Heart Murmurs

by R. R. Smythe

  Morgan is most likely not… what?

  What I thought? Likely not from Gettysburg? Likely not from this bleeding’ century?

  Suddenly his behavior makes perfect sense. How he’s above ridiculous gossip. How he seems to treasure the most mundane things — like nature. If he’s from the time of the Civil War — they had nothing and worked for everything.

  I decide to do something I’ve never done before. Snoop.

  I walk quietly to Beth’s study, which I’ve never had reason to enter. My mind resurrects a memory of Beth locking this door. I always assumed it was where she kept the store money in a safe.

  “Maybe she locks it for other reasons.” My whisper gives me chills.

  I jiggle the ornate doorknob, and it swings open. She was careless tonight in her joy over Edward’s return home.

  Her office is bursting with antiques… which don’t look like replicas. An old-fashioned, headless mannequin stands in the center of her room, showing off a beautiful, striped, nineteenth century dress.

  Birdcages hang from open rafters, alongside dried flowers of multi-colored sizes and shapes.

  Framed black and white photographs cover the walls.

  My heart skips a beat, and the whispers goad me on. I walk toward them as if on a slow-motion conveyor belt.

  I somehow know if I look at them, everything will change.

  I don’t know if I want everything to change. But my feet keep propelling me toward the wall.

  I arrive, my breath quickens in time with the balloon of panic, expanding through my chest, closing off my throat. I’m gasping like after the other night’s careless sprint.

  I slowly raise my head.

  Six pairs of eyes stare back from a black and white family portrait of the Alcotts. I instantly recognize Louisa from the portraits in Orchard Hour and the Internet. My eyes flick down, flying across the bottom of the picture, where their names are engraved in sequential order.

  Beth Alcott’s name is second in the queue. The Beth who died in Little Women, whose character was modeled after Louisa’s very real sister. Her death almost broke Louisa’s heart beyond repair.

  My eyes bore down on the names, not wanting to return to the painting; they lift so slowly, I’m dizzy.

  My eyes quickly sweep the faces and jerk back in a violent beat. A cold sweat breaks on my brow.

  Beth’s, my Beth’s, round, happy face stares back at me from the portrait.

  The world upends. I collapse to the floor, keeping the lurching portrait in my sight.

  “Beth is a… Conductor? What does that mean? She’s 152 years old?”

  Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

  “No, not now.”

  A new fear slams my chest.

  Atrial fibrillation, and I’m alone, without my phone, on the floor.

  The room is getting smaller, like Alice again, but this time the circular blackness pulls tighter and tighter, like a mental drawstring. I reach out my fingers to the remaining pinprick of light.

  It extinguishes, like a puff of breath to a flame.

  I finally wake, and sit up too quickly. Stars and bursts of light pop around my head, just like a cartoon. I squint my eyes at the window. It’s still dark outside.

  I hear a loud thump out in the store. I pull myself up and force my quivering, jelly-filled legs to walk forward. It’s as if my brain is a puppet master to my badly wired marionette body. There’s a lag time between my brain’s commands and my limbs’ responses.

  The shop is so still — it’s quiet as a tomb. A weird blue light seems to lick the walls; as if someone’s left a computer screen glowing. The same blue light I saw from my window the other night.

  I search frantically for the source — but there is no computer in sight. Beth only has one, a laptop, and it’s probably in her room.

  The light becomes brighter, casting shadows up behind the sweets counter, crawling up to the ceiling.

  My mouth goes dry. I take steadying in-and-out breaths; I don’t want to pass out again.

  Morgan’s door is ajar. It most definitely wasn’t when I passed it a few hours ago. Has he gone down into the tunnel?

  I walk to his room and push open the door. “Morgan?”

  There is a tiny trail of mud… leading to the trapdoor.

  The sapphire blue light bleeds around the four corners of the door, providing the undulating lightshow on the walls.

  The whispers ignite.

  He’s down there. I know it.

  I bite my lip. Before, with my other heart, my other soul, I would’ve run.

