Mercy by Sarah L. Thomson Page B

back,” Haley told Eddie.
    Giggling, thrilled to have her attention, Eddie ran out of the room and thumped into Elaine, a basket of clean laundry balanced on her hip.
    â€œIt’s not a game!” Haley yelled after him. “Elaine, that’s my pillow. Get it away from him. He’ll spill something on it.”
    â€œHe’s not going to hurt it, Haley.” Elaine set the laundry basket down with a tired sigh. But she bribed Eddie to give up the pillow, handing over a pair of rolled-up socks in exchange.
    â€œYou don’t know what he’s going to do,” Haley grumbled. “And Mercy’s glove is missing. If he took it—”
    â€œWho? Eddie?” Elaine looked up, startled. “What would he want with an old glove?”
    â€œWhat does he want with anything? What did he want with my flash drive last week?”
    â€œWell, you shouldn’t have left it on the coffee table.”
    Of course it had been Haley’s own fault that Eddie had dunked Haley’s drive in Sunny’s water dish. She couldn’t even leave something on the coffee table in her own house.
    â€œAnd we said we’d replace the drive. Honestly, Haley . . . ”
    â€œHow are you going to replace an antique glove? A historical one? A, a, an
heirloom
?”
An heirloom you weren’t supposed to take
, Haley’s conscience whispered, and her stomach squirmed. If she had to tell Aunt Brown that she’d taken the glove and Eddie had ripped it up or chewed on it or fed it to Sunny . . . Her imagination cringed.
    â€œHaley.” Elaine’s lips tightened. “Why don’t we look for it first? Before we try, convict, and execute Eddie for taking it?”
    â€œ
I’ll
look for it,” Haley snapped. “Just—can’t you keep him out of my room?”
    â€œNot if you leave the door open.” Elaine picked up a folded shirt and three pairs of socks out of the laundry basket and handed them to Haley. “Here. If you want me to wash that stuff on the floor, you know you’ve got to get it in the laundry basket. And what’s that on your bed? Isn’t that what you’re looking for?”
    She heaved the basket back up and followed Eddie down the hall. Haley looked back over her shoulder. The red box was lying on her quilt, open. The fingers of the glove spilled over the edge, pale against Haley’s dark blue quilt.
    She couldn’t have missed seeing it, if it had been there before.
    Except she must have. What was she imagining? That the box had moved by itself? That the glove had crawled out while her back was turned?
    Now there was a creepy thought. Creepy but stupid. She just hadn’t seen the box, somehow. Hadn’t seen a red box on a blue quilt.
    The glove
did
look a bit as though it had tried to crawl out of the box on its own, though. Haley fought back a shudder atthe thought of those flat white fingers stirring to life, like blind white worms.
    She reached out a hand to put the glove back into the box and then stopped.
    Eddie
had
done something to it! There were stains all over the ivory leather, rusty splotches, brown tinged with red. Appalled, Haley snatched the glove up. Was it peanut butter? No, the marks were a deeper red than that. And so fresh they glistened, shiny and wet. So fresh they were spreading, getting larger and larger, meeting and merging into one large gory stain the color of blood.
    Haley dropped the glove on her bed. Now the stuff—whatever it was—would be all over her quilt. But it was on her hands too—gross! Haley rushed for the bathroom, turned the hot water on hard, and stuck her hands under the stream. Faintly pink water swirled down the drain.
    Hands clean again, she came back to her room. What was she going to do? There was no way, just no way, she could tell Aunt Brown. Maybe she could lie. Maybe she could bury the thing in the backyard. Maybe she could clean it somehow.
    She