Angels of Mercy Read online

  Angels of Mercy

  Laura J. Underwood

  Yard Dog Press

  Angels of Mercy

  Laura J. Underwood

  First Edition Copyright © Laura J. Underwood, 2019

  Published by Yard Dog Press at Kindle

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Print Version ISBN 978-1-945941-19-1

  Angels of Mercy

  First Edition Copyright © Laura J. Underwood, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology should send their inquiries to Yard Dog Press at the address below.

  Yard Dog Press

  710 W. Redbud Lane

  Alma, AR 72921-7247

  http://www.yarddogpress.com

  Edited by Selina Rosen

  Technical Editor Lynn Rosen

  Cover art by Melanie Fletcher

  First Print Edition June 1, 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedication

  To all my crazy ancestors. You are clearly to blame for my storytelling skills.

  Table of Contents

  Angels of Mercy

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  About the Author

  About the Cover Artist

  Yard Dog Press Titles as Of This Print Date

  ONE

  “Thomas Lachlan MacKenzie was a real kook,” Lonnie said, her voice filling the Circulating Room of the T.L MacKenzie Memorial Library.

  Katie MacLeod looked up from the stack of catalog cards she was trying to sort and file. If we were automated, I wouldn’t have to do this, she groused inwardly. Every other library in the state of Tennessee was looking to get their catalog online. Not TLM. Since it was privately funded by an ancient trust and local taxes, its board thumbed their noses at the State Library’s offer, insisting computers were the tool of the devil, unfit for young folk. Talk about falling behind the times.

  Katie’s cousin Lonnie Yellowcreek stared at the monstrous portrait over the main desk. She wore her black hair pulled into traditional braids that cascaded from her shoulders. A woman of ample figure, she looked like the “tourist” concept of a squaw with her cherub face. Though that same Cherokee ancestry colored Katie’s shoulder-length hair and eyes a rich dark brown, she possessed of a softer version of her father’s broad Scottish features.

  The picture within the frame depicted a gentleman of somewhat advanced years, dressed in the height of Victorian men’s fashion, seated in a chair before a fireplace. In one fist, he clutched a carved staff of white wood, the top of which looked vaguely like some sort of deer, though it was hard to tell since the painting had been rendered in a style rather like the master painter Sargent. The MacKenzie dress tartan, a field of green and black with red and white stripes, draped over the back of his chair, and in the shadowy background, the usual clutter associated with the time period, including a small harp. His hair hung white and long, but his brows were bushy and dark. All told, he reminded Katie more of a fantasy wizard than of a library benefactor.

  “He was an eccentric,” Katie said.

  “He was a nut case,” Lonnie said.

  “Why, just because a hundred years ago, shortly after that painting was done, he wrote a will donating this house to the people of Mercyville to be used as a library, so long as certain rooms were never changed, and nothing was sold, and then up and disappeared, never to be seen again. I’d call that eccentric.”

  And speaking of eccentric, Katie mused. She glanced towards the front door beset with beveled glass, giving her a clear view of the town square of Mercyville, Tennessee and the memorial it housed. Once, they said, there had been an oak tree there, but lightning split it back during World War II. Still, the MacGreeley sisters had seen it as their patriotic and Christian duty to have the remaining trunk encased in concrete. They had surrounded it with a series of statues folks had dubbed the Angels of Mercy. Seven of them altogether ranged about the tree, hands clasped in prayer. Their leader brandished a sword of fire, while resting one foot on the body of a native warrior. And below that, on a plaque, words Katie found impossible to read without some anger.

  And the Angels of the Lord

  Came down to Crush the Red

  Heathens and Show Mercy to

  The Children of MacGreeley.

  Long ago, the center of Mercyville had been built on the top of a hill, but that too had been changed with time and the construction of houses and landfills. Legend had it that an ancestor of the MacGreeley sisters, a Presbyterian minister seeking religious freedom and a good life for his family, had fled to this place. Supposedly, angels came and saved him and his flock from a band of Cherokee warriors, and on this site, he built the town of Mercyville.

  It’s a wonder we’re not some tourist attraction with a tale like that, Katie thought.

  Then again, who in their right mind would want to visit a one-horse town where the most popular subject of the library book talks was the Bible? Katie had grown up in Mercyville. It was not the most open-minded place for a folklorist and writer turned librarian in desperation. The MacGreeley Sisters ruled with a vengeance.

  Katie could boast that her ancestors were among those early settlers with MacGreeley, for all the good that did. Her father, Ian MacLeod had been a full-blooded Scotsman who had taught folklore at East Tennessee State University. Her mother, a second-grade teacher named Annie, was Eastern Cherokee like her cousin Lonnie. Unfortunately, Katie’s parents had both died in a car wreck just two years ago, taking her younger brother Adam with them.

