The Mercy Seat

Book One
Carapace

This is what I remember.

My mama was crying. It was cold in the house, and so dark. I was quiet under the covers, with my eyes open. The sound came down soft in the darkness, like the sound Sudie's pups made under the porch after she tore her foot off in the fox trap and Papa had to shoot her. Before Uncle Fay pulled them out one by one, black blind fluffs and the one white one and the tricolor, and tied them inside a flour sack and threw them in the creek. That sound. I tried to tell myself it was the new baby crying, up in the loft bed between Mama and Papa, wrapped tight in white strips of cotton, soft in the featherbed, warm, crying hungry. But I knew it was not the new baby crying. It was Mama.

My eyes hurt, from the cold, from staring into the dark seeing nothing. Thomas jerked in his sleep and whimpered, scrabbled under the covers, pushed out from beneath them with his fat little arms. I lifted my hand from where it was warm under the feathertick and felt for his forehead. I was afraid for him then, more than always, more than every half second, trembling -- for fever, for mystery, for what could take him -- from the very hour he was born. So I felt him. His forehead was dry and naked, smooth with cold. I rolled him against me, lifted his head and slipped my arm under, held him in the crook of my arm with his face turned toward me, soft, breathing milk. On the other side of him Little Jim Dee kicked once in his sleep and got still. At my back I felt Jonaphrene's slow breathing. I held the feathertick over my brother's head to warm him, off his face so he wouldn't smother. My nose and cheekbones were burning. The hard knot cramped my chest. My mother was crying. My fingers were turning ice to the bone.

Later, Papa's voice called me.

This was all the same night.

"Matt!" Papa said. And then softer: "Mattie!"

A weight was on me, like the cold press of pond water, and I tried to fight my way up. I struggled to the top, pushing, like black swimming, and opened my eyes. Still it was dark. I looked to the window. No light filtered through the oilpaper, not even the least hint of dawn's whitish haze.

"Matt!"

Thomas twitched awake. He shuddered and reached out for me under the covers. I put my hand to him and felt his fist wrap tight around my finger.

"Martha! Git up now!" Silence, and then "Martha Ruth!" and I knew I was in trouble, because I had in those days, and still have, four names. "Git up and light the fire, would you! Mama's not feeling good."

I whispered to Thomas and slipped my arm from underneath him. My hand was asleep, tingling, buzzing on the inside like caught insects. Over my head the wood creaked in the loft bed. I pulled my finger loose from Thomas and wriggled out from under the feathertick, stood shivery and barelegged in my underslip on the cold floor. Thomas sighed and turned over. Jonaphrene rolled in sleeping to take my place.

I moved quickly over Mama's rag carpet and hunted in the dark until I found the iron poker. It stung cold in my hand like it would strip the skin back, and I traded hands, shifting it from one hand to the other while I poked the red embers. My hands and knees burned where I knelt on the cold hearthstones to blow. I picked sticks and twigs from the woodbox. The fire licked up yellow. I put two splits of kindling down crossways and stepped back to wait, dancing on the hearthstones, my arms wrapped around me. I thought then to run back to the bed and crawl under the covers, but the loft creaked again, and I waited by the fireplace, my breath small and smoky in the flickering light.