Main Characters: Florens, Blacksmith, Lina, Sorrow, Rebekka and Jacob Vaark.

A Mercy is a story about a young black slave girl living on the D’Ortega plantation. Jacob Vaark, a trader, goes to Maryland to settle a debt with the plantation owner. The owner is unable to pay the debt so offers one of his slaves instead. Jacob makes known he wants a female slave. Florens gets sent off with Jacob and she feel abandoned by her mother. At the Vaark farm, Florens meets Jacob’s wife, Rebekka, and their servants Lina and Sorrow. Jacob begins accumulating wealth and starts to build a large home similar to the one on the D’Ortega plantation. Florens falls in love with the blacksmith, who is a freed African man. later on sorrow gets ill with smallpox and eventually Jacobs contracts it as well, right when the house is almost finished. His last wish was to be taken to his new house to die. After his funeral, Rebekka falls ill as well. Florens sets out to find the blacksmith so that he can heal Rebekka the way he did Sorrow. While the blacksmith goes to heal Rebekka, Florens stays at his place to watch over a little boy he has adopted. While she is with the boy she grows jealous of him, thinking that the Blacksmith will love the little boy more than her. She accidentally breaks the boys arm and when the blacksmith returns he kicks her out the house, and Florens goes back to the Vaarks. When she returns, everyone has changed and has new outlooks on life. Florens never finds out the real reason her mother gave her up, which was to save her from a lifetime of sexual abuse from the D’Ortega’s.