Mercy Snow by Tiffany Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

law.”
    Mercy sighed now. Hannah knew far too much and not nearly enough for an eight-year-old, and it drove Mercy crazy. She’d never planned to have to mother anyone—she still needed her own mother—but the love she felt for Hannah was as simple and huge as the sun rising in the sky every morning, a phenomenon so primal and necessary that she knew she would die without it.
    “Here.” Mercy fumbled in one of the cloth bags bundled near her feet. “Put on your hat. It’s extra cold in here today.” It was Hannah’s favorite one, a ridiculous swirl of rainbow colors topped with a pom-pom. They’d gotten it for fifty cents in a secondhand store. “Zeke needs to get us more propane.”
    “You off to work?”
    Mercy bundled herself into one of Zeke’s old jackets. It broke her heart leaving Hannah alone, but what choice did she have? A handful of twenties in the coffee can wasn’t going to get them through the coming winter.
    “Yup. Off to take care of the sheep.” She didn’t want to be late. It was a half mile into town, and Mercy had another mile to go on foot after that.
    Hannah’s face lit up. “Can I come see them, too?”
    Mercy rubbed a hand over Hannah’s delicate shoulder blades, which stuck out of her back like hopeful little nubs. They were Mercy’s favorite part of her sister. “I’m afraid not. Not this time anyway. How about this? If you promise not to talk to
anyone
, I’ll drop you at the library. At least you’ll be warm.”
    Hannah sulked her way into her parka. There was a new tear at the elbow, Mercy saw. She couldn’t believe how rough Hannah was on cloth. “I’d rather see the sheep.”
    Mercy bit her lip. “I know, but maybe let’s wait. Nothing terrible ever came from that.”
Nothing wonderful either
, she thought as they clattered down the RV steps into the cold, but given the life they were leading, she didn’t feel like she needed to point that truth out.

Chapter Three

    O ver the slow course of years, Hazel Bell would lose sight of why or how Mercy Snow first landed in Titan Falls, but when she thought about it, it seemed that the girl had sneaked up on her the same way keeping sheep did: out of plain nowhere and without Hazel’s permission, a necessary evil, or maybe a blessing in disguise, though, really, Hazel suspected, the difference between the two was about as small as the pulpy space squeezed between the walls of the devil’s own heart.
    When it came to honest company, there was nothing like a flock of Shetlands, in Hazel’s opinion, and honest animals needed honest people to care for them. Sheep were trusting creatures, susceptible to everything from thievery to coyotes to hoof disease, and while this made them placid and easy as pie to corral, by the time Hazel met Mercy, she was starting to have her days when she resented having to think of every little thing all the damn time. More often than not, she was finding herself in a state of blind worry. Would the ewe with the spot of black near her tail produce white offspring or speckled? Would the ram with the broken horn be bullied to kingdom come by his brothers? Poor Fergus would come home from a long day of driving buses or tow trucks wanting his recliner and a hotplate right quick, and Hazel would just about natter his ear off. “What do you think?” she’d stew. “Should I put paper and straw down in the barn or wood chips? The paper turned straight to mash last year, remember? But I’m worried those chips might combust.”
    There was only so much gab a man could handle, even an extremely patient specimen like Fergus, and finally, after two long months of Hazel’s rising anxiety, it got to be where he’d plain had enough. “You need a hand,” he told his wife the night she started in on the wood chips. “Your knees are giving out. Your back hurts. It’s time to get someone.”
    Fergus never wanted sheep in the first place, Hazel knew, but the man was nothing if not a soft touch. One