The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

As Mercy works, her father, Roy Birdsall, walks in. Roy Birdsall had a heart attack six months ago and now has doctor’s orders not to do any physical labor. For this reason, Mercy has taken on the work of preparing bodies and building the boats that are used for burial rituals. Meanwhile, Roy has taken over her former work as the office manager. Unfortunately, Roy is too forgetful to be very good at this task, and the business is suffering from his inattention.

As she works, the local nimkilim—a talking owl named Horatio—delivers the mail. Amidst the bills, Mercy finds a letter addressed to “a friend” and thinks that it must be a mistake, but Horatio insists that it is not and leaves. Mercy reads the letter, which is anonymous and speaks of loneliness. The person in the letter explains that he has few friends and have been told that he is a “dickhead” with no life (16). The writer goes on to describe a woman whom he continues to visit because “there’s a strange comfort in knowing that at least one person feels something for me, even if that feeling could be best described as hate” (17).

Suddenly, Mercy’s younger brother, Zeddie, arrives. He has just finished two years of trade school in Funeral Rites. Mercy first began managing Birdsall & Son 13 years ago, when her mother died, and ever since, the family has planned for Zeddie to inherit the business while Mercy would stay on as the manager. She has spent years keeping the business afloat while waiting for Zeddie, and now that he has graduated, the time has come for him to take over the business.

Mercy tasks Zeddie with working on the body that Hart left for her. Zeddie vomits at the sight and confesses that he flunked out of the Funeral Rites program during the first semester and has no intention of taking over the family business. He forces Mercy to promise not to tell their father or their sister Lillian about this change in his plans until he can decide what he really wants to do. Mercy is stunned and hurt because she loves the business and fears that it will not survive without Zeddie’s help.

Hart is working when Bassareus, the rabbit nimkilim who delivers mail in the magical realm of Tanria, arrives with a note from Alma, demanding Hart’s presence. He still feels unsettled at the idea of taking orders from his former partner. He and Alma had been friends for years before Alma took the desk job and promotion four years ago.

Hart responds to the summons, and to his horror, Alma assigns him an idealistic, 19-year-old apprentice named Penrose Duckers, who has taken the job to help support his mother and four siblings. Hart refuses to take Duckers on as an apprentice but changes his mind when Alma suggests that he could fulfill the same role for Duckers that Hart’s former mentor, Bill, once filled for him.

Hart and Duckers ride equimares—scaly, semi-aquatic horses—to the portal in the Mist wall that marks the border with Tanria. They enter Tanria, where they and other marshals patrol for the poachers who try to create pirated portals into Tanria. The Marshals must also fight the primary danger of Tanria: drudges. Drudges are humans who have been killed and reanimated by lost souls that infect the body through the appendix (which is the seat of the human soul). The only way to kill a drudge is to puncture the appendix and release the soul back into the air; however, no one knows where the lost souls come from in the first place, or what they do when they are released. Unknown to Duckers or anyone else, except Hart’s now-deceased mentor, Bill, Hart has the ability to see souls when they leave a body. This is his demigod gift, but he does not like to talk about it.

Mercy asks Zeddie to help their father with the finances while she works. She takes pride in caring for the deceased and always treat their bodies with respect as she cleans them and prepares them for funeral rites. Part of her duties includes speaking an incantation over them: one that is dedicated to the Three Fathers—the Salt Sea, the Warden, and Grandfather Bones. For those who do not have a key to enter the House of the Unknown God, she provides one. Those who have prepaid for funeral services receive hand-carved boats to carry their bodies for either water burial or cremation. However, unlike more profit-focused businesses such as Cunningham’s, Mercy and her father believe that even the indigent people deserve funeral boat, so they carve small ones to place with the body.

