“As tempting as that sounds, I cannot leave Haunting. It is my home. It always has been and always will be.” Mercy removes my hand from her neck lest someone think I’m bein’ cheeky.
“We can make anywhere a home as long as we’re together,” I insist. “Would ya really miss all this?” I motion around the ballroom. “All this fuss and muss over something as silly as a little dancin’?” I squeeze her hand before droppin’ it when James looks our way. “You know I can’t give ya all this. I can’t give you parties and ball gowns and fancy food. Life will be simple with me, but we’d be happy. I know it. Ya know it too, don’t ya?”
“Mercy, dearest, stop fraternizing with the help and come dance the waltz!” James Piper sweeps over like the trussed-up peacock he is and ushers her away from me. Mercy looks over her shoulder at me and mouths “I’m sorry, Nate” as they take their places as the center of attention she deserves to be. The music starts and—for a time—she’s lost to me in a world I cannot follow.
“No more.” Nathan’s voice holds Nate Thatcher’s lilt still even though I can tell he’s pulling himself out of the memory. “I don’t want to talk on it no more.”
Catalina shuffles papers on her desk before taking Nathan through the same steps as me to awaken him from the hypnotic state.
He opens his eyes, blinking several times. “I don’t think it ended well for them. I mean, I know we figured that, but now—being back there—I’m pretty certain that it didn’t end well for them.”
“Write your impressions.” Catalina hands Nathan her notes and the tape of the session. “It helps solidify everything you’ve learned from the session.”
“Can we go now?” Jay looks up from his phone. At least he’s had social media and games to keep him company while we’ve had our sessions. I don’t want to say anything out loud, because I know he doesn’t believe in the metaphysical to begin with, but my brief glimpse of James Piper in the past is enough to convince me that the triangle that Mercy found herself in is alive and well in the present day. That’s one soul-pattern I’m repeating.
We gather up our stuff and trail Catalina back to the front office. I wave Nathan’s attempt to pay away by insisting on charging both sessions to my dad’s Gold Card. “Don’t worry about this,” I say. “With a name like Open Closed Doors, he’ll think it’s a hardware store.”
No one talks as we make the short trek back to the car, climb in, and buckle up. My phone beeps letting me know I have a text message. I glance down at the screen. It’s from Nathan in the back seat.
Nathan: Notes 2gether 2nite?
Me: My rm @ 8. No J.
Nathan: Break dorm visit rule?
Me: Important enough 2.
“Well, that was a big waste of all our time,” Jay complains as he starts the car. “I hope you don’t expect me to come here again, Mer.”
“No. No, of course not,” I say. I have years of practice of being able to answer while only half-listening. Now is one of those times. I clutch my cell phone tighter, my mind already focusing on 8 p.m. Yes, we’ll be breaking Dad’s after-hours dorm visitation rule, but it will be worth it. If push comes to shove, I’m sure I can get both of us off any academic probation. I need to discuss what we discovered today. If that means bending the rules a little bit, so be it.
“Hey, wow, jeans,” Nathan teases when I answer his knock on my dorm door, wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of my usual dressier school clothes Dad insists on. “Does your dad make you wear skirts and dresses to class to uphold the family image?”
“Dad says a good girl from a good family needs to dress the part.” I motion for him to take a seat on the bed or at my desk as I close the door behind him. He chooses the desk, and I take up residence on my bed, my bare feet dangling over the edge. The part of me that listens to Dad and Jay knows I should have waited until morning to discuss this with Nathan. Inviting a boy to my room alone after dorm visitation hours is a huge no-no, but I did it anyway. The need to compare notes and discuss what we experienced this afternoon at Open Closed Doors supersedes following the rules. I can’t be the good girl every second of my life. It’s exhausting. I need to remember to be me.
“So, what did you think about this afternoon?” Nathan pushes both hands through his hair, a characteristic I have noticed signals his emotions are on edge. “Crazy how real it was, right? I really felt like I was at that party.”
“It was super intense,” I agree. “It was like we were Mercy and Nate again, even if just for a little while, under hypnosis.”
“I’ve read the soul is like a multifaceted gem,” Nathan says. “Any time you turn it, it can reveal a new facet. Who knows how many pieces make up who we are? I bet there’s a deeper connection than just Mercy and Nate if we keep looking.” He digs a notebook and pen out of his backpack to write notes. “I told Jay I was going to the library for a late study session. He seemed to buy it.”
“As long as we keep any excuses plausible and don’t act like we’re creeping around, Jay will buy it.”
“We?” Nathan raises both dark eyebrows at me. “I didn’t know there was a ‘we’ now. When did that happen?”
I wave a hand. Words stick in my throat. I’m not sure I should answer his question or if there’s even an answer to give. We’ve talked about being in this together. After reliving moments in Nate and Mercy’s lives this afternoon, the “in it together” idea seems all the more appropriate. There’s a “we,” even if it’s not quite the “you and me” relationship Nathan wants. There’s no denying that we have a connection. We have a responsibility to figure out Nate and Mercy’s story together.
“Have you written any impressions down like Catalina asked us to?” I change the subject instead of answering if there was a “we” or not.
Nathan shakes his head. “I thought we should do it together. It will make it easier to discuss, don’t you think? I mean, I’d rather just get it all out right now instead of holding anything back. The more we know, the clearer the whole picture becomes.”
I find some paper and a pen of my own. “How should we do this?” I ask. “Bullet points? Paragraphs? A story?”
“It’s not a test,” Nathan says. “Why don’t we just write and see what happens. Then we can compare notes. What I think will be really interesting is seeing how they—or we through their filter—each view different events.”
I chew on the tip of my pen. “It won’t differ much from today. The triangle pattern is already repeating itself. I saw that one loud and clear.”
Nathan holds his pen over his open notebook. “You ready?”
I laugh. “Not really, but let’s get this over with.”
I write THOUGHTS ON MERCY at the top of my page and make a list.
Don’t know if born in Haunting, but raised here. Dad ran Paradise Shores Hotel.
Must have met Nate at the hotel. He worked there. Nate from wrong side of the tracks so couldn’t be together. She had to “stick to her own kind.”