  A resolve fills my chest — a burning thirst for the truth. I hoist the trapdoor open.

  The light is blinding. I fumble around, feeling on top of the sweets counter till I find them. Beth’s sunglasses.

  I slide them on and hurry down the ladder, dropping to the ground.

  I stumble backward as I look around, hitting my head on the ladder. I’m momentarily disoriented while my brain dissects what it expected to see from what’s in front of me. Like it’s some bad optical illusion.

  Before me are catacombs; myriads of tunnels — almost like the sewers beneath a large city.

  The bright blue lights flicker and glimmer, and disappear. The whole of it is now bathed in a thick, black light. On the ground, strange orange and green fluorescent flowers wriggle and stretch, as if sniffing my leg.

  In and out of the tunnels — people, or what appear to be people, are passing, gliding, from one tunnel to the next.

  They brush past each other without a glance. They look like faded photographs.

  Every century of dress, Edwardian, Civil, modern — a boy in a faded T-shirt looks completely lost as he wanders past, carrying a skateboard into the tunnel next to me.

  I have no idea where Morgan went. “What is this place?”

  The flowers at my feet bloom wider, as if smiling.

  I shudder as a cold chill scurries up my back.

  The flowers light up in a distinctive linear path, straight in front of me. A weird, weathervane-type rooster is planted in the center and swings despite the lack of breeze — to the directions, North, South, East, West.

  It flips around and holds at North. Toward the tunnel where the flowers light the path.

  I take one last look at the trapdoor, and plunge headlong into the tunnel, weaving through the photograph-folk.

  ****

  My hands are shaking so wildly I press them together as I wade through the thick sea of folk, coming and going, like a true underground railroad.

  It’s more like a real railroad station, from the sheer number of… commuters? An old lady spins round and round, looking from tunnel to tunnel — unsure of which path to take.

  My heart is torn as I hurry past, knowing I should stay to try and help her, but having no idea how.

  A man leaps out of the shadows, startling me. I skid to a stop. He looks as if he’s stepped directly out of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — complete with cape and goggles. His steps are in no way unsure — he hurtles down a tunnel that has materialized from nothing into a blinding, white light.

  I see him then — Morgan, disappearing through a tunnel that banks to the right. The flowers light up as he passes them, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s wearing his Civil War uniform, and its buttons shine brightly as he whisks past the strange luminescent foliage sprouting around him, growing impossibly out of sheer rock walls.

  He passes the bizarre plants without a glance.

  I hurry, lifting up my shift, wishing desperately for shoes. My teeth begin to chatter. I’m freezing.

  A warm gust of air blasts the top of my head, cascading down, covering my body; I look up to find its source, but only hard, cold bedrock meets my gaze.

  I walk faster and faster. My feet are no longer cold.

  My eyes flash down in time to see a lace-up boot materialize and sprout around one foot and the next. A day shirt and skirt, circa Civil War, cover my goose-pimpled arms and
legs and seem to grow from the heated, prickling skin on my neck and waist.

  The flowers… laugh around my feet. An odd bouquet of sounds; spanning from guffaws to tinkling giggles. Fingers of fear squeeze my stomach and I bite the inside of my cheek.

  The anxiety chatters my teeth and I grind my jaw together. “I must be crazy.”

  A chorus of tiny voices around my feet echo, “I must be crazy.” Followed by another deluge of multi-pitched, trilling laughs.

  I almost bail, and bolt back for the trapdoor, but I see a brightening in the gloom, about fifty feet ahead. Morgan stands in its backlight, looking like a shadow.

  I sprint toward the opening and gasp in shock and awe.

  One more step leaves the tunnel.

  I’m in… a hospital. A very old, makeshift hospital. My eyes quickly evaluate the time and dress. A Civil War hospital.

  Men are strewn around me on rickety beds, blown to bits in varying degrees, everywhere I look. Carnage on cots.

  Amputations litter the ground like a house of horrors. There’s a trough of arms and legs. A young man stoops down, picks it up, heading outside.

