Hearts

by Anyta Sunday

  Published by

  Wayward Ink Publishing

  Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street

  Tighes Hill NSW 2297

  Australia

  http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Hearts Copyright © 2014 by Anyta Sunday

  Cover Art by: Lily Velden in collaboration with Design Bug

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other enquiries, contact Wayward Ink Publishing at: Unit 1, No. 8 Union Street, Tighes Hill, NSW, 2297, Australia.

  http://www.waywardinkpublishing.com

  eBook edition available

  EBook ISBN: 978-1-925222-18-0

  First Edition

  June 2014

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Hearts by Anyta Sunday

  Also From Wayward Ink Publishing

  HEARTS

  Anyta Sunday

  A BEADED pendant hung in the center of her forehead, in the shape of an eye—a black eye that drew me closer, as if it had its very own gravitational force. Her hair shone, silky-gold, in the glow of the candles behind her. I swallowed down a sudden flutter of nervousness and grinned at her.

  She didn’t grin back, only took my hands in her cool ones.

  A dull gaze met mine. Blinking once, twice, three times, she bowed her head and peered into the crystal ball.

  “Your heart will die searching for your lover in the green glow of spring.”

  I CAST my eyes to the rotting leaves on the cobbled path. The promise of winter sharpened the air, whistling through leafless branches; I shuffled my way through the inner-city streets, shoulders bumping into those that passed by. With each bump my insides tingled and I looked up, ready to see Sam, eyes crinkling as he smiled at me; ready to hear his voice calling my name: Daniel.

  Another bump. My head jerked up again. For a brief moment, I stared into an equally hopeful gaze. But it wasn’t his. The elderly man’s face sank into gray despair, no doubt a mirror of my own.

  Across the New World parking lot, I glimpsed the red and blue embroidery on thick navy curtains, drawn across the windows. It’d been ten years since I’d had my fortune told. Ten wonderful years of Sam.

  Car exhaust dusted the air in my path, and I slumped over the lot towards the store. I just had to know—to understand—why.

  It was the same woman; gray streaked her hair, and the years had cushioned her somewhat, but it was her. The black pendant in the middle of her forehead sent a shiver rolling over the hairs on my arms and legs.

  “Sit down.” Her voice sounded gravelly, tired.

  I sat on the cushioned chair, scanning the small room. Drapery covered the walls. Nothing had changed since I was last there, and everything had.

  Back then, the colors of the drapery had added vibrancy and fun to the store. Now, the materials were worn; bitten to death by dust and time. The room smiled as if it had forgotten why, but didn’t know how to stop.

  “What brings you to Mrs. Tabitha’s Tavern today?”

  I rested my gaze on the fortuneteller. “Why?”

  Tears filled her eyes as she spoke. “Can’t you see? This is the city of dead hearts.” She held a hand to her chest. “This is nothing more than a ghost. We all end up like this here. Sooner or later.”

  If I were younger, if Sam were still around, he would have said she was a crazy old coon, and I’d have laughed along. But I’d seen enough to know the truth.

  My heart was dead. A ghost that remembered all the kisses we shared, all the promises, the future plans and dreams. The love.

  I stood up, pushing the chair back with my legs. It scraped along the wooden floor and echoed off the walls, giving the room momentary life.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as I approached the door.

  I paused.

  I had one more question—more a wish, really. Over my shoulder, I asked: “How do you revive a dead heart?”

  But she didn’t have the answer.

  A WARM autumn breeze brushed over the wild garden. I leaned back on the picnic bench, surveying the mess I should have cleaned up months ago. Thick grass scratched at mid ankle and weeds made the ground look clumpy. The rose bushes were strangled of life; nothing bloomed.

  The lawnmower was locked in the shed, and the key cut into my palm where I clutched it.

  Over the hedge across from me, two men came into view. They moved gracefully about the garden, one slapping the other’s ass and laughing. They locked into a loving embrace, oblivious to their surroundings; I shifted my gaze as they shared a look that was definitely a prelude to a kiss.

  I knew, because that’d once been Sam and me.

  The breeze picked up their words, depositing them so I couldn’t help but overhear.

  “It’s wonderful, Toby. I know we’re going to be happy here.”

  “You betcha.”

  I swallowed over the lump in my throat. Sam had said something similar when we’d found this place, but things didn’t work out as they were supposed to.

  This is the city of dead hearts. We all end up like this here. Sooner or later.

  If it was too late to save my own heart, at least... perhaps I could warn the living ones?

  I pushed off the bench and flattened the grass en route to the hedge. “Morning.” My voice came out croaky from lack of use. There wasn’t much need for it on the weekends anymore.

  The slighter of the two caught my eye and smiled. Confident, he came over to the hedge, extending his arm over it. I slipped the shed key into my pocket, took his hand and shook. He introduced them both, “I’m Kyle, and this is Toby.”

  Toby jerked his head into a nod.

  I wasn’t much for small talk, so I cut right to it. “Have you signed the contract for the house yet?”

  “We close the deal tonight,” Kyle said, slipping Toby another smile. “We really like the place.”

