“You are not hated, my son,” said the man. “You are loved.”
“Wh-what… ?”
“You have opened red mouths in these others, and in doing so released them to be with god. You have shown them such kindness and mercy.”
The Hated did not know how to reply to that. He lowered his knife, having nearly forgotten that he held it.
“From now on, to all in my hearing,” said the man, raising his voice, “and to every believer of the true faith of Lord Thanatos—praise his darkness—you will be Brother Mercy. This I have said, and thus it is so.”
And, to the Hated’s complete surprise, the guards all lowered their knives and yelled it out.
“Brother Mercy!” they cried. Over and over again, and soon the prisoners picked up the words, chanting them, turning them into a prayer. The Hated could feel his shame and emptiness die. He could feel the Hated crumble into dust and blow away.
From then on, he was Brother Mercy.
He raised the knife again, offering the weapon to the sad-eyed man.
“Oh, no,” said Saint John of the Knife, “keep it, Brother Mercy. You will need it.”
PART TWO THE ROAD TO ASHEVILLE
The sound of snow in trees makes silence, makes the poem in my pocket sing through the holes, the loose change of angels, all those fallen lights into the world we came in on sound, the stranger cadence of wave, and drum. And our inner work is to never stop hearing ourselves for the rest of our lives when everything conspires to drown the silence of us out.
—ANNE WALSH, “GRIEF IS THE THRONE WE ALL SIT ON”
10
MORGIE MITCHELL SAT IN THE saddle of the rumbling quad and studied the farm. The sun was low in the sky, and this looked like a good place to spend the night.
Despite being with Riot, Morgie felt very alone. Benny and the others had gone off to warn the people in the small town of New Alamo—which they’d learned about from a dying soldier—while Morgie and Riot continued on their way to Asheville. Since leaving their friends behind in a forest near the ruins of Harlingen, Riot and Morgie had followed Route 77 north, planning on using it to skirt the radioactive wasteland of Houston. From there they would merge onto Route 90 and head east.
This farm was along the way, and it reminded him a bit of home. Unlike the carefully tended fields back in Central California, this place was clearly untended. Abandoned. The acres of soy had grown wild over the years and been invaded by a thousand kinds of weeds. Young scrub pine and wild maple trees stood alone or in clusters, their boughs crowded with birds.
Beside him, his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Riot, squinted beneath a flat hand held above her eyes. She was thin and wiry, with a bandana that hid most of the wild roses and thorns tattooed on her shaved head.
“It’s pretty,” said Morgie.
Riot didn’t respond to that, but instead pointed. “Zom.”
Morgie followed her finger and saw a thin figure walking slowly and clumsily along a gravel road that ran from a big farmhouse. A boy, dressed in pajamas that were so ravaged by weather they were barely more than rags.
“I see him.”
As the zom tottered closer to them, Morgie saw that he was wrapped by creeper vines, as if he’d stood for so long that they’d grown all over him. He’d seen that before, and it made him sad. It was such a lonely and terrible thing. Waiting forever.
“We better git before we get bit,” said Riot, and gunned her engine. The roar of the quad motors—a sound rare and unnatural in all this tranquility—had almost certainly triggered the creature from its lonely vigil.
Morgie scanned the overgrown fields of the big farm. “Don’t see any others. The house looks to be in good shape. Be nice to sleep indoors.”
“Glad you ain’t ending the day without at least one good idea,” said Riot. Lately that was the kind of thing she said. Little digs. Once upon a time she’d joked like that, but now neither of them was smiling. Certainly not at each other.
Morgie winced but turned away to keep it from showing.
He loved Riot, but wasn’t sure she was capable of returning it. Not really. Even Riot admitted that she was damaged goods. After all, she’d grown up as a reaper—as Sister Margaret—in the Night Church. During those years she’d been physically and verbally abused by Saint John and his senior reapers. She was emotionally scarred in ways Morgie could never really understand. Before meeting up with Benny, Nix, Chong, and Lilah in Nevada, Riot had never lived in a town. She’d never had a loving family, and had no idea at all what a normal life was like. In that regard she was much like Lilah—though not as distant and strange. Nix told him it was huge that Riot could fit in at all, or that she could love anyone ever.
Morgie tried to be an adult about it, to be understanding and accepting and patient. But Riot’s words still hurt.
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
The old schoolyard rhyme never made sense to him. Of course words could hurt. They punched faster and smashed harder than any physical weapon. Morgie was a good fighter, but one of Riot’s comments could slip through his guard and draw blood.
He suspected that Riot was on the verge of breaking things off completely, and maybe by insulting him she hoped he’d be the one to leave first.
Fat chance, he thought. Stabbing words or not, he loved her. He just wished he knew how to be in love with someone like her.
She snapped fingers in front of his face, startling him. “Hey, Earth calling Morgie Mitchell. You even in there?”
Morgie growled something and tried to swat her hand away, but she pulled it back too quickly.
“Let’s go,” he mumbled.
“I’m already gone,” laughed Riot as she zoomed away down the hill.
Morgie lingered a moment longer, slowly gunning his engine. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
11
THEY STAYED THE NIGHT IN the old farmhouse.
They worked together to clear the place—checking each room and closet for lurking zoms—and found nothing. They cooked a meal in silence, ate in silence, and went to bed in separate rooms on separate floors.
He sat up for hours, weary beyond words but unable to sleep.
Morgie understood heartbreak. He’d been in love with Nix his whole life, and had nearly died trying to protect her from Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer. But Nix only ever had eyes for Benny.
Then he’d met Riot and fallen very hard for her, intrigued by her exotic looks, her complex history, her humor, and her strength. She’d even loved him, too. Or said so.
Now, though, that love was fading into a dusty nothing that matched the entire landscape of the world.
He sat up, staring out through a crack in the shutters at the endless field of stars. Remote and cold. He couldn’t touch them, either, and they were indifferent to him.
Sleep finally took him, and he fell a long way into bad dreams.
In the morning, exhausted from that kind of night, he helped repack the quads, and they continued on. There was a long way to go, and he was sure he was going to feel every inch of every mile of the journey, knowing he could not catch up to Riot in any way that mattered.