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CHAPTER THIRTEEN chin up, little pirate.
MERCY SLEPT. SHE DREAMT OF HOME.
Not the home on the waves, the one hidden between the acacia trees of Noyvi Zem. The little one on the corner where the forest paths met the town. The one that smelt of sugar cane and jurda and her mother's cooking.
In her dream, she lingered outside the house. Taking in the dark cracks of the clay and the perpetual orange film that coated everything in sight. Mercy didn't need to look at her hands to know that it coated her too. She was part of the land here, a little orange girl with dark coils of hair.
In her dream, she stepped inside the house, brushed her feet on the threadbare mat her and Jesper had woven the summer past. Welcome Home! It read in Zemini, in Kaelish, in Kerch. Even in her dreams the sight made her heart burn with a sweet poison.
She knew what came next, what always followed her cumbersome footsteps into the home. She was never quiet. She never had to be because there was nothing here to fear but an unmade bed and an unwashed dish. She could be happy.
"I'm home!"
Her voice sounded from somewhere else, somewhere far away but all too close as her own lips stayed firm but the sound still resonated.
There was silence. Mercy wondered if she had this all wrong. Was this one of those nightmares she would never quite remember? Cursed to be left with nothing but a mirage as the fear coiled in her bones but never left her with a reason. The orange dust coating her fingers looked like blood. The leaves of the acacia trees sharpened into claws.
But perhaps she had been too long consumed by the world's bitter reality that she had forgetten that somewhere, hidden in the lines of a map no cartographer cared to retrace, was home. Home didn't have monsters. Home only had little boys with gangly limbs and a talent for bullseye.
The little boy charged from the shadows, waving a rusting pistol above his head like a manic infant, all arms and legs and screams with little regard for the dirt tracks of his boots, nor the wallpaper that already showed signs of his abuse.
As the boy drew nearer, Mercy plucked the pistol from the his hand, holding it just out of reach as he scowled. "You're not allowed pistols in the house."
"You're not allowed to tell me what to do." Jesper pouted. She'd forgotten how he looked when he did that, so innocent it made her heart break. He'd never be a child again, nor would Mercy ever find out what became of the man he grew to be. "That's ma's job."
"Run to ma then, Llywelyn."
"Don't. Call. Me. That." The little boy groaned, enunciated each word with a bony pummel into the muscle of her thigh. But it was a dream and the punches felt like feathers. " You're not much better, Gwenhwyfach."
