Page 26 of Spark of Madness

I flip to the next entry, dated July 21, 2171—my sixth birthday.

I’ve said goodbye to Mercy, and nothing in my life has been harder than that. My daughter, my love, the light of my life…She turns six years old today, but it’s the last birthday I’ll ever see.

My life will end tonight.

I know my fate is death; I’ve accepted it. But I don’t accept the condemnation of my soul for all eternity. I asked to find absolution for my soul, but no grace was given by the Control. They find me too abhorrent. Perhaps God will grant me grace at the stake when I’m doused in flames.

Unless…there is no God.

Unless there is nothing after death.

If that’s the truth, then dare I say, I’m glad I loved that incredible woman while I could. My hand shakes as I write this—the words are blasphemous, I know. But what does it matter now that I’m sentenced to death and my soul is already damned?

There’s a simple spark of hope in my chest that maybe this is it. Maybe death is the end. Maybe eternal suffering won’t find me, and life will simply be over when I die. That hope is all I have to cling to in these final hours of my life.

But oh, how I fear for my Mercy. How I hate myself for doing this to her, for sinning so catastrophically and leaving her behind. The tears running down her pink cheeks as I told her I was leaving forever were enough to shred what was left of my tattered soul.

She was fearful and sad and looked at me as though I’d broken her world. I have broken her world because I sinned.

But tonight I’ll stand humbly at the stake, and I won’t scream when they set me on fire; I won’t protest. I’ll receive my punishment, and though I know it’s too late for my soul to be saved, I’ll pray for God’s mercy all the same. Likewise, I’ll hope that God doesn’t exist at all, and that this will be the end of my suffering forever.

All I ever wanted was to love and to be loved. It was never there with Elijah, though he never treated me poorly. It was only with her that I felt it, and I regret nothing.

No.

I regret everything.

I regret our stolen fates.

I regret our carelessness.

I regret that we didn’t spend more of our numbered days together, sinning in secret.

I regret that I won’t be here to protect Mercy.

Tears well, and one breaks away from the corner of my eye, slipping down the side of my face. My heart is broken. My mother had loved and been loved in return, and because it wasn’t with the man she’d been assigned to be with, she was persecuted. She’d found love with another woman, and they murdered her because of it.

Love is a rare and precious thing in Ember Glen—something scarcely seen and only found by sheer luck. Domestic women are assigned their male counterpart, and the likelihood of them loving one another is improbable. Though I can’t deny the hurt I feel for my late father over her adultery, the anger I feel for my mother’s demise overshadows it.

How can murderbe justified for one person loving another?

A shadow quickly obscures the sunlight from overhead, startling me. My heart sinks heavily into my stomach, but it splashes in the acid, scattering droplets that burn my insides as I look up and see why the sunlight disappeared.

A man stands above me, feet straddling either side of my hips.

“Good morning, Mercy.”

I blink against the tears clouding my vision.

The sunlight glows like a halo around Arlo Rainn’s head.

“Good morning,” I return politely, curious about his appearance.

I swallow anxiously that he’s caught me with my mother’s journal—and on the page with an admission of her sins, no less.

I don’t want anyone to see what’s within these pages—it’s my mother’s personal thoughts. But more than that, it tells of her indiscretions. It tells of all her secrets, and my thoughts are scribbled in the margins. So, as he watches me, I move slowly, careful not to draw attention to it, careful not to move so quickly as to make it seem like I want to hide it.

I fold the journal closed and gently slip it down to rest on the ground beside me, releasing it, though I have the urge to hang on for safe-keeping. I know if he sees me willing to let go of it, then perhaps he’ll assume there’s nothing of great importance in there.

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