  I ground my heel into the dirt. How could I say what needed to be said without coming off as a complete lunatic? I dug my thumbs into the pockets of my pants. “It might... I mean, it might look nice on the outside, but if you knew what this place is really like, you wouldn’t live here.” I swallowed the lump lodged in my throat. “Trust me, I should know. This place took my lover from me.”

  “What the—” Toby started.

  I cut over him. “I just mean, if you love each other, you should leave.”

  Kyle frowned, like he was trying to figure out how to tell me, politely, to back off.

  I inclined my head, stepped back and trekked to the veranda.

  Toby’s mutter caught on a blunt breeze, “Oh great, we get the hot neighbor, but he’s crazy.”

  The collar of my polo shirt muffled my sigh. Of course it sounded crazy, which was why I’d never listened to any of the warnings—why I’d promptly forgotten my fortune.

  In the doorway, I turned once more and took in the overgrown garden. The shed key weighted my pocket. Would I ever make this garden thrive again?

  I felt for the outline of the key and pressed it hard against my thigh. And then I turned and headed back inside.

  OVER the months, Kyle would occasionally brave a ‘hi’ or stop for a sentence or two; Toby, though, avoided me like my craziness would catch.

  Sometimes, as he worked in the garden and I re-read Sam’s books on the garden bench
, our eyes would meet, but Toby was always quick to look away, muttering something under his breath.

  He was always gardening, fussing over the little tree he’d planted in the front yard, when Kyle went away on business—and that had been more and more in the last couple of months.

  Toby never failed to shake his head at the state of my garden, and a few times I’d been sure he was going to say something about it.

  On a spring evening—almost a year from the day Sam left—while I sat curled on the veranda loveseat with his third book, the front gate squealed open and Toby strode up the path, paper clutched in his hand.

  “The post messed up. Think these belong to you.”

  I took the letters. “Thank you.”

  His gaze dropped to my book. “You read that book a lot. Is it any good?”

  I wondered why he bothered to make conversation with the crazy guy, but when I looked into his eyes I saw a shadow of loneliness. Kyle had been away for weeks on end now.

  I nodded. “I’m trying to understand it.”

  Sam had written it in the last year we were together; at first, I’d thought it was just another novel, but now I wondered if there wasn’t more to it—if he wasn’t trying to explain why he left.

  “Oh, right.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and just stood there. Then, after a moment of silence, said, “Yeah, well, I just wanted to give you your mail.”

  He turned and, just before he stepped off the veranda, I heard myself calling out.

  “You want to stay for tea?” I peeled myself off the seat, tucking the book under my arm. “I mean, you’d be doing me a favor—I don’t eat well when it’s just me.”

  Toby hesitated. “Sure.”

  For the first time in over a year, I made a proper meal. Pasta and basil pesto. We chatted cautiously as I prepared it, each unsure of the other, but Toby turned out to know a bit about cooking—pulling out the contents of my fridge, he made a salad for the side.

  We sat at the empty oak table in the middle of my sparsely furnished living room.

  “Your place is so clean.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t use to care about cleaning.”

  He scratched the back of his hair, shoved his seat forward an inch and picked up a fork. “Guess I’m surprised, considering the state of your garden.”

  I leaned back in my chair, studying his ruffled brown hair, matching eyes, the way he kept pulling the collar of his shirt away from his throat. “There,” I said. “You finally said it.”

  Toby had the grace to flush and stuffed another forkful of pasta into his mouth. Then he twirled the fork, pointing about the room, from the recently vacuumed sofa to the half full china cabinet. “So, what changed? Why do you care now?”

  “Sam liked it clean.”

  “Sam?”

  “My partner.”

  “Right.” Silence. Then, “Didn’t he like the garden tidy, too?”

  I dropped my gaze toward my green pesto-smothered pasta, blinking until I saw a cloud of green. “He was the gardener.” A part of me hoped that if I left it so bad, he’d come back to fix it himself.

  He didn’t, though.

  “I don’t know,” I continued, braving a look at him. His expression was soft, sympathetic. Understanding, even. “I can’t bring myself to do it.”

  It was at the end of dinner, once we’d cleared away the plates, that Toby said, “You don’t seem crazy.”

  I laughed. God, that felt good to do! “That’s because I’m not.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But you want to know why I told you guys to leave.”

  “Right.”

  “I still think you should. I know it makes me sound crazy, but it’s the truth. This city is cursed. Look around you; really look, and you’ll see it. We all have dead hearts.”

  Toby shifted uncomfortably, pushing away from where he leaned against the counter.

  I said, dumping the dishes into the sink, “You should leave while yours is still intact.”

  Silence thickened around us. Toby kept his gaze cast low, and I counted each rise and fall of his broad shoulders. Four, five, six—

  “I gotta go,” he said.

  Then—much like Sam had the last time I’d seen him—he twisted, and left.

  WARMTH seeped into the walls of the house on Christmas Eve; I watched out the living room window as Toby moved the ladder to hook up three lengths of fairy lights to his gutter.