  Of course, the townsfolk had been sympathetic. At twenty-five, Katie was now the last of her father’s kin in this area. She’d been working on her own degree at ETSU when the avalanche washed her family’s car off the I-40 over in the Carolina Mountains. Their tragic death had forced her to quit school and return to the town she so despised to take care of the family estate. She still lived in the old house, though most of it was closed off and disused. The only other person there was Sally, the elderly black woman who had worked as their housekeeper since before Katie was born.

  Katie sighed and frowned. Already, folks gathered at the front door. The library opened at ten on Mondays. Outside, the familiar figures of several mothers with preschool children chatted. The local lawyer, Mr. Rafferty, scanned his morning edition of the Mercyville Courier. Not far behind him, lounging on a bench and wrapped in a stadium blanket, sat the bedraggled old tramp known locally as Crazy Tom.

  “Wonderful,” Katie moaned. “Crazy Tom’s at the door.”

  Lonnie glanced towards the window and grinned. “Hope he’s had a bath. Last week, he had Miss Mary Lou MacGreele
y nearly keeling over at the wretched odor of him...” Lonnie threw back her head and fluttered a hand before her as her voice rose in pitch to the twittering frail tones of the youngest MacGreeley sister.

  “What do you expect from a woman who gets the vapors over the sight of a piece of toilet paper on the floor?” Katie asked. She took her cards and turned them into a fan, whimpering, “Oh dear, oh heavens, I think I shall faint from the sight of that ghastly piece of trash at my feet.”

  “Miss MacLeod!” a voice snapped with the ferocity of a pit bull, and Katie jumped, losing the handful of catalog cards. They scattered as she turned to find Mr. Durgan standing in the doorway of his connecting office. Hands on hips, his willowy frame leaned like a vulture spotting a gruesome morsel.

  “Oh, boy,” Lonnie said sotto voce.

  “Our good citizens are not to be the subject of ridicule as long as I am Director of this Library!” Mr. Durgan said, directing his glower on Katie.

  “Yes, sir,” Katie said.

  “Now get those doors open and let those people in.”

  “Sir, it’s not ten o’clock yet,” Katie began.

  “I said, open those doors!” Mr. Durgan snapped. “And once you have done so, I want you in my office! I have a special assignment for you, and I can’t spare one of my professionals for the task, so it’s going to be your responsibility.”

  He turned to march back into his office. Lonnie rolled her eyes.

  “The wicked witch of the stacks has spoken,” she muttered.

  “Oh, don’t get me started,” Katie groaned and began collecting the catalog cards into a pile. Durgan was just one of the many burdens she hated to bear. Katie had never quite figured out what made him single her out for verbal abuse so often. She was hired by the last director, Mrs. Perkins, before age and the local library board forced the old woman to retire.

  Picking up the remaining cards and setting them aside, Katie hurried towards the beveled glass door.

  Who said being a librarian was a peaceful, easy job?

  Wasn’t her.

  She hitched the floor and lintel bolts out of their sockets, then flipped the latch and drew the door open. Mr. Rafferty looked at his watch, shrugged, folded his paper and proceeded to enter at a languid pace. He was quickly out maneuvered by the mothers and Crazy Tom. The latter surged past Katie, plaid stadium blanket flapping, and headed for his favorite place, a chair over in the magazine reading section that gave him clear view of the main room. Katie sighed and wondered if they would get complaints about Crazy Tom today. He was really harmless, though he had a penchant for walking the streets, quoting obscure passages of poetry at the top of his lungs or playing jigs on his tin penny whistle. Sometimes, Katie swore he must have memorized every volume of “Child’s Popular Ballads.”

  As far as Katie could tell, when in the library he did little more than sit in that chair and watch people go about their business. Occasionally, he offered candy to small children that they usually tried to devour fast unless their mothers were there to take it from them and toss it in the trash.

  Today, however, Crazy Tom paused, whipping back around to look Katie straight in the eye. His were as green as summer grass, almost unreal.

  “Did you know you will soon be the keeper of the key?” he said. His gaze dropped to the silver locket dangling on a chain she wore about her neck—an heirloom given to her brother that she found among his things after the accident—before returning to her face.

  “What key?” Katie asked, cocking her head. She was used to these senseless exchanges with the old man.

  Instead of answering her, he whipped back around and raced for his favorite spot, for the question had delayed him long enough to let Mr. Rafferty get close to the sacred seat. Katie shook her head and let the door close. One task done, she thought. She might as well face the boar in its field now while she still felt enough fight in her. A day at the main desk dealing with the Mercyville public could rapidly melt her resolve.

  The door stood closed when Katie approached. She knocked, giving Lonnie a glance. Lonnie made a sympathetic pouting face, and Katie grinned.

  “Enter,” Mr. Durgan barked from his private kennel.

