I am going to because something has happened. Stella has gone missing. I was going to call you. That card came in handy. You only had one of those email contact forms on your website.”

“What?”

“And Dianne has gone missing too. They can’t be far. They could be dead in the woods. They could be injured in the forest. Someone saw them in the graveyard.”

“That’s where I am now.” Mal coughed.

“What are you doing in the graveyard? Mal, you sound sick. I think you should go back to California. Can’t you research this from there? The police are looking for Stella and Dianne now.”

“It’s this group, Sodality,” Mal said. “They could have them. Or they’ll find them first. I’m telling you, Grace, they think Stella has some incriminating evidence — something they thought burned up in the fire at Mercy Lake. They prey on young girls. And, apparently, the occasional old woman. If they find Stella and whatever she has, that’s pretty much it. They’ve been following me around.”

“For real? Mal, if that’s true, we need to go to the police.”

Incredulity was gone. Grace believed her, Mal could tell. She was speaking quietly. The way Mal’s mother did when she was alarmed.

“What would I tell the police? They’re going to think I’m crazy for coming here in the first place.”

“What you need to focus on is your own safety, Mal. Right now we have to find Stella and Dianne, especially if some crazy person is following women around. Stella has a history of wandering off. Dianne doesn’t, so that’s worrisome. Stella doesn’t remember anything about what happened at Mercy Lake, so how do you think she’ll know where this so-called evidence is?”

“Stella’s grandmother was related to some lighthouse keepers out on an island in the Bay of Fundy. The Llewellyns. They came from Wales. There was some sort of story about