  Sam had always liked lights, had forever been insisting I put some up for us. I never did. Not just because in the short summer nights there didn’t seem as much point, or because I didn’t want to make him happy. Mostly, I was afraid of heights. The ladder and me were two things that didn’t go together.

  Toby climbed down the ladder and I glimpsed the satisfied smile on his face. It could only mean one thing: Kyle was coming home tonight.

  He decorated the small tree in the front yard with a golden star.

  I closed the curtains.

  Under the bedclothes of the spare bed—my bed, since Sam left—I picked up Sam’s book. If I breathed in deep enough, I could still smell him on the pages.

  I leafed through to the climax. The main character was unhappy, restless, felt trapped in his relationship. As if he were the one keeping things together, doing all the work. Trying and trying and not receiving.

  Ultimately, he knew inside they weren’t right for each other. For years he pretended otherwise, too scared to say anything. It was too much investment, too easy to just keep going. Until it wasn’t anymore. Until he had to break out of the trap he’d set himself.

  I shut the book and slid it under the bed. I lay staring at the ceiling. What if I’d tried harder? If I’d cleaned more, or put up Christmas lights regardless of my fears? Would he still be here then?

  Ten wonderful years of Sam. How could I have thought everything was so good? How could I not have known he was unhappy?

  A loud yell and a crash interrupted my thoughts. I dragged myself from the bed and outside. The ladder Toby had used earlier lay bedded in the hedge. Toby stormed up and down the path, a cell to his ear.

  “You were supposed to come home. What does that mean, you can’t? Is the airport shut? Then why—” Toby stopped moving. “You don’t want to?” His words were soft, confused; they only reached me because the now inky night was so still.

  Toby lowered the phone and just stared at it. I shuffled back on the veranda, about to turn and head back inside, but Toby caught me.

  “Did you hear all that?”

  “I heard the ladder falling, and then, yes, I heard.”

  He kicked at the fallen ladder again. “Fuck.” Then he turned to me. “You should mind your own fucking business. You’re always sitting there, watching us. Don’t you have a life of your own? Shit.”

  He stormed into his house, slamming the door behind him.

  I watched as the lights snapped off inside. Everything dark except the three rows of fairy lights.

  “You really need to leave now, while there’s still hope in your heart,” I whispered. Because once it was dead, he wouldn’t leave. No one did. We all stayed here, hoping—wanting to get it back again.

  NEW year’s Eve shopping was exactly as it had been the year before. New World was packed; people filled the aisles, grabbing boxes, tins and packets. It was the only time I ever saw a trolley filled to the top. Usually they all qualified for the twenty-items-or-less queues.

  A middle-aged woman—a boy clinging to her hip, screaming—met my gaze, eyes dark, flat. As if on automatic, she pulled things from the shelves and dropped them into the trolley.

  “I want the apple ones, mama.”

  “Blueberry is your papa’s favorite. We’ll get apple next time.”

  “But papa’s not gonna be there.”

  The mom slapped the boy’s hand and spoke low, “You don’t know that.”

  I rounded the corner into the frozen aisle, just managing to stop before careening into another trolley. I lo
oked up and Toby was staring at me, his hair disheveled as if he’d been asleep most of the day, his shirt all crinkled.

  I pulled to the side and started around him, expecting him to hurry off; instead, he let out an awkward, “Hey.”

  I nodded, grip tightening on the trolley.

  “Um,” he said, bracing a palm on the end of my trolley. I stopped. “Look, about the other night....”

  “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have listened.”

  He glanced toward the canned tomatoes. “I snapped. I’m sorry.”

  I met his gaze and my stomach lurched. It was happening; he was becoming one of us. So little life sparked in him; he was fading, quickly. I wanted to reach out, tell him, beg him to just leave, but I knew he wouldn’t hear it.

  He maneuvered his trolley to let someone pass. “Never seen it so full in here,” he said. “People are buying so much.”

  “Yes.” They were hopeful this coming year would be different. That they’d revive their hearts again.

  We parted and I rushed through the self-checkout. At home, I stuffed fresh berries and gravy sauce into the fridge. I glanced at the packet at the bottom of the shopping bag. Ginger Nuts. Picking them up, I stared at the hard biscuits. I hated the things.

  Opening the cupboard to the left, over the fridge, I stacked them next to the unopened pack I’d bought the year before.

  I had too much stuff. I’d never eat all of this.

  Unless....

  I peered out to the front yard. Toby’s truck was out front. Ah, what the hell!

  I went next door and knocked.

  “Hey,” I started, rubbing my palms over my jeans. “Do you want to cook together?”

  He blinked at me a moment, gave a shrug and followed me back to my place.

  He immediately set to cooking. “If you cut the onions, I’ll peel the potatoes.”

  We worked quickly and quietly, side by side. I peeked at him out the corner of my eye to find him staring at me. He hurriedly diverted his attention, but a blush stained his cheeks.

  “So, what is it you do for work, exactly....” He brought up conversation that didn’t mean anything, until suddenly he put the paring knife down on the wooden board and faced me. “What happened, Daniel?”