  Katie pushed the door open, stepping into the room that served as the Director’s office. Mr. Durgan leaned over his huge desk, exposing the thinning top layer of brown hair to her. He wore the rest of it long, reminding her of Mark Twain on a bad day.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  Katie sighed and took the chair facing him. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but she knew he’d picked it for that very purpose. “It keeps the staff from falling asleep while I’m talking to them,” he once told her. She seated herself, folding her hands in her lap after adjusting the calf-length skirt she favored for work. Mr. Durgan didn’t tolerate women in slacks, and had set a strict dress code to assure him that he would never see them on his female staff. He sported suits she thought old-fashioned, set off with a bow tie.

  Save the scratch of his pen, silence filled the room like a stifling cloud. Katie took slow breaths, the only way she could keep herself still in the interim. She despised Mr. Durgan. He was shortsighted and tended to listen only to his own council without ever consulting anyone. He ruled the staff of fifteen with an iron hand and a bad temper—not the best combination in Katie’s case. She had a bad temper herself.

  “Do you know what this Friday is?” he suddenly asked, and his face rose to pierce her with its pale blue stare. Horse-face was an apt description, in her opinion. His nose protruded like a bluff over the thin line of his mouth under an ill-kept mustache.

  “Summer Solstice,” Katie said.

  Mr. Durgan squinted. “No, I mean, do you know what it is?”

  “Payday?”

  His face colored as he huffed a growling sigh. “This is what irks me about you, Miss MacLeod!” he said. “You cannot give me a straight answer!”

  “If I understood the reason for the question, it might be easier, Mr. Durgan.”

  “Friday is a very important date concerning this library, Miss MacLeod! Exactly one hundred years ago to the very day, Thomas Lachlan MacKenzie donated this house to be used as a public library.”

  “And disappeared that very night,” she said.

  “That’s not important,” Mr. Durgan said, waving his hands. “The board has decided that in honor of this occasion, we should have a display of memorabilia celebrating his gift to the good people of Mercyville.”

  “You want me to set up a display.” Katie sighed. Well, that wasn’t too hard a challenge in her book.

  “Exactly, but I want this to be more than just a couple of posters and a few books,” Mr. Durgan said. “I want this display to contain items belonging to Mr. MacKenzie himself. Which is why you will need this.”

  He reached into his desk drawer and drew out something wrapped in velvet. It clunked heavily on the front of the desk as he laid it within her reach. Making a face, Katie took up the cloth. Something long and heavy lay in its folds. She drew it out with a puzzled frown, and found herself staring at an old iron key. Someone had polished it regularly, for it shone as though new.

  “I didn’t know they made these anymore,” she said, hefting it.

  “That’s the key to the sub cellar.”

  “The sub cellar?” she repeated. “I didn’t know there was one in this place.”

  “Very few people do,” Mr. Durgan said. “We have so much of storage filled with letters and books and supplies, most people don’t often notice the old oak door to the back.”

  Katie made a face. Actually, during a number of forays into the main cellars, she had noticed the door. No one seemed to know what it hid, and the maintenance people suggested it had been bricked over long ago. She did recall that one maintenance man named Carl quit because he said he “felt” things any time he got near the door. Granted, Carl had been a big one for the bottle, and there were rumors that he’d actually been fired because he’d been caught drinking on the job,
but even now, when Katie saw Carl working the farm neighboring her own property, he would stop her and ask her if she had ever noticed the odd static that door inspired.

  “The sub cellar supposedly contains many of the items our founder asked be left undisturbed.”

  “Wait a minute,” Katie said. “You want me to go into a moldy old sub cellar and dig out some of MacKenzie’s personal effects?”

  “You are correct,” Mr. Durgan said. “And because we are short staffed just now, I’m afraid you’ll have to do much of it after your workday ends.”

  “But I’m supposed to go home at noon today!” she said. “And besides, some of that stuff must be valuable. A preservationist should go down and...”

  “We cannot afford an expert preservationist on our budget, and I think this need outweighs your personal life,” Mr. Durgan said. “After all, you can hardly count the publication of a few fairy tales in small press magazines as making you a real writer. Besides, if you refuse, I shall be forced to pull your personnel file and carefully look at the past deeds of misconduct for which you could easily be released of your position.”

  Katie felt the icy burn of her cheeks going pale.

  “You have an attitude problem, Miss MacLeod, and I have been most tolerant when I probably should have dismissed you for it,” he went on with a vicious smile. “Now the ladies of the board want this display to be tasteful. I trust you will refrain from bringing up such matters as Mr. MacKenzie’s known eccentricities.”

  Katie bit her tongue. Those very eccentricities had made her like their old founder, even if she had never met him.

  “Nor do I wish to see anything of your native ancestry on display. Though it was known that Mr. MacKenzie had a strong interest in the welfare of the Eastern Cherokees, I don’t think we need to bring up the matter of how he thought the MacGreeleys a bit cruel in their assessment and treatment of your ancestors.”