Mercy appeared behind me and dropped a book titled A Clutch of Vampires in my lap. The cover featured a lurid font and a pencil sketch of a vampire wearing a billowing cape casting a mountainous shadow as it approached a cluster of lonely headstones. The illustration was more playful than sinister. The book detailed a host of folkloric tales of New England vampires, including a chapter on Mercy Brown.

Bumping me and my rolling chair aside, Mercy hunched over the microfiche, turned it on, spun the knobs expertly, the pages whirring by, pausing briefly (too briefly for my eyes) to scan the date, before landing with an “Aha” and a vindicated pointer finger aimed at the viewing screen.

The front page of the March 19, 1892, issue of the Journal had this as a headline:

EXHUMED THE BODIES

TESTING A HORRIBLE SUPERSTITION IN THE TOWN OF EXETER

BODIES FROM THE DEAD RELATIVES TAKEN FROM THEIR GRAVES

They Had All Died of Consumption, and the Belief Was That Live Flesh and Blood Would Be Found That Fed Upon the Bodies of the Living

We (or Mercy) quickly found two more articles detailing the same event on the twentieth and twenty-first. It was as though she knew they were there and left me to hunt for them on my own first, so I’d feel like I’d worked hard. I paid for photocopies of the articles and copies of the relevant pages from the one book Mercy found. Still one source short of the five required, we left anyway and spent the afternoon on the east side of Providence over by Brown University, browsing through the record stores In Your Ear and Tom’s Tracks on Thayer Street.

On the ride home, Mercy suggested a way to write the paper, as Mrs. Danforth had encouraged our getting “creative” with it. Maybe it would make up for being one source short.

INTERVIEW WITH MERCY BROWN, A NEW ENGLAND VAMPIRE

I can’t believe you saved this. But I’m glad you did. Look how good it came out! We had a good time sometimes. Most of the time!

by Art Barbara

ART: At the end of this, I hope you’ll disclose how you’re still among the living.

MERCY: I’m not alive. Or am I?

ART: Quite! Do you mind if I record this?

MERCY: My voice won’t record because I’m a vampire.

ART: Really? Is that true?

MERCY: No. Go ahead, record.

ART: Who were your parents and how many siblings did you have?

MERCY: My parents were George T. Brown and Mary Eliza Brown, and I had five brothers and sisters.

ART: And you lived in …