  Women, nurses, scuttle back and forth, carrying water and clutching bandages. Every one of them is sweating and red-faced.

  I wince and automatically duck at the sound of a cannonball erupting outside.

  No one even spares me a glance. My eyebrows rise in confusion.

  I step in front of a nurse. “Excuse me? Could you help me?”

  Her eyes look momentarily confused, but she shakes her head and hurries past.

  “I’m invisible.”

  A woman bustles past me, and my mind flickers in recognition. I hurry behind, following the weaving path she cuts through the dead and dying.

  I try to block out the human mayhem whizzing past my peripheral vision — but still see a severed arm, lying on a table, and shudder. I wrap my arms around myself. I whisk past their feet, down the center aisle of the hospital, the white footboards of their beds reminding me of tombstones.

  The nurse pauses at a bedside; her expressive eyes cradle the dying man. “I’ll be back soon to take your letter for home, Daniel. I promise.”

  Is it her? Can it really be?

  “Louisa!” A steely voice cuts through the hospital cacophony.

  The woman turns, and I see her profile. It is her.

  Louisa. May. Alcott.

  My mind whirls. Yes, I read she was once a Civil War nurse.

  “There is someone over here you need to see.” The doctor gives her a brusque nod.

  She rushes to the soldier’s bedside. The bottom of the bed is bathed in blood. It surrounds the young man’s leg, pooling and congealing in thick puddles on the hospital sheets. Blackened and charred bits of flesh poke out from around his calf.

  His calf.

  My heart free falls. Adrenaline weakens my legs as my eyes flash to his face.

  Morgan. Oh, please no, it’s Morgan.

  My whispers chant in time with my heart’s staccato beats. Their sounds are muffled, as if the hospital is somehow restraining their speech.

  A doctor is whispering in Louisa’s ear, but I could care less. My heart is breaking at this colossal unfairness. A flood of realizations drench my mind — I suddenly see the world through his blue-green eyes.

  A world where standing up for truth is all that matters.

  A world where petty rumors don’t deserve a second thought.

  My lips tremble but I force a smile. A world without cell phones.

  Tears race out of my eyes in a steady flow and I’m biting my lip, shaking my head.

  I want to help him. Touch him. Save him!

  “Please don’t let this be his fate. Please.” My eyes gaze up toward the heavens, barely visible through the soot-darkened hospital windows, entreating a God I know must be close. Closely observing this kind of human chaos and suffering.

  I step toward the bed, my hands fluttering uselessly.

  Louisa begins to cry, cradling his hand in her own.

  She dips a rag in water, wetting his brow. Morgan’s eyes bat open.

  He smiles, his most devastating one. “I know you.”

  She chokes, “But I never knew of you. I swear it, my brother.”

  “Yes. I’m his bastard.” A sad smile twists his lips; finishing what was left of my heart. It stammers under my hand, clutching my chest.

  Louisa’s eyes jam shut and she gives her head a fervent shake. “You- cannot-die. It is not fair. You’ve sacrificed so much.”

  His eyes grow dim. “Louisa — please, if you can love me even a little, there is something I must ask.”

  “Anything, brother, name it.”

  “A nurse was injured, in the same battalion as I. Her name is Madelon. Please find her, tend to her as if it were me. My time is coming to a close — my soul is draining out. I feel it pouring onto the sheets.”

  “No! It is unacceptable.” Louisa’s voice is high with panic.

  I am pacing, sobbing, trying vainly to touch Morgan. My hands pass through his body as if I’m merely smoke.

  Louisa’s face upturns in pure anguish. She brings his shaking hand to her lips, kissing it tenderly. “I have lost Beth, I will not lose another. Not while I still draw breath.” Suddenly her eyebrows rise in a revelation. “There may be a way.”

  Morgan seems to have passed out. His eyes have drifted shut.

  “Jonathon, help me with this one.”

  A burly aide hurries to her side. “Yes, Miss Louisa.”

  He lifts Morgan into his arms like a child. He’s huge, over six foot five.

  “Hurry. Follow me.”

