The Sisters of Mercy

Inspired by a Leonard Cohen song. Written in my undergrad days.

 The Sisters of Mercy

 

Todd was exactly eight and a half years old when they found his best friend's body about 150 miles from his house.   Todd still didn't quite grasp the concept when the policemen came (without police hats, he noted) to talk to him about Matt.  Matt was found completely clothed, a detail which the detective seemed proud of, still holding a silver crucifix in his hand.   Todd’s red-eyed mother sat next to him on the ancient couch in their living room, squeezing his hand as the men asked him question after question.  He answered most of them, the ones that he could.  Unfortunately for them, Todd wasn’t known for his great memory. 

 

“I’m going to find them someday.”  Matt leaned his head back into the grass.  The edges of his hair brushed against rusted beer cans and bits of glass, but he never noticed those things.

“Who?” Todd asked, barely out of his own reverie.

“The Sisters of Mercy.”

“Who?”

“My mom told me about them,” Matt said.  “She sings me a song about them.  They sound wonderful.”

“Oh yeah?  Are they real sisters?  Like my mom and aunt?”  Todd sat up on his elbows, looking Matt in the eye.

“No, I think they’re nuns.  The penguin-looking ones."

“Oh." 

The creaking sound of a door made both of the boys turn their heads.

“Matthew, it’s time to come in now.”  She motioned for him to come inside, trying not to look too uptight, or too careless.  The neighbors might be watching. 

“Okay, mom.”  Matt got up from the ground and shuffled back towards his house, pausing to wave a brief goodbye to his friend. 

“What do you and Todd talk about out there for so long?” his mother said as she shut the door behind them.  She wiped her hands on her apron which she had not taken off since cooking dinner.  Slowly, she peeled the strands of hair from her sweat-covered forehead, before stopping to lean on the counter, waiting for his answer.

“Nothing, really.  School.” Matt always looked at his feet when he talked to his mother, so she could never tell when he was fibbing.  He liked to think he was a pretty decent fibber anyway; the other day at school he had managed to convince the bully that he didn’t have any lunch money.  Lying to his mother was a different thing though.  He didn’t like it.

“Seems like a lot of nothing to talk about.” Mom smiled slightly at her boy. 

“Mom?”

“Yes, Matthew?”

“Will you tell me a story before bed?”

“Aren’t you getting a little old for stories?”

“No.”

"You will be someday."

"No."

"Yes." The boy was a little different.  She could tell that much.  The doctors and teachers hinted at autism, but she refused to listen.

“I still want a story,” he said, determined.

“Okay.  What story would you like?”  At least if she told him the story in the kitchen, it would be less like a bedtime story.  To her, that was a step forward.

“Tell me about the Sisters again.”

“Again?  I think I must have told you that story a million times.”

Matthew shrugged.  “I like it.”

“Well...,” She began, “There was a king, a great king, and one day he awoke to find that his queen had been kidnapped.  He searched the castle up and down, but couldn't find a sign of her anywhere.  Finally he went to go search for her himself.  He traveled for days and days, but could not find her at all.  One night he heard a voice in the wind, telling him to find the Sisters of Mercy, and if he found them, he would find his queen.  He knew a little about the Sisters; only that you cannot find their address by candlelight, only through the light of the moon.  So he quickly blew out his candle and stumbled around in the darkness.  Out of the darkness, there was a ray of light from the moon shining directly onto a door.  He went to the door and knocked on it,  and one of the sisters came to the door.  She said, 'wipe your eyes with the dew of my hem, and you will see you wife'.  He did as she said and immediately, his queen was before him,  He wept and they hugged, and then the sister told them to close their eyes.  When they awoke they where back in the palace, with no indication that they had left at all besides the dew on their foreheads and the grass under the kings boots.

“They help anyone, right?”

“Anyone who looks for them."

“That’s nice.  That’s a nice story.”

"It is.  Now, off to bed with you."

 

 

 

 

Matt closed the door to his room and climbed into his bed.  He knew just what the ladies would look like:  their clothing wouldn’t be black and white like a regular nun’s.  Their dresses would be green, grass green, since they were hemmed with dew (that was his favorite part of the story).  Their veils would be a pale pink; some might have purple as well.   They would swoop down and grab him up, into their arms. 

      He thought about this almost every night.  He thought and thought until the thoughts lulled him to sleep, and even there he would dream about them.

      When his mother came to wake him up the next morning, he was already gone.

 

 

      That day, Todd was reluctant to come home from school.  Home meant homework, and if the homework wasn't dragged out for long enough, it meant hanging out with Matt.  Thankfully, Matt went to a "special school" (as his mother said), so Todd would never have to deal with the awkwardness of balancing his school friends and Matt. 

     One by one, his friends were retrieved by a parent or two, and Todd began the trek home.  He walked slowly, but not too slow.  If it got dark before he got home, his mother would not be happy. 

      As he round the sidewalk and began the walk up to his front steps, he noticed the note lying  on the welcome mat.  In scribbly, warbled handwriting, his name was etched on the front.  The inside read: "I've seen them, and it's wonderful."

     "Huh." Todd muttered out loud.  "Imagine that."

 

      After the body was found, the autopsy performed, and the body stitched back up, a funeral was held.  Most of the adults from the town came, even if they didn't know the little boy.  "Oh, that poor little boy."  Todd was there, dressed in a suit his mother had bought him the day before.

      "It's such a tragedy," she cried to the newspaper reporter.  "He was such good friends with my little boy."

       Todd felt bad.  He felt bad for a lot of reasons, he felt bad for being mean to Matt, for not telling the police about Matt's obsession with the Sisters.  He had overheard his mother telling a friend that she believed Matt's parents killed him out of frustration, and he felt bad about that too.  He wondered if he should say anything about the note, but he knew he never would.  He liked it that way.