In the evening, Mercy loads her autoduck (a mechanical vehicle) and drives through town to the shipyard, where the dead of the border towns are buried. She carefully places the indigents in the pit reserved for unclaimed bodies and speaks words of respect over them, saying, “All those folks in their fancy boats […]? […] [T]hey’ll all sail the Salt Sea, like you. The Warden will welcome them into the House of the Unknown God, and there will be nothing left but what Grandfather Bones leaves behind. It’s the way we all go” (43). When she returns to her father’s house, her sister, Lilian, and brother-in-law, Danny, are waiting. Zeddie is helping Danny to cook. Privately, Lilian tells Mercy that she is pregnant and asks her to keep this fact a secret. She adds that Mercy should live her own life now that Zeddie has returned to take over the family business. Lilian regrets that Mercy has given most of her life to caring for the business and raising her two younger siblings. Mercy cannot tell Lilian about Zeddie’s decision. That night, in her apartment above Birdsall & Son, Mercy responds to the anonymous letter.

For the first two weeks of their apprenticeship, Hart and Duckers travel through the safer regions of Tanria. One night, as Hart sits by the campfire, Bassareus arrives with a letter for Hart, addressed to “a friend.” Hart is shocked to realize that his unaddressed letter found a recipient and that this person was willing to respond. Embarrassed, he wanders off to read it.

The letter expresses understanding and empathy for his loneliness and suggests that although many people are lonely, no one talks about it. The writer, whom Hart believes to be a woman, says that she is not alone but still feels lonely, as if she is the only person at a party who has not been invited to dance. Elated with his new pen pal, Hart writes another letter while Duckers teases him.

Six days later, Mercy pretends not to be saddened when she still has not received a response to her letter. Over the week, she has tried to find ways to make Zeddie fall in love with the vocation of being an undertaker. She hopes that even if he cannot work with the dead, he might enjoy boatmaking, as she does. However, he resists her efforts at every turn.

In the afternoon, Horatio arrives. The mail includes an offer from Curtis Cunningham, the owner of Cunningham Funeral Services, who wants to buy out Birdsall & Son. Roy scoffs at the offer. Though the business has been struggling, he is confident that matters will improve now that Zeddie has returned. Mercy does not tell him about Zeddie’s secret. She steps away when she finds another anonymous letter.

This letter expresses shock and delight that she has responded, and the writer promises to ask her to dance if they should ever meet in person. The writer describes himself as grumpy and taciturn but adds that he has a new coworker. He also loves books and tea but hates coffee. Mercy tries to picture the writer, wondering if he is a rancher or a lighthouse keeper in some remote location. Despite herself, she begins to picture Hart. She starts a new letter.

Hart and Duckers track down poachers, but a drudge attacks them before they can arrest the offenders. Duckers shoots the drudge with a crossbow—a standard marshal’s weapon, given that guns and other technology do not work in Tanria. Duckers’s shot strikes the drudge’s appendix. Hart checks the body and sees the lost soul leaving, although no one else knows of his unique ability. Duckers cries, then apologizes for showing such emotion, but Hart comforts him, reassuring him that he would think less of Duckers if the apprentice did not find the job upsetting. However, Hart reminds him that the person was already dead when the drudge infected the body.

Hart then talks Duckers through the process of preparing the body for burial. All who enter Tanria are required to make advance arrangements with the undertakers; as a result, there should be an identifying key on the body that will tell them where to it for burial. Hart and Duckers search the body for the key and find it. To Hart’s dismay, the key contains directions to take the body to Birdsall & Son. They wrap the body for transport and plan to head to the town of Eternity in the morning.

That night, Bassareus arrives with several letters from Duckers’s siblings and one letter for Hart. Because they do not have access to a nimkilim box in Tanria, Hart bribes Bassareus with liquor to return regularly to pick up any mail they want to send. Bassareus crudely teases Hart about his secret girlfriend. Duckers teases Hart about being “one of those hard-on-the-outside, marshmallow-on-the-inside types” (75). Hart ignores him and reads his letter.

His pen pal teases him about preferring tea over coffee. She talks about reading novels and listening to records while she soaks in the bath. She adds that she loves her profession, for although many would find it disgusting, she believes that she is providing an important service. She asks about Hart’s new coworker. To his horror, Hart pictures his pen pal as Mercy, then shakes the thought away. Happy to have a friend, he writes another letter.