  I watch in awe as Louisa leads him out the back door, toward the woods… to where?

  And we’re running. The sound of cannon fire rips so close my ears are ringing.

  And the dead. The dead are so numerous — it’s as if a graveyard has vomited up its occupants in a geyser of corpses.

  The whispers catch and weep, rising to a shrill trill I’ve never heard before. They stutter, as if catching their breath.

  I trip, and look down.

  Beside me, on the ground, is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Her long, delicate fingers clutch a flask. I choke down a sob.

  Madelon? I know it’s her.

  “Louisa!” I call to her back in desperation.

  Louisa stops dead, cocking her head. She heard me.

  “Louisa, turn around!”

  She turns, finally seeing the girl on the ground. The girl’s heart is barely beating, just visible through a blown-open hole in her chest.

  My heart pangs, a deep, painful throb. “Oh…”

  And I’m certain.

  It wasn’t a murdered, homeless girl. That was just a story Beth concocted.

  I feel the pull toward her, as if my heart fights to escape my foreign chest. A magnet pulled toward its true home. To leave me lifeless and resurrect the beauty that lies before me.

  I stagger and my sight is dimming and spinning like a merry-go-round. I fight it, knowing I have to make it back. Follow them.

  Louisa hoists the girl into her arms.

  She turns to the burly aide. “You may go now. I will handle this.”

  He eyes her suspiciously and deposits Morgan on the ground beside her. He turns, jogging back toward the hospital.

  After he’s out of sight, Louisa lifts up a stump. Inside are letters.

  She reaches into her pocket and shoves a slip of paper into the worn-out hole and slams it down.

  She lays Madelon on the ground beside Morgan.

  Louisa paces, staring anxiously at his motionless form at her feet.

  Her lips move as if she’s counting. She squares her shoulders and hurries to the hole. She peers down. I slip in behind her to peek over her shoulder… and I see… Beth.

  At the bottom — staring up.

  “Oh, sister. You must help these two.” Louisa’s voice is pleading, shaking.

  Beth looks terrified. He
r fingers trace a black butterfly marking on her forearm like a worry stone. “Louisa, it’s against the rules. You know that!” It’s beginning to ripple; fading and darkening, fading and darkening.

  “He is our brother!” She roars, like a lioness. “Papa’s love child. Abandoned, poor. Never cared for. Take him Beth. From your letters, your doctors might save him where you are.”

  Beth bites her lip. “What about her?” Her eyes are utterly mortified, staring at Madelon’s open chest wound.

  “Remember your special girl? The one with the fading heart? The council deems she shall pass anyway. Her injuries are too severe.”

  Beth’s face dawns in comprehension, the flush on it immediately draining to ghostly white. She nods. She steps forward, whimpering.

  Louisa eases them down the hole, dangling them by their arms. Beth has quickly summoned others, photograph-folk. Several shiny, see-through men form a basket with their arms, and Louisa drops their limp bodies, one by one.

  Another cold realization mangles my heart, and I gasp. I vaguely register Louisa turning, searching for the sound. Her head cocks at the sound of my voice.

  “He doesn’t love me. It’s only because I have her heart.”

  “No, that isn’t true.” His voice startles me, and I whirl to see Morgan — the one from my time. My eyes quickly drop to his leg. I sigh in relief — it’s healed. I never thought I would be this happy to see it.

  But pain seizes my chest, coloring over the relief. “It is true. You want me, because I’m all that’s left of her.”

  His eyes are wide, afraid. More afraid than I’ve ever seen them. “No — please, Mia, I swear!”

  Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud. Atrial fib. World tilting. Eyes closing.

  I don’t hear the rest.

  Chapter Eleven

  Heart Inside, Out

  My ears whoosh and churn with the sound of my gurgling heartbeat. The pain cracks open the darkness like an invisible crow bar to my chest. I squint, allowing my eyes to open.

  The light begins as a pinprick and grows much too fast. The light is painful, the aching in my chest is painful. A rush of memories floods my head. My life is